theories, theories everywhere

Still thinking about how the silverwood tree inside Qifrey began to grow the closer he got to Custas, and how even Custas felt his tree grow in return. Qifrey questioned if the tree was trying to stop him from getting closer because it was too dangerous, which raises question of just how little about the Silverwood tree the pointed hat witches actually know, especially now that the Brim Hats are experimenting with it. Before, it was only known the tree would travel through beasts and grow when its host felt hopeful and safe, and for awhile we thought it was the same for humans now that the trees seeds were being implanted in them by the brim hats, but at the end of the Silver eve arc, we discover things are becoming far more complicated for hosts like Qifrey and Custas.

The end of the Silver eve arc was the first time we discovered the silverwood tree inside a human host can respond to the presence of another silverwood tree from another human host. If the silverwood tree can not only respond to the security of their own host, but also respond to the emotional security of other hosts, then would this mean all the silverwood trees are connected? We know groves of silverwood trees exist, but we always wondered how it was possible, this may be how. The only one who didn't seem affected in that moment Custas was sprouting was Ininia, but then again, her emotional state is on a completely different level, her deep rooted hatred for the pointed caps seems to have allowed her to develop a sense of control over the silverwood tree inside her, it still seems to cause her pain when she allows it to grow, but she is none the less able to retract it back into her body, something Qifrey and Custas can't do given they have people like Coco and Olruggio on the pointed hats side to remind them there is still good and kindness in the pointed hats belief that magic is meant to bring happiness.

Should one tree grow, other trees can sense the comfort radiating from one host and attempt to take root now that a secure place has been found, and yet there is something unnatural about the way the tree inside a human grows.

The silverwood tree is no ordinary tree, in many ways it is very much alive, but something Beladruit and Riliphin once said in chapter 38 has left many theorists and I wondering just how aware the tree actually is. Beladruit and Riliphin said the tree can grow anywhere, but in the end it chooses where it wants to live just like a human would. Above all it likes to grow in places that calm the soul, but what would happen if the silverwood tree was stressed? The horrific experiments the brim hats put Qifrey through as a child, experiments where he would have his memories repeatedly erased to reverse the tree inside him, left Qifrey with a great deal of trauma that still lingers even after his memory was erased, and it may not be just for him, but for the silverwood tree inside him as well.

All plants, trees included, may not hold fear or a nervous system to experience pain, but they do experience and respond to stress, and when they do, it's not uncommon for plants to grow unnaturally and in poor health, especially if its competing with other plants for space and resources. If the silverwood inside Qifrey was truly resisting his attempts to get closer to Custas, then perhaps it was simply trying to avoid the danger of growing too close to Custas's tree, because if it did, it would hinder its own growth.

When the tree inside Custas grew, people noticed it had no interest in hurting people, it just continued to grow...but the way it grew, destroying everything in its path to finally stretch its roots, blocking every entrance to the point of leaving only enough room for a child like Coco to squeeze through, was wild and crazy, it was nothing like the tree Tartah had in his town or the tree in the Great Hall, trees that grew in such a way to allow even a house or an entire civilization to build around it and make it their home, but the tree that grew from Custas...it was as if the tree itself was desperate to finally grow.

And yet something still feels off. In chp.87, the brim hat said the way the tree sprouted in Custas after he experienced just a moment of security meant the spell was unfortunate and needed revision...but what does this mean? Unless...Do the brim hats not want the tree to grow?

Despite the tree's miraculous ability to spread its roots into parts of the host’s body that have been damaged or missing, such a miraculous ability quickly turns into a painful curse. In order to ensure the tree does not take over the human host, the host themselves needs to be in a constant state of fear and anxiety to combat it, but even then the silverwood tree continues to grow its roots inside them, their hair and eye color turning white as snow, as if draining their host. So then why put them inside humans to begin with? Trying to harness the tree's ability to strengthen or replace the weaker or missing parts of the human body is one thing, but there must be something else to it. The only true value in the silverwood tree is...well... the magic ink that can be harvested from it.

