#moring

I once had a theory about **Belos's "curse**". Let me explain: I don't think he has a curse because he carved a network of glyphs on himself, but let's call it that for convenience. What do we even know about his curse: when he arrived in the demon realm 400 years ago, Philip decided to destroy all the witches, somehow found information about the Collector, took his disk with Luz's help and learned about the draining spell. In the same episode (season 2 episode 12, by the way) we already see glyphs on his hand and suffering from the curse. As he said there, **"I just need to live exactly as long as it takes to finish."** I don't think I need to explain what that means. As many of the community have found out, Philip's curse began with the glyphs on his body to prolong his life, he needed the magic of the palismans to control the glyphs, but soon the palismans began to go on strike, which is why new palismans were needed again. And so it turned out to be a vicious circle. As we see, over the years (centuries) he needed more and more magic of palismans to calm others with them. So, in order to live and exist for so long, apparently, a mind and soul, strong magic and a **BODY** are needed. Yes, we saw a body made of palismans substance, but I will refute this: we were in the mind of Belos/Philip, so I dare to boldly assert that this was simply their materialization. In King's tide we see his true appearance, and indeed, there is a lot of stuff mixed up there, but there are the basics: bones, his body, or rather what was left of it (green liquid-rot=decomposition) and the materialization of palismans (apparently in Hollow Mind he did not destroy them all). According to Google, the body decomposes from 10 to 30 years, bones from several months to several decades, and although we are in a magical world, it is unlikely that Philip found some kind of spell against body decay, so he turned into this green thing. So, here is my theory: **what if Belos used other people's bodies to maintain his shape?** We have already been shown that he can possess and control other people's bodies (Hunter and Rain). **What if he used this?** In For the Future, he went to that cave and possessed a body (most likely an unfinished Grimwalker). Here is your answer: ***Belos used the bodies of the Golden Guardians to continue his existence.*** This also explains why Belos / Philip looks like Hunter (or vice versa, think as you want). I was always confused by his light hair, it is not gray, but white (yellow). Compare it at least with Gwendolyn's hair (Ida's mother), and she is clearly gray. And by the way about hair - there is no beard, and Caleb had long hair. His nose remained with him from his old appearance, because grimwalkers have long ears, he shortened them (cut them off), the eyes changed color under his influence, as did the nose. And now we know why in the place where King fell in King's tide there are a lot of bones, but no flesh (the body apparently decomposed faster than the bones, so he threw them out of sight).

After such a theory, it is more than clear to me why the owl project does not suit Disney, too dark and creepy. But thanks to Dana for not explaining this to us right away, otherwise I would not have such a theory (although it seems to me more that this is the truth :).

I wanna share something different but that is very personal to me here. I won’t go on about the details of my life, but I was adopted as child, and my adoptive father comes from Reunion Island, a French island in the Indian Ocean that was home to slaves brought from Mozambique and later to several different populations (mostly Chinese and Indian). Reunion has a very vibrant local culture, most notably a very typical cuisine between chinese, indian & créole (grew up on that stuff it’s DELICIOUS), prominent music styles called sega and maloya (the latter being unique to the island)... and martial arts !!

Réunion has two prominent martial arts : La Croche, a form of folk wrestling that exists only on the island (and that is similar to most wrestling styles found around the world), and the subject of this video : Moringue. Moringue is incredibly similar to Capoeira, and some modern Moringue group actually linked it to Capoeira Angola, but it’s something completely unique to Reunion. It’s half dance and half actual fighting, mostly with kicks, that look like an incredible crossover of usual front kicks / side kicks and acrobatic, capoeira-like kicks. Actual full contact competition exist, from the video it looks like the goal is to get your opponents out of bounds through kicks. Kicks are mostly used because, similarly to Capoeira, Reunionese slaves wore chains on their hands and had to use their legs to do anything. In this video (where people speak a mix of Reunionese creole and french), the guy sitting behind drums with his hair tied explains he is a scientist who is working on Moringue and its history, and mentions concepts like Afro-descendence, something relating to the common cultural heritage of former slaves that explains how places that are as remote as Brazil and Reunion end up having similar traditions. He mentions Moringue evolved from the original slaves, included Chinese and Hindu influence (probably kung fu and kalaripayattu, some of the kicks look A LOT like kalaripayattu) and later more European influences. Reunion moringue is done exclusively to the rhythm of maloya, the one typical musical style of Reunion, which participates to its unique character (Moringue has similar styles in Madagascar and the surrounding islands, but the Reunion one is unique). It is a fascinating art on so many aspects. Another testimony of African culture that was passed down from former slaves. My adoptive father was a maloya musician, playing a kayamb, that he had brought from his island and kept like one of his most treasured possessions. It sat on the walls of the house for years. I’m estranged from him now but I can absolutely picture him playing to moringue and i’m pretty sure he did, and that’s where his fascination for martial arts started.

The town I live now has a HUGE Reunionese population. Hell, three of my most regular musical collegues are Creole. I wonder if some of them brought Moringue to the mainland ? I’m gonna look into this when I have time.