#Along with theories

[kkolg]

Based on a convo with a friend

[torisprlng]

AGATHA ALL ALONG | 1.08 & 1.09 + TUMBLR REACTIONS

[grilledcheeseandguavajelly]

“Agatha can’t control her powers and kills a bunch of people, this explains why Death is in love with her because it means she gets more bodies” No.

No no no.

I need “Agatha can’t control her powers and the first time someone blasted her with their magic they died right in front of her and she was only seven years old and terrified and alone until suddenly there was a small little girl across from her who gently took her hand and told her it was okay”

I need “Agatha can’t control her powers and had a tantrum, purple exploding out of her, but the other witch was too fast and Agatha blinked and they were dead on the ground and she scrambled back against the wall, curling up into a little ball and shaking, shaking, shaking, until someone just as young and soft as her stroked her hair back and told her they knew it was an accident”

I need “Agatha can’t control her powers and was beaten and bruised by her mother until she couldn’t take it anymore and ran off into the woods and was blasted by someone who thought she was a witch hunter, and she didn’t even realize what was happening until it was too late. Agatha climbing into a tree and scraping her cheek and trembling as she stared at the lifeless witch, something rattling deep inside of her that sounded like a stranger’s voice. And then the stranger appearing through the thick, standing over the dead body and instantly looking up, looking for Agatha. Finding her in the tree and climbing in with her. Smoothing a thumb across her cheek until it didn’t sting anymore”

I need “Agatha can’t control her powers and any spell she tries goes haywire, the final teacher that swore she could fix her grey and lifeless on the floor as Agatha sat up on the kitchen table and just stared and stared, tears falling, always falling, until that familiar face appeared through the bedroom doorway, watching Agatha, not the woman, and threaded their fingers together. Guided her to cracked, dusty skin and forced her to feel it, hand pressing hers into dead flesh and murmuring ‘exceptional’ under her breath before explaining every single step of reaping a soul. Talking and talking until Agatha wasn’t crying anymore, until she couldn’t remember why she had been upset in the first place”

I need “Agatha can’t control her powers but she also couldn’t control her temper, and suddenly half of a coven was dead before her, barely eighteen years old, and then the girl, also freshly a woman, the closest thing she knew to having a friend, sliding up behind her and placing a hand on her shoulder, wiping her tears away. Shushing her pleas of ‘why can’t I control it? Why do I ruin everything I touch?’ with soft murmurs of ‘there’s nothing wrong with you. You didn’t kill them. They simply… bent to your power.’”

I need “Agatha can’t control her powers but she sure as hell tried, until she was tied to a stake and her coven fell at her feet and her mother crumpled before her, hellbent until the moment she died to punish Agatha for things she had never meant to do. Agatha, with her grief and her relief and her freedom, finally, somehow still sobbing over her mother’s death, curled up far away and safe in the woods. Safe until Death came for her, hands cupping her face too tenderly, too delicately, and forced Agatha to meet her eyes. Death, who had somehow become the only one to ever show her mercy and kindness and compassion, leaning her forehead against hers and whispering ‘it’s okay. I am so proud of you.” Death leaning in so, so hesitantly and pressing the smallest kiss to her mouth. Breaths hitching. Eyes meeting. Long, loaded stares and trembling fingers and Death herself smiling at Agatha like she actually meant it. Agatha fisting her cloak and yanking her closer and letting Death suck the air right out of her lungs, and Agatha somehow living anyway”

That’s what I need.

[agatharkn3ss]

Omg, how am I only picking up on this now?!!!!!!

When Alice hopes the new green witch will bring some Advil...

You guys, ADVIL is an anagram for VIDAL....

