gloomverse-theories

[gloomverse-theories]

(Cross sending this from the gloomverse comic page 42)

So I was rereading and saw people wondering about what the lemon guy was reporting about Harold being at 'risk' of something.

I think it has to do with how Wallis got upset and everything went haywire with the space theming and zero-gravity Because the lemon guy says that after talking, the lowering of Harold's 'unease and guilt' means his risk is almost zero. That means his risk is tied to heightened and stressful emotions. Like what Wallis felt when he thought Petunia's wand broke. So I think Wallis hit that level of 'risk', and with that, Amadeus/Hobo got VERY worried about if it would happen to Harold too, so that's why he was checking in.

just thought it was worth sending in!

Pages for context:

(Page 11 of chapter 27 "Midnight", and page 24 of chapter 13 "The Vanishing Act")

Very likely! It seems magic is influenced by your emotional state if Wallis is anything to go by, and with the special situation of Harold's magic, it could have potentially disastrous effect! Also you can see the Lemon Kids being ""distracting"" when Harold is at a low point in this page too (page 13-14 of chapter 17 "The Waking World") 👀

[gloomverse-theories]

Bait and Switch

In most of our theories, we rely on the assumption that Amadeus Gloom (aka Mooching Hobo aka the Dark Overlord) is the same person as the dark figure that Rylie sees in her dreams and who (seemingly) murder Prisma and her Colors friends.

But what if... it was not the case?

We do not know much about Amadeus’s past, besides the fact that he is an only child according to the printed version’s bonus chapter. We know he has a sketchy past, impressive shadow (and candy) powers, and that he was somehow part of what happened in the ruins. Since he’s called the dark overlord by the lemon kids, we all concluded that he and the shadowy figure from Rylie’s dream were the same person.

However, Yellow never finished her sentence, did she? Was she calling for Ama-deus? Or perhaps Ama-ryllis? We do not know! There’s still the theory that those two are one and the same, going by different names at different times. 

But a more interesting possibility is that she was calling for Amaryllis, and that the actual Amadeus was the child she carried in her arms.

Unthinkable? Well let me change your mind! 

Light and Dark

In most myths as well as popular thinking, Light and Dark are two sides of the same coin. One can not exist without the other, they depend on one another. They’re similar yet they’re opposed. This duality is often portrayed as Light and Dark being linked, with their embodiment being related to one another or having some kind of counterpart. From how much she’s glowing, to her white and gold attire, it’s kind of obvious that Prisma is the Light one. Alright, who is the Dark one if not Amadeus the Dark Overlord? 

It’s Rylie. 

Yeah you read that right.

Light and Dark are Linked. Prisma and Rylie are linked. They look like each other, but they’re two distinct individuals. 

After all, Rylie has had many “dark” foreshadowing. She has (had) the look too! Black hair, eyes that appear either black or red, powerful and mysterious magic, and a dream that keeps going back to that one moment where the Shadow Figure does something to Prisma....

Not only that, but her dreams can only be from the “perspective” of the shadow Mancer. Prisma gets eeby deebied before the end and Yellow arrives late. No one is witness to the whole event, except the perpetrator. 

The Motive(s)

With this theory, I’m also uncovering a motive for the dark figure. If Prisma and them are linked, possibly siblings or even twins, the motive can be jealousy, resentment even. Prisma was by all standards the golden child. Powerful, beloved, and offered to lead a country! She’s clad in golds and nice fabrics, while “Ama” is in rags and bandages. Kept in the shadows. It would feel unfair. What would you want then, to set things "right"?

It also adds a nice parallel of blood family feud (Prisma and "Ama") vs found family friendship (Rylie and Wallis + Harold) if they are related. 

This also explains Why Yellow wants Rylie dead! She may look like Prisma, but she isn’t. She’s her “murderer”. Yellow wants revenge! Maybe she believes it will bring back Prisma? After all, she seems trapped in Rylie’s psyche.

Speaking of, why is Prisma so nice to Rylie if what I said is true? Well that’s easy: Rylie is not her past, she’s not that dark figure. She grew up like a normal kid, perhaps under Prisma’s watch, and she just wants to live her life. Like Purple isn’t Violet, Rylie isn’t that dark figure, even if they share characteristics.

What about Amadeus?

I’ve covered who the dark figure is, if not Amadeus. That’s great, but where does Amadeus fit in then? In Midnight, he seemed to recognise the place and he swore that it would “never happen again”.

It’s a popular belief that a murderer will come back to the scene of the crime, and that’s exactly what Amadeus does in this chapter. His demeanor in this whole scene can be read as someone wracked with guilt and regrets coming back to the place of their biggest mistake, BUT it can also be read as the victim coming back to where they lost everything. He looks sad, almost nostalgic, but he’s trembling. He’s afraid. This is a place of trauma for him, no matter how you read it.

Another point is that Petunia is in the know. I’m not one to judge relationships, but it would be a pretty big deal breaker for anyone to find out your hubbie has been involved in mass murder. And left your family because he was haunted by his past. Granted, Petunia is more wild than she appears, but I still think Amadeus would need a really really solid reason for why he did what he did.

Currently, we have no clue. No obvious motives. No signs that Prisma deserved her fate. Her recent appearance shows her as a lovely person and a concerned friend, not someone rotten from the inside that needed to be stopped for the greater good. 

So, is it more believable that Amadeus is indeed akin to a serial murderer, or that he was one of the victims? 

Finally, Amadeus is an only child. That’s mentioned despite barely being relevant, so I call Chekhov’s gun on that! Yellow had One child. The emphasis on the baby is strong, but we don’t know what its deal is. We don’t even know if it survived after that day. So, what if that baby was Amadeus? They even have matching skin color! 

The Flaw

Finally, I would like to bring up the one thing that breaks this whole theory: Pi.

We learn from him that the hair and eye color of people with ecoversian lineage tend to be green. If Amadeus is really Yellow’s kid, then he would have at least been born with green hair and eyes. Petunia’s eyes are green. Both Harold and Wallis have blue eyes. My theory crumbles on that point because of PI. 

TL;DR:

Instead of Amadeus being the one to off Prisma, it's someone else. Rylie takes after them and after Prisma. Amadeus has done nothing wrong, no murders, and is as much a victim as Prisma is, because he was Yellow's child. Yellow wants revenge, and she can get it by killing Rylie.

This is probably one of my most out there theory, but the idea is still fun! Tell me what you think!

[gloomverse-theories]

As far as I know it hasn’t been confirmed anywhere but how old were Wallis and Harold when Papa Hobo left them? He said they don’t remember him during the present moment so they must’ve been pretty young but Seaweed also said that Wallis has daddy issues so he must at least remember something if Harold doesn’t, any thoughts or guesses?

It's younger than however old they are in this panel

(Damage Done)

So they were elementary schoolers or younger!

