* Saint Dane's timeline and ''The Rivers of Zadaa''. We eventually learn that Saint Dane is [[spoiler: Andy Mitchell and has been torturing Mark his whole life. In Rivers of Zadaa, we see Andy Mitchell go with Mark to rescue Courtney. How is any of this possible? What does his timeline look like? Does he stay on Second Earth the whole time after some future (or past) adventure? Is he constantly going back and forth between other territories and Second Earth? Are there two versions of Saint Dane at the same time on a territory?]]
* In ''The Soldiers of Halla'', [[spoiler:why did Saint Dane's energy run dry when the Ravinians of (Third) Earth turned on him? Doesn't he have another six worlds' worth of Ravinians and downtrodden people to draw on?]]
** [[spoiler:Didn't he also make a massive flume? And have a knock-down, drag-out brawl with Bobby? Wherein he did a whole lot of warping around? Furthermore, other territories could be experiencing an upheaval.]]
*** Still, it's treated as if [[spoiler:that one victory cut off his power altogether. The fight with Bobby should have been negligible. It just seems like the author had an ending in mind from the beginning and didn't account for the story surrounding it when the time came.]]
*** Ooh, actually, I just had a thought. Saint Dane is always talking about the domino effect, right? [[spoiler:It worked for him, why not for Bobby and them? It's a new thought, admittedly, so it could use some polish...but perhaps connecting all of the territories meant more than just allowing travel and such between them. When one decided Saint Dane was kind of a dick, it kicked over the first domino. Also, time has been shown repeatedly to work oddly between territories.]] That's all I've got.
*** I ''like'' the way you think. That wouldn't have been a bad way to go.
** I was under the impression that all of his followers were on Third Earth, which was chosen as his main seat of power, and that the Ravinians were composed of people from all the territories (except Eelong, i suppose, we didn't see any cat-people there).
* The whole concept of "First", "Second", and "Third" Earth confuses me. When do they start? Do they shift in a fixed posistion (i.e. First Earth being always about thirty years behind Second Earth) or do they shift around. [[TimeyWimeyBall My brain hurts...]]
** First Earth is seventy years behind Second Earth. The way that the various territories end up being explained is that they're at points in history where each... 'world' for lack of a better term can be severely affected to follow either Saint Dane's point of view or that of the other Travelers. Some worlds have multiple turning points and thus multiple territories - Earth happens to have three, and [[spoiler: Veelox has two (since Ibara is Veelox in the future)]]. So there are really only seven worlds shown in the PA universe and theoretically the territories shift through time whenever the turning point changes - which is why the Travelers always show up at the right time when they're needed. Therefore, First, Second, and Third Earth could really shift at any time or disappear or rearrange themselves; they're just set in the places they are during the PA series because during the time covered by the PA series, that's where the major historical turning points are located.
* This one's been eating at me for a while now... if the territories were picked by Saint Dane for their turning points, why in the name of Halla did he even bother to make Third Earth a territory? Third Earth was a utopian society that, as far as we know, didn't have a turning point UNTIL Saint Dane screwed things up on Second Earth. Third Earth was ALSO the place where Saint Dane was defeated once and for all. Heck, if he hadn't made Third Earth a territory, he would have tipped Earth into chaos a long time ago, because Pendragon would have stopped the Hindenburg from crashing. The ONLY thing I can think of that Third Earth contributed to Saint Dane's cause at all was the metal skin used to create Forge and the dados. And since Saint Dane was capable of traveling without flumes, he could have just gotten it without having to make Third Earth a territory!
** I don't remember anything about it being Saint Dane who picked the territories. Also, you said 'as far as we know' it didn't have a turning point. Maybe it did, and screwing things up on Second Earth just changed it.
*** OP here. It's actually said in book 10 that Saint Dane picked the territories. Press says that the only reason there are territories rather than worlds is because Saint Dane targeted those ten specific points in time and space, and created the flumes to bridge them together. In that case, even if Third Earth had a turning point beforehand, it seems pretty stupid to include it (of course, that's assuming that the whole dado/Ravinia thing ''was'' Saint Dane's plan the entire time).
* A minor plot hole in book 5: Kasha and Bobby take down one of the gigs that's heading towards Black Water. The klee pilot bails out, lands in a lake, and starts swimming for shore. Only thing is, klees can't swim.
** That had bothered me too, until I realized something: All the klees are different cats on Earth, right? So, Kasha and Boon assumed that most klees couldn't swim, though the klee that piloted the gig could just happen to be one of the cats on Earth that actively swims. It's the best excuse I can come up with.