[elliesgaymachete]

do you think they first met when agatha was supposed to be executed? that rio came to collect the dead and found her, sent to die by her own mother, weeping and terrified, because she lost control of her powers. but because rio is death, maybe she was the first person who wasn’t afraid of her

[captain-mozzarella]

AU where a few years after Obi-Wan gives Luke to the Lars', Quinlan finds him and says "join the hidden path Obi, please see" and Obi-Wan tells him "bro I can't leave, Luke is here, but I'll still help however I can" so Quinlan leaves and comes back a few weeks later with a force sensitive baby. And Obi-Wan just stands there holding the baby thinking 'what the fuck do I do with this thing????' and he does what any rational person would do and gives it to the Lars' cuz that way Luke can have some siblings. This happens a few more times.

And that's the story of how Luke thinks babies come from Obi-Wan

I'm calling this the Storki-Wan au

[fyregrl]

Hear me out:

That didn't happen.

Like, that literally didn't happen.

Something stuck out to me. Lilia yelling "I hated this the first time!" immediately followed by Teen Billy yelling "Lilia's being weird again!"

When else has Lilia been weird?

During the first trial when she blurted out "Try to save Agatha!"

And in the second trial when she started saying "Alice, don't..."

Try to save Agatha. Alice, don't.

Alice, don't try to save Agatha.

What if at some point, episode five went from actually happening to Lilia having a vision? And in the next episode, she'll be able to stop what's going to happen by finishing her sentence--Alice, don't try to save Agatha--thus keeping Alice from dying and Billy from throwing the rest of them off the road.

I better be right about this

[novelconcepts]

Obviously next week could prove this all dead-wrong, but I don’t think the trial’s quite over. I don’t believe the end of that episode actually took place, because I’m pretty sure we’re still firmly in the “punish Agatha” phase. Rio’s suddenly gone. Alice seems to be dead by Agatha’s hand, and no one—including Teen, who has always been on her side—seems primed to believe she was out of control. The others have been sucked beneath the power of the surrogate son who not only just told Agatha to fuck off, but went full-Wanda to do it. It just all seems too tailored to cut up any of the character progress Agatha’s made on the Road thus far. Getting harassed by her ghost mother and hearing her son’s voice don’t feel like a complete tear-down. This does. It feels like more trial.

[cupcakeshakesnake]

*steals your anime villain and turns them into a little critter*

[itberice]

Isn't it interesting that the trials for the Potion Witch, Protection Witch and Divination Witch all helped the characters.

Jennifer, Alice and Lilia all worked through their past trauma and got closure for some of what happened to them. Despite what happened to Alice and Lilia, the trials themselves helped them move through their personal obstacles.

Yet, Agatha's trial was designed to punish her.

[ourflagmeansheartbreak]

I would watch entire season just of Agatha under the hex playing a detective but from the neighbours perspectives

[intuitive-revelations]

While the difference in scale isn't really big enough to fully explain it, part of me is so desperate to somehow connect Sutekh's "evolution into a Titan" with the TARDIS police box's gradual increase in size over the years, if he really has been attached to it for so long, in the same way people have joked about him shrinking with it in Flatline.

If Sutekh did change size with the TARDIS it also has potentially quite horrifying implications for the size-leaked TARDIS in The Name of the Doctor.

If he was indeed there, then I wonder what became of Sutekh in this time track...?

[pwippy]

anyways insert analysis on how vivinos typically portrays livelihood or humanity through the brightness of a characters eyes and how tills eyes were dull but the accessories and environment around him were artificially bright like they were trying to pull him into the system of performance

and how during the kiss a bright light was between ivan and till like how ivan was giving up his life for till and transferring his humanity to him

and how ivans eyes temporarily lost light but it returned after the last of his own life slipped away from him and how they shined knowing he succeeded at bringing back till from the "dead" at the expense of his own life (orpheus eurydice save me)

and how you *know* he succeeded because tills eyes shined looking at the person who broke him out of his trance. who didn't let him fall.

[shutupineedtothink]

Trial order and why Lilia, not Agatha, is last (not counting Rio)

Kay, so I got another off-the-wall theory for you, this time around the order of the trials and why Lilia, not Agatha, is actually going to be last (if we don't count Rio). It goes back to maiden mother crone and some of the trauma/generational trauma stuff I already talked about in a previous post. As with The Road, continue at your own peril.

