It’s finally Thursday!!!
Whose POV will this next chapter be from? (Will we get a Damien chapter?) What are you all looking forward to? I’m kind of hoping Oliver will be back and we’ll get some sort of resolution on what happened in Osham.
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I bet the dream messages are going to go wrong at one point…
Between the shamanry and this extension of the guiding light personal symbol, we really are approaching sleep being necessary one way or another.
Thinking on the nature of symbols and glyphs, and of transmutation and magic as a whole, creating a personal symbol by imbuing it with meaning and reinforcing it through repetition is the same way a glyph would be created. I wonder if there’s a future in which the symbol of the Raven Queen is known far and wide, and through it people can transmit their wishes, and even use it in conventional spells? There is a mass cultural cache of symbols and glyphs for general magic use, but having symbols that refer to specific people could be a double-edged sword. A mass ritual, cast from individual circles all over the world, could be used to empower the Raven Queen, or to divine her location.
Also “She set pushed aside” should only have “set” or “pushed”, not both.
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“she might be reduced to physically searching through every word for texts containing relevant keywords.” should “word” be changed to “shelve”?
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Dream talking would seem to be a way to talk to an important ally; but, who is her ally that she’ll be willing to share it with first? Gera? Damien?
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A little nervous about how isolated she is at the moment. No school friends, no Oliver, no Liza, and with a sudden need to cast a cobbled-together version of the sleep proxy spell while extremely tired. Maybe we will meet our golden eyed friend again soon? I don’t expect to see Oliver or Liza until the next big story climax is over.
It seems like the guiding-lights symbol can be used to realize the mythical abilities of the Raven Queen. If she spreads the symbol, then she will be able to hear them speaking to her, know when they want her attention, and visit them in their dreams.
I can see why Siobhan might show the symbol to the Order herself — if she wants to practice with it, and if she wants to keep tabs on the people using her name. But another interesting possibility is that her golden-eyed counterpart will do it. If “she” gets control of Sionhan’s body or her shadow again (or a raven) it seems like the Order is a perfect way for “her” to sieze power. It’s already an organization that expects the Raven Queen to be a dark creature. Since “she” was so friendly last time, I wonder if she’d play the long game and share magical secrets like the guiding lights ritual and light refinement with the Order to further her own legend and gain loyal servants. If you plan to devour the world, you might as well fatten it up first.
Last thought, the part about dreams weakening the mind’s defenses is interesting. I wonder if the spirit realm is where consciousness goes while sleeping? If so, maybe Siobhan should stay far away from shamanism. Her visitor might live there. I really want Lacer to take her dream walking.
Liza giving Siobhan free run of her house while she’s away is basically her sneakily trying to turn her into her apprentice. She’s getting her to water her plants and everything!
I joke, mostly. But it’s nice to see their relationship improving.
The guiding light ritual improvements sound exactly like what she needs. I think her first order of business needs to be making little amulets which she can sense through and be pinged with for Miles and Theo so she can always find them. Never again should they be kidnapped without her having a way to figure out where they are.
It makes sense for her to give one that she can communicate through to Deirdre. Can you imagine how over the moon she’d be, getting dreams from the Raven Queen?
The bit on Aberrants was interesting. I wondered if perhaps the one where they were teleported to an empty version of the world could have been used to fuel that meeting place the Red Guard trapped her in - although that was reliant on rain but perhaps using a little dust from the bricks that hold the portal could have given it a boost.
It was interesting about transferring consciousness into a new vessel - a new brain has new connections, new pathways that are different to the last. But Siobhan is Siobhan in either body, so it’s entirely possible that her brain - like her eyes - doesn’t change. Perhaps that’s even why her eyes don’t change, because they’re connected to the brain and because they impact how you see the world.
But her unwelcome guest doesn’t live in her brain. It’s a separate (?) consciousness that’s attached to her own in some manner. Which means that either it would have to go through this process in order to take full control of her body or that it has a method to pilot a body without having to “fit” itself to the brain. Or maybe the fact that it’s trapped within a memory has something to do with it. Argh!
Again, we’re dealing with a frustrating lack of research here. Poor Siobhan! One day she might get the answers.
Usually I lament characters who don’t communicate in order to solve their issues, but I am 100% on her side in not telling anyone what’s going on in her head. Lacer would, probably, help and be on her side, but considering how terrifying people find nightmare types and that small possibility that he just turns around and throws her to the Red Guard? Nope. She should keep her mouth shut.
Also, I’m pouring one out for the Damien shippers today. They were brought so high (he’s probably the closest person to me) only to be brought so low (I wonder if this is what it’s like to have a brother).
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Okay but listen. Siobhan doesnt know what romantic feelings ARE, so she would obviously assume they’re platonic. Damien/Siobhan shippers stay strong!!!
Also, this chapter is a really good look on what the future may hold. The Guiding Light ritual is looking more and more like a path to divinity, whatever form that may take. But also, the focus on dreams makes me weary. There is a reason they are held is such high regard.
Finally, Liza is totally king. She doesnt know WHAT she knows, but what she does know is good enough. She and Siobhan are so alike, with harsh edges and hearts of gold.
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Stumbling on an upgrade to a spell she already knows that lets her do the exact things people falsely believe the Raven Queen is already capable of feels a bit too fortuitous. One of those moments where it feels like the universe is being bent around the protagonist.
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Everyone keeps thinking she’s totally innocent when it comes to romance.
Our girl grew up with a conman for a father. She has several half siblings she’s never met that he left scattered around. She might as well just put a blinking neon sign over her head saying “Daddy Issues” except her issues manifest in her rejecting romance, having trouble accepting that people want to do things for her just because, not because they want something from her and focusing on the pursuit of power so that no one can ever hurt her again.
