Time for me to join in the conversation I think. Firstly, am I the only guy here? I'm sure there are plenty of guys who love the Obernewtyn books, so where are they all? Secondly, as if Dameon is not the destroyer! There is no-one else that fits all the clues so neatly, yet manages not too seem blatently obvious. While I know not everything gets neatly resolved in IC's books, usually there is a certain level of resolution and if you think about it, how could she possibly resolve the love triangle between Dameon, Elf and Rushton? I refuse to believe that Elf dies alone, or doesn't end up with one of them, so something must happen to the other. IC does a fantastic job of drawing out emotions, and part of that is by something unthinkable happening with characters you love, and who doesn't love Dameon? (For example, the only thing I can remember from The Gathering was the bit when the dog is torched, and I only read that once about 15 years ago - that bit just stuck because I thought it had to be a mistake, it couldn't be true, she wouldn't do that to such a significant character, but she did.) The fact that he is so likeable, and so much a major character, yet has not actually done anything really significant to date, just makes him even more suspect.
We know the destroyer is a male human, was in the first book, is Elf's equal and opposite, and what he is going to do is not intentional. We also know it is not Ariel, and I'm pretty sure I read on another website an interview with IC that had her pretty much saying it was not Matthew either (though she never said it explicitly). Unfortunately, I was unable to find the interview again when I tried to go back and read her exact wording to be sure. The whole opposite thing has got to be related to empathy as IC makes sure we know that Elf lacks that entirely and yet seems to have every other talent imaginable. And by her comment about the destroyer being "like Swallow", could that mean 'someone who has *special* feelings for Elf'? I must admit however, that Rushton also fits these requirements pretty well perfectly if viewing them from a slightly different angle, and the comments made a few posts back certainly make for a convincing argument, so he is still also contender. But I'm an Elf/Rushton fan so I hope not.
Anyhow, that's enough about the destroyer as this probably isn't the right thread for it anyway (though it seems to crop up in every thread). Next I'd like to ask about "The Sending". Why is it so often referred to as "the sneding"? I even read IC's post where she called it the sneding, so how did it come about? Also, where did the 2010 date come from? I have not been able to find any information about it anywhere. The only info I could find was this: "http://penguin.com.au/Rights/YA%20Fiction%20Rights%20Listing07.pdf" which listed the date as November 08 (though it is obviously outdated with the old TSK date as last year).
I'm sorry if I'm off topic, it's just that this has been the thread I have been reading and it is out of this thread that all my thoughts/questions have arisen. My wife refuses to read TSK until she's finished re-reading the others so I can't chat to her about it yet, so you guys have to put up with my thoughts.
Wow, that was a lot longer than I thought, sorry.
Hey Javenom :) welcome to the theories board. There's a bunch of fellas kicking around the boards, I'm sure you'll run into them soon.
Just to quickly answer your question, the 2010 date came from Isobelle herself when I caught up with her in Prague in December '07. She also added that it'd partially be up to Penguin, but early 2010 was when she wanted to realistically aim the release for.
i didnt know where to post this and i didnt think it deserved a new thread so here goes,
after reading TSK i decided to read them all, again lol. I'm nearly finished but i remebered something the other day that happenings in Ashling.
i cant type it cause its to long and i dont have the book here anyway so you'll have to find it yourselves until i can get hold of it.
Elspeth has one of those flashbacks about the before time about a girl named Emily and some one else saying they had to find somewhere to go and mentiong *dramatic music* That Hannah had been in touch with Ines!!!
i don't know what this means but im sure it means something
Mystic Ward
16 years ago
Mystic Ward
Twentyfamilies Gypsy
Is that the bit where she dreaming of the maze and hears a man and a girl talking? I seem to remember it. It's just like IC to put in obscure little references like that which pop up as important items in later books. Good pick up.
Yeah thats the bit.
But im curious, who is Emily and the other person she was talking to? why did they need to find a refuge? and why was Hannah intouch with Ines?
i have a completley wild theory that...
The two skeletons in the beforetime library might be those two people from the maze, OR there is another Ines somehwere in the mountains, possibly under obernewtyn or somehwere in the blacklands. Or is it and Ines who controls the BOT? because it was designed with a computer who could grow and learn just like Ines?
sorry if its hard to read i got excited lol
16 years ago
Thu Feb 21 2008, 04:58pm
Emma and the older black man are prisoners of the govamen at their little headquarters, the misfits they are doing experiments on to somehow create some kind of weapons(p 430, Ashling). They needed to find a refuge because Cassy had just foreseenTthe Great White, and their prison was going to be blown up.