Right so I couldn't get this idea of maiden mother crone, intergenerational trauma, dealing with the long history of violence toward witches thing out of my head that the show is doing. And I think we've all been assuming that Lilia's trial will be next, saving Agatha and probably Rio for last, because those are standard main character of a TV show rules.

But the more I think about it, the more weight I feel like Lilia's journey carries for this overall theme of trauma toward witches and the history of witches, etc. She seems to have the most intense connection to the pain of witches past, like old-world witch stuff, and she's the one who's brought up multiple times that witches aren't really as they've been portrayed, there's all these negative stereotypes, etc etc. And she's sick of it. She's lived through it for the longest of all of them (again, leaving whatever Rio is out of it).

Idk, something that big, addressing the long history of violence toward witches and witch stereotypes, that feels like you have to deal with it last. That's a culmination of all the witch references, pop culture and otherwise, the show has been making, of which there are MANY.

So I thought ok, for funzies, let's assume Lilia's last, which puts our trial order as follows: Jen -> Alice -> Agatha -> Lilia (and I guess true last would be Rio but I'll get there in a second).

Assuming that order, something else pinged for me: maiden mother crone. Another massive theme in the show, portraying these generations of witches and women in general, and again, for reasons I can't explain, it really feels like it has weight to me. Like they're doing something with it.

So leaving Jen aside for a second, don't worry I'll come back to her, that makes Alice our maiden. Her role, particularly in the context of her trial, is the role of daughter. She's also the youngest of the witches, as far as I can tell. She's even coded as kind of the rebellious one, the young angry one who still hasn't quite accepted her heritage, until after her trial, she does.

Agatha is the mother. We are really going for the mother/child relationship with her and Teen, and of course dealing with her son's death and whatever part she played in it. I would assume her trial will be about that, but we could also be saving that for the end. The mother is also the connector generation between maiden and crone, so maybe there's something there about Agatha fully stepping into the leader role of the coven, and accepting these women around her, idk.

Lilia, the eldest, is our crone. She carries the true history and memory of generations of witches with her, she has lived the longest through the most trials. She is the most experienced in the craft and takes it the most seriously. The journey is hers to end.

Except -- we have two other players left. Jen, who kicks off the trials, and Rio, who I'm assuming doesn't really have a trial but will be there at the end... because, you know. 💀

So why would Jen be first? What comes before the maiden?

And then she said it herself.

"I never fully identified as a witch. I am an 11th-generation root worker and midwife."

This one line almost puts her in a similar category to Rio, at least thematically. She's a witch but also more, neither and both. And she's a midwife, someone who helps facilitate birth. Someone who, at her best, supports and sustains life. Someone who allows the first phase of life, the maiden, to come into being.

And guess who that leaves us with at the end, the opposite bookend to Jen's life-giving power -- the mistress of death herself, Rio. The one to which all life must eventually return.

The trials aren't just about elements, or moon phases, or even different witch specialties, they're taking us through the stages of a witch herself. The stages of ALL women really (whether you are an actual mother with children or not, the mother phase is mid-life). Linking us all together, generation after generation.

So in this theory, the trials go like this:

Jen -> Alice -> Agatha -> Lilia -> Rio

Birth -> Maiden -> Mother -> Crone -> Death

Even the moon phases line up. Full moon is birth, a full-term pregnancy and then birth. Waxing moon, growth, renewal, hope, promise -- the maiden. Half moon, mid-life, no longer maiden, not yet crone, the in-between -- the mother. Waning moon, the last quarter of life -- crone. New moon, darkness, returning to the void -- death. They're playing fast and loose with the moon phase order, so I am too.

I can probably fudge the elements here too, but it's a little harder mostly because I don't know what Agatha's element is. I heard someone say spirit, but idk.

Anyway, what do you think? Am I on to something here? Batshit crazy? Would love to hear your thoughts in comments. :)

[agatharkn3ss]

Rio's flower theory (contains spoilers!)

