Hannah Foster was never supposed to exist.
There is a reason the timelines, 'shattered when she came along.' There is a reason her powers are so insanely powerful that they rival even an ancient god's. That by just accessing a fraction of it, someone could stand to take 'all worlds'. However, all of that doesn't start at Hannah. It doesn't start at her sister Lex, or even at Pamela and her refusal to go to the doctor. It starts sometime back in the 1800s. It starts with Willabella Mukwab. Author of the Black Book, which she penned in the blood of children. The first disciple of Wiggog Y'wrath.
Her crimes were so atrocious, her power so monstrous, that the only way the townsfolk saw to get rid of her was to trap her by sacrificing their own. By sacrificing those most alike to her, to keep her trapped in a web of their buried corpses for eternity.
They did the best they could to erase her, to prevent her evil from ever returning. However, we know that isn't what happened.
You see, Willabella had a daughter.
A daughter who we can assume inherited her powers. Maybe not the heightened ones granted by the Lords in Black, but the powers she had from the beginning. The ones that earned her the title of Witch before her soul was sold.
In Witch in the Web we get this quote:
"You're my blood Hannah, the daughter of my daughter's daughter."
Already it is established that Hannah, and by extension Lex, are descended from a long line of 'witches'. That the powers they seem to have are linked to their very blood. The same blood that flowed from Willabella to her daughter and so on. Curious how extra attention is paid to it being a singular female descendant each time.
Due to this wording and the fact that we never hear any reference to an extended family for the Foster's, we can assume Pam was probably an only child. After all, in Witch in the Web, Lex accepts her fate and spares Pam a sentence if it means Hannah wouldn't be alone. If they had relatives to fall back on, I wonder if that might have changed? This was likely the case for Pam's mother as well, and her mother before her. So following the bloodline, the next chance for a powerful descendant would be... Lex, right?
Except... Hannah's powers go much farther than simply being powerful. Something that has been made so explicitly clear by the very creators of this story in the first place.
I'm not quite ready to focus on Hannah yet though. This is a post about how she was never meant to exist after all.
So instead, let's simply go in order. Let's look at the eldest daughter of Pamela Foster. Descendant of Willabella Mukwab. A friend of the Queen in White herself. Let's take a look at Alexandra Foster and just why she's so insanely special to the lore and power balance we know already exists in Hatchetfield, before her sister ever even entered the picture.
Our very first introduction to Lex has her presented as a disgruntled teenager with a chip on her shoulder about her home life and a soft spot for her sister. At no point do we ever assume she was meant to be special. In fact, Lex herself goes out of her way to assure us she is not. She is just another person we see fall victim to the mania in the mall.
Right up until the moment she is supposed to die.
General John Macnamara appears in the nick of time to inform her (and us), that Lex has the power to reach into the Black and White.
Now uh, wait just a minute, Johnny Boy. What the actual fuck, sir?!
You mean the Black and White, the reality between time and space itself, "A place outside of all dimensions."?! The Black and White, a plane so dark and warped that people subjected to it change completely, can never return, or stand going insane even while in a protective suit? You mean the Black and White, the very plane of reality that the Lords in Black, literal gods, are trapped in? All this stuff you told the President not even a couple of hours ago?!
I think it's more than accepted by now just how powerful Hannah is meant to be in the fandom, but there is a reason why every time they are mentioned on a livestream, Nick and Matt are careful to also mention that Lex is just as special.
Her powers are only further explored in Yellow Jacket where we get the knowledge that Lex doesn't even need to know what she's looking for to transport it to her. We also find out that she can not only move objects through space and time, but with concentration she can move herself as well. Which, to be fair, those are all points that are made obvious through the course of the episode. If I'm going to subject you to reading thousands of words for the sake of a single theory, I should really be focusing on things I feel people might have missed.
Good news. Because you already know I found one. This episode has a massive lore reveal that I don't think I've seen anyone talk about. In Yellow Jacket, when she is attacked by the Pokey dolls, Lex is pulled into the Black and White.
"Then... nothing. Her eyes flutter open. Lex finds herself in an endless, black abyss.."
