THE WINTER LONG open thread!

Oh yes, I have wondered about Marcia so much since Chimes at Midnight. She was acting way too squirrelly every time King Gilad was mentioned, or when she interacted with Arden. I was sort of thinking she was going to be revealed as a spy for the false Queen -- and I supposed she still could be, but that's low on my list of theories at this point.

I've been doing a reread of all eight books, looking for clues and such (and damn, we really need a wiki at this point). Toby identifies Marcia as a quarterblood changeling each time she's introduced -- but damn if I can find a mention of just what Marcia is a quarter of. There's a mention of hearth-magic in Book 5, but there's no mention of what fae type she is. Nor can I find a mention of what Marcia's magic smells like (if someone spots it, please let me know).

And then in this book, we have Marcia being unaffected by Evening's knockout spell. My current theory is that Marcia is someone strong masquerading as someone weak -- and it's the perfect disguise, really. Faerie is so biased against changelings, who would possibly pretend to be a quarterblood, and willingly give up access to the majority of their power? (Someone who really needs to hide. Someone very patient. Someone with a very good reason.) And quarterbloods dies so quickly, in comparison to the rest of Faerie -- they could switch identities whenever they needed to.

That was one of my thoughts (that I mentioned somewhere else here) but the moment I thought about it I also had lots of reasons why I felt it wouldn't fly! But I still keep thinking maybe there's something there. I initially thought Marcia was Eira in disguise, and then after all was said and done, I thought/think maybe she was another Firstborn in disguise. Someone else posited she could be August, which could be possible too.

I initially thought of Marcia as a Firstborn in disguise partly because of the Luidaeg and her shapeshifting. An illusion certainly doesn't seem like it would pass Toby's notice, but maybe a really well-done shapeshift could. Nevertheless I do think it's a bit off that Toby, with her skillset, wouldn't notice that much power--I can readily believe other faeries dismissing Marcia immediately since she's a changeling, but Toby wouldn't do that.

As for August, I did have a bit more thinking about it and since Toby was able to make herself less fae (with the goblin fruit) I figure it's somewhat feasible for August to have done it to herself, under some really messed up circumstances (similar to Toby's goblin fruit). Someone abducted her, made her do that, and eventually, there she was. But my problem here then, is that with fae blood as thin as she has, she has to be visibly older than Toby--and she doesn't come across to me as older (I don't quite remember if her age/visible age is ever explicitly mentioned?). Of course, if she's been transformed to quarter blood fairly recently (elf-shot, then she got out of it, and is less fae as a result/shortly after, etc) then that would make sense.

Keep in mind, though, that Toby tends to form an opinion and not reconsider it unless she is forced to by circumstance. She met Marcia when she was much weaker. It could be that it would be obvious to her now if she really scrutinized Marcia, but that she hasn't done so because she has already classified her as not being a threat.

That's a good point! It's probably obvious to us just how weird and inconsistent Marcia is being but Toby's completely oblivious to it, lol.

I found a wiki...http://october-daye.wikia.com/wiki/October_Daye_Wiki

It isn't all that detailed yet, but we could start filling it in.