WMG / The Lunar Chronicles

Iko is Queen Channary

• Her mind survived and was put in Iko.
  • It's hinted that Iko is not a normal android. Dare I say, of the Ridiculously Human Robots variety? Maybe there is a reason for that...especially since she is said to have come with that personality, rather than being warped to it.
  • She is Cinder's Fairy Godmother. In many variants, such as the Chinese "Beauty and Pock-Face," Cinderella's helper is her dead mother reincarnated as (or transformed into) an animal. Becoming Iko would be a perfect way to translate that to a science-fiction setting.
  • I really really like this theory, but there's one problem: Their personalities are completely opposite to each other. Channary was said to be as cruel as Levana.
    • They have one thing in common. Iko loves beauty and clothing. Channary must certainly share this mentality, since she had one of her maid's legs removed so she could make her more ballgowns.
    • Iko also likes boys. Channary surely liked boys...since we have no idea who Cinder's father is.
    • While "Fairest" is probably going to make me a liar, it is possible that Channary's reputation is nothing more than Levana's propaganda. Alternatively, Channary may have become cruel from the experiences of her life (i.e. the loss of her parents, having to become a mother to her sister, becoming queen at such a young age), "Iko" may be ignorant of her past, and be Channary's true self.
    • In Fairest, Channary really is cruel just for the sake of it. She makes her baby sister light herself on fire using her Lunar gift, forces her to give a speech at their parent's funeral so she can run off with a palace guard for a while and generally bullies, emotionally abuses and mocks Levana. It does turn out that Selene slept in her room during infancy, rather than in the nursery or with her wet nurse, which isn't common for women of any high status. Levana is certainly surprised.
• Jossed.

Dr. Erland's daughter is alive and is Cress

His daughter was named Crescent Moon, and Cress sounds like it could be a nickname for her. The first draft of Cress' book, which can be found on Alicia Blade's website, features Sybil calling Cress, "Crescent."

• Crescent Moon and Cress were/are both shells.
• Dr. Erland and Cress also have blue eyes.
• Added to this, Cress is an Expy of Rapunzel, whose mother sold her to a witch. Crescent Moon's mother sold her as well.
• Crescent Moon would have been Cinder's age. Cress is said to be Cinder's age.

• Confirmed.

Sybil is Dr. Erland's wife

• Whether this makes her a possible mother or stepmother to Cress is also up for debate.
  • Jossed.

Scarlet's Grandmother is the woman who housed Selene.

• It could explain why she went missing...
  • Confirmed.

Prince Kai will serve as the Prince for "Cress" and "Winter"

• This might be Jossed by Word of God claiming that there will be no love triangles.
  • Please, please, please let it be Jossed.
  • Jossed for Cress since the description of her love interest does not fit into Prince Kai's character.
  • Could still fit for the "rescues the damsel" part of it without the romance. He is an emperor, he has resources, and if he somehow figures out that Cinder is Selene, he may provide assistance with the rescue. It seems likely that if he helps at all, it won't be until Winter.
  • Jossed, at least for the Cress part. Cress and Thorne are almost an Official Couple by the end of Cress, and Cinder literally just tells Kai that she's Princess Selene. He thought Scarlet or Cress was Selene, but nope, it's Cinder.
  • Possibly jossed for Winter as well. She is apparently in love with Jacin, who coaxes her through her episodes.
    • Definitely Jossed. Jacin is the prince to Winter, and he kisses her awake in the final book.

Princess Winter is evil, or at least an Ice Queen

• It would serve as an awesome pun, and would explain why Levana keeps her around.
  • Alternatively, Winter is pretending to be an evil Ice Queen because she knows that Levana will kill her if she acts any differently than other Lunars. Confirmed as of Cress: She protects Levana's prisoners under the guise of keeping them as "pets".
    • Sort of confirmed on the second part. But not evil, so that's Jossed.

Wolf will be a bio-prototype to Levana's wolf-like monsters

• I mean the name and the description kind of match. Also, it could lead to more connections between Lunars and Earth-dwellers. The reason he is a street fighter might stem from his violent programming. Maybe.
  • Confirmed, sort of. Wolf isn't a prototype; he's actually the Alpha of one of the "packs".
  • Actually, completely confirmed. He's from the early generations of the wolf soldier project. Unlike the latest wolf packs, he's still normal-looking enough to pass for human/ Lunar. His generation is great for espionage and surprise attacks, while the latter is only good for an all-out invasion.
    • Confirmed. It gets even worse in "Winter" because Wolf undergoes more surgery at the will of Levana. She turns him into a man-wolf. More wolf than man.

