Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: ecstatic
  • Music: The crows arguing outside my window.

ONCE BROKEN FAITH open thread!

To celebrate the release of Once Broken Faith, 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: discussion post, once broken faith, toby daye
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  • 154 comments

lazzchan

September 7 2016, 16:31:48 UTC 10 months ago Edited:  September 7 2016, 16:36:41 UTC

I meant to write this review at some point past midnight when I finished reading, but my cat was on my lap and I simply could not dislodge him. It was also hard to type through my tears because of all of the ending bits with Tybalt and Walther and Quentin. My neighbor probably heard a lot of shouted NOOOO whilst I was reading. There was just so much in here and so much laid out that there were also quite a few "gdi Seanan's" sprinkled amongst the tears and denials.

There was a TON said here! The hints about the smaller magics and fairy rings (makes me wonder about certain people now, but only gonna wonder) What the hell is October's purpose in the overall scheme of things, because holy gods there is something going on there that is just making my jaw drop at everything Luidaeg is saying outright. What she said to Arden. What Evening said to October. That is making my hackles rise and throw the book and just sort of sob because there is something brewing and if Evening is all for it... I don't think we want it.

The bits of Maeve and Titania and Oberon... what the courts used to be like, what they could be, What October actually means in the whole scheme of things and I'm just over the moon and slightly sad now that the book is over and I have to wallow in my misery of waiting a year (and probably having nothing answered for several more books). VERY interesting how the one court questioned the balance of Toby's blood. She's shifted that far over that she's not even close to being half-- they figured it was further back and that's astonishing as to the implications.

The fact that she is... not really immortal, but something so close to it, is very scary. Toby can very much, like her mother and her auntie, be considered one of the 'monsters' of Faerie.


Thank you so much for writing and letting us have another piece of the world you've constructed.

belegwen

September 7 2016, 22:42:00 UTC 10 months ago

I'm pretty sure Toby didn't start life as half. I think she's wrong about who her father is.

lazzchan

September 8 2016, 05:07:30 UTC 10 months ago

This is an interesting theory and it would imply someone screwed with her memories as well as her bloodline; I have no doubt that Amandine could do both... but curious as to what makes you lean towards this way? Toby'd be a strong as hell no matter what, with Mom being a Firstborn blood worker...

Gemma Mason

September 8 2016, 06:36:00 UTC 10 months ago

Hm. Amandine was, canonically, shifting Toby's blood to be more human, back when Toby was a child, so it's certainly possible that Toby's ancestry is actually different to half-and-half! This is not something I had ever considered before, though.

Toby can't put anything into anyone's blood that wasn't already there. Does that also hold for Amandine even though she's Firstborn? If so, all we know for sure is that Toby had *some* human in her.

I still think it's likely that her father really was the human she remembers. But hey, you never know.

belegwen

September 8 2016, 10:54:00 UTC 10 months ago

Messing with her memories would not have been necessary, just lying to her from early childhood on.

I think Simon is her father. I think the trick of where the human came from is Amandine's mother. No matter who the other parent of a Firstborn is they are Firstborn and all Fae--check the answers Seanan gave to some of the varied questions about Fae heritage a couple years ago. But if Amandine's mother was human, that might put enough memory of human blood in her fully Fae daughter for her to bring out.

That's my crazy theory anyway.

ravensquee

September 8 2016, 19:30:49 UTC 10 months ago

You just literally blew my mind.

Gemma Mason

September 9 2016, 02:06:19 UTC 10 months ago

Mm, yes, a lot of my pet theories involve Amandine's mother being human, so I see where you're coming from, here. Then again, another of my pet theories is that Amandine might have been ambivalent about her own human heritage and so deliberately purged it. If she had (this is "if" upon "if", I know), then I don't know if she'd have passed it on to her daughter or not.

My extra-wild theory is that this is where the night-haunts come from. They're Amandine's purged mortality, little snippets of Firstborn death out to eat everyone and then die themselves, because Dochas Sidhe are what you get when Oberon breeds with a mortal: blood and death. Muahaha. Or something.

jenk

September 9 2016, 05:42:26 UTC 10 months ago Edited:  September 9 2016, 05:43:34 UTC

Seanan has specifically said that a child of Oberon and a human would be a pureblood First (aka, not a changeling). So Amandine's mother could indeed have been human, and not have had to change her own blood to be pureblood.

That said, in Late Eclipses, the Luidaeg stated that Toby was back to where she'd started before Amandine's meddling. It may have been more than 50% fae (given Amandine was First) but we should remember that Toby's weakness in the first 3 books was due to Amandine's meddling, not Toby's natural state.

Gemma Mason

September 10 2016, 23:08:50 UTC 10 months ago

You are right, of course, about Amandine being fully fae in a sense. On the other hand, Amandine was definitely behaving like someone ashamed of her heritage -- pretending to be Daoine Sidhe and not Firstborn. So maybe I haven't got it fully right -- I certainly hope not, tbh! -- but we'll see where these themes go.

Weirdly enough, it seems like the changeling (or, at least, mixed) state is one of the more powerful advantages that a member of the Dochas Sidhe can hold. Toby gets a lot of mileage out of shifting her own blood one way or the other. So I do wonder if Amandine, as the Dochas Sidhe Firstborn, could still have accessed some of those advantages even as she was less affected by their downsides...

bree_ramsey314

September 12 2016, 18:08:06 UTC 10 months ago

I don't think Amandine is ashamed of her heritage, she's afraid of it. While the full facts regarding the Dochas Sidhe have yet to be revealed, it's pretty clear Oberon created them for a purpose, and there are powerful Fae that don't want to see that purpose fulfilled.

phoenix_singing

10 months ago

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bree_ramsey314

10 months ago

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bree_ramsey314

September 12 2016, 19:48:21 UTC 10 months ago

Your comment tweaked a memory, so I did some digging. Here is what the Luidaeg had to say about Amandine's parentage in The Winter Long:

"Oberon's her father, making her the youngest of my siblings, but her mother is not my mother, nor my father's other bride. Who her mother is I can't say, but if you go looking, you might find some interesting truths hidden under some equally interesting lies."

