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fermented-writers-block · 3 years

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PART 1 of 6 of the Owl Deity Hooty Theory

[NEXT PART]

[OWL DEITY HOOTY THEORY MASTERPOST] (in development)

(TLDR at bottom of post)

Over several long months of research and analysis since March of 2020, I have been following an utterly fascinating thread of potential misdirection and subtle details throughout The Owl House, and today, I would like to start weaving together of what I believe could become one of the biggest and most cleverly disguised twists in the entire show.

To begin, let’s take a look at the B plot of Understanding Willow:

On first glance, it’s an ultimately inconsequential sidestory with the sole purpose of justifying an excuse to keep Luz and Amity in Willow’s mind, as well as providing some well-needed room to breathe and release tension after the veryemotionally charged confrontation with Inner Willow. After half an episode of Eda and King outdoing the other in ridiculous ways to win Gus’ vote and Gus running off in frustration at the end of the episode from Hooty’s inane rambling, it’s easy to laugh off Gus’ pick and assume that nothing/of value was said when he closed the door for the interview.

However, if one pays close attention to that very scene, Hooty actually canstill be heard (if faintly) underneath Eda and King’s grumbling, interestingly talking about how “It all started with a hunt. Blood red skies. That’s right, I was created-.”

Now, while it may seem silly to focus on dialogue from Hooty of all characters, this A) tells us that there was an event in the past involving blood red skies and a hunt of some kind, B) that Hooty had been created close to said event, and C) implies that what he knows but can’t tell as a story worth a damn is EXTREMELY important to be included and be hidden in such a manner.

For comparison, the only other instance of dialogue being tucked away in the background in the entire show is in Wing It Like Witches:

During the lecture at the beginning of the episode, the history teacher openswith lore on Belos appointing a head witch to each coven over 50 years ago, immediately cluing in the audience to try and decipher the rest of the lecture as it moves to the background. Adding to this is how the musical sting when Luz shows off her movie obscures what he says even further, making it even more of a intriguing puzzle that the creators clearly intended for viewers to pick up on and attempt to solve.

In contrast, the hidden dialogue of Hooty’s interview is much shorter and not as hard to decipher as the teacher’s history lesson, but at the same time, there are few to no indicators whatsoever in that scene to clue in the audience to even check for something like that. It comes at the end of an episode where most viewers would have been paradoxically tired out and driven abuzz by the revelations of Amity and Willow’s relationship, doesn’t attempt to draw much attention to itself, and frames itself as a comedic subversion of audience expectations with neither the “greatest witch who ever lived” or the self-proclaimed king of demons being picked by Gus.

Instead, he picks someone that the show portrays constantly as an oblivious and gullible idiot after being described as a “state of the art defense system” at the very beginning of the series. Someone who, despite it being played for laughs, is scarily capable of casually subduing Lilith offscreen one episode and then beating her and an entire squad of Emperor’s Coven members without even the slightest change in personality or temperament.

Someone who, due to being the Owl House itself, could be considered the titular character of the entire show, yet is taken for granted by those who inhabit him and barely gets any respect from even the cutely patronized King - including when Hooty could be interpreted as having potentially been full on DEAD for a time given the use of extremely cartoony X eyes and a lack of vital signs in The Intruder.

And someone who Eda at best tolerates and at worst abandons in personal interactions and only occasionally acknowledges him when he’s actually doing his job. Yet at the same time is so implicitly trusted beyondprotecting her home to the point where - when up against the closest person Eda has to an equal outside of likely Belos - the only actually recognizable spells Eda used in combat were 1) stereotypical energy blasts, 2) a single shield spell in Covention, and 3) a noticeably large reliance on imitations of Hooty above any other spells she could have decided to use instead.

In short, the show repeatedly tells us he is just an idiotic gag character through and through, but at the same time demonstrates he has immense power through both onscreen and offscreen demonstrations, implicitly tells us his importance ahead of time through Eda’s imitations in actually serious situations, and treats his interview and origin story as - if not even more- important to keep secret than a long lore dump about how Belos’ reign works.

After all, there being only two instances of hidden background dialogue in the entire season is already intriguing on its own, but for one to get plenty of clues to draw in people’s attention and for the other to be treated as just another gag about a “mere comic relief character” - aka a good way to draw away attention and lower one’s guard - heavily suggests a far deeper significance buried under layers of misdirection, comedy, and conditioned audience expectations.

