The Great Tree

[Jmp12]

I'm cross-posting this from the MOUL forum, since I think others here might have an interest in the post, and might have feedback. (Particularly since Phil was a friend of The Great Tree, as I recall.)

In the Prologue storyline, Phil Henderson was a character who left the DRC's 'side' to side with Yeesha and the Bahro and try to steer the restoration in a new direction. Then he fell from a great height, apparently without his linking book to relto, and was presumed dead. His relto was visitable in To D'ni, and we could see that it had turned to nighttime, which could be interpreted as meaning he had died, since our reltos are supposed to be our soul, or at least connected to our soul, in some sense.

In the gametap era, Phil Henderson returned, but he had a new relto book with him while his "old" book remained in Sharper's spy room. The characters said, if I remember right, that he had simply survived somehow and gotten a new book; the suspense around whether he had died or survived was sort of dropped without much fanfare or closure. I recall some, including myself, (I wasn't a tester during Prologue, but I played during the gametap era,) being confused as to how Phil could just get a new book while his old relto was left behind, still with a nighttime sky. (How can someone get a new "soul"? And if our reltos are not linked to our souls, that seems like a significant change to the lore.) It seemed like a plothole, contrived and a bit disappointing in execution, to me. Don't get me wrong, I was glad to hear that he was alive, but it still felt like a plothole or mild letdown.

An idea just occurred to me, however, and I think it's my new 'headcanon.'

I think Phil Henderson died after all, but that Yeesha 'resurrected' him by doing a bit of time travel and bringing an alternate version of him back to our universe or version of reality.

We have precedent for this. The alternate vault in Kadish Tolesa implies, with its entirely different set of doors, that it is a parallel universe where Kadish survived, and it has notes by Yeesha claiming she saved his life. Phil's old relto, and his 'new' relto, strike me as similar, similar enough that I think a similar thing may have occurred, with Yeesha saving Phil's life in a similar way. But just as a version of Kadish did, indeed, die, I think a version of Phil also died, the Phil we saw in the gametap era was just a different version of Phil from a parallel universe. This explains the continued existence of both versions of his relto, (analogous to both versions of Kadish's vault,) and just feels more satisfying to me as a story. It only just occurred to me, maybe other problems with it will occur to me later, but right now I like this version of the story, despite the sad implication that some version of Phil died.

It's even conceivable that the version of Phil we see in the gametap storyline doesn't know Yeesha did this, or that he knows but doesn't want us to know for some reason, hence not telling us.

I don't actually think Cyan had this in mind when playacting the story, I think it's just a plothole, but I still like this as headcanon, just my own version of how things "really" happened, given a lack of a satisfying explanation from the story we're explicitly told.

What are everyone's thoughts?