13 years ago
Fri Sep 24 2010, 07:35am
I love all of the ideas posted on this thread - I am worried about the suggestion that free-running barud might be death. I think I would curl up and die if Galtaha dies. Brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.
I was wondering if perhaps there wasn't something in TSK - when Elspeth is speaking to Gorgol (the sadorian mapkeeper) aboard the Umborine, there is a mention of an unmapped land along the black coasted in a direction that is opposite to LotRQ (ship lost in a storm?)... perhaps this is a simple place for the free-running barud? or something else?
I dunno just putting it out there, just that it was mentioned in passing and hasn't thus far had any reason behind it.
Also, just a thought (brushing my teeth - gives me time to think) - keeping with the suggestion above - what about Rushton's Talent? Surely it wasn't introduced for naught - the capacity to hold hundreds of minds? For a large interactive - coerced dream enlightening the people? Or something to do with elspeths other quest?
What about the Red Queens Land? Remember how the first or second whatever it is, Red Queen could speak to animals? What if when she take Dragon there, the animals go with her? It's a suggestion. I try not to think about these questions 'cause if one of us is right then it's spoiled.
I really don't want the animals to die, especially because if the animals die it will probably mean Elspeth will die, as she is leading them to freedom. Or maybe the animals go to the red queens land with Elspeth and are destroyed. Or the machine sets off but is quickly turned off, so the animals and Elspeth die? I agree that Rushton has been given his talent for a purpose. Elspeth may have to use that for her quest. Do you think Elspeth would be able to reach Rushton's mind and see what happens to him? So many questions.
13 years ago
Fri Oct 01 2010, 10:31pm
Although the idea that the FRB is death is interesting I am not really sure it fits with the themes that IC has in the OC- I mean the whole story has been a journey to greater empathy and understanding between different groups, Talents/Untalents Rebels/Misfits Guilds within obernewtyn/ untalents/animals etc.
I think it would be a very strange and pessimistic message for IC to conclude that the only animals can ever be free is to die..."awesome we have found a way to be free, everyone just take a cup of that cordial over there..."
I think a change in the way funaga are, so they are no longer funaga but reconnected with the whole animal spiritual cycle is the most likely conclusion
And I like the idea that the second quest is a quest to change people rather than hunt down mysterious clues and switch off a machine, it gives it a nice balance, one physical quest, one mental quest...
Iarana I agree! The whole series has been about seeking acceptance and what better way to conclude it than with the acceptance of animals as equals by humans. And we can assume that if this happens Misfits are accepted as equals also. I will be very surprised if this is not what IC means by a freerunning barud.
Ashlings' guildleader
13 years ago
Ashlings' guildleader
Dreamscape Artist
I recently had another idea about the quest not being what we think it is, that being that maybe we're focussing too much on where she's leading them to and not enough on where she's leading them from. I was thinking about how it's always said that she will lead "The beasts" which, as I said in my last idea on the subject, implies a significant proportion of the population and many different species and how this implication is not backed up by other portions of text, like how Galtha saying that it was good that Obernewtyn and Sador had freerunning because not all the beasts would go to the freerunning barud. The way he said it seemed to imply to me that most would be left behind.
So, what if alter our expectations of what is meant by "The beasts". What if it's not referring to beasts worldwide, but to a specific group, making the "The" even more relevant.
I'm thinking of the compound, which I interpreted as being something similar to a last-out post of the before time. People who don't quite live like their ancestors, but who are more like them than the people of the land etc. Would the people of the compound really have gone without meat for the last few hundred years? And if they didn't, it doesn't exactly sound like the sort of place that would have room for free-range farming, I mean [act]compound[/act]. Any animals kept there would be kept in the worst sorts of caged conditions that we hear about, the once that inspire the most radical of animal rights movements today.
So, what I'm currently thinking is this; Could it be that there are beasts being held in the compound and that Elspeth leading the beasts to freedom refers to her freeing them from the cruel lives they lived within as part of her quest to infiltrate the compound in order to destroy the weapon machines?
I like to think that that's out of the box :nod:
Mystic Ward
8 years ago
Mystic Ward
Twentyfamilies Gypsy
This has been running through my head for a couple of days now and I still don't have it quite straight...
