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merchantarthurn · 2 years

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Okay so chapter 63 spoilers because I’ve been chatting with Sean about the fucked up implications of the new concrete details we have now and urm. I think? I’ve cracked why I kept fixating on twin theory in addition to treefrey, Silstas, Iguin, tree-people, the Brimhats plans.

So... in parts:

Why Coco?

Chapter 1 - Iguin was selling his magic books to unknowing children in the guise of a Brimhat, which is a pretty major risk when he could have appeared as a Pointed Hat. Multiple books were made.

Chapter 1 (Reproduction Selection) - the place where Iguin was selling this book was Adan Castle, the feudal lord of the area that Coco’s Village is in. And possibly Qifrey’s atelier.

Chapter 1 - It’s unclear how many local witches there are, but Coco’s excitement at seeing a winged carriage, let alone a witch in person (which she notes is rare) indicates there’s not many. Possibly, Qifrey is the nearest one - since Kahln (with a witch outpost) is on the other side of a mountain range.

Chapter 3 - Based on Alaira and Qifrey’s conversation, there hasn’t been Brimhat activity in 4 years.

Summary & theory - Iguin was attempting to sell multiple books to Unknowning children (?) in a region where Qifrey was a notable witch. He’s got at least three, and his coin bowl indicates he might have sold more. It’s very possible some of the forbidden magic incidents were related to these books/pens being out in the populace - perhaps people who failed to escape the magic they cast? With later theory in mind, Qifrey and Coco running into each other - when he’s a trial of new forbidden magic, and Coco is some “saviour” - it doesn’t seem like that can be a coincidence. Selling books in this area ups the chance that Qifrey would cross paths with whoever this Unknowning was - and as someone who’s been burnt by memory loss, would be unlikely to hand them over. And with the dangerous magic in the book, the likelihood that a survivor would have hurt a loved one in the process of discovering magic? Very high, and very tempting to try more forbidden magic, even with Pointed Hat guidance. Especially if your teacher is already in proximity to forbidden magic.

And what is Coco meant to do?

Chapter 27 (above) - Coco is described by Brimhats as their “saviour”... but notably, only those working directly with Iguin. The factions within Brimhat circles isn’t yet understood, she is not called this by Restis’ crew, for example.

Various chapters (45 below) - it’s been referenced by multiple Brimhat factions that reviving the “ways of old” is their goal. And that the current, pointed hat way is not true magic.

Chapter 29 - Iguin notes that the only magic that can save Eunie is magic that was “outlawed long ago” i.e. before the Pact. But Iguin himself knows this magic and uses it - which is ultimately what saves Eunie. Iguin has knowledge of magic from before the Pact.

Summary - Coco is instrumental, to Iguin specifically, in restoring magic to how it was before the Pact. This is a shared goal of the Brimhats we’ve seen so far, but not all of them are looking to use Coco as a specific saviour (Restis does not want her to draw forbidden magic, only to get contact with the King). Notably, we see in Chapter 63 and from Sasaran’s comment about how Eunie’s cloak interfered with the spell that not every Brimhat fully understands forbidden magic and its effects, yet Iguin is able to undo Eunie’s spell despite it technically failing.

What magic was lost, anyway?

This is where Chapter 63′s more solid reveals come into play - note, these are machine translated so I’m going broad rather than specific. Put simply - forbidden magic isn’t just arbitrarily magic drawn on the body. The long, three-pronged symbols here are the same as from the memory glyph and are notably unusual - stretching far outside of the active circles and branching across the body in anatomically informed ways.

It’s concretely revealed here that the combination of ink and human blood creates enormous magical runaway - such as what we’d seen Iguin use previously, but we weren’t sure if it was his blood that was special or not.

We know from this chapter that hiding medical knowledge from witches is very much tied to this kind of magic - with “nails” (probably not a good word for it) instead of keystones that require knowledge of anatomy to fully utilise. There also seems to be an issue of blood - mixing medicine and magic unwisely can cause spells to spiral out of control.

Theory - the specific knowledge of how to prevent such runaways was lost to the Pact, along with a lot of necessary anatomical knowledge. Hence why the King - a descendant of medical witches with a great amount of medical knowledge - is such an interesting target.... for Restis. Not for Iguin.

So what’s Iguin’s deal? And what about the tree’s?

A lot of this is couched in repeated symbolism and the specificity of what Iguin says (in contrast to other Brimhats). For the moment - let’s drop this cute cover page here with the eye-covered tree in the background and simmer for a moment.

First it’s important to establish - what do we know about Silver Trees?

We know they “choose where they want to live... like a human would”, we know their “blood” has magical and poisonous properties (to humans and to themselves). We know their “blood” mixes with human blood to create explosive results. We also know a little of their mythology and history, namely;

A fairytale of a star falling in love with a “maiden of the silverleaf tree” who caught a star in her branches, and giving her magic. She then gave this magic to the world. This is likely the magic of the body referred to in Chapter 63 - it’s not just “the gift of magic” through drawn spells, it’s in the human body. In addition, a history of a great forest of Silvertrees transformed by forbidden magic in attempts to revive the dead (before the Pact).

So we’ve got some pieces here - a tale about Silvertrees bringing the first magic to the world, bringing about mankind; a witch of old using the Silvertrees to revive the dead and leaving a forest in ruin; and the knowledge that Silvertrees grow in places that people find peaceful, that they choose their home. Notably, we’ve only seen a few Silvertrees but all of them have seemed old - especially those outside of Silstas. Why did Silstas’ experiments corrupt the trees? Why was this the location that Brimhats were experimenting on Qifrey?

