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The Winter Long: A discussion post
One of the things I miss about doing fandom on LJ is book discussions, especially going back and discussing books long after they came out. Tumblr moves so fast, and especially for something like a book that everyone finishes at different times it can be hard to go back and see what other people said about it.
In particular, one book that I always wanted to have a good discussion about is The Winter Long by Seanan McGuire, the eighth book in the October Daye series. It's not just a great book, it completely upends almost everything we thought we knew about what was going on in Toby's world, and casts so much of her story in a new light. And I thought the occasion of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
renay having recently finished the book would be a good time to open the floor.
NOTE: Renay has not yet read the next book in the series (A Red-Rose Chain), so no spoilers for it in comments please. I will be keeping an eye on comments and deleting anything too egregious. (Does DW support spoiler cuts in comments yet? I know LJ does.) Thanks! (Although meaty stuff happens in RRC, too, I think it's perfectly possible to talk about TWL without referencing it.) However, it should probably go without saying that stuff up to and including TWL will be spoiled beyond this point.
So I don't have anything in particular to kick this off with (it's been a long day and my brain is fairly fried, but some potential avenues for discussion (EDIT -- not everything in the list below happens in TWL, because I somehow collapsed that story with the events of Chimes at Midnight when I was typing it up. But they're interesting things to discuss anyway, so I leave it as is.):
And I'm sure there's at least half a dozen other things that I'm just not thinking of off the top of my head. What did I miss? Let's chat. :)
In particular, one book that I always wanted to have a good discussion about is The Winter Long by Seanan McGuire, the eighth book in the October Daye series. It's not just a great book, it completely upends almost everything we thought we knew about what was going on in Toby's world, and casts so much of her story in a new light. And I thought the occasion of
renay having recently finished the book would be a good time to open the floor.NOTE: Renay has not yet read the next book in the series (A Red-Rose Chain), so no spoilers for it in comments please. I will be keeping an eye on comments and deleting anything too egregious. (Does DW support spoiler cuts in comments yet? I know LJ does.) Thanks! (Although meaty stuff happens in RRC, too, I think it's perfectly possible to talk about TWL without referencing it.) However, it should probably go without saying that stuff up to and including TWL will be spoiled beyond this point.
So I don't have anything in particular to kick this off with (it's been a long day and my brain is fairly fried, but some potential avenues for discussion (EDIT -- not everything in the list below happens in TWL, because I somehow collapsed that story with the events of Chimes at Midnight when I was typing it up. But they're interesting things to discuss anyway, so I leave it as is.):
- The biggest reveal to me is the discovery that Evening Winterrose is not only alive but has been pulling all the strings on Toby's life for quite some time now. I know at least one person who saw this coming, but it blindsided me completely. I still want to go back and reread everything that leads up to TWL with an eye for clues.
- Simon's relationship to Toby. That was pretty much a shocker, too.
- Speaking of relationships, Crown Prince Quentin! This one, I can't say came as so much of a surprise to me, but the reveal was handled well.
- The deposing of the Queen of the Mists, and the discovery of Arden (who happens to secretly live in my favorite bookstore).
- Sylvester. :( What is he hiding? Why was it worth ruining his relationship with Toby? I can't lie, of all the sad things that have happened in this series, that was one of the saddest.
- Amadine. WTF is up with Amadine???
And I'm sure there's at least half a dozen other things that I'm just not thinking of off the top of my head. What did I miss? Let's chat. :)
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I did NOT see Evening being alive coming at all. It shocked the hell out of me, but also made complete sense. If I could have 1% of McGuire's plotting talents I would immediately be 65% more competent at layering stories. (Ignore that the math here makes no sense.) I read this series from the library but uhhhh I think I need to invest in copies so I can read them all.