I mean, when Eda bragged about being “a bad girl living in a secret fortress,” Hooty followed with a remark about how “I’m the secret.” While that line may sound like Hooty simply being confused as part of a one-off on the surface, it’s an odd dialogue choice for the writers to pick when you think about all the other reminders of his nature as the house itself throughout the season. With the precedent these moments set, it would have been much more appropriate for him to latch onto the “fortress” side of “secret fortress” AND it would have been just as equally funny of a joke about his awareness skills, but instead, Hooty broke away from the established trend to say something that would make people suspicious were it to come from anyone else.

In a way, this reminds me much of the many subtle bits of foreshadowing strewn across the show, like Luz unknowingly describing Amity in Witches Before Wizards and Eda burning a hole through Luz’s coven type quiz that coincidentally selected the same track she had taken at Hexside as “a punky potionist.” At the time of airing, these initially seemed like one-off jokes, but eventually came back in full force several episodes later with Amity’s hidden sensitive feelings and love for the Azura books becoming clear in Lost in Language, and the reveal of Eda’s school track in Something Ventured, Someone Framed with her school misdemeanor pictures.

That said, compared to these individual bits of minor foreshadowing, the jokes about Hooty in Understanding Willow appear to simply be the most obvious pieces in a giant puzzle, implicitly and outright telling attentive viewers that there’s a major mystery to be uncovered here.

In fact, I feel bold enough to say that we could be looking at a twist on a similar scale to that of the Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz and Stanford Pines twists in Steven Universe and Gravity Falls respectively, what with this particular puzzle piece coming from how Gus wanted to make THE greatest interview of all time, and how he was looking for someone who was “interesting, accomplished, AND noteworthy:”

Note the emphasis on the ‘and’ here, as Gus had made a big deal that “people aren’t meantto be all those things” at the beginning of the episode, so as a result, stripping away all the comedic framing of his subplot leaves the intriguing implication that whoever - and, perhaps, what- Hooty is, they really are the most interesting, accomplished, AND noteworthy person out of everyone.

I could go further and talk about why I suspect the mystery surrounding King’s origins, whether true or not, is partially meant to misdirect us from paying attention to Hooty, or how the TOH crew’s could be disguising legitimate clues to his nature among made up and highly meme-able joke answers in order to proliferate said concepts throughout the fandom - thus letting us do all the dirty work of getting ourselves used to the ideas and used to dismissing them at the same time - but to bring things to a close for now, I’d like to leave you all with a question that I’ll start answering next time:

What does it mean when both the most powerful and notorious witch on the Boiling Isles and the possible actual king of demons/the Titan itself/something don’t match up to a house? And what do you think it is that makes him so special to warrant such misdirection?

TLDR: Between Eda’s golem spells, the show stressing his nature as the titular house, his implicit strength, and the odd dialogue and structure of Understanding Willow‘s subplot in relation to him, I believe I have good reason to suspect the show has been giving us many hints towards Hooty being much, much more important than it would like us to currently believe or even joke about. Particularly, through clever uses of comedy to establish and enforce a strong audience bias against looking closely at him or unironically taking him seriously, and to potentially plant the seeds for something I will start exploring in Part 2.

#the owl house #the owl house theory #owl house theory #the owl house speculation #toh theory #the owl house hooty #toh speculation #owl deity hooty theory #long post

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descolaic-myth · 4 years

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Alright, so since I’m stuck on International Descoles ideas at the moment, how about something different for an original post: some old notes I took about the Azran mythology!

Honestly I was only taking these theoretical notes for an AU I was/am still making, but now that I have somewhere to put it for the fandom to see I guess it’s going public-

It’s a lil long so the bulk will be under cut~

"...Garsa upon her raven-feathered steed. In her hand, a black-bladed sword, sharpened on the edge of time, and in her heart, the courage of an entire kingdom."

This is the one of the only, and I mean ONLY, pieces of Azran mythology we have canonically. It's pretty implied that this Garsa entity is one of the Great Riders of the Sky, of which there are five in total. The other four have no name, and it is unknown what they specifically represent.

Garsa is apparently a female Rider, and depicted riding a "raven-feathered steed", presumably some sort of bird or perhaps even dinosaur-like creature. She seems to be some sort of war, valiance, courage, battle, honor, or warrior deity, as she wields a black-bladed sword (obsidian? or perhaps some other enchanted metal?) and is said to be quite courageous.

Alternatively, Garsa could be a mythical war hero instead, though it seems unlikely as she seems to be a Rider of the Sky, aka something deity related, and not simply a mythical hero. She shares similarities with the Black Horseman in terms of the symbolic colour black, and she may be a figure of justice or, conversely, a figure of strife.

