#kotlc questions

[valewritessss]

What instrument do we think characters would play just as a hobby

[permanently-stressed]

so... do they ever eat in the healing center. other than the mentor's cafeteria, is this ever specified???? Help.

[thepumkinmoth]

wait can elves have beards

[the-way-astray]

so i'm almost halfway through my reread (done with neverseen) and as i've been reading i've been making a list of every single question in the series (the answered and the unanswered).

so who wants to see my massive list of questions from kotlc once i'm done. it's turning out to be pretty fucking long and i'm only done with the first four books so far.

(i've also been making a list of all my least favorite keefe moments and why i do not like this character, so i guess who wants to see that as well.)

[winwin17]

Why aren't there more banshees besides Bullhorn? How common are they? Where do they live naturally? If they're so sensitive to when someone's life is in danger, how come a thousand banshees don't come running out of nowhere every time Sophie and her friends almost die??

[astatine-17]

Do you guys think the elves know about the moon landing

[x3nafix]

as a former fitz hater, i apologize and see the error of my ways. Though hes not my favorite, i can see that hes not a horrible person.

[bookwyrminspiration]

Unraveled: B&N Virtual Event Summary

There are no unraveled spoilers; since we're re-covering a period of time we've already seen, there are references to specific events in Stellarlune

Shannon Messenger was accompanied by B.B. Alston, author of Amari and the Night Brothers, who asked the questions

Enjoy! (Quil note: this might be one of the best ones, lads 👀)

Shannon has pre-release jitters. Even though she's done this so many times, she'll never not be nervous

It's a different book with a different POV. She's just as excited as she is panicked. "I contain multitudes!"

Why is this 9.5 instead of 10? Why a Keefe book? Is this part of a bigger story or just a fun bonus? It's a little of both. Keefe fans are gonna love a whole book about him, but Shannon never would have taken attention away from the main story if it wasn't essential for the series, since everyone's anxious for book 10.

Be patient! She's never written a 10 book series before. She's "trying to build a bridge while crossing it."

Keefe wasn't just eating human food having fun, though Shannon would've written 800 pages of snacking if she could.

What he got up to Shannon planned/outlined that it would all come out in book 9 when he was back, but, "No, Keefe is not ready to share these secrets. There's reasons why he's gonna keep this hidden."

"That's a problem for future Shannon!"

But then everything future Shannon tried with book 10 didn't quite work. This is Keefe's story, and KOTLC is limited to Sophie.

In order for Sophie to know, Keefe would have to sit down and talk it out with everyone, and he wasn't quite ready to do that when Shannon needed him to.

So, special 9.5! So we can live that time with Keefe, see what he does, where he goes, who he meets, what he uncovers.

This way readers will be much more familiar with it when we get to all that in book 10--for the first time ever, readers will actually know more than Sophie!

Shannon confirms we're getting Keefe's middle name--she debated with herself, thought about keeping that secret forever, but she wants there to be big pay-offs in Unraveled. And what book could be more perfect for this?

Was it hard to write from Keefe's POV? Usually his voice comes super easily, so Shannon was expecting it to be word-vomit. But throughout the book and especially at the beginning, he's not himself. Everything he's been through has changed him, made him afraid of himself, more quiet and reserved. How does she balance making this interesting when her jokester character won't talk!

It was interesting diving into his head to see where he's at and why he's acting different. And it was interesting flipping it--Sophie's a fish out of water in the Lost Cities, but this time Keefe's the fish!

She had to keep reminding herself all this stuff familiar to her is new to him. "Flaming Hot Cheetos??? Is that food...????"

How has Keefe changed the most since book 1? In some ways he's lost his confidence. He's discovered a lot that's made him question if he's good, if he's causing problems, if he's putting people at risk. In his head he's not nearly as much the casual, lighthearted guy he seems.

He's also matured. He really had to step up and say, "Okay, it's time to take action. I can't just goof around. I've got the fate of the world on my shoulders in some way too." He's also trying to protect his friends and feels very personally responsible. His burden is a lot heavier than it used to be.

