The Pan - Tumblr Posts

A Fall Theory on Neverland and Youth

There is potential in the entertaining possibility of contrasting the brothers’ “dotage” and apparent age and appearances with the Lost Boys’ youth. We already know Rafal gets tired of the youth and life around him. We’ve already seen him feel at ease in an old body, and compare himself to the reclusive Rabid Bear Rex.

Rafal: These Id-driven freaks!

Rhian: [sigh] Be polite, Rafal. You were a child once.

Now, briefly onto a concept of Freudian childhood since I find it relevant. Not all children are cherubic. Some are Id-driven little freaks! Through no real fault of their own. They just haven’t been taught societies’ standards. It is parents and society that form a child’s Superego after all. The Id is the only structure we’re born with, and has no need to develop.

Next, it’s a common-enough refrain that children are cruel, merciless, and demanding. (If you’ve ever read the impactful short story “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury, that’s a good point of reference.) They exhibit unsociable behavior. There’s even such a thing called Peter Pan Syndrome. Thus, I would think everything is a game in Neverland, or so treated as a game by its inhabitants. If anything, I think Neverland politics are probably some ludicrous version of Never politics but burlesque and childish. It was said to be founded by Nevers. Probably, it’d be a wild mix of obvious egocentrism, greed, all about gain and profit (the pirate element to it), deception, living in the moment, probably involving some measure of hedonism, impulsivity, incivility, actual antisocial behavior, and zero trust among all parties. So basically, children exploit each other, and have no loyalties, except to themselves. Children are fundamentally unreliable. Driven entirely by instinct, consumed by it. The Pan is probably an amoral being.

And, Soman has such vivid characterization always. It must be in his nature to be edgy. It would be nice, nay, immensely satisfying, to see "child" characters that aren't paragons of purity and innocence but in fact, something of the opposite. This is a fascinating idea, partly derived and interpreted from the retelling of Peter Pan from Beasts and Beauty or something I heard about a particular view on children, being bloodthirsty, backstabbing, demanding retribution, being uncivilized and wild without any parental or societal influence to form their morals in a vast, isolated wilderness, in a world that isn’t ruled by the tyranny of adulthood. Although, this idea may actually belong to J. M. Barrie. Soman probably draws from it. I've never read the original Peter Pan, so I wouldn't know.

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.

SGE Prequel Characters as Mythical Things:

Marialena: eye of newt from Macbeth

Vulcan: wool of bat from Macbeth

Pan: finger of birth-strangled babe from Macbeth

Rafal: the water of life from the fairy tale "The Water of Life"

Rise Rhian: unicorn horn (allegedly has healing properties, can purify water)

Fall Rhian: crocodile tears (symbol of hypocrisy)

Midas: pure spun gold from "Rumpelstiltskin"

Hook: snakeskin cloak

Aladdin: snake oil cure-all (a scam tonic or liniment)

Kyma: the diamonds from the fairy tale "Toads and Diamonds"

The Storian: monkey's paw (or in context, Wish Fish eggs)

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Does anyone disagree or have other ideas?

CONSIDER: Shadows and Light

The Symbolism Surrounding Rhian, Rafal, and the Pan

Fun fact: Under certain conditions, a flame will not cast a shadow.

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As we saw in Rise, Rhian could turn into a golden glow, turn into light, his non-human form, just as Rafal could turn into a shadow.

And those facts bring me to how the Pan subplot and the brothers' main plot might parallel each other more than we may think.

That Hook had to kill the Pan’s shadow was probably no accident. It likely couldn't have been a coincidence—it has to be a casual quality of the magic system in SGE and Peter Pan lore in general, no doubt.

So, we have: killing the shadow (the Pan's or symbolically, Rafal himself).

Rhian killed the shadow to his light.

And besides, an excess of light eradicates all shadows, and fire, specifically, can cast very distorted shadows because it's always in motion, and therefore, it's restless. This could mean fire as a light source could affect the shadow's "power," its appearance, just as Rhian, like a fairy-tale Nemesis (perhaps?), might have weakened Rafal as Rhian became stronger, and that Rhian had been a force that changed or warped Rafal as a person, while also becoming colder himself. Meanwhile, Rafal's hair curled slightly and he gained more color and warmth to his complexion towards the climax of their tale.