Another piece of Azran mythology is the tale of the Celestial King and the Great Riders of the Sky, which a puzzle revolves around:

"At the dawn of time, the world was one big continent, and the Celestial King sheltered all the lands beneath his ample wings. All living things served him. The king had five children, the Great Riders of the Sky, but they were proud and coveted their father's throne. The constant warring of the Riders exhausted the people and tainted the land. Roused at last to anger, the king drew his sword and made four strokes, slicing the land into ten continents. His children... He banished them to live on earth. The king sealed the sacred gates to the skies and scattered the five keys on earth, [so] that his children might one day find them. Ever since that day, the king's children have gazed up at the skies, longing to fly again one day."

It appears that Garsa and the other Riders, presumably her siblings, constantly warred with each other over the throne (as is typical), and the king punished them for it. It is, of course, metaphorical, but in the literal mythos this brings interesting implications: mainly, Garsa and her siblings are now no longer Riders of the Sky, as it seems that they can no longer fly. Were their mounts killed in the process? Did the king cripple his own children? We will never know.

At the end of the Mosinnia arc, Aurora says this: "I see a... a giant mural. It shows a great firebird riding the wind's currents. Kirun of the everlasting flame. The sky is her playground, and death, merely her slumber..." Possibly another Rider? If so, could Kirun perhaps represent the concept of the cyclical nature of earth, or the "everlasting flame"? Perhaps rejuvination, healing, youth, fire, water, life, hope, or something along those lines? There are two possibilities to Kirun's form: she is the firebird Aurora sees in her vision, or she is merely riding upon it like Garsa is on her steed. It seems more likely, if Kirun is indeed a Rider, that she is the latter option. (But this is a lot of ifs-- Kirun is definitely of Azran origin, though, because otherwise Aurora wouldn't have the vision.)

This... is literally all that there is in the game, concerning mythical figures. Everything else is on the more technological side.

Adding onto these old notes, there is the faint possibility that some of the Azran technology in Hoogland might be connected to a Rider, because there’s the “Dragon Lord” and the dragon motif the wind tech has, but no mention is made of a Rider or Rider-like figure when Aurora speaks about it, so I can’t really draw any definitive conclusions.

Honestly, it’s a shame we never got to see the Azran mythos fully! There are so many things that could’ve been done to expand on it:

All five egg locations could’ve have Azran ruins with bits of mythology nearby, maybe with more bits and pieces of mythology, e.g. San Grio’s cave, Torrido having a cave next to Big Red, etc.

Have the myth of the Celestial King and the Riders of the Sky be an echoing/foreshadowing of Azran Legacy’s plot! You could do SO much with this, like have the Riders vaguely represent the Bostonius group or something, and the Celestial King is the Azran themselves, and maybe a villain in the mythos represents Targent? Seriously, the setup was there, but then nothing happened with it! Ugh >:(

Maybe give more access to the in-game Ancient Histories book? I mean all the info about the eggs comes from there, it would’ve been cool to actually have it or an accompanying journal as a trunk item or something and add the mythos lore into it as we find out more via the sites.

The Sanctuary having some sort of allegorical representation about it? Like what if the mythos prophecizes something like the golem reveal in it (subtly, duh) and then huh, whaddya know, that happens.

I’m really just a sucker for mythology and creative works within cultures, whether fictional or real, so like maybe it would be totally unnecessary to the story... BUT it would definitely pay off a lot more to incorporate the mythos into the mix than what we have already, I think.

#professor layton #layton #azran legacy #speculation #headcanons #azran mythology #azran #professor layton speculation #professor layton and the azran legacy #i actually have like oc riders that i made up for my aforementioned au to fill in the roles of the five riders #they're pretty pivotal to the story.... or should be #hmmm i should go fix that probs

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tonotbelionized · 5 years

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Volume 7, Episode 2: A New Approach

This review was originally going to be posted after last week’s episode aired but I procrastinated too long and now it’s already Saturday again. But better late than never!

This episode was pretty good. Heavy on lore but not in the way that Volume 5 loved doing it, the group were standing around but they emoted more, the conversations were interesting and the visuals kept me from getting bored. So, let’s start with the positives!

I love Ironwood. I’ll admit it, he wasn’t my favourite before this volume. I liked him, but it wasn’t much more than that in fairness. But this episode has jumped my love of him. I enjoy his complexity. He’s not this tyrannical dictator that some people feared, but the rest of Team RWBYJNR have good points in that what he’s doing is hurting the people he’s meant to be protecting. They’re going to hate him, and so Ironwood is going to find that being hated is not the best way to go about the problem.