** Alternatively, Boon personally can't swim, and he lied to Mark, Courtney, and Spader out of embarrassment.
* In book 5 when Mark and Courtney have to go through the flumes to warn Bobby about the Cloral poison, they first try to send a message to Yorn because he was an acolyte, but they can't because Kasha's father was dead and Yorn had no traveler to be an acolyte to.. Because they can't send a message to Eelong, they have to go in the flume themselves, except why didn't they send the message to Aja's acolyte? They knew her name, and Aja could have easily gone through the flumes herself to Cloral and then to Eelong, and Saint Dane's plan would have been foiled.
** Because Courtney wouldn't have lost all of her self confidence, thus meaning her sub-plot in books 6-10 couldn't happen. [=MacHale=] has stated that most of the major series arcs were already outlined before he started writing ''The Merchant of Death''.
*** It still doesn't account for why the idea of sending messages to other acolytes, or even other Travelers if they tried, never occured to them. Nor does it justify the slogan that every other character has been saying since then, that there really was no other way.
* Looking back, a lot of things about Solara make no sense when given some thought. Press says that Halla is always growing, and so is Solara... how can that be when Halla is supposedly everything that ever was, is, or will be, and was confirmed to only contain seven worlds (which will eventually have to meet their demise)? Also, when the Travelers are getting ready to go to Solara for the final time, Press makes a comment that they will remember who they were and "all the other lives" they've lived... but that suggests reincarnation, which directly contradicts what Press said earlier about how every individual's spirit is unique, and throws a monkey wrench into the idea that people's spirits all go to Solara when they die.
** The most probable explanation is that Press lied about certain things early on in the series, as he thought that telling Bobby everything all at once might have been too much for him to take in. The lies might have come into play when his simplified explanation had holes that needed to be filled.
* There's one thing that's always bothered me about the backstory that we get in book 10. (Okay, a lot of things, but this was a big one): [[spoiler: why did the Travelers have to think that they belonged to their particular Territory? Press seemed to think that it would make them more dedicated to the cause, but by not giving the Travelers the answers from the beginning, they didn't know what was really at stake, meaning that they were more likely to give up and go home. Also, they're more likely to make a stupid mistake that gets everyone killed because they're not entirely sure what the rules are. Really, none of it makes sense.]]
** I think you answered your own question with that last statement. [[spoiler:It just seems to me that before book ten, Press was built up to be this master planner who entrusted Bobby with a mission while putting his faith in his nephew. But once we learn everything, it becomes apparent that he [[WriterCopOut had no grand plan in place at all]]. In fact, he had no idea what he was doing (and apparently, neither did Saint Dane, who just kinda got lucky on his first try to make a Flume), making the whole series a ShaggyDogStory.]]
* In ''The Reality Bug'' (Book 4), the second time Bobby enters Lifelight (the first time he entered with the Reality Bug), Bobby gets injured in the virtual world. When he comes back out, the injury comes with him. What, physically, caused his body's injury as it was lying unconscious in the cylinder? That's not '''my''' question. '''My''' question(s): why did nobody in the story ask this question? Why was this question not even considered?
* I'm not sure if this is a big deal or not, but [[spoiler: according to Press, when Saint Dane saved Courtney's life at the end of book 6, that alone nearly threw Solara off the edge. So if Saint Dane was so close to victory then, why didn't he just do a little more to completely deplete Solara's power? From how it was described, it seems that all he had to do was go to another patient's room and cure them, or literally anything else that would drain Solara.]]
** Personal theory: [[spoiler: it happened before all actions that resulted in creation of Saint Dane's "Dark Solara", meaning he was still using its power to maintain his existence. If he'd try to drain more power then, he would have destroyed Solara and the Travelers - but he'd go down with them, RocksFallEveryoneDies style. And that's not something he'd be okay with.]]
*** So the whole point of the Convergence [[spoiler:was to split Solara in half and give Saint Dane his own power source]]? I like that explanation, but somehow I can't remember anyone ever stating it in-universe. Then again the final book was kind of a mess.
* In ''The Quillan Games'', [[spoiler:the revivors blindfolded Pendragon and Nevva Winter, and took them along an extremely disorienting route to Mr. Pop. How did they allow Nevva to bring a tracking loop with her? After all, despite being a trusted member of the revival for some time, she was still given the blindfold treatment; a physical search wouldn't have been out of the question.]]
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