#sorry to my regular followers i have fallen in a pit and i cant get up

[kataravimes-of-the-shire]

I am in isolation, with no one to soundboard off of so this most definitely will not make sense in places…

Fury Axtar & Amren = same species

Maas does love a trope and to have characters who are similar across her series. I have always thought Fury was the “Amren of Crescent City”, but now that we have the crossover I think this might be less of a feature of Maas’ writing and more of an intentional choice. I would imagine Fury would be a descendent of the same species as Amren rather than the same gen. It is driving me mad that we do not know what Fury is or what her powers are. I know there’s a lot of Amren is Asteri theories out there but that one doesn’t sit quite right with me. Fury & Amren being the same species, however, totally works in my mind.

Mystics

So Ithan has stolen the alpha wolf mystic from The Astronomer at the close of HOSAB which I think is clearly setting things up so that Bryce is contactable by the remaining free members of the crew. Now the issue with this is that I suspect Bryce wouldn’t be able to communicate back - unless she had someone with similar abilities. Which led me to thinking about Elain and her powers, which so far have had some similarities with what we’ve witnessed the mystics can do in CC. The potential for her abilities when it comes to this would make her a significant player in the next book.

Lidia & Ruhn

Ruhn being a direct descendent of one of Rhys’ ancestors is SO GOOD. I can’t deal with my excitement at the thought of this. Makes a massive amount of sense in terms of Ruhn’s mindspeak abilities and his control over shadows/darkness.

I don’t really have any proof for this next part, other than just gut feeling and it would be some nice narrative symmetry. Lidia being of the same line as Aelin would mean we had a couple from each of the other series - doesn’t really serve the plot or give me any ideas as to what might come up but it feels nice.

Also WHAT ARE LIDIA’S POWERS?? Do we know?? Did I miss the reveal during my COVID-riddled reading… How does turning into a deer make her one of the most formidable players on the board?? I have this feeling that she sank the Omega ships (since we never really got an explanation of that?) - does that make her powers quite similar to Aelin’s?? I dunno man it’s all too much.

I had spent quite a bit of time debating how Maas was going to do the next two books in terms of crossover balance. I saw another user post about the idea that the next ACOTAR book will actually take place before Bryce lands in Prythian, and it will in fact end in the same place as HOSAB. Which would quite neatly set up for the next CC book to have as much crossover as is needed. This makes a lot of sense as, to be honest: the ACOTAR world doesn’t really have any world-shattering villains left and the sharing of the main villain (Asteri) with the CC arc could provide a decent antagonist. BUT saying that I think the Prythian crew will spend time helping Bryce to get back to Midgard and work out how to defeat the Asteri but I don’t think they’ll go to all out battle like they have in the past with Hybern. I think they’ll be like a back up team who help Bryce get to where she needs to be both powers-wise and location-wise.

The next ACOTAR book seemed to be leading up to being about releasing Vassa from her curse… I suspect that the Court of Dreams will end up discovering some very pertinent info for overthrowing the Asteri while freeing Vassa.

This helping of Bryce will provide a reason for Elain (with her mystic-like powers) and Azriel (wielder of truth-teller) to be together, I suspect also that Gwyn’s priestess knowledge will come in handy through the plot too.

Personally, I have no real preference for who Azriel ends up with - I’m excited to read Maas’ way of creating a great couple (as she so often does) and I trust her to develop the relationship properly. I feel like it would really go against the grain for Maas to have acknowledged mates and not have them end up together - she just loves a mated true love match. I think we might be in for an Aelin/Chaol style relationship between Azriel and Elain - where they seem perfect (even to the reader for a while) and then some as of yet unknown differences/cracks will start to show up. Azriel’s desperation/entitlement for Elain in the bonus chapter reeked of Tamlin to me, as this definitely reads as a flaw I think this is something he’ll have to process through and potentially may end up screwing things up with Elain in the process. Having a male character undecided between two females is also something we haven’t really read from Maas before so she may go for that to do something different? Not looking to get involved in a ship war here so pls let me rest in peace.

P.S. I also think Maeve (ToG) is from Hel… OR wait is Maeve an Asteri??? Fuck man I don’t know anymore I just need to TALK ABOUT IT WITH SOMEONE