Curate, connect, and discover
I haven't seen this theory, but was Ebb the actual Chosen One?
After rereading Carry On for like the second or third time, I just got the sense that maybe she was the one who was supposed to be the Chosen One.
For one, she is considered to be one hell of a powerful magician. Everyone acknowledges her power. I forget who said this, maybe the Mage, but if Simon didn't exist, than she probably would be the most powerful magician out there.
She never had a choice. It's a theme in Carry On about choice and 'destiny'. Agatha was supposed to be Simon's girl. Simon was the Hero™ and Baz was the Villain™. Everyone thought they were going to end each other. That was their ending. But it wasn't. Everyone's endings were definitely not the intended plan (and are still on going). Agatha really exemplifies this through her perspective. She gtfo cause Ebb never did. I think a point in Carry On is that you make your own choices and nothing is set in stone. (Which then disproves that prophecies exist, but we'll ignore that for now.) But Ebb never really had much of a choice. Whenever and whatever she did she'd always be involved in the wars, she'd be a threat or an ally. All she wanted was to raise her sheep, but the war came to her and she had to fight it. As if it was inevitable that she was supposed to save the day.
Also there's always Penny thoughts about gender in the world of the mages. Generally it's about gender stereotypes, specifically female stereotypes. But she makes one comment that makes me think Rainbow was trying to allude to something. I don't have the actual quote, because I'm lazy, but it was essentially Penny realizing rather the Chosen One, or Humdrum, or some other title could be female too, as she had just assumed that they were a he. So that makes me think it's more of a hint or *wink wink nudge nudge* from Rainbow that the information we're given isn't necessarily the 'right' information as it's all based on assumptions the world of mages has made. Which has been proven to not always be right, as demonstrated from our favourite trio when discovering that the Humdrum didn't actually cause the Watford Tragedy. And like a whole bunch of other stuff.
This is what I've sort of come to theorize. Now of course, Ebb didn't end the war. Simon got rid of the Humdrum and technically 'killed' the Mage. And who knows if the prophecy actually meant anything. Magic exists, but can it really tell the future? With all the effort the Mage did to look into it, it may have all been him just seeing the answers he wanted to see, not actual facts. (Side Note: what did he actually do to Lucy? To you know, make Simon the way he did? He made the most powerful magician, but how? What magic did he mess with?)
Anyways, it just feels like Ebb was a lot of things we never got to see or understand.
Thanks for reading this midnight ramble.