The magic ink is just as important to the brim hats as it is to the pointed hats, the only difference is the brims add their own blood to the ink to make it more powerful. All witches need only two things to cast magic, a pen and ink, and yet despite anyone being capable of owning these things, not everyone can perform magic as easily as any witch could, not just because the secret of how magic is done is kept hidden, but because not everyone is free to draw, the human body has its physical limitations. Tartah for instance, was considered unfit to draw magic because of his inability to see colors, Qifrey's only functioning eye left many speculating he would be doomed to strain his eye to the point of no longer being able to see his drawings to cast magic, and then there are people like Ininia who have no hands to begin with or Beldaruit whose weak and frail body continues to deteriorate. Without ink, and without the means to physically draw proper glyphs, a witch is powerless....so what if the Brim Hats are trying to remove those limitation?

What am I trying to say? well...what if maybe...just maybe...the new type of magic the brim hats are experimenting with on people like Qifrey, Custas and Ininia... is meant to find a new way to perform magic, one where no one would need a pen or ink to draw magic, a type of magic anyone could be free to use no matter their limitations ...because the ink needed to cast magic would no longer need to be held in hand with a pen, it would already be present in every human body to summon at will, the only problem is the tree itself. If the brim hats want the trees magical properties to remain within the body of a any person without the risk of turning them into a tree, then this alone must be making the silverwood tree grow so violently inside a human host, its being suppressed from doing what comes naturally to it and as a result, its trying to adapt.

Qifrey said so himself in chapter 93, its rare for silverwood trees to sprout in humans because unlike animals, humans carry too much anxiety, but for Qifrey, the brim hats took his eye the moment it became the first successful part of the human body to sprout the tree. The brims succeeded at least in creating a new type of silverwood capable of growing inside people, problem is its growth is unstable, it responds to quickly to the slightest bit of security its human host feels, and if Qifreys suspicions about his silverwood tree being connected to Custas is true, and if the silverwood trees are as truly connected to one another as we believe, then Qifreys eye is the brim hats only means of continuing their experiment by harvesting the seeds of Qifreys tree to give to other people like Custas.

The brims took Custas away at the end of the Silver eve arc and Ininia remains strictly loyal to the brims with little emotional empathy towards who they hurt, but by the end of the day, despite being apprentices to the brims, they are still nothing more than experimental subjects in their plans, children who were vulnerable enough to give into their words and accept the silverwood seed in desperation, and if brims were quick to abandon Qifrey in his childhood after taking what they needed from him, then Custas and Ininia are just as expendable. The brim hats are pretty good at trying to entice others into using forbidden magic and if they succeed in their experiment, then it will be all the more easy to push the pointed hats to use forbidden magic.

Iguin of the brim hats said the pointed hats would be pushed into using forbidden magic, and if what we theorized is true about them trying to create a new form of magic that would allow a human body to perform magic using the silverwood tree inside them and no longer be reliant on drawing spells, then how would someone like Beldaruit and other witches, whose bodies are dangerously close to being unable to perform magic through drawings, react to the news of such a new form of magic, would they still reject it simply because it is forbidden, or will it be enough of a temptation to convince the pointed hats to cross the line they set so as to not allow the brim hats to be the only ones who hold onto such a power?...Anyway, for now, its all just a theory.

When Low, Alone and Dime make it to a room where an intact mirror is hidden away, Dime looks on in disbelief at what the mirror is reflecting , a normal response to such a sight seeing as mirrors in the Nowhere are destroyed by the Residents, the reason of which we have long theorized is because the mirrors reflect not only a persons deepest desires but also their deepest fears too, and with the Residents being in a state where their minds are thrown into a world where they can feel safe and free of any pain and misery while under the Nowhere's control, the mirrors only provide a reminder of a reality they would much rather ignore.

As a result of so many broken mirrors, many children like Dime have never even seen, let alone could ever imagine a mirror would be capable of reflecting an entirely different location. Low and Alone of course are much more normal about seeing such a mirror because they have traveled through them many times before. And while at first it seemed like the end of Dimes partnership with Low and Alone at the Carnevale, Alone welcomes Dime to continue journeying with her and Low, and Low for one has no complaint seeing as Dime has earned his trust after helping him find and save Alone.

But despite what would have been a very beneficial addition to their little friend group, Dime does not reach the new location with Low and Alone after passing through the mirror with them. Instead, Dime ends up in a place we have theorized for years to have existed and are now getting the chance to see, a world beyond the mirrors, where all mirrors reside.

