Headscratchers / Amulet

• In Book 2, it's very clearly mentioned that elves hate the smell of fish to the point of getting an asthma attack. Yet in a flashback in Book 5, we clearly see an elf (actually little Trellis) fishing. Why on earth would he be fishing? Or has the hatred of fish evolved since then?
  • Perhaps it's only dead fish they hate, or fish taken from areas other than their homeland. After all, we only heard this from a non-elf who wouldn't care to specify at the time.
• Why is it that Silas tells Miskit he's leaving all his memories and knowledge in his databanks, and yet Miskit doesn't tell Emily ANYTHING that Silas learned about the Stone, any of Silas' agendas, or anything of his history on the council (the latter two in particular Miskit was just as surprised by as Emily.) What was the point of Silas saying that if Miskit can't seem to access any of Silas' memories?
• The backstories for Trellis and the Elf King don't make sense to me. In Volume 2, we learn the Elf King was originally a "quiet boy" from a "small elf village" thirty years ago, and looked like a teenager in the flashback. The assumption to make is that the king took power after his breakout from prison and that it wasn't hereditary. Trellis is his son, and so is Luger—who looks way older than 30. Later we learn that his doorkeeper, Logi, has been serving the royal house of elves for generations—and that, before serving the elf king, he served Trellis' uncle Virgil. That means that Trellis, his father, and his uncle are all in the royal house of elves, which doesn't fit with the Elf King previously being a quiet boy from a small village before becoming the Elf King. We also learn that he had Trellis and Luger way, way before becoming king—Luger's hair was even thinning around the time his father became king! What was the order of events on all this? And why the inconsistency with the "quiet boy" not being mentioned as part of the royal house of elves?
• The specifics of how the anthropomorphic animals work in this setting. If all of the Funny Animals are merely the product of a curse that was put on Kanalis, and (as Leon implies) it's one that takes hold after they've been born, then why are there babies who are animals too? Is it just fast acting? Does it impact everyone who goes to Kanalis or just the people born there (there's a man who's clearly grown up yet is only just now turning into a snail)? Does the type of animal you turn into depend on your genetics? How long has this curse been in place? Did Leon's father have him before becoming a fox himself? (and if not, how did a fox have a human baby?) There a wide range of animals who show up outside of Kanalis (such as all the ones in Nautilus). Are they just from Kanalis originally or did they get cursed by a different source? And how does this play into Interspecies Romance?
  • Remember, Leon wasn't born in Kanalis. He was born in Cielis, and he lived there long enough to develop detailed memories of the place. The general rule seems to be that it impacts people born in Kanalis from the time of their birth, but also changes people who move to Kanalis after a certain period of time. Also, seeing as how there are three shown sets of families being the same species (Leon and his father, Mrs.Wade and Alex, and a puppy family shown briefly in the background in book 3), it seems highly likely that the type of animal is influenced by genetics. You could make an argument that it is personality type, not genetics- Leon and his father seem quite similar- but Rico and Enzo are not anywhere near similar enough in this respect to be the same species, so it is probably genetics. In regards to animal people outside Kanalis, well, Miskit does state that all residents of Allendia find their way to Kanalis at some point in their lives.
• Gabilan's eyes are pretty weird. Most elves have almond shaped eyes that glow blue. Elves' pupils are black slits. Gabilan's eyes, though, are orange orbs with a darker orange pupil. He does give an ominous,"There's no one like me," when the king speaks to him, but that could be unrelated.
  • Is your question why his eyes are so weird? There could be a number of reasons. Maybe he's just a different race of elf from the majority we see.
  • Yes. The question is why are his eyes different than the other elves we see.
  • If he is a different race of elf, than his family would all be the same race, but in the flashbacks to his past in book seven, his sister and family is shown to have ordinary elven eyes.
  • Perhaps it's an extremely rare trait, or a birth defect, also possibly accounting for the "I'm the only one of my kind" comment.
• Whose plan is it anyway? Towards the beginning of the series, it seems as if the Elf King's regime is the Big Bad, but later we find out that the Voice of the Amulet has a master plan to take over the world... or something. Then the shadows come into play, and they seem to be the masterminds. Who exactly is the villain here? How are the Amulets, the Voices of the Amulets, the Elf King, and the Shadows related? What could the goal of the villain possibly be?
  • It looks pretty clear to me. The Voice is serving a race of alien beings, the shadows, who need a new home after their last planet died. They sent the Dark Scouts and the Voice to prepare the planet for their arrival by clearing out the other inhabitants, so the Voice (possibly with other 'Voices') and Dark Scouts possessed the Elf King and several other elves as well as several Stonekeepers to carry out that plan.
• So, what's up with robots in this series? We're lead to believe that the robots in Charnon house are constructs made by Silas, and then we later see other robots presumably made by other stonekeepers or engineers. These robots are ridiculously lifelike, being able to sweat and have emotions (all except Cogsley, who's weirdly the only one to pull the "I'm a computer so I can't understand what you're talking about" spiel.) Fine, I can accept they're just that realistically made. But then we learn that they have kids, with General Pil even having a childhood and parents? And then there's Susie, the chef robot who apparently learned to cook human food in order to feed her relatives, presumably robots as well, who apparently eat human food. How does all this even work? At this point, all the robot characters in the series except for maybe some of the Charnon house bots may as well have been represented as animal people and it would have made more sense.
• Later on in the series, Emily asserts that when they met, Trellis was possessed by Sybrian, a dark scout. A later book confirms this by showing when he was first possessed as a child. Since it's established that those possessed by dark scouts have no control over their own actions or even thought processes, and Trellis was specifically possessed to keep him from being a threat to his father, this begs the question of how or why Trellis tried to get Emily's help overthrowing his father during the time he was supposed to be possessed. Emily doesn't bring this up, either, despite being in a position to notice the contradiction.
  • Perhaps possession doesn't really equate to full-blown possession? Like when Joseph, a pilot like Navin, got possessed, he still retained some of his feelings that he tried to warn the others and claims he didn't want to kill them, before being forced to. Perhaps the shadows takes pre-existing feelings and warp them to the extreme? Like Trellis memories were wiped, but his feelings were likely still present, although he doesn't have an answer why he's feeling them, such as an irrational need to defy the King. So he tries to conjure a reason being jealous of Emily and desire to take the throne, when it's revealed to be actually one of morality.
• Karen, Nathan, and Emily, being casual about being stuck in another dimension (possibly forever) always confused me. Wouldn’t they have friends or other family in the real world they’d want to contact? And that’s not getting into the missing person reports of the Hayes being filed all over.
  • I have no confirmation because the series hasn't concluded yet, but it may have something to do with Narnia Time; time in our world slows down or halts while the Hayeses are in Alledia.
• In book four, if Navin and Karen's captives were able to enter the chamber of the motherstone via a transpore, without needing to use the entrance that Emily and Max did, then why did Max have to go through all the trouble to manipulate Emily into opening the entrance? Couldn't he have just used that transpore? He must have known about its existence; he ordered for Navin and Karen's captures.
• Why is it that in Book 1, Alledia is treated as an alternate Earth, whereas in Book 8, it turns out to be a separate planet?