The One Earth Theory

One of the things I've wondered about with the idea of the Mull-Tiverse is, how many "Earths" are there in it?  In other words, to Seth and Kendra, Jason and Rachel, Cole, and Nate, Summer, Pigeon and Trevor all live in the same reality?

In both Beyonders and Five Kingdoms, they reference the fact that nobody knows just how many realities there are.  That means there could be at least for worlds that are like Earth.  While I am open to this idea, though, it also feels like kind of a copout method of fitting everything into the Mull-Tiverse.

So I started to wonder: is it possible that they all live on the same Earth?

We know that some of them do.  The movie "Medal of Shame" tells us that at least the Sorensons and Cole are from the same Earth.  The job then becomes, how do the Earth as represented in Candy Shop Wars and the Earth as represented in Beyonders fit into this reality?

One of the first things I looked at with this was where each of them are from.  All of the main characters are from the USA:

Seth and Kendra are the most traveled on Earth, but they are originally from Rochester, New York.

Cole is from Mesa, Arizona.  Both of these are actual locations, so even if it weren't for the "Medal of Shame" Easter Egg, we could easily say they're from the same version of Earth.

Rachel is from Olympia, Washington.  Another actual city, but Jason is from Vista, Colorado--a fictional city.  So the Earth they live on isn't necessarily the same.

Nate, Summer, Pigeon and Trevor are from Colson, California--another fictional city.  So again, a different variation of Earth.  

Even before picking apart these details, it was clearly just going to be a starting point.  It would take more than just "fictional town" vs "real town" to figure out how many Earths there were.  However, it didn't do much good, even as a starting point because the two that are harder to fit into the same reality are also the two that use fictional towns.

I have to admit, I was stumped on this one for a while until Parley Eubanks made a comment on a Facebook page for Brandon Mull fans that helped me connect at least some of the dots in this puzzle.  So, if you read this, Parley, thank you again!  He pointed out a conversation between Kendra and Agad in "Secrets of the Dragon Santuary."  Here's what Agad tells Kendra on page 312:

"Very few true wizards survive.  Oh, you can find pretenders, magicians and witches and the like, but my kind have become an extremely rare breed.  You see, all true wizards were once dragons."

I was SO excited to get this reminder for multiple reasons:

1: Candy Shop Wars is the biggest stumper (for me) in terms of the Mull-Tiverse

2: This can be used to show that Fablehaven and Candy Shop Wars happen on the same version of Earth!

Agad points out that there are others who practice magic.  He calls them "pretenders," which makes me think that he has had contact with some of them.  Also, (and this is the point that Parley made) he uses the term magicians.

Magicians are the main source of magic in Candy Shop Wars!  So Wizards (true wizards, as in ex-dragons) and magicians both exist in the Earth of Fablehaven.  It may not seem like much, but it is definitely noteable enough for fans to take notice.

That means that only the Earth of Beyonders is left to make a connection.  This means there needs to be a way to connect Beyonders to either Candy Shop Wars or Fablehaven.  Or both.

Let's start with Candy Shop Wars: One of the rules of magicians in Candy Shop Wars is that they must stay in their lair.  Ms. White sends Nate, Summer, Pigeon and Trevor on all her dangerous errands because she needs to stay in her candy shop.

A lair can be pretty much anything: a house, a candy sop, an arcade, a baseball cap!  But usually it's a place.

They also seem to enjoy luring people into their lairs and preying on weak minds!  The white fudge makes pretty much the entire town of Colson into mindless zombies, and the games in Arcadeland seem to draw kids in and make them drones, too.

This also brings up another interesting point about lairs: others don't seem to have to know that they are magician's lairs and magicians tend to enjoy public places that people want to go to.

Now let's look at the Fablehaven side  of things:  Agad doesn't seem to have a very favorable opinion of magicians.  He calls them "pretenders," as I mentioned before.  But this implies that he knows enough about them to be able to say that.  SO... magicians and at least one true wizard have interacted.  The magicians probably wouldn't be too pleased with being thought of as "pretenders."  There is likely a rivalry between magicians and wizards.

While Agad is not bound by magic to his preserve, he is bound by duty.  Dragon Sanctuaries must have wizards at them to protect the world from dragons just like the other preserves must have caretakers to protect the world form the magical creatures.

It's funny, but early on in the releases of the Fablehaven series, I thought "how awesome would it be to be a caretaker to a preserve for mythical creatures!"  It would be amazing.  My only issue is, if I came in contact with any mythical creatures, I would be too excited to keep them secret!  I would want everyone to "drink the milk" and see the cool animals I'd found.

