#mailbag episode

Shannon’s answer:

Softy or not, I think Calla is accurate here. Ronan is a snake, not in that he’s untrustworthy, but in that he’s dangerous. He’s hurting, and in his pain, he lashes out and hurts people around him. He is very often described in ways that make him feel constantly coiled and ready to strike. Plus, like you said, there’s the fact that he’s the Greywaren. I can see a lot of things that Calla could have seen when she touched him that would cause her to react like she did. Her psychometry doesn’t see EVERYTHING about what she touches, remember, and there’s a lot that Ronan is hiding even from himself at this point.

Nievita’s answer:

“Ronan Lynch’s stare was a snake on the sidewalk where you wanted to walk. It was a match left on your pillow. It was pressing your lips together and tasting your own blood.” (Adam’s POV in TRK)

Calla is not the only one who refers to Ronan as a snake. Throughout the books he’s described with snake or viper imagery, even in the POV of people who don’t know him–like with the Gray Man in Chap. 25 of TDT: “This was not a rattlesnake hidden in the grass, but a deadly coral snake striped with warning colors.” Or in Blue’s POV in Chap 1 of BLLB: “Ronan looked as pleased as a pit viper ever could.”

There’s also the possibility that Ronan thinks of himself with snake imagery, and that’s what Calla is picking up on. I’d love to explore the imagery of Catholicism and snakes… with just a brief search Wikipedia said this: ‘(The Hebrew word) for “snake” is also associated with divination, including the verb form meaning “to practice divination or fortune-telling”.’ I find this really interesting because I see a lot of parallels between Calla and Ronan in their demeanor and attitude.

Symbolism of Serpents in the Bible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpents_in_the_Bible

Thank you so much for this ask, Anon! If you’re still floating around our page and you haven’t listened yet, your question was answered with a few more details in our most recent Mailbag Episode: http://ravingirls.tumblr.com/post/179170046519/ravin-girls-mailbag-ep1-crapalanche-were-back

As Shannon said:

By the time you hear this, yes! In fact, it’s past August and is now well into the best month of the year! OCTOBER!!!

So as you all know, we had a… one might dare to say… crapalanche of stuff happen throughout August and into September. But we are back! ……slowly back, that is. We’ve released a Mailbag Episode (http://ravingirls.tumblr.com/post/179170046519/ravin-girls-mailbag-ep1-crapalanche-were-back) to answer questions that Lovely Listeners  have sent us over the last few months. We’ve also put in a bunch of bloopers and outtakes, for those who like to hear all the laughing and BS (granted, it’s 98% me trying to make Shannon laugh) that gets cut from the episodes.

I’ll be posting all the Mailbag answers online over the next week or two. And our next episode will also be a Special Episode… I finally got Shannon to read The Scorpio Races! So if you have friends that love that book but haven’t given the podcast a try, please point them our direction on November 1st.

💜

took a break from posting for a couple months, which was probably the right choice. touching grass is good for a deer

But i don't think even for one second that he would actually do it. If he was there, and the trolley was hurdling towards the five people and he had to make an actual choice now, there is no way he actually sacrifices John. Absolutely no way.

Even if he really really wants to save those 5 other people. And I'm skipping over the "he would be clever enough to stop the trolley with no harm to anyone/ get the people out of the way" thing because that's not the point of the trolley problem, for the sake of the experiment both those things are imposible.

Nievita’s answer:

We were pretty tough on Gansey at the end of the Raven Boys… I do hope nobody thought it was because we didn’t like him, because he’s my precious anxiety floof! I think one of my favorite scenes in the Dream Thieves deals with this exact issue (the one where Adam and Gansey are fighting in the hallway of the Gansey mansion, and the lights go out and they hear the eerie voices.) The two of them are rehashing their fight over Cabeswater, with what could have been very disastrous consequences.

I really love these characters because they do, in fact, make mistakes and grow and change and become better people. So eventually we can forgive Gansey a little for his reaction to Adam’s decision in Cabeswater, even as we blamed him before for commanding Adam to do it.

Shannon’s answer:

Yes, Absolutely. Gansey doesn’t realize he’s doing it (and may not technically be, but it can be read as such) but he compels (even if not magically) Adam to do what he does. There are tooons of places where Gansey is just a complete jerk to Adam, and we’ve talked about a lot of them already. And I am sure you’re right, and we will talk about more.

