THE WINTER LONG open thread!

What the freaking what to the what, I MEAN. I both love and hate this book for all the answers it gave and all the new questions that led to.

Like oh, I don't know...who the hell is Amandine's mother?! I'm racking my brain trying to think what figure of significance could be old enough to be her mother (even given that she's the youngest of the Firstborn) while not already descended from Oberon in their own right. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that Amandine's the ultimate changeling, and her mother was mortal - these being the interesting mix of truths and lies, as if this is true, it would basically upend everything Faerie believes about the limitations of changelings and their place in Faerie.

Its highly significant to me that just as we see Toby really coming into her own and confidently wielding her power to alter the balance of one's blood...the power that allowed her to choose to become more Faerie than human.....immediately after, we learn that Amandine is the daughter of neither of the Queens. That literally the only line in all of Faerie with the power to choose just what they will be, is descended of unknown lineage.

So now, what I'm wondering is this: we know that every race in Faerie has their own unique magic and skills, derived largely from which of the Big Three their Firstborn claimed as parent (children of Oberon wielding blood, children of Titania flowers, and Maeve water. My question then: is the unique magic of each Faerie race random, or is there a pattern to it all? And if the latter, did Oberon, Titania and Maeve have some measure of influence over what magic each of their children would possess?

Because suddenly Amandine and Toby's ability to shift the balance of their own blood seems very interesting to me. If Oberon and his queens DID have the power to influence or even choose what magic their children would possess, then what better magic to gift his only changeling daughter with other than the ability to choose her own fate - live a mortal life like her mother, or choose her father fully and shift her blood to completely Faerie. (Note again how heavy an emphasis this book placed on Faerie's tradition of a child choosing which parent to claim, and this being the basis for all things like inheritance, succession, etc).

So mark me down as someone who thinks Amandine's mother was mortal, a Scottish woman most likely, who raised Amandine until she was old enough to shift the balance of her own blood and become fully Faerie like her father. And I think this has something to do with why she was the Last Among the First, and Oberon and his queens vanished not long after. I think something changed, once the full implications of what Amandine was capable of became clear - making herself into a Firstborn capable of siring a whole race of immortals despite being born mortal herself....that had to upset some delicate supernatural balance, and somewhere in there I think is why the King and Queens had no more children after her and vanished not much later. It was the ultimate fusion of Faerie and the mortal realm, and would have definitely marked a shift in what it meant to be Faerie.