I feel like as a fandom we don’t discuss WHY Flapjack chose Hunter as his Palisman enough.
At this point, it’s pretty obvious that 1. Flapjack was Caleb Wittebro’s palisman, and it’s outright confirmed that 2. Hunter is the Grimwalker clone of Caleb. HOWEVER, these facts alone were not enough to make Flapjack choose Hunter immediately.
In Hunting Palisman, when they meet, Flapjack doesn’t react any more specially to Hunter than he did to Luz. (Arguably less so; Flapjack mostly just stays on Luz’s shoulder). It’s not until Luz and Hunter have their little heart to heart that something changes.
Luz: “At least you have your future figured out now.”
Hunter: “At least you can figure out your own.”
And THAT’S when Flapjack starts pecking at him.
We know that Palisman bond to people based on their deep desires. As the Bat Queen puts it, “[The Palismen] want to feel a connection. State your deepest wish, and your likeminded partner will find you.”
My theory is that both Hunter and Caleb share this “deepest wish” and both wished to be free from something (or someone) who made him feel like his future was set in stone.
We don’t really know much about what the Wittebros’ relationship to Gravesfield was, but if they were important enough to have a statue put up of them, they must have been pretty influential to the community.
And, my line of thinking is, their family might have been influential too. Perhaps Caleb felt pressure to be some great leader for Gravesfield, and that’s why he wanted to run away to the Boiling Isles. Either way, he wanted to have a future, to be someone that his Puritan Connecticut life wouldn’t let him be. This desire is the same wish that he carved into his own Palisman, Flapjack, while living in Bonesborough. And when the Lil Rascal realized that what Hunter wished for is freedom? He knew he needed to help another imprisoned bird escape his cage.
I’ve heard other people speculate that Caleb was enticed to enter the demon realm on his own, and Philip entered at a later time since he was too scared to initially, as the paintings imply. I wholeheartedly agree. And if Phillip was left behind by his brother, he might have had to pick up the slack and take over for Caleb’s duties.
What if marrying a witch wasn’t the only reason Philip felt betrayed? What if it was the combo of having to make up for your brother being gone, but being okay with it because he’s out there somewhere sacrificing for a noble cause, cleansing the world of demons and witches. And THEN, finally finding a way to follow him but realizing he was making peace with the witches all along? From his perspective, no wonder he felt betrayed.
Edit: I am in no way trying to justify Philip, and later Belos’s behavior, I’m just suggesting there could have been more to the story than we are aware of.
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TL;DR: Caleb ran away from Gravesfield because he wanted to “figure out his own future,” the same desire that Hunter, his Grimwalker clone, later shared, which is why Flapjack also chose to be Hunter’s Palisman.
