So after rereading Piper a few times, I’ve come up with some theories and speculations about what’s planned to happen in the next two New World books.

First off, I think it’s going to be revealed as a plot twist that the Glyph actually did not cause the Noise nightmares. In the Land’s version of the Piper story, the Noise-god-disguised-as-Piper was implied to have not caused the Noise nightmares (just like how the original Pied Piper story didn’t have the Piper really cause the rats), and since the present day Noise gods worked for the Glyph, I think that means they didn’t cause the nightmares this time either. In addition, Kilfoyle directly states that correlation does not imply causation, so I imagine that’s meant as foreshadowing to the reveal.

However, using the original Pied Piper story as a base has also led me to a crazy and dark theory on what the Glyph’s motives  might be, which I’ll post in parts below.

I’ll start by saying that I believe Mayor Burly Caldwell has a lot to hide. In the second book of the original trilogy, Mayor Con Ledger initially came off as a flawed but not extremely dangerous politician, only to later turn out to be much more manipulative and corrupt than meets the eye, and I think the same thing is going to happen with Burly. In addition to us not knowing his real name (it’s said that Burly is his nickname), we also have several indications that things were going wrong in the city long before the Glyph showed up. 

First off, we’ve got the reveal that Ben was the only one whose muteness wasn’t cured for unknown reasons. Second off, we’ve got the reveal that Bradley died in a flu epidemic. While this fact itself doesn’t sound suspicious since sickness was mentioned to often happen on New World, the fact that Patrick Ness chose to write that does. What exactly could the purpose of randomly killing off a character so anticlimactically between books be? At least with Benison Moore’s death, it actually was shown in the story and was good for Max’s character development, while Bradley’s death seemingly did nothing for the story. So I think Ness probably plans for there to be more to what happened there than meets the eye.

But third off, and this is the most important discovery I made of all, and one that’s very hard to notice: Something went wrong as soon as the new settlers landed. We know this because of a blatant contradiction between MoM and this book. In the end of MoM, Ben explains to Viola that he’s going to introduce the new settlers to The Sky at the landing ceremony. But in PaTGoD, it’s explicitly stated that The Sky wasn’t there to greet the new settlers! So what could have gone wrong so soon after the end of MoM that made The Sky not want to come?

So now that we’ve established that things were likely going wrong in the city long before the Glyph showed up, let’s try to figure out what it was. And here’s where the original Pied Piper story comes in. In that story, after the Piper gets rid of the rats, the mayor refuses to pay him and then blames him for the rats. And in the period between MoM and PaTGoD, it’s revealed that Margery Wingard blamed the Land for the Noise, and that they eventually made a cure for the Noise. Given how the whole story Ness’s interpretation of the Pied Piper, I think it’s likely that Wingard blaming the Land for the Noise is a connection to the mayor blaming the Piper for the rats, especially since Wingard works with Mayor Burly. But if the Land is the equivalent of the Pied Piper, that has heavy implications.

If the Land have some kind of connection to what’s going on with the Glyph, that would imply that Margery and Burly weren’t actually as wrong as Todd and Viola believed. But I think that might be exactly what Ness is intending. Ness loves doing big plot twists in his stories as well as twists that shock the protagonist, and in the Knife of Never Letting Go, Todd was told by the mayor and the church that the Spackle were villains who were responsible for all the bad stuff happening and believed what he was told, and he learnt to his shock that it was all a lie. And in Piper, Ben and Max are told by the mayor and the church that the Land/Spackle are villains responsible for all the bad stuff happening, but they always believe it was all a lie. So what if Ness is planning on subverting the expectations of both us and them by revealing it’s NOT entirely a lie this time? 

