#I wrote half of this immediately and thr other half juat now and both times i have been on the verge of sleep LDKFNF

[jesse-cosay]

Just curious, but do you have any headcanons one what the Cat’s deal could be and what she is/where her oddities come from? While her comment about not having had a vacation in 150 years does seem like it could suggest that denizens are immortal or at least long lived in general, I just can’t help puzzle over answers like this from Owen that make sure to point out she is an exception rather than the norm:

Add in her shuttle and implicitly the number tracker that Simon probably got from her that holds a design aesthetic different from anything we’ve yet seen on the train, and it really paints quite a mystery surrounding her. Though not her relationship with Frank, that we already know about lol. What are your thoughts on her?

OHOHO mAn, my knowledge on the cat is super limited because I struggled with deciphering what were theories and what was facts we'd learned in canon (and... my hyperfixation lies pretty heavily with book two and begrudgingly with book four, which only have minor cat appearances).

I'll explain what my original thought process was and how im going to have to edit it now, since I think there could still be a connection.

Before I'd assumed she was one of the 'original denizen'. Perhaps when the train first started, One had not considered how hard of a life it would be for a denizen to live forever and to always be saying goodbye. And after so long being alive, obviously you figured your way around and made a way for yourself.

Some cars seem to 'reset' so to speak, once a passenger has been through. (Or I assumed they did, given some of the examples we see.) Like Tulip after leaving the Straight Up Italy car- how should the next passenger learn their lesson and help the rose woman if not because the car resets? (ofc we see her wandering around in book 2 so that's false)

I didn't think every car would reset, Tuba talks of the loss of her children- and I figured it was a balance. Some denizen's live their whole lives repeating one moment because they remember nothing else. And some live full lives, because there are some things you can only offer to another once you've experienced them (not empty platitudes). And then there would be the Originals, denizens who lived since the start of the train, or at least, from very early on. Having lived so long, knowing so much, it's a kind of help that could only be found on the train.

I'd also figured that, if that wasn't the case, it was just that Samantha had 'nine lives', and lived them out consecutively, likely retaining her memories since she appears very much the same as she reoccurs in the background.

But there aren't any denizens like the cat. At least none that we're alluded to.

Alternatively, I think it'd be interesting for the cat to be tied to One in the sense that Amelia is. One likely let Amelia help because he wanted to better understand his purpose in helping the passengers. And what better way to understand empathy then through a pet?

Maybe she wasn't doing what a pet did, but how would One know? He obviously had many flaws in how he worked and what the train did, I think it'd be interesting for the cat to be an earlier attempt at connecting with the trains reason for existing. Likely one that went wrong.