He’s a classical case of good intentions, bad methods, and I love him for it. Also the fact that the guy with trust issues is the one trying to get everyone to trust him, and showing great displays of trust to the main characters, speaks volumes. Hecouldn’t trust Ozpin to do the right thing to the point where he went to the council behind Ozpin’s back, but he’s trusting Ruby with not only the relic, but the plan and the trust he puts in her.

How much that’s worth is to be seen, though.

Onto that scene between him and Ruby with her omitting information and lying? I liked it. I get that people will be frustrated that she and the team are doing the exact same thing that Ozpin did, I was too, but I feel that CRWBY are building up the scenario where Ruby finally realizes what it’s truly like to be in Ozpin’s shoes.

The thing that was most interesting is that there was no right or wrong way to go about it. Only pros and cons, and she has to weigh them up. Either she tells Ironwood the truth, that Salem can’t be destroyed and Ozpin not only knew, but didn’t tell anyone about it, not even the Pod Squad(TM), and risk Ironwood’s mental health snapping like a piece of spaghetti but saving the people he would’ve thrown at her in a vain attempt, as well throwing the world in a panic.

Or she keeps the truth from him, making the whole team’s reactions to Ozpin last volume come off as even more horrible and hypocritical, betraying Ironwood’s trust in her, and having more people be thrown at Salem in vain like the girls’ feel they were, but protecting his spaghetti string mental health and avoiding a fallout just like the previous volume.

Given the reactions in the newest episode that I’ll talk about in my next review, this seems to be set up as a very interesting arc for everyone, specially Ruby.

Going onto the more little moments of the episode, the interactions between the characters were spot on. Winter showing conflicting emotions, that are now more detailed because of the better engine being used, and her panicking over the stolen airship not because it was stolen Atlesian property, but because Weiss put herself in danger and could’ve been killed.

To Winter, Weiss was safe at home until she suddenly disappeared. I doubt Jacques would tell her the truth, so she’s left wondering where Weiss has gone, and then all of a sudden Weiss is back on an airship that would’ve been shot down in different circumstances. Winter clearly cares about her sister, and it’s shown in subtle ways because of who Winter is and how she’s grown. I look forward to seeing more of the Schnee sisters.

On top of that, I love the Ironwood and Qrow hug. I’m not a big shipper, I rarely ship many characters, but this moment was so soft and tender that I wouldn’t mind if Ironwood and Qrow have something more, or if it was just purely platonic. Give me more platonic men bonding, please, I’m starved.

Finally, the villains continue to steal the show for me. I’ll be honest, Watts was my least favourite villain, and one I found very flat, boring, and just meh. But this episode alone has me actually liking him and wanting to see more. His new coat is awesome, and it’s purple so Tyrian/Watts endgame.

Tyrian continues to be one of my favourite villains. CRWBY can really make entertaining villains when they aren’t too busy trying to make them complex, Tyrian is a simple crackhead and I love him for it because it not only brings a competent villain, but he’s not being bogged down by hamfisted Freudian Excuses or Unfortunate Implications like others.

Kinda disappointed that he went back to his old jacket, mostly because he has the bare minimal of purple in parts of his tail, and sometimes his eyes, given that colour is meant to be super important in the world building of RWBY. But I’m not super bummed because his old jacket was pretty dope.

Now onto the things that I really... didn’t like.

The main thing ultimately is that the scene in the lift was annoying, and not in the good frustratingly annoying like Ruby lying, because it made them look incompetent so it’d happen.

The group just decide to talk about how they’re going to keep something important from Ironwood... right in front of his guards. The scene even shows one of them turning to them, acknowledging what they’re saying, and I’m not a fan. It felt wholly unneeded. Blake saying that they’d follow Ruby’s lead was phoned in, we know they’d follow Ruby’s lead already, they’ve been doing so since the last Volume, Ruby’s their leader. The scene wasn’t needed.

They just look really bad at espionage. It was the same issue as last episode where they didn’t even bother to stay incognito. Weiss used her very recognizable Semblance to yeet the racist into the bin, Yang loudly destroyed Atlas property, and they all stick out like colourful thumbs in the more gritty and dull coloured Mantle.

They didn’t think this through, and it shows.

The other thing that I didn’t find funny was Nora acting like a dog at the beginning of the episode. I understand it was to not have it be too dark, but the Forest guy and his behaviour already served that purpose, and it’s meant to be dark. The team just got arrested, they don’t know what’s going to happen, and Nora has been shown to take thing seriously in the previous volumes. Her later antics in the episode were funny, but this one just wasn’t for me.