Of course the question I and many other theorists are wondering is...why didn't Dime pass through the mirror alongside Low and Alone to the new location? How did she end up trapped in the mirror world? Well, Dime was holding onto Alone when they passed through the mirror, and Alone had no reason to abandon Dime considering she helped save her.... but then again.... there is one thing about Alone many of us forget from time to time....alone is not a real child, she was Low's imaginary friend brought to life in the Nowhere, she is as real as Low believes she is and can only remain physically real so long as Low is in the Nowhere, and if what we theorized is true...the mirror world is not part of the Nowhere. Many of us believe the Mirror world resides in the Threshold to act as an inbetween for the two worlds, which is why the mirrors can reflect locations both in the Nowhere and the human world.

Many theorists and I have long theorized Alone temporarily ceases to exist anytime she passes through the mirrors, because no matter how many times Low holds on tightly to Alone to take her through the mirror, he never makes it to the other side with her still in hand.

Yes, we do see Alone pass through the mirror separately from Low, but something about her existence completely shatters the mirror rather than pass through it like Low does, the reasons of which could be anything, but if the 2017 comics still hold some truth, then perhaps the mirrors shatter because it is doing precisely what it was intended for, it is reflecting what Low wants most, and what he wants is to see his imaginary friend, but for such a reflection of what Low wants to actually stand by his side and not remain a reflection in a mirror, Alone would need to break through the mirror to the other side. As for why Low made it through and Dime didn't despite being a real child, well, the answer may be quite simple...its because only Low wields the power to travel through the mirrors. We saw something similar happen with Mono and Six in Little Nightmares 2.

When Six saw Mono through another television in the Pale City, she could not exit the screen to travel to his side, Mono had to be the one to reach in through the screen and pull her through, so what if it was the same with Low. No one can safely travel through the mirrors unless Low is holding onto them, and Dime was not holding onto Low, she was holding onto Alone.

For now, Dime is trapped in the mirror world...but will she ever escape it? If there is a way to enter the mirror world then surely there is a way to leave it as well, nevertheless, such a matter of entering and leaving the mirror world may be beyond Dime's control, why? because it is still Low who wields the power to move through the mirrors. But would Low find his way back to Dime somehow?...maybe...Near the end of Little Nightmares 3, Low made it out of the Nowhere traveling through the mirrors, but because Alone could not exist in the human world, we see Low trying to repair the mirror to return to Alone, but even if he does repair the mirror or find another mirror to travel through, he may not end up where he would hope. Its unsure if Low knows the mirror world exists, let alone if he has been to it before, but regardless, Low is trying to go back through a mirror, rather than through sleep, which was the original way to travel to Nowhere(more on this later), and with Dime currently trapped in the Mirror World, would they encounter each other like they did before? But most of all...will Dime still be the Dime Low remembers? or will her time in the Mirror World turn her into something else...I guess we will have to wait and see, for now its just a theory.

The mirror world we saw at the end of the Little Nightmares DLC: Backstage seems to consist of strange black waters where damaged mirrors of all shapes and sizes rise up from below, all of which drip a black goo from where they are damaged. How the mirror world exists is still in question, but seeing a strange mist just beyond the floating mirrors does leave many theorists and I wondering....is the mirror world somewhere in the Threshold?

The Threshold is an endless dark void mentioned and seen time and time again, those who manage to venture through it can encounter a bizarre mist and a door leading to a space where the Nowhere(a giant red eye) hides in. When Noone encountered the Nowhere, she described the space beyond the door as one where there were stairs going in every direction at once, where shining eyes of every shape and size could be mistaken for twinkling stars. But in the Mirror world, there exists only the darkness, the mist, the mirrors and the black goo(more on this later).

Strangely enough, the mirrors in the mirror world have no reflection to show, but seeing as the mirrors in Nowhere are disliked and destroyed by the Residents, we couldn’t really expect all the mirrors to still be functioning.

Yet despite the mirrors being able to reflect different locations within the Nowhere, to see Low escape the Nowhere through a mirror leading to what we believe is a location in the human world near the end of Little Nightmares 3, tells us the mirrors were always capable of reflecting locations within the human world, meaning the mirror world is tied to the human world and the Nowhere, an in-between of the two worlds, the likes of which we have only ever known to exist as the Threshold. Of course this does raise the question, if the Mirror world resides in the Threshold...did the Nowhere create the mirror world?...if so, why?

