#(*ask

gaal is kalle

this one has been rattling around my brain since last season. it started simply because I thought "wow isn't it funny that they cast an actress who looks like a perfectly aged up version of gaal to play a version of kalle?" and then galaxy brain hit me

kalle's math is basically the inception of this whole thing. hari's math wouldn't be possible without it, gaal's involvement with it came from using the ninth proof to solve a problem when it wasn't an obvious choice. and now she's here somehow with a vested interest in hari not being an ass? in giving them a chance to develop the second foundation as a pair on equal grounds? suspicious to say the least

we also see that gaal has the ability to project her mind forward, and that comes from the way she sees time. it would be confirmed on the third season that she sees time as a 3d realm, so if she can see forward, why couldn't she see backwards if forward and backward don't even exist for her?

third season rolls in and kalle speaks to hari about how his actions hurt gaal, how she would like the chance to say goodbye, if it were her. their banter feels so similar to me to the way gaal and hari talk to each other. NOW we had a scene of gaal debating with demerzel and solving her problem due to having someone to discuss it with, and also the opposite, with demerzel debating her problem with kalle and solving it due to having someone to discuss it with

a THIRD mother? yanna gave the body, demerzel have the math, and here is kalle at the center of it all but who is thematically a mother here too? gaal is.

my idea is a certain paradox, which they ARE talking about now, in which gaal is kalle, somehow, and the ninth proof was needed to put the whole thing into motion, to get hari to create the math, to get them to meet. i don't know how, but they are the same person, unstuck from time.

now bayta and the mule

book spoilers here but in there magnifico is the mule, he spares bayta because he loves her, the cool pirate doesn't exist, he's just a projection of a threatening façade people see in their minds.

my idea is, here, bayta is the real one behind the mule. first point, here toran is the mallow descendant, when that's bayta in the books. that's a change that has to have some meaning, it's too major otherwise. bayta becomes a nobody, a social climber who fell in love HARD with her toran, and because of that stopped climbing. love is the recurring thing.

bayta is always where the mule truly hits. she was on kalgan, she was on new terminus. sure, maggie was too, but c'mon. on the nose. bayta is an influencer, in the social media sense. that would be a nice modernization of what the mule does, to make people love him.

she tells maggie that they're both good at making people love them. again the recurring theme of love. the whole of the interactions between her and the mule and dawn last episode. that whole thing was WEIRD. felt like good cop/bad cop.

there's also the point that the mule's story might be true, in the sense that an older girl might've been passed over in favor of a newborn boy. it would be the fourth time the series does a gender bend too.

her last decision here will be between hurting toran or getting what she wants, just like on the books it was between hurting bayta and the mule getting what he wanted. he couldn't hurt bayta, and bayta here won't be able to hurt toran.