When Simon showed up on Toby's doorstep, I was like, "OH MY GOD DON'T TELL ME WE'RE ABOUT TO FACE A TWIST OF SIMON BEING HER ACTUAL FATHER SOMEHOW." So I kind of half-called it? But Toby is often so attached to her humanity, and I'm SO suspicious of her mother screwing around with her blood now that it's the first place my mind went. It was still a surprise finding out about him, their messed up family, and that she had a sister! On one hand it changes EVERYTHING about her spending so long as a fish and on the other it changes nothing because she still lost so much and had to make an entirely new life for herself. :(
Maybe it's just me, but the Sylvester and Luna stuff, where Toby's relationship with them is falling apart, is kind of the weirdest thing about the series for me. I can sort of grok Luna's changed relationship: she's lost her kitsune hiding place and is showing more of the attitude displayed by her parents. But otherwise the odd deterioration of their relationship doesn't quite follow for me, although I know there are easily identifiable reasons. Sylvester is easier because he's been outright lying and refusing to tell Toby things she might really need to know for some time, and it's not clear why he's doing it. He's not like Simon, forbidden to tell people things, is he...???
TYBALT/TOBY CONTINUES TO BE MY HAPPY PLACE. I cried when they fell out of the sky because I legit thought she had just killed Toby's boys and I was going to have to burn the world down. I'M SO GLAD I WAS WRONG. ;____;
Lastly, I DID NOT SEE QUENTIN AS THE CROWN PRINCE COMING. How was I supposed to see that coming?! I am the worst at clues. Out of all the shocks in this series that one is up at the top between "EVENING" and "THE QUEEN IS FAKE???"
I don't care it's the least popular ship, I totally ship Quentin and Raj. I also hope there are some good May/Jazz stories out there somewhere, official canon or otherwise. I'm super into the relationships in these books. They're SO GOOD and so well done. Ahhhh.
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I don't think Sylvester is forbidden to talk, like Simon. My theory is that Amandine made him swear some kind of oath to keep her secrets, whatever they are, and he's the kind of guy who takes honor and oaths VERY SERIOUSLY. So even if he really wants to tell Toby things, his old-fashioned sense of honor compels him to keep quiet. Or something like that. I do suspect that whatever his issues are, they're tied to Amandine. Because EVERYTHING is Amandine's fault, apparently.
(Well, when it's not Evening's fault.)
I do enjoy - well, okay, not enjoy, but like from a character development standpoint - Luna's downward spiral, though. I think it's easy to forget that she spent just as much time in the nothing as Rayseline did; she was older and more mature, so she came through it better, but it had to have an effect on her. Combine that with all the Blind Michael stuff, and then watching her only child go crazy, become a villain, and get elf-shot, and she's got a lot of reasons to become ... less human, I guess. And there's Toby, who did fail to rescue her, who has the place in her husband's heart that their daughter should have, who made her face her parentage and exposed her, who was the true love of her daughter's husband and just keeps LIVING while Raysel doesn't. There's a lot of things to be bitter about, especially when you spent how many years in the dark nothing, telling your daughter that Toby would be your savior.
(... Luna and Raysel break my heart CONSTANTLY.)
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I really liked when October went and gave Rayseline the Choice and helped her, and Rayseline was cool but still snarky. It makes me a little sad that they won't have a chance to get back on good terms because they could have been great friends. ;___;
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Yeah, that's how I read the situation, too. And I'm sure it sucks for him almost as much as it sucks for Toby. But I wonder, too, if he thinks he might also be protecting Toby by keeping this secret, whatever it is. (Any theories?)
I like your read on the Luna and Raysel situation. We're so much in Toby's head that we always see that she makes her decisions for good reasons. Now we're seeing the repercussions and collateral damage.
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Wasn't the Quentin reveal in Chimes at Midnight, though? Yeah, yeah it must have been, my AO3 has a fic that relies on that reveal and is tagged post-Chimes. (Jossed by later canon, of course. The fic's set about five minutes after Chimes ends, and clearly things did not go down how I wrote them.)
There are definitely good May/Jazz fics on AO3. I got a couple such for Yuletide in past years.
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I want to finish A Red Rose Chain before invading AO3 for fic; there's only 300 pages to go before I can read it all (and then immediately start crying about having to wait for the next book).
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Nod, nod.
Fair enough!
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This, more than anything, is the story thread I want to re-read the series to follow. It's a SERIOUS bombshell, and although I trust that the earlier books set it up fairly -- if nothing else, this book proves to my satisfaction that Seanan McGuire is a master of the long game -- I want to see if I can pull all the strands together myself.