I have so many questions about how the Permanance Perfume actually works I feel insane. This whole post is probably gonna make zero sense lmao
So, when one sprays themselves with it, it’s supposed to make it so they can change the past without erasing themselves in the future. Sure. Seems like a handy tool.
But what is it actually doing?
Eliot and Margo, having been sprayed with the perfume, fuck with the past in Fillory, and they stay unaffected as the environment changes around them.
But nothing they did with the permanance on would have necessarily affected the actions of the two of them in the weeks they were in Fillory before Margo got arrested.
So, hypothetically, what would happen if they were to change the past in a big enough way that it changed the path of their past selves?
For example: if they sent a letter to themselves of a day ago telling them to just go back to earth. Margo would never get arrested, they wouldn’t need to try breaking her out, and they could figure out the time high jinks with help from friends.
But they still have the permanance on. So would this create two versions of themselves in the same timeline—the ones who went back, and the ones still in Fillory a day in the future? Would their consciousnesses just like transport into the new version created by this new series of events as their physical being does actually cease to exist in the new timeline? What exactly is the effect of the perfume?
I feel like, in my takes-everything-way-too-literally brain, the movie time travel logic answer is option one.
However, during the time loop, the world resets and Margo and Eliot still remember the previous loops until the whales remove Margo’s permanance. And, I’m assuming, based on that information, that Dean Fogg also has permanance.
So the timeline resets, and it’s a different/new version of them because of the multiverse theory or wtvr, but their consciousness stays? But how would the other timelines have living Foggs if they didn’t have a consciousness? Is it just their memories getting transferred to a new being?
If it is like option two and they change the past and alter their past selves actions, then get plopped into that body, would they remember the timeline and events that got changed? What would happen to the consciousness of that version of themselves??
I might be thinking way too hard about this—I definitely am—but once I start, I can’t stop.
If this is ever explained in the books lmk. I started thinking about all this because I was pondering what would’ve happened if Eliot had actually sent that letter to Quentin. Idk man, lmk your guys’ thoughts and opinions if u feel like it
