So there would be a Choir of Light (Dark), Choir of Order (Chaos), Choir of Triumph (Ruin), Choir of Sanity (Madness), Choir of the Tame (Feral), Choir of Virtue (Sin), and Choir of Peace (Unrest).
- Rather than a Choir of the Tame, I would say it would be a Choir of Civilization.
- Probably not the Choir of Sanity, but the Choir of Reason.
- Confirmed: The third Angelic choir is that of Structure, opposing Ruin.
Their relationship is untenable for a number of reasons, and what we know of RDT suggests that she would set up this sort of thing to make the survivor stronger in the long run.
- Confirmed. Rose takes Blake's place when he falls to ErasUrr.
But Rose will.
Not only can no one remember him, but the world itself no longer supports his existence as a corporeal being leaving him in a state similar to a ghost or Rose in her mirror world.
- Jossed.
From Rosalyn's writings, we know that what's taken by demons cannot be recovered, only replaced. However, not all of Blake has been destroyed-Rose was originally created from Blake, but has her own history, a reflection of Blake's created by the Barber. Thus, it should be possible, now that Rose is a whole practitioner as opposed to being in two halves, for her to do to herself what was done to the original Blake, splintering off a male version of herself as a vestige.
- Jossed. He fell through the cracks before Urr could eat him and ended up in the Drains.
Since the spirits like drama, Blake wasn't killed off easily or taken down because the Thorburns and the Behaims are locked in a stalemate, meaning that the Behaims suffered from Conservation of Ninjutsu.
She never directly answered the "Can you lie" question. She asked if blake knew that some things in the Gutter could lie, and then said she wasn't, adding on that they aren't usually nice.
It's a plausible workaround.
Making a female alternate-self to a male potential heir makes little sense given the expenditure of power required and the other heirs that exist as options; but making a male figment to protect a female heir while she's temporarily shuffled off to a mirror for safety makes a great deal of sense — he can give her a chance to get her bearings while he makes mistakes, offends people, and takes risks on her behalf, giving her a chance to catch up so she'll be ready when he expires. This would mean that when Barbatorem severed her reflection, original!Rose was trapped in a mirror as fraction of herself, while reality rearranged itself around her body to give it a new identity and backstory without the female image that had been severed from it. Obviously this requires that that have enough oomph to rewrite the family's memories and fake Blake's background, including a network of friends, but it's not impossible. It would require that the severing either took place before Molly's death, or rewrote reality to retroactively render her dead. But this explains a number of things about him:
- Why so many people are certain his death is inevitable. As a Vestige, he is doomed to die when the working that created him runs its course, no matter what.
- Why he seems to nearly fade out of existence after using too much power.
- Why the rest of his family doesn't always back up his stories about the past (in particular, nobody but him seems to remember his friendship with Molly or Paige.)
- Kudos to whoever came up with this. Confirmed as of Null 9.4.
- Only to be semi-jossed again later. Rose is the larger, dominant part, but both are split off from another original. One who was probably male
This is the Maggie Holt series after all!All of pact is just backstory for her faithful familiar as well as her nemesis the diabolist Rose(as well as the complex history between those two). As the series progresses the former Thorburn thorn in the side of everybody in town will become even more "other" gaining very decent powers involving glamour ,that he already had a knack for, and involving his abyssal birdman hybrid form.
Well we've already had the 'Null and Void' arc. And Bona Fide does translate as 'good faith'.
And every other heirs paths have been/will be calculated every step of the way by Rose senior, even Ivy.The matriarch of the Thorburn family was exactly the type of person who would use them all so callously for what she saw as the greater good, which is why she was such a good diabolist.
Molly and Blake are first wave, sacrifices to draw the initial heat AND become creatures that ally themselves with Rose(Blake,reluctantly) or to play a part in the upcoming battle for lordship(Molly, possibly allied with Maggie). Rose herself will be the best choice for actually gaining the lordship for the Thorburns, cut throat and intelligent enough to be suited for the fight and with enough backup to...back it up.
Once she has played her part Ellie will come in and live up to everyone's worst expectations by summoning Ornias or something similarly awful(or many somethings) and take out one or two large threats that would otherwise be unassailable(like Johannes),leading to her own death soon after
Ivy wont have any major part, poor babe. Maybe garner some good karma by being an innocent child, but that's all.
Then we finally get to the true heir, Paige.Described by Blake as the most level headed,wordplay loving type who he assumed would be the most logical heir.She is too, and is now in a position of power,wealth and security that has been bought with the blood of her family, she's probably a decent bit older and more patient too at this stage. Not only free to focus on the dealing and binding of demons for the betterment of the world, but more likely to as a way to assuage her guilt at what has been sacrificed to get her to that point.
- Jossed: Aimon Behaim gave her some stored time, back in the days when they were still plotting together and as part of the "train my kid how to counter diabolism" deal. She used it to extend her life.
)on Blake being partially created from the Barber, I partially agreed with it, and now it lends to my own theory.I think a large portion of Blake is made up of Rosalyn Sr.-In the first chapter the only insult that Rosalyn reacts to is Blake calling her a liar, seeming to really take it personally. This may be that she can't stand the thought that she subconsciously thinks of herself as a liar.-Paidric insists on calling both Blake and Rose as beautiful roses, when first talking to Blake he states “It smells like a rose.It’s as beautiful as a rose. I dare say it’s as fragile as a rose, once you get past the thorns. But is it really our Rose?”