This is not just a vision. In fact, extra attention is paid to point out the real vision may have been the Pokey dolls themselves. Which is revealed to us immediately after the above line is read. Not only that, but the background changes as well. This is not like the previous times we have seen Webby appear, where she seems to inhabit at least a similar space to Hannah at the time. The effect is a deliberate void of sorts, blackness with ethereal specks of floating lights.
This is also, importantly, not the only time we have heard the Black and White described like this:
"What do you see?" "I see... blackness, endless blackness."
Both John Macnamara and Howard Goodman experience the void that is the plane that exists outside of all dimensions. The Black and White.
The difference here is, both of those characters become lost to the B&W. The President begins to lose his sanity almost immediately after entering, despite the protective suit he was sent in, to the point that Macnamara has to leap in to save him. Macnamara is able to cling to himself long enough to save Howard but as he says, without the suit his body begins to physically dematerialize. His soul gets absorbed into the Black and White after only a few minutes.
This otherworldly horror is purposeful. The story is literal in its meaning, the consequences very real.
Humans are not meant to interact with or enter the Black and White.
Yet, Lex enters and exits completely unscathed. She doesn't go insane, in fact she actually is able to get her bearings almost immediately after being freed from the Pokey Dolls, realizing they were only a vision, taking a moment to look around herself. She even pushes back on the fact that Webby should be there at all, keeping herself grounded until she realizes she has to accept what is happening. She is 'sent' to the Roller Rink, but even Webby admits she needs Lex's powers to do so. Even without the help of Webby, we find out that Lex has the power to cross not just between space and time, but to GO OUTSIDE of them completely.
KEEP IN MIND. This is quite literally Wiggly's entire goal in Black Friday. To be birthed into our reality. To leave the B&W. This is something not even a god has the power to do or control without several strings being pulled from the other side.
Lex from her creation, is set up in Hatchetfield to be a protagonist completely unique to anything or anyone we have ever seen before. Which makes sense. She is deeply tied to the main antagonistic forces we see threaten the world. Her ancestor was the first worshipper of the Lords In Black. Willabella was granted powers from them and wrote a book that allowed our reality to be able to summon manifestations of them. Lex was also the first person we heard of who had befriended and connected with Webby, the Queen in White. The big good force of the world. The opposition of Wiggly, the Lord in Black.
Lex should be the main character.
However, for all of Lex's literal world breaking powers, Hannah is so much more. She is so insanely powerful that Lex is regarded as merely a protector fighting against the forces who want to control Hannah.
So I guess it's finally time to talk about Hannah Foster.
In Witch in the Web we hear from Cross that Hannah's mind is alike to a nuclear reactor in terms of power. Not a mere battery, but something so explosively powerful that it brings the dead back to life.
Yes, you did read that. I did write that. It did happen.
Cross is not merely resurrected in Holloway's 'Nightmare Time'. Not simply restrained to her mind. His powers extend back into the real world, influencing Pamela Foster to brain Duke with a frying pan. He is not merely a figment of either of their imaginations, not merely another nightmare.
Wilbur Cross comes back from the dead, because of Hannah Foster.
We don't actually know a lot about what Hannah can do. Not yet. Both Langs have confirmed in several livestreams that Hannah hasn't even gotten close to unlocking her true powers. But given her ability to seemingly see all universes, all possibilities. all timelines. Given Cross's speech in Witch in the Web, and the fact that she was able to break such a foundational rule of any story ever: Bringing the dead back to life. I am more than willing to step forward and tell you exactly what her powers are.
Hannah Foster has the power of possibility.
Let that sink in for a moment. Anything that can happen, Hannah can theoretically and psychically make it happen.
"She sees it all. Every possibility. That's why her mind is so vast. So powerful. That kid is a battery. No. She's a nuclear power plant. She brought me back with nothing more than a toot." "You're a nightmare, that's all." "Not with her around."
We get to see her start wielding her powers a bit more in Yellow Jacket, but it's nothing nearly as specific as what is revealed in Witch in the Web. (And I will be touching on just what we see Hannah able to do in YJ in a sequel post.)
