Finally did my s4 part 1 rewatch and now I have thoughts/theories about Kory in part 2
So, it's seeming like Kory's blood is what the COB will be after.
At first I thought they needed her powers or just to kill her because she's powerful enough to foil their plans, but after paying attention to Lex's story this time it makes sense for it to possibly be her blood in particular that they're after.
Lex becomes terminally ill and starts using his foundation to find a cure. The first two episodes keep emphasizing that he went from just trying to cure himself to fighting death itself. He funds the building of the temple and a clinical trial (created by an Organization/COB member) that shows that a rare illness has the potential to be cured with a blood transfusion. But not from a regular human because it was described as a "chemical mixture". Which is why he tried to use Conner's blood/DNA. But that failed.
We find out he's been researching Kory too, for what seems like a year since that's when he became partners with the COB. So much so that he knows about what happened with Blackfire and the throne (still wondering why Kory never found that weird). And when the two of them meet, Lex wants to be her friend and expresses eagerness to know more about her history, planet, and powers.
After failing with Conner's DNA, his next move was more than likely to use Kory's since she's fully alien.
Looking at the storybook again, there's an emphasis on the blood from Kory's neck. And there are hands reaching to grab her. (She's also glowing from her powers which I didn't notice before so maybe this is where she overuses them and gets hurt?)
The women in episodes 1 and 2 had the same thing happen to them, so I assumed it was just the way they would attempt to kill Kory too. But looking at the entirety of part 1, blood is used as a "power source" in a way.
Sebastian needed to drink from and bathe in blood for his transformation into Brother Blood. He also drank MM's blood to ease the pain of his transition prior to the ritual.
And going based off what Lex told Conner about the COB having more extreme plans, Brother Blood needing Kory's blood to reach a state of immortality, or something close to it where he's just unbeatable, to further those plans is what I'm thinking could happen.
Then there's the fact that Kory's picture comes before the rest of the Titans. Which we all pretty much concluded that whatever they likely do to Kory eventually ends with everyone dying because they can't stop Brother Blood.
Gina's death also could be some foreshadowing for what happens to Kory. MM couldn't figure out where Sebastian was being held until she made the sacrifice. And once again the emphasis on needing blood was shown. It wasn't until Gina's blood was poured into the table that she was able to travel to Elko's and reach Sebastian. And it seems that Mother Mayhem got stronger from the sacrifice too because Kory had previously been able to hold her own against her during their first fight, but this time she wass knocked down.
So I say all of this to say...
Kory's blood seems like it'll be important.
Either Brother Blood will need consume it to become stronger/possibly immortal. If this ends up happening, I'm wondering if that'll mean that Kory is somewhat immortal too (which is the thought that started this whole theory). Or, second option, her blood will need to be poured into that table to make something terrible happen.
But Gina and Mother Mayhem's conversation about changing their fate is probably why all of this won't end up happening. I think Sebastian will remember that Kory spared him and he'll do the same for her. And that's also why I think MM will kill Sebastian at the end of all of this. Because she waited over two decades for him to become BB and if he fails her I think she'll be angry and ashamed of that.
Anyway... I'm probably wrong about this but it's fun to theorize 🙃
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With the revelation of the Collector being just one out of a whole species and the whole “Collector creed” as in the book King read, it really has me thinking on the mural in King’s tower and the name of the Titan Trappers as a group. What if the big battle between the Titan Trapper and Titan was not about slaying the Titan, but rather about the Titan Trapper trying to subdue the Titan long enough for the Collectors to collect and preserve it?
After all, the comet IS headed towards the Titan’s face, and as we saw in this episode, well…
But given the established fact that Titan magic cancels out Collector magic this episode, as well as the mystery of how that battle ended, I feel the story of the Collectors and Titans may have gone in a direction like this:
Countless eons ago, the Collector (who shall be referred to as Cole for ease) came into existence to a group of Collectors. At some point, he was brought along to observe and participate in the collecting of a new planet as part of his training to be a proper Collector...
Amongst the creatures they set out to collect, they came across huge, powerful beings known as the titans whose magic, curiously, made them resistant to the Collectors’ magic. Desiring to collect such powerful creatures, they empowered and created the Titan Trappers, who would ideally trap and pin down the Titans long enough to actually collect them.
