Part 1 – Plot questions
Part 2 – Character questions
Part 3 – Gotham questions
Part 4 – Pelletier questions
Part 5 – World questions
Part 6 – Gripes
Pelletier questions
Before we get to the meaty stuff, I just have to know: which Earth’s future are the Pelletiers from—our world’s or the alt-world’s?
The Pelletiers are the distant descendants of the Gothams, so they’re 100% a product of the alt-world. Like everything else in that crazy timeline, their origins can be traced all the way back to the Cataclysm of 1912.
Okay, so now we know that the Pelletiers want the orphans and Gothams to make babies together. Why go through all those crazy manipulations? Just lock them in a building and make them all breed with each other!
The original plan, as Semerjean explained to Mia, was to bring the Silvers and Gothams together in Terra Vista (remember Sterling Quint’s facility from The Flight of the Silvers?) and convince them to mate for the greater good.
But then Rebel attacked, and those plans went out the window. The new goal was to get the Silvers to the underland and have them breed with Gothams there.
Surely there are easier ways to make a mutant hybrid baby. I do it all the time.
There are definitely simpler ways, but that doesn’t mean they’re more effective. The Pelletiers looked to the future and saw the path that was most likely to bring them success. Now they’re following it as best they can.
Okay, but why would they choose people like Heath, who aren’t likely to mate with anyone?
Only the Silvers were chosen to conceive babies the natural way. The Pelletiers took a more scientific approach to the other groups. Some were artificially inseminated. Some were genetically reengineered. And some, like the Golds, were simply living DNA donors for clone-like experiments. They didn’t need subjects who were likely to breed.
If the Golds are the clone group, does that mean the Pelletiers have multiple copies of Jonathan, Heath, and Zack’s brother?
Mmmmmmmmmaybe.
So then Jonathan’s coming back in The War of the Givens.
It’s certainly a possibility, but I wouldn’t expect Version 2.0 to be anything like the original. He’d be a Pelletier product through and through, which means he wouldn’t be very nice.
What’s the deal with the Pelletier mirror room? Why don’t they just kill the Silvers who annoy them, like Evan and Zack?
Because they’ve seen the future and know that both men still have the potential to be useful to them. Zack could still to make a baby with Mercy Lee, which would be damn nice for the Pelletiers.
As for Evan? Azral and Esis have a very unique relationship with him. You’ll learn more about that in The War of the Givens.
Toward the end of the aerstraunt battle, Amanda forced the Pelletiers to heal Zack by pressing a gun to her head. Why did that work? Azral could have easily jammed the pistol. Esis could have teleported it into the sun.
Again, the Pelletiers can see things that other people can’t. The moment Amanda made her suicide threat, they looked to the strings and realized that she’d be absolutely useless to them if they let Zack die. And since Amanda is one of their best hopes for success, they had no choice but to comply.
Okay. Let’s talk about Semerjean.
Oh boy.
Why go through all this trouble to insert himself among the Silvers? Surely there are easier, less frustrating ways to manipulate them.
Semerjean’s reasons for becoming David are two-fold. First, he knows how important the Silvers are. Of all ten groups, they’re the ones who offer the highest probability of success. So if they required a little more handholding, it was worth the effort.
The second reason, which Semerjean is much less likely to admit, is that he felt useless. He’s not a scientist like Azral and Esis. He’s just a famous stage performer with little to do but twiddle his thumbs. So in order to be more helpful, he decided to put his formidable acting talents to work. On some dark level, he thought it’d be fun.
Why did Semerjean start a one-sided relationship with Yvonne? How did that help the effort?
He was trying to get Mia to move on from him, and hoped that his new love affair would push her toward Liam Pendergen. Unfortunately, Mia confounded his expectations by falling for another girl.
Still, Semerjean was able to use his cloying relationship with Yvonne to annoy the hell out of Amanda, which forced her to leave the house and spend more time with Peter. If it wasn’t for “David,” Amanda and Peter might have never hooked up.
If the Silvers had a Pelletier among them all this time, how did they get into so many life-threatening jams? Semerjean could have made their travels so much easier.
He did, actually. There are at least half a dozen instances in The Flight of the Silvers where Semerjean discreetly saved the life of one of his companions. And he kept on doing it in The Song of the Orphans, even after the jig was up.
Still, as he admitted to Mia, his foresight is all but gone these days. He can still be blindsided by the sudden moves of his enemies, which is why Gemma Sunder nearly killed him with a poison cherry.
If I go back and read The Flight of the Silvers now, how many hints and clues will I find about David’s true nature?
Lots. Every one of David’s scenes, every line of his dialogue, was written with Semerjean in mind. Even those rare few times I got inside David’s head, I was actually expressing Semerjean’s thoughts.
A friend of mine recently re-read The Flight of the Silvers after learning the big twist. She said it was a whole different experience, like reading the book under a blacklight. I love that.
Why did Esis suddenly change her mind about killing Zack at the end of Book 2?
There’s no “suddenly” about it. After Rebel exploded on Semerjean and Esis, they blinked away for five weeks and change. During that time, they did a lot of soul-searching and re-strategizing. By the end of their getaway, even Esis could see the wisdom of Semerjean’s plan: a bold new offer that Zack couldn’t refuse.
Okay, so all three Pelletiers are suffering from terminus. It’s robbed Semerjean of his foresight and made Azral weak with tempis. How is the disease affecting Esis?
You might have noticed she’s a little bit nutty. She wasn’t always that way. Terminus degrades the mind in numerous different ways. Some people lose their powers, bit by bit. Others lose their sanity.
The Pelletiers made a startling offer to the Silvers and Gothams at the end of the book. Are they really prepared to bring 1,000 people back to their timeline, or is it all just a ruse?
That’s a question many, many characters will be asking in Book 3. The answer is coming. That’s for damn sure.
What else can we expect from the Pelletiers in The War of the Givens?
Trouble, and lots of it. They’re through dicking around with the Silvers, and they’re done saving lives. In Book 3, the Pelletier motto is “help us or die.”
But our heroes will be stronger than ever in the next book, and they’ll have much better grasp on the Pelletiers’ strengths and weaknesses. By the time they reach the inevitable final battle, the Silvers will have more than a few surprises up their sleeves.
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Plot questions | Character questions | Gotham questions | Pelletier questions | World questions | Gripes
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