I'm currently rereading Pact and the what spurred this theory is the following(slightly edited for brevity) exchange where Paidric more or less states it directly.
“I have help,” I said. “Help my grandmother left me.”“A vestige,” Laird said.Vestige?“Of Rose?” the North End Sorcerer asked, his eyebrows raised.“Yes,” Padraic spoke out loud, at the same Laird said, “I don’t think so.”Paidric seems convinced that the help left IS a vestige of Rose senior, and as Rose and Blake had their positions and natures switched for Blake to protect Rose junior as she learned Paidric didn't notice that Blake himself was the vestige.
Him being partially created from the Barber to give him strength(and maybe because demonic essence was needed for this)which is why Rose knew this which is why she and Blake's former friends are now suspicious of his nature.It also explains why he was created male even though this is a handicap for him dealing with Others accustomed to dealing with the Thorburns.Regardless of Blake turning out fine due to a strong moral compass and iron will it was still feared that something could go wrong and a practitioner infused with the essence of a demon would have access to all their diabolic contracts.Binding the Barber is also directly stated in a journal of Rose senior to be her proudest accomplishment(to that date) and thus likely has some small bond or connection that would make fusing their essences together easier.
She is quoted saying "there is no such thing as a true ally" and her note to herself at the end of the void arc (the jist being "We have a connection to those people, they should be yours. You can manipulate them using that) had her calling herself such a bitch.This decodes her antagonistic attitude towards Blake beyond the reasons she gives about him being a loose cannon.She resents Blake for being the better person despite not actually BEING a real person.
The Seal is an anti-demon system and it works great at keeping them in check. Except there's one flaw: its restrictions on harming humans aren't quite perfect, but it's very good at forcing obediance. As such, it makes it possible to summon demons and command them, and they're such bundles of bad news that always turns out poorly.
So Solomon and his angelic buddies came up with a plan: they'd seal all the demons and then give them commands that stopped them from causing harm. Since demons radiate badness and so are very dangerous even when bound, the angels set to work countering their opposite numbers; they're weaker in a direct confrontation but the demons were restricted by the bindings. And so the problem was solved—for a time.
But, if you summon a demon, for any reason or any purpose, it's out of the lockdown. Furthermore, the new summoner, lacking the original angel-forged Seal ring, probably won't be able to compel absolute obedience and lock the demon into a similarly-restrictive binding. They're likely to do a lot of damage before getting locked back up. So there's a hefty karma penalty for summoning one, but probably not for binding one that's already present. The seeming double standard with other nasties is because when you summon a demon you're breaking it out of jail.
This also would explain why angels are rarely summoned; most of them are on guard duty. The strongest angel of the Third Choir could show up in Jacob's Bell and beat up The Barber if he were let out, but that would mean risking a breakout by the strongest Choir Of Ruin member. And equal-rank angels can't beat demons in a fight when the demons aren't imprisoned, so they can't hunt down their opposites unassisted, but they need to be ready to lock them back up and so aren't available for tasks other than sealing them. Furthermore, it's quite possible that Solomon didn't see the need to Seal angels (Or, since Micheal provided him with the ring, the Seal might not work on angels), and thus aren't forced to respond to summons. So it's possible anyone can easily summon Uriel at will without any price whatsoever. But he's busy keeping the head demon of the Choir Of Sin from influencing the entire world, so he'll only actually show up for a really serious emergency.
Only angels who weren't part of the guard force are reliably available. Hence why Faysal says the angels are unorganized and apparently not overwhelmingly numerous despite being associated with order and creation; there are a lot of organized angels but he hasn't met them because they're either on guard duty or on standby.
It's practically tradition for a Literal Split Personality. Neither of them will want to do it, of course, since it's essentially both of them committing suicide to create a new person, and they both value their individual existences so much, but they know that unless they do it they will tear their loved ones apart in their struggle for dominance. Blake's POV will end with this, his final death, and the last interlude will be about this new character and how they deal with the strange few months in which they were two people.
- Confirmed. Blake jumps into Rose's body, at her invitation, in order to escape the Abyss the third time.
Judgement has so far been told from Rose's pov, with Blake only being mentioned a few times to establish that he's still in there.My prediction is he's going to decide that Rose needs his "scrapper" instincts more than him now that shit has once again hit the fan and will give it up to her.
Once he has done that he will no longer have such a strong self preservation instinct and will decide it's finally time to end, and will spend his remaining half life to decide which memories and aspects of himself will help Rose the most and funneling them into her as fast as possible.
When the last of Blake is finally snuffed out, or is close enough to it, Rose will become the de facto protagonist with as many shades of Blake as could be managed. Bonus points if her first thoughts after the shift detail her sensing that Blake is fading to nothing(similarly to Isadora back when he was first hit by the abstract demon).
- Jossed. Once the last of Blake appears to be snuffed out, the next (and final) chapter switches to the 3rd-person pov of an unawakened biker named Dominic, whose life Blake saved while on a trip to Wisconsin to fulfill his promise to Zoey. He is now a sparrow who helps keep people away from Jacob's Bell with the help of Evan, still a sparrow, and Green Eyes, still a mermaid.