My personal guess would Harold being too young to remember much of anything while Wallis has some memories. Maybe 5 and 8 years old?

Oh, and. Considering that Wallis is scared of storms... perhaps their dad left a stormy night, too.

[gloomverse-theories]

About Rylie’s Red Magic

Rylie getting magic was possibly one of the most awaited moments in the comic, and the way it happened was incredibly impactful. A hat, emerging from her shadow in a time of need, hidden so close yet so far from her reach. And her magic was the cherry on top of this terrible cake tragedy! Color-coded super abilities definitely makes her magic stand out, but when talking about it, there’s always this question:

What will Red do?

And until it’s answered in the comic (or not), we have a lot of room to explore! 

But first, let’s go over

Magic Personalities

What is that, you ask? Why, it is conveniently explained in Purple’s “How Magic Work” bonus strip! But knock-off Purple here explains it decently too.

The magic that you get is dependent on your interests, your biggest one, unless you’re really into rule-breaking things like the human body or cats. The type of magic you got is then fixed forever, and you have to live with the consequences of being really into marbles at age 10. Not everyone of us fixate on something cool like space, WALLIS. 

Going back to Rylie. What WAS Rylie’s biggest interest at the time? What we know about Rylie is that she likes black and edgy/rebellious fashion, but is also cursed with rainbow dreads. That’s a solid contender, since her magic is based on colors. Looking at her room, she likes skull motifs, ponies, anime, and plushies.

A bit less relevant to her magic, although it is very anime magic. And finally, when she was in the hat store, dreaming up of what her magic could be, it was the power to jump as high as building, a nice foreshadowing and a sign that she did want that!

But let’s look deeper.

Assistant’s biggest desire was to belong, and the Gloom filled it and made her feel like family. 

She got her hat when they were all in danger of death. 

She got her magic pleading for a way to save them.

And the magic answered. 

So I think the conditions in which she got her hat possibly influenced her magic!

Blue and Yellow Magic

Before going over the possibilities for red magic, let’s see what common points we can find between the two revealed power ups. 

The most obvious thing is that they are color themed, in case you hadn’t noticed, and correspond to the rainbow (blue - yellow - red) on her wand (which is where we get the red for her next magic). She starts by saying the color out loud, but later manages to switch without speaking. 

Both of her powers manifest as clothes: a pair of boots and a pair of gloves, and give her superhuman abilities, like lifting giant rocks and jumping very high. 

So now we have the blueprint of her future magic: themed after a color (most likely red), wearable as clothes on her body, and providing Rylie with superpowered abilities. 

I want to add that it should also respect the three rules of magic, but it’s a bit late for that, isn’t it.

Telekinesis

Let’s start with something silly. Rylie has been shown a few times to be interested in ponies. She has an Unicron poster in her new room, and a twilight plushie in her old room.

Ponies are a longstanding interest of hers, and magic is based on interests! Most My Little Pony iterations have 3 main types of ponies: earth pony, pegasus, and unicorns. 

Earth ponies are strong, and are shown to give stronger bucks/kicks than others. Rylie uses Yellow magic to punch people into the air. 

Pegasus ponies can fly around and walk on clouds. Rylie uses Blue magic to jump around and almost fly (though the only time she sinks into a cloud is when she’s wearing her boots in her dream, but that’s the trauma). 

Unicorn ponies are overpowered and can make incredibly complex spells, but the most commonly used one is telekinesis. In this theory, Red would allow Rylie to move objects from a distance (like Wallis can already do!), and the article of clothing could be anything, from a differently shaped wand she can point at stuff, to a headset with horns. Who knows! 

Senses

Rylie’s magic has a running theme of splitting her wand into two parts: pair of gloves for her two hands and pair of boots for her- ah, nevermind that.

But do you know what else comes in two? Kidneys! Lungs! Ears! Eyes! I think I’m safe to discard the first two since they are inside, but eyes and ears make for good contenders. If Yellow gloves boost her strength, why not Red goggles that improve her eyesight? Perhaps a full headset to improve both hearing and seeing! That may not be as exciting as jumping around, but it is definitely useful in a situation where discretion matters (like Virga hunting the group down). 

Wings

Something really interesting about the Yellow magic is that the hat STILL has a little wing as a decoration on it! It made sense for Blue since winged shoes have been a thing for thousands of years (Hermes’ winged sandals) and it grants her the power to almost “fly” when she jumps, but why keep the wing on her hat when she has punching gloves? Because it’s not any kind of punch. It’s an AIR-punch! That sends Cakegirl FLYING! Interesting!

Rylie does have a lot of connections to clouds and sky, for someone who takes after a Light-themed mancer, does she not? That’s why I argue that Red could be a pair of wings, either as a cape or fixed to her arms. While that could seem redundant with her jumping boots, it could also go well with it, allowing her to glide instead of falling immediately back down. That would be a useful mid-air shift, or a good way to not die when plummeting towards the ocean from a height that transforms water surface into deadly concrete, as a random example. 

Freeze

Finally, my main theory. There is another theme that I noticed between Yellow and Blue magic: Fight or Flight response. Yellow is Fight, Blue is Flight. It’s the possible reaction to a threat: you either run away and escape the threat, or you attack the threat and dispose of it. Rylie got her magic during a very active threat to her wellbeing and her friends’, and she pleaded for a way to save them. Magic answered by enhancing her ability to flee and to fight!

But there is a third (and fourth) response to a threat: freezing behavior, to become rigid and petrified in place. Red would be the magic’s “freezing” response, and allow Rylie to block a direct attack, through a shield or armor, and overall make her be able to tank and sustain damage. While not as showy as the other two colors, and definitely harder to turn into an asset for her own magic show, the theme of the three stress responses makes me really like this option.

The fourth response is fawning, but it is not as easy to translate into a magic power up as freeze. 

Something else

I’m no wizard, and the future is as clouded to me as it is to you. Red magic could be either or none of these options. Perhaps it enhances something else, like her speed, or gives her more ranged powers, like a whip or a bow, perhaps it’s dual swords because it would be cool! Maybe it will come up in a moment where Rylie experiments with her magic while everything is calm, or maybe it will be something that helps Rylie in a dire moment, summoned from instinct. Who knows! But it is fun to speculate, and I hope you had fun too. 

There is however one last possibility.

We will never know what Red magic does, if Rylie never tries it.

After all this time, all those nightmares, the color Red may not be the most enticing color to try with magic. Something about an evil magician with red eyes and a red wand. 

Why try RED, when there’s so many other colors to try from? Perhaps Green will be a combination of Blue and Yellow, or an entirely new ability! The Green lady seemed so much nicer than the Red figure obliterating her. 

So those were my thoughts on Rylie’s magic! 

