#also nunemaker’s parable is such a qifrey song please listen to it

[vqlisms]

whats ur qifrey was revived from death (forbidden magic?) theory

YIPPEEE (EXPLODES)

ok so the first time we hear about the forest of thristas has nothing to do with qifrey. in chapter 20, its explained that the forest was originally much more bright and living, until a brimmedhat named thristas began using the site to run experiments trying to bring people back from the dead.

next time we hear about it is chapter 30. this is the chapter where we get the qifrey flashback/nightmare and explanation of why he’s so afraid of water, and beldaruit tells coco about qifrey’s experiences with brimmedhats. in this flashback we learn that qifrey was found by knights moralis and beldaruit while following a lead about a brimmedhat being in the forest of thristas. they find a stone tunnel in the forest, in which beldaruit finds fresh blood along the floor. assuming that its a brimmedhat’s blood, the knights put the blood into a magical compass, then follow it to the roots of a large tree. beldaruit excavates what they expect to be either a corpse or a hideout, only to reveal a coffin (beldaruit notes that it doesn’t have “our mark”, and that it doesn’t smell of rotting flesh despite being completely waterlogged). the knights remove the top, expecting a trap, only to find a child qifrey. everyone panics, but qifrey is alive, so they bundle him up and try to get information from him. all that he says is “It was taken, by a witch…” and the blood on the right of his face implies that he’s referring to his eye. beldaruit, out of the flashback, explains that qifrey’s memory and any additional evidence was erased, his right eye was stolen, and he was buried alive.

according to beldaruit, there was no sign of forbidden magic found in qifrey’s body. the council of magic security wanted to erase qifrey’s memory and have him live a normal life, but beldaruit took him in as his apprentice. qifrey kept sneaking out to search for brimmedhats, but eventually stopped after visiting the tower of books, with beldaruit assuming that he stopped because he realised that to restore his memories and eye would require forbidden magic.

in chapter 40, qifrey and olruggio have The Talk wherein qifrey explains why he’s restarted his hunt for the brimmedhats. during which, he says what’s shown below: “The forbidden magic that the Brimhats were researching in Silstas [Thristas]… I have to stop those plans…! I must recover the eye that they stole from me, and destroy it before anyone finds out…!” already, this implies that whatever experiment they needed his eye for was successful to the degree that qifrey needs to destroy it so that no-one else knows about it.

then, after olruggio accuses him of lying to the assembly and witches when he first arrived, qifrey explains further. the last time he and olruggio snuck out, the time when they challenged the tower of books, of memories, qifrey was the only one to go inside the tower. the tower holds a copy of every penned document in the world, no matter how short or informal. qifrey explains: “The records from Silstas [Thristas] were magically destroyed, so there was barely anything left. But after seeing the note fragments that’s still existed, I was able to remember. They experimented on me, with a new type of magic.” olruggio confirms that qifrey is not talking about any kind of magic from the lost era, and the narration calls it “Disorderly and full of potential. New possibilities flowing from chaos.”

now that’s out of the way, here’s the actual theory and my evidence!

qifrey was found in the forest of thristas, which is commonly known to be where the brimmedhat thristas experimented with forbidden magic from the lost era that could resurrect the dead. this experimentation killed the forest, and the brimless witches never mention knowing for certain if these experiments were successful or not. qifrey’s coffin was not waterproof or airtight, but it was buried, so theres a decent chance that he was buried for a good while since the ground near the coffin didn’t seem disturbed in any way before beldaruit excavated the coffin. qifrey was found alive in the coffin despite it being nearly impossible, and was later revealed to have been experimented on with a completely different magic than resurrection. this implies that the site is now being used for new magic that is known to be dangerous and chaotic, so resurrection magic was either no longer of interest to the brimmedhats (doesn’t make sense with how small the brimmedhats numbers are, they’d need all the members they could keep) or they succeeded in reviving the dead.

i think that whatever magic the brimmedhats whipped up to revive the dead works throughout the forest (perhaps in the water? it’d be interesting irony to the magic lake from the first chapter and add an extra layer to qifrey’s fear of water…), and affects animal and/or human organic matter, which would explain why qifrey’s blood was still fresh only in the stone area sheltered from the elements which would’ve swept it away otherwise (also the plasma in blood is majority water, and he was likely drinking water from the forest of thristas while with the brimmedhats…). qifrey was probably killed just after they took his memories and stole his eye. qifrey, since the brimmedhats had finished their experiments on him and he didn’t remember enough to be a threat, was then buried in the first convenient place without care for what happened after. the brimmedhats were either uncaring because they finished their experiments or in a rush to leave because they didn’t want to be caught, both of which would explain why they destroyed all of their research and buried qifrey in an area that they knew could revive the dead. the coffin wasn’t airtight because where the fuck are brimmedhats supposed to get a good quality coffin for a kid when they have no social support and are in hiding. that good ol forest magic keeps qifrey alive until beldaruit and the knights moralis find him however long later.

again, we’re still probably missing information that’s relevant to qifrey’s backstory, so the How It Happened part is probably definitely inaccurate, but i do for sure think that qifrey’s having been revived is being foreshadowed. at this point the theory is less of the been-revived part and more of the what-happened part lmao