Yep, there's definitely an Ines in the mountains, I'd guess it's one of the machines in the Zebkrahn cave that ahsn't been properly investigated yet, unless a) they haven't actually found the Reichler clinic yet and it's still unexcavated below the caves, in which case it might be there, or b) it may be in that untainted patch of forest in the mountains behind Obernwtyn.
Cassy is the one mentioned with Ines, not Hannah, but as Ines may not have been an entirely govamen created and controlled program,Cassy and Hannah could both have had access to it. It sounds like it may be some sort of future form of internet, in some ways.
In TSK, Elspeth says that Atthis has always said that Only if she fails, will the Destroyer have his chance (p 684). But fails to do what? Find them, or the signs, or deactivate them?
I can't find any places where she says this, but several where Atthis says if Elspeth doesn't get there first, the Destroyer will succeed (p 269, TF). So. Is it a race??? Because in TSK Ariel clearly thinks he needs Elspeth, but was that his choice to follow her rather than going after them himself coz he's a lazy little b*st*rd? OR is it the way it has to be?
I've thought a bit about this, and I wonder if Elspeth won't fail. By this I mean, what if she doesn't find the five signs and the quest seems given up for lost, although I believe that she won't need all five signs to actually get to the WMD, but she'll need all 5 to open them. But Dell's idea about Ines being able to become more human and hence being able to be manipulated seems like it was emphasised too much to be insignificant, and so maybe she will fail but then gain access by using this knowledge of Ines' nature. Some sort of battle is constantly referred to in all the books, so there must be a final showdown. I wonder, by failing to find all five signs, might she give Ariel his chance?
Oh, and was it decided that the statue under Tor was a sign? Sorry if this confused anyone. As always, in my head it's clear as glass, but on paper, not so much!
16 years ago
Thu Feb 21 2008, 05:10pm
We were talking about this Ines reference in Ashling at the recent Brissy meet. It always confused me - purely because I remember noting down the name when I was building the encyclopedia, then had to scour through Ashling very carefully to pick up who this 'person' actually was :P
So, Ines @ Obernewtyn = connected to the Zebkrahn, anyone? :)
Oh and yes, that's right Roz :D regarding the Sneding :P
16 years ago
Thu Feb 21 2008, 07:06pm
What Ines was mentioned in Ashling? Whoa, I must read that again... huh, I never pcked it up. That's why I love the OC, something always jumps out and you go back and realise it's been foreshadowed long before...
EDIT: In the latest edition of Ashlings, the INES bit is on pg. 125
Mystic Ward
16 years ago
Mystic Ward
Rebel
Pml, maybe that tunnel Elspeth always dreams of isn't in the Red Land, but just up the road in the Zebkrahn caves.
So what role do you think Gavyn will play? Because he's reeeeally bugging me.
Who was it that truedreamed Gavyn walking in the blacklands with the pack of dogs...anyway, by that description he's going to have a part to play in Elspeths freeing of the beasts.
I keep imagining that Gavyn is meant to be the real Innle (his name means something like "missing link" doesn't it?) and that the beasts just mixed it up accidentally =P
"Aaah...sorry, we got it wrong, Gavyn is meant to lead the beasts to freedom. Elspeth, you can go home."
[act]grins[/act] Love the idea HotD. :roll:
Yep, HotD, Gavyn was dubbed 'adantar' by the beasts, which Elf noted that there was no funaga word for it but she thought it meant something like 'link or joined'...
I had the same idea awhile back that Gavyn was somehow connected to Elf's quest to free the beasts but something really interesting came up in TSK. I think it's when Elf was knocked out at some point or dreaming and she had a dream conversation with Rasial. It went something like...
Rasial: Maybe it's not that the beasts have to escape the funaga's rule but that the funaga has to learn not to rule...
Or something like that, either way it was mentioned that maybe the beasts didn't have to flee from the humans but that humans had to learn not to oppress/rule the beasts.
This made me believe that somehow Gavyn would somehow link all humans and beasts together maybe through his emapthy and that through that humans would learn to see beasts as equals and the free-running barud would be formed inside the land...
He's only 4 years old! Although, that's me assuming, like Malik in TSK :-| , that the animals aren't independent and wouldn't be helping him out. But he himself wouldn't be doing the leading, I don't think. Not yet at any rate.