As I thought about the potential rivalry between magicians and wizards, I thought they might feel the same way.  Wizards want to protect the world from the dangers of these mythical beings, but magicians don't seem too concerned with that.  If a magician got a hold of any mythical creatures, they'd probably just hide them in a lair in kind of a mythical creature zoo...

I'll just let this thought sit here and find out what others think...

Where did Olloch Come From?

One of my favorite demons in the Fablehaven universe is introduced very early on in the series: Olloch.  He was so unique, and, lets be honest, more than a little creepy.  A giant frog with that many tongues and an essentially limitless ability to grow?  That is terrifying.  Nobody wants to see a giant frog with tongues lashing out in every direction, eating everything in sight!

There's a description of him and his connection to the Fablehaven storyline on the Fablehaven fan wiki here:  https://fablehaven.fandom.com/wiki/Olloch_the_Glutton 

I was reminded of Olloch while I was listening to the audio book of "A World Without Heroes" not long ago.

Here's a passage from page 333:

"Jason sat taller, scanning the water ahead.  Off to one side he spotted a fat frog squatting on a floating log.  Bigger than a rabbit, the frog bulged with warty bumps.

"'Big frog,' Jason said.

"Jasher snorted.

"'They get bigger?' Rachel asked.

"'Big enough to prey on men, I am told,' Jasher whispered."

Frogs big enough to prey on men?  You can see why this made me think of Olloch, and I'm probably not the first to make the connection.  It got me thinking: could Olloch be one of the giant frogs from Lyrian?

But they're in Lyrian, not on Earth.  And Olloch is currently a statue.  And they're frogs.  They only have one tongue--Jasher slices one off later on when one of the giant frogs tries to eat them.

So let's tackle this one piece at a time.  First off, the giant frogs are in Lyrian.  This one is actually pretty easy to address: Jason is from Earth and is in Lyrian.  He gets sent back to earth through water at the end of "A World Without Heroes."  It's pretty widely accepted that not all pathways between Lyrian and other realities are known, so it is pretty conceivable that another passage exists through water.  Possibly even in the sunken lands.  It makes sense that these passages wouldn't be known because nobody likes to go to the sunken lands.  It's not exactly an ideal vacation spot.  Nor is vacation really a think in Lyrian, travel being frowned upon and all that.

So it actually doesn't seem that far-fetched that an animal could "accidentally" travel through a portal from Lyrain to "the beyond" (I don't think it's ever an accident, even if the individual doesn't expect it).

Then there's the whole thing about Olloch taking the form of a statue.  Frogs don't do that.  There's no indication in The Beyonders series that these Frogs are part gargoyle and turn to stone at any point in time.  They're just frogs that can get really big.

Well, "The Caretaker's Guide to Fablehaven" actually has some answers for us on this one: "This froklike demon has been transformed by a spell into a polished, green-speckled-jade toad figurine." (page 72).

It was a spell that turned him into a statue.  Not part of his nature.  Someone, probably in an attempt to prevent Olloch from gaining any more power, cast a spell on him.  I know this description says "figurine," and in the fan wiki it explains that he is changed back into a larger version of the statue, but that's just a difference in timeline.  The Caretaker's guide was obviously put together before Seth awakened Olloch.  In fact, Seth and Kendra have both left additional notes about Olloch on that page of the Caretaker's Guide.  

That one is pretty easy to explain as well.  The piece that isn't is the fact that Olloch is a froglike demon, not a frog.  And he has multiple tongues.  The frogs in the sunken lands do not have multiple tongues, and as large as they can get, they are still just frogs.

To respond to this, I turn to the most recent addition to the Mull-Tiverse: "Dragonwatch: Champion of the Titan Games."

Near the end of this book, Seth has a conversation with the creator of the Titan Games, the demon Humbuggle (my all-time favorite of the demons).  Part of their conversation reveals the nature of demons.  It touches on the biggest theme of the entire Fablehaven and Dragonwatch series: good and evil is about choice.  

Seth asks of demons have children, and Humbuggle's response is awesome:

"Less frequently than you might suppose, but yes, some do... And the babies are not demons.  They must be trained.  They can choose to become demons.  But not one demon started out the way they ended up.  They grow monstrous over time.  Any thinking being can qualify.  It's why there is so much variety among demonkind." (page 511).

Any thinking being?  Hmmm... can frogs think?  Well, they can at least think enough to catch their prey.  And what does Olloch do?  He's called Olloch the glutton!

