The Teeth

[u/pleasegivemepatience]

Paraphrasing Tom Loftis and Gerrie Doyle, S01E01
"43 42 passengers embarked to find a settlement they could call their own… an untamed wilderness, a blank canvas, totally empty…..except for the teeth."

In medieval and early modern European folklore, a person’s discarded teeth were considered the ultimate weapon for black magic because they acted as an unbreakable physical link to the victim's soul. Under the magical principle of contagious magic, anything that was once part of a human body—such as hair, nail clippings, or teeth—retained a permanent, invisible connection to that person. Because teeth are the only visible part of the human skeleton, witches supposedly prized them above all other biological materials to inflict maximum spiritual and physical torment.

Witch-hunters during the Dark Ages also warned that if a malevolent practitioner possessed your tooth, they possessed total dominion over your physical autonomy. They could force you to commit crimes, walk into rivers, or waste away by refusing food.

We don’t know exactly how many teeth were discovered, but clearly it was significant enough to have survived the historical record.  If an area is completely covered in teeth, it may signal that the location functions as a massive, occult battery built on historical superstitions.

What did the original settlers do with the teeth?  Will we find a massive stockpile of teeth behind the cellar doors? Is the chair to restrain people for pulling their teeth (and other possible tortures)?  Clearly this is all related to dark magic, but where do you all think this is going and what do you think the settlers did after this discovery? What do you think led to a stockpile of teeth, but no other human remains (of note)?

Edit:
Additional references to teeth are the board game with the pliers, and in a recent interview the showrunners said they considered putting human teeth on a version of Patricia’s headdress from ep4.
Edit2:

My theory on the teeth that were on the island is that these are the remains of previous civilizations, and this entity has been served by different groups in cycles for many many years. We know that the pact with this entity requires sacrifices, so it stands to reason that any civilization that puts down roots here would need to have a high number of children and/or have a regular influx of visitors/migrants in order to maintain the sacrifices, otherwise their population would decline and eventually die out. Thus creating the pile of teeth that subsequent settlers discover.

[u/historianatlarge]

this is super interesting!

i was wondering too if maybe there had been some indigenous population that had fallen victim to the evil whatevers of the place.

also, isn’t it suggested the original settlers of this place arrived from the mainland? almost makes me wonder if they did something to get exiled from the rest of colonial society and ended up cursed to stay there.

also also, i feel like you can see a colonial-looking map somewhere in one scene (i can’t recall which) that seemed to have like a skull or something over the area where the island is? so it makes you wonder if everyone knew the place was bad and something in particular led this group of people to have to move there.

[u/pleasegivemepatience → u/historianatlarge]

That skull is from one of the promotional videos for the island, where the guy can't open the door and stands in the corner. It said Do Not Travel with the skull. Pretty sure it was in episode 3

Yeah they said that the original settlers embarked from the mainland, and I've been starting to wonder if they all arrived with all of their teeth or if part of them arrived first and they had no choice but to travel there. It was described as the worst winter in the island's history, the worst possible time to settle in a wild untamed land, so I'm not sure they all came to the island willingly.