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.

You make me want to reread the first two books to try to figure out what the lie is. I was assuming, when Tybalt first mentioned it, that the lie involves Toby's ancestry, and that Toby either wasn't a changeling or that she was significantly more powerful on her mother's side than anyone was admitting. (As you say, Tybalt first starts acting oddly when Toby resurrects Alex; and his reactions to Toby and her lie/offer of help/his business with regard to the third book seemed more likely to be related to her powers.)

As soon as you said you had a theory about the Luideag, I figured the theory involved her being the grandmother.

I will ponder and probably comment more later.

[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]

Ah, I hadn't caught that the sword was not used. I got confused.

Sylvester being evil also explains why he didn't stop Luna from sending Toby to Blind Michael, and why he "loves her despite everything", as Luna said, which I took to mean loving her despite the fact that she sent someone he presumably loves to her doom.

What's teh deal with Fetches? Did someone create a fetch for Toby, or did May appear because Toby was supposed to die and then didn't?

[rymenhild]

I think it's that Toby was supposed to die and didn't. She's just that stubborn. It's not at all clear who decides the Fetches show up; maybe they just appear out of nowhere. Maybe we'll learn more later. May is clearly going to be around for the rest of the series, so there's time.

I think May is the Toby Daye Chronicles equivalent of Dawn from Buffy: the sister retconned into the story.

[rymenhild]

If it is for Toby's protection -- and I suppose that's vaguely possible -- the liar would have to be Amandine. But that doesn't solve the "Who's the big bad?" problem. I guess it could be the Queen of the Mists, but that's too telegraphed to be particularly interesting.