She got blushy and self conscious when Oliver helped her with her hair ornament which we later see she was completely able to put on by herself so there was an element of choice in allowing him to put it on and be close to her. She also tells herself not to be an idiot and deliberately suppresses those ideas.
She knows what romantic feelings are. She is aware of desire. She’s just suppressing them and finding it easy enough to do so because her goals are more important to her.
Also, bear in mind how angry she gets with Oliver when he “betrays” her when she’s so used to being betrayed or not told the full story. There’s definitely an element of “damn, I thought we had the possibility of something but you stomped all over it”. And that “what right did he have to act like he cared?” moment.
I’m not advocating for Siobhan and Oliver to get together, I’m just pointing out that our girl is an accomplished liar and she’s lying to herself so well even the readers are starting to believe she’s genuinely oblivious.
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Okay, so I went back to reread the chapter and really thought about this bit here:
Normal mental barriers made direct mind-to-mind communication nearly impossible, but dreams provided a natural lowering of those defenses, and a conduit of sorts for channeling them.
This is probably why her Aberrant can only speak to her when she’s dreaming - or when she was in extreme mental distress because of the sensory deprivation spell. But it means that it’s not inside her barriers, so to speak.
Which raises interesting questions like “how exactly did Grandfather trap that thing in her head” but also…why did Grandfather know how to trap it in her head?
A lot of this research was carried out by the blood Emperor…who just mysteriously disappeared one day. Just like Myrddin just mysteriously disappeared.
Siobhan never did answer that question about whether she’d met Myrddin.
Myrddin also wrote in his journals that he begged for forgiveness but didn’t deserve it.
Also - only five journals to cover his entire life? After living hundreds of years?
She also learned her shadow familiar from grandfather. A spell that has a startling resemblance to his void shield but ALSO ended up with her in a situation where she was separated from her shadow. Her shadow which reattached itself to her by once again mimicking her form.
It’s all just conspiracy at the moment. But I do wonder about the scar that wasn’t healing. I wonder what experiments someone might run if they were trying to get an unwelcome guest out of their head.
There are other explanations. Some of these things are just coincidence, after all. But it’s definitely something I’m keeping in mind.
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I don’t disagree with this statement, but I do think that being aware of romance is different than being aware of your own emotions. Heck, this doesn’t even have to be about shipping.
Siobhan had an entire chapter where she had to face the reason she didn’t want to experiment on Pixie’s was because she had emotional attachments. The theory of Siobhan being unaware of romantic feelings could stem from her lack of desire to inspect those feelings.
When Siobhan is interested something, she studies it. She has no interest in romance, so she doesn’t study those feelings if (and it is if) they come up. When she had the fight with Oliver, the things she investigated were about how her actions impacted those are her, not if her hurt stemmed from fondness. In her mind, there were far more important things to worry about.
Anyways, regardless of shipping, I do like how obliviosity is a major theme of this series. People being unaware of information makes them make assumptions that sky rocket. Siobhan is not immune to this phenomenon, so we can only see where her path leads.
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She’s very suppress, suppress, suppress, wipe it from your mind when she encounters things she doesn’t want to think about.
It’s a recurring theme where we don’t even get proper information on her nightmares which she has every night until the second book.
She knows a hell of a lot about the thing in her head but she deliberately doesn’t think about it. She says that she remembers the beginning and the end and it’s only the bit in the middle that she’s forgotten and it’s very likely that she knows WHO the aberrant is or at least how it came into being. But we don’t know, because she deliberately buries it.
I think this extends to her relationships. She refuses to think about things that bother her if they’re not important, so I feel it’s just a very deliberate choice on her part.
It’s very interesting, to be honest. I get very frustrated by miscommunication tropes in media, but Azalea has elevated it to art form and makes it extremely enjoyable to read - because it’s all so natural. You have very intelligent people who are wary of jumping to conclusions but do so anyway. You have very human misconceptions and you have people protecting secrets and you have Siobhan completely oblivious to her own shocking behaviour.
It’s great 
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I do think it’s a bit more complicated than that though. Like, there is definitely an element of willfully shutting down attraction wherever it is inconvenient, and her regarding it as inconvenient in general, but especially so with anyone she has an uneven relationship with, that’s 100% a thing, yeah.
But I also think that she’s got an enormous disconnect going on between her mind and her body, just in general, and that also manifests as not recognizing desire other than as a threat. She doesn’t relate to other people’s expressions of romantic desire because it feels like a deeply unserious thing that everyone around her is acting ridiculous about while she’s scrambling to try to survive, but also because she doesn’t actually experience the feelings of desire and being in her body the way other people do, and that disconnect amplifies things.
She is constantly forgetting to eat, she has no muscle memory, she can get so distracted thinking about something that she loses all bodily control, and she barely even thinks about the differences between her bodies other than in how other people perceive her. A bit of that last item is probably somewhat editorial, since dwelling on the difference between forms of different sexes can very easily get too graphic, but there is are many different ways she just isn’t dwelling upon being embodied that aren’t really normal.
She’s got supernaturally poor interception, and her consciousness seems somewhat poorly tethered to her body after whatever happened in her childhood. That also plays a part in her just not getting it.
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With regard to the five journals to cover his entire life.
I think of the journals less as personal journals that cover his entire life and more of scientific research journals. Notes about his most recent experiments with small asides of his personal thoughts. I imagine he might have had more journals on other topics/ maybe personal journals but these were the ones he had at that particular house / well doing field research.
Kind of remind me of lab journals we had to make in my college chemistry classes.
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Before she left, she would mis-shelve the texts
It only took 200+ chapters but now we have irrefutable evidence that Sihoban is an evil protag.
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