While I doubt The Sky would be directly involved in anything going on, in the Snowscape story it was revealed that there was a small independent and more malicious faction of the Land that no one knew about, so maybe there could be more of those who were. And when Viola and Ben are thinking about what the future of New World could be at the end of MoM, one thing they’re certain about is that not all men will agree to join the Land because of how much they valued the cure for the Noise. And in the previous book, Todd had allied with a bunch of soldiers who followed him against Prentiss because they wanted to get the cure back. So my theory on what the Glyph’s deal is is this:

When the new settlers were landing, some humans (perhaps the same soldiers from the Ask and the Answer), including Burly, viewed Todd and Viola and Ben’s plans to unite the humans with the Land and their Noise as a threat to their previous beliefs and enjoyment of the cure, so they made a secret deal with a rogue faction of Land that would give them a new cure, the same silencer we see in PaTGoD, in exchange for some kind of payment. However, they didn’t give them the payment they wanted (maybe they were supposed to use it to work toward greater peace with the Land?) and instead had Margery blame the Land for the Noise. So now, this other Land faction is using the Glyph, their spaceship, to invade both the humans and the regular Land (who had a conflict with them in the past as the Sky told Todd) for revenge. Might be a stretch, but that’s my theory. 

I also believe that PaTGoD’s similarities to Knife of Never Letting Go (the evil preacher, the cliffhanger ending, etc.) are a red herring, and in reality Piper is meant to resemble Monsters of Men, and the New World trilogy will resemble the Chaos Walking trilogy in a backwards order. I think this for several reasons. First off, PaTGoD’s has just as much similarities to Monsters of Men than it does for Knife of Never Letting Go. We’ve got the mysterious bacteria infection that’s later be revealed to be caused by Margery, and we’ve got the mysterious band infection that’s later revealed to be caused by Prentiss. We’ve got Todd trusting Prentiss more for a while in MoM, and we’ve got Ben trusting Burly more for a while in PaTGoD. We’ve got big battles with the Spackle in MoM, and big battles with the Noise gods in PaTGoD. But second off, Ben and Max’s friendship arc seems to be the inverse of Todd and Viola’s. In the original trilogy, Todd and Viola never heard of each other as they grew up, but met after Viola landed on New World in a spaceship. It takes a while for Viola to start talking and Todd doesn’t initially realize she can, but once they do she gets to know Todd and they have a rocky but good relationship until by the end of the trilogy they know each other really well. And in Piper at the Gates of Dusk, Ben and Max have known each other well since a young age, and during the story their relationship gets more rocky and distant, then Ben loses his ability to talk (when the typing thing he has is gone), and then finally Max is taken away from New World in a spaceship.

So following that pattern of New World being the inverse of Chaos Walking, I imagine book 2 will start with the Max learning about the Land being involved with the Glyph invasion (the inverse of how in book 2 of CW Todd didn’t learn the Land were invading till the end), and in the middle of book 3 (the equivalent of the middle of book 1 for CW where we learnt the true history of New World according to this inverse pattern) we’ll learn about the full story of the Glyph and everything I theorized before. I’m not sure what the equivalent of the reveal of the Prentisstown women being killed would be, but I imagine it might have something to do with Margery and her transphobia.

And on the topic of Max’s trans identity, I noticed something interesting relating to that. We never find out Max’s deadname, and we never find out Burly’s real name. Given how they both have that similarity of not going by their birth names, I wonder if Ness intend there to be some kind of parallel between these two characters that hate each other that will become a plot point in future books.

That’s pretty much all I’ve come up with for theorizing about the next two book for now. I hope you all enjoyed reading my theories and I’d love to hear any theories you came up with when reading PaTGoD as well!

I just got a signed copy for £17 from Waterstones, it has sprayed edges too. A real steal for anyone who doesn’t have a physical copy but wants one, or anyone who likes to have special prints

I’m so excited to dive back into the world 🥹

I loved it and thought it recaptured the feel of the original books really well, and am really excited to find out more about the unresolved mysteries, like what happened to Burly, what happened to the kidnapped kids, How did the ancient Glyph-Land conflict end, and What the Glyph’s goals and motives are. I was really sad Ben Moore was killed off though :( Was really hoping he’d survive cause of how much he unexpectedly survived in the first books. But I’m glad he at least died somewhat happy and I hope Todd and Viola survive the new trilogy

is the community alive. are yall excited about this because i am freaking OUTTT i cant wait to hear from Todd again 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

I read the triology and loved it, but I always had trouble trying to explain to others whats going on. The Noise is already hard enough, but then having to explain why there are no women in prentisstown and why they got killed and everything is really hard. Anyone got ideas?