Thank you Zieria! I was wondering which part of the book that was from (and can I say flicking through 1000 pages to look for a single line takes a lot of time and plus your wrist hurts from holding it up for so long)
Dreamweaver Ward
16 years ago
Dreamweaver Ward
Dreamscape Artist
You're welcome - I had already bookmarked the page, because I was curious about Gavyn as well. ;D And yes, it's not a comfortable book to hold if you're spending ages flicking through it!
I think Gavyn is definately going to have a role to play in Innles destiny. Isn't there a mention of when Rasial meets Gavyn for the first time Elspeth sense's that some message is passing between them but can't tell how as though they are communicating on a different frequency? I'll have to go back and read it to remind myself. But I think that Beast-speaking is different to the communication animals have between each other. I think Gavyn might be that link, that he communicates as an animal would. Interesting also that he has such great coercive cloaking abilities, because I think we are going to see more animals emerge with Talent, Not just the Agyllians and the Vlar Rei (not sure if i spelled that right) And then there is also Maruman...
Did any one else get suspicious about Dell's INES' previous user? He shut down INES immediately after the it lost contact with the other programs. This would suggest that he expected the Great White. What got me was that he shut INES down to preserve its sanity. Does anyone else think that he was expecting it to be uncovered at some point? Could he have possibly been a Misfit? If so maybe there really is a way for them to access those password protected files and floors.
16 years ago
Sat Feb 23 2008, 08:42pm
oh!gd point Alexis about the spiceweed, I had not thought of that! I think it makes a stronger arguement for Seresh being Salamander, I just can't understand why though, I know she had a tough life, but really?!
O yeh the Ariel factor :-/ ...so do you think he's seduced her as such do to his bidding? he's using his charm to wow her, being such a "handsome" boy intereseted in a girl thats been shunned and hidden all her life?
EDIT: Braolainn - wow interesting idea!! What if he was connected with Cassy? what if he had premonitions or was a futureteller in the beforetime??
16 years ago
Sat Feb 23 2008, 08:42pm
I think it's a mutually beneficial business relationship, but that Seresh may also be dazzled by his beauty. So she's attracted to him because he is her opposite, and yet he's not repulsed by her. We don't know there's anything going on, really. Plus they both find pleasure in other people's pain, and sadism loves company!
Don't you think it's enough that she was separated from her family so young and then later the gross unfairness of it was shoved in her face? I mean, Jakoby's a tribal leader, and she's stuck in a poky old hole forced to cover her face day in day out, abandoned by her family and tribe for something that is no fault of her own, but is in fact theirs. I think that's enough to vow revenge on her oppressors, and the Sadorians are rather narrowminded about the whole bathing in tainted water tradition as is proved by their resistence to Jakoby claiming that Jak fulfilled the prophecy and they no longer had to bathe int he Isis pools.
Mystic Ward
16 years ago
Sat Feb 23 2008, 09:28pm
Mystic Ward
Rebel
I connected the ideas of Seresh and the spiceweed, but I thought against it because Jakoby says it's only distributed to Tribesmen, and Seresh is without a tribe.
Unless tribesmen is just a general reference to all Sadorians.
What if Hannah or Jacob had cryogenically frozen themselves again, and could be awoken in Elspeths time. We haven't seen their bones yet, and Elfie could really use a hand =P ....down, imagination! Down!
*sigh* While my imagination is still rampant, does anyone else think it's about time the Agyllians did something other than sit back and watch? I want there to be a serious case of foreshadowing going on...remember in book two when Elf, Jik and Kella are trapped in the Druids camp, and Domick sarcastically says they're stuck unless one of Elspeths hidden Talents is getting giant birds to fly them across the water?
Oh yeah, I'm picturing Elspeth flying in with a flock of Guanettes to save the day.
Sweeeeet.
*imagination explodes*
16 years ago
Sat Feb 23 2008, 09:14pm
Yes, but it's quite plausible she has contacts, don't you think? Especially if she's Salamander.
Jacob died, I think. I really, really hope IC doesn't have anyone cryogenically frozen arise from the dead. It's ok if Cassy froze herself it, but not if she's *still* frozen and ready to pop up and save the day.
YES! How annoying is it that Atthis has all this information and she just lets Elspeth go from one life threatening situation to the next. I mean, that's ok most of the time, but every now and then you'd think she could throw Elf a bone and explain something properly!
If Atthis dies, it may not be such a catastophe-because afterall, they inherit memories, so the next Eldar of the Elder will almost certainly have Atthis' knowledge. But it would still throw Elf if she died, of course.