Because You Asked: The Changeling's Choice.: seanan

Because You Asked: The Changeling's Choice.

Yesterday I said that, to celebrate the upcoming release of One Salt Sea, I would once again make five blog posts detailing the background aspects of Toby's reality. This is the first of those posts.

liret asks "Can parents of changelings send their child off to the Summerlands alone and stay with their mortal spouses? I got the impression that Amandine was as stuck as Toby after Toby went through the Changeling's Choice, but I was wondering if arranging for a foster-family and writing the kid off was also possible."

The short answer: No.

The longer-form answer is, naturally, a little more complex.

For those of you who aren't aware, the Changeling's Choice is the process via which changeling children (fae/human crossbreeds) are presented with the two sides of their heritage. Pick fae, be whisked away to Faerie and never see your human family again. Pick mortal, your fae parent has to kill you on the spot. There are no takebacks; this is not something that can be negotiated. The Changeling's Choice is a necessary part of playing fairy bride.

The only exceptions are the weak-blooded fae, like Stacy or Marcia. Their magic was clearly strong enough to have triggered the Changeling's Choice at some point, since they're in Faerie, but if either of them were to have children with a human, there's a fifty/fifty chance that those kids would never manifest measurable magic, which means the Choice would never be triggered. (This is how we wind up with merlins.) Toby slept with Cliff knowing she might get pregnant, and chose to ride the odds as to whether Gilly would fall into that "magic too weak to become visible" sub-category. Since Gilly is still with her mortal family, and they haven't noticed anything unusual about her, Toby's gamble appears to have paid off.

Now, here's the thing: when a changeling is removed from the mortal world, either through abduction or death, they don't just vanish. That would leave too many questions unanswered, and could result in people searching for their children long past the point where it would be safe for Faerie to have them looking. Toby's father found bodies in the remains of the house; Natasha and October Daye were both declared dead, and were buried in Colma. Toby's father is buried next to what he assumed was his wife, but was actually a night-haunt's mannequin.

So could someone send their kid packing and stay with their mortal spouse? Sure, if they were able to convince their liege (and everyone has a liege, even if it's just the local King or Queen) that they could absolutely sell the idea that their child was dead, find a foster family, get the kid to choose Faerie, ship the kid off without getting caught, and manage to weather the aftermath of the "accident" without making any mistakes or getting accused of murder. Hint: this is very, very hard, especially given that most fae are incredibly attached to their children. Many purebloods think of human lovers as nothing more than a convenient way to get a baby, and would never even consider picking a spouse over a child.

In the event that a fae parent somehow convinced their liege that they could pull all this off, and then actually did manage to pull it all off, they would never be allowed to see that child again, and would have a seriously hard time convincing other fae to date them, since they have just proven that they're shitty parents. (I am aware that this is an apparent contradiction, given the fae fosterage system. Most societies are built on minor contradictions, and at least under normal fosterage, you'll eventually get the kid back. You know. When they finish being a teenager.)

So it's logistically hard, emotionally difficult, and culturally frowned upon. Technically, it's possible. Functionally, it's something no fae parent would really consider doing, even if they wanted to.

trialia

August 31 2011, 14:58:25 UTC 5 years ago

New comment

"Natasha"? Hmm, that's new. *just finished a full-series re-read*

seanan_mcguire

August 31 2011, 15:02:42 UTC 5 years ago

That's where Gilly gets her middle name. "Amandine" isn't exactly human-world normal, especially in the 1950s, so she went by "Natasha." I believe that's mentioned in Rosemary and Rue.

5 years ago

misachan

August 31 2011, 15:15:24 UTC 5 years ago

Toby's poor father.

August 31 2011, 15:21:39 UTC 5 years ago

Yes.

amazon_syren

August 31 2011, 15:50:54 UTC 5 years ago

Oh, life...

All this time, I thought the fire had been to take Toby's dad, not to cover up the disappearing act.

My brain is... weird sometimes.

