|
Headscratchers ImageLinks Literature Main WMG WebOriginal YMMV main index Narrative
|
Not all demons are Evil
Demons? Evil
And the author is saving up a big Kick the Dog moment for the Mack Daddy, what with all his fans. ;)
List Steff theories here.
These theories have since been Jossed, but are kept here for posterity.
Mack's love of pain comes from her demonic heritage
Kiersta isn't actually entirely human, but doesn't want people to know what she actually is.
Alternately, she is physically human but was raised in some other society, and doesn't not think if herself entirely as human.
While Celia got upset at having a human RA, assuming that it was because the school authorities didn't trust non-human students, Kiersta only replied that she was a 'full-blooded human'. However, at least three others (Raquel, and Leighton twins) on the same floor could say the same while still having attributes that would cause them to be seen as non-human. Furthermore, she has never given a surname, something which is distinctly atypical for IRM human society but common for several of the demi-human species.
It is possible that she is a human by birth, but under some enchantment or curse which, while not readily visible, would make her unwelcome elsewhere when it was revealed, especially if it was something that occurred recently. An obvious possibility is some form of thieranthropy, which (as far as this troper knows so far) has not been mentioned in the series to date; it is noteworthy that she has not (again, AFAIK) been seen around during a full moon, though the same could be said of several other characters. Any number of other magical conditions or maladies are possible, however, especially in a school of magic. She may not be completely at ease with whatever has altered her, and in any case probably still thinks of herself as human, at least technically.
Another possibility is that she is of a magically-altered subspecies that is nominally human, but unusual or undesirable in some way (e.g., some versions of doppelgangers are human, but sexless, and need to replace a normal human in order to breed, a sort of hominid cuckoo). In this case, she may not have been aware of her own unusual nature until recently, and discreetly arranged to be transferred to Harlowe after she found out.
Puddy deliberately plays up her dwarven ancestry to distract from the much more recent - and significant - Draconic and/or Giant ancestry, or perhaps some other non-human ancestor which she hasn't mentioned.
Puddy's strength is a match for Mackenzie's or nearly so, something that doesn't seem likely even for a fullblooded dwarf (Mack has beaten Belinda and Rocky, and tore through ghouls like they were cheap tinfoil). She is able to live on a diet of wine and pudding pops, and has occasionally shown some surprising abilities. She hoards her things like she lives on them, but beyond that ignores them. Yet she rarely mentioned anything but a distant Dwarven ancestor, and occasionally a nymph ancestor (which she mostly uses to excuse her sexual habits, and specifically the times she's had sex with men - though that was only just mentioned once in passing AFAIK). She is an extraordinarily effective manipulator and reader of human motives, when she wants to be, so it would be in character for her intentionally distract attention from some of family past if she thought it would serve as a ace in the hole (so to speak). What is her real game?
Puddie's wine isn't just wine, she had some other drug mixed in. This occurred to me after I noticed that everyone who drinks it not only gets drunk but behaves in a very specific way (trying to rape Mack).
Mercy is eventually going to find another male half-demon, and having three males, will start bringing more pressure on Mack, possibly by arranging 'accidents' that are likely to make her lose control.
This would be especially disturbing if the third male was Aiden. Chances are Mack knows nothing about her older brother, and Mur-Si probably wouldn't know unless she ran tests on them. Even if she did know, she seems like someone who would find it amusing to force Mack to mate with her brother and then tell them how they are related after she has the child.
Mack's mother had a way to keep control of Mack, which is why Mack didn't begin to manifest her Infernal powers until after she died.
While it is unlikely that she had formal training in the Subtle Arts given Martha's opposition to it, we know that Laurel Anne was able to use them, and may have been using them to suppress Mackenzie's Demonic side.
Mackenzie was somehow involved in her mother's death.
The obvious possibility is that Mackenzie started a fire in their home when her powers began emerging, and that Laurel Anne had been caught in it. A more sinister possibility is that young Mack had had some sort of frenzy, and killed her while out of control. Either of these would be traumatic enough to explain why she doesn't remember what happened.