Practically though, the Titan’s magic proved too strong of a counter to the attempt to collect them, so while the adult Collectors tried to figure out how to preserve the adult Titans, Cole was sent out with the task of collecting the much weaker - and thus easier to collect - baby Titans.
However, instead of preserving them, Cole wound up playing and having so much fun with his unexpected new friends that he went to the other Collectors to argue for his new friends to stay UNcollected and UNpreserved. Aka going going directly against the “Collector creed.”
But rather than punishing Cole for deviating from their book of conduct and beliefs, the adult Collectors took outrage at the Titans who had “meddled” in their affairs and “corrupted” their poor, innocent, rule-following child.
To the adult Collectors, their precious Cole could not have come up with such heretical ideas on his own. Surely he could not have fallen into such a transgression against everything the group is meant to stand for out of his own free will.
No, it must have been the influence of the Titans and their horrific magic, and as decreed in the book of the Collectors, these meddlers in personal affairs MUST be eradicated. Thank goodness they caught this in time and prevented their precious Cole from forsaking their family and everything they believed in.
As for the demons who dared try to “corrupt” their child and by extension the rest of the Collectors, the the stars would descend from the heavens above to strike the world below in fiery judgement - a world which would be immolated as part of the efforts to prevent any swaying away from the truth that they all follow and have been teaching Cole to follow.
In other words, sounds an awful lot like a Puritan colonist getting so swept up in the fervor of burning witches at the stake as their interpretation of the Bible decreed - so swept up that they cannot accept a loved one’s true self could deviate so far from the norms of society and blames such deviancy on witches and demons, amiright?
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Putting together a timeline for the Collector's backstory
Hi!! For the Future just happened!! It was insane!! Anyway as a Collector superfan, fantasy worldbuilding fanatic, and also Collector's actual chosen dad (real, not fake, he revealed this to me in a dream /j), I decided to try and interpret the crumbs we got both from direct and indirect clues in the new episode, as well as tying back to earlier episodes.
I want to start first with the paintings on the Archive halls, which seem to tell a story. I chose to interpret them, from the first shot we see them in, as chronological from left to right, as that usually tends to be how one would read things (at least in the west, don't worry, I haven't forgotten about manga and all that, but I don't think the crew was following manga rules).
Here is a picture of the hallway I am using for reference. This specific shot seems to only have unique paintings aligning (there is an animation quirk that happens later on that makes it not so but I will get to this later), which is why I have elected to extract the timeline from this. Another reason is that, as we will see, the first three pictures definitely seem to fit in a neat chronological order, which would make it hard to doubt the placement of these paintings as being chronological here.
The first seems to depict our Collector, as the smaller one of his species, and three, bigger collectors. For convenience's sake I am in fact choosing to interpret these paintings as being things that happened to him and part of his memories. It makes sense: there is an emphasis on this smaller figure several times throughout the paintings and I cannot think why Collector would put random pictures of some other child collector's life, as well as we have to imagine the crew wanted to tell a story with these, otherwise they would be as random as the sun and moon paintings on the other side of the hall.
So it seems in this first picture, the bigger collectors, perhaps his family, are observing a planet, maybe even the planet the world of the Demon Realm is on.
Here is where I take a detour to add excerpts from the book Collector had King read to him (I should eventually make an analysis post on why Collector wanted this read to him, but all in its due time):
As the book states, collectors, by nature, observe things and then collect them by keeping them in stasis.
Going back to the painting, all indicates that this would show these particular collectors, likely the family of our younger Collector, were interested in the planet the Boiling Isles is on, and this painting depicts the first stage of their plan, observing this planet.
As a quick aside, I would like to say it is likely collectors do know what families are, and they may even form familial bonds and hierarchies. One such nod to this is of course Collector calling Odalia "Mamadalia", but also, this:
It is barely visible, but in a few quick shots you can see the next page of the book. Not only does it seem to use the words "interdimensional" and "dimension(s)", likely referring to the nature of collectors themselves or their residence, but it also uses the word "Family".
So, to recap, three adult collectors, likely our Collector's family, had their sights set on the planet the Boiling Isles is on.
And one of their first contacts was the Titan Trappers.