It felt like once again, Nora wasn’t acting seriously, she was acting as the “Funny Comic Relief(TM)” again, and it’s starting to wear on me.

So that’s it for A New Approach. Overall, I liked this episode! It provided the slow, lore episode needed after the high intensity of the last one, and the fact that they can have tension without needing a fight shows that CRWBY is learning that fact. I didn’t like it as much as the first one, but it was still pretty good.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10

#rwby #rwby volume 7 spoilers #rwby spoilers #crtq #episode review #im sorry for taking so long with this one BUT #the newest review is currently underway so expect it ehhhhhhhhhhhh #tomorrow

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willidleaway · 4 years

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Doctor Who, series 12 as a whole

In short: [looks up if the last SW:TCW season will be out on Blu-ray]

Oh hi, didn’t see you come in. I was trying to distract myself from the fact that series 12 of Doctor Who went there.

I mean, the show’s gone up itself a bit, hasn’t it? And I do mean that quite literally. It’s gone upstream in canon and I just don’t know why Chibnall bothered. It’ll teach me to complain about Moffat’s new!Who for taking Doctor-lore so seriously, I suppose, given everything that’s happened now.

Things I liked about series 12: I do feel that with Chibnall as showrunner, each series feels more cohesive in a way that they did not with Moffat, and really not even necessarily with RTD. Plot elements get set up and paid off all throughout the series, and it’s a nice thing to see.

Sacha Dhawan was pretty great to watch, and I rather think maybe his introduction in this series brought out a bit more in Thirteen as well.

Things I can’t say I liked about series 12: just about everything else. This is not equivalent to saying I hated everything else about series 12. But this is me saying that at the end of the day, I found the plotting too exhausting with not enough heart to get me to care much about the story or the characters. The show’s starting to feel like a caricature of itself, in many ways.

In less short: again, I don’t mean to say I disliked everything about series 12 apart from the new Master and the improved cohesion, but I ended up pretty indifferent about much of it, and did start to get a bit irritated by the increasing defiance of ‘show, don’t tell’. But I’m really disheartened by the fact that series 11′s focus on the companions seems to have been just a passing whimsy in the overall picture of Chibnall’s master plan.

But what exactly was the godforsaken point of this master plan anyway? Why bother plotting this series so tightly and cohesively together if the message at its heart is ... basically nothing but a revelation about our protagonist, and one that ultimately (not at first, but ultimately) holds no emotional weight by the protagonist’s own admission? Great, you’ve woven this giant earth-shattering twist into the Doctor Who canon. But is that all that the show is good for? Editing its own lore?

Of course, part of this is that I’m old. (As far as you know.) The show that returned in 2005 is not the show that’s airing now in 2020, and as someone who was sold on new!Who based on the vision it had in RTD’s time, I’m bound to connect less strongly with Chibnall’s vision for the show. This sort of evolution is fine in principle—even necessary—if it’s actually still good television, competent storytelling, with its heart in the right place and an audience that it speaks to. I’ll admit that series 12 is spectacular television in the literal sense of it being a right flashy spectacle of a show—Spyfall should have convinced everyone of that—but is it good? And the serious doubt I have after watching this finale—I had an inkling of a doubt back in episode 3 but by god it’s a serious doubt now—is: is Doctor Who, under Chibnall’s supervision, actually a competent show?

I’ve seen multiple people across subreddits compare this finale to Episode IX of the increasingly incredulous Star Wars saga, and I can’t say I disagree. I’d honestly almost extend the comparison to all of series 12—you have to, in a sense, because the series just functions that cohesively.

And I’d make the comparison a tad favourable to The Rise of Skywalker, actually. There is a case to be made that JJ Abrams, for all his faults and overambitious gambits, was trying to say something beyond just ‘oh Palpatine never died and Snokes grow in jars’ or ‘oh here’s the skinny on Rey’s ridiculously dark past’. I genuinely saw attempts—gestures—at broader messages like ‘you are not alone’ and ‘together we can overcome anything’. I’m not saying these are particularly novel or insightful messages to try and convey, and I’m not saying they were even conveyed that competently. (Episode IX fell into the same more-tell-than-show pit of quicksand that series 12 has found itself in, for one.) But by god there was at least an attempt, whereas I don’t see that here.

If you want a study in contrast, look no further than Moffat’s series 9 finale in comparison to the finale we got tonight. There was an actual character arc! Twelve’s obsession with his ‘duty of care’ bit back on him! He was forced to recognise loss as part of events! Granted, Moffat still pulled his ‘everybody lives’ gambit so Clara only technically died and for all intents and purposes lives a fairly exciting life for many years after we say goodbye to her. But there was an actual emotional resonance that was there!