Thorne will be Cress' Love Interest.

• So far there's zero indication that there is any attraction between him and Cinder, and Word of God has stated that there will be no love triangles^note Thank you, Ms. Meyer, thank you. He's already on board with Cinder and co., Scarlet and Wolf are a couple, and Cress is next in line for a book.
  • His name would be appropriate, considering the source material.
  • Also, his ship is a Rampion class. In some versions of the Rapunzel story, Rapunzel's parents steal a rampion plant from the witch's garden.
  • The chances of this are getting higher as Marissa Meyer recently said at a Q&A on her UK Book Tour that Thorne would be playing a bigger role in the next book and that Cress' love interest was similar to Flynn Rider, from the Disney adaptation of Rapunzel, Tangled..
    • Thief, check. Attractive, check. Self-proclaimed criminal mastermind, check. Acts shallow and is a bit of an idiot, check. Flirts with everything that moves, check. Uses a pseudonym that sounds more impressive to the ladies, check. The main difference between them so far is that Thorne is more obviously a good guy from the beginning and we haven't seen him trying to screw over or manipulate anybody. Then again, the circumstances in which Thorne meets his travelling companions are rather different from Flynn/Eugene. Also, despite all the crazy revelations he's been witness to, he has yet to freak out.
  • Confirmed.

If the above turns out to be true, Thorne will not be coming out of the next book unscathed.

• Sybil's a Lunar, a very mean one (add in the fact that she's representing the witch from Rapunzel). So even if Cress can resist Sybil's Lunar gift because she's a Shell, Thorne cannot. And in Sybil's mind, what could be a better way to punish the girl than by making her Love Interest physically harm himself?
  • And if she does, then it will be an Eye Scream. However, since there's no magical healing that we know of, unless the author decides to blind him permanently, it will likely be just one eye. And then Thorne will have an Eyepatch of Power.
    • Or cyborg eyes.
• Partly confirmed. He does go blind and it is Sybil's fault, but indirectly, as she's the one who causes the satellite to crash, leaving him brain-damaged.

The real reason that Cinder and Thorne are able to enter and leave Earth's atmosphere undetected is because Cress is helping them out.

• Cress is a genius hacker and is cooped up in a satellite. She's probably been keeping track of Cinder and the manhunt to find her as soon as she heard she escaped. When she found their ship, she kept it hidden from Lunar and Earthen forces, and has been desperately waiting for them to make contact with her.
  • The reason she did this is because Cinder has her D-COMM chip, and thus her only way to communicate with anybody, and her only chance to escape. Though considering what we can see of her state of mind when we first meet her, she probably doesn't have much hope of ever escaping. It's technically possible, but highly unlikely, that she knows that Cinder is Selene. It depends on the intel she's been trusted with/ stumbled across.
  • Confirmed

Levana does not know about Cress, and assumes Sybil is getting all that intel and spyware on her own.

• Sybil has Cress cooped up in a satellite, hidden from Earthens and Lunars alike. She may have kept Cress around at first as a servant or something (depends on how old she was when Sybil got her), but once she realized that Cress was good with computer systems, she decided to use her. Sybil probably takes all the credit for the work Cress does in order to curry favor with Levana.
  • Works especially well if Cress is a shell. Not only would Levana kill Sybil if she found out she was keeping a shell alive, Sybil would never admit to needing a shell's help out of simple pride.
  • Jossed. Levana even knew she was Erland's daughter!

Cress's hair is so long because she's not allowed near sharp objects as a precaution against suicide attempts.

• The poor girl's life is miserable enough to warrant an attempt. She may have tried once already, or Sybil could have taken them away at the start, just in case.
• It may just be part of the abuse she's put through — the kid doesn't even have dresses that fit or regular showers.

Levana created the plague to weaken the Earthen governments.

