Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: awake
  • Music: Thomas wandering around the room, chirping.

A RED-ROSE CHAIN open thread!

To celebrate the release of A Red-Rose Chain, here. Have an open thread to discuss the book. Judging by the comments I'm seeing, some of you have had time, and I'd really, really rather book discussion (sometimes including spoilers) didn't crop up on other posts.

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. (I will not reply to every comment; I call partial comment amnesty. But I may well join some of the discussion, or answer questions or whatnot.) I will be DELETING all comments containing spoilers which have been left on other posts. No one gets to spoil people here without a label.

You can also start a 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, since I always wind up getting involved in these things.

Have fun, and try not to bleed on the carpet.
Tags: a red-rose chain, discussion post, toby daye
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  • 172 comments
...go 8 levels up... Expand

M Reed

September 4 2015, 15:49:48 UTC 1 year ago

Keep in mind, though, that Simon is a somewhat willing co-conspirator with Eira -- she has promised to save August from some unspecified problem if he helps her achieve some unspecified end. This is an "Anakin agrees to kill Mace Weidu because he believes that Palaptine is the only one who can save Padme" scenario, and is obviously very dangerous for Toby (or anyone else) who Eira identifies as a roadblock. Simon has also shown that, while he doesn't want Toby to be harmed, he has a /very/ odd definition of harm -- turning her to a fish, and trying to turn her into a tree are both considered "no harm" from his point of view.

The best way to fix the problem with Simon is for Toby (or someone else) to fix the problem with August, and the only way to do /that/ involves waking Simon up (as he, Amandine, August, and Eira are the only one with the details), so I suspect that you are correct that Toby will end up waking Simon -- but, again, not a wise decision. Of course, if characters in books made wise decisions consistently, books would be quite a bit more boring, wouldn't they? :)

Amusing side-note -- try a Google search for "October Daye's mother". Google really /does/ know everything...

bree_ramsey314

September 4 2015, 17:40:10 UTC 1 year ago

"Somewhat willing co-conspirator," are you sure about that? Remember who Eira is, the Daoine Sidhe Firstborn. As Toby said, "I had seen firsthand just how hard it was for Evening's descendants to tell her no." How sure can anyone be, even Simon, that he had any choice in the matter at all?

His odd definition of harm isn't odd at all, for a fae. In the minds of many purebloods, most perhaps, you can do anything you want to someone, as long as you don't break Oberon's Law. Rhys and the False Queen certainly believed that and, of course, under her reign, Simon could have killed Toby with impunity, because she's just a changeling. No, you can't hold Simon's point of view here against him, because it isn't his, it's that of his society.

So, Simon may well have been under a compulsion even before the geas, and his charming approach to protecting Toby is really just a product of his heritage. Given that, where do we stand? Well, for my part, I can only stand by Toby, there on the Thorn Road. Again, in her words, "When the chips were down, he'd tried to change sides. In that moment, in that place, that was good enough for me."

Toby has to wake Simon, because there is no way she can let the mystery of what happened to August go. She's a lost child (figuratively speaking), and she's her sister. So yes, she'll wake him ... I just hope she never turns her back on him.

Changing gears, I think we may see Amandine playing a role in the search for August as well. She's been spending all this time wandering the Summerlands, rattling doors no one can see, as though she was looking for something. I think we know now that it's someone, not something, -shes been looking for.

Oh, and Cortana is also familiar with Toby. Seanan's site was 5th on the list she returned, but Cortana can be forgiven that, I believe. After all, Google knew Daye has an 'e.'