The Threshold is an endless space simply existing between the two worlds, it does not belong to the Nowhere, but it does use the endless space, Noone even said so herself, “ "it" hides in this place”, so if the Nowhere could make the endless void of the Threshold into its own hiding spot, then this mirror world must of had its own purpose as well, but what use could the Nowhere have for such a place?…or rather...who was it created for to use. Aside from Low, the only one we know of who could use the mirrors is the only being we have ever known to be tied to the mirrors, the Mirror Man.

The mirrors and their strange ability to travel through them and reflect whatever it is a person desires or fears most has always been associated with the Mirror Man, so if this mirror world is his domain, then could his existence and this mirror space be on similar grounds to not the Nowhere, but the only Resident we know of who frequently used the Threshold to aid in the Nowhere's survival...the Ferryman. The Ferryman has always been one Resident we knew of who wielded the ability to cross the Threshold, all to seek out children in the human world so as to uphold his duty to determine who was fit to pass through the door to the Nowhere he was guarding.

The Nowhere needs the children's to feed on so as to ensure its survival within the Threshold, but to have just one Resident with the task of taking children always seemed like a slow progress...then again, we always theoeized the Ferryman was never the only Resident tasked in interfering with the humans. In the 2017 comics, we saw beings like the north wind hold a rivalry with the Ferryman over taking children, leading many of us to theorize there had always been other Residents like the Ferryman tasked with finding and manipulating children to take to Nowhere. What am I trying to say? well isn't it obvious, what if the Mirror Man was one such Resident and much like the Ferryman who could see through the veil into the human world to keep tabs of the humans he was targeting, the Mirror Man did the same, but through the mirrors.

Even though we have yet to meet the Mirror Man, his existence in the little nightmares world is still there, laid out in the many portraits we keep finding of him. Of course because Low is the one who continues to display the ability to travel through the mirrors, we theorized Low encountered the mirror man sometime in the distant past and obtained his power after defeating him, as per "The successor theory" rules, but if Low could use this power to escape the Nowhere and enter the human world...then what if the Mirror Man also used such a power to enter the human world.

Back in the discontinued 2017 Little Nightmares comics, we saw the Mirror Man had the capability to extend his tentacles through the mirrors to attack and capture the children on the other side, and yet he could not freely pass through the mirrors fully like Low did, he remained trapped in his Mirror World. Then again, unlike him, Low was human. If the comics still hold some truth, then the Mirror Man still had the capability of reaching into the human world through the mirrors, but because he was not human, he may still not have been capable of freely traveling back and forth between the two worlds in the same way the humans always could. Of course this does beg the question...what could be the reason for the Mirror Man having some access to the human world, was his duty in having such a reach meant for taking children and bringing them back to the Nowhere?....or did his duty involve something far more sinister....the black goo we saw all throughout the mirror world, its in the Counties for a reason...the Mirror Man sent it to the Counties for a reason....but more on this later. For now, its all just a theory.

but of course she didn't, not after he used forbidden magic on her and because siding with the brims is what the brims want. Tartah doesn't trust the brims, but he is fed up with the secrets the wise men of the pointed hats are having everyone uphold, and as much as Coco also wants things to change in terms of the rules of magic and what is and is not forbidden, following the brims is not the way to change anything. She does not want to do things the way the brim hats want because their methods and beliefs are just as cruel as the magic councils.

With everything settling down, Tartah must have had time to think about everything that has happened and see that despite his noble intentions when leaving with the brims,the full extent of his choice may only now be settling in and making him realize the true danger he is in.....he can never go home, he can never see his grandfather or his friends and he broke the trust Coco had for him, he is in a constant state of danger now as the brims will not hesitate to hurt him and Custas if he tries to do anything against them. Even if he does try to go back to Coco, she can never look at him the same way again and that alone will be heartbreaking to Tartah as he realizes he messed up and now things between them can never go back to the way they were. Bottom line, if Tartah wants any chance at repairing his friendship with Coco, he's gonna need to do a lot more than apologize, he's going to need to work to earn Coco's trust again.

The way he kept saying "we", only for him to realize there was no "us" anymore.

To remind anyone, this furnace room is at the Carnevale not the Maw.