Chapter 247 Discussion

A Practical Discussion (PGTS)
41

I had another idea maybe shes still one body but now two entirely separate wills / three if you count the shadow. Sort of like a corpus callosotom / Corpus callosotomy disconnection syndrome split mind thing going on. Both parts of her Will are still there but have split to the point where they can’t communicate anymore.

Might be interesting if each half kind of has locked in syndrome depending on which body S switches to. Maybe that half loses control of the body but is still aware of the world / can still affect the world with their Will (would require free casting though). I wonder if S Wills two part focus could increase up to free casting with each half.

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Two bodies, or not two bodies, that is the question.

Well at least it is the question that has captured this forum for now. I personally think there are some other very intriguing plot points around the corner.

For example, right now Sebastian (whole or otherwise) is in the presence of a number of friends as well an unnamed person presumed to be an ally. She is quite possibly in the worst state they have ever seen Sebastian and she even admits her worries about what’s happening.

Most likely scenario IRL, they can’t get her to an expert healer in time and she dies. Well that doesn’t serve the plot very well (as far as I can see) so what is the other extreme - she gets fully healed and this whole little bit is meaningless? Therefore it will probably come down to her getting stabilised and out of immediate danger but with some longer term side-effect/consequence/setback.

I’m thinking that Sebastian’s body will end up in something akin to a magical coma and so will wind up being taken to the Retreat at Willowdale where she met the Archaeologist who survived the Black Wastes. Part of her recovering will involve having to work through her two sets of memories and rebuild what her true past is (both recent and Grandfather related). To be fair I am leaning on the fact the blurb of the next book indicates it is a prequel that should be read in release order to avoid spoilers here.

Suppose for a moment that you agree the above is the likely outcome of the next couple of chapters - what might happen then?

  • Sebastian Silverling being in the Retreat would spread like wildfire through the city so Lacer would learn of it and come to find out what happened and try to fix the problem. Would he recognise his own handiwork or delude himself into thinking this is retaliation? Would he magically bug the room to see if he can catch a Raven Queen visit or try to find out who else knows the forbidden knowledge?
  • If we assume she did split into two bodies, what is the other one doing during this time and is someone or something in that body? Will Sebastian’s body recover only to find out the Raven Queen’s reputation has grown and taken some darker turns?
  • If we assume there is still only one body, does that mean Amber took over because they recognised Siobhan (and by extension Amber) wouldn’t survive the plan she’d come up with? We do know Amber seems to be pretty keen on surviving like Siobhan is.

Heck, there is just too much to think about after these last couple of weeks of chapters!

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43

So, I think we have a few options here:

(Please bear in mind that the two bodies was my tinfoil hat speculation for the week :face_with_tears_of_joy: any time I suggest anything regarding it I am very tongue in cheek)

Siobhan is off in her original body and sent someone looking for Sebastien, hence the woman in the carriage.

The creature is off in the original body and sent someone looking for Sebastien.

Siobhan and Sebastien are now distinctly separate personalities residing within their respective bodies but still only one body at a time. Siobhan separated the two far enough and then changed forms and Sebastien can’t remember anything after a certain point.

Her brain is really messed up and it’s affecting her ability to retain memories.

I suspect she’s getting whisked away to healer Nidson to stabilise her, but I’m fairly certain the connection to the raven is gone and part of this might even be backlash from it being forcibly broken (did they ever tell us what the result of that would be? I know they did testing for it. I wonder if the raven is dead. I wonder if the raven was piloting Siobhan’s body!!! tinfoil hat intensifies).

That means she’s going to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream? A dream could take a single night or it could play out in real time and she would be in a coma for weeks.

We know that Siobhan was the creature’s jail and jailer. But what about Sebastien? Could she be her personality with all her memories but without the seal?

Or, going back to my previous speculation, could her mind be so catastrophically damaged that the seal is basically worthless or even broken - broken before the sun rose, so that the creature was forced to leave her body because it perceived staying as harmful to her and was still under the terms of its vow? Might it be out in Gilbratha at the moment?

Or is the seal still there, on the very verge of collapse and the creature malevolently awaits the moment that she breaks it out while trying to reconstruct her mind? Or perhaps is broken out by someone trying to remove all interference in her head and the creature pilots her body while she’s trapped in her memories? Reversing the jailer and prisoner.

As for Thaddeus Lacer….there are a few conclusions he could come to:

  • Siobhan was casting magic on Sebastien and the magical backlash from it being forcibly broken during his attack on her caused him to suffer serious side effects
  • She’s retaliated by attacking his apprentice
  • He was too focused during the fight to feel Sebastien call for help
  • Sebastien got into trouble by casting too much or too dangerous magic or tried to test out freecasting without supervision
  • Sebastien is the Raven Queen! (Who am I kidding?)
  • Sebastien and Siobhan are both being possessed by the Raven Queen and used to enable dual casting, therefore damaging one damages the other
  • Some kind of Vulcan mind meld thing to try and protect her memories but left Sebastien open to backlash.
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44

Two other options were jumping out at me based upon the ways that Lacer thinks:

  • Siobhan placed a retaliatory curse on Sebastien that would trigger if Lacer acted against her, similar in some ways to his own retaliatory curse against the High Crown. People like to project their own methods and ways of thinking onto others, and I don’t think Lacer is entirely immune to this.
  • Siobhan was literally borrowing Sebastien’s Will in order to dual-cast, and managed to strain it. This aligns with his musings on the limitations of her dual-casting when he “knows” she has a much higher capacity, and also possibly aligns with her statements on other people being able to learn how to do it.
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45

Oh, that’s a good point. I hadn’t thought of what might have happened to her bond with the raven for sleep, just assumed it was still going but near the end of a “cycle”. However, that is a foreshadowed way for her to end up in something like a magical coma/prolonged sleep.

Do we know she is the jailer? Arguably the jailer could have been her Grandfather as he put the seal in place, making Siobhan the jail.

That is an excellent observation as the chapter does have the line:

“A distant bell tolled the hour, and the sun would soon begin to rise,”

part way through her conversation with Lacer. Maybe Amber’s vow forced it to take over and guide her to friends and help (and different form? Scary thought as that implies Amber can interact with the amulet independently of Siobhan..) before the sun rose and has now either been locked away again or peaced out into Gilbratha.

I do believe this could be considered another Myrddin parallel if it happens.

On your possible Lacer conclusions:
I reckon he’d consider that he was too focused during the fight to feel Sebastien call for help but probably has some was of seeing if the device had been triggered. Then he’d probably jump to the “damaging one damages the other” idea.

Let’s be real, at this point he’s only going to realise the truth if she beats him over the head with it.

46

I kinda want to see Damien mentioning Lancer in the next chapter to S and S, in her delirious form, freaking out. All of that leading Damien to suspect that Thaddeus had something to do with it.

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Grandfather might have put the creature in her head but she’s the one policing the seal and making sure it doesn’t get out. I’d argue she’s both.

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Damien already suspected that she would go to Lacer to ask about the Aberrants, so it wouldn’t be a huge reach to jump to that conclusion.

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That’s my bet. But, it could just be a memory loss due to stress.

50

Fair enough, just checked the definition of jailer and it was my misunderstanding