Headscratchers / Gone

• In PLAGUE Brianna says she uses a E string of a cello as her preffered weapon...There's no such thing as a E string on a Cello.
• In HUNGER, Astrid recalls christmas in the FAYZ with Sam and Little Pete. She claims that they got the christmas tree from the attic of her parent's house...except her parent's house burnt down the previous book, and consequently, the christmas tree would have been burnt to ashes too.
• Why does it never rain in the FAYZ? Water should still evaporate like normal, a lake drying up is mentioned in Plague so how come there isn't any rain?
  • Has something to do with there being a giant dome over their heads. Possible that the water can pass through it on one side (when it's being evaporated) but can't get through the other side. Also, in book four, it does rain, because LP's thirsty.
    • I've wondered if water vapour can pass through, maybe thats the whole idea, rain would help keep them alive can't have that now can we.
  • Also, the lake was drying up because they were taking too much water from it too quickly.
• Whenever Caine goes into a dangerous situation, he takes Diana with him. Every. Freaking. Time. They're battling the kids at Perdido Beach? She's there. Taking over the nuclear power plant? There again. Going to take over Perdido beach and battle giant insects? He'll even forcibly drag her instead of coming back for her later. This would make perfect sense if she had an offensive power like his or Sam's or Dekka's, or even one that could be useful at some point during the battle, like Lana's. All she can do is read people, and she doesn't even have normal strength. Seems like the only reason she's there is to tell hiim he's going to far or get almost killed by a pissed off Drake, both of which enrage him. So . . . why?
  • Because he's obsessed with her. Most likely he wants to show off how tough and powerful he is. Diana clearly agrees to go along, so perhaps she wants to.

• When did Dekka first notice / feel attraction toward Brianna? In Hunger it is clearly stated the attraction came later, when they were trapped next to each other when they were plastered. In Lies it is stated the attraction was immediate and that Dekka had always noticed and admired Brianna.
• How does Bug turn his clothes invisible along with himself?
  • Because it makes no sense that a Personality Power that manifested from the desire to hide from an abusive situation would only be effective when the user was butt naked.
    • Isn`t it implied that bug is usually exactly that?
• Caine/Diana- who broke up with who during PLAGUE? In PLAGUE we assume it's Diana, seeing as Caine gives her the offer to be his queen and she's visibly quite pissed off with him for his delusions of grandeur "I'm a king" BS. In fact, most people after reading PLAGUE assumed he didn't even know Diana was pregnant. But then in FEAR, Diana says that "Caine made it pretty clear he didn't want anything to do with the baby." Which could constitute a breakup on his part. This also implies that Diana offered to let him raise the baby with her but he refused. So, which way round was it..? Who abandoned who? Alas, the break up scene isn't in the book, and thus we shall never know.
• If Diana had been starving for 4 months and her periods had stopped (which means you're infertile), when how did she wind up pregnant?
  • This troper always thought that that was supernatural interference on part of the Gaiaphage.
  • Periods stopping doesn't mean infertile. Plenty of infertile women have periods - there can often be other reasons why they can't get pregnant (issues with the embryo emplanting in the womb wall etc). Also, plenty of high level female athletes (e.g. Gymnasts) often don't have periods at all until they stop, as they tend to have low body weight (which IS a factor in periods occuring), however this doesn't mean they can't get pregnant.
• If Taylor can teleport anywhere she's been, why can't she teleport out of the FAYZ? Especially once it becomes transparent. Granted, in FEAR she gets turned into a lizard type thing.
  • The powers may be attached to the FAYZ/gaiaphage, meaning that they can't leave using the powers.
    • Except the kids were using them before the FAYZ came about. Petey's power even caused the FAYZ.
  • IIRC, Light implies that the powers are connected specifically to the gaiaphage (which existed before the FAYZ occurred), but once the FAYZ was created, it cut off that entire area from the rest of reality, such that whatever connection to the gaiaphage enabling the powers was broken. It wouldn't surprise me if there had been several adults in Perdido Beach who had also been developing powers that were lost once the FAYZ occurred.
• At the end of Light it's mentioned that 40% of the kids originally trapped the FAYZ ended up dying. Considering how many moments there were during the whole series where something resulted in a large number of casualties, and especially considering how the explosions and fires in Light did kill over 70 people, that seems too low of a number.
  • You have to remember there were over 300 kids trapped in the FAYZ at the beginning.
  • Still, considering all the deaths, that's still a low number.
