Luckly, this is a time travel story at its core, and sometimes the best way to stop what has already been set in motion is to make sure it never gets started in the first place.
I don't think that'll happen. As of Volume 1, the Other War had already happened. If Agatha prevents the locket from being stolen, she won't use a time window to prevent the locket from being stolen -- her life would have been completely different IF she had been born at all.
Too many paradoxes.
I *DO* think that The Other will turn out to be some sort of Time Loop Entity, based on a partial copy of Lucrezia's personality ... one that eventually (in storytelling terms) causes a partial copy of Lucrezia's personality to get loose and become The Other.
I'm *hoping* that one reason female Sparks are so rare is that in the future Agatha will be rescuing them and bringing them forward in time. (I'm pretty sure that another reason they're rare is that Aaronev had been kidnapping them to use in his unsuccessful attempts to bring back Lucrezia using the Beacon Engine. Yecch.)
Paradoxes are part and parcel for any time travel story, and if you are correct with The Other being a Time Loop Entity (which I see a denfinate possibility), then a paradox is ineviable, since you have to break the infinate loop to stop the Entity in question. That means certain events have to NOT happen, but with causality in place, that is where the paradox happens. Multiple realities minimize the paradoxes, but some will be there no matter what you do.
Since the element of time and time travel (and even multiple realities in Othar's Twitter) is a part of the story, a timey-whimey solution is ineviable, in my opinion. That doesn't mean the situation I descibed is the only resolution to the main plot. However, I do think, from a narrative sense, it is the most poetic and gives a nice book end to the tale. It also fits with what The Other says in the time window, when she points to the ignorant young Agatha and we get the partial phase "-Like That!". Personally, I think it is The Other mockng Agatha's plan to go back in time to stop herself from losing the Locket (which started her adventures), perhaps saying "Do you really want to stay - *opens time window on a younger Agatha* - Like That!". Hell, I could even imagine an older Agatha jumping through the window at that point to stop her younger self from running and going down that alley.
Of course, what would really be weird is if The Other/Muse of Time was actually a verison of Agatha from the Far Flung Future whose time line has collased into an infinate loop of self-destruction and recreation, but that might be too strange, "By His Bootstraps" ending for most people.
... and if you are correct with The Other being a Time Loop Entity (which I see a denfinate possibility), then a paradox is ineviable, since you have to break the infinate loop to stop the Entity in question.
I don't see the TLE being "stopped" so much as thwarted. If the earliest time that the TLE exists is T1, and the latest is T2, then all that needs to happen is for the story to advance past T2 with the characters content to leave history unchanged. The Good Guys don't have to kill The Other (although they probably will kill some of her incarnations), and they don't have to change history for the better, they just have to keep The Other from achieving her goals.
Until we know what those goals are, it is hard to say that there will even be a future to get to (or one worth living in), even if the TLE is "thwarted". Until we know that, it is hard to say how of it all, or even if it is even possible at all. Plus, there is a possibility that the TLE encircles and exists in all time and space, so there is no past or future to escape to. In order to stop or thwart TLE, you have to break the circle.
I don't think that'll happen. As of Volume 1, the Other War had already happened. If Agatha prevents the locket from being stolen, she won't use a time window to prevent the locket from being stolen -- her life would have been completely different IF she had been born at all.
Too many paradoxes.
I *DO* think that The Other will turn out to be some sort of Time Loop Entity, based on a partial copy of Lucrezia's personality ... one that eventually (in storytelling terms) causes a partial copy of Lucrezia's personality to get loose and become The Other.
I'm *hoping* that one reason female Sparks are so rare is that in the future Agatha will be rescuing them and bringing them forward in time. (I'm pretty sure that another reason they're rare is that Aaronev had been kidnapping them to use in his unsuccessful attempts to bring back Lucrezia using the Beacon Engine. Yecch.)
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Since the element of time and time travel (and even multiple realities in Othar's Twitter) is a part of the story, a timey-whimey solution is ineviable, in my opinion. That doesn't mean the situation I descibed is the only resolution to the main plot. However, I do think, from a narrative sense, it is the most poetic and gives a nice book end to the tale. It also fits with what The Other says in the time window, when she points to the ignorant young Agatha and we get the partial phase "-Like That!". Personally, I think it is The Other mockng Agatha's plan to go back in time to stop herself from losing the Locket (which started her adventures), perhaps saying "Do you really want to stay - *opens time window on a younger Agatha* - Like That!". Hell, I could even imagine an older Agatha jumping through the window at that point to stop her younger self from running and going down that alley.
Of course, what would really be weird is if The Other/Muse of Time was actually a verison of Agatha from the Far Flung Future whose time line has collased into an infinate loop of self-destruction and recreation, but that might be too strange, "By His Bootstraps" ending for most people.
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I don't see the TLE being "stopped" so much as thwarted. If the earliest time that the TLE exists is T1, and the latest is T2, then all that needs to happen is for the story to advance past T2 with the characters content to leave history unchanged. The Good Guys don't have to kill The Other (although they probably will kill some of her incarnations), and they don't have to change history for the better, they just have to keep The Other from achieving her goals.
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