TL;DR

Magic is based on personal interest

Rylie got hers in a moment of trauma 

Her magic consist of ability-enhancing color-coded accessories

Possible options for red magic power-up:

Telekinesis as a nod to Rylie’s brony phase

Enhanced vision/hearing to pair with her other enhanced abilities

Wings because of the air-theme and little wing decorations

A shield/armor as a freezing response to go with the current two’s fight or flight theme 

Something else

We will never find out because of Rylie’s trauma with red tinted magic

[gloomverse-theories]

Hello there it's been a while

We've decided to fill out a meme... 👀

Gloomverse belongs to @loverofpiggies but the fan insanity is ours

(Positions in the graph reflect the opinion of One server member and may vary on an individual basis within the fandom)

Blank template under the cut!

[gloomverse-theories]

How Cirrus’ childish behaviour is symptomatic of the problems in stratoversian society

Stratoverse is a foreign country with a culture still clouded in mystery, but we were given snippets into its inner working thanks to Indigo, Virga, Nim and Cirrus. So far, all of the stratoversian with screentime displayed various levels of immaturity, more or less subtly. Before I can dive into those, let’s define something.

What is Maturity?

“Maturity” is a buzzword that gets thrown around, but people would be hard pressed to give it a clear definition. How do you define maturity? It’s the state of being mature, says one dictionary, proving its uselessness. Maturity is being an adult, but Cirrus insisting that “he is an adult so you can’t make him do anything” is ironically a big sign of immaturity.

Being mature is a list of behaviours, such as:

Managing your own emotions

Recognizing other people’s emotions

Taking responsibility for your actions

Establishing your boundaries and respecting other’s

Being able to apologise

Being able to handle failure, rejection, or being wrong

Being open-minded

Maturity is not only a virtue, but also a skill. It’s one that is expected out of adults and even older teens, but no one is perfect, no one is mature at all times. Being mature is hard work, being responsible is difficult, admitting you were wrong can seem impossible, but it’s still something everyone needs to strive to in order to live in society. It becomes a problem if the moments of immaturity outweigh the moments of maturity. It becomes an even bigger problem when you give someone like that power.

The thing about power is that you can ignore your responsibilities if you have enough (sorry Uncle Ben), and Stratoversian society is built on power.

Let’s take a look at Cirrus, as he is the prime example of an immature Stratoversian

Cirrus’ immaturity

Our first impression of Cirrus is that of a stuck-up jerk who belittles people for something as trivial as wearing shoes. Our second impression of Cirrus is that of a man-child giving himself a headache after throwing the aforementioned tantrum. It is not a brilliant introduction, he is made to be unlikeable, so unlikeable that even the one character he interacts with is glad to see him gone.

From the get-go, he demonstrates that

1. He is not able to manage his emotions and even hurts himself with how he expresses them

2. He does not recognize he was wrong for getting angry or apologises, instead he “ignores” her “disgrace” for a moment

3. He does not respect the president’s order to stay out of Gloomverse, showing that he does not care for the consequences of his actions and does not take responsibility for them

4. He is very close minded of anything outside of Stratoversian norms

And that’s just from his first appearance! Without even mentioning his catastrophic rapport to Nim!

In his second appearance, Purple aptly remarks that Cirrus “act like a five year old”, and he is right.

Cirrus insists on coming with Nim to Wallis’ show, claiming interest in the culture. He promised to behave, but forced Nim in a position where she had to accept his demand or risk having him show up without being supervised. Fast-forward to the time of the show, and all of his previous claims fall through. He is still belittling the culture and Nim needs to remind him of the very real consequences for Her in order to get him to settle down. The show starts, Seaweed shows up, and Cirrus gets a teenager crush, and proves once again what little handle he has on his emotions. Cakegirl arrives, and Cirrus does his good action of the day by saving Harold from a fall to the death.

When the world conference rolls around, Cirrus spent three weeks in jail, and it did not teach him anything. He finally crosses the line with Nim and gets an overdue call out on his behaviour. She establishes some very clear boundaries here. She’s tired of babysitting him! Unfortunately, this does not stick, because Cirrus follows her back to the ruins. He literally has no valid reason for doing this. What’s more, we have yet to hear a single apology from this guy.

Then, the Beach Episode comes. Cirrus does not miss the opportunity to show off his wonderful temper. But we get a little more this time, we get a crack. For the first time, he manages to keep a straight face as he recites a law of Stratoverse. This happens once again in A Day on the Town when cirrus talks about his fathers’ ranch. You can tell it’s a sore topic because he remains emotionless.  After all his exuberant display of outrage, this is the one topic where he doesn’t allow himself to feel anything.

And we will unpack that later!

Indigo as a parallel

Indigo doesn’t get revealed as Stratoversian right away. He’s a working DJ, he’s the president’s personal hitman, he’s a delusional playboy… He is a lot of things, depending on what he needs! Overall, Indigo is selfish. He does not care what others are going through, or the consequences of his actions on them as long as he comes out unscathed.

Contrarily to Cirrus, Indigo has his emotions in check. He does not care about what other people do if it doesn’t affect him, while Cirrus gets introduced by yelling at Nim for touching the ground. Indigo is smiling most times and even if he is an “open book”, his emotions are not the burden of others. That is, unless you press a sensitive point, like his sense of self. On the other hand, Cirrus’ temper is something everyone else has to deal with and tip toe around. The only time when he can keep it together is when it’s something he’s sensitive about.

Where Cirrus shuts down, Indigo flares up, and so they make for interesting parallels.

Indigo’s immaturity is different from Cirrus, because they had different lives, but the root of the problem is once again Stratoverse. Thanks to Indigo, we got context for Stratoversian childhood and expectations. And it’s pretty terrible.

Let’s talk about it!

Cirrus’ childhood

Stratoverse has some kind of incentive to make every citizen gain weather magic. The reason why is still a mystery and worthy of plenty of theories, but it is not today’s focus.

Indigo explains pretty well how this happens. Children are separated from their families, given to caretakers and taught about the weather cycle. Nim mentions that she got “floated” a lot as a kid, so it’s not a full no-contact situation - at least not for everyone - but it’s still rather isolating. Indigo tells us that he “wanted to live in the sky with [his] parents”, and so did most other kids.

Cirrus is an exception though, because his fathers live on the mainland in a ranch. They do not have magic and they can’t live in the cloud city. There’s no one waiting for Cirrus in the clouds. When other children finally regroup with their family upon getting magic, Cirrus would be leaving his behind forever. As he loves to remind people, it’s shameful to touch the ground. He still holds them dear in his heart, as shown when he punched the president for badmouthing magicless people, or when he almost cracked after Rylie’s question. Nevertheless, it still got ingrained in him that he should be ashamed of his origins, from how meek he was when talking about his dads’ ranch. Stratoversian propaganda is very effective if it can convince a country kid that a leaf is actually disgusting and touching the ground a disgrace.

