#kosika

As a starting point, I assume that Kosika’s Holland (Ghost!Holland) is broadly sincere, even if he is sometimes confused.  Firstly, he’s the source for pretty much all our information about him.  If he’s lying, it all collapses and this is pointless.  Secondly, VE Schwab is a storyteller.  The way she’s set Threads up, a completely lying Ghost!Holland isn’t a particularly interesting story.  He may not be accurate, but he believes what he is saying.

So, he believes he is Holland.   Ghost!Holland believes he chose Kosika in the Silver Wood and her Antari powers come from him.  Interestingly, Holland says to Kell in ACOL “It doesn’t matter what someone is, only what they think they are.” [ACOL IV:II, p 157]

Could Ghost!Holland be some form of Holland Vosjik?  

He doesn’t seem to be entirely Holland, original flavour, aka the Holland from the end of ACOL.  Too many things don’t add up.  The other obvious explanations are that he is Osaron, some combination of Osaron as he melded with Holland in Black London, or that he is a figment of Kosika’s imagination, created by her powers.  Or (and this is a bit out there) maybe there isn’t just one Holland at play, but two.  The first is the version of Holland as he was when he died in the Silver Wood (SW!Holland).  The second is Holland as he was when he went into Black London and met and melded with Osaron (BW!Holland). 

Re the last, I am reluctant.  This is complicated, and simplicity is usually preferable.  But none of the other possibilities entirely add up. 

Holland’s Body in the Silver Wood as the Source of Kosika’s Powers

The first question regarding whether SW!Holland is a factor is what happened in the Silver Wood.  Kosika’s encounter with Holland’s body in the Silver Wood was obviously significant. 

Holland’s sacrifice revitalised White London.  So Holland still had some power & connection to his world at the time of his death.

Kosika’s eye turned black and her powers awakened the day after she found Holland’s body in the Silver Wood.  I haven’t seen anything in the narrative to indicate she was drawn to the wood.  A coincidence would be unlikely.  This suggests Kosika is not a natural Antari - her powers did come from Holland.  

The narrative has some support for this.  Holland’s death had the power to bring back magic to White London, and that power seems to have still been in Holland’s body.  Kosika sees the grass green underneath his hand: “Not the hard, brittle blades that coated the rest of the Silver Wood, but soft, new shoots, small and green and spreading out beneath him like a cushion.  She ran her fingers over it, recoiling when her hand accidentally grazed his skin.”  She touches him again when she gives him the sugar cube.  

Where does Ghost!Holland come from?  

However, SW!Holland as the only origin of Ghost!Holland seems unlikely.  Six years passed between Kosika’s encounter with Holland’s body and Ghost!Holland’s appearance.  She saw Ghost!Holland in what she thinks is a dream the night after her first trip to Black London.  The timing strongly suggests Ghost!Holland came from Black!London, and is at least in part the magic of Black Lond - Osaron.  

When Kosika falls into Black London, she cuts her palm on the broken coin. She thinks Black London is dead, but then:

What had Serak said?  Magic does not die.  It waits.  For what?  A spark?

Her gaze flew back to the bloody handprint she’d left on the street. [Threads, VII:III, p 345]

In AGOT, Osaron compares himself and Vitari to a leaf and the tree.  He is divisible.  Therefore part of him could have remained in Black London after part of him left with Holland.  Since they joined in Black London, part of Holland could have remained in Black London too.

Kosika’s Return from Black:

This may be just an inconsistency, but how did Kosika come back from Black London?  In ADSOM, Kell is very clear that he believes the trip to Black London would be one way, even if the Antari making the transit had a White London token.  Holland is able to return to White London in AGOS, but only with Osaron’s help.  Kosika returns easily.  She doesn’t comment on it because she doesn’t know she shouldn’t be able to get back.  

Kosika uses a knife with a hilt made from wood from the Silver Wood as her token, but this doesn’t seem like enough explanation.  The implication is that Ghost!Holland is at least partially Osaron.

Ghost!Holland’s hair and eye colour:

When Ghost!Holland appears to Kosika, he has white hair, one black eye and one green eye.  But Holland never looked like this in life.  It is only after the fight with Osaron that Holland’s hair turns white, but both of his eyes also become green.

However, Kosika, who saw his body, thought his hair was always white until she was shown a portrait by Senak.  [Threads, IX:I]  She doesn’t seem to have seen his eyes in the Silver Wood.  So not only does Holland appear the way she imagined him to look, as far as we know Kosika is the only person to imagine him this way.  

I initially thought this implies she created Holland from her imagination.  Interestingly, though, on a reread I realised that by the time Holland appears to Kosika, she already knows this is wrong and his hair was dark.

Possibly a minor thing, but Kosika also sees him smile.  She thinks the depictions of him she has seen never smile. [Threads IX:VI]  So Ghost!Holland does vary from Kosika’s expectations.  

I’m not sure what this means, but it does suggest Kosika and her expectations are a factor.  Both versions of Holland as well as Osaron know what he looks like.  

Ghost!Holland’s Reaction to Seeing Kosika & What Happened in Black London

Ghost!Holland’s knowledge and views seems to change over time.  