So. With Hannah around, we have 2 protagonists. Two people are now 'so insanely special to the lore and power balance we know already exists in Hatchetfield'.
We have 2 descendants in Willabella's lines. Two possibilities that have never happened before.
Now doesn't that sound just a little... broken?
Cross knows it too. He tells us as much.
"… but it shattered when she came."
Let's rundown what we know happened leading up to Hannah's birth on October 5, 2005. We know for a fact that date HAS to be important to the lore because I'm pretty sure not a SINGLE other character has had their birthday so explicitly revealed to us.
We get the month and date confirmed in Yellow Jacket. We know that Black Friday takes place in 2018 and Hannah is 13 in BF. So we also have our year.
There is one other mention of something happening specifically 13 years ago in Black Friday however.
"13 years ago P.I.E.P constructed a portal, a portal connecting our reality to the Black and White."
So wait. Pause.
For the first time in recorded history, our world was directly connected to the Black and White. For a moment, time and space itself changed to allow humans to travel to a different plane of reality.
13 years ago.
As we have already established, you don't get to just go between the Black and White and Our Reality. It doesn't happen. Again, even literal gods cannot interact with our reality without being summoned through a ritual or called through bends in reality. The ruler of the Black and White's ultimate goal, his ultimate win, would be to travel fully into our reality. He has to fight to be able to do so, 13 years of preparation to even make an attempt.
So we know you certainly don't get to just pass through the barrier of our realities for free. Whatever P.I.E.P. did to construct this portal, to connect our worlds. It came at a cost.
And I think I know exactly what that cost was.
So. With everything you need to know in place, let me tell you a story. A story about a girl who never should have existed.
Very early in the year 2005, the United States Military, Special Unit P.I.E.P, decided it was time to test their newest invention and send their very best agent, Wilbur Cross, into the world beyond. Their goal? To figure out how best to combat the threats to our way of life and existence that may be out there. Turning on the portal they had built, they did something that had never happened before. Something that should not have been possible. They attempted to connect our world to the Black and White. At that moment, reality (as it existed) was broken. For just one split second, several hundred previous impossibilities flooded into existence.
However, reality did not break that night. The world continued on.
Which brings us back to a very specific and unique family. The Foster household, consisting of a neglectful mother and her only child, Alexandra Foster. They are both descended from a long line of woman with unique powers to effect the world around them. Something not too unusual for the tiny town of Hatchetfield. A place where gifted children are born more frequently than anywhere else.
However, Lex is something entirely unique. A child born with powers that should not have been possible. She would eventually become the most powerful gifted kid to ever be born, an inevitable result of events that took place long before she had ever existed.
Her mother was out on a date the night that reality almost broke.
After pushing our understanding of space and time to its absolute limits, reality stabilized enough to successfully connect our world to the Black & White. It stabilized enough for P.I.E.P to send the first human through the portal to witness the horrors beyond. For Cross to re-emerge, changed and heralding disaster. The previous flood of impossibilities went unnoticed, left to merely correct themselves over time. All seemingly inconsequential enough to not have lasting damage on the world at large.
All except one.
It took 9 months for reality to attempt to correct itself once more. Hannah Foster was never supposed to exist. Pam never sought medical aid, never became aware of the complications that would result in the death of her second child before she was ever born.
However, reality didn't account for Lex. The child with the ability to reach into the Black and White, to bend it, to control her own connection to it without risking reality breaking. The child who, unknown to her at the time, felt her baby sister dying and did the only thing she could to prevent it.
Wilbur Cross, for all his misdeeds and evil, is still known only as the Harbinger of The Great Shattering. A mere warning for what was to come. The consequences of breaking reality to achieve one's goal, even if for only a mere moment.
Lex Foster is the biggest walking tragedy to ever hit Hatchetfield. Her pulling Hannah through the Black and White created a reality that was never supposed to exist. A world in which two descendants of Willabella Mukwab existed together. A world in which Hannah, the child with the unimaginable power of pure possibility, lived.
Lex, through a universally good deed and out of the pure love she wasn't even aware she had inside her, left reality shattered beyond repair.
Pt. 2 Here
