A RED-ROSE CHAIN open thread!

I've got something I think will make for an interesting discussion, First, some quotes from the book, from Chapter 12, after Marlis is freed from the loyalty spell:

Oberon's Law forbids killing: nothing more, nothing less. Elf-shot is allowed. Loyalty potions and brainwashing are allowed. And anything that doesn't quite kill, well, that's all right too. That's not a death. All he ever told us not to do to each other was murder. Everything else is still on the table.

And at the end of the chapter:

Oberon might not have been willing to forbid the things that we did to each other, but maybe he should have -- and maybe that was why so many of his descendants were heroes. Because we had to fix what he couldn't, or hadn't, or wouldn't.

Oberon's omissions do seem rather short-sighted. I've pondered this a lot, and not just since A Red-Rose Chain was released. Why did Oberon leave his children so much wiggle room, so many avenues to do terrible things without fear of punishment? Here's the answer I've come up with: he did it because he wanted them to do it themselves. He wanted them to develop wisdom, and to take responsibility for themselves -- he wanted them to grow up and stop acting like children.

Now, if we accept this hypothesis for his actions as fact, then I believe we have already solved the mystery of the disappearance of the Three. They left because the fae were never going to mature as long as they had their Father and Mothers to carry the load for them. Did all three of them agree to this? I'm guessing no, that Oberon imposed his will, on one or both of his Queens. He left his children with a foundation, a single commandment, don't murder each other, and then left them to build the rest on their own, or destroy themselves.

But he didn't leave them completely on their own. The dochas sidhe are part of his plan. I think I have an idea of why he created them; they're supposed to balance out the low birth rate of the fae, by shifting the blood of those changelings that Choose Faerie, making them purebloods. Changelings certainly don't have problems breeding, just look at the mob of children Mitch and Stacey have produced, so if even just a quarter of the changelings, living and yet to come, Choose Faerie, the fae will see an unprecedented rate of growth.

Of course there will be a lot of purebloods who won't like this idea one bit. They won't want to see a bunch of dirty mongrels getting elevated to their equals, because they know that in a relatively short span of time, those shifted changelings will outnumber them. That's why Oberon left the fae with one more thing.

He left them heroes.

Think about it; from everything we know to this point, Amandine is descended solely from Oberon. That means a good percentage of her children will be heroes, but heroes aren't just drafted, they have to choose to take up the mantle, and accept the price that comes with it. One more quote, this time from the Luidaeg in Never Shines The Sun:

Seven years; that's how long I waited before I went to see her, before I went to meet her little girl. And the worst of it is that now, all I can do is wait. I'll wait seven more years, and seven more after that, seven times seven and seventy more, if that's what it takes, until a child of Amandine's line steps up and does what's needed doing for centuries.

To me, it seems clear that Oberon is trying to affect a fundamental change in his children. Even if I'm totally wrong about what that change is, I think we can all agree on one thing. Toby is that child.