Cirrus is powerful, he probably got magic early on. Let’s say 12 years old. From that age on, he grew up with no parents, no guardians, no caretakers. It’s during teenage years that people learn to be mature, to manage their emotions, to handle conflict and to respect others. They can either learn it in school, from teachers or peers, or from their family. Cirrus had neither. He can’t go to his family and he doesn’t have any friends if his attachment to Nim is anything to go by.

Speaking of, let’s focus on Nim and Cirrus for a little bit now.

Cirrus’ attachment to Nim

Cirrus and Nim are both grown adult, and they’re both royalties. They’re not siblings however, and don’t know much about each other. For all due purposes, they are colleagues. Cirrus seems to have some years of anteriority over Nim, but other than that they’re equals. They have no need to interact, and Nim would even prefer if they didn’t. Despite that, Cirrus clings to her with force. We know from Virga that the trip back and forth to Gloomverse takes a full day. Cirrus come visit her multiple times, and his first visit (that we know of) lasted less than an hour. He clearly doesn’t approve of what Nim is doing, but that doesn’t stop him from checking up on her.

Why?

Because he is a fucking desperate for a human connection, except he has no clue how to go about it, so he clings to the only proper relationship he has in his life: his royal colleague!

He can’t turn to Virga because she’s already proven herself to be unsafe by punching him and making fun of his ideas, and he can’t be around the king because everyone expects him to dethrone (and kill) him, so Nim is the only one he has left. She’s also polite and nice enough to tolerate him, and he takes it as the greenlight to be even more clingy. He’s unconsciously forcing her to mom him, and she has to be responsible for the two of them.

Nim is stuck trying to appease him and maintain a cordial relationship because her own situation is unprecedented and precarious, and there’s a high chance he could jeopardize her passports and permits if she actually spoke her mind! At the world conference, she finally speak up because she literally has nothing to lose. She spent three weeks in jail because of her association with Cirrus, and her passports and permits to study have been thrown out the window. So when he belittles her and her interests, she snaps, because she can.

Their relationship is not a balanced one, but it’s progressively becoming better. Now that nothing is at stakes, she can be honest and actually tell him off, which she does!

Royal Responsibilities

You may have already read a few pieces about it (like this rant), but the prince and princess titles doesn’t seem to come with a lot of responsibilities. It seems that only the king and queen can make any meaningful decisions, and the prince and princess’ role is to support those decisions.

Cirrus is interested in making life better for the magicless. He has family at stake even. Yet he is shown running away from any responsibilities he might have in Stratoverse to follow Nim, and aggravating the tense relationship between Gloomverse and Stratoverse by punching the president. It’s not really his fault though, because that’s the way Stratoverse’s society is built: the most powerful have the most power, and the ones with power can do what they want because they’re powerful. You don’t agree with a political decision? Duke it out with the politician. Someone made a mistake? Punch them to teach them a lesson. That’s what he learned, that’s what he does.

And what he does is selfish and immature, because that’s what the system thrives on. People are encouraged to remain immature, to act on instinct, to punch the people they don’t like, to be selfish and not think of others. The system relies on Stratoversian being too busy fighting to survive, too selfish and immature to give a damn what others are going through. It keeps people from organizing and rebelling. It keeps the system going.

Summary

This went in a different direction than what I thought it would. Here’s a summary:

Stratoversians, especially Cirrus, have been regularly characterised by their immaturity – especially when it comes to handling their emotions. They resort to show of force, they establish dominance with their magic, their bodies, their voice. Even Indigo resort to it when pushed to the brink. The way children are raised in Stratoverse often leads to immature adults because of a lack of appropriate education and doing the equivalent of giving a teenager a gun. Stratoverse culture is one of power, where rationality is dismissed in favour of strength. This keep people from trying to change the system: the people in power benefits from it, and if someone were to try and change things, a punch in the face will put a stop to it.

Cirrus is a product of that society: immature, impulsive, careless, and full of prejudice. So were Nim and Indigo, and they’re all on a journey to unlearn those things, albeit at different speeds.

[gloomverse-theories]

How old is Indigo?

Yep, we're doing this.

So what do we know about Indigo's life? Well actually quite a lot! Thanks to Ylil, we got to learn a lot about this guy's life.

Firstly, Indigo is definitely over 18, I think we can all agree the manchild is indeed an adult. I'm not going to need proof to convince you all of that fact, hopefully.

Indigo spent his childhood in Stratoverse, specifically on the land of awareness. There, he was taught all about clouds and weather, until he eventually got magic.

He left right after getting magic, or at least it's implied that he did, as turning Indigo drove him over the edge and really affected his self worth, possibly due to increased bullying. He even says it outright that being Indigo was a reason for "being laughed out of [his] own country"

So he left after getting magic! Which should be around 12 years old, probably ranging from 10 to 15. Stratoversian being more powerful in general, and Indigo not being shown as weaker than average, we can deduce that he got his magic at around that age, and not later. He may just have left without magic and died at sea if he hadn't got his magic at the same time as his peers.

Alright, that's great and all, but for now all I've established is that Indigo left Stratoverse as a young teen and is now older than 18 in gloomverse. How is that theorizing about his age?? Is what you may ask.

Worry not, dear reader, for I have just the thing:

Queen Virga of Stratoverse, current strongest magician in the world.

How does she relate to Indigo you ask? Well...

Indigo doesn't recognize her.

That's pretty telling actually. And given Indigo's track record, it seems improbable that he is feinging ignorance to seems inconspicuous. Possible, but not probable. So the rest of that theory lays on Indigo being too dumb to pretend to be dumb.

Anyway

Why is it important that Indigo doesn't recognize her? Well as a stratoversian, Indigo was given classes about Stratoverse and weather. Since the country relies on brainwashing the kids to love their country and clouds, knowing WHO the (current) queen is and what she looks like sounds important. I know Indigo right now isn't a model student, but in the past he just might have been! He tried hard to belong, and the stuff you learn as a kid isn't so easily washed away.

Hence this: Virga wasn't the queen at the time that Indigo lived in Stratoverse.

That's cool and all, but now we have the same problem as with Indigo: How old is Virga???

Well, she's actually easier to figure out.

I'm going to assume Stratoverse/Yellow is reasonable enough not to let children be in charge, and that a person needs to be 18 or older to fight for the royalty's titles.

I mean, the last time they did, bad things happened...

Prisma was considered to all, as a respectable, and beautiful magician, and she took the job at a surprisingly young age. The exact age is unknown, except that she was 'nearly an adult' when she came into power.

So, Virga is older than 18. yay

But she has been in office for quite some time now! At the very least three years if the world leaders' meeting is every year. More if it's espaced of two, three, etc, years. Since the conference takes a couple of weeks, it would make sense if it wasn't yearly.

Cirrus, having no reason to be present unless it's a former meeting, punched prez during a conference. Virga mentions it was forever ago, which could be just smack talk, or hint that it wasn't even during the last conference. Nim is a "better choice than the last", so she wasn't there at the previous conference, and the last princess was 'chosen' by Virga, aka came into the position while Virga was already queen.

