Miching mallecho: it means mischief

[rymenhild]

Seanan McGuire's half-fae San Francisco investigator Toby Daye solves approximately one mystery per book, but she lives in a world with plenty of mysteries left. This post, which I began writing months ago but have been saving until muchabstracted finished the series, begins to guess at some of the hidden mysteries. Expect major spoilers for all three published

Comments

[muchabstracted]

Interesting. I would disagree with the theory of Sylvester as evil in any other book, except -- we have already seen Devin turn out to doublecross Toby, and we have seen Luna do so, so clearly this is a trope that occurs in Toby's universe. I do think that Sylvester turning out to be evil would happen significantly later on. That would be earth-shattering. Luna being selfish and putting her lie above Toby's was bad enough; and Devin's actions were a surprise but, um, at least Toby already knew his moral limitations

[rymenhild]

Even if it's not Sylvester-- and I think it is -- somebody is betraying Toby, and it's someone we haven't seen betraying her yet.

[muchabstracted]

Sylvester would have the greatest oomph, of any of the options. His reasons would be very interesting. Though now that I say that -- what has he done that has been helpful for Toby? Loaned her a sword that helped her kill Blind Michael because she had access to an iron knife; came too late to ALH; ... um, can't think of anything else. Maybe Toby was right to go to Devin before Sylvester in R&R.

The person betraying her has got to be someone we've already met.

What are the odds that the lie is someone protecting her, and not someone betraying her? All we know is someone is lying, using Toby to lie (therefore, as you say, someone she trusts), and that Toby's ancestry is probably involved. We both came to the conclusion about Toby's ancestry separately, so that's pretty likely to be part of what's going on.

[rymenhild]

But Tybalt practically dared Toby to go find out what was really going on with the lie. If it were for her protection, I don't think he would have bothered worrying about it.

And yes. I hadn't thought about that sword being the wrong weapon... but it totally was. Toby didn't even use the sword. Blind Michael wielded it against her. She needed the silver knife from Dare and the iron knife from Acacia. The sword was not, in fact, helpful at all.

[muchabstracted]

Oh, and about Toby's and Tybalt's relationship (as we have both posited is going to be Toby's romantic character arc) -- it occurs to me that there is a pretty good reason for Tybalt to take things slowly. The repercussions if it doesn't work out would be pretty enormous.

(The additional reasons for Toby to take things slowly are that (a) she didn't realize until the third book that anything was going on; and more importantly, (b) she's getting involved with Tybalt. There are so many reasons to go slowly.

[rymenhild]

Also, her heart's still semi-broken over Cliff, she's only now beginning to figure out where she fits in fae society, and she's just not ready for a relationship with anyone.

[muchabstracted]

Yeah, there's that too.

[rymenhild]

Meanwhile, I'd really like to know what's up with Toby being named Countess of Goldengreen. Countess? Toby? What has she done to earn that promotion? Besides, you know, saving bunches of children and all. It's an odd role for a supposed changeling. Toby's so used to being low-status...

I do think Toby has more power than she knows about. There's that odd moment in the sample chapter where May and Toby transform the gown together, and May refuses to explain what just happened, but Toby knows she's using more magic than she really ought to have. It isn't all coming from May.

One last (obvious) prediction: Countess Toby's going to need a squire, and Quentin is so totally it.

[hyperparasitoid]

I can get you some galls.

[rymenhild]

I'm sure you have a good source. I prefer non-infested, though.

[rymenhild]

Not at all! Welcome.