How the Ghost Zone works: A speculative essay by me, the sexiest phan alive, because fuck Butch Hartman
So, to start off with, I think we need to establish what the ghost zone is, and how it relates to time and space and how one can access any point in time and space through it
The Ghost Zone is, to begin with, an afterlife, shocker I know. Now, if it's the one singular afterlife, a between point for more conventional afterlives like Valhalla or Heaven, or if afterlives like those are merely contained within the zone, is a moot point. The important part is that it is almost or entirely comprised of ectoplasm. Nowthe question becomes "What is Ectoplasm?" well, I believe it is the energy of death in a plasma form, sort of like the primordial gasses and space dust that existed at the beginning of the universe to later form more complex gasses and later liquid and solid matter. Except instead of adhering to the forces of gravity, big to small, it is attracted to emotion, the more emotion and willpower, the greater amount of ectoplasm that can accumulate and be manipulated. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The reason the zone can be used to access any point in space, time, even alternate timelines, is because, to put it simply, everything everywhere is always dying. People were dying in England in 1653, people are dying in America in 2025, People will die in France in 2856. And if multiverse theory is correct, people are dying then too. And if they die, they have to be able to access the zone. Thus the only way for a place to be completely INaccessible is for literally nothing to have ever lived or will live in that place, because if something lives, inevitably, it will die.
Now, back to what I was saying before about ectoplasm being attracted to emotions, this is how I believe ghosts form. At the time of a being's death, their emotions will attract ectoplasm to it if strong enough. a bug with little emotion might wind up as just a little gob of ectoplasm , but a fully sentient being full of regrets and pain will wind up as a fully sentient ghost shaped by those emotions. Which is a good a segway to start talking about the actual ghosts as any.
Now, I've categorized the ghost into 4 different categories depending on their origins and general level of strength with several examples
The undead, this is what you or I would typically think of when you hear "Ghost," , they lived, they died, they came back due to their emotions at their time of death, and these emotions shaped their abilities and personalities as a ghost, what anyone in the phandom would refer to as an obsession. Ember died an unappreciated and forgotten musician in a housefire. Now she exists as a ghost who's whole existence is dependent on being heard and remembered. Sydney Poindexter, a bullied child who suffocated being stuffed in his own locker, now haunts his old locker and now devotes himself to stopping bullying. Desiree, an ex harem member to a sheik(I think?maybe a sultan) was executed because she couldn't or wouldn't obey her master's wishes now exists as a genie that grants any wish heard.
Next up are the Neverborn. these we know the least about, but there are definitely beings that were never born, never lived, but still exist as ghosts. These include Box Lunch, Dani, and the other clones. Maybe they exist purely because of another's desires to have a child, but because Vlad had impure or muddled desires when making them, they dissolved.
Then we come to what the phandom refers to as the "Ancients". These beings seemingly have existed for millenia, are much bigger and stronger than the undead, and seemingly encompass entire concepts of the universe. This is because, I believe, they aren't the remnants of singular beings, but rather the combined conglomerates of the thoughts and feelings of the entire multiverse. Say one man dies thinking about time itself as he passes. He doesn't come back as an undead, but that thought sticks around as a little blob of ectoplasm. Then this happens again. and again. and again. Trillions of beings in the past, present, and, because the zone exists forever, the future, all thinking about this one little thing all of us have thought about a billion times a day. But let's not just stop at time, Don't people die thinking "Nature is so beautiful, but so deadly" "This storm is so powerful, i wish i could've survived it" "This will be my last time sleeping, so I hope it is a pleasant dream." Clockwork. Undergrowth. Vortex. Nocturn. I even believe that rather than an undead, Pariah Dark was the very concept of a king made manifest.
And last but not least, the halfas. Now, remember that gravity analogy, how ectoplasm is attracted to emotion. Undead are like rubber band balls, ectoplasm wrapped around a core of obsession. Ancients are like snowballs, one little flake accumulating more snow as it rolls down a hill. Halfa's are like apex predators that absorb more and more nutrition from everything below them in the foodchain. Because instead of little wisps of singular emotions and obsessions, that's an entire personality dunked in a whole dimension of ectoplasm. It adheres to their everything, their constantly evolving and shifting personalities attracting more and more ectoplasm as they feel. The longer they go, the stronger they feel, the more they become
Now, there's a bunch of stuff I have no clue about, mostly pertaining to artifacts like the reality gauntlet, Freakshow's staff, and Pariah's crown and ring, but I feel like most of those are one offs that don't have an impact on the lore as a whole, so i feel comfortable ignoring those.