She's at least 21 if the conference is every year and she became queen at 18. That's the lowest age possible for her.

But Virga has very strong mommy energy, as seen here:

I'm not saying those children are her own, but she definitely watched them grow up, so we can add a +10 years to her counter. 28 years old as a bare minimum.

Alright! It's safe to say Virga is at least 28 years old, in the best case scenario. In a more realistic one, she would have took the princess title at 20 and the queen title a bit later, she seems to be quite experienced too, so let's say she's in her middle-end thirties.

However there's a very important piece of information I haven't considered yet...

Stratoversian can live older than average, and look fresh even in old age (just look at the king who's supposedly at least 80 years old!!). So despite looking rather young, Virga could actually be in her 60s and we would have no idea.

Back to Indigo! Comparing him to Virga leaves us a couple options!

Indigo is the same age as Virga

I'll consider "same age" with a 2 years margin.

While it adds Angst to think Virga was one of his bullies, I think it's more likely that they never met each other. Stratoverse is still a big country, it's unlikely everyone knows everyone (Nim and Cirrus didn't know each other as children for example). Being the same age as Virga, Indigo's age is ranging from 26 to 40.

Indigo is older than Virga

Oh man, he's old in that case... Older than 30 at the VERY LEAST! Because Virga being 28 is the best possible scenario.

Indigo is younger than Virga

This one is actually very interesting... Because it means Virga wasn't queen when Indigo was still in stratoverse. If she took the throne at 18 and Indigo left at 12.... Then their age gap can only be 6 years. Otherwise, Virga would be queen before Indigo leaves. Of course, the later Virga takes the throne, the larger the age gap can be. Taking the throne at 24 means Indigo can be 12 years younger, and so and so....

So in this scenario, Indigo's age remain unclear.... Yet this is the most likely scenario.

It really all depends on Virga's age tho... The best guess for her age being late thirties, I think it's safe to assume — after everything I've presented you — that Indigo himself is in his early thirties.

TL;DR: Indigo is at least 30 yo and this post has been in my drafts for almost 2 years now.

[gloomverse-theories]

How tall are the ruins?

Not as tall as I thought, for sure!

If we're to trust those images, the temple is about 11.5 doors tall. I'm assuming Rylie is average height, so the door would be 2 meters tall.

Meaning the temple would be 23 meters tall! That's about 75 feet.

So really not that tall.

Which makes sense! A taller tubular shape would Not have whistood for 1000 years. It would have fallen down. That's why the tallest oldest building we know are pyramid shaped! It's so much more stable and sturdy.

[gloomverse-theories]

All for One

or Prisma is a thief of light.

This theory is a bit silly and doesn’t have much proof, mostly because Prisma doesn’t have much screentime! However, that won’t stop me from writing this theory.

Before I explain what I mean, let’s start by going over the basics!

Every human in this magical world is born with a certain “magical potential” that can range from None to Enormous. As Purple puts it,

Each magician, has a different amount of potential. Some magicians can do a lot of magic in a day, and others can do very little. [...], the magician doing the magic is still extending some of their own energy into every trick they do.

Some people simply have more magical energy then others, and that is this magical potential.

Which means that in order to become a Mancer, a magician must be born with a high potential.

Or so you would think.

I have reasons to believe that Prisma wasn’t actually born with the potential of a Mancer. Let’s go over the evidence, shall we?

Sharing Magic

As my first witness, I call Harold Gloom to the bar. Harold is a very special case, because his hat, and therefore his magic, is not his own. As consequences, his hair turned black, and his eyes turned red. Now, THAT’s interesting!

There are many things of interest for my cause here.

The Dark Overlord can grant “hats” and magic to people

That magic relates to his own personality, since Hobo loves candy and Harold has candy magic

There’s an external marker (black hair, red eyes) when your magic is not your own

Harold is also never seen with a wand, meaning his magic is not really “complete”

However, this may have weakened Amadeus. Petunia implies he can change his appearance, but he hasn’t done so in a while. How long? Perhaps, ever since Harold got his magic, at 17. He’s in his mid twenties now, so thats 5-7 years.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? When you share a limited ressource, you get less for yourself. And so, by sharing magic with Harold, Amadeus “lost” some of his potential.

In summary: Sharing Magic with someone is possible, but it has consequences for both parties.

The Magic of the Colors

As said before, when someone messes with your magic in an unnatural way, there’s an external marker. For Harold, it was black hair and red eyes. For the Colors? It’s their entire body.

Their cases is very peculiar though, and almost completely different from Harold, so the link isn’t obvious. However, I think the hidden cause is the same. Someone messed with their magic! And that someone is obviously Prisma. The Colors were her “servants” and she is implied to have “made” them this way. For unknown reason, this color change repeated itself after (each?) generations.

That’s neat, but... apart from the aesthetic, why would Prisma do that? And what exactly did she do? Did she grant them magic, like Amadeus did for Harold?

Well, no.

All the colors changed when they got their magic. So we know one thing: all the colors have the potential for magic in them. Even an inversian, someone with extremely low chances of getting magic, turned Orange. Someone with no potential, so no magic, could never become a color.

However, none of the Original Colors have shown signs that they’re able to use magic. Green and Violet are only seen a short time, but they do not have any kind of hats or wands, while Prisma and the dark lord are both shown with a staff/wand. The same is true for Yellow. There’s nothing in her room that could be a hat or wand. This may just be an unfortunate coincidence, but until it get disproven, it just adds to my theory.

The colors that Prisma originally “created” can’t use their magic.

And as a fun note, the chapter that finally introduce us to Prisma, Violet and Green is titled “Less Than Humans”. This is a phrase used to describe magicless humans in the past. People that can’t use their magic.

The dominating belief, was that magicless humans were 'less then human' and therefore deserved the terrible treatment. This is obviously false, [...]

There’s a lot to be said about the colors, tbh. The fact that they convert the colors of everything they touch imply that they are leaking magic out of every pore of their body. Perhaps because they’ve been “wired” to “share” their magic with the exterior? Magic usually needs the hat to pull energy from somewhere else, but the magic leak that colors have going on is only centered on their bodies. Their hat/wand don’t spread the color, only their body. Since the Magician’s energy is already used in regular magic use, it’s possible that their body is radiating this magical energy/potential at all time instead of keeping it inside.

Prisma the young Prodigee

In Purple’s book, we are first introduced to Prisma by this line from a letter by the contemporary queen of Stratoverse:

I have a very gifted magician in my country [...]

Later, we’re told this:

Prisma was considered to all, as a respectable, and beautiful magician

This is extremely tame compared to how Amaryllis, Malus, and Hyacinth, the first three Mancers, were presented. There is no mention that she is More Powerful than the norm, unlike the others.