A potentially more tragic possibility is that Laurel Anne had died from trying to use the Subtle Arts on Mack, possible as in the WMG above. We know that Infernal minds can have horrible effects on mentalists, but it may be that, when Mack was younger, her 'corruption' was less prevalent, and Laurel Anne could use her powers on Mack safely. Or so she thought: because it was less obvious, the effects were less dramatic, slowly eating away at her mind until it destroyed her.
Martha Blaise blames herself for the death of Mack's mother
As seen in one flashback story set before Laurel's death, Martha was stodgy but affectionate towards her estranged daughter and downright grandmotherly towards Mack. Only after Laurel's death do we see her as an stoic hardass alienated from everyone else.
Perhaps Martha thinks she was too lenient and permissive towards Laurel and Mack, and that her "softness" lead to the death of her daughter and the orphaning of her granddaughter. That, coupled with the trauma of losing Laurel, might explain some of her hard-line craziness and much of her behavior since.
Mackenzie's father is an Incubus.
Assuming the the Strange Man in the 'As I Went By The River' stories is Mack's father, it would appear that he is more the corrupter type of demon rather the sort who rends humans indiscriminately. He most likely was feeding of of Laurel Anne's innocence as he was corrupting/seducing her, which certainly is more in line with the succubus/incubus legends than the other sorts of demons described so far. It would explain both Mackenzie's specific feeding needs, and her rather tumultuous sex life (affecting both her own behavior and that of those around her).
The series is in fact coded racist propaganda
The only non-human races who apparently don't want to eat/rape-and-enslave humans? Drow, who make no attempt at mass immigration and stay where they belong -hundreds of miles underground
Mermaids are secretly part demon
Think about it for a moment. Whenever Mackenzie's demon side is played up her eyes change, and the rest of her catches fire and is altered. Similarly, mermaids eyes turn completely black and their forms change. Additionally it has been stated that nearly all sentient races can breed true, and that whales, dolphins, and some types of fish are sentient. All it takes is a few fish and a few demons. This explains in a way their desire to eat human flesh as a necessity, as Feejee seems to have a hard time going long without it. I'd imagine this would have happened so long ago that it would have been nearly or completely forgotten(and wouldn't exactly be spread around).
Magic is secretly Magic from Technology
Way I see it, mechans are among the more accurately portrayed magical scientists(what that says about the genre is another topic entirely), factoring in the fact that no one knows where magic came from or can describe it in any terms that seem consistent I'd guess that, as the Arkanites believe gods are Sufficently Advanced creatures are at least type four.
Mack is 3/4 demon.
Her grandmother hates demons so much because she made a mistake and slept with/was raped by one of her targets. Her mother's powers consumed her, which was both why she died young and how she could control Mack. Mack's Super-Powered Evil Side is from her mother's flesh-rending, "grar rar" demon side, and the "nice" mack is a combination of her half-demon mother's human side, her incubus father's "sleep with me, I'm charming" blood, and her crazy grandmother messung her up.
Mack's grandmother isn;t as evil as the series makes her out to be.
Mack is shown to be an unreliable narrator, both in the series and in narrating the series. It's possible that her demon side sees hunters as Always Chaotic Evil, she was kept away from others on request of their parents after the Superpowered Evil Side drained some kid of a lethal volume of blood, and a lot of stuff Mac remembers is a twisted version of her simply trying to survive Mack's evil side getting loose. She did make sure to feed her all those years, even at the inconvenience of the other humans in their family, and in the flashback with the mask (the only flashback to that time period this troper recalls that had a different source of displeasure), she seemed genuinely caring even through Mack's narration. It's possible that she was merely borderline Lawful Stupid, or even partly Stupid Good looked at through demon-powered Unreliable Narration.
The La Belle family has significant amounts of sidhe ancestry.
Moeli was fairly certain that Cerridwen, as in the name of the settlement, was a Fae word. Of the three La Belle girls at MU:
Mother Khaele doesn't hate Mack at all...