What if leading the animals to freedom is waking them from crogenic sleep. We know that animals were frozen as part of the Eden project, so wakening them could be part of the quest. I'm also suspecting that the FRB is the land of the Red Queen now as presumably, Elspeth and co are going to get there by some other means than boat.
Mystic Ward
8 years ago
Mystic Ward
Twentyfamilies Gypsy
That was the thread I had been looking for and couldn't find. *blush*
Whats the bet there is a train involved somewhere? In the memory/dream that Elf enters when she gets Dragon out of her coma the Queen, Elf, Dragon, Maruman and RushtonBear are taken in a carriage that shakes and makes great noise and goes through a tunnel. A train would have enough space to carry lots of animals, because presumably not all animals would go to TFB as the horses are discussing in (I think) the Keeping place somewhere can't remember exactly where. But a train would be WAY easier than a boat to transport lots of creatures and also way less dangerous for everyone involved.
Arrghh I don't want to think too much but so hard to keep waiting til November!
That makes a whole lot of sense, Ashe!!!
If they go by train and their destination is the land of the red queen then how would they get there by train? I suppose it could go underground couldn't it... So do you think that's how Elspeth is going to get there? by train? Because honestly I was trying to figure out how the heck she was going to get there seeing as it doesn't seem she is going by boat- and then if they're transporting heaps of animals on top of that, then it seems even more impossible. Train is sounding like a good theory.
8 years ago
Tue Jul 28 2015, 11:30pmKella
I think it might be connected to the Land, Lady! A few things that have been said about Blacklands stretching for miles of coastline have made me wonder about that. It may be that she has taken a shortcut by going up through the supposedly impassable Blacklands past the mountains. I could be completely wrong though!
Mystic Ward
8 years ago
Mystic Ward
Twentyfamilies Gypsy
It does say through blacklands and over sea somewhere. Not long now and we will find out.
Ah I must have glossed over the sea part Deb, thanks! This re-read I'm forcing myself to go slowly so I don't miss anything as I usually devour them at a ridiculously fast rate.
This is really interesting to read, knowing that we have only months to wait.
I want it now!
The sending spoilers!
Since the city she travels towards in the sending seems to have a lot more technology, I think all bets are off when it comes to how she's going to get to the red land. They could have flying machines.
I think she's going to wake the animals from the Eden project, and take them to somewhere with no people so they can start to repopulate. we'll see all sorts of species that were extinct since the great white. Perhaps Gavyn and Rasial will become the leaders and protecters of them, as Gavyn doesn't seem to be human anymore.
Reading through this made me think that perhaps with the weaponmachines there's the Eden project with all the animals but also a rocket to the moon or something, it'd take ages for humans to do that too again.
Or Elspeth puts animals into cryo so they can be on the dreamtrails
min, i always interpreted that quote to mean that the animals will one day rule or help rule The Land and The Westland. That's what I assumed the freerunning barud was; a land where both animals and humans ruled together or humans accepted animals as their leaders.
however i do prefer the cryo theory a lot more!
I would have thought the same about the beasts becoming rulers/leaders, but that particular line in the dream - if it's premonitory - could mean a couple of things...either humans become extinct/animals are truly free (the Eden project theory), or there'll be a region that is ruled and defended by animals where no humans are allowed (the horses who fought in Saithwold during TSK spring to mind - if they reached their freerunning I don't doubt they could defend it).
Also, beasts have the notion that the freerunning won't contain humans at all. There's something in the previous books about the beasts being upset that Obernewtyn was not the true freerunning...I think it was Rasial's dismay actually, when she'd lead the animals from her farm there initially. Whether it's true or just the Agyllians planting the notion, the legend as the beasts believe it has the beasts living without funaga (regardless of whether they are allied misfits or not).
Mystic Ward
8 years ago
Mystic Ward
Twentyfamilies Gypsy
This is why I'm leaning toward the Efari (?) being AI rather than Human. Where the Eden Project is seems to be very isolated and hard to get to. Perhaps the animals there in cryo will be released and no one will be able to reach them after Elf and crew are gone? More reaching, but damn I can't figure this out.