Some people have noticed how Rio's flower kept making appearance in the last episode, so naturally I re-watched it for the 100th time, and made note of every moment we see the flower because I have a theory...

First appearance - Rio presents it to Agatha when she crawls out of the ground

Agatha pushed it out of her hand, but it's unclear what happens to it - I thought maybe it looked like she put it in her coat pocket, but actually I think she just threw it to the ground, she would be too angry to keep it. And so we see the flower back in Rio's hands when she merrily hops along the Road. She doesn't stop playing with it even when they stop to look at the trial house.

The flower (and also her knife) is also present in the trial. As we saw with Agatha's locket, amulets and Joe's spell book, the trial seems to let the witches keep things that are important to them.

When they exit the trial, frantically trying to save Teen, Rio is back playing with the flower again, silently observing Agatha.

This continues until the campfire. Seriously, why is this girl stimming so much?

The interesting bit is when Agatha returns from Teen. Her hands are in her pocket, so we can't see whether she's holding something in her hands or if she's taking something from her pocket. But in the next frame, as she sits down to join the coven, she has that flower in her left hand! I think Rio must have put it on the seat, waiting for her. There are some interesting looks!

Finally, when Rio gets up to go after Agatha, the camera pans out and we see the flower has actually been left back on the log, where Agatha sat... What is the meaning of it?....

So in summary, the flower has some deeper meaning to Rio and she seems to really treasure it, maybe even use it as a stimming device, maybe trying to control her emotions?

Enter the Marvel promo for Death tarot card!

In one hand, we see Death holds her dagger (looking familiar?), in the other hand she holds an object that people believe to be Death's black heart. But it also reminds me the shape of a flower. So what if Rio's flower IS her heart? That she keeps offering to Agatha?

But I wonder if Agatha realises the meaning of the flower yet. In ep.1 she looked a little surprised when Rio says she does have a heart, that it's black and beats for her. It would be hard to believe that if these two were an item for centuries, that they wouldn't end up knowing everything about each other. So Agatha's "you don't have a heart" could just be a snarky, hurtful comment to reflect Rio's possible betrayal (the "job" she had to do) or a more literal fact that she doesn't believe Rio can be truly human in any physical way (no heart, no scars), because she's Lady Death. Or both. So maybe Rio hid that part from her? They certainly seem like they didn't even talk and reconcile after the dramatic events because Agatha seems surprised at Rio's hurt and regret when she tells her "scar story".

Anyway, I digress... In short, I think flower is (or at least symbolises) Rio's heart.

Bonus content - we actually get a glimpse of that flower in ep.1 as it makes its appearance even in Agatha's fake reality. Even though the camera angles make it impossible to see it most of the time, there are scenes when Rio moves her head just enough that we can see a bit of her her clip - which looks eerily like the flower!

While there was no actual flower in their ep.1 fight scene, Agatha is wearing a flowery robe and the wallpaper is all flowers. So I think there is a deeper symbolism there that the show is trying to subtly incorporate - does it all link to the Green Witch powers? Or the language of flowers?

Even Teen places a flower on Sharon's grave, where would he even get it from in that dark place? And finally, Jen uses blue flowers when they summon the green witch (Lilia offers a rock, Agatha adds a leaf and it's not clear what Alice adds - some dust or fruit?)

So... after all that, I don't actually know anything about plants or gardening. So does anyone know what type Rio's flower even is? I mean, there literally is a flower called Rio, could that be a hint or is it too simple?

EDIT: My bad, Rio is a proprietary company name who sells those flowers. But what about this flower called Surprise Lily? (also called Resurrection Lily!) Doesn't look quite like Rio's but I like the name as it would be quite funny if it was true...

[idkbroletssee]

"Billy is ungrateful to Wanda" is such a shallow take.

The Kaplans sheltered him from ending up LIKE Wanda-alone, unbound & misguided with all that crazy potential. They instilled good values, making him the brave and empathetic kid who stepped up, controlled his powers, chose to be good, and will root for Wanda cuz he sees the good in her too(Children's crusade).

Wanda is supposed to be grateful to them.