The point is that Moffat, for all his lovely diversions into past show lore and Time Lord social psychology, never forgot about human relationships and human emotions and how they drove the audience’s investment in new!Who. I mean, sometimes it was played up in a rom-com way (you can take Coupling out of the TV schedules, but never out of Moffat’s writing, I suspect), and there were times when it worked and times when it definitely didn’t work. But it was always there. You could find it. You could see yourself in it, sometimes.

This? What was the point of this? The Doctor is the Timeless Child. It turns out this was a carefully guarded secret known only to the highest echelons of Time Lord society and certainly to the ominously named Division. A large chunk of the Doctor’s life is basically missing, possibly forever.

From a lore point of view: sure, this has massive implications! And Chibnall is at least smart/restrained enough not to spell it all out, and at the end of the day there’s still some mystery—at least, for as long as Chibnall doesn’t proceed to smash that to bits as well in the remainder of his tenure.

But from a storytelling standpoint? Ruth!Doctor even spells it out: ‘have you ever been limited by who you were before?’ The Doctor’s past, ultimately, just doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter to the companions. It doesn’t matter to the Doctor. It doesn’t matter to (I would wager) a large part of Doctor Who’s audience. Chibnall knew this and yet built the whole arc of series 12 around this revelation, which was totally irrelevant to the heart of the show by his own indirect admission.

It doesn’t feel like the sort of thing that you build a 10-episode run around. It feels like something you drop like a mic at the end of a two-parter, and then pick up the pieces of the next time around. In fact, you know, I think series 12 would have been better if we started off with this revelation, giving us time to have any meaningful emotional fallout, some space for it to breathe.

Series 1 had the revelation that Gallifrey was destroyed in the Last Great Time War, but we didn’t build to it. It was given to us near the outset, in episode 2. And new!Who was richer for it, for treating the Time War not as a culmination of some arc, but something that impacted so many subsequent events in the Doctor’s life and by extension in the companions’ lives. The big surprise in series 1 was the Bad Wolf, because it was Rose all along—basically your average Londoner whisked away into extraordinary circumstances and doing extraordinary things. There’s some value in seeing that sort of thing on screen. I don’t find any such value in seeing the Doctor’s past rewritten on screen.

Chibnall, I suspect, overestimates the level of patience everyone else in the world has for tedious lore unfolding, and sees this as only the first half of a grand multi-series plan for reinventing the show. I suspect we will learn that RTD and Moffat were both wiser to attempt no such thing.

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terramythos · 5 years

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Now that I am finally through the 12 book odyssey that was catching up/rereading the October Daye series here's a post of my general thoughts. (ADVANCED spoilers. Like I don’t hold anything back, lol).

A. Just for fun, my favorite books tended to be the ones where shit (especially Lore Shit) went down in a Really Big Way. My top 5 for that...

1. The Winter Long (#8). I don’t think you can beat this one in sheer fuckery. Two MAJOR twists that basically change everything up to this point in the series, and they’re both dropped pretty casually. One, Simon Torquill is maybe not as evil as previously thought? and is also Toby’s step-dad? Whoops? And number two-- fucking EVENING, the fucking throwaway character killed in book one-- isn’t even dead AND she’s a fucking Firstborn and also a total piece of shit. God. It was a ride re-reading book one because there are so many hints (my favorite line: “no one knew her true face” YEAH OCTOBER, YOU SURE AREN’T WRONG). I pointed it out but even the Shakespeare quotes of books 1 and 8 foreshadow this shit. That in particular was 999-level fuckery.

2. The Brightest Fell (#11). I was not expecting this book to gut punch me so hard. Like, everything goes to shit, obviously, and the consequences of that stretch well into the next book. But then to give Simon a genuine redemption arc, to invest in that so emotionally, and somehow find a way to end it in a WORSE way than him just dying? That stuck with me. I was so fucking upset I just couldn’t do anything of value for like a day. So that’s how you know it’s good I guess! :D

3. An Artificial Night (#3). God what do you even say about this one. It’s where shit really starts getting real for the whole series. It’s creepy and more fantastical than the first few books and you learn more about The Firstborn and what they’re capable of. There’s a lot that’s just viscerally traumatic too. Literal children being twisted into horrific monsters. And if I’m right, I think the whole series is going to loop back to this one in a big way. There are so many... mentions and (dare I say) hints dropping even now about Blind Michael.