Something interesting happens when Kosika first sees Ghost!Holland: 

[His face was] contorted into rage, his voice a roll of thunder when his mouth opened.

“What have you done?”  [Threads, XI:I]

In contrast to some of his later appearances, Ghost!Holland does not seem confused.  And he is definitely not happy.  

But why?  Osaron wanted out of Black London.  BL!Holland released Osaron to heal White London.  Neither of them would have reacted with rage to Kosika bringing them to White London.  But SW!Holland would have.  He understood Osaron’s nature and how dangerous he was far better than BL!Holland.  

The second time Kosika sees Holland, he doesn’t seem angry.  He asks Kosika who she is, which he seemed to know in their first meeting.  But then after several more meetings, Holland seems to remember and becomes angry again.  

And it was as if he himself had forgotten, and now remembered, suddenly, the open box, the missing piece.

What have you done?

His anger rekindled, then, and all the altar candles with it.

“You should not have gone there, Kosika. … Tell me you took nothing out.”  His fingers tightened until it hurt.  The pain felt real.  “Tell me.”

She shook her head. “Nothing, I swear.”  … “There was nothing to take,” Kosika went on.  “No signs of magic.  Everything I saw was dead.”  But as she said the word, she thought of Serak’s lantern, the wick hissing with smoke as the fire went out. 

Magic does not die.  [Threads IX:VI, p 421]

Kosika herself thinks ‘what have I done?’ after using As Osaro in Holland’s room but before going to Bl London p 343.  I’m not sure what to make of this, other than the emphasis on Kosika’s actions leading to Ghost!Holland’s appearance.

When Kosika looks at the coins before her second trip to Black, Ghost!Holland still seems unhappy/reluctant:

His brow was furrowed, his eyes taking on a mournful cast.  But there was resignation in it, as if he’d known it would always come to this. [Threads XII:I, p 552]

However, by the end, Ghost!Holland seems to give up this reluctance, just as Kosika abandons her reservations/suspicions and they go ahead with reigniting the magic of Black London.  

Ghost!Holland’s Knowledge:

Ghost!Holland seems to know things that Osaron alone wouldn’t have known.

…he told her stories of his life as Serak had so many times - only he also told her things that Serak hadn’t, details of his life before he came to serve Vortalis. [Threads, IX:VI]

The information Kosika had previously received from Serak seems right. So whoever Kosika is speaking to knows Holland’s past.  Some of this could have come from Kosika: she herself thinks that she imagined the details that didn’t come from Serak.  

But Ghost!Holland also tells Kosika about “Kell Maresh … and Delilah Bard”.  [Threads, IX:VI]  

Kell was well known in White London, so Kosika could have heard of him.  But Lila wasn’t.  She visited White once in the original trilogy, when she travelled there with Kell at the end of ADSOM.  She didn’t talk to anyone except the Dane twins (RIP).  She visited sometimes, but didn’t seem to have interacted with people.  And Lila rarely uses her full name of Delilah or her last name.  

Kosika would be very unlikely to have known of Lila at all.  There seems to be no way she could have known Lila’s full name.

From the start of the story, Holland did know Lila’s full name was Delilah and her last name was Bard, because she told him both things in their first meeting in the tavern in Grey London.  [ADSOM, VII:I]

This is interesting, but again seems inconclusive.  It does rebut the idea that Ghost!Holland is exclusively Osaron, but the name could come from either version of Holland.

Ghost!Holland’s Feelings About the Other Worlds

In their conversations after Holland’s first appearance, he tells her stories about Kell and Lila.  He doesn’t like it when she isn’t interested:  

“Why should I care about the other worlds?”

And for the first time, she was a shadow of displeasure cross Holland’s face.  She flinched from it, afraid she had angered him.  But then the shadow passed, and he only sighed and said, “Perhaps you will not have to.”   [Threads, IX:VI, P 423]

A year later, he tells her not to think about the other worlds.  “You wanted me to, once.”  “I was wrong. [Threads VII:III, p 339]

When Kosika thinks about travelling to Red London, Holland actively discourages her and directs her to Black London instead.  [Threads XII:I, P 552]

At the end, in Black London, he says: “Let the other Londons tend their embers, while we enjoy the heat.” [Threads XII:I, p 555].

Holland’s lines re the other worlds at the end are consistent with the motivation of BL!Holland. But the feelings of SW!Holland, who had spent a lot of time with Kell and Lila, were less clearly adversarial. 

Ghost!Holland’s Thoughts About Osaron:

Ghost!Holland knows about Osaron, but seems to think he is “dead”.  Not long after his appearance, he says:

Holland clenched his teeth.  “Osaron wanted what all flames want.  To spread unchecked.  To burn.” He met her gaze.  “But that fire, at least, has been put out.  Extinguished with my own.”

And yet, thought Kosika, you are still here.  [Threads, IX:VI, P 422]

In Black London, Holland says “Osaron’s fire has at last gone out.”  [Threads XII:I, p 554]

This is interesting, because Ghost!Holland is wrong.  

