AtE Evidence! Spoiler Alert!

@Gracie Beit

*clears throat *

I may or may not have thought up a (mostly) logically sound, evidence-based argument that Janner lives, as I was writing my fanfic. (Prepare for a somewhat lengthy post.)

To uphold my theory, the following must be understood:

• How the Stones of Power (the holoél, holoré, and Gnag’s melding stone) work, and

• How Water from the First Well works.

Let us first consider how the Stones of Power work.

The effects of these are dependent on the will of the user.

If one sings the song for power, life will be lost, but power will be gained: the animal loses some of its life, the person loses some of (what I would consider) their soul — their life — and they gain power.

If one sings the song for love and peace — true life — then life will be gained, but power will be lost: consider the former Fangs. In the cases of Artham and Esben, however, their power increased due to the mercy and grace of the Maker, for they were in dire need of help at the time.

One other interesting case is that of Davion and Esben. Davion, although repented, still turned to dust when he died. Esben, however, did not: I believe this was because he sung the song again — but Davion didn’t get the chance to.

Thus, it is impossible to use the Stones without losing something. Although something is gained in their use, something else is almost always lost.

For this reason, it would not be possible to bring Janner back to life with the Stones, for someone would have to lose life for him to gain it. (Also, I doubt that he would be able to sing in the state that he was in.)

Now let us consider how the Water from the First Well works.

The effects of this are independent of the will of the user. In fact, both Will and Gnag used it, and it had the same effect as anyone else: healing and longevity, just like the First Fellows had — this is part of why many people thought that they did not die of old age, but rather that Will murdered them to take the Well’s power.

Consider the cases in which Water is used: Nugget, Podo, the gargan rockroach, Oskar (indirectly), Oood the troll, the dragons, and the battle-wounded.

The Water healed all but the rockroach (which is presumed to not have been injured) from dire injuries.

In the cases of Nugget, the rockroach, and the dragons, it did more than heal — it made them better than better. In fact, Artham said (at the very end) “They say it heals — and maybe even more.” (emphasis mine)

For this reason, if the Maker allows it, the Water will most likely heal Janner.

(Ironically, I just finished re-reading tWatWK at 2am this morning...)

I think you make some good points! I think it definitely makes sense that Oskar wrote the WFS. (In the show he muses "perhaps it will be my lot to scribe what I've witnessed" and I think he says something similar somewhere in the books.) Not only that, but if you spell his middle and last names (Noss Reteep) backward, you get "Peetersson" (Peterson!). Though some of Janner's POV could be explained by the fact that he kept a journal, he didn't have a chance to write that last part down and likely didn't write down every thought he had throughout the series. I like picturing him collaborating with Oskar to write it (his THAGS subject is Word after all, and he might also get to try bookbindery in doing that).

I agree with you that the fact that the epilogue exists at all, and the fact that it has been described as so hopeful by the author seems to suggest Janner coming back.

Something small, yet additional, I noticed is that a couple of events during the final week of the story are said to have been remembered by Janner "all the days of his life". It's not super solid proof, but I feel like the effect of those statements is weakened if "all the days" are only like a week.

Another wording thing that might be even smaller support than the last one is the statement about Janner's body resting in the cellar while Kalmar gives new names to the Annierans. It could be me overthinking, but I feel like resting is temporary. If I rest my eyes on a car trip, I'm going to open them again later. If I sit down for a rest after work, I'm going to stand back up again later.

(I have some more reasons, but this comment is getting long so I'll go remember them and return later)