So I am epiphany tripping hard, I have to leave very soon, and I have
no time for proper responses to everything else in the thread. Even so, I want to get this out.
So here's the epiphany:
There have been a number of Brina theorys: Walpurgis!Brina, Kyuu!Brina, I think there may be a Clara!Brina around too somewhere.
Well, simply brute force theorizing suggests that we should eventually look to Wraith!Brina.
And on inspection... it kind of checks out.
Here's the start of the thought: There are four states of matter: Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma. From most to least dense (+ however you fit plasma in that.) We've tried grief in two of these.
There are also four kinds of wraiths. Each kind of wraith is named for a level of enlightenment, and has an attack or effect corresponding to an age of the universe: The smallest wraiths use lasers, bright light, corresponding to the beginning --- "let there be light" and all that; the second, Shugen Wraiths, are associated with fire, and thus the hot early period; the third, Satori wraiths, induce corrosion, which the corresponds to the universe ruled by the decay of entropy; the last, Moksha wraiths, are freezing cold, associated with the final end.
When we use grief, it becomes witchy when we do something, even natural forces. Making magnetism is witchy. Making gravity is witchy. This is
very frequently noted.
However, when gaseous grief corrodes matter, it's not especially more witchy than normal gas. It even does it on it's own. Now you could associate that corrosion with "Well, it's grief, it's despair,
of course it does that." And on it's own this is entirely reasonable.
But then we go to luce prima: During the experiments that led to luce prima, making light from solid grief is never noted to be especially witchy. (at least from my view on the thread, and I'm using a pretty quick ctrl+f for "witch") Despite that, it works, and it works well enough to melt an engine block. There's no mention of a "
twist" or anything the first time we make light, we just do it very...
naturally using a single grief sphere. All this despite melting a car's engine block on our first go.
We can even feel the nature and qualities of the light source/laser beam as it emerge from the grief quite naturally. (
The page and first of the posts I'm looking at, for reference.)
Interestingly,
luce prima isn't even our suggestion: It's Mami's and from what I've seen Mami is often Firn's voice. (Which would also suggest we name the resulting state of grief attacks Fiamma secondo, Decadenza terzo, Ghiaccio/Congelare Ultimo, <second flame, third decay, final ice> after just taking a quick look at google translate.)
There's more that than though. When a wraith pulls from a soul gem or person, it's accompanying image is akin to stream or a
river of grief. Just like we're described as doing it. More than that, wraiths bind grief into a "safe" state, mixing the memories, magic, and grief they acquire to create grief cubes. We've never bound grief with magic (or memories) but we
do keep it in safe state within our presence.
It even fits with the creation of clear seeds: Wraiths
drain soul gems, leaving nothingness. We drain grief seeds in a similar way, leaving only the absolute core.
Of course this raises a question: Aren't wraiths emotionless old men/modern art? Yes, but they can and do gain emotion, and the more emotion they gain, the more human they become. The Moksha wraith of Wraith Arc, the very strongest wraith was filled with the memories and emotions of a world... and it ceased to be a wraith at all. In that case, it absorbed the witch of a universe and became one itself. Wraith!Madoka might also count, being a very small wraith filled with the emotions of one girl, and becoming the physical embodiment of her love, the Clara Doll Ai.
In our, hypothetical, case? It came into possession of a living, breathing,
healthy world... and became human. But it may not have happened that way. Or it may have. We can't tell.
Wraith!Madoka is also noteworthy that she's even able to talk about the motives of wraiths and make her own decisions.
Which is interesting, because, well... A lot of magic's "karmic consequences" seem to arise through perfectly normal
means. Sayaka healing Kyouske and then having Hitomi confront her for his love for instance. Even if Madoka is responsible for their existence in Wraith Arc, the explanation given by them for their actions always struck me as
exactly like something an incubator would say. "Prevent energy from building up and causing bad consequences" Very leading, very low on details. Sort of like "Accept a life of battle."
It wouldn't surprise me if Madoka's wish was responsible for them karmically, but the actual physical side of things was due to the incubators after their attempts to create witches failed. (Or just that the incubators took control of that side of the system after it came into existence. Wraith powers and soul absorption is pretty similar to what the Law of Cycles does after all. They even also serve as a dark mirror to the role of defeating witches before they were born via soul absorption.)
Which, if true, means that the wraiths of a different wish could look very
very different.
That said, the possibility that wraiths are generally similar would well also explain the oddity of our soul, and it being like something Kyuubey never encountered before. The soul of an
emotional wraith needn't look anything at all like a human or even a witch: It's channeling and being absorbed by emotions that aren't truly even it's own to begin with. Of course it would look massively different! (Which, you know, also looks a lot like Sabrina growing from the thread's discussion and decisions and absorbing that into her psyche. It started off as something handed to her, but became more and more her own the more she dealt with it.)
That also ties into witches in two ways: Wraiths cannot absorb witches without being consumed by them. Same with us: We talk to a witch directly, we fall to it. But the the whole humanized!Wraith thing even fits our
particular witch: Our witch is Dedolere: An end to grief. Wraiths are associated with Buddhism, which seeks to move beyond suffering. Wraiths are also associated with the progression of the universe, which, IIRC, our witch's stopping grief/magic (whichever it was) would allow.
It doesn't answer everything: "Why are we approximately
European?" for one. There could be
much more to us than just that. Even so, it certainly seems to fit our powers and possibly much of our nature.
And because of it links to the fundamental material states of our grief power this is
testable: If wraiths correspond to grief "density", plasmatic grief should freeze things that are exposed to it, and fluid grief should ignite things. (it could be the other way around and still work, of course, but if it's this way then it's
very solid evidence.)
Likewise, we may be able to enchant grief to create a grief-cube from magic+grief stabilizing each other. (Not really evidence, except circumstantially, and I wouldn't call it enough besides what I've reviewed here unless it comes
very naturally.)
Well, there's my thoughts... and now... I should go.