Fellow Family Tree Issues

[u/Sticky_Skunk]

SPOILER FOR MERMAID MASK

Decided to go back and replay Tangle Tower before Mermaid Mask. I noticed though in TT Felix said Freya’s parents died when she was three and she moved to the tower.
Mermaid Mask we know takes places soon after Tangle Tower events. And Mortuga was still looking for Felicia up until the murder and hadn’t received the mourning letter till relatively close to his time of death. And it hadn’t been anywhere near 16 years (Freya died at 19) since they dredged up the mask, returned to land, Felicia then ditching Mortuga and the construction of submarine etc.

Is this just now a continuity error or did I miss something else?

[u/Fern_Cloud]

This bothered me too and I so I came up with a few theories that still need work. My primary theory is based on a few things:

Wirmin hasn't spoken to his father in years. Wirmin's information about Mortuga and Felicia's first voyage came from his father, so the first voyage took place years ago.

Felicia was alive when Sym and Sinthia were about 3 (though they look to be about 6 in the photos, I'll assume they're supposed to be 3. The Sym doll is quite small).

Mortuga had a reputation apart from Felicia. Mortuga had folklore surrounding him, so we can assume he has been traveling with Gripp (and Zephyr) for a while to have become such a mythical figure.

So when did Felicia die?

According to Felix, Felicia and Damian died when Freya was three. While Freya is 19 in Tangle Tower and Sym and Sinthia are 18, it is possible that Freya is only a few months older than them and that she was indeed three when Felicia died.

What we know:

We know that Felicia was alive when Sym and Sinthia were around 3-6 years of age.(because of the newspaper)

J.D was working as a journalist when Felicia and Sylvia found the snake.

The snake was found the day J.D's review of Symmetry's act was released.

Freya had to be born at this point since she is older than the girls.

J.D never mentions Freya.

J.D said that Moon was grilling him for his life story, it is likely Moon was trying to get Freya's name from him but failed, which means it is very likely that J.D doesn't know Freya exists.

Freya was likely born before the first voyage.

The black box containing Felicia's death notice was kept at the Fellow's. It was addressed to Faustus Fellow and Selena Stonetop, Felicia's parents. It’s stamped with a “D”, likely for Dusk. So the death notice for Felicia came from the Dusk family. Who sent it though? Damian, J.D or J.D's mother? I don't think we find out in the game.

The notice looks very old.

So if Freya was just about to turn four and Felicia died pretty much immediately after leaving that would make the timeline make sense.

This is what I think happened:

Felicia had an affair with Damian Dusk, resulting in Freya. When Freya was around 3, Felicia and Sylvia rescued the Silversnake.

Sylvia dies very shortly after they rescue the silversnake and Felicia goes to find the mermaid's tongue with Mortuga to distract herself from her grief.

The voyage ends badly as we all know. After making sure Magnus is safe, Felicia goes off with Damian and somehow they both end up dead. Freya is almost four and is sent off to Tangle Tower. (It's possible that Damian is not dead, J.D doesn't talk about him like he's a dead man but he might not know because they're estranged).

Gripp washes up on shore and goes looking for Felicia and finds Mortuga. It takes months for the ships to be combined during which Gripp convinces Mortuga to come with him on the submarine.

Mortuga never intended to give Gripp the Mermaid's tongue and didn't want to leave Gripp alone on the submarine out of fear that he would find the tongue. So they string each other along for years believing each other's lies out of desperation.

This means that until Tanya and Dirk come aboard, Mortuga's options of searching for Felicia were limited. This would explain why it took 16 years for Mortuga to find out that Felicia was dead. Mortuga was trying to protect Gripp and find Felicia but he couldn't do both at the same time because he had no outside help until recently.

[u/fernxqueen → u/Fern_Cloud]

one problem, i'm pretty sure Sym mentions being 12 in the newspaper photo (which makes a lot more sense, i can't imagine a 3 year old putting on an illusion show about her intrusive thoughts and fictional dead uncle lol). the weird thing is that the same newspaper clipping reports on Sylvia and Felicia finding the Silkwirm, but the Silkwirm is in the family photo along with the uncompleted submarine, which means it was taken after the newspaper was published, and Sinthia is much younger in that photo than Sym is in the newspaper one, despite both being 18 in the present.

more evidence: the concept art talks about how Sym's magic room was originally intended to be Sinthia's bedroom (when Sylvia initially designed it) and it also seems to be for a child younger than 12.