What's his favorite part of the human world? He definitely enjoys the human pop culture. Seeing how humans depict elves, certain (not all) human foods.

Lot of fun for Shannon as a snacker, but he's vegetarian, which makes it harder. He can't have fried chicken--but not every scene is about food.

Any places Shannon knew she had to send Keefe? She prefers to write places she's been if possible; in fantasy, if you can get the real accurate, it makes the fantastical that much more believable. So she started with places she's been, but she hasn't been nearly enough to cover all this. So she included places she'd like to, places she knows other people have been so she can get details from them.

(itty bitty seriously small spoiler from Shannon) Keefe starts looking for libraries, so Shannon googled cool libraries and went down that rabbit hole.

Keefe's been crushing on Sophie since the moment they met. What's does he like the most about her? (Lot of hearts in chat). "Keefe appreciates that Sophie is such a different perspective. He really sees that she doesn’t necessarily see herself accurately, but he understands her. He can see why she’s harder on herself with her upbringing, the bad thoughts she heard. He realized she doesn’t always understand herself."

He’s also really impressed by how brave and strong she is, and how she’s willing to risk her life and do the thing when everyone's like Sophie don't do the thing! And she’s like I must do the thing! Keefe thinks, “Wow can’t stop her from doing the thing!" It'd be great if she stopped ending up in the healing center, but he appreciates her for doing it despite the consequences. Admires her for it. He really wants to be worthy of how amazing he thinks she is. (More hearts in chat)

Can we confirm Keefe's POV of the kiss? Yes! Shannon almost wasn't able to do it. Unraveled was supposed to release November 12, but then her kids, "caught every possible virus they could possibly catch." Plus, publishing takes time, so they had to move it back. Those extra days allowed her to squeeze in the bonus story and she had a lot of fun writing it.

She knew she couldn't continue the book past when he leaves the human world, but she knew readers would really want it. She understands if you skip to the end to read it first--and there shouldn't be too many spoilers if you do, but she still recommends going from the beginning.

Why did it take Sophie and Keefe so long to get to the kiss? Did you know it would be in Stellarlune or did it happen naturally? Shannon tries not to pre-plan emotional things because it makes it feel forces. As the author she's in charge of the plot, not the emotions. Every time Sophie almost dies, that's her, but how Sophie feels about almost dying is all Sophie.

So anything emotional like this, Shannon's checking in with Sophie, and, "She really wasn't ready to see this was an option for her--she really was in the Great Foster Oblivion. She had no idea that Keefe liked her, and she wasn't the type to start developing feelings without having that piece of the puzzle. She genuinely thought Keefe was just teasing and was a flirt with everything. She didn't think it was something to take seriously."

She also had her eye on someone else for quite some time, so the story had to wait until Sophie was ready to take that step. Shannon discussed it with her editor a lot

Every week they have a zoom meeting to talk through the plot. They thought Stellarlune was probably the book for the kiss, but Shannon didn't know for sure until she got to that chapter. She's very proud of Sophie for being brave enough to take that step and bring the walls down.

The fact it took so long and tortured readers wasn't on purpose--"Torturing my readers is fun, but I wouldn't do it unnecessarily!"

It was interesting going back to write the kiss from Keefe's POV. She was worried as she did that though Sophie was ready for it now, what if Keefe wasn't? But, "then it was like oh, no, nope he’s on the same page." Keefe was screaming "FINALLY!!!" in his head.

How different is KOTLC now from how you first imagined it? The problem they're dealing with is fundamentally built into their world--it's not just an evil villain who decided to take over. "Multiple rebellions are going on because there are some fundamental injustices that have been ignored and ignored and ignored. And two groups have said enough is enough."

She always knew they'd have to reckon with this--in some ways they have, but there's more to come. But she also always leaves room for ideas to grow. Her first ideas aren't her best; they're too obvious. Now she's had a lot of time to think Keeper through.

Even still, she worries about doing it justice and, even with a plan, never knows for sure what will happen until she sits down to write it.