We now know that despite the resemblance to titans at first glance, titan trappers only wear their skulls and pelts to look like them, making the hunt easier, as well as to, I imagine, indicate pride in their spoils. The indication we have this is not a titan is primarily the spear utilized here, the fact the fur does not match the rest of the body, and the yellow glowing eyes.
I will discuss this further down through showing evidence with the other paintings, but there seems to be a recurring theme in the paintings that depicts the trappers and collectors as always having yellow eyes, whereas the titans are depicted with red eyes.
As Lilith explains further on, books found in the archive detail that a titan's power can actually cancel out the collectors' powers.
She also goes on to say that this why Collector's predecessors (her words not mine) wiped out all the titans.
If such is the case, then that explains why they chose to ally themselves with the trappers. It's likely they needed an intermediator, otherwise they would have not been able to fight the titans full on. In exchange, they likely shared whatever arcane knowledge they could to help in the fights, powering up the trappers.
This would line up perfectly with the trappers' worship of their Grand Huntsman, who as we all know, derives from the Collector and his entire species in aesthetic and looks.
As for why they did not want to risk peaceful contact with the titans besides the reason of their powers being able to be canceled out by titans, there is also the crossed out passage in the book:
Though our Collector declares he tried to "fix" it, we can still clearly see what was originally written, implying that any creature who attempts to stop their work shall meet a deadly end, and maybe even the entire planet will have all of its life wiped out.
So it is likely the titans were not fond of the collectors attempting to collect things in their planet, and fought back, causing the collectors to learn firsthand of their weakness to a titan's power, and to then ally themselves with the trappers.
Which, leads again, to the second painting, depicting two collectors in front of a trapper. The taller one, which I assume is part of our Collector's family, is trying on a skull.
By their side, I will assume is our Collector, due to the smaller stature, and something curious about the body language placed here for him seems to indicate he is examining the skull before putting it on. This could indicate he had an interest on the titans from early on. This will be important later.
As a quick addendum before we move on, I have come to conclude it's highly likely collectors have the ability to change size. In the first painting, the three adults are larger than the entire planet, with our Collector being only a bit smaller than the planet itself. However, in this second painting, the adult is not even as tall as the trapper depicted here, which, if we assume trappers are common witches and demons simply adorned with pelts and skulls just like the modern ones, were not as giant. Similarly, Collector is also way smaller, hence the theory that they change size.
We have seen our Collector possibly changing sizes in canon as well, both in the Owl Beast dream as their hooded figure form seemed massive, and then when they have just broken out of their prison. It's possible collectors scale down their massive size to fit whatever planet they are on.
Next is the third painting, which depicts a familiar scene...
Indeed, this seems to be an almost one to one recreation of the mural we see in Echoes of the Past inside King's castle. We even receive some extra content to it: We now know the titan depicted here had wing like structures on their arms, as well as was protecting an egg, and was accompanied by a smaller, likely juvenile titan.
Notice also how they both have red eyes, but the trapper has yellow eyes.
This all but confirms that the mural is depicting a trapper smithing a titan (whether it is our Titan we do not know for sure), and that the collectors had a hand in this.
Moving on, we have this painting:
Again, going out of the assumption the smaller figure is our Collector, he seems to be approached by four other adult collectors. These collectors however, are slightly different than three he was earlier with: first of all there are four of them, they have no split faces, and their hats are adorned with celestial bodies on their tips. For the sake of convenience I will refer to these as "The Elders", as their difference from our Collector's supposed family, as well as possible authority denoted by their hats, makes me think they are older and more powerful than our Collector's family.
Anyway, The Elders appear to be satisfied with our Collector, one even extending an open palm to them in a friendly gesture. I confess my interpretation of this is more speculative than the other paintings, simply because of the vagueness of it and how it does not seem to tie well into any other pictures or current lore we have.
But my current understanding is that, since one of The Elders is making such a gesture at Collector, they are maybe giving something to them, offering an opportunity. Their authority would certainly denote power above even Collector and his family, so they would likely be able to call the shots in their hierarchy.
Due to this, and considering the next paintings, I have elected to interpret this as The Elders entrusting Collector full control of watching over and collecting things from the planet he and his family had their eyes on. If this happens chronologically after the deal with the trappers as well, this could indicate the Elders have deemed it safe for our Collector to take over.