In ACOL, Osaron was not extinguished, just trapped in the Inheritor.   We also know from Tess’s visit to Ned that he is not just still in existence, but is not entirely bound to the Inheritor because she can see his thread out in the world of Grey London.  

SW!Holland knew Osaron wouldn’t be “killed” at the time he died.  The whole point of using the Inheritor was to trap Osaron, not kill or destroy him.  BL!Holland didn’t/couldn’t have known that.  

How does Ghost!Holland see himself?  

He tells Kosika she expects too much re healing the world.  She asks what he means.  

He was quiet for several moments, and though one eye was black and one green, somehow, they both seemed to darken.  “Only that you are young, and I am … a shadow of myself.”  [Threads VII:III, P 339]

Not long after his first appearance, Kosika tells him this is a dream.

“It may be a dream for you,” he said. “It is something else for me. A shadow world.  A waiting place.  I was here, long before you found me.”  

Kosika asks, “What are you then?”

Holland tells her:

“I know what I was, but not what I am.  I bound myself to the magic of this world.  And so, it seems, I am still here.”  He studied his hands.  “In a way. I have been here in this place between.  And then you found me.”

This line is followed by his anger and talk of Black London (see above).

Kosika asks him about finding his body in the Silver Wood.  He doesn’t remember.

“You found my body.  But I was no longer there.”  

“If you weren’t there, how did you choose me?”

His green eye briefly darkened.  …  “What matters is I did.”  [Threads IX:I, P 391]

Kosika tells herself not to question him, but later in bed she is “trying to decipher the shape of the shadow that had crossed his face…”

Holland Changing Over Time

Holland changes physically even in the original trilogy.  His hair goes from charcoal, to glossy black, to threaded with silver, to white.  His eyes change. Even his age seems to change as Osaron comes and goes from him. In ACOL, when Kell sees Holland in the prison cell, he was “taken aback by the changes in the man”.  He thinks: “Holland looked like someone caught between two selves, the effect eerie, disconcerting.”  [ACOL: II:VII]

Holland also plays multiple roles.  From ADSOM to ACOL, we see Holland as a child, a young lover, Vor’s partner in taking the throne, the Dane’s slave, a king, and finally a prisoner.  In Threads, Kosika describes the three statutes: servant, king, saint.  Kosika references Holland’s three roles in the climatic scene of her part of the story in Black London.  

Ghost!Holland starts with rage, forgets it, remembers it again, forgets again.  

Kosika initially sees Holland in the “dream”, then he vanishes for several days before reappearing in daylight.  She thinks, “he looked different.”  [Threads, IX:VI, - 424]

We see Holland a year in Kosika’s past, and then in her present.  She comments on his changing attitude to the other worlds, the inconsistencies in how he talks about where he was.  Kosika, the POV of the reader, wavers between faith and skepticism re Ghost!Holland.  

In the course of that year, Holland is always with Kosika.  She is never alone.  [Threads IX:VI]  But Holland disappears for several days when they find the gate between the world.  He returns when Kosika is looking at the three coins in the box. [Threads XII:I, p 551] When he comes back, there is no confusion.  He deters Kosika from going to Red, takes her to Black, and asks her to rekindle the magic.  His decisions seem a long way from the Holland who was filled with rage at Kosika.

It is difficult to say that Ghost!Holland’s actions at the end are entirely inconsistent with SW!Holland.  In ACOL, he was never put to choosing between his world and the other two.  But his behaviour feels different, as vague and inconclusive as that is. 

Conclusion:

As I said at the beginning, nothing entirely adds up.  BL!Holland merged with Osaron in Black London in AGOS.  Part of Osaron that was also part of BL!Holland was left behind there.  When Kosika went to Black London and left the bloody handprint, the part of Osaron/Holland that was there became part of her, too.  Some part of Holland and his powers was also present in his dead body when Kosika touched his hand - her powers came from there.  SW!Holland can be a factor via Kosika.  So, I suggest that Ghost!Holland is the result of the interaction of these factors: Kosika, SW!Holland, and Osaron/BL!Holland.  

As I said at the beginning, this isn’t as clear and unequivocal as I would like it to be.  But turning to the Doylian/Narrative issues, I revisit the original point.  Schwab is a storyteller.  What is most satisfying? 

Holland, in all his iterations, has deep connections with other characters.  Osaron (alone) and Kosika (alone) do not. On that alone, I suggest Holland is to some extent a factor.  And specifically, SW!Holland.  If Ghost!Holland is just BL!Holland, coming back at his most morally questionable?  All the character growth from ACOL becomes meaningless. The character background is there, but in terms of the arc - disappointing!  

And if I am right that Astrid is still around as the Master of the Veil, then it would make narrative sense for Holland to get his chance at revenge.  It could be either iteration of Holland taking his revenge, but the Holland who raged at Kell for taking his chance at revenge away is the more impactful choice.

Holland’s death in the Silver Wood was deeply important to Schwab as an element in the story.  She has said she wrote and rewrote the story multiple times to try to let Holland live, but he had to die.  An earlier version of Holland sequestered from that death, but still being a force in the narrative, would rob the death of its impact.  

I think better of Schwab. 

A Miscellaneous Point: