A RED-ROSE CHAIN open thread!

This was explained at the same time it was noted, by the fact that faerie ointment 'opens here eyes wider than most' and allows her not only to see through illusions, but sometimes realidty as well.

I see this as Toby being a slightly unreliable narrator. In Rosemary and Rue, she talked about how the smell of magic cuts across almost anything else, but, later, we see that that just isn't true for most people. Quentin is barely able to smell Chelsea's magic in Ashes of Honor, in the room where it was overwhelming to Toby, and is unable to smell anything on the street when Toby is tracking patches of old magic while driving with her windows down. I think, similarly, she has mentally tagged this as "Marcia is just a little odd that way", and not re-examined that belief since. Other quarter-bloods (like Ross) still need the faerie ointment to see parts of faerie, but everybody seems a little surprised when Marcia says that she can tell when somebody is wearing an illusion (Chimes at Midnight, ch. 18). This is rather more than others have been able to do. (Oleander couldn't tell that Toby was wearing an illusion, nor vice versa.)


Perhaps, because her blood is weak, it doesn't have a smell strong enough for Toby to detect.

Given the tracking of Chelsea's magic, even days or weeks later, I wouldn't expect quarter-blood magic to be beneath her detection threshold.


[...]As for the third, Toby did say in an earlier book that crossing into a knowe became easier the more one made it. Perhaps, in her almost human state, Toby reacted as though it was her first time, because in a way, it was.

From what I have found, it is more to do with the entrance, than with the individual.
From Late Eclipses: "The more an entrance to the Summerlands is used, the more seamless the transition becomes."
From Rosemary and Rue, talking about entering Goldengreen: "The air was hot and cold at the same time, hard to breathe. This wasn't a smooth and well-crafted door like the entrance to Shadowed Hills; this was a hole ripped between worlds"

So it affected R&R Toby noticeably, even after she had touched the hope chest, but hadn't bothered Marcia.


Whatever she may or may not be, I don't think she's an enemy.

Oh, I am quite certain she is not an enemy. Too many times when she could have made things more difficult, or otherwise operated contrary to the goals of Toby and the others, and, instead, did her best to make things better. Often in the form of oddly-flavored sandwiches.


[...]Firstborn? Possibly, but I don't believe it. Nothing Evening said or did suggested that she saw anything in Marcia but a weak changeling.

From The Winter Long: "She seemed perfectly human, with her dark, curly hair hanging loose around her face, which still bore the ghosts of old acne scars. There wasn’t even the faint glitter of an illusion to mark her as fae, but that was a reflection of how powerful she really was. Only one of the Firstborn could mask their nature that completely."


But, like I already said, I'm not prepared to say that's absolutely all she is. Time, and Seanan, will tell, and if, in the end it turns out Marcia is exactly what she was always presented as, I'll remind everyone, before you cry foul, to remember a favorite device of writers through the ages ... the red herring.

I won't cry foul, but it feels to me like Seanan has given as many hints that there is something more with Marcia, as she did with hinting as to Quentin's parentage. Each time there is a new Toby book coming out, I will re-read the series up to that point, because there are so many things that have been subtly foreshadowed, and that I see very differently with the knowledge of what comes later.

I expect that, when we get the Marcia reveal, it will be the shift in perspective that causes all of those little oddities to line up, and make perfect sense.

Just my opinion. You are quite welcome to your own. I kinda picture Seanan giggling to herself, either because I am noticing these oddities but have no idea where they are pointing, or because I am finding patterns where none actually exist.