#if this doesn't post im detonating a nuclear bomb

[welcometogrouchland]

FIFTH times the charm, I guess

Okay, so, preface: I made some posts about this a while ago, forgot to expand, got an anon about it earlier, proceeded to try and answer the ask upwards of 3 times only for the Tumblr to eat the response. I've had A Time. So, I'm gonna try and keep this as short and sweet as I can while still being semi-comprehensive and making sense!

People have pointed out that based on the photo below (showing the remains of the grimwalkers in the Golden Graveyard™ as i call it) and the timeline we're given (350~ years), there's no way Belos could've raised all of them to maturity.

[ID: A screenshot from king's tide showing the remains of the grimwalkers and their golden guard masks. End ID]

The Golden Guards are also generally there to be useful to Belos, so I think it's unlikely he's killing all of them before they get the chance to. so, maybe they just age quick!

BUT I don't think it'd make sense, at this point in the story, to reveal in or outside the text that Hunter is going to age rapidly and die decades before all his loved ones. It's never been foreshadowed, wouldn't make sense story wise, and would just be A Bit Much imo.

Hence, I'd like to propose a radical solution, in the form...of horse math

[ID: a chart titled horse years to human years. The chart says that 1 horse year is equivalent to 6.5 human years, so is 2, 3=18, 4=20.5, 5=23, 6=25.5, 7=28, 8=30.5, 9=33, 10=35.5, 11=38, and 12=40.5. End ID]

I'm not gonna pretend to know much about horses. I don't. BUT, I did discover that unlike, say, dogs where 1 human year is 7 dog years, there isn't a fixed equivalent between horse years and human years! It shifts over time. The chart explains it better than I could. So, my proposal is thus: grimwalkers age like horses in the sense that they begin life with a different aging rate compared to regular witches, but this changes as they get older, presumably evening out to be about the same as a normal witches (I imagine they probably speed through childhood cause Belos is not raising a bunch of gross babies for multiple years on his own lmao). This handily solves both problems, while also being hilarious, because by this logic, i can say that THIS:

[ID: a screencap of hunter without his mask on taken from hunting palismen. end ID]

IS A HORSE