maesramblings - Tumblr blog

[maesramblings]

Was anybody going to tell me that Shannon is turning 40 this year or was I supposed to figure that out through her Ella Vlog...

This video is from June 2, 2010 and Shannon states more than once that she’s 28 years old and that Ella is 24 years old. Making her at least 39 this year (and Ella 35).

Dude, I’m 21, and if I do my math correctly that would mean she graduated high school before I was born. And I’m pretty much an Elder in the KOTLC fandom.

Also SHE HASN’T AGED AT ALL?? She even still sounds the same, too!! Shannon, please give me your skin care routine, it is for science.

[maesramblings]

Mini Analysis: Youth In A Bottle

Another object that isn’t mentioned as much: Youth in a Bottle.

“He placed a large, clear bottle in front of her. “All of us drink one of these everyday, but I want you to drink two for a while, to make up for lost time.”

“Youth in a Bottle,” she read from the label. “Like the fountain of youth?”

“i suppose that is where those legends come from.” he agreed. “It has a few enzymes that are essentials for our health.”

The water was cold and slightly sweet, and somehow more refreshing that what she’d tasted before. She downed the contents in one gulp and handed the empty bottle bottle. he gave her another, and she drank it just as fast.” (Book 1, chapter 14, page 120).

A quick reference to something that we have have heard of as children, the fountain of youth, seems to be in connection to Youth in a Bottle. The fountain of youth is rumored to be located in Florida, which is pretty funny considering the love Shannon has for Disney and Disney World being located in Florida.

Elwin does state that the elves drink Youth in a Bottle at least once a day, but it’s not mentioned very often. I guess elves may bring them with them throughout the day, kinda of like a water bottle, but this is never explicitly stated in the book.

Quick questions: Has it been mentioned anytime else besides in Book One?

Also: What if this is the reason why elves live so long and seemingly have an indefinite lifespan? What would happen if a human drank it?

[maesramblings]

Mini Analysis: Pathfinders

What is a pathfinder? 

Well, the description of a pathfinder can be found in Chapter 3, page 18!

“She folded her arms as he pulled out a slender silver wand with intricate carvings etched into the sides. At the tip, a small, round crystal sparkled in the sunlight.

“Is that your magic wand?” she couldn’t resist asking.

He rolled his eyes. “Actually, it’s a pathfinder.” He spun the crystal and locked it into place with the silver latch at the top.” (Book 1, Chapter 3, page 18).

What does a pathfinder do? A few pages later, Fitz explains!

“He held the pathfinder up to the sun casting a ray of light onto his hand. “Light leaping. We hitched a ride on a beam of light that was headed straight here.” Book 1, Chapter 3, page 22).

It’s defiantly an interesting object. Unlike the typical “wand” that we may be used to, a pathfinder seems to have one main function: Light leaping. What seems to make it a pathfinder is the fact that it is some sort of stick that you attach to a crystal (the object that actually light leaps). As we know crystals are essential for Sophie and the gang, so the idea of having multiple ways of it being used a defiantly something cool!

Fitz is actually holding it in the picture below! It’s a lot smaller than I though it would be!

What do you guys think of pathfinders? I’m surprised that they’re not mentioned that much in the series, but alas, they are simply crystals on a stick.

[maesramblings]

Analysis: What Year Does KOTLC Take Place In?

I think this would be interesting topic to take a look at considering the possibilities that there can be. 

Here are a few possible theories: 

2002/3

Wait, why so early? Well, I googled Shannon’s age and apparently she was born in 1990/1! It’s pretty common for authors to simply pick the year that they were born in to serve as inspiration while writing. When Shannon’s writing her characters, she’s going to reconnect with her childhood/pre-teen self in order to make the characters more authentic.

(Sources for Shannon’s possible birth year and date. I just googled her age/birthday and this is what popped up. There’s no source for the first screenshot and the second screenshot links to a sketchy website, so I’ll refrain from clicking. Also Wikipedia says she was born in 1981, so really who knows Shannon’s age?)

But alas, let me take you back to the very first chapter of the book: “Then perhaps you can explain why you were listening to your iPod instead of listening along?” (Book One, Chapter One, Page 4).

The key word there is “iPod”. And when were those invented?

They were invented just in time for this lineup of KOTLC! I