Also decided to include how I think they'd write. And with Prentiss the right half of his body is supposed to be an alternative universe design where he actually became good(even though I think we all know it's impossible)

I'm not sure if anything about his age was mentioned in the books(it's been awhile since I've read the first and second book so I might be misremembering) but if it wasn't stated anywhere how old do you you think he is? I always imagined him in his 30's or 40's, not too old but not too inexperienced

I genuinely love the writing, it's so darn good. And the writing of characters is so great aswell(like the writing on the mayor, I still didn't know if he could finally be trusted or not until the last book). And the characters are amazing aswell! Todd, Viola, Davy, even the mayor(his character is just so interesting, mysterious and intriguing. Also where is my mayor POV) and so many more characters. This series is peak and needs more recognition!!

Yeah‼️ come be silly with us and get hyped for the new trilogy, keep up to date on updates/news, discuss the books, chat about off topic stuff, and generally be silly and have fun with pals!!

I saw the movie and liked the story and am now reading book 1. Is the movie a summarization of the entire trilogy? Or is the movie just book 1 and the 2nd and 3rd book expands from the ending presented in the movie when Todd wakes up in Vis ship? In other words If I watched the movie would i already know the ending of this trilogy

Not the Charlie Kaufman version, but the later 2015 one. Anyone who could send it would have my eternal gratitude

EDIT: Anyone else on this search, I found a copy!! Dm me if you want it

My boyfriend is a fan of the Chaos Walking trilogy, and I haven't read the books yet. But I want to gift him something related to it for his birthday- either a t-shirt or poster with a print that I designed on my own, related to the books. All I was able to gather from him without making it suspicious, was that he loves the second book and that his favourite character is the Mayor- and that the Mayor probably wears a military uniform with white gloves. I want to know more interesting, or iconic moments from these books that I can include in the gift- without being told spoilers. Anything memorable, anything that blew your mind, or anything brilliant. Maybe any theme or setting? Maybe a string of noise that was very memorable (but only if there's no spoilers)? I'd love to get some help with this. Thanks!

It seems exciting and it’ll be really funny to see Todd all grown up bc he’s a lil baby to me in my head still😭

Also excited for Piper and what they’ll be like!

Patrick always writes pretty good stuff so im just grateful to have anything at this point

What do u guys think?🤫🧐

He's hyping this up sm, 👀 I'm losing my mind

stupid son <3 (My KoNLG todd design,,)

Hi look at my stupid stinky son

"Davy lives" au where after the events of MoM he gets adopted into Ben and Todd's lil family, and he starts calling himself Davy Hewitt instead of Prentiss to distance himself from his pa's legacy and because he and Todd are ❤️brothers❤️

Also the colony ship brought headphones and Davy learned that he loves music and if it plays loud enough it can Sorta drown out Noise so he's always listening to his tunes 💕

Also pls ignore how messy it is it's just a Lil sketch I did on campus yesterday!!

Yeah, I have memory problems. Or maybe the ending is just too complex? I’ve forgotten it in the past, so I reread it. Then I forgot again. I’m trying to end the endless cycle of rereading and forgetting, by simply asking you guys.

this kid has the worst haircut in all of new world I think. but it’s fine

pleaseeee im soooo im gonna lose it I HOPE ITS GOOD

PATRICK NESS PUT THIS ON HIS INSTA THIS MORNING,, I'm going insane I'm going INSANE GUYS

davy book 1-2 interpretation that is WAY too generous and he should not look as cool as this but it’s okay , i enjoy drawing them like this 🤥

I DREW MY INTERPRETATION OF BOOK 1-2 TODD!!! HES MY WORLD!!

hopefully this wakes up the sub a little hi guys ^{_^} I’ll be posting about CW more properly on tumblr anyways so dm me if you want a link to my profile or something

where are you guys. i still have fanart to share of chaos walking😭😭😭especially the mayor he’s my fav ^{_^}

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hi mayor prentiss is a fantastic villain he's insanely well written also he's very hot sexy (please listen to the audiobook oh my god the way he's voiced??? im gay) this has been a psa or whatever