• The existence of the plague is certainly advantageous to her, and she's evil enough to do it. In the first book we learn that the plague was brought to Earth by escaping Lunars, who were unaffected by it but acted as carriers. It's also mentioned how insanely difficult it is for Lunars to get off the moon. Levana could have let a select few whom she deemed harmless escape, after infecting them with her invented disease. But it's more likely that she just infected the lower echelons of her kingdom, those who would never have any government-sanctioned reason to interact with Earthens. That way, she and her ambassadors could interact with Earthens normally, but common runaways would infect the humans they interacted with.
  • It's likely that, by now, many Lunars are no longer carriers, but are immune like Cinder, thanks to natural antibodies and the like.
• Confirmed. Worse yet, she was using shell children as guinea pigs and collecting their blood for the antidote.

By the end of the series, Levana will infect Kai with the plague.

• Again, she's evil enough to do it. And after his father (and I think his mother too?) died of the plague, she'd find it fitting. Hell, she might infect his entire royal court, once she replaces the infrastructure with loyal Lunar minions.
  • And naturally, it will be up to Cinder to save the day. Winter will probably help with it too.
  • At least she'll plan to, she probably wouldn't do it before their wedding, which is a month away as of the end of Scarlet.
• Jossed.

Cinder will discover/distribute the cure for the plague.

• What with being a commoner, a cyborg, a Lunar, and a fugitive, she'll need all the positive PR she can get, even if all she wants to do is reclaim her throne and sign the peace treaty on behalf of Luna. But if she's ever going to be able to have her Happily Ever After with Kai, she'll need something big like this to get anyone's support or approval.
  • Plus we know that the cure requires ingredients only found on the moon, and that the last book, Winter, will take place there. Plus in the next book, Cress, she's going to meet up with Dr. Erland, and he can tell her exactly what moon-specific ingredient the cure needs so she can at least bring that back.
    • The cure is made with the blood of Shells.

Lunars did not evolve their bioelectric talent, it was genetically engineered.

• Earth has torn itself apart in two world wars, while the Lunar colony watched. They may very well have decided that basing their society on mass mind control was the only way to avoid such horrors. It probably took generations of genetic experiments and alterations to perfect, hence why it appears to be an evolved trait.
  • Shells may have even been purposefully designed as a safeguard against tyranny through mind control. We have no idea how common they are, but perhaps there are (or were meant to be) enough around to mount some kind of resistance. Killing off the existing shells would also reduce the number being born.
    • It's probably more likely that, even if Lunar "magic" was intentionally designed, shells were an accident. They might not have shown up for several generations after the alterations went into full effect.
  • If it was designed, that fact is hidden from not only Earthens (it's scarier if it's "natural"), but the general Lunar populace, since Dr. Erland didn't mention it, and likely would have if he knew. Maybe Levana doesn't even know, though Channary might have, being the rightful ruler and all. Either way, I think the knowledge of how to create the talent has been lost, if for no other reason than Lunars not wanting Earthens to have any way of developing it for themselves.
  • The snag in this theory is, why does every Lunar have the gift, and not just the royal family?
    • Word of God actually explained that the royal family originally were the only Lunars to have powers, until they then proceeded to have affairs with the lesser people...let's just say everyone is related.
    • Maybe it's a hierarchy. The queen controls the government, the government controls the adult citizens, and those adults control their children. Because family structure is the bedrock of any society, right? Plus the queen's powerful enough to occasionally control the populace directly, but not always. With this hierarchy, mind-control becomes an acceptable, natural part of daily life. That's why there can be the occasional free-thinking dissenter, but no overall rebellion.

The reason why Lunars like Levana, Channary and Dr. Erland

are so insane is because of all the inbreeding.According to the official website, all Lunars descended from just one man and, therefore, are related - and very closely related, at that, because the Moon is much smaller than the Earth and can only host so many people. No wonder Levana wants to marry an Earthen - you have to diversify the gene pool somehow.

The other wedding ring Levana wears is from Winter's deceased father

.

• Most likely true, as she was hopelessly in love with him and even regretted killing him.

Cinder will give Winter the throne.

• Well, she doesn't really "want" the throne, just to get rid of Levana. Besides, they are cousins, were once very close, Winter knows more about being a princess and about Lunar, is genuinely kind and not a fan of torturing people. Nothing like her stepmother.
  • Jossed. At the end of "Winter", Cinder plans to make Luna a democracy instead of a monarchy.