When Trying To Gain Leverage In A Situation:

When trying to gain leverage in a situation:

Sophie and Tedros: I've died.

Rhian: At least you got to come back to life in a corporeal form. I was a ghost swan!

Rafal: [smirking] Well, I've died twice.

Rhian: It's not a competition. [He facepalms.]

"The mermaids live in the Mermaids' Lagoon, which is also the location of Marooners' Rock, the most dangerous place in Neverland. Trapped on Marooners' Rock in the lagoon just offshore, Peter faced impending death by drowning, as he could not swim or fly from it to safety. The mermaids made no attempt to rescue him, but he was saved by the Never bird" (The Wikipedia page on "Neverland").

We know from Rise that Rhian swims regularly for exercise, and Rafal flies, of course. I wonder if something akin to this could happen in Fall? And, perhaps, with their newfound mortality, they could more easily be rendered useless and incapable of saving themselves?

The Pan Soul Theory

I definitely remember Hook talking about the Pan, and telling Rafal how his sister was taken from him, and corrupted by the Pan, just because the Pan was a handsome boy, probably like the trickster villain archetype. He was too attractive and beguiling for Hook’s sister’s own good because her loyalties are now to the Pan.

Was this a throwaway line or groundwork set-up for Fall? We know the Hook name is a bloodline. But what about the Pan? Was an explanation given in Rise? If so, I don’t entirely remember it. To be eternal nemeses either requires unusual longevity, or a tradition of inheritance.

So, is the Pan an immortal being? Has there only ever been one Pan? I think that this is or will be the case.

Or, is the Pan an entity that after a long while takes on new hosts? To feed off of?

Or, is the Pan a bloodline? Or, is the Pan a bloodline with one immortal spirit of the Pan after the next, until the next immortal Pan destroys the one prior or merges with it?

Now, the theory I have is that Rafal is either consumed by the Pan, and kills Rhian (either intentionally, because he mistook Rhian for Hook, or for another reason altogether). Or, Rafal disguises as the Pan, for a certain battle strategy/desperate plan he does or doesn’t tell Rhian about, and makes a mistake, does something wrong, or kills Rhian by accident.

Or, the Pan could simply breathe Rafal’s soul, and cause general havoc, leaving Rafal’s body an empty shell of himself. (Since his soul is now mostly inhabiting a new vessel.)

Honestly, before Rise, I never thought of souls as something transferable in the Endless Woods. Imagine if they were a currency. So much could be done with that concept alone. I thought only appearances could shift by magic, so the thought of souls doing the same is interesting and dark on its own.

Or, in any case, at any point in the story, the Pan could usurp the seat of Rafal’s mind, so Rafal becomes the Pan only internally. He’d still retain his appearance as Rafal.

(If I'm right about this, by hook and by crook, call me a Seer!)

This theory is probably a reach, but some possible evidence could be:

Rafal already has clear traits in common with the Pan. Immortality and eternal youth. An association with shadows. The power of flight.

The Hort vs. Rafal (one-sided?) rivalry in TLEA could be a mirror held up to the Hook (the bloodline, not the character James Hook) vs. Pan rivalry.

There’s also Scourie, the pirate who was Hort’s father, killed by Peter Pan.

Also, I wonder if the concept/identity of the Pan or Peter Pan has evolved over time in the Woods because what is in the present-day storybooks may not match the Pan that will likely be a villain of Fall. The telling of the story could have transformed it into something else over generations, until the original version was lost. And, that would all be dependent on who survived to tell the tale. Either that, or the Storian (in the role of antagonist or divine intervention/record-keeping) twisted the tale beyond recognition.

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Also, the Jolly Roger could play a part in Fall. We have already seen the Igraine and the Inagrotten, so the existence of yet another mythical ship is not too far off.

Consider this: Rafal outranks every boy in the Woods, even Tedros, in attractiveness. (Though, this is a subjective quality.)

The proof?

Sophie is the oft-touted most beautiful girl in the Woods, and she rarely doubts her own beauty.

Rarely does anything ever make her doubt her own beauty. She is the epitome of ego. So, when a boy causes her to doubt herself in this particular metric? That is significant. She feels self-conscious once around Rafal. Though, it could be because of her generally disheveled state and her fever, but still. There was even a line in TLEA where she wondered whether she was the uglier of the pair of them. A thought that she never had about Tedros. No other boy in the Woods has ever managed this. This, as in, to make the Witch of the Woods Beyond doubt herself.

In my mind, Rafal is the paranoid fool and Rhian is the gullible fool. All hail the fools!