...She's just dissatisfied with how Amaranth is handling her relationship with Mack. Amaranth is horribly arrogant at times, and she seems to believe now and then that she can get Mack to abandon all her inhibitions, which seems just a tad unlikely. Her recently increased commitment to working on their relationship may please the goddess.
Mother Khaele doesn't hate Mack at all...
...She just objects to Amaranth loving anyone most of all.
Mother Khaele has a plan
Both Amaranth and Barley have been wayward in her eyes, but both are still in touch with her and both have been told to avoid the other. She might have a purpose behind all of this happening.
Jamie's friends and Mack's friends are headed for a conflict
These groups have never crossed paths without some confrontation or quiet social hostility. Jamie mildly dislikes Steff and actively dislikes Mack without so much as their actually saying a single word to each other. As of the time of writing, Barley will be rooming next door to Jamie; he and Violet think she's a sweet, put-upon soul, not a would-be rapist who keeps trying to "reconcile" with Mack, whom in turn Jamie suspects of being a scheming villain of some sort.
Barley may well actively try to cause this conflict once her hurt feelings after her Veil night confrontation with Mack and Amaranth slip into anger and resentment.
Jamie and Mack will have one brief chat
After crossing each others' paths a number of more times, they will engage in small-talk for a few minutes, perhaps before their graduation ceremony.
Both will have very different impressions of the encounter.
Mack's father has marked her as a target
Mack's socially stunted and a half-demon, but damn, the girl picks up a lot of enemies who are fixated on killing her or possessing her in some way. Coach Callahan's efforts to get permission to kill her are remarkably obsessive considering her one POV scene involving Mack and how inconsequential she found her. On the other hand, if the Mack Daddy had marked her in some way that made her seem like a target to people, that could be part of a plan to make her defensive and isolated right at the time she's trying to integrate into society - thus making her more likely to turn to demonic society, or at least him.
Half-demon girls are just "naturally yummy"
Perhaps as part of some evolutionary/divine mechanism to keep demons from interbreeding too much with their food supply, two-legged predators find female half-demons irresistible. They don't survive contact with male half-demons, obviously curtailing the spread of demonic blood into human populations and vice versa.
This could certainly explain the mermaids and even Mercy. One wonders what Mack smells like to her demonic father...
The charm that lust demons have in affecting humans signifies deliciousness to other two-legged predators...
But while a full demon is both powerful enough to kill most predators, as well as both the body and spirit tasting disgusting to anything that doesn't prey on demons specifically, a half-succubus/incubus/lust demon/innocence feeder will simply "smell" like a slightly singed human virgin/maiden/youth, no matter their actual state. Many being-eating creatures in mythology have a preference for innocents of varying type, and an aura of virtue or innocence is more likely to seduce truly innocent beings than an aura of slutty-demon-ness.
Coach Callahan doesn't want to kill Mack
By all accounts, she views Mack as "a joke". Why would she spend so much effort writing letters to get permission to kill her off? She wants to kill Steff - and bring her back, since she has the funds. Why? She is a freaky little monkey, and she may not be all that wrong about Steff finding the experience entertaining. (However, once she sees the New and More Feminine Steff, she may lose interest.)
The "Weapons Policy" was introduced at MU at about the same time as Embries was hired, and for the same reason
Supporting points:
Coach Callahan came to MU hoping to get a chance to kill Mercy.
Callahan and Mercy have some history together, but in the flashbacks, it doesn't appear that Callahan had any kind of emotional attatchment to Mercy beyond being impressed by the gray elf's martial prowess. However, in her interview with Vice-Chancellor Embries, Callahan outright states that she enjoys the thrill of killing immortal beings, including elves. Although we don't know much about her background, Mercy is definitely immortal, and with her fighting ability, killing her would be a challenge, even for Callahan. Callahan may have chosen to work at the university in the hopes that sooner or later, Mercy would try to acquire a student in some way that was less than legal, giving Callahan an excuse to go after her in defense of her charges.
Most, if not all, violent "demon" attacks are carried out by half-demons.
