#chnt meta

The big thing to me is something revealed to us very early: The Gravediggress is not a necromancer. Sydney says as much in File4 (The Prophecy of Reversal).

In fact, he says it again.

Later in the same episode, he goes on to emphasize another important point: True necromancy is impossible. This is a point that Sydney brings up repeatedly throughout Season 1, chiefly to foreshadow his own undeath. I’m not going to find every time he says it, but here it is again in File13 (The Mother of Stones). We’ll be coming back to that episode.

Sydney’s pretty sure of it— though that leaves the elephant in the room (not that one) of his own revival. Obviously, necromancy is possible, right? Jedidiah did it. It’s dramatic irony, once you realize. The problem is, Jedidiah had to break reality over his knee to get the results he wanted.

This is like, a whole other point, so I’m going to make it as brief as I can, but it’s clear that “the limn” shattered reality, and “the limn” appears to be Jedidiah’s ritual on Sydney. Go through the episodes and read the agents’ notes, and you’ll find them regularly referring to a “pre-limnal” world that was normal.

To be brief, here’s the summary of File29 (The Eggs of a Basket Case), where Elijah tells Sydney the story of his resurrection.

And here’s File54 (Swallow the Bite), where Rowan has a breakdown about remembering the world before it changed. Note the agents calling this “pre-limnal memory” and Jedidiah repeatedly apologizing, almost like it’s his fault.

So, Jedidiah broke reality to revive Sydney. We knew that. This is consistent with Sydney calling necromancy “impossible”. Clearly it is if the world has gone to hell because of it.

Which means, just like Sydney said, necromancy is impossible, so the Gravediggress is not a necromancer, and neither is Soren. If we look back at our first screenshot, Sydney calls the Gravediggress’ powers “reanimation”.

Four things here:

Reanimation is an “imitation of life,” controlled by the Gravediggress.

Reanimated bodies go back to being normal corpses after the Gravediggress leaves.

To attain “a more permanent state of reanimation,” a body has to be surrounded by the magic of the Death Fields.

They’ll still rot.

Soren isn’t going to learn real necromancy from the Gravediggress, they’re going to learn reanimation. That much is clear in File13 (The Mother of Stones), where they successfully reanimate a rabbit.

Once again we see that word, and we understand more about what it means. The rabbit has no basic needs or even desires, nor does it seem to feel pain or even be aware of its own body.

Sydney goes so far as to call it an inanimate object. Granted, Sydney displays an obvious bias of the “when you die, you will rot” disposition, but it’s true that the rabbit shows no signs of life besides movement, not even a heartbeat. The only thing the rabbit ever “reacts” to (assuming it isn’t coincidence, which it could very well be) is to look at Sydney when he picks it up, and even then, it doesn’t struggle, even when Jedidiah begins ripping it limb from limb. Any living creature would struggle, express pain, or both, in reaction to such mutilation.

This was performed with the Gravediggress’ magic. If this is the level to which her power can revive things… I fear it means the same for Soren. The only things we know about Soren’s death are that it was via lightning strike, and that they “succeeded” and are now “half-alive”. We can only decipher what state they’re in by comparing it to past instances of the Gravediggress’ magic. Which are not only not true necromancy and rather invoke movement alone, but still leave the subject to decompose.

“But wait,” My sock puppet representation of you says. “What about Episode 23? The one with the death mold? Doesn’t Soren accomplish something more advanced in that? And the kids even recovered from it!”

Great point, sock puppet representation. File23 (The Wood of the Caskets). Let’s take a closer look.

Talking Point 1: The deathcreep mold is more advanced than normal reanimation.

Not really! What Soren achieved that was so impressive was spreading the magic of the death fields.

Soren moved the magic. They didn’t change it. Going back to File4, Sydney mentions that setting foot in the Death Fields is extremely dangerous — presumably, you’ll end up as shambling, rotting, and unkillable as the campers that touched the deathcreep mold. It’s portable now, not improved upon.

Talking Point 2: The children did, in fact, recover from the deathcreep mold.

This is true! With enough fresh air, the children were returned to their fully living states. But the thing here is that none of the children ever died. Sydney estimates that the mold will eventually cause “complete biological collapse and decay”, effective death, were it not for the powers of reanimation. Their bodies never reached this point of no return.

Soren, on the other hand, “did not survive” the lightning strike, in Benjamin’s exact words. He follows this up with the half-alive comment, but I take this to mean that Soren’s body and mind fully shut down and ceased function before being reanimated. After all, if they showed signs of recovery like the kids did, Benjamin would mention that, no? He surely wouldn’t say they “succeeded” if they didn’t truly die and come back. 

And if that’s true… Then there’s no coming back from that. Because as all the kids learned in school, necromancy is impossible. Soren was brought back with the Gravediggress’ power, and that power is inherently limited. I believe that this will leave Soren in a state much similar to the rabbit in File13– capable of movement, but lacking any apparent conscious thought or awareness, even of pain. Lacking basic needs, desires, or so much as a heartbeat. One is tempted to draw the comparison to a zombie, but I believe their state is somewhere in a middle ground between zombified and comatose.

The zombie description is obvious. Dead and brought back, little to no remnant of their former self, but still walking around. Rotting, as well. Let’s not forget that the reanimated still rot. But many zombie stories depict them as still having desires and some ability to verbalize — even if it’s just in the pursuit of eating people. This is where I think the comatose aspect comes in. Soren in this theoretical state bears similarities to a comatose state — complete lack of consciousness or awareness, with no reaction to stimuli. 

This would also bring us back around to Soren’s many, many parallels with Sydney. The two have very similar experiences with suicidal feelings and behavior, and with autonomy, and Soren is clearly a tragic echo of Sydney coming so very close to killing himself in Season 2. Sydney found reason within himself to live, where Soren remained sure that they had nothing to live for, and that only death could save them— even if for them, death meant a rebirth.

(File66, The Monster Tries to Summon)

As File68 (101 Ways to Kill Your Lover) reveals, Sydney’s coma was the result of a suicide attempt. A coma that he was deeply unlikely to come back from, had Jedidiah not taken the extreme route.

(File33, The Muse of the Elephant)

Is this not, then, another parallel? Soren goes from reflecting Sydney’s current suicidal episode to one in the past. Sydney hoped Jedidiah would save him. Soren believed the Gravedigress would save them. But I don’t think she did.

Of course, this isn’t a 1-to-1 comparison. Chiefly, comatose patients do not walk around or decompose. That’s why I think the best way to describe them is, like I said, somewhere between zombified and comatose. But that’s a mouthful. So, “half-alive” works. Regardless, I don’t think there is very much left of Soren, and I don’t think they’re going to get better. Dead, half-alive, comatose — it’s a tragic incident that leaves grief in its wake all the same. Soren is gone, all the same.