Thank you so much for this ask, Anon! If you’re still floating around our page and you haven’t listened yet, your question was answered with a few more details in our most recent Mailbag Episode: http://ravingirls.tumblr.com/post/179170046519/ravin-girls-mailbag-ep1-crapalanche-were-back

Shannon’s answer:

That’s a good thought! Ya know, as much as we like to joke about Henrietta being the town of no object permanence, my partner, who went to boarding school, insists that it is possible for faculty and students to be completely unaware of each other. “I couldn’t tell you the name of our school secretary,” they have commented. So, yeah, who knows!

Nievita’s answer:

I totally get that some people think that it’s possible that Calla would not recognize Gansey’s name if she doesn’t work directly with students. Maggie has said that an equivalent school to Aglionby is one named “Woodberry Forest School”–the student body of that school is less than 400 students, total, and the student to teacher ratio is 6:1. I went to a school slightly smaller than that (though with a much higher student:teacher ratio), and I can tell you without  doubt that there wasn’t a single staff person who didn’t know our names at least when they were mentioned.

And since Gansey’s name is on the death list? His last name? And for Ronan to walk in, and for someone from Aglionby to not know that he’s failing out of school? Not know Declan or Matthew, who do live in the dorms? I dunno, it seems highly implausible to me, but I recognize this is a hill I’m likely to die on alone. XD

(Also, it cracks me up that the nickname of Woodberry is “The Tigers”. I don’t think the reference was on purpose, but you never know.)

More trivia: the tuition for Woodberry Forest School for the 18/19 school year is $57,250, which includes room and board. Adam wouldn’t need room and board, but he definitely would be sinking most of his paycheck into tuition. I think I mistakenly said he made $17K at the trailer factory in the Mailbag Episode; the real number is $18,423

Maggie mentions the Woodberry Forest School: http://maggie-stiefvater.tumblr.com/post/147106519251/hi-maggie-unreasonably-soon-im-starting-a-three Woodberry Forest School tuition: https://www.woodberry.org/page/admission/tuition–tuition-assistance

Thank you so much for your question, @santimp3! We apologize for the delay in answering, but the Mailbag Episode turned out to be a fun way to do it! If you haven’t listened yet, your question was answered with a bit more discussion here: http://ravingirls.tumblr.com/post/179170046519/ravin-girls-mailbag-ep1-crapalanche-were-back

Shannon’s answer:

Gwenllian, I think, if I had to pick one. She has Blue’s power and heritage but no direction and no support structure. It’s not the same kind of foil as the others, but it’s about as close as Blue gets.

Nievita’s answer:

In an interview Maggie did with Kirkus about the Scorpio Races (which I found in the research for our for next episode!) she said, “I love to play with parallels in my books, and one of my favorite things to do is to parallel a teen character with an adult character.”

I definitely see Adam in the Gray Man, with the abuse and violence and the trajectory of his healing through love, and we will definitely get deeper into that. I can also see Whelk as a parallel for Adam, with his WANTING of things, but Barrington never wanted to work for what he had, and as we all know Adam is nothing but work: as a paraphrase of something Maggie said that I couldn’t find the exact quote on, “…(W)ork is the shore that Adam swims to,” or something like that. But Barrington is very much that spoiled rich kid searching for power/wishes(/Glendower) that Gansey could have been, for sure. 

There’s also something to be said for Adam and Kavinsky being foils, in that they were also both victimized/abused by their parents yet dealt with it in very different ways (oh yes, this will also be a topic of conversation in TDT.)

For Blue, I would say Gwenllian, yeah. I don’t think she has the thirst for recognition that Neeve does, or the thirst for power/entertainment that Piper does. When she connects, she connects with Gwenllian, even down to the story that Gwenllian tells about stabbing her father’s advisor, then Blue questioning if she herself could stab someone, then later stabbing someone (in the cave to save the Gray Man/her parents.) Even the whacked out weirdness of Gwenllian seems to mirror (no pun intended) Blue’s contrived weirdness. I can definitely see Blue being Gwenllian if she was locked in a cave for (400??) years.

An interview with Maggie at Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/scorpio-races-maggie-stiefvater/

Thank you so much, @dantiloquent! If you haven’t listened yet, your question was answered with a bit more discussion in our most recent Mailbag Episode: http://ravingirls.tumblr.com/post/179170046519/ravin-girls-mailbag-ep1-crapalanche-were-back