Yes, I did just make a post about how I hate making theories because it eats my brain.
Yes, this is a theory post.
Anyway, hot take (FIRST AND LAST SPOILER WARNING FOR LIKE THE WHOLE MANGA GO READ)
Yeah, I'm not totally convinced the Silverwood tree is actually what's making Qifrey's vision go out in the other eye.
Okay first of all, the Brimmed Caps are cruel, but I don't think they would go as far as injuring a child's eye for the sake of their experiments.
Did they hurt Qifrey in many other ways? Absolutely. Have they hurt other people in the past? 100 percent.
But if you look at Custas, he only got a seed because of a preexisting disability. And when Inninia yells at Coco, her defense that the Brims aren't wrong is the fact that the Pointed Caps erased healing magic. In fact, a lot of her own magic has to do with healing. Almost like how Coco focuses her magic on helping others because that’s her main goal. Inninia’s goal seems to be to heal others.
And Custas and Inninia (am I spelling her name right? who knows.) wanted an audience with the king, a man whose family used to be the best at healing magic.
There's probably a lot of other theories about the idea guessing that implementing Silverwood into the body used to be like a prosthetic/the Brims want to use the Silverwood to make prosthetics.
Specifically, with disabled individuals.
So why would the Brims that experimented with Qifrey use a non-disabled person?
I don't think they did.
Remember the kid from Chapter 39? The one with the really sensitive ears and his mom offered him up to Olly, Hieheart, and Jujy?
Well, the whole chapter, Olly was thinking about Qifrey. And isn't it such a coincidence the kid is the last thing we see before it goes back to Qifrey?
And isn't it such another coincidence that Hieheart believed that Olly would perform healing magic on the kid?
Hmm it's almost like a reccuring theme with this kid and Custas. When doctors can't heal a disability, they turn to witches.
Hmm it seems that it's likely Qifrey was offered up to the Brims to heal his sight.
Okay, I've established that Qifrey was experimented with the intent to heal his vision but what about now?
The part where I said the Silverwood isn't to blame for his eye sight.
I kinda think the tree is actually trying (but obviously failing) to heal his eye.
It's been established in canon that the tree grows from injuries, right? But that doesn't mean it causes injuries.
But I lean more towards simply Qifrey's eye sight is failing because of the preexisting condition he has. And not the Silverwood.
Why would the tree choose to grow through his other eye specificially when it has been shown to grow in different places entirely? It knows how to grow through the host's back, arms, legs, and hands. But yet just out of the blue, it starts attacking the other eye only?
And the treatment for the pain in his eye isn't like the treatment for Silverwood growth. In fact, his solution gives comfort instead of taking it to prevent growth. The spell in Qifrey's lense causes the pain from incoming light to stop which is interesting because stopping Silverwood growth causes more pain.
So yeah, as much as I would love a happy ending for Qifrey, I have a feeling that removing the Silverwood won't actually solve the problem.