It also would explain why he calls himself The Collector, he's the designated collector for that planet, the caretaker of this planet and the one meant to observe and collect from it.
Which makes this next painting all the more interesting.
Collector, is surrounded by what seems to be four baby titans. They have their arms up, reaching for him, running to him. Playing. His expression also indicates happiness, eyes wide, hands on his chin, a little smile.
Recall for a moment that in the painting depicting the first contact with the trappers, our Collector had stopped to examine the titan skull. He was interested in them, he wanted to play.
This would align with Collector's "fixing" of the book, going to the lengths of desecrating what is likely an ancient book that dictates/documents the entire culture of his species to ensure his message of playing and friendship is more important.
If we take this painting and the book addition in conjunction, we can come to the conclusion Collector, once left alone, went out of his way to befriend and play with whatever titan babies were left out there. He was likely happy with this, as nothing about this picture indicates a struggle. And once again, these are definitely titan babies due to their eyes being red.
One may be concerned considering the fact the stars here could indicate they are in space, but there are a few counter arguments to this: Collector does not seem to imagine someone could suffocate in space as he suggests people on the moon could just hold their breaths, so this contradicts the idea he would have had experience with this.
The baby titans also seem to have playful body language rather than showing any anguish. And furthermore, when discussing the painting with my boyfriend he pointed out the blue waves could be an abstraction of the shoreline, indicating they were playing on the beach. In short, it is just the simplest explanation this depicts a peaceful scene rather than one with the babies suffocating, as it would not align with the rest of the story here.
There is also the matter of Collector straight up denouncing "the others", which we can only assume refers to the other collectors. It's no wonder he would feel that way, since they were the reason for his new friends' families being all but wiped out, and were less interested in playing with the creatures they observed and rather only preserving them.
Which only makes the present of the Isles and the state of titans and collectors all the more worrying, as well as concerns us with a last, pretty elusive painting...
This is what I meant by animation quirk: Getting a picture of this painting was so hard because it's the very last one in the timeline line up I showed you in that first screenshot, but when the camera zooms in on King and he runs up to get Hooty and we SHOULD get a proper look at it...
... It's pushed back again and the last two paintings get repeated. Which makes me think this is either an animation error, or they REALLY want to make it hard for us to get it.
BUT! After a bunch of rewatches and looking at some slowed down clips again, I was finally able to find the ONE place it repeated, on the scene where Belos!Raine is walking down the halls ominously.
And it is quite the revelation.
This depicts three adult collectors, likely our Collector's parents, staring down menacingly at a titan... perhaps THE Titan this time? It's worth noting this is not the same titan depicted in the painting with the trapper hunting down one that was protecting their egg, as that one had smaller wings and a skull that covered their entire jaw, whereas this one's skull only goes to the muzzle, just like King's does.
Something interesting is that this titan is accompanied either by other very weird looking titans, or these are other creatures that inhabited the Boiling Isles at the time and were also casualties in the collectors' path.
There is also fire surrounding this picture, which makes me think again of the "clear the earth, scorch the air" verse. It's also odd these collectors are approaching the titan(s) despite the fact titan magic could easily push them back, so it could be that they are betting it all on this and going on to cause massive destruction. But the titan seems to be holding up a hand as if gesturing for them to stop, or wait... they're not fighting back like with the trappers. Why?
Well, if this takes place after the painting with Collector playing the baby titans, it's possible these titans had become accustomed to our Collector and did not expect such an attack. It's likely they may have at first understood that this Collector was a child, one that was more interested in playing and befriending them rather than hurting anyone, and cautiously took them in.
Now, whether it was a misunderstanding with Collector's family thinking they were in danger or they were angered by their refusal to hurt titans... we know how the story ends. The titans were all wiped out, safe for King's egg, and Collector was sealed away by King's dad, likely one of the last things he'd ever do.
Overall I think our Collector's backstory is both horrifying and sad. Horrifying because of what his species is capable of, but also sad because despite his efforts to make peace with the titans, it couldn't save them and cost him his freedom. It's no wonder he was so happy to see a titan again, and latched onto King: this is like his second chance.
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