(Redux) Seawater Explanation #2

1) When Richard-as-giant-snake accidentally killed Charlotte in her manse in Thread 15, he rectified this by throwing her manse-body into the font in her manse. Charlotte dreamed of floating in water and awoke, totally fine, mid-conversation with Monty and Horse Face.

2) When Gil went to blast the red stuff out of Charlotte in Thread 30, he found himself in a imaginary/unreal pocket of red stuff. After popping a big pustule, it started draining a mega-ton of red water out of it. Gil managed to swim up and out and dragged himself and Charlotte onto a white sand beach-- they had come from a red ocean. This beach, and the ocean, has reappeared in Charlotte's dreams twice-- first when Gil blunders into it accidentally, second when she tries to stab herself and meets the Herald.

3) Manses always have sources of water at the bottom: the ocean of beetles in the beetle manse, the melting ice castle in the fantasy manse, etcetera. Manses also get closer to the subconscious the deeper they go, which is why they get increasingly weird and untethered from reality.

4) Richard may or may not have a physical existence somewhere else, but he is also a creature of Charlotte's mind. (See: complaining about being made to look and act like her dad, complaining about hearing her thoughts all the time, Charlotte manipulating him just by thinking about him, claiming that he can't be killed, etc.) Both of these things are true simultaneously.

5) Richard was soaking wet after his first post-death reappearance, and literally crawled out of Charlotte's chest.

6) You can die in other people's heads, but not your own. At most you can be temporarily incapacitated.

Therefore:

1) The subconscious is manifested as a body of water, particularly an ocean. Bodies of water in manses can lead straight to the subconscious.
1a) The red ocean is a manifestation of Charlotte's subconscious. (Unclear if it was always red.)
2) If your non-physical body is "killed" inside your own manse, it's actually just dissolved into component parts and regenerated inside your subconscious.
3) Richard is kind of part of your mind, even if he also isn't.

Therefore:

1) In between appearances, Richard is floating in your subconscious/the red ocean, either being regenerated or failing to regenerate. (Unclear.) He is probably also floating in a stasis tank. Both of these things are true simultaneously, but it was probably particularly true that he was in the ocean during the span of time he was "dead" (because he emerged from your chest sopping wet).

(Also, 2), the second thing he puked up was seawater.)


And there you have it! The mind of a QM! Some of this may have also been exposited on directly, but I don't remember and don't want to dig.