magicians theory thrown onto the internet for posterity

[necessarian]

so we can all laugh at how wrong i am when shit goes down however it's going to go down. under a cut because, well, spoilers for enough of season 4 that i can't give a specific "up to where" warning...

we know that:

1. the monster is childlike - it conceptualises tasks as games and only wants to be loved and entertained
2. the monster is missing its body (and doesn't know why)
3. while without its own physical form, the monster can hop between other people's bodies
4. when in incorporeal form, the monster is a cloud of yellow sparkles
5. it has been strongly hinted that the monster is, if not a god, at least god-created or god-adjacent, so presumably this is where some of its powers (such as hopping bodies and doing magic where there's no ambient) come from

we also know that:

1. shades are personified by children
2. shades can exist independently of their bodies
3. a shade can be passed between bodies, and a shade can spend a non-negligible amount of time in
4. when julia passes her shade to beast!quentin, it's a sparkling, reddish glow
5. at least some of the reason that julia can interface with shades the way she does is that she's a goddess

QED the monster is a god's shade

i have no guesses as to which god. (tbh my first thought about the monster locked in blackspire was that this was a pandora's box situation, since they've been leaning so heavily on greco-egyptian mythology.) also, we don't know if it's possible for two shades to exist in one body, and indeed how that would manifest if it were possible. but maybe we're seeing it now?

also inb4 the other potential problem with this theory is that the monster doesn't really get human emotions, remember how calm julia's shade was? just because a shade imbues empathy in their owner, doesn't mean it has to show off all those emotions all the time. also things are almost certainly different with gods/god-adjacent creatures.

is any of this even important? potentially not. is it obvious and i'm late to the game? potentially yes. but i'm kind of ecstatic about this... i've really missed being in a fandom where there are theories to be had... feels good to be back on my bullshit!!!