I wonder if, in getting his magic back from Hook when it was released, Rhian had been further corrupted or overpowered enough, to overpower Rafal (while, all the while, the Storian had been stripping Rafal of the magic he held) because it didn’t dissipate by itself, with the loss of his immortality(?). Hook could have been acting like a temporary storage unit for that magic, until it returned, meaning the Storian may not have been able to rescind it from Rhian directly.

(And did Kyma release Rhian's magic when it was transferred to her? Or did it just disappear/dissolve without returning to its owner?)

Then, we can ask ourselves: what was the only move that could kill Pan? Somehow, magically killing his shadow. His life source. The apparent source of his immortality.

And, Rhian killing the source of his former immortality (his brother, and as a result, their bond along with Rafal's death)? Well, that’s killing a shadow, too.

Thus, the two plots line up exactly.

Rafal was once Rhian's shadow, in a sense, the person who stayed by him, who saved him again and again. Thus, Rhian destroyed himself, to an extent, by killing that shadow. He not only killed his life source, the love that kept him alive, by severing the twins' bond, but lost a part of his identity when he killed Rafal. Thus, he ages. Like the Pan as he died, Rhian was no longer a perpetual youth, no longer a young "lost boy."

And sometimes, Rhian's shadow strayed too far and left him (Rafal deserting the School at the start), just as Pan’s shadow isn’t always right by the Pan himself. The Pan's shadow had a life and will of its own, seemingly, like Rafal did.

Rafal getting his own life, by venturing out, beyond the School, was one step away from having his identity always tied to Rhian. Maybe, just maybe, Rafal wasn't inseparable, inconceivable without Rhian (the light source), his other half. But, Rafal always did revolve around Rhian (when Rafal had his few, less selfish moments). Because, he simply can’t be brought up or thought of alone, at least not in the tales, in their world. One brother's presence always summons the other's to mind, when you talk about them. That’s how locked together, how insoluble their combined identity was, or plural roles were. The shadow was tethered to his object. They can’t be torn apart, not even in memory, which makes the nature of the tales themselves all the more reductive, dehumanizing, even.

An addendum to my last post:

Perhaps, Rafal should've been the light, not the shadow (even if he was the "Evil" that was killed by the end of it all, as Rhian characterized, or rather, misrepresented him to the Kingdom Council), given this from the start of Fall:

This is what the Storian told the last Pan School Master.

Somehow, this (characterizing the Evil as the dark, as the shadow only ever in relation to the light, and the Good as the actual soul, not a reflection, but able to exist separately on its own) is spun on its head here: the light (or alternatively, the object with substance and matter to it, not an insubstantial shade, not a projection, not a dark mirror, that casts the shadow) (Rhian) becomes/was Evil.

Rhian gets his own life, sort of. He's "freed," in a sense, unfettered mentally, not bound by the Rules of Good anymore.

In contrast, Rafal continues to revolve around Rhian, not always in the same way, not necessarily in the role of protector anymore—it's more like keeping tabs on Rhian, with the espionage plot bits—and his being obsessed with regaining his power/becoming the One. And, as Rafal becomes Good, he's more and more constrained in what he can do (about anything, for that matter). He was newly bound, shackled to conventional morality and the Rules.

(This particular line of thought also happens to recall Sophie's "Get your own life!" speech to Agatha in book one, about how Evil has to ruin others' tales because it doesn't/cannot have tales of its own.)

(Then again, the parallel plots work best as they are, with the shadow dead. So, I wouldn't necessarily make Rafal the light either. He just had become more reactive than active by a certain point, unfortunately.)

Plus, it's also bizarre, how, for once, I'm characterizing Rafal as the "dependent" one, in a symbolic sense. (Usually, that role automatically goes to Rhian.) Yet ultimately, there would be no story or conflict without Rhian, the "restless soul," and the energy he brings to everything that had been static before.

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In case anyone would be interested in this second part, I'll tag those from the last post:

@deadlynightshadeunderthestars @anobody277642 @rosellemoon @harmonyverendez @discjude @joeykeehl256 @2xraequalstorara @wisteriaum

(You can let me know if I missed adding anyone!)

Uh Oh: The Third Person Omniscient Narrator Of Your Life Just Started Repeating The Opening Paragraphs Verbatim

See the reblog for the second poll.