*head in hands* so i made a ‘what if greyroot was zote’s mother and zote potentially being from pharloom’ theory and i was being silly and thought greyroot and the white lady are definitely the same species and ghost (the knight) and zote look pretty alike so why not lmao
basically i found wisp thicket and as soon as i saw those wisps my mind immediately went to THIS
and when looking up more abt the wisps…
i thought zote was being dense, but he was actually right abt this?!
and i was reading more on his precepts and had an interesting idea...
listen i am absolutely reaching with this one, but hear me out!! what if zote's father found him (if zote was anything like the twisted bud), located greyroot, decided to nope out due to greyroot's weird and hostile behavior and decided to raise zote. maybe zote had asked questions abt his other parent and whatever answer his father gave him led to zote making precept 11: mothers will always betray you.
and zote's father was lording over the fact he rescued and adopted zote, leading to zote becoming resentful towards his father (leading him to make precept 52) and leaving his father (and pharloom) for good
also!! i don't know if this means anything, but...
perhaps zote's brother (adopted) had said something related to his origins (you know if he was anything like the twisted bud) and something along the lines of him being a parasite and zote absolutely not forgiving him for saying that
these two being related (and zote being from pharloom) is potentially not out of the question and i don’t know how i feel abt this
(here's the link for the first post of the theory if you wanna see my ramblings)