Spoilers are unmarked.
- Carol Dallon triggered after being kidnapped along with her sister when she was about to be executed by one of their captors, to which she had a case of Stockholm Syndrome for, and felt betrayed by. This is tragically echoed in the way that, as revealed in Shadow 5.10, Victoria had the forced attraction to Amy still in her head for her entire stay at the asylum, and felt similarly betrayed by it.
- Every scene with Kenzie takes on a new significance when she reveals to Victoria that she smiles only when she's stressed or upset by the situation, because to her smiling seems to help make bad situations go better. If you go back and read earlier chapters, whole scenes turn from cute to heartbreaking because you know that poor Kenzie is suffering inside. Note this also makes scenes where she has a neutral or frowning expression more heartwarming, but there's no category for "fridge heartwarming".
- So much of Chris' odd behavior makes perfect sense after the reveal of his true identity, as a clone of Lab Rat, with Lab Rat's implanted memories, who is using his Tinker powers to create formulas that transform him into various useful forms informed by "tinker scanning" other parahumans he meets. Why does he get so angry when Victoria tries to check on him at the orphanage? It might give away the secret. Why does he run from Spright when Spright wants to borrow his power? Spright might realize that he's a tinker, not a changer. Why does he carry around a super-advanced medical kit everwhere? He initially explains it's because his various forms sometimes leave him partially changed and damaged when he returns to normal. That's somewhat true, but it's also because it's his tinker toolkit and the real way he uses his power. Why does he sometimes act super intelligent, insightful, and mature, but sometimes like an edgy teenager? Because he has most of the memories of a 35 year old man, in the hormonal body of a 15 year old boy, that is actually only 2 years old due to growth acceleration. It makes sense his behavior would be different than normal.
- It's finally explained in 12.all what's really controlling Victoria's forcefield, the "Wretch". It's her shard, but it's severely limited in power and knowledge and thus can't revert her power back to the skintight field it used to be, and it has a hard time controlling the forcefield itself. The shard however does actually want to help Victoria and seems to really like her in general. So all those moments where the wretch would appear to be doing what Vicky wanted, but then did something bad, or when it would seem to make its own decisions before Victoria was consciously aware she wanted or needed to do something? That's her shard trying to help her as much as it can but just being terrible at it, as it's metaphorically driving a car with no steering wheels using only a screwdriver and a pair of pliers.
- Why does Etna own a car despite being capable of flight like Victoria? Since she doesn't have the Required Secondary Powers to avoid vertigo in flight, a car is more comfortable for long distance travel.
- The reveal that there are capes capable of genuinely hurting Endbringers was foreshadowed as far back as Worm, but with the Simurgh at the helm, they would simply avoid those capes and attack targets where said capes couldn’t easily reach. The Simurgh's defeat is ultimately brought about by Titan Fortuna and Dinah, whose abilities interfere with her precognition and hid Rain and Sleeper from her sight.
