Fridge / Green-Sky Trilogy

• The Kindar may believe in palmistry. The traditional greeting song says This our greeting, palm to palm/ As our meeting fate-lines flow...
• Fridge Brilliance on the Brain Drain on Kindar society as more and more "thinkers and seekers" who get curious about the "pash-shan" are disappeared, often to become educators down below. Genaa's father, a respected scientist, once Director of the Kindar Academy, is one of these. Now he's one of the head teachers and a respected scientist at the Erdling Academy. The Geets-kel are so anxious to keep the secret of the Erdlings that they banished one of the most intelligent people on the entire planet to the caverns. Meanwhile, the Erdlings are described as creatively brilliant with their math, engineering and technical skills — they've got coal-powered steam locomotion and gas illumination down there — and the banished Kindar have introduced and encouraged literacy.
• Tied to this is why Genaa was Chosen. She's Hiro's daughter and every bit as intelligent and charismatic. The Geets-Kel who exiled her dad might see this as a form of apology or as a way of preventing Genaa from getting too curious about her father's fate (and sharing it) by making her one of the elite, ala Brave New World where malcontents could end up either exiled with others like them or as a member of the ruling class, appeased with the copious privilege of that rank. The fact she has utterly no psionic ability (and can't even pense) means she would remain blind to the inner conspiracies in a way the psychic Raamo and the cynical Neric wouldn't be.
• Neric being Chosen was not only an attempt to push him from Rags to Riches, in theory so that he would be so grateful he wouldn't question it, but his assignment as a healer would mean he would be seeing a 'lot'' of Berry-wasted Kindar like his parents, and have his humble origins rubbed in his face. Like Genaa, buying him off by making him a member of the ruling class would also be a way to prevent him from causing trouble among other marginal-status Kindar.
• One for the game. One of the teachers you can visit to level up your Spirit Skills is Hearba D'ok, Raamo and Pomma's mother. Now, in the book, she's a working class Kindar and doesn't appear to be particularly gifted...emphasis on appear. In the first book, she and Raamo discuss the use of illusion by the Garden children, and Hearba seems surprised and disturbed by how common it is. Like Raamo, she retained her gifts into adulthood and didn't realize that it was unusual. Neric also says the Ol-Zhaan have to pass over pensers and other psionically gifted people in order to keep their secrets. Hearba, like her children, is probably a much more powerful psychic than she thought she was.
• Another for the game. The Genius Programming involved had hidden stats based on the quester's race. If an Erdling (Herd or Charn) eats Berries, they lose more time and take a bigger hit to their rest/food stats (risking collapse) than a Kindar (Neric, Genaa, or Pomma) who eat them. As Erdlings had no access to Berries, they would have no tolerance. Kindar, who used them frequently, had a better tolerance for the effects. Conversely, if one of the Erdlings eats roast lapan (rabbit), they fill up their hunger meter and have the reaction "The lapan is good." A Kindar who eats one gets the phrase "The lapan has a strange taste," and when you check their stats, they get only a small amount of nutrition and a hit to their Spirit points. The Kindar, being vegetarians, likely see the lapan as Let's Meet the Meat and no small degree of Nausea Fuel, as an animal would have to be killed for the purpose. Erdlings, who are more used to the idea of having to kill animals for food, wouldn't have the same revulsion and would view the roast bunny as traditional cuisine and good eating.^note Roast bunny is what sets off the main storyline midway through the first book. Teera ran away with her pet Haba so he wouldn't become one.
• The choice of questers in the game.
  • Of course Neric would be the "default," as he was investigating Ol-Zhaan conspiracies well before Raamo came into the picture. And he was able to send thoughts with great effort, and receive thoughts that are deliberately sent, especially by people with a high level of Spirit-force (psychic ability), so he has the "moderate" starting mana. As a Kindar, he starts with fruit and nuts in his home and is on the back end of Star Grund, near the temple.
  • Genaa, the one who teamed up with Neric and Raamo, would be willing to help the hunt to find her friend, but her lack of psionic skill makes her the most difficult character to win the game with. However, what she lacks in psionics, she makes up for in strength, being every bit as stout as the adult male characters. She even said in the first book that she doesn't tire easily. Like Neric, she starts with fruit and nuts, but her home is on the border of Grand Grund, near the Great Hall and academy.
  • Herd, Teera's dad, is the ambassador from the Erdlings to the Kindar, and a friend to the D'ok family because they took care of his daughter. He is up in Broad Grund, but almost directly above Upper Erda (an Erdling settlement on the surface for those who don't feel comfortable settling in the trees). He starts with a lapan, a traditional Erdling food, in his home. He's also a good choice for a quest because he knows more than anyone else about the outlying, abandoned and unexplored regions of Erda; long after all the other Erdlings stopped searching for Teera, Herd and his wife Kanna kept at it, and Kanna only stopped because she got sick, while Herd "tramped all alone, farther and farther into the unknown regions."
  • Charn is the odd one, probably chosen because Teera (with her moderate strength and high psionics) would be a Game-Breaker, but if Teera couldn't go for whatever reason, Charn and Pomma (her two best friends) would volunteer to go in her stead. (Teera's other dear Erda friend is a girl named Raula, but we see and hear more from Charn.) Like Herd, he has the Erdling food of a roast lapan in his home.
  • Pomma would not only go because of Teera, but because Raamo is her brother. She's psionically highly gifted, but was stated in the book to have lost grunspreking and kiniporting already. Though she's Kindar by birth, her starting food is pan bread, a staple food of both cultures, which fits her status as something close to "neutral" as far as race (she and Teera being revered by both cultures). Her pathetically weak constitution is balanced out by her high starting mana (you can speed run the game in about 40 minutes with Pomma) and the fact she will get a warm reception from all but the most overtly hostile NPCs. Her home is in Sky Grund, and is probably the D'ok nid-place from the start of the book.
• The parallels and contrasts to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in the second book. A little girl doesn't want to lose her pet rabbit, so she takes him and runs away, eventually releasing him through a hole in the Root so he can eat plants on the surface; he runs away, and she follows him up the rabbit hole to a lovely garden. Giant mushrooms and all.
  • The game programmers might have had that in mind. Windham Classics made a Alice's Adventures in Wonderland game using the same engine, complete with an Easter Egg that played the game's theme and said "if you like this game, please play Below The Root"