Question time! Because Toby trivia is fun.

Would you be willing to give any details on Fae wedding customs?

I second that! In fact, I almost asked this question yesterday, but seeing as how someone has gotten engaged, I thought it might be too spoilerific. Since it has been asked though....

We know divorce is pretty simple in fae society, and that a marriage itself is complex, but what about the ceremony? Is there a ceremony, or do they just go to the equivalent of the county clerk and fill out some forms? I'm guessing, hoping, it's the former, I mean we've seen that the purebloods do like to throw parties, so on the one hand you'd think they'd pull out all the stops for a wedding. On the other hand, they are immortal, and when divorce boils down to both agreeing to call it quits, a lot of them have probably been hitched repeatedly.

If there is a ceremony, is it pretty standard across the spectrum, or do customs vary between the different types of fae? Since their societf is based on a feudal model one would expect the nobles to have the biggest weddings, but among us humans even the peasants tend to throw some lavish weddings. Of course with us mortals it's likely going to be a once in a lifetime event (despite the divorce rate). Was for me, at least. Anyway, I think it'd be cool to hear about what customs the fae have.

I know it's come up a few times in different places in the books that there is a taboo against thanks. What happens if you thank the absolute last person you'd want to do that with?

Do Fae think that the SEAL military division are made up of actual wereseals?

Hey, wait a second...

Do fae get depressed? Like, their brain chemicals go out of whack like humans do? I'm fairly sure you've covered sometimes they get a bit...strange after living a long time, but depression? Anything they can do to improve or fix or whatever their mental health? Oh my gosh, do they have psychologists and other mental health experts? How would that even work when you're counseling someone with power enough to kill with a look?

Thank you! Hope you are keeping as well as you can, leading up to book day.

How do the genetics work with Selkies? Are they genetically human, so that if Rayseline had had a child with Connor, it would have been a changeling? Transformed into fae by the skin they wear? Transformed into fae by their descent from the original Selkies? If Selkies with skins mate and reproduce, do they give birth in the sea or on the land?

Its been stated that a) a Selkie without their skin is essentially human and b) "the magic is in the skin."

In One Salt Sea, when Toby and Conner did the dirty, the Selkie skin was tied around his waist. That was the only thing that connected him to Fairie. Without his skin in Late Eclipses he had no problem holding iron and needed fae ointment to see Fairie.

Seeing that the skin 1) can be taken on and off, 2) is not some type of venire or coating on the wearer at all times, and 3)during " In Sea Salt Tears we spend a lot of time with Selkies and never see a non skin wearing clan member have magic, I believe all Selkie desendants are human.  Since the magic is in the skin, and the wearers are human, a parent cannot genetically pass on magic that they do not posses.

 Ok so when "Cousin Annie" brought the two Selkie skins to the clan at the end of One Salt Sea, we meet the child of a Roane and a Selkie.  Mom was "never one to follow rules," and Dad was just glad to have a kid.  It was stated that they were waiting to see which parent she'd "take after." I believe that this meant they were waiting to see if she developed any magic of her own from her father's line (Roane) or if she would join the multitude of human Selkie decendants waiting for a skin (Mom has no inherent magic to pass down). If her possessing magic meant that she took after her dad and was therfore a Roane, I imagine that means that otherwise she would be a human.

So I believe that if Conner and Raysel had a kid, they'd have the same "wait and see" issue.

It is also stated that "There are no changelings among the Selkies." We were told this to explain why Toby and Conner were originally not allowed to date, but maybe it's one of those things said in passing that we should have taken more litteraly.

The Luidaeg implied in Chimes at Midnight that donning a Selkie skin changes the wearer. I.e. Had Toby taken a skin, she would not have been Dochas Sidhe ever again.  I believe this is the process by which the Selkie skins give their bearer magic. This makes me think that only a human is capable of keeping the skins alive. 

Maybe the skins literally change whomever dons them into a human. (Idk Maybe this is what the Luidaeg used her hope chest for?)

As for if two transformed Selkies conceived in their animal forms would have a kid or a pup, I'm going to have to differ to the "they can't pass on genes they don't have" theory.


Sorry for the length, getting off topic, and putting so many of my own theories in.

I hope this answers more questions for you than it creates. :)

How is immigration handled among the fae? Surely people go back and forth across the ocean to Europe. Also, what is Asia like?

Would love to know where the Cait Sidhe came from, if that isn't out-of-bounds.

I don't have a question as such...

(Apart from; given the answers you're giving, and the complex and consistent world you've built, to torment poor Toby, I've wondered if you have a Silmarillion-like document of the Fae?)

