How Exactly Did Caul and His Followers Get Themselves Turned into Hollows?
I've had this one in my drafts for a while, and I decided to make myself post it already.
Well, I've been thinking about this specific conversation in Library of Souls. I'll just quote it here.
'Just as someone who's a gifted cellist wasn't born with an aptitude for only that instrument but for music in general, you weren't born only to manipulate hollows. Nor you, to make fire.'
Emma frowned. I'm over a hundred years old. I think I know my own peculiar ability by now- and I definitely can't manipulate water, or air, or dirt. Believe me, I've tried.'
'That doesn't mean you can't,' Reynaldo said. 'Early in life, we recognize certain talents in ourselves, and we focus on those to the exclusion of others. It's not that nothing else is possible, but that nothing else was nurtured.'
'It's an interesting theory.' I said.
'The point is, it's not so impossibly random that you have a talent for hollowgast manipulation. Your gift developed in that direction because that's what was needed.'
'If that's true, then why can't all of us control hollows?' Emma said. 'Every peculiar could use some of what Jacob's got.'
'Because only his basic talent was capable developing that way. In the times before hollows, the talents of peculiars with souls akin to his probably manifested some other way. It's said that the Library of Souls was staffed by people who could read peculiar souls like they were books. If those librarians were alive today, they'd probably be like him.'
This kind of indicates the fact that the peculiar soul is flexible, depending on its base. My guess is that every peculiar has this one base in their soul, and whatever standardly builds up on it is what causes their manifested peculiarity to nurture. Whenever a peculiar's 'unique' layer of their second soul has completely built up, they manifest their peculiarities. This is why most babies don't manifest their abilities right then.
The Ymbrynes who caused the loop collapse in Siberia weren't experienced, as Miss Peregrine had stated. The built-up, unique peculiar-ness the former-Claywings had possessed was what had enveloped their base, like a second skin.
They hadn't become a hollow, they'd been enveloped by their own distorted souls, to change into one.
Their physical age was reset, because the second soul's unique layer is what holds all the years that they'd skipped through, and when the unique layer of their soul consumed them, their true age had been released from its fibers, and so they were reset to their physical age.
Basically, the unique layer of their souls' 'DNA' was corrupted under the loop collapse, and it had expanded to consume them. The longer they stay a hollow, the more the second skin will consume them, until they won't be able to change into a wight anymore.
When the hollowness of a hollow's soul's unique layer is filled up with pieces of other peculiars' souls, the corrupted skin is forced off, and they become themselves again, except their pupils are blank, and most of them don't remember much. (I'm going to talk about this later.)
They probably only 'eat' a little of a peculiar's soul, since Caul was perfectly fine with letting a hollow loose with Jacob, even though he needed him for his second soul in Library of Souls.
The only transformation we've seen- at least a little of- is Horatio's. H had kept him as a hollowgast for a long, long while, and that's why he'd directly morphed into a hollow, instead of shedding his second skin.
Now, about them losing their pupils, and memories.
Pupils are the dark circular opening in the center of the iris of the eye, which varies in size to regulate the amount of light reaching the retina. They're what records whatever they see, to make memories, which are stored in the brain.
The hollows drip blood from their eyes, which kind of indicates that their pupils must've been damaged whilst the second skin enveloped them. The blast from the collapsing loop was probably too bright for them to take.
Their blood is black when it leaks out, but I still think it'd be the normal dark-red color of blood when it's still inside them. It just turns black when they bleed, because their second skin is black, and it tints the blood black, too.
Now, with no pupils to filter light, they take the blunt of whatever they see. I used to wonder if they were colorblind, but they probably see everything brighter than we do.
The brain panics, because the way the wight's seeing things now is much, much different from the usual. It's too bright, and it can't handle processing it, since it's such a contrast to their prior way of seeing. They probably saw everything darker when they were a hollow.
The brain figures out that the only way to adapt to this is to start over, and it lets go of all the memories it's stored until then.
There are two exceptions to this, of course.
1. The hollow transforms into a wight in a specific environment (dark, cool, et cetera), and it takes a moment to go through everything it knows, because the brain can't just let go of a memory that's being currently put to use. The hollow's determination and zeal for its goal is far too strong, and its memories far too important. (Caul)
2. The hollow is taught all that it knows carefully and appropriately. It has understood and processed everything, deeply. (Horatio)
To prevent the prospect of turning into hollowgast while collapsing a loop, you have to:
Lessen the brightness of the collapse's blast
Contain it in the span of the loop's area
Have more experienced Ymbrynes
That's all, for now! I'll add on to this, though only if I think of something else to mention.
I just realized that I go way too many different places in this post, so I'm going to summarize the titles of everything important I talk about here- in the right order.
The Structure of a Second Soul
Why Had the Claywings' Experiment Failed?
Why Had They Taken the Form of Hollowgast?
Why Had Their Physical Age Reset?
Why and How do Hollowgast 'Transform' Into Wights?
Why Do Wights Lose Their Pupils?
Why do Wights Lose Their Memories?
Exceptions and Precautions