4. One Salt Sea (#5). I mean, a lot of stuff happens in this one that ultimately ties into book 12, but a really major character gets killed off, Rayseline is taken out of commission, the Undersea gets introduced, and you learn what the hell is up with the Selkies. I really truly believe the epilogue chapter of this one is some of the best writing in the series, it’s so well put together and has such great beats. Idk like it was a tossup between this one and Ashes of Honor (#7), but while the latter had some of my favorite bits I think this one had a lot more.

5. Night and Silence (#12). Maybe it’s cause it’s the most recent one and the most fresh in my mind, but DAMN. Kinda like The Winter Long this one had two big twists, and while they weren’t as major they really defined the book. The whole Janet thing I really and truly did not see coming and has some BIG implications for everything we know. Amandine’s a changeling! What the fuck! Gillian being very decisively rewritten into the series (and turned into a Selkie) was ALSO not something I saw coming in any way, shape, or form. This one really fired me up wondering where things are going next.

B. I mentioned it but GOD the Simon thing made me so viscerally upset! I don’t think I’ve run into a series that approached a redemption arc that way. You take a character who’s pretty much evil, then start making it way more gray. Was he a bad guy? Yeah... but he had a reasonable motive. Is he still a bad guy? Yeah kinda, but he seems to genuinely want to change, and actually assists the heroes without ulterior motive. OK, so then he comes back a few books later as the deuteragonist and gets a whole lot of character development, and he starts to improve. You even get a concrete indicator that the horrible shit that corrupted him is going away. And then, when he ultimately reaches his goals? He’s forced to give it all away, to turn back into the monster he’d been, in order to do the right thing. Fucking unreal. I’m fully aware this is to make the whole “finding Oberon” stakes more personal but it hurt, man!

C. My vampire crack theory is pretty much dead, so rest in peace, that.

D. OK so what is with the month names? Seriously. You can explain it away a little bit with the whole “fae like to honor people but don’t like to reuse names” shit but there’s absolutely no way it’s that simple. They’re all female characters who are related, however slightly, to the Torquills. I made that observation pre-book 8, but dismissed it because Toby wasn’t technically related to them. ONLY AS OF BOOK 8 SHE IS, SO CHECKMATE. THERE’S SOMETHING HAPPENING, DAMN IT. Anyway I like making lists, so...

1. January -- January O’Leary, She’s September’s daughter, and she gets killed off in book 2. This might be enough for me to dismiss the month name thing except the epilogue of 11 brings her Back to Fucking Life, so honestly all bets are off imo, she was absolutely brought back for a reason.

2. February -- no one.. yet.

3. March -- no one.. yet.

4. April -- April O’Leary, January’s adopted daughter. She’s a cyber-Dryad and we see her perspective briefly when January gets resurrected. I’m not sure what else to say about her in relation to this?

5. May -- May Daye, October’s blood clone (basically). I mean, her whole existence is pretty weird. You could make the argument her name is just a coincidence (she was once a night haunt named Mai), but there’s absolutely no way I’m buying that.

6. June -- no one.. yet.

7. July -- Gillian Marks-Daye. October’s daughter. I mean. I was going to say “no one”, but she just got decisively re-written into the series. “Gillian” is the feminine form of “Julius”. I’m pretty sure she’s supposed to be the dark-horse contender for this slot. No way that’s a coincidence.

8. August -- August...Torquill? She’s Simon’s biological daughter and Toby’s half-sister, so.... She was ALSO introduced pretty late, unlike most of these entries, so I am still convinced this is A Thing.

9. September -- September Torquill. She’s Simon and Sylvester’s sister. Also like, decisively dead I think. She hasn’t shown up in the main series (only mentioned), but I think she shows up more in the short stories? I don’t know enough about her to say much.

10. October -- October “Toby” Daye. Like. That’s the name of the series. She’s the main protagonist, dawg. She’s Simon’s step-daughter. What more do you want from me.

11. November -- no one.. yet.

12. December -- no one.. yet.

E. So where is the series going? Obviously next book is about The Luidaeg finally calling in the Selkies’ blood debt or whatever, which we knew was coming for a long time. But #12 just made that way more personal with the whole Gillian thing. I have no idea what’s going to happen with that. Beyond that? There are some loose ends here and there, but the big thing is Oberon coming back. That’s pretty much a given. If I’m right, I think the consequences of Book 3 are going to start showing soon, but idk if it will be in relation to that or not. I’m sure she can come up with way more to put into the series (maybe a book around Toby and Tybalt getting married? SOMETHING THAT EXPLAINS THE MONTH NAMES???), but that’s all that’s really evident to me.