...but I'd like to thank you for taking the time and effort to answer the questions you are able to. Each answer makes this world a little more real, and each "Spoilers!" provides a little thrill of anticipation for something we're going to learn about in future books. :-D

I may be misremembering because I've just started my first reread, but it seems to me that, with the exception of the Cait Sidhe and Luidaeg, the fae don't seem to have a sense of humor. Surely they have one and we and Toby aren't seeing it. (So many terrible things happen when she's around, after all.) So, are the fae the court jester and pratfall types? Do they tell "a Twylyth Teg, a Daoine Sidhe, and a Candela walk into a bar" jokes? Do they tell stories with the bite of Twain or Pratchett? And how do they feel about human humor? Are there fae who frequent comedy clubs or watch the Simpsons?

Oberon had two wives, is this an arrangement that would generally be acceptable in fae society?

Okay, we've got September, October, January, April, and May. Am I missing any? What's the significance of calender names? Why are they all applied to females? Why are they out of order, and why do they skip months the way they do?

This is just me being a pain in the ass again, and, of course, I'll accept an answer of "I don't want to tell you" or "None of your business".

I think at some point she explained that people get named after others by giving them a similar name. If you want to honor September Torquill, you name your kids after other months of the year.

I don't know if this will be too spoiler-y but I was curious about the courts system.
Its mentioned in the series that all the divided courts used to switch monarchs half way through the year. Having a Seelie or an Unseelie ruler for half the year. I don't believe this happened in the court of cats.

So my question is, are the divisions of these courts purely based on what type of magic you have, i.e if your decendant of Titania or Maeve?

And secondly does the time of year actually effect a race's magic because of the court they belong to? To what degree?

Where would Oberon's children fall in to this mix? (Particularly the ones not decendant from either Queen)

Did the court of cats not have this system because their Firsts were from both courts?

I hope that makes sense.

Or is the transfer of power more literal, like "Ok, you get to make decisions for the court now. See you in 6 months."

Okay, I thought of a few:

(a) What's the logic behind fetches? Why would Faerie find it beneficial to essentially send someone a clone to hang out with them for a few days before their death?

(b) Why does magic have two smells?

Argh, sorry, completely forgot that #2 has already been asked and said no to. My apologies.

Another questions!!! How does a Hope chest affects Merlins, a Purebloods, and humans? What happens to them?

The Cait Sidhe accept their changelings, but do they accept their merlins?

I'm really interested in the practice of magic -- we've seen Toby, for example, pull off acts of great power by will and blood alone, but we've also seen her perform a complex ritual to call the night haunts; we've seen the Luidaeg do tremendously powerful magic on will alone, but we've also seen her fix complex spells into objects. What factors affect whether the caster will need to perform a ritual or use a physical object in their magic? Is there a difference between magic that can simply be willed and magic that needs certain acts and/or objects to shape it?

I am chock-full of curiosity about the Tuatha de Danann and their teleportation, as any kid who grew up with Star Trek would be.

You explained in an earlier answer in this series that when the Three have children with the same non-Three parent, they "would get a cluster of Firstborn who were physically extremely similar, and had complimentary magical gifts." You mentioned the Tuatha specifically, and so I was wondering if we could have some expansion on how the children of Elton's and Amorica's lines can benefit one another, maybe some detail about how their magics differ, and what it means when the lines become "utterly entangled" (as I am imagining is the case with Gilad's line, since he and his kids seem to have eyes of two different colors, while Etienne's and Chelsea's are just one (not that I'm asking specific questions about characters, but it's something I noticed, and so I presume you put it there for us to see)).

With regard to their teleportation, how does it work? I don't mean the physics of it, exactly, but in the case of Chelsea, we seem to be shown that there was some kind of sympathy at work, her teleporting to places that shared names with the street she was on, for example. Are there range limits? Can they be superceded, like when a mom lifts a car under which her child is trapped, as seemed to happen with Etienne chasing Chelsea in AOH?

So I reread the book series last week to see if I could find the answer before asking, but either I missed it again or maybe it didn't exactly get answered. What is the deal with Shallowings? Why do they differ from other lands? How do they get 'dug'? Or will this lead to spoilers when you further delve into April and her band of misfits.

Is the plant life (and animal life? are there animals?) in the Summerlands affected by the geography of the mortal world it's 'near'? Are portions of the Summerlands 'closer' to some of the deeper realms than others, and does *that* affect their makeup? Basically how do the Summerlands work?

I had a question!

How do the Court of Cats and the Divided Courts typically interact? What are their responsibilities to one another? Little hints seem to have been dropped here and there but nothing really in depth that I can recall reading.

For example, Tybalt has mentioned in previous books that the Queen of the Mists had to allow him entry via the Shadow Roads (if I remember correctly) - are there other things like this? Are there things the Court of Cats has to do for/with the Divided Courts? And if a Cait Sidhe monarch marries a non-Cait Sidhe (gee, who could we be talking about here?) would the non-Cait Sidhe partner have any responsibilities after things are made official?