IIRC, we have no reports so far of a full demon physically attacking someone. There are at least two instances of demonic possesion, and Mack's father seemed to be feeding off Laural Ann just by corrupting her, but all violent, physical attacks have been from half-demons - Mack, Mercy's Dogs, the unnamed student who destroyed a large part of the campus years before.
I propose that full demons can feed off of abstract qualities without physically harming the victim, but a half-demon's mortal heritage prevents her from directly feeding without some physical symbol of what she is consuming. Both Mack and Mack Daddy need to consume the innocence of others, but while Mack Daddy can get what he needs by intellectually and sexually seducing a young girl, Mack needs the physical symbol of virgin's blood.
Likewise, the offspring of a demon who saps strength might need to consume muscle tissue, or the child of a demon that feeds off of bravery might get what he needs by eating the hearts of his victims.
Half-Demons aren't as violent and corrupt as suggested.
Considering the recent depiction of Mack's half-brother, it could very well be that the violent, feral behavior of Mercy's half-demons is the result of living under the thumb of a vicious monster who uses rape and other abuse as training.
The cited cases of half-demons who commit violence, lead uprisings, etc. might well be balanced by an unknown number of half-demons keeping their heads down, safely feeding their hungers, and staying out of trouble.
The Mack Daddy was actually behind the "half-demon riot"
Someone who really sounds like Mack's father and appears to be cultivating female half-demons in the Blackwater region wants Samuel the part-demon out of his territory. Samuel doesn't seem like much of a rabble-rouser or to mean anyone harm.
The Mack Daddy stirred up riots in MU, perhaps by exposing Samuel or even framing him for something, and however the riots went down, it wasn't much like the historical record.
Mack's weakness to Kherstian and faith-based objects is (at least out of her Superpowered Evil Side) psychosomatic.
The reason Kherstian symbols, objects, and prayers harm her more than the others is not because Khersis is particularly strong or has a lot of worshippers, but rather because she was raised in a society of prominently Kherstian faith. When someone starts praying in fear, or waving around an un-blessed holy symbol, it triggers a reflex to stop messing with the mortals before someone gets hurt. Full demons actually do have to deal with the gods themselves, and other half-demons (if they've been shown in-story at all to be harmed by faith and the symbols thereof, rather than straight divine magic) are harmed because they messed with the natural order of things, and killed too many beings under the protection of a more powerful demi- or full-deity. If divine magic is present every time other half-demons were harmed, then this theory holds for Mack's Super-Powered Evil Side as well. It would explain why Mack felt sick around (Dee?)'s Flat Earth Solipsist symbol but not the Mechan stuff (since she considered the former a "true but lesser" faith and the latter a bunch of kids playing around at being the universe's equivalent of Ninja Storm Power Rangers).
One of Mercy's clients is hiding, or is a demonblood
Think about it. Demons need part of a human every month or so, and Einwich has a source of humans that can be bought, cooked, prepared to unrecognizability, and delivered. To a half demon who knows how to lay low(move silently without telling the government, don't attract media attention. Essentially everything Mack ISN'T doing) this is more or less a dream come true in enough food without hassle any time you want if you have cash. Mercy's "research" seems to amount to looking for known demonbloods, and then not very hard if she's lived in the MU area when all these half and quarter demons attended and she didn't scoop at least a few up.
Dee’s occasionally mentioned older brother
We are told multiple times that Dee had an elder brother who died before she was born, an event which has left her mother deeply depressed and longing for a son. What if her brother is only symbolically dead (as in ‘dead to me’) rather than literally dead and in fact ran away to the surface in the manner of Forgotten Realms’s Drizzt. Part of the reason Dee’s been sent on her own surface path would be to find him. Of course, given that this is Tales of MU, the whole run away Drow cliché would be turned on its head.
Callahan is a Death Seeker
Her greatest fear is living forever. One reason for her omnicidal mass-murdering tendencies is that she finds pleasure in ending immortal life. Another one may be an urge to die in battle - but she has not yet found a being in the world who could defeat her.
She might be teaching combat classes simply to groom students as possible worthy opponents - and particularly Mack.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org.
Privacy Policy
0