F. So, the characters. They’re probably my favorite bit of the series. The Luidaeg and Tybalt are undoubtedly my faves, but I’ve really enjoyed seeing how Toby, Quentin, and May have grown over the course of the series. I know I mentioned this previously, but I really like how the series’ initial allies end up... not being allies, so much-- whether by getting killed off or severely disappointing Toby. Sylvester, Evening, Luna, Lily, and Connor all pretty much disappear or greatly alter their role in the story.

Yet the main cast, the “found family” the series focuses on? Pretty much none of them started out even liking each other that much. Quentin is a snotty noble kid, Tybalt is straight up an antagonist who HATES Toby, The Luidaeg is just plain terrifying, and May is some bizarre doppleganger that (seems to) randomly show up. Yet over time they’ve forged into such a strong and really likeable crew. Idk, it really gives me the feeling that it’s not just FOUND family, but EARNED family, and I really like that.

G. While we’re discussing characters, I want to talk about The Luidaeg in particular.

I think she’s probably one of my favorite characters of all time. That’s a high bar but she is just so damn INTERESTING. Morally gray for sure, but not in a traditional way.

Like, she clearly has her own agenda. She’s probably the oldest character in the series, and she’s fucking terrifying. People use her name to warn their kids at night. We see samples of her powers and the things she knows, and she’s basically a walking eldritch horror. A great deal of the series is her calling in and collecting debts from the main characters so she can use them for one purpose or another. She’s the fucking sea witch. Right?

Except... the series humanizes her so much. She is clearly kind and compassionate and does her best to hide it. While she initially intimidates the main characters, Toby gradually realizes she’s lonely and seems to enjoy their company. Every single bit of her backstory you get adds more context to her behavior. She’s protective of children because hers were slaughtered like animals. She speaks in riddles because there are so many things she’s forbidden to say. She asks for terrible prices because she HAS to help anyone who will ask her to, and there are certain things she doesn’t want to do (and often, it’s because said things would harm others). This is also why she’s so standoffish and avoidant of others-- because they take advantage of her. Despite all the horrible shit that’s happened to her, she still does her best to be kind and do the right thing. And her ultimate goal, I feel, must be a good one. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me.

There’s more. A lot of what she does is clearly calculated to achieve a particular result. She mostly shows kindness to certain members of the main cast (Toby and Quentin in particular) and very few others. It’s always interesting to see how she interacts with other characters, because it closely mirrors her initial behavior. Yet even then you see little things, like how she took in Poppy as an apprentice. One of the few times you get her perspective, it’s when she realizes Amandine is abusing and literally killing child!October, and you see how horrified she is, enough that she steps in and puts a stop to it. Does she have a use for Toby down the line? Yeah, obviously, but it doesn’t mean she didn’t do the right thing for the right reasons. I suppose it’s possible she’s just manipulating everyone, but the stories like that and her blood memories make me feel otherwise. Also, the amount of human profanity she uses is pretty funny, since so few characters use it.

Honestly this may seem like an odd comparison but she reminds me of Akane from Zero Escape. She’s playing the long con, and a lot of what she does seems strange and mysterious until you get more context. And she clearly has some ultimate goal she’s working toward (probably something to do with finding Oberon), but we won’t really know what that means until it happens. It’s probably going to be an emotional rollercoaster.

There’s more to her than that, but I find it hard to articulate. I just really like her! Pretty much every scene she shows up in is interesting, because she has intriguing lore, dialogue, or insights. She’s almost certainly a big focus in the next book and I don’t know if that means I’ll love her or hate her at the end, lol.

H. Much shorter note, but Toby/Tybalt? How DARE you make me care about a M/F ship THIS MUCH. They’re just so good. The ultimate slow burn Enemies to Grudging Allies to Friends to Lovers. It’s such a ride and a treat to read. Their early interactions are fucking hilarious on a reread. And I find myself caring so much about what happens to them.

I. I think this is my last point, but I REALLY appreciated the LGBT rep in the series. There’s obvious stuff like “all the fae are bi unless stated otherwise”, but there’s a really good amount of overt rep. May’s a lesbian, Madden’s gay, Quentin’s bi, and no one bats an eye. It’s AWESOME. Also, making Walther (a certified badass and cool character) a trans man was just wonderful. The fact that he goes on right after the reveal to do one of the biggest Lore things (curing motherfucking elf-shot) is the best. I really like Walther and we need more characters like him.

I’m probably missing SOMETHING, but idk. These were my main thoughts on the series as a whole. I’m interested to see where things go.

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