Shannon returned the question to B.B. He said the same thing--at a certain point as the story grows, you can really do so many more things, you have so many more villains. It builts the characters and relationships.

Shannon takes a moment to recommend B.B.'s series, Amari and the Night Brothers. She can't sing it's praise enough. "After you race through Unraveled, race through this!" There are 3 books out with 2 more to come. Maybe more.

10 books is a lot--how does Shannon do it? This is part of why she has those weekly zoom chats. But she's constantly going back to look things up, making lists of unanswered questions, listening to the audiobooks. It's all daunting. "It's all chaotic. Wonderful, glorious chaos. That's what I'm telling myself."

Readers are anxious to get back to Keefe and Fitz. How awkward would a conversation be now? Oh yeah. They've had to be around each other since all of that, but that haven't had to openly acknowledge it. But Shannon can feel the scene on the horizon and can't avoid it forever--though Keefe would love to. "Peace out!" Given Fitz's temper, Shannon fully expects there to be yelling, but sometimes he surprised her. We'll see once she gets there.

When Shannon gets too specific in outline, it sucks the life out of her story. She needs to know the rough order of the plot--this threat, then this thing, this this reveal. But the little emotional beats are more up to the characters. Talks this through with her editor too.

Can you tell us anything about book 10? Would love to be like it exists and it's coming out tomorrow! Sadly, still writing it and doesn't know the exact release date. She promises she'll get it to us as soon as she can. Obviously we left Stellarlune on a huge cliffhanger and Unraveled answers some questions but doesn't deal with it at all.

"Keefe's secrets...secrets do have a way of coming out." He can't hide them forever and it'll take something big to motivate him to come clean. "Wow, that's the most non-answer. I swear answers are coming!"

Is there any news on the movie? Earlier this year they announced Warner Brothers got the rights and Emma Watts is the producer. Currently Emma is working hard to get everything behind the scenes in a row to give the movie the best possible chance it has to get greenlit and made since it'll be so expensive.

Shannon thinks this team is one of their best shots at it happening. There's still a bit of finger crossing, but it anyone can make it work, it's Emma Watts.

Shannon is NOT writing the screen play. She's got book 10 to write, plus she doesn't think she can be objective about the changes that'd need to be made to adapt it. She's too attached. She wants to give input and suggestions, but wants something with more screenwriting expertise and distance from the story.

B.B. doesn't want to write his screenplay either--it's a totally different skill.

What's your best advice for new writers? Ooh, okay. 9 times out of 10 when a young writers asks for advice, Shannon asks "Have you written your book yet?" And the answer is no. They're just thinking about writing a book. So her advice: focus on writing! Finish that book! You can't be a writer unless you write! Then revise and revise and revise. "The work is not done when you get to the end."

When you have the best book you could possibly have, then think about next steps and publishing. But for now...write!

Shannon returned the question to B.B., who says to read widely. Read as much as you can to build up your story skills. Find what you like. As KOTLC readers, we've seen in the story how to develop characters and plots and arcs.

He also says don't put pressure on yourself. Write for the fun of writing, so even if it never goes anywhere, you still have something you're proud of.

"Once it's a job it's a job. It's different."

Shannon doesn't find books on writing helpful for her; they're procrastination. Instead she reads and asks herself what's working and why--why am I enjoying this so much?

She learned the most from books she didn't like. She asked herself why she wasn't into it--which doesn't mean there was anything wrong with it. It was personal preference, which helped her find her writing voice. She likes a lot of dialogue, a lot of humor, cliffhangers, etc.

School may ask you to read things you don't like; as a writer, take it as an opportunity to pick it apart and find out why.

How do you come up with character names? Baby name books. By the time she had to name her own kids, she was already an expert. She likes names to match the character.

Sophie was going to be named Alexandra because it means helped and defender of mankind, but it was too on the nose. She wasn't an Alex, or Alexis, or even an Alexandra

Sophie means wisdom, which is what she gives to her world. "No pressure, right?"

Fitz is from Fitzroy, which means son of the king, and his family is almost like royalty.