It’s easier to lead with the theory than build to it - there’s people in those trees, and they’ve been around since before the Pact.

Iguin is the first to return - the trial run... which leads us to--

Alright bucko where’s this coming from

I posit that Silstas was not altogether unsuccessful - the Silvertrees were an important medium between the dead and the living, but he never succeeded in the second stage: bringing the dead back from the trees.

Before magic was changed forever, witches with knowledge of this time were “resurrected” into Silvertrees, in places they held dear, unknowingly saving their knowledge from the Day of the Pact in their boughs. The woodcour so needed for magic is poisonous to tree and human alike because they are alike - and human blood intensifies the magic of the tree’s for the same reason. Human blood in itself has power, stronger power than the trees, for they are no longer living humans.

Chapter 40 - this handy little image has bothered me for a while for a number of reasons - the eye and the inclusion of a Brimhat in the background in particular. Chapter 63′s confirmation re: blood and ink made it click for me though - what the strange tangling roots could be abstracting into, why there’s an eye in the trunk. I’ve labelled the panel for assistance of what I think happened here.

1) Qifrey’s eye is taken from him, it is used as a blueprint for the Tree (hence the eye in the trunk). Without the knowledge of medical witches past, a person is needed to assist the spell - in this case, Qifrey.

2) The mix of blood and ink is powerful enough to resurrect a person contained within the tree - the dripping lines and the transformation of the roots show this formation of a mysterious, solitary Brimhat.

3) My theory that this is Iguin - armed with knowledge of how magic was before the Pact. In addition to the spell that saves Eunie, he also knows twin vessel magic - which Qifrey notes was magic lost to the Pact. He speaks as if he witnessed it himself, is highly associated with Eyes.

So... he hides his face, we established, and I think this is for good reason - magic done on the body needs to be highly specific, less it lead to runaway reactions or unforeseen outcomes, so the resurrection of a person who’s been dead for god knows how long isn’t gonna result in that person looking... well like they used to look. We’ve seen parts of his face and they seem rather normal so... how’d that end up happening?

Well....

Yes, maybe that’s silly - but especially in the early style of the comic, Qifrey’s lips and jawline are reasonable distinct. They also share a room in a chapter about twin vessels - and whilst I’ve got a pet headcanon about their life-force being tied in a similar way to the liquid in twin vessels, that’s still more a fun idea than anything with much weight. Unless he’s talking about more than just his eye here - it would explain why he’s slowly decaying if he was a vessel for giving life to another though, wouldn’t it? Getting back his eye at this point is part of his plan to stop whatever plan the Brimhats have - if I’m right, that might be mass resurrection of Brimhats with knowledge from before the Pact. Maybe with the use of people like him - his eye and the person brought back with it are a proof of concept.

But again, why Coco?

Coco specifically I’m not sure was ever special, she only became a “saviour” for the trapped Brimhats when she became a witch. “The seed has sprouted”, as Iguin says - another sacrifice? Is her Brimhat “version” less an alternate path and more another twin? But that seems to small scale, doesn’t it? In truth, the specificity of her involvement in this is still rather unclear - she certainly thinks differently to those raised as Pointed Hats, and her ties to Qifrey mean she’s also tied to what happened to him (and is continuing to happen to him).

After all, it’s clear that Qifrey’s experiment wasn’t quite perfect. He was a trial - and whilst it was possibly successful, if it was perfect then why not just keep going? They cared little enough for his life, so why would anyone else’s be a concern. More to that - why let Coco study under him at all, if the aim is to make her use forbidden magic in the end? Why be so indirect - plant a seed, let it choose to study as a pointed hat, let it choose its own path?

There’s a lot of questions that I could posit very loose answers for without much backing but I think her ties to Qifrey and his ties to the experiments aren’t a coincidence - perfecting them is a must, and maybe perfecting them would save her professor. Honestly, this calls into question Beldaruit’s motivations to me too - he was very keen to get Coco away from him for his proximity to Brimhats and her own... the Sages know more than we do, that’s for sure - and with his desire to interrogate the ex-Sage who just unleashed a monster, I have a feeling he’s more than aware that taking Qifrey in might well have halted some plans (even if it was retroactive). Hell, we only have his account of the incident in Silstas to go off... just look at that glyph right under the line about the sages, after all.

And guess who else was there with Beldaruit? Those freckles look familiar, don’t they?

Gosh, I’m struggling to wrangle my thoughts here in a convenient way so sorry for the dump of thoughts but I guess my TLDR is like this:

The experiment done on Qifrey was new magic - designed to finally resurrect Brimhats from before the Pact trapped in Silvertrees. This brought back Iguin, and has resulted in Qifrey’s own body deteriorating - possibly through some link between them. The Brimhats aim is to revive the magic from before the Pact - specifically the knowledge of medical magic, the lack of which prevents the use of blood magic due to the scale of the magic it can cause being unpredictable. Iguin wishes to do this by reviving the witches of old - other factions seek to rediscover it in the present.

I believe it just has to be resurrection of some kind - there’s far, far too many references to it and the Pact for it to be nothing. And the confirmation of human blood and the human body having it’s own magic? A game changer. I almost wonder if the Silvertrees didn’t come first - their blood isn’t as powerful because living human blood is the root of magic.

#trying to marry up my twin vessel mini theory with tree-stuff and getting a headache whilst doing so? absolutely #witch hat atelier

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