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beccastareyes

eldestmuse

August 31 2011, 16:58:03 UTC 5 years ago

I imagine the night-haunts are also complicit in the changeling scheme. It's not as though they're mindless carrion eaters. They have a vested interest in keeping the fae world a secret -- that's their 'real' job.

August 31 2011, 17:20:23 UTC 5 years ago

They will also, under certain circumstances, make mannequins to replace the living. When they don't have a choice, or when a Choice is made.

August 31 2011, 16:36:07 UTC 5 years ago

Someone asked in the other comments what happens if there are multiple children and their baby magic doesn't wear off at the same time*? Do they leave one kid with the mortal parent and then come back for him/her? Or is it just a case that no fae would deliberately have multiple children at once with a mortal because of this situation.

Also, I assume a changeling couple living in the mortal world don't have to deal with this as their kids are raised knowing who and what they are and the entire family has enough magic to cover for kids still learning and no human members to mislead. Since presumably the Changeling's Choice is to protect the fae from children in the mortal world that are too magical to pass as human and too unskilled to cover this.

* Or one parent is a changeling and only some of their children have enough magic to not pass.

August 31 2011, 17:21:11 UTC 5 years ago

Who knows?

(More specifically, that's a different question, one that goes into structure, not parental behavior. I was considering answering it later.)

tereshkova2001

August 31 2011, 21:23:45 UTC 5 years ago

If October was declared dead, how did she get a job at Safeway? I'm pretty sure they would have needed some form of ID to hire her. Or was she using a false identity?

ambermoon

September 1 2011, 03:08:02 UTC 5 years ago

As I recall (my copy of Rosemary and Rue is currently out on loan), Evening pulled something to give Toby her name and identity back after Toby called her from the police station.

shiyiya

ravenclawed

September 1 2011, 01:17:55 UTC 5 years ago

So Toby's dad is dead. I kind of figured that, but it's nice to get a definite answer.

Many purebloods think of human lovers as nothing more than a convenient way to get a baby, and would never even consider picking a spouse over a child.

So fae/human couples are more fertile than fae/fae couples?

September 1 2011, 17:58:44 UTC 5 years ago

Yup. That's in the books.

fayanora

September 1 2011, 02:31:37 UTC 5 years ago

"Never see your mortal family again" or "be murdered." Some choice. o_o

September 1 2011, 03:31:41 UTC 5 years ago

Well, the changelings don't know that's the second option. They think it's "never see your fae family again." That's a much harder choice to make.

September 1 2011, 02:34:54 UTC 5 years ago

Sounds like you've given this a suspiciously large amount of thought. Future book plot?

September 1 2011, 17:59:18 UTC 5 years ago

I give EVERYTHING suspiciously large amounts of thought.

kaleidors

September 1 2011, 15:31:54 UTC 5 years ago

can I make a selfish request? Can you make a tag for the background info posts, so that they are easy to find in the future?

September 1 2011, 15:57:01 UTC 5 years ago

Alas, no. For then I would have to find them all.

liret

September 2 2011, 17:36:13 UTC 5 years ago

Thank you!

It seems like there's really no possible happy ending when a full-blooded fae goes off to play fairy bride. Which makes the fact that they keep doing it rather disturbing, now that I think of it. Toby was taking a heck of a chance with Cliff.

September 2 2011, 17:37:00 UTC 5 years ago

They have their reasons.

mathochist

October 22 2013, 01:30:23 UTC 3 years ago

I know this is an old post, but I have a question.

In other stories I know of, the term "changeling" always had something to do with either some kind of creature that could change back and forth between forms, or else -- closer to this context -- a fae creature that replaced a human child (so there was a change). I don't claim to be the most informed person, so there may well be other uses of the term that I don't know about. But I'm a little confused by the use of "changeling" in October's universe, where they don't change and aren't exchanged. Why that term? In what sense are they "change"-lings?

October 22 2013, 03:22:05 UTC 3 years ago

I am not answering universe questions between books. :) Questions of this type are addressed when I put up posts of the initial "ask me stuff" nature.

But I'm glad you're curious!

3 years ago

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Because You Asked: The Changeling's Choice.

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