CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT open thread!

I still don't know how on earth Quentin hasn't had a complete breakdown, given that he's a teenager basically having to take on the responsibility of looking after a self-destructive Toby since like, book 3. If anyone needed to cop an evil pie to the face to get a break it's him!

I kid, I kid, but one of the things I am appreciating is how Toby's self-destructive tendencies are explicitly shown to be utter hell on the people around her, and how Toby doesn't even notice until it's explicitly pointed out to her.

What do you mean by "Self-destructive"? Toby ´s sometimes speaks her mind too openly around others, but so do most of the heroes in urban fantasy like Kate Daniels or Harry Dresden (honestly, i love that guy, but he never knows when to shut up)

In all the 7 books I ve only encounterd one instant when Toby really was self-destructive, and that was her crusade against the drugs in book 6. And she had a good reason for it, blaming herself for Connors death and as she is not the type that gets depressive, she gets reckless.

It is true that Toby almost constantly ends up in dangerous situations that almost kill her. But that is because things happen around her (or Seanan likes to throw them to her). It is always some extremely powerful enemy (Simon, Blind Michael, Oleander) that hurt her friends (Silvester, Karen, Tybald) and those friends ask her for help, and she doesn´t refuse them- most of the time because there is no one else who could help!!! She only has the options to say: "I will help, though it will probably kill me" or "I am sorry, but he/she is too strong for me, so you will not see your wife and daughter again/ you will stay prisoner of Blind Michael forever/ the one who poisoned your people will go free. And what a lame-ass hero she would be then?

And concerning Quentin- there was only one time where I really thought Toby should refuse help, because the situation is beyond her, and that was in book 3, when she went back into Blind Michaels land for the second time. And she did that because of Quentins girlfriend, because she knew that it would break Quentin if he couldn´t help her.

If anything I thought that Toby was uncharacteristically careful in chimes at midnight, taking backup, waiting for friends, ringing ahead.

...okay I'm not sure how I've offended you, but by your comment it sounds like you are?

Toby has always been incredibly reckless with her own safety, and often misses how the fact that she gets hurt upsets other people. There's a number of takes as to why Toby is genuinely surprised that people give a damn that she lives or not, but personally I thought it was pretty clear that the reason why was because Toby doesn't think she's as important or valuable as the people around her, and therefore it's okay for her to sacrifice herself but not okay for anyone else to.

It's one of those peculiarly tragic hero things; the thing that makes Toby the person that they need to save them is the thing that actually causes her and the people around her great pain.

Hej, no I am not offended, and I am sorry that my comment hit the wrong tone. I understood the whole "self-destructive" thing wrong, maybe because English is not my native language.
As you put it now, I completely agree. Toby really is like "oh, you would mind if i died horribly?" and not only towards Quentin. I think he, May and Tybald are taking turns in worriing about her, otherwise all three of them would have gone mad already

Though in fact, teenagers trying to / having to take responsibility for self destructive adults isn't all that rare, and while it's hardly an ideal circumstance, plenty of folks manage to stagger through it.