"Keefe means handsome. *shrugs* So. Obvious there." The book she got it from said "good-looking one" specifically.

It's the same for B.B. He likes to look at the year the character was born and what was popular, too. Amari means inner strength, and a big part of her story is learning she's more than where she's from and to believe in herself

How does it feel to write from a new POV? Would we maybe get a Fitz book? Shannon's learned to never say never. The story could throw her another curve ball, she might do a short story in his POV. If the story dictates she needs to step into anyone else's shoes, she will. "I've gotten this far by trusting the story."

Who was Shannon's favorite author/book when she was 12? Shannon grew up before the big children's media boom, she she didn't have a lot of options. She did like the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

"You have no idea how lucky you are there's so many great stories out there. Different POVs, more characters that look like more people--though still need more work on that front."

For B.B., he was a huge fan of Charlie and the Chocolate factory--but he also didn't have much to pick from.

When Shannon was around 12, she also fell out of love with reading. She had a 7th grade teacher who was very strict about reading "at your level." And she decided Shannon was at college level, so kept giving her older books like Crime and Punishment, Little Women, etc.

While Shannon appreciates the classics, they weren't what she wanted to read, and it turned it into a chore. She went from a kid who took stacks home from the library to someone who only read if it was an assignment. (Shocked faces in chat).

Shannon firmly believes in letting your kids read what they want. That doesn't mean don't encourage them to broaden their horizons, but don't take away things they love. That's how you kill someone's love of reading.

B.B. gives props to Shannon for the female main character; it's one of the reasons Amari can exists--"well Shannon did it and it worked."

Shannon's very glad Amari exists. Keeper got a lot of rejections with coded wording that made it very clear female main characters were not as marketable as boy heroes. And she wasn't an instant success--it took about 5 books to gain momentum, and a lot of that was teachers, librarians, book sellers, and the kids themselves telling their friends to read it.

Any info on the graphic novel? Part 2 is definitely coming and in the works, it just takes time. She's seen some tentative cover sketches, might see more soon, and is very excited.

Team Fitz or Team Keefe? Even though Shannon's written a whole book from Keefe's POV *she holds it up backwards, then upside down, then gets it right* and has a Keefe cutout in the corner *moves the camera so we can see him--he was gonna be in the background but it looked creepy*, she truly is Team Sophie. If she ever got a tattoo, it's say Team Sophie. But she's terrified of needles so never will.

People think they kissed so it's settled, right? "Well, the series isn't done yet. Sophie could change her mind." This goes back to what Shannon talked about with letting the characters dictate the emotions.

What first inspired Keeper? A lot of things. Hilariously, it started as a short story. Epic fail--she's what, 8,000 pages into her short story? She was working on a different book and got stuck, so decided to get to know a side character.

The side character she chose was Fitz. For some reason, she doesn't know why, the plot was he'd meet a little girl and realize she was an elf.

But "Guess what, you're an elf!" was a terrible ending and she couldn't stop thinking about it. What happened to that little girl? How could she not know she was an elf? Why would they hide her?

A few weeks later she knew "yeah, I gotta switch books." She couldn't get it out of her head, but it was daunting because she knew it would be a massive project. But that little girl would not go away.

What was the inspiration for Amari? Doing pre-med stuff is long and boring, so he was looking for something fun. He thought about Men in Black and what if there were supernatural creatures living amongst us. He was working on the world and one day Amari popped into existence.

Has Shannon ever made the Keeper recipes and what's her family's favorite? Shannon actually developed the recipes herself, which wasn't something she ever thought she'd have to do. It took a lot of baking fails, but her favorite is anything mallowmelt--but she always warns people it's SO sweet. Good, but a few bites is enough sugar for a week.

Planning any non-Keeper series? Shannon doesn't know what she'll do once she's done with KOTLC. She'll definitely keep writing because she loves telling stories, but she's so immersed in Keeper all her other ideas are on the back burner.

B.B. thanks Shannon for being so inspirational with her work and how she interacts with her fans--he learned a lot from her. Shannon says B.B.'s always one of the top people she loves to do events with.

