Wow, that took forever to read through! Haha.
Hello everybody! Long time no see. Did you doubt I would return to join the discussion when The Sending came out? XD
Warning. This is gonna be LONG!
I'm glad I'm not the only person on the planet who is frustrated and somewhat disappointed. While I get the trip across the mountains had to be long, I disagree that it had to take hundreds of pages. These books have gotten longer and longer as time has gone by, as so many series by various authors tend to, and I always end up feeling that the authors are sort of indulging in their own cleverness. I'm not suggesting I know a way to cut it down, but then, I'm not the paid writer. I saw someone else mention the Camping Trip of DOOOOOOM from Harry Potter - the thought crossed my mind, also. I'm also frustrated that even this late in the game, new story threads are still being introduced! How is it possible that all the existing ones will be wrapped up, let alone all the new ones that keep being brought to our attention.
I felt in TSK and now with TS that many aspects of the story have been changed from the original plan. Maybe that's inevitable, with 10 years between TKP and TSK. I can't think off the top of my head of a lot of the things that struck me as being different, but the glaringly obvious one is the "memory seed" from the Earthtemple - you can't tell me that 15 to 25 years ago, a USB stick was the plan :P
I felt very strongly in TS that many characters suddenly had a big important backstory foisted upon them, to make them more important, or to explain their actions, or to drive Elspeth's quest. Analivia suddenly having visions and dreams of Elspeth? Miryum having visions in dreams of Straaka all the time? I found those kinds of 'reveals' hard to take in.
OK, I jotted some thoughts down as I was reading the thread, so here goes...
- I didn't read the interview about TS and TRQ letting us meet Asian folk, but once someone mentioned "obviously this is the White Faced Lords" it was kind of glaringly obvious! Something else that might strengthen the theory, though I didn't see anyone mention it, is the "yellow skinned" person who showed up at Obernewtyn with Kella and Darius (page 251). Even if he had blonde hair, I think that was a clear foreshadow. IC has done this for nearly every expansion of the known world, right back to Obernewtyn when the mysterious Norselander twins (who ran away and were caught by Ariel) gave proof to the rumour of Norseland's existence.
- Rushton and Elspeth. Ugh. I'm sorry. UGH. I LOVE Rushton, and always wanted them to be together, but... I didn't love him in this book. I thought he was a bit creepy, in fact. Maybe it's just that for all this time, they have been cool and angsty towards one another, but the end of TSK and now TS really didn't do it for me. And there was something really, really wrong with Rushton repeatedly using the phrase "making love"... Not to mention sneaking off to Louis' place when he wasn't going to be home. Ew! Still, I WAS beginning to wonder if they'd already done it but due to the fact that these started out as kids/YA books, it wasn't going to be talked about in detail. So, I'm happy to have that cleared up. And I'm glad for them.
- The mind merge. So, I've read some others' comments that it's a "share what you want" deal, but that seems such a cop out after all the lead up! So instead I'm going to continue working on the presumption that it is, basically, a mind dump. In which case I ask the big question - WHY doesn't Elspeth know Dameon loves her? Rushton sure does. And then I ask, surely there is more to Rushton's life than "I loved my Mum, she died, I came here, it was scary, I met Elspeth, she nearly died, but now it's all good and we love each other."? And, is it possible that Rushton has a secret of his own, and that somehow he has hidden it from Elspeth? If that's the case (I doubt it, but just considering the lack of memories), I would hazard the bear has something to do with it.
- The bear. How very sad! That bothered me in a big way. I found it difficult to believe that Rushton was so relaxed and easy-going that, not only did Elspeth have a big bad secret, but that she wouldn't sleep with him unless she could trick him afterwards! And the imagery of the muzzle was very powerful, as I'm sure was the intent. Now, I know the bear IS Rushton, technically speaking, but it really seems to be seperate and sentient in some way. My bet is that the bear will bust the chains/muzzle and that Rushton will remember everything at an opportune moment, so that he can help Elspeth in some major way. Dragon may or may not have something to do with this, considering the bear has been trapped inside her memories previously, and Dragon has experienced a constructed memory block herself.
