Loved If BITs are manifestations of a person's spirit or something...

Might Exemplars be some weird kind of Avatar? ... Has anyone posited that yet publicly?? Or did I go down this route already??

Every human has a Hallow that fits their spirit as said by Grizzly in The Kodiak Conspiracy, Part 1:

" This is you. You are a spirit, you have a body, and every 'body' is a hallow for the spirit that owns it. "

What, when mutants manifest as Exemplars, their bodies / spirits changed, so the spirit starts shaping their body? Like how Avatar spirits affect the bodies of their hosts?

Some possibly evidence for this... The BIT Splicer might interact with Jade, and the Star Stalker and stuff, by affecting the spirits of those undergoing the procedure??

Ayla's weirdness might be due to multiple spirit (fragments) mashed into his original spirit?

New Olympians likely subsumed the spirits of the babies they took over, leading the babies' bodies to become the forms they did, mainly in how Zeus's form matches his old one?

GSD is Low-level spirits and stuff, fused with Human-spirits? Sorta like how Forces are fusions of spirits??

BIT Damage is Ayla damaging Fireball's spirit, and some low-level fire demon thing, moving in and being integrated into that space?

... WAIT... Nimbus's Transformation spell! Given New Data...

Malady wrote: GSD is Low-level demons and stuff, fused with Human-souls? Sorta like how Forces are fusions of spirits??

So the kids developing GSD are inherently evil ('demons' as you determined them) as proven by the visual evidence of their sinful nature?

Whoops... Shoulda rephrased into the more general "spirits"... Gonna go fix that...

Maybe just integrates the physical features without any metaphysical alignment in any direction??

... Wait... I made all this to figure out how BITs enforce forms, using current knowledge and trying to tie things together, and then scrambling to account for GSD not likely being a physical representation of a human soul, as it doesn't have a human form, as it has non-base-human additions like horns and fur and such...

Without the BIT, a genetic explanation alone makes sense... Exemplar being a optimization of the human form, for the Pretties, and those with GSD are just sending humans down some possibly dead-end directions... Possibly mutations of the initial MGC taking effect...

Maybe Exemplar fitness is one thing, while forms are another?? ... Genetics determine resultant form, while BIT just push for the "best" form possible, no actual determination into actual form... Just supercharging genetics and preserving whatever form comes out via magical / supernatural enforcement or something...

Kodiak hasn't actually examined a GSD case yet...

IIRC, Gross Structural Dystrophy has been repeatedly stated to be genetic in origin, and unlike the effects of various other mutant syndromes cannot be "turned off" by nullifying the responsible exemplar trait, shapeshift, or spell long enough (assuming the patient survived their original genetic code trying to re-assert itself). I.e., it has nothing to do with a BIT.

Remember also, that the primary races and/or species of the Five Courts were around for a long time. Is it really so certain that the MGC was the only tinkering any of them ever did, and then, only to humans - which didn't return to the planet as a species for hundreds of millions of years in real time.

I don't know if I can agree with this view.

Tisi and Alecto are pretty vicious, with their personalities matching their appearance, but Date Night showed that Megaera is largely their exact opposite. She's bitter about her appearance, but extremely innocent and kind-hearted. Very much a case for tragic GSD with her, though thankfully she's found love.

Same really goes for Tisi too. She might be dominant in her relationship, but now that she's found someone, she's returned to being girlish, sweet, and happy. There's a consistent mismatch with form and disposition if this was the case.There are pretties that are selfless, pretties that are narcissistic, pretties who are bullies, pretties who are saints, GSD kids who are bitter or angry, and GSD kids who are sweet and caring.

Kerry is a strange example where a third party's beliefs had a powerful influence on her appearance.

Going from Kerry, Tisi, Vamp, Spark, Migraine, Scapegrace and Envy (and Daphne), I'd put BITs more in the category of psychic impressions. Not necessarily the individual's view, but fed by their environment and surroundings too. I see a consistent similarity to Morpheus' Twisted universe, where environment and experience at the moment of manifestation has the biggest impact, though admittedly, that might be largely in part to me reading that first before I really got into the Whateley lore. Still, I think Kerry supports this, since her current appearance is entirely due to the predisposition of those around her. Envy is hardly different, since she is a clone of her mother. Spark turned into who she always wanted to be, Migraine turned into her true self as those around her figured out her guilt at the moment of her second manifestation. Vamp is who she wants to be as is Jessie Harrow.

Whateley's biggest strength (and issue) is the limited perspective of its POV characters. Ayla is not the greatest judge of character, despite having such a large perspective across Fall 2006 and Spring 2007. He had a huge impact on reader's views of the series, even when his viewpoints have been contradicted by others. He's judgmental and not very understanding of alternative viewpoints. As nice as he is, he's very set in his ways. Interaction with Charge, who wasn't a lot better when she started, and Kayda's friends have been helping a lot, but there is a reason so many other students find him prickly.

Wait a sec... How many cases of actual GSD have we seen? And how are we sure that Imp and others with extra limbs are not hidden Avatars???

Yeah...

When I said soul, I should have said spirit, and linked to The Kodiak Conspiracy, Part 1:

" This is you. You are a spirit, you have a body, and every 'body' is a hallow for the spirit that owns it. "

... 'Cause my thought was: Avatar's spirits can force physical changes on their host to conform to a shape, what if Exemplars' BITs are just the spirit of the person (following Grizzly's definition) doing the same thing?

Hopefully that clears up any misunderstandings.

... Oh... But due to Unreliable Narrator and stuff, what Grizzly calls a spirit, may not be understood by anyone other than her and presumably Kodiak...

And sometimes it's just the level of narrativium in the ambient atmosphere...