Once again, she is begging everyone to read Amari and the Night Brothers. "Please, please, please read them! Oh and I guess read Unraveled too. *accidentally holds it upside down again*"

“Tomorrow it's out in the world. Thank you for your faith in me and I can't wait for you to learn all of Keefe's secrets. It's gonna be an adventure.”

[book-lover85]

I feel like telepathy could be used in the battle field as a way to disorient opponents

like how easy would it be to transmit a scream and send someone to the ground with a headache

could they transmit something to an extent that the person thinks it's real and hallucinates?

[chainlxnk]

Tiergan wip for anyone who cares🤗

[valewritessss]

Kotlc fandom, how do you pronounce Calla, as in Calla tree? The Spanish speaker in me wants to say “kah-jah” but I thought the same for Luke Castellan and I was wrong

[purplesoup-lad-le]

sometimes i wonder if one of those couple name generators would do better than what we've come up with.

I don't have to wonde anymore

[reinedeslys-central]

kotlc things that I keep thinking about that are never really addressed by canon

there is a complete replica of sophie's bedroom and perhaps countless other rooms just. somewhere in a building in mysterium that the councillors just know about.

alden and other telepaths were instructed to monitor the citizens' minds for signs of dissent around the time the prentice thing was going down

they regularly torture prisoners and dissenters into literal insanity that they can't come back from

they also have a super weird prison only accessible by quicksand (????) to house said prisoners

there is an ENTIRE DUNGEON OF WEIRD LAB EXPERIMENTS DOWN BY THE VACKER HOUSE?

okay. how - how big is havenfield?

the entire thing with - is their name twix? the person dex was working with for something. why do we not get to see that more. why is dex the criminally underrated goated character and WE DON'T GET FLESHED OUT CHARACTER ARCS FOR EVERYONE

linh flooded. atlantis. linh song FLOODED ATLANTIS hello what do people think about that?????????? do they see her on the street and whisper? what's up with "The Girl Of Many Floods"? Where else did she flood?

What is up with the song family (tong? their name changed after their grandmother or smth got famous with their music right?) that both their children not only have two very powerful elemental abilities, but are also crazy skilled with said Talents.

why are music, art, and culture not a bigger thing? like yeah, plot, obviously, but that's just worldbuilding!!! I wanna see!!!! art hanging on the walls! Defying gravity! more sculptures! more music playing in the shopping centres!! If they have imparters why don't they have long distance radio? are there mandatory dance lessons? what's the etiquette like besides what we already know?

more animal husbandry at schools. speaking of schools: we KNOW foxfire and exilium aren't the only schools. are smaller schools more specialised? are their community colleges or academies dedicated to specific career paths? universities?

okay but the polyglot ability is SO COOL???? tell me about the archaic variants of the enlightened language. there's no way that's just the elves' one language and the other species picked it up due to their 'superiority' or wtv. the goblins have cities of gold and metal and the trolls age backwards, you're not convincing me of anything.

secret societies in the other species. that has to exist right?

.....is squall dex's mom or not? I genuinely can't remember.

anyway remember when she froze gethen's fingernails off, yeah that happened (I think)

so instead of rehabilitating teenagers who have dangerous abilities and not much control over their powers, we just do....whatever the council did with gethen, ruy, and linh ig

hey, um...are we just not going to talk about dex casually HACKING INTO A GOV DATABASE WITH SOME RANDOM BITS OF ROCK AND TWINE? he can just do that. okay. okay. that's - yeah, okay.

did he match a frequency or something? how does the signal network even work in kotlc when everyone is technically all over the world in unplottable locations and they get around by LIGHT LEAPING???