- Dameon. I LOVE HIM. It's about time that Elspeth started seeing him as something other than a two-dimensional sweet person. The scene where he returns to Obernewtyn and Rushton sees that hostile look... brilliant! And as to what that was about? Rushton was probably spilling "yay I had sex last night!" memories all over the place... if I was Dameon, that'd [censored] me off, too. I've read a lot of people in this thread saying that Dameon is breaking down and that they're sick of his namby-pambying. I don't think that's what's going on. He's becoming a far more independent and worldly person. The Sadorians wanted him for him, he spent time living with them and became an honourary member of the tribe. He learnt to ride and has obviously been doing something to make his body the, may I say, rather delicious sounding thing that it is now (the scene where Elspeth was checking him out in the hot spring was awesome!). So anyway, I think it's not that he's going to dissolve or whatever, it's just that he's growing up and becoming a different person, and maybe he is sick of being pushed to the side (especially in two books full of EVERYONE pairing off!). Who could blame him?
- Speaking of loved up folks, what is up with that? I get that they were all kids in the early days, and that now they're grown up/growing up, and of course it's natural to find someone you love, but... seroiusly. EVERYONE? Even Iriny and Rolf (don't tell me there's nothing there haha)?
- Even Swallow and Analivia? UGH. Something about that really rubs me the wrong way, and it's not just that Swallow is a non-Rushton suitor :P I'm kind of annoyed at Analivia in general. She's a relatively new, non-major character, and she gets to go on the big adventure?
- All these people get to go on the big adventure? Ahmedri? Come on! All these years, Elspeth has been going it alone, and suddenly she has a team of helpers? I'm glad that she's not alone, but it was so very abrupt and unexpected, and it's all too neat. All these years, Atthis has been enigmatic, not giving anything away, and Elspeth has blundered around hoping she's doing the right thing, and now everything is stitched up so neatly.
- Miryum is definitely in cryo. I think that one's pretty obvious. I think the efari are healing her of severe taint sickness, since Straaka went on and on about how sick and crazy she'd gotten. I don't have much of an idea on the efari yet, except I'd be a bit grumpy if they were robots. Someone else mentioned that they thought of astronauts... I did, too, but I'm not sure if I really think that the suits are space suits. But perhaps it would lend strength to the old theory of there being settlements on the moon, with weapons caches.
- Angina. There was quite a bit of talk about him earlier in the thread. I felt like that was a bit of a cop out. I don't really believe that he could give up on life like that, especially if he loved his sister so much that he was inadvertently drawing her into death with him. I think it was just a way to drive the spirit-bond explanation.
- The statue in Saithwold. Page 229. "when one door is closed another may open"; "Luthen's code is Luthen's heart". My guess is that Elspeth will need to get through a door, or into a computer program, using Luthen's password (code), which will be "Cassandra" (his heart) - or some variation of her name.
- Moss. When Elspeth asks how he knew where Analivia was, he replies "blood knows blood" (page 579). What does THAT mean? We know that Analivia has some Talent, but Dragon supposedly led Moss after Atthis told her the way. So what does Moss' comment mean?
- Eden. Lots of people are saying it's the city Elspeth arrived at in the end, but one thought that crossed my mind is, what if it is the garden in the Red Queen's city? I know it's referred to as a garden but we don't know how large it actually is. It might be large enough to have given the animals involved in the Eden project a place to roam and live.
Now, how about some of the old ideas? Since Swallow AND Dameon are around... which is the Kasanda blood?
Where is the Land and how does it fit in to the world? There was a lot of new geographical information in the book, including the new map. The Spit, with its "queer, wave-shaped rock" on the end of a very large peninsula, made me think of the Rock of Gibraltar, though that isn't wave-shaped (not in our time, at least - maybe something happened that caused a large landslide, leaving it in a wave shape?).
And also, if you've read this far... there's been talk in the thread of Tumen... what/who/where is that? I don't recall a single mention of that in the book, so I'm confused and embarrassed XD
Edit - I've just remembered one more thing XD It's been a long time since I've been involved in the community so I don't know if this idea has been thrown around before, if it's accepted as common or what, but another old member who still knows the books better than anyone I know said this today: "I was also wondering this morning whether Salamander might actually turn out to be a good character, rather than a bad one (people can apparently only be one or the other in Carmody). Like she, ie Jakoby's sister, had to take Land people to the Red Land to pave the way for Dragon or something?"
Since Jakoby's sister was malformed to look at, and was supposed to dwell in the Earthtemple, I don't think it's stretching too far that she could have futuretelling abilities.
