What on Earth is a Torivor?

 The majority of this post is from my good friend Ryan Baker.  We have been tossing ideas off each other, and he came across a real break-through in the Mull-Tiverse theory as he was reading the third book of the Dragonwatch series.  After this paragraph, I'll be posting Ryan's words.  This one is amazing, and connects the Single-Earth component of the theory as it relates to torivors.  I will supplement with italics in a couple spots:

If all of Brandon Mull’s books take place in the same universe (or multiverse), then one of the

obvious connections between series to explore is the torivor.  Torivors are explicitly mentioned

in both the Beyonders and the Five Kingdoms, and they are clearly the same type of being in

both series.  Therefore, the Beyonders and Five Kingdoms take place in the same universe.

But do Kendra and Seth inhabit the same universe as Cole, Jason, and Rachel?  Are they all

from the same Earth?  I’m going to assume they are all from the same Earth . If they are all

from the same Earth, then a torivor might easily have visited the Earth of Kendra and Seth.

But there’s a problem.  According to Trillian, a torivor who goes to Earth would lose its powers. 

He even says it’s uncertain whether a torivor could survive such a trip.  That initially made it

hard for me to connect torivors to Earth.   I asked myself “why would torivors be powerful in

Lyrian and the Outskirts, but not on Earth?”  Clearly the torivors are quite adept at the “magic” of

the Outskirts (shaping), and although they don't seem to use the resident magic of Lyrian (Edomic),

they are still quite powerfulthere, and do seem to have at least some connection to Edomic (which seems to be involved in

Maldor’s control over them). 

I just finished listening to the audiobook of "Chasing the Prophecy," and a detail I had forgotten was that the torivors are able to use Edomic through Maldor (and vice-versa) as evidenced by their visiting Rachel in her dreams, which allows Maldor to communicate with Rachel. In this way, they are essentially being used as an Edomic router.

So why would they be powerless on Earth?  Why would they not have some access to the magic

present in the world of Fablehaven?  Well, maybe they do.

When Trillian said a torivor would be stripped of power, I suspect he was only talking about shaping. 

Trillian would not have been familiar with any other forms of magic, and when he sent his servant on

the Pilgrim Path, he probably only saw that his connection to shaping would be lost if he walked that

path.  He would not have been looking for, or even known how to look for, other types of magic.

And of course, losing shaping ability upon going to Earth makes sense in the Mull-tiverse.  After all,

Rachel was an adept at Edomic but could not use it at all when she returned to Earth.  It stands to

reason that something similar applies to shaping.

I 100% agree with this speculation.  The closes evidence I can think of to support it is the wolf-headed slaver in "Sky Raiders."  Presumably, this slaver is from Eloweer, and is unable to conceal his true form on Earth.

Ok, so that’s that problem resolved.  But there’s still the issue of a torivor’s ability to survive on Earth. 

Trillian makes clear that Earth could be a very hostile environment for his kind.  And that got me

thinking.  See, torivor’s in Lyrian have a very distinct form- they are essentially living shadows who

apparently cannot speak (except for in dreams, or in Rachel's case, telepathically, which is further evidence of their ability to use limited forms of Edomic).

That’s quite different from their form in the Outskirts.  When Ramarro finally escapes from his prison,

he is described as an albino man, and he does quite a bit of talking.

So if a torivor looks like a living shadow on Lyrian and like an albino man in the Outskirts, what on

Earth is a torivor?  I suggest that we’ve already met one.  Her name is Dezia.

Yep, I think phantoms are actually torivors.  In both Lyrian and the Outskirts, torivors arrived from

some other realm.  In the case of Lyrian, it seems they were summoned there and tied to the

Myrkstone.  In both cases, they had to travel through some sort of gateway to get there.

In book 3 of Dragonwatch, “Master of the Phantom Isle,” we learn where phantoms come from.  We

first hear it from Ronodin, who tells Seth “Phantoms are ethereal.  They have no tangible body. 

Nobody knows exactly where they come from, but they are born out of deep tragedy.”  We further learn,

however, that unlike many undead, phantoms are not a transformed version of an earthly being. 

Rather, Ronodin says, “The phantom is what fills the footprint of the tragedy.”  

Ronodin seems to think that the tragedy createsthe phantom, but Dezia tells us otherwise.  She says “Many years ago, fifteen firewalkers lost their

lives inside the volcano Baga Loa.  They are buried here under those coals I helped you cross. 

Their demise opened my gateway to your world.”  (emphasis added).

This suggests that Dezia existed prior to the deaths of the firewalkers, but inhabited some place other

than Earth.  She was able to come to Earth when a gateway opened!The same way torivors travel from their realm to Lyrian or the Outskirts.  Strangely, phantoms are

counted among the undead despite having never been a living, earthly being.  That seems to square

nicely with the questionable survival of torivors on earth.  They are neither fully alive nor truly dead. 

And phantoms certainly seem to be limited in their power.  They have some access to magic, but they

are confined to a limited space and bound to a token, just as torivors in Lyrian were bound to the

Myrkstone!  

The pieces seem to fit.  I believe that on Earth, torivors are phantoms.