Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: awake
  • Music: Glee, "Run, Joey, Run."

ONE SALT SEA open thread!

To celebrate the release of One Salt Sea, here. Have an open thread to discuss the book.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

Seriously. If anyone comments here at all, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. So please don't read and then yell at me because you encountered spoilers. You were warned.

You can also start a book discussion at my website forums, with less need to be concerned that I will see everything you say! In case you wanted, you know, discussion free of authorial influence.

Have fun!
Tags: one salt sea, toby daye
  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    switch
    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    Help
  • 242 comments

brightlotusmoon

September 7 2011, 19:24:06 UTC 5 years ago

Sooo... Rayseline. I... well, I think I hate her. She terrifies me. She's creepy and unrelenting and truly insane. I kind of wish her dead, or at least Somewhere Else Forever.

What are your thoughts on Raysel, Seanan?

Also, I think I'm in love with both May and Jazz.

seanan_mcguire

September 7 2011, 19:45:40 UTC 5 years ago

I feel bad for her. She got broken, and it wasn't because of anything she did. It was because of who her mother was, and who her father loved, and it wasn't fair.

She never had a chance.

brightlotusmoon

September 7 2011, 20:00:14 UTC 5 years ago

*nods* I don't want to hate her, but every time I see her, I feel the urge to run, because I know she can't be fixed. Poor girl. I hope she can get maybe a litter better...

drakos_inferno

September 8 2011, 03:44:57 UTC 5 years ago

who'd her father love?

seanan_mcguire

September 8 2011, 17:58:06 UTC 5 years ago

Toby.

jhyanmar

September 8 2011, 15:48:25 UTC 5 years ago

I think that one of the challenges that heroes ultimately have to face, if they are to grow and not simply become engines of destruction, fate, divine will or whatever, is this: there are monsters, thinking and unthinking, who have no 'fault'. Whether it's a dragon that's a nonsapient creature whose feeding grounds have been disturbed, or a dangerous solpsist/sociopath who was abused-- the word is too light, in Rayseline's case-- and now only views the world in terms of her fantasies and urges, there will be dangers which have no choices, none at all.

The heroes' challenge, then, is to act with pity and conscience but not to let protection for those who are innocent, for those who can and have made choices for righteousness or at least no major harm, and for those who may yet be redeemed (the hardest edge case, depending on the deeds and the doer). Toby's social circle, including poor Sylvester and Luna, are going to have to make heroic choices.

The possibility of Toby's bloodshifting as a solution here, as with the Selkies and Roane, just means that what you might get out the other end is someone who can be made to be sane, if a large part of it is the really, seriously mixed blood. I'm not sure that sanity is a mercy there, though.