This passage from "Champion of the Titan Games" was enough to convince me that, yes, Olloch could definitely be one of the giant frogs from Lyrian.  But just to make sure, let's dig a little deeper.

The first thing Humbuggle says is that in order to become demons, the creature or being "must be trained."  Trained by whom?  The most obvious assumption would be by another demon, but there is no mention of any demons in Lyrian.  That's not to say they couldn't exist, but it doesn't help solidify our case at all.

But if we look at the broader theme of the books in the Fablehaven universe, it may not matter if a being was trained by an actual demon or not.  In the Fablehaven universe, there are no beings that are inherently good or bad--there is light and there is darkness.  Beings can change from creatures of light to creatures of darkness, or vice versa.  The first obvious example of this is in "Grip of the Shadow Plague," but the change can happen more gradually, over time as well.  There is a clear sense of right and wrong, but that is more a matter of choice.

While it looks a bit different in Lyrian, it is still the same case.  Look at Maldor vs. Rachel for example.  Odd comparison?  Maybe, but think of their interaction at the end of "Seeds of Rebellion."  Both are naturally gifted in the use of Edomic.  Both have the same power, but they use it very differently.  Maldor invites Rachel to be his apprentice and Rachel is tempted because she knows the power she has can be improved.  But that does not mean Rachel would use it for evil as Maldor has.  Not much later, she receivs a similar offer from the Oracle where she could use her power to help others.

Rachel would use her power to support others while Maldor would use it to support himself.  It's what he's done for years, back from when he and Orruck were fighting each other over who would gain control.  

And look what happened to Orruck for that matter!  He used to be humanoid, but his obsession with using Edomic to gain power transformed him into something that Rachel didn't even recognize at first--she thought his head was his entire body when she first saw him... He transformed... into something else... because of choices he made to use his power for evil... If that doesn't sound like what Humbuggle is describing, I don't know what does.

So we have an evil being who transformed over a loooong period of time into something completely different.  And he lives in Lyrian...in the sunken lands... where the frogs live... And his name is Orruck.  I know this feels like a stretch, but what if one of the frogs ventured far enough out of the part of the swamp they control in search of something bigger to eat and found Orruck?  I'm not implying that Orruck would willingly take on a frog as a tutor, but a frog, being a thinking being, may have learned a few things from watching this creature that was way bigger than he was and how he got so big.

As trivial as it is (because, let's face it, this is all trivial fan theory anyway), I also really like the idea that Olloch could just be a poor pronunciation of Orruck.  Perhaps from a being who is just learning to speak?

Here's what I think: Olloch wandered off looking for bigger food, found Orruck and though I want to be like that thing and observed, learned a few tricks and started to transform into something else because of Edomic.  Somewhere along his journey, probably while chasing after some food, he accidentally got transported into "the beyond," and ended up in the world of the Fablehaven universe and continued his journey to demonhood, already having been partially transformed beforehand.  

I'd love to hear input from other Brandon Mull super fans on if you think this is a possible connection in the Mull-Tiverse.

Hard Evidence: Why the Mull-Tiverse Works

 In case I wasn't emphatic enough about it in the first post, I LOVE fan theories.  They make books and movies come to life in a whole different way, and they get people thinking about subtext, which is amazing.

I follow the Super Carlin Brothers on YouTube whenever I get a chance, and my favorite of their posts are about the Pixar Theory, which, if you don't know about, you should look it up.  It's mind-blowing.

But this blog is devoted to the creative works of Brandon Mull.  I want to use it to explore the possibilities of a multiverse (or Mull-Tiverse, if you will) that connects the series that he is the sole author of.  He has done this himself, through his Five Kingdoms series.

Most of the posts here will be speculative, but I wanted to supply the foundation for the Mull-Tiverse theory first.

Five Kingdoms is what makes this theory a possibility.  Even if it weren't for the Easter eggs he drops in the series (and things that are much more obvious than Easter eggs... what would you call those?  Easter Bunnies?), the very concept of the series makes it a possibility.

In the first book, "Sky Raiders," the main character, Cole finds himself in another realm when he goes to rescue his friends from kidnappers.  The first person he meets there is a wayminder, who has the ability to open passages between the Outskirts (where they are) and other worlds.

Their first conversation contains this little snippet:

“You have crossed over to the Outskirts.”

“The outskirts of where?”

