Im gonna need all the space in my soupy brain

her Knights Moralis cap comes off here in Chapter 80 while she’s defending people against Easthies, and she never puts it back on. In fact, the last time we saw her in Chapter 88 she still wasn’t wearing it despite the fact that the crisis was over and she had more than enough time to go and retrieve it.

down the rabbit hole

I was going to throw a ton of screenshots in here but it turned out to be too many so let's cover a few bits of worldbuilding:

It is very rare for a silverwood to take root in a person

Custas' eyes gradually changed color after the silverwood was implanted in him, something Qifrey noticed after he had a physical reaction to being near Custas

These previous two facts led Qifrey to believe there was a connection between the two of them besides being victim of the same condition

Qifrey says he has the silverwood to thank for both of his eyes

After injury, a silverwood will partially sprout in such a way as to assist the host and replace what they lost

Custas was able to use the silverwood consciously as if it were an extension of his body

Qifrey recognizes Iguin by his eye and later demands that Sasaran tell him if he knows a brimhat with the same eye as him

It is heavily implied (basically confirmed) that the mystery additive that made Coco's tainted ink so powerful was Iguin's blood

The brimhats have made no obvious attempts to retrieve Qifrey

Back when Qifrey was with the brimhats, the tree sprouted frequently enough that his memory needed to be wiped multiple times

Iguin does wear a face covering that depicts a giant eye, and I personally think that's a red herring to distract from the frequent mentions of (his? her? not sure if Iguin's gender was ever confirmed) actual eye. Not eyes but singular eye. An eye that Qifrey recognizes, and then possibly asks Sasaran about later.

My theory is that Iguin does in fact have Qifrey's eye, or at least the silverwood replacement of it. While the silverwood didn't physically replace Custas' legs, and the depiction of the animal with silverwood enhancements wasn't perfect, they were perfectly functional replacements. Theoretically, Qifrey shouldn't be missing an eye at all. Sure, he'd have a weird wooden one, but there's no reason that a magical plant that can sense when the host feels safe wouldn't be able to interface with the visual input part of his brain.

Iguin's use of blood to add power to the ink plus the old fairytale's reference to the blood of the silverwood (assumed at the time to be referencing ink but who knows) might mean that the power isn't added by human blood alone, but specifically blood of a human hosting a silverwood. Brimhats tend to experiment on themselves just as much as other people, so I think Iguin wanted to be the original host but couldn't manage it. This particular panel makes me even more sure that Qifrey's eye was removed even after the silverwood was activated - possibly to be implanted (haha) into Iguin's own body as a method of spreading the condition.

This all comes together for this one random metaphor Qifrey uses when he leaves the library - it seems kind of poetic but i think it's extremely literal.

"Like a plant split, then replanted." I think that's exactly what happened to him. I think that as the only successful silverwood experiment, he was forced to sprout again and again so they could harvest another part of him to replant in someone else. Iguin has an eye and was likely one of the earlier experiments. Custas clearly has some part of it, but presumably the process has improved. Sasaran, notably, is ALSO missing an eye, very possibly a sign of a failed transplant.

At some point he must have stopped regenerating - presumably at the point where they dumped him in a box and buried him to later be found by the witches. But I do think that every single current human silverwood host is themself an offshoot of Qifrey's original tree.

Outside of creating really powerful blood ink, I have no idea what the purpose of this is. We're just going to have to wait and see where this goes because despite being so far into the story, it really feels like we're just scraping the surface of everything going on.

That being said, if I'm right about this and Qifrey is the origin of all current human silverwoods, that makes this line from all the way back in chapter 12 absolutely hysterical. Knocked it out of the park on day one. He is in fact at the root of the issue quite literally.

Not to mention it’s the color of Qifrey’s eyes I don’t have the time to go into that

And I was thinking. You know what other spell I saw animated and went oh wow that’s so pretty and not the colors I expected it to be animated as?

Qifrey’s water dragon. Which does in fact have the traditional fire magic coloring