  • If you count each death shown in the series, putting any shown mass casualty at the absolute logical minimum, the final toll should be 187 deaths out of 332 population, which makes the FAYZ fatality rate 56% which is 16% higher than what we are told at the end of LIGHT.
• If it never rains in the FAYZ (which is a Headscratcher all on its own), then how are there still trees? Wouldn't they have all died out in the first couple months of the FAYZ?
  • There are trees out in deserts and other extremely dry habitats. Plus, does it rain much in california anyway?
  • It would certainly rain a lot directly beside a beach - the trees shouldn't be used to going more than a few weeks without rain.
• How did Toto survive entirely on Nutella for eight months? It doesn't exactly provide much in terms of balanced nutrition, and it's almost impossible to survive solely on anything for more than a couple weeks.
• What happened to Andrew after he poofed?
• This has been bugging me since the beginning: How come Anna and Emma were fine coming out of the FAYZ and yet Francis and Mary were...uh, not?
  • My theory was always that when Anna and Emma disappeared, it was just Little Pete's doing, and the Gaiaphage didn't care. But in Lies, the Gaiaphage created a plan to mutate everyone that poofed, and what it did to Francis and Mary was what it would've done to everyone.
  • Anna and Emma were on land, while Francis and Mary were falling off a cliff
  • Anna and Emma poofed, involuntarily, before anyone knew how to stop it. Francis and Mary poofed on purpose, after everyone knew poofing could be avoided. Maybe it was punishment for wanting to leave, or maybe something happened after Sam and Caine didn't poof and the poofing process was broken.
  • My theory had always been that Anna and Emma poofed very early on, after only a few days, before everything went absolutely insane in the FAYZ, which may have meant they could get away with it. But when Mary and Francis poofed, things had already gone to shit, and the Gaiaphage had been and was in close proximity to them (Nerezza was with Orsay a lot, and both Mary and Francis had seen Orsay). So I thought that being close to the Gaiaphage messed things up, and the longer you were in the FAYZ, everything got more messed up. Another theory was that, like said above, when Sam and Caine refused to poof, someone got broken in the process.
• Ages. Computer Jack is stated to be twelve, but he's in fifth grade, which isn't how most schools work. Bug is stated to be ten in Gone, but in Fear he "just turned ten".
• In Gone, Lana's grandfather is described as "Chumash Indian" but she is described in Light as White, though Word of God says she is Latina.
  • She could be white passing.
• Why does everyone say that Penny's jealousy was due to her sisters being sexually abused because they were prettier than her? I'm from the UK, so maybe it states this in the US version, but sexual abuse is never mentioned in Penny's backstory in my books. In mine it just said she was jealous because her sisters were pretty and everyone neglected her, which was why she tried to poison her older sister. Yet on the wiki it states that both of Penny's sisters were abused... but it doesn't say this in the books, so I'm confused.
  • In the U.S version of the series, it is stated Penny’s father would dress her older sister up in inappropriate outfits and share the photos online. After he passed her over and began with her younger sister, Penny only then decided to poison her sister.
• Sam is described as having fair hair and blue eyes, like Connie, and this is how the gone wiki and trailers/covers depict him. However, in Gone, Sam observes that Caine has "dark hair and dark eyes, not much different from Sam himself," stating/heavily implying that Sam also has dark hair and eyes (additionally, Sam and Caine are both described as handsome, which could possibly suggest that they look alike, although they could of course be good looking in different ways)
• Why is Penny’s ability to make people taste & feel amazing things never utilized? It makes sense to use her powers as a threat, but in FEAR she is able to make Cigar taste candy so good he drops to his knees and begs for more. Wouldn’t her powers be equally as useful as a means of control through bribery? She is only ever shown using her powers this way after the Coates starvation, and only through sexual fantasies. Wouldn’t she have been able to get anything she wanted at Coates when they were starving to death if she could make kids taste amazing food? Wouldn’t kids be begging her for it consistently once it’s shown she is able to do it?
• At the end of FEAR, Diana states she feels fine after she gives birth to Gaia, because Gaia healed her body as she carried her. At the beginning of LIGHT, she describes her body as a bruised, beaten wreck because of the birth. It’s a contradiction to show the powers Gaia had, and then to establish that Diana is weak and in pain.
• In LIGHT, it is stated that the gaiaphage warped the laws of physics, which sent the power plant into a meltdown. However, it is stated previously that the gaiaphage manipulated an employee at the power plant to cause the meltdown in order to receive the radiation it needed.
  • The idea of the gaiaphage manipulating the power plant employee may have been speculation.