Maybe because she wasn’t. Not in the beggining at least. Yet, at the end of her life, she was powerful enough to... broadcast her memories to numerous people across thousand of years. Or something. And stand up to the dark lord in a fight. Probably. We don’t really know what her powers were.

My point being, that Prisma wasn’t frightingly powerful early on like Malus or Amaryllis. She only became a “threat” later in her life, which made the Dark Lord pay her a visit.

Speaking of,

What did the Dark Lord want?

“You got what you wanted... please, spare me...”, this is how Prisma begs for her life. It’s unclear what happened, but the scene is morbid: Prisma is on her knees, surrounded by the corpses of her closest friends, while a magician drenched in darkness towers over her.

But.... what was it that they wanted? Supposedly they ‘got’ it. What is it? They are in the temple and it doesn’t seem like they ever left it, so whatever it is, is something they can get from Prisma, from the temple..... or from her friends.

There’s a lot of emphasis on the Color’s lifeless bodies! They’re impossible to miss, and very peculiar. More importantly, they were the first victims. They died before Prisma, when in all likelyhood, Prisma is the primary target, being The Mancer, The Leader, The Head of State. So why go through her servants? It doesn’t seem like they died while protecting her either.

Amadeus, our beloved dark overlord, doesn’t seem the type to kill people just for fun. This was done with purpose. The Colors had to die.

It can also be noted that the bodies are scribbled over with a light color. Not black, but white. While it can be taken as them severring, it can also be linked back to Prisma, since white seems to be her magic. Could she have been the one to do it? It’s possible that Prisma killed them herself under threat (she IS very attached to Yellow and her future baby, just saying. A deal may have been struck so that Yellow would survive if she killed the other colors herself. Perhaps by severring them purposefully, since she seems to have some control over their magic potential, and that exceeding one’s own potential is what cause severring).

Why did the Colors have to die? This is where all the build up pays off.

CONCLUSION

Unlike Amadeus, Prisma didn’t “gift” magic to the colors. Instead, she appropriated their magic potential for herself. She stole it. Each new color created, each new servant, made her more powerful than before.

She bypassed the right of limits this way, insuring that SHE wouldn’t suffer the consequences of overusing her magic, but that her servants would. The original colors can’t use their magic, because it now “belongs” to Prisma. However, the mutilation of their magic potential changed them, changed their colors. They are aways “bleeding out” magic and turning what they touch to their colors.

By stealing the magic potential of people like Hyacinth or Malus, she would have been unstoppable. Or maybe she planned to do this to all the future settlers. Out of selfish reasons, or out of careless good intentions, it’s unknown.

Killing the colors weakened Prisma. The Dark Lord “got what they wanted” because the colors died. But Prisma could always have made more. Such a dangerous power can’t be allowed. And thus she was killed. Or was she?

After all, Prisma is the new Vriska.

She’ll find a way to be relevant again.

Because she’s a Thief Of Light, and that’s what she does best!

Thank you for reading.

[gloomverse-theories]

According to this dubiously canon height chart, Indigo is a little under 6 ft

However, that's with the platform shoes AND hat.

Which means that without them, Indigo is a bit over 5 ft

We can use Ylil as a comparison too! He's shown either taller or as tall as she is

Indigo is still wearing his enormous platform shoes tho, so all the inches he has over Ylil are actually from the shoes

In conclusion, The tallest Indigo can be is 5'6" or 170cm, but he's likely smaller. So you're absolutely right

Headcanon:

Indigo is built tall but is in fact 5'0

His platforms just give him 6 inches of height

[gloomverse-theories]

Does every magician belong to one magical element or can they belong to multiple elements or non? There appears to be some really strange magic that doesn't seem to fit an element perfectly. On that note what element is Wallis' magic? Darkness? Another element? Or did he create his own element?

Magic technically isn't supposed to be element-based!

The Mancers have their own "elements" and you might be able to break down most magics into sub elements but as far as I can tell there isn't a direct correlation, because it would limit what magic could be, and the actual source of a magic personality is one's interests

Wallis has space magic not because his dad has darkness powers, but because he loved space as a kid. You could argue that his magic is a subtype of "darkness" magic, if you wanted, but that's pure speculation and nothing in the story seems to indicate that magic has to be elemental

Mod Green's Response :

The concept of elements was brought by Hyacinth after the war, to give people some grounding after everything had changed. Before that, it just wasn't a thing. If magic was based on elements, I think they would have discovered that waaay earlier, and would also teach it in school along the mystic rights. That seems like an important thing to know, or just to mention in comic.

The actual entry about the elements in Purple's book is this :

Hyacy Traditionalists believed that the world was split into five elements- Light, Sky, Seed/Soil, Water, and Darkness. Humankind belonged heavily to the 'Seed' element, which meant that humanity's place belonged exclusively on land.

Its not magic that is split into five, its the world. The sun, the sky, the land, the sea and the shadows. Things that you can see.

And IF magic is truly element based, then you probably can have magic of multiples element. Ecoversians beliefs talk about a "balance" of elements in human, so there's multiples.

Now, where does guitar magic fit into? Darkness.....? I say that everything that doesn't strictly belongs to any of the others now belong to darkness.

[gloomverse-theories]

Hypothesis: Rylie came into existence/appeared/was born around the year 2000 because of Wallis's and/or Harold's birth.

This might sound crazy, but hear me out: I think it is a little bit odd that Malus (*487) and Hyacinth (*484) were both born around the year 500. Isn’t that just too much of a coincidence? TWO (presumably) Mancers were only born three years apart. They also appear to be opposites of one another. According to Purple’s book “Malus was never born to be a leader”, but Hyacinth was. Malus was a slave, Hyacinth was a master. Malus threw Ecoverse into a state of chaos and terror and Hyacinth brought peace and order back to it. Malus demonstrated her magic to everyone, while Hyacinth kept hers hidden.

Let’s look at Prisma and Amadeus for a second: Prisma was born around the year 1000, and we don’t know Amadeus age. We only know that he must have been alive during the murder fest. They appear to be opposites of one another too! Light and Darkness. If we compare their clothing during the murder fest, we can conclude that Amadeus was probably poor, while Prisma was at the top of society as the first leader of the new world, now known as Gloomverse. They also directly opposed each other. It could very well be that Amadeus was born around the year 1000 too if it was like in Malus’s and Hyacinth’s case. An indication of his young age during the murder fest is that he appears to be younger than his current self - at least in my opinion. I know that this doesn’t mean much since he is very likely a shapeshifter and he indeed was younger back then, but I still wanted to note that here.

That’s all well and good, but what does any of this has to do with the hypothesis that Harold’s and/or Wallis’s birth resulted in Rylie appearing/being born? Well… if Amadeus and Prisma really were roughly the same age, then we would have some kind of pattern. It appears that if one Mancer is born another one with opposing abilities quickly follows. Maybe this is some kind of reaction from the Gloomverse universe to uphold a magical balance? (I’m just going to call this magical balance keeping force “the universe”.) So if the Mancer of Darkness becomes the father of two sons who seem to have inherited a few of his abilities, then wouldn’t the universe probably show a reaction here too? And what better way to counter this magical imbalance than with someone who has abilities that appear to be similar to Prisma’s and who is also probably related to her somehow? The return of the colors could also be liked to that.