ON THAT NOTE. light leaping. yeah haha funny let's just teach our kids to casually break down their very particles and hold onto their consciousness to travel at the speed of light using quantum mechanics and crystals that are specifically cut to project light in such a way that'll take you only to a specific location nvm im not thinking more about it.

flickering? is apparently a skill you can learn even if you're not a vanisher? remember in book two when fitz got prissy at sophie for knowing how to do it apparently b4 we figured out that she's a teleporter

keefe is a fun loveable goofball and I've always been on the sokeefe train but now the more I think about it he's really um.... yeah, uh, sophie? darling, please just don't date any of these people. obv you can make your own decisions but at least not now, okay. take care of yourself hon

the fitz hate is kinda weird ngl. wdym you don't want your problematic traitor brother to move back in to living literally with your family after supposedly losing his memories and that's a bad thing? wdym your close friend/crush is hiding things from you when yall are supposed to be cognates and she's kinda gaslighting you since, forever? wdym your father's been shadily telling you to stalk this girl in the human world since you were a kid? yeah definitely he does pull some weird stints throughout the series. but the bigger things i see ppl hating on him for are. hmmmmm

the council themselves choose to lock away the government secrets and wipe them from their memories. hey, um - recordkeeping is great, obvious, but - wiping those secrets from your minds isn't gonna help you lead while accounting for those parts of history, is it? nevermind how dangerous it is when there are huge species-wide secrets that NO ONE remembers. society-threatening incident waiting to happen.

the concept of vociferators. that's just kinda funny lol even if it is weird

are their schoold for diff abilities?

what's the genetics of talent inheritance? why are 'stronger' abilities rarer? In my opinion, p much every talent is goated, I don't see why more characters aren't more creative about it.

banning talents is just a bad move. like. are you serious? how is that going to make it better? that's how you get brant. brant was a pyrokinetic, without getting into the primary issue of the whole talentless/talented discrimination discourse, the secondary issue is he wouldve been able to marry jolie as two talented elves. would he have cracked if his ability was just a bit better handled by society?

grady is a mesmer. how - that's a really powerful ability???? how do you even train to use that? what do you even use it for?

same with whatever that lady councillor is that tried to seduce alden during his own wedding. fun times, yall.

rainbow fire??? cool????

so we have the sanctuary, do we also have a gigantic library of alexandria-esque thing? a botanical garden?

according to jolie's wiki she died at twenty as a level 8 at foxfire. so... hang on a minute. okay, sure, numerically that could make sense since sophie, at 12, became a level one - but are you telling me she went through the whole matchmaking process and was planning to get married that young????

hey, here's an idea - in a relatively stable society where economy is great, trust funds exist, people work to have something to do with their lives, birth rate is generally low (now through prejudice as well as societal comfort and ease/cost of living), why are they marrying so young? WHY ARE THE KIDS STARTING THE MATCHMAKING PROCESS IN THEIR TEENS???? the elven society has p much every mark of a stage 5 developed country? help? middle-high school human geography??

if they apparently live so long, show me the funny messy family trees with couples having children generations apart.

so, trust funds of lusters??? lustres?? (which we barely ever see. why is there little-to-no use of money?) which equate to roughly one trillion USD (in value? are you. are you - um. are you....serious?) exist. but I guess inflation and relative currency value from mass money printing doesn't count in this world, as well as the fact that there's only one currency for all the elves.

I wanna see a divorced elven couple now. how does divorce law work??????

if there's such a low BR and low population and people are yet still encouraged to have less kids to 'not dilute the genes' (that's my next point btw), I'm guessing matchmaking is encouraged younger to make sure population stays stable/growing? obv you need it to ensure genetic diversity and no incest, but if it's heavily encouraged for elves to have children like this, are queer elves mandated to have children with a surrogate/other couple even if they have a same-sex marriage?

i'll probably edit this or reblog it to include more stuff (character limit lol) as i remember the books bc it's been a hot minute since i read them.

[the-way-astray]

i've seen a fair amount of people that have a take that's something along the lines of "alden isn't abusive/toxic/a bad parent but i like exploring that in fic, so i often characterize him like that anyway" and i'm so curious as to why these people are not extending this same purposeful character assassination to other parents, like grady, or even kesler, and why it seems to be an only alden thing /gen

[lucyshypemaster]

has both sophie and keefe being blondes ever bothered anyone