For Comic Fans: Witching Well and Homelands
This is the SPOILER line for people who are reading or planning to read the comics. Please go away. I don't want to hurt you, son, so don't make me...!
WARNING! THIS TOPIC CONTAINS SPOILERS! WARNING! THIS TOPIC CONTAINS SPOILERS! WARNING! THIS TOPIC CONTAINS SPOILERS!
Now to brass tax. I've been doing some reading in the comics, specifically for when you-know-who decides to jump into the Witching Well. Next, he rounds up all the people down there and finds a magical kingdom somehow unravaged by the barren land where nothing grows underneath a hole in the sky. First, I have no beef. I think it can be implied that Ambrose is able to jump into the well without dying because his armor is magic. Next, he's able to create a tether to Lancelot and make new bodies for the ghosts in the witching well, and travel for at least more than a month without drinking food or water, probably also because his armor is magic, albeit limited.
My main question is this: Is there an explanation for the existence of a direct passage between the starving, thirsty lands of the Witching Well to his kingdom, Haven?
Who how where when what why? If there are any comic issues that explain any of the following, please tell me which ones, and tell me the rest as disposed and confirmed by the people whose authority we are to respect in the matter.
I have tried to search google. I have failed. I'm not demanding this information, but I am urgently requesting it.
WARNING! THIS TOPIC CONTAINS SPOILERS! WARNING! THIS TOPIC CONTAINS SPOILERS! WARNING! THIS TOPIC CONTAINS SPOILERS!
Comments
I don't think it is ever explained. Everyone is surprised when they find out what is at the bottom of the well.
I always thought the well was just like many of the other doorways that connected the different realms. They end up in all sorts of weird places. IIRC Boy Blue found one inside a dragon.
The original spoiler warning covers this comment...
Interesting question. And when Bufkin climbed out of the Business Office back to his "native" land of Ev when the Business Office was supposed to be a closed loop, as mentioned in the comics, the explanation can be put to a form of magic that Bufkin wanted to get out of the Business Office. Where did he want to go? Home. So home he went.
Maybe the same can be said of Ambrose. He wanted to go home, but he knew full well that his real home was overrun by the adversary and his army, so he wished a new home for himself and finally got there.
Also need to note that this is not a unique problem to Fables. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, when Gandalf and the Balrog fight in the Mines of Moria, they fall to the top of a mountain (Mt Zirakzigil, as it happens), but how can you fall from under one mountain to the top of another? Tolkien never explained that particularly well.
I favour the thought that Ambrose (possibly with the help of his magic armour) wished himself to a place he could call home, just like Bufkin wished himself home when the Business Office detached itself from the Woodlands.
Gandalf and the Balrog did NOT fall on the mountain. They fell into the underground lake, and then Gandalf pursued the Balrog up the longest stairway in the world (for 8 days IIRC, my Tolkien lore is getting a little rusty), to the top of the mountain. So there is no loop.
Also, the Witching well always leads to the same place. Everyone ended up where Ambrose finally ends up when he went down the well. Bufkin left the business office by climbing the tree.
Now the tree is entirely another deal. And there indeed it mattered that Bufkin 'wished' to go home and reached home.
I guess I'll have to settle for that. At least it makes sense. Thanks for answering.
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OP: I wondered about that myself!
If there was a passageway leading to the outdoors, don't you think all the dead people would have found it by now? I figured there was an explanation I missed, but apparently this is just a big, dumb plot hole.
...Or maybe Deus Ex Machina from the Literals story was thrown down the well!
-faye
The reason people could not find their way out of the place was because they died and lost their physical forms. The place itself was dreary and desolate and made it hard for its inhabitants to unite or focus to make plans and get out. When flycatcher manages to reach there alive and well it is implied that it's his strength and willpower coupled with the magic of the armor that lets him unite everyone long enough to actually form a coherent plan and make a determined effort to journey out of the badlands. Even then it takes them quite a while to manage that.