Elephant Book & Cinderella Boy: The storybook characters coming to life.
Why I believe that season 2 will end with the storybook characters escaping into the real world and saving the main cast.
For a while now, we've been discussing many theories about the Cinderella Boy storybook characters in the fandom. Most of them follow the assumption that the characters can gain consciousness and act on their own, thanks to the keyholders triggering that ability of theirs by deviating from the original script.
An example such as this os Princess Frankie from Toffee Break (destined to be a damsel that experiences a meet-cute with the villain's secretary> she became the one to save the secretary). Also, Dracifer from ROBAM (meant to be the evil vampire villain> got a redemption arc to the point that his role changed from the Villain archetype to the Hero one, which caused Prunella to join the book in his place).
This is HUGE and a marvellous addition to the story. Not only can the characters act differently than they're written to, but their essence itself can COMPLETELY SHIFT.
However, one has to wonder what happens when the characters are acting differently and changing, WITHOUT the deviation happening. There are numerous examples of this, the first one we saw being the step sisters from Cinderfella. They knew that the pigeons were about to pluck their eyes out at the end, even though they're supposed to be unaware of it.
My favourite example of this occurrence is the Queen of Summer's subplot from Mr Mischief arc.
Deacon, who has established that he read "A Castle in the Attic" and remembers it well enough for him to perform without notes, was utterly clueless about the Summer Queen's struggle with choosing what she wants for herself, pleasing people and stepping out of her comfort zone. I once made a theory that perhaps this was simply a manifestation of Deacon's feelings and struggles onto the character, which caused her to change, according to what he---the reader---was experiencing. But then, I started doubting it after a bit. And that's because I were reminder of another thing mentioned by Punko.
Another fairytale-related work of hers, "The Elephant Book", apparently shares a universe with Cinderella Boy. Now, personally I haven't read it, but I've asked around and was able to find someone who has!! Here's what they had to say about it :D
So let's take this bit by bit.
There's an organisation and a secret society that aren't in good terms with each other, due to their different opinions about how storybook characters should be treated, what rituals should be taking place etc.
This seems to be peculiarly similar to Ex Libris, who also seemed to be prohibiting certain book-related stuff from happening. They didn't allow certain rituals to be performed, Narratonin to be kept and used by the keyholders, there were forbidden wishes etc. A bunch of rules and familiar stuff. Ex Libris was also referred to as a secret society by Silver in "Silver" (S1EP9). Now I doubt that either of these organizations/secret societies is actually Ex Libris as we know it, but @promptcorner did bring up the idea that it could be another group of people that originated from the Order of Ex Libris. Which I don't doubt but I also haven't particularly formed an opinion on yet.
Now, let's focus on the part of the theory that this theory is actually about:
"Their belief in fiction resulted to fictional characters manifesting to the real world."
Belief in fiction. Sounds familiar? It should.
"Everyone gets what they want, if they just BELIEVE hard enough."
Spoken by Chase while performing the original "Cinderella", which is most definitely very important, since the comic's name (as well as the comic itself and characters' situations) heavily involves/reflects that particular fairytale.
So we know the theme of "Don't stop believing and your wish will come true" is a big part of the story. Which is quite similar to the idea that believing in fictional material could result to the character of that specific media to manifest in real life.
Chase unintentionally WISHED for the real world to be like the fairytale world already. And, given how fast he figured out Wave's scheme and Buddy's key nature after wishing for it while in the track, we know that when he wishes something out loud, it conveniently enough just happens.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's go back to the og theory.
In the Elephant Book (the story that shares a universe with Cinderella Boy), fictional characters can manifest into the real world with a ritual, thanks to the readers' love for the characters and belief in fiction.
The EB cast attempted to help Alice from "Alice in Wonderland" manifest into the human world, by helping her pass to the human dimension through some sort of mirror (a familiar pattern for CB).
However, according to @judedeluca, our informer, their attempt failed. And the reason is that there was an ingredient missing from the ritual. There were NO original illustrations included in it, which ultimately resulted in Alice to be trapped in the mirror, between dimensions.
Now the theory is that the keyholder squad will escape the Ex Libris by being saved by the fictional characters from the storybooks they've visited.
That claim could be bs, but I personally believe it for four reasons:
1) There's no one left in the outside world that knows the squad's situation with the Order, as far as we know. And they'll 100% manage to get saved due to the comic's genre being comedy, the happy-ending rule, as well as the fact that season 2 was almost the last season of the comic, and it was confirmed to have a happy ending.
2) The fictional characters seem to be AWARE of the keyholders' situation against the Ex Libris AND to be warning them about it on occasion (which could be why the fish warned Chase, Buddy and Deacon to stay away from sharks in Little Shadows, a couple of episodes after we saw Wave wearing shark-themed socks.
3) The keyholder squad was saved by the book itself at the finale of season 1, so being saved by the book characters now could be part of a wider pattern.
4) We've been exploring the fictional characters' relatability and ability to choose what to do with their life too much for them to never be relevant.
And these are all aside from the inside mirror parallels.
So anyway, much like Alice, I believe that the fictional characters of the books will try to hop out of their worlds, thanks to the mirror we saw in the Old Man's lair. I mean, we already have all ingredients needed for it to happen.
1) Ritual. It might have gotten a tad altered, due to the keys being confused by the wishes, but it's a ritual nonetheless.
2) People's love, understanding and care for the characters (these aren't even all the examples)
3) Belief in fiction (pretty self-explanatory)
But that's not all. Now we have the MISSING INGREDIENT TOO!!
WE HAVE ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS TOO!!
Heck, it's even specified that they're illustrations from the ORIGINAL manuscripts 😭
Now I am aware that this might just be nonsensical. There are very few episodes left in this season and the thumbnail of the latest fast pass looks like it takes place in a totally different time, most definitely without being trapped in the Old Man's lair. It's unlikely for such a promising, yet difficult to handle, plot point to be explored in such a short time so near the finale (of what could be the very last season), especially in the favoured extend, due to how risky it is. Plus, none of these books are physically present in this scene, but just in the characters' memories and I doubt they're thinking of that right now. This is just for fun.
That's all I got for now but more will be added to this