“A difficult question.  The outskirts of everywhere, perhaps.  Certainly the outskirts of the world you know.  This is an in-between place.” (page 31)

The use of capitalization in what the wayminder says and the lack of capitalization that Cole uses when he asks for clarification shows a misunderstanding on Cole's part.  The wayminder was telling him the name of the place, and Cole confused this with a description of the place they were in.  The wayminder could have clarified that the he was referring to the name of the place, but he doesn't.  Instead, he says, "The outskirts of everywhere."  This phrase opens the door to so many possibilities!  Too many, actually.  So we are going to take on one possibility: that the Outskirts are connected to any reality that exists in a series that was solely authored by Brandon Mull: the Fablehaven Universe (to include both series--Fablehaven and Dragonwatch), Lyrian from Beyonders, and the world of Candy Shop Wars.

At this point, you may be thinking, but you said hard evidence.  Saying "the outskirts of everywhere" isn't hard evidence.

You're right.  But in fan theory, you have to have a foundation, or something that grants permission for you to think outside the box--or the series.

Also in Sky Raiders, Cole discovers that it's not just people that can go from his world to the Outskirts.  When he arrives at Skyport and Mira is giving him a tour and helping him get the right gear to be a sky raider, he spots football gear and a T-Shirt from Earth:

“…we have a lot of this stuff.  Like that T-shirt over there.  It’s from a movie called Medal of Shame.  It doesn’t belong here.” (page 80)

A movie called Medal of Shame... hmmm... have any of you seen that movie?  I know I haven't.  Because it doesn't exist in our reality.  But do you know where it does exist?  The the Fablehaven universe!  Check out this excerpt form "Rise of the Evening Star," the second Fablehaven book:

"Case clapped his hands together. 'So what are we seeing?'

"They debated for a couple of minutes.  Case wanted to see Medal of Shame, about a serial killer addicted to terrorizing veterans who had won the Congressional Medal of Honor." (page 12-13)

This little Easter egg tells us that Cole comes from the same universe as Seth and Kendra.  This means Cole came from a version of Earth that has secret preserves for magical creatures!

If this isn't enough to convince you that the Mull-Tiverse exists, book two of Five Kingdoms, "Rogue Knight," introduces a new character named Trillian.  Trillian doesn't come from the Outskirts, and he doesn't come from Earth.  We don't know where he comes from, but we know what he is: a torivor.

You know where else we see torivors?  In Lyrian!  In the Beyonders series, Maldor has enslaved what many people in Lyrian call Lurkers.  What they are actually called is torivors!  In Beyonders, nobody knows where the torivors came from, just that they come from "the Beyond."

Not only does this Easter egg connect Five Kingdoms and Beyonders, but it leaves some possibility for another series down the road that features torivors more directly (Come on, Brandon Mull!  Bring it to us!)  It would be awesome to see a torivor show up in Fablehaven, but possibly even cooler to read a series about wherever it is they come from.

Trillian is certainly a stronger support of the Mull-Tiverse theory, but Brandon Mull grants us the biggest gift to allow us to connect the dots in book four of Five Kingdoms: "Death Weavers."

Some background on this Easter Bunny before I give the quote: Lyrian, the world from the Beyonders series, contains many wizard-created races.  Two of the most featured races are the Amar Kabal and Displacers.

Here is a passage from "Death Weavers":

“'Let me introduce a pair of echoes who didn’t live in the Outskirts during mortality,' Harvan said.  'This is Drake, son of Hessit, of the Amar Kabal.'  The man with long hair placed two fingers on his chest and gave a small bow.  'And Ferrin, son of Baldor, a displacer.' (246) 

I am not joking, I audibly gasped when I reached this passage my first time reading the book, eliciting a chuckle from the woman sitting across from me in the church lobby.

Since reading that passage, I have toyed with the idea of exploring what other connections I can find in Brandon Mull's books.  Years have passed, but with any luck, I'll find some more and be able to share them here.

Brandon Mull and the Mull-Tiverse

I love Brandon Mull's writing.  I know his books don't have the same wide-spread fan base as Harry Potter, but I am going to raise some eyebrows by saying I like his books more than Harry Potter.  Anyone who knows me knows what a big deal it is for me to say that.  For those of you who don't, let's just say that I am sitting here writing this blog post, wearing a Hufflepuff hoodie.

Brandon Mull books just don't have the same merchandise that the Harry Potter franchise has.  But if I could find a shirt that said "Drink the Milk," or "I keep waiting for things to get less weird and it keeps not happening," I would totally wear them every chance I got!

