User blog:Nacho1804/The Mirror and Foreshadowing: An Introduction

Hello and Welcome
I know you probably don't know me. Truth is, I'm new here, and pretty new to the show too. I'm not really one for introductions, though, so I'll just tell you what this is all about.

The Mirror. A pretty straightforward episode, right? Jokes, suspense, the main characters being put in mortal peril, TAWoG's usual thing. Now, before you go ranting on in the comments, telling me how incredibly good, or bad, or lazy, or innovative this episode is... I'm no analyst. I'm a theorist, my skills in picking apart the slightest details honed by hour upon hour of Game Theory (yeah, I know, hate on me if you wish.) But I digress, as usual. As I rewatched The Mirror earlier today, one scene just stood out to me. A few details that might not have seemed out of the ordinary at the time of its airing suddenly made a whole lot more sense.

The Evidence
So, you may ask, which scene am I rambling about? Take a look at this, if you will:
 * Darwin : Mrs. Jotunheim, who is The Snatcher guy?


 * Mrs. Jotunheim: There once was a young man, a mortal man who fell in love with a beautiful ghost after seeing her in the mirror.
 * [As she continues, some images from the story are formed in her cauldron]
 * Mrs. Jotunheim: All he wanted was to kiss her just once. In the forbidden book, he found an incantation. It allowed the living to touch a ghost. The price for this: a cursed life. Now, his spirit floats in limbo, trapped behind mirrors. Everyday, he's becoming more lonely, more angry, looking for someone to take his place.

This bit of backstory doesn't really make a lot of sense. We don't need to be told The Snatcher's backstory for the episode to make sense, apart from perhaps explaining that he is Carrie's father. But what if I told you this scene is foreshadowing for events that will transpire in season 6, perhaps in another Halloween special? What if I told you... drumroll, please...

What if I told you Darwin will become The Snatcher?

First, let's look at the presentation of The Snatcher's backstory. Whle his brother is out gathering materials for a potion to defend against said angry ghost-dad, Darwin asks Mrs. Jotunheim about him. The witch responds directly, and her words seem... oddly familiar... but we'll get to that later. Everything about this presentation seems directed at Darwin. And to top it all off? Mrs. Jotunheim says the line 'looking for someone to take his place' while looking directly. at. Darwin.

Now, on to the content of that little speech. In particular, direct your eyeballs at this clever little peice of foreshadowing.

Mrs. Jotunheim: There once was a young man, a mortal man who fell in love with a beautiful ghost after seeing her in the mirror.

Do I even have to explain this part? Sure, Carrie doesn't exactly need a mirror to be seen, but she's not your normal ghost, either.

The rest of the quote is less blatant, but we can still make out a few familiar elements. Sure, we haven't seen a 'forbidden book' anywhere else, but an 'incantation that allows the living to touch a ghost' could very easily be a form of the potion shown in Halloween which can acheve that effect, among other things. Perhaps poor Vladus didn't make it back to his body on time, although that inference exposes a few issues with this theory that we'll discuss later.

In addition to all this, an episode with Darwin becoming The Snatcher could have some poignant character development, both for the fish with legs and for his family as they deal with his transformation. It would be particularly interesting to see how Darwin's fear of abandonment is portrayed with regards to a Snatcher's lonely existence. But such an episode remains highly hypothetical, and I don't want to delve too deep into a possible plot for fear of sounding like a wannabe episode writer.

The Problems
As much as I am covinced that The Mirror has quite a bit of foreshadowing strewn amongst its Halloween-special spookiness (or, rather, 'spoopiness' as the kids say,) there are a few issues with the possibility of Darwin transforming into The Snatcher.

First of all, if Vladus used an incantation form of the potion in Halloween, and turned into The Snatcher because of it, why didn't Gumball, Darwin, and Anais simply turn into regular ghosts when they drank the potion in Halloween? It is possible that the incanttion Vladus used was more potent, but it's still a bit of a stretch. (besides, why would Carrie give the Watterson brothers a potion that could turn them into Snatchers in the first place?) For all we know, the potion in Halloween might as well be completely unrelated to the incantation.

The Conclusion (sorta)
But I digress again. This theory might turn out to be completely wrong, and I wouldn't be particularly surprised. I have simply shared my thoughts with you, and I think what I've found is pretty... shall I say... Amazing?

Yeah, I'm terrible, I get it.