So, here's my latest theory: Evening Winterrose/Eira Rosynhwyr is Amandine's mother. It explains the connection to blood and roses, and possibly also Evening's unveiled disdain for Toby. She certainly believes that Toby's father was human.

"You're a half-breed. A mongrel. You should have never existed, in this world or any other. I knew Amandine was perverse, but I had no idea she would lower herself to lying with a human before the day that news of your birth was brought to me." (The Winter Long)

She calls Toby her niece there, but that could just a half-truth. If she is Amandine's mother, than Toby is both her granddaughter and her niece, and if she's so disgusted at the thought of a changeling niece, how much more a changeling granddaughter?

bree_ramsey314

September 14 2016, 00:22:09 UTC 10 months ago

I thought of another point regarding the Luidaeg's comment. "Who her mother is I can't say.." We know there's a lot of things the Luidaeg isn't permitted to say, but one in particular is she can't even say her sister's name. Was she trying to give Toby a clue here? Only time will tell.

crewgrrl

October 19 2016, 01:12:11 UTC 8 months ago

I'm pretty sure Ammandine's heritage ties to the Tam Lin ride. I think her mother was Janet.

dragonsong

September 14 2016, 14:22:16 UTC 10 months ago

If I remember correctly, didn't the Luidaeg say that the night haunts ate their mother due to their hunger for fae flesh?

Although the "purged mortality" bit is a really cool idea - falls in line with the Undines being Maeve's tears in my mind.

lazzchan

September 9 2016, 05:42:12 UTC 10 months ago

My friend and I battled around that theory for awhile, but I think August is still out there, because of a little tidbit that was in the spot where Toby first found Arden. There was a girl with silver-gold hair, yes? It was just a verrrry passing comment, but the hair color stuck out in my mind later, because Simon's memories pegged August with that hair.

belegwen

September 9 2016, 10:58:22 UTC 10 months ago

I don't see how August still being around is incompatible with Toby also being the daughter of Amandine and Simon. I definitely think August is somewhere for us to meet some day.

jenfullmoon

September 9 2016, 14:04:09 UTC 10 months ago

And I look forward to when that happens, whenever that is.

Anyone have any theories? Mine is that she disappeared looking for Blind Michael since taking off with a candle from the Luidaeg is how that started.

acf151

September 9 2016, 22:20:51 UTC 10 months ago

I suspect she and Penthea are hanging out in Atlanta Georgia. For some reason I have the impression of Penthea in the southeast USA. It'd be neat if she discovers August the way Quentin is discovering Toby.

Gemma Mason

September 13 2016, 04:39:45 UTC 10 months ago

I'll throw in the possibility that August is somewhere in deep Faerie. Wasn't there a statement somewhere about how the last time a changeling got supercharged teleportation powers "people got lost" and Amandine was involved in fixing the breach? Not conclusive, I know, it's possible either that August was one of the people who got lost, or that August went looking for them. Perhaps the earthquake was involved?

Then, too, as far as I know we haven't been told if the Luidaeg's candles go only to Blind Michael's lands, or if they can go to deeper places. And one more thing: Oberon's magic deals with blood, and with the borders between worlds. Toby can find knowes, and she has intuitions for how knowes work, but I wonder if she also has other skills, that August could also have been messing around with...

bree_ramsey314

September 13 2016, 07:08:55 UTC 10 months ago

Or maybe she disappeared looking for the Big Three. If so, and she's still alive, then she and Toby will probably meet, because it seems to me Toby is fated to undertake that quest herself.

jenfullmoon

10 months ago

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bree_ramsey314

10 months ago

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dragonsong

10 months ago

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bree_ramsey314

10 months ago

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lazzchan

September 9 2016, 15:30:25 UTC 10 months ago

Oh sorry, I didn't mean to phrase it as if that wasn't the case. I think I misread something. Simon was very... possessive of the idea of Toby being "his" which would screw things up even more for Toby. D:

bree_ramsey314

September 12 2016, 19:54:14 UTC 10 months ago

I don't think so. Just before he fell asleep, Simon said, "You should have been mine." To me that sounds like an expression of regret over the fact that she isn't his child. He clearly has a great deal of affection for Toby, but that's because she's her mother's daughter, and he still loves Amandine.

belegwen

September 12 2016, 21:20:38 UTC 10 months ago

I suspect Amandine lied to him too. When she discovered she was pregnant again--terrified by what had happened to her other daughter--she ran off to find a mortal to fool and to claim as the father of the child that she was turning into a changeling to protect.

bree_ramsey314

September 13 2016, 01:17:44 UTC 10 months ago Edited:  September 13 2016, 01:18:20 UTC

The problem with that: if Simon is Toby's father, then she was born a pureblood, half Dochas Sidhe, half Daoine Sidhe. By everything we know, Amandine could only have shifted her fully one way or the other. Speculation as to Amy possibly having a human mother is interesting, but as others have said, Seanan has stated that the child of one of the Three is a pureblood, even if the other parent isn't fae. She has no human blood to somehow transfer to Toby.

As to who her mother might be, I've stated my theory on that elsewhere in this thread.

belegwen

September 13 2016, 02:04:03 UTC 10 months ago

That wouldn't be enough human blood for Toby to manipulate, but I think even that memory of humanity would be enough for Amandine to shift.

miriviel

10 months ago

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