I know there are a few things that contradict my argumentation for example Amaryllis. It doesn’t look like that she has a counterpart, so she could be an outlier. I just wanted to look at different possibilities. We also don’t really know what Rylie’s connection to Prisma is: Is she a reincarnation? Prisma’s and possibly Yellow’s child? And so on… If the latter is the case then wouldn’t the universe shown a reaction back then around the year 1000? Well… it also took the universe three years after Hyacinth was born to react to that. If Rylie really was that child and disappeared from reality for whatever reason, then the universe probably did not have enough time to react to her appearance. So what are your thoughts? There is not that much that supports this so I wouldn’t call this a theory, but maybe you can find actual evidence for it. I mainly wanted to find a deeper explanation for why Rylie appeared/was born now (in the year 2000) and also an explanation for the reappearance of the colors, besides

it’s been 1000 years so yeah

.

Mod Green’s Response:

Thanks for the submission! I’m gonna ramble now.

That’s a fun speculation! There’s not much that can be proven sadly. I personally view Malus and Hyacinth as complementary rather than direct opposites, but I see your point. If them being born so close to each other was a reaction and not coincidence, I would argue that Malus being born first would have necessitated the birth of Hyacinth to help with the fallout, but Malus is the younger of the two.

There’s also the problem of the force “keeping balance”. How does it know before someone gains their magic that they will be too powerful? I doubt that Hyacinth got her magic at the tender age of four. It would need to see the future, and have some kind of awareness of the political climate in the human society. That sounds a bit too advanced for a force of the universe. Unless that force is CQ I guess.

However, Purple does mention a sorta similar law of nature in his book....

The magician using the power themselves begins to crack and break apart, and at the last moment, before their body explodes into pure energy from the stress— their connection to magic is severed, and the person is no longer able to move and function.

It is unknown why this process happens, perhaps some law of nature that will not allow this stream of pure energy to exist, and shuts it down. 

Except it’s about severing.

A “stream of pure energy” uh? Mancers have “no need for hat and wand”, have unlimited potential, and can do magic continuously. This is as “stream of pure energy” as we can get. One day I’ll write out my thoughts on the mancers and their magic, but today is not that day.

I’ve gotten offtrack.

About your theory that Wallis or Harold’s birth caused Rylie’s, I have my own thoughts :)

Wallis is 26, Rylie 17. That’s a 9 years age gap. What if it wasn’t his birth, but him getting magic? (I know 9 is young, but it’s Wallis Gloom so who knows) Or worse, what if it was because Wallis made Harold’s limbs disappear? Amadeus doesn’t seem happy that Rylie is out and about. He probably hoped she/what she represents wouldn’t come back. Perhaps he even took actions to prevent that. And perhaps he slipped up. He panicked, saw what his little child did and could do, and lost grip on something. And so nothing was preventing Rylie from being born.

From the glimpses of Yellow that we got, I think this isn’t her first rodeo. It’s been 1000 years, and yet she expected the colors to show up, she made plans to assure she would know where they are. In 1000 years, at least 10 generations of colors could have showed up. And perhaps another 10 Rylikin. She did look very shocked when seeing Rylie, so perhaps it IS the first time she does a come back! Or she was just shocked to see her face since photography is rather new.

I have so more thoughts, but they’re barely related, so I’ll tidy them up for another post.

[gloomverse-theories]

Mod Green: I can see a bit of the logic behind it. Harold would be to Amadeus what Rylie is to Prisma.

Harold’s magic was meddled with, supposedly by Amadeus. If he were to die, it’s possible that Harold would get his "true" magic back. Or completely loses his magic. It could go either way since his hat isn’t really "his".

Would that make him the next Dark Overlord tho? It’s hard to say. Magic is simply too personal in the world of gloomverse to get influenced like that. Even Rylie who is so similar to Prisma has her own unique magic, based on her own personality, needs and wants. If Harold’s magic personality isn’t one of darkness, then there’s not much that can be done.

Passing on magic is supposedly impossible, at least not with the current set of rules, so we can cross that off.

It’s still a mystery why Amadeus prevented Harold from getting magic for so long, only to concede to him some kind of ersatz. When looking at Wallis and how he vanished limbs at a tender age, it sounds like Amadeus put Harold in magic baby jail to avoid accidents like these. Unfortunately, Gloomverse is full of bigots and idiots who gave Harold a hard time, so a compromise had to be reached. Because Harold has High potential just like Wallis and their dad, limitations were put. When Amadeus dies, I wouldn’t be surprised if it unlocked Harold’s full potential.

Hell, we might have got a glimpse of it during the dream sequence.

This isn’t organised but here are some thoughts on the matter

Hypothesis: Hobo will die and Harold will become the next Dark Overlord

i see absolutely zero way of predicting that kind of thing so, aside from maybe Petunia's vaguely ominous words to Hobo in Midnight, so. maybe? maybe not? who knows? I'd hate it though.

[gloomverse-theories]

Hypothesis: Hobo will die and Harold will become the next Dark Overlord

i see absolutely zero way of predicting that kind of thing so, aside from maybe Petunia's vaguely ominous words to Hobo in Midnight, so. maybe? maybe not? who knows? I'd hate it though.

[gloomverse-theories]

Does Yellow have a spy network of some kind? Thinking about her wall of family trees and all, how would she be able to track all of that without a spy network?

Extremely likely! The spies are probably just regular Stratoversian mooks though.

Seems like they're everywhere.

[gloomverse-theories]

Crack theory: Blue is actually from Bavaria. Proof:

Flag of Bavaria

Alright —

So according to wikipedia, Bavaria has two equally official flags: the ones with the lozenge like you showed and a simple blue and white striped flag.

The other picture comes from the blog @blueoctobass (note that the header is only visible on mobile).

One of the main difference is the color used.

@blueoctobass is a fanblog run by @papier-ciseaux (as mentioned here) and if you dig far enough in the archives, you can see that this background is used in a drawing from July 2019. Blueoctobass reblogged its first posts in February 2020, so the timeline is this: the background is created in July 2019 and later used as a header for a blue-themed blog because it fits the aesthetic.

Okay, so that sounds like one big coincidence.

It's also a fanblog.

HOWEVER!

An old (3rd July 2017) by CQ states that : "Ecoversians have Australian accents, Stratoversians have British, I have no clue about Inverse but I think thats neat"

This is to be taken with a spoon of salt since it's old and CQ has recently asked people to not take old posts as proof.