If you don't know, Brandon Mull is the author of some amazing series: Fablheaven, Candy Shop Wars, Beyonders, Five Kingdoms,  and most recently Dragonwatch, which is a follow-up series to Fablehaven, and I am SO excited for the final book to come out!  He also contributed to the Spirit Animal series.

I created this blog as a backdrop for something I have been wanting to do since I read the fourth book in the Five Kingdoms series: "Death Weavers."

Death weavers is my favorite book in the Five Kingdoms series for multiple reasons.  It was the one I was most excited about because it features Necronum, a kingdom that represents the space between life and death.  I have always been fascinated by ghost stories and the relationship between mortal life and life on the other side of the veil.

But on top of that, it is the book that made fan theories about Brandon Mull's books a reality.  I don't consider information about these books "spoilers" anymore because they've been out for several years now, but if you haven't read them and don't want the be robbed of the joy of discovering the storyline on your own, you may want to stop now and read the "Beyonders" series, and then "The Five Kingdoms."  Then you can come back to it.

In "Death Weavers," Cole meets Ferrin and Drake In the Echolands.  These two were some of my favorite characters from Beyonders.  I was sitting in a church lobby on a youth night when I got to this part in the book and I was so excited that I audibly gasped.  The woman sitting in the chair across from me chuckled and said, "Good book?"  Obviously, I confirmed that it was, completely unashamed of my geek-out reaction.

Since that day, I have been obsessed with finding other connections in Brandon Mull's books in a concept I have taken to calling the "Mull-Tiverse."

I do not claim to be an authority--I have never met Brandon Mull (although I think that would be awesome).  I am just a fan, who loves other fan theories and wanted to be a part of creating one.  It may not end up being a fan theory to the caliber of the Pixar Theory (which I also love), but I wanted to give it a go.

For this post, though, I am just going to do a ranking of my personal favorites in the series that make up the Mull-Tiverse.  For this, I am going to use series that are written solely by Brandon Mull, so "Spirit Animals" will not be included.  This list only reflect my personal opinion, and it is based on how well they support the Mull-Tiverse theory.

1: Five Kingdoms.

 It should come as no surprise, based on the criteria that I explained, that this is my favorite of the series.  Because the Outskirts is a "space between," it is what makes the Mull-Tiverse a possibility, and it is also the series that provided hard evidence that it is a real thing, that the author actually put thought into, which opened the door for fans like me to explore the possibilities even further.

On top of that, though, I love the way this series addresses real current issues with youth today.  Adolescence is an age of discovery, and it is, in may ways, a stage where youth feel like they are "in between," because they're no longer children, but they're not yet adults.  This makes the Outskirts a beautiful backdrop to address feelings of being "in between."

2: Beyonders

I go back and forth between this being my overall favorite of his series and ranking second to "Five Kingdoms."  For this list, I've placed it second because the Mull-Tiverse wasn't a reality when this series came out.  It is an amazing series with truly unique characters and beings, which is why I love it so much overall.  It took concepts of classic fantasy and opened up so many possibilities to young readers.  This series did for my son what Lord of the Rings did for me: it set a standard for good fantasy.

As far as its connection to the Mull-Tiverse, there are a couple things in "World Without Heroes" that, upon reading after "The Five Kingdoms" piqued my interest as far as connecting Fablehaven and Dragonwatch into the Mull-Tiverse.  Again, I won't go into detail here because I need content for other posts.

3: Dragonwatch

I place this one above Fablehaven because it expanded on the Fablehaven universe, opening up more possibilities to tap into the Mull-Tiverse.  In the Fablehaven universe, there are five crowns.  This fact alone taps into the theme of five we see in the Mull-Tiverse.  They are: Fairykind, Undead, Giants, Dragos and Demons.  In Dragonwatch, we learn a TON more about the nature of these five groups.

The history of this universe is expanded even more with "Legend of the Dragon Slayer."

4: Fablehaven

I bought Fablehaven as soon as it came out.  I was SO excited for a new author in the realm of YA Fantasy, and it did NOT disappoint.  I was in college at the time, and was in a YA Literature class.  I did a book talk on Fablehaven for one of my projects, and everyone in the class agreed, Brandon Mull was going to be big.

The only reason I rank it so low is because Dragonwatch does more to support the Mull-Tiverse theory, even though they are part of their own universe together.

5: Candy Shop Wars

This series still stumps me a bit.  I like it, but don't hold it on the same level as the other books.  This is also probably why I haven't been able to make any connections with it in the Mull-Tiverse theory.  I am still including it, though, in case there are other fans out there who have seen things that I've missed, and also because I am determined to connect it somehow.