It can still give us a direction. So Bavaria is a Land of Germany, not of Australia or Britain, but Germany and Britain both have a certain saxon heritage in common (England and Germany have both trespassed into each other territory a fair amount of time in the past and thus have a lot of words in common in their respective languages).

Stratoverse is a country, one of the five major ones existing on Gloomball. They can have multiple accents. Let's say that the "British" accent is more of a "Northern European" accent.

This would mean that a "Bavarian Blue" would be equal to a Stratoversian Blue.

We have no information on whether she was born in Gloomverse or fled to it like Indigo did, but she is much more well adjusted than him and doesn't stand out nearly as much (many people theorised that Indigo was either Stratoversian or Inversian based on his look).

Blue is very formal and worried about appearances and conduct, as well as "being dangerous", which could stem from an upbringing in the controlling Stratoverse rather than the exuberant Gloomverse. She has a sister, Cakegirl, but she seems to be the younger of the two. It's also worth noting that Cakegirl is/was a very powerful magician, and characters are impressed by her golem.

And.... statically speaking, that could mean she is Stratoversian!

It is possible that Blue was born in Stratoverse and fled towards Gloomverse, either with her parents (Cakegirl being born in Gloomverse or too young to remember Stratoverse) or without them (She got adopted by Cakegirl's parents which may be a reason why Cakegirl is hostile towards her).

We don't know how or why random people get turned into colors, but Green and Alpha Green are both Ecoversian, its possible that Alpha Blue was Stratoversian and so current Blue is also Stratoversian.

Purple would be an outlier since Violet was likely Stratoversian and yet he was born in Steamverse.

TL;DR: While the flag of bavaria on someone's fanblog isn't much of a proof, Blue could still be as close to bavarian as we can do in a fictional world by being Stratoversian. Stratoverse is supposedly British/North-European and thus German. There is no proof against Blue being Stratoversian and it could explain the difference between her and Cakegirl (difference of upbringing) while also explaining why Cakegirl was so powerful.

[gloomverse-theories]

The Reason for Prisma's Death?

So I made a crack theory. It is absolute nonsense: So enjoy! 

While rereading Gloomverse again something struck me a particularly odd: And that is Prisma’s outfit. It seems to vary in quite some detail.

Her garment appears to be longer in ‘Less Than Human’ than in 'Hereafter’ and it is missing the openings on the side. But this is not what caught my attention. Her footwear also appears to be different. In 'Less Than Human’ it looks like some kind of sandal with one strap attached to her foot. However in 'Hereafter’ there seems to be more than just one strap. So we can conclude that Prisma is not wearing the same shoes in these scenes. But why is that? Normally I would just ignore that. Many people have more than just one pair of shoes. But what if shoes were an luxurious good at that time? Well… considering that she is the first leader of the new world aka Gloomverse there is a high possibility that she can afford more than just one pair of shoes. 'So everything seems fine here, right?’ I hear you asking. But isn’t it odd that she changed her footwear between these two scenes? Both scenes appear to take place within quick succession. Why change parts of your outfit? Maybe she needed to change it, to hide these shoes… from someone and therefore she swapped them out. 'But isn’t that a bit far-fetched? Maybe it was just drawn a little bit simpler in “Less Than Human”?’ Well… normally I would agree with you if it were not for the fact that we have seen these shoes before, haven’t we? On someone quite specific. Someone who was involved in Prisma’s incident. Someone who wears these shoes until this day… 

Yeah, you see that right. Amadeus currently wears the same yellow sandals. But what does this all mean? Why does he have these? Where and when did he get them? I tell you when: It happened right before a scene we are all so familiar with. 

'You got what you wanted…’ What was the thing he wanted? If you followed my argumentation up until now, then you will know what my theory is: Amadeus wanted the shoes! But why? What if I tell you that these shoes originally belonged to Amadeus. If we take a closer look at what Amadeus is wearing then we will notice he is not wearing proper footwear but instead he has bandages wrapped around his feet. Where are his shoes? Does he not have any? Or has someone stole them from him? I believe Prisma took them from him before arriving at the Ruins of the Forgotten.

When Prisma got back to the ruins Alpha!Purple/Violet seemed to be concerned about something that involves Prisma. What was so important that Prisma needed to leave the ruins while Yellow was delivering a baby? It was something that involves danger otherwise Alpha!Purple/Violet wouldn’t have been concerned. And stealing something from someone who is as powerful as Amadeus is quite a dangerous act. But why did Prisma need these shoes? It should have become clear now that these sandals are not mere shoes. There is something greater within them. Something that maybe holds some form of magical power? A danger that arouses from them. Alone the knowledge of their capabilities appear to be a danger in it self. This would also explain why Amadeus would go after Prisma so eagerly and even go so far as to do something what seems like killing her. After he caught up with her, he cornered her in the ruins, defeated her and acquired the shoes back. You might be asking 'But why does he not wear the shoes then in the scene from “Hereafter”?’ Great that you asked! Well, wouldn’t it be way easier for him to hide them in his shadow after Prisma gave them back? If he can hide hats in shadows then he should certainly be able to hide shoes in them as well. Why should he drop his guard, approach Prisma and put the shoes on if it is way safer to make them disappear in his shadow. And we can clearly see that his magic/his shadow is leaking in this scene. And if they are really that important then would it be way smarter to get them out of danger?

Others might be questioning the importance and powers of these shoes because of this scene in chapter 'Cupcakes and Rainclouds’:

Why would Hobo carelessly drop his shoe if it is so important? Maybe he does this to conceal their actual importance? If you would hide them in some kind of treasure chest, most people would suspect them to be of great importance and would probably try to steal them. But by wearing them like all other shoes, nobody would suspect a thing. Moreover they would probably be the safest by being worn by a mancer. Stealing them would be almost impossible. So this scene does not contradict my argumentation. To the contrary it was included to really draw our attention to Hobo’s shoes for the first time, so we could later recognise them. It highlights them. And by showing that they should not be abandoned so easily it foreshadows their later importance to the overarching story. Furthermore there are more scenes in the comic that could be understand as further highlighting of the sandals for example page 6 of the extra chapter (only included in the book). If you still doubt that their is nothing special about them, that they have no magical abilities then I would like you to answer me this: How is it possible that they are still in perfect shape after 1000 years unlike other parts of Hobo’s clothing? If they were just normal shoes, then this would certainly not be possible! 

Prisma, the colors and the shoes. For what did Prisma need them? Is there a magical connection between these three? What part does Rylie play in all of this? Through her connection with Prisma she could gain some knowledge of the sandals and their powers… And pose a threat to… who knows! I’ll leave it at this point to you to theorise/speculate how everything is connected. 

TL;DR

The shoes Hobo wears are magical artefacts that Prisma acquired knowledge over and stole them from Amadeus. They pose a danger and as a result of that he murdered/did something to Prisma (and probably to the other colors who knew about their powers as well). In order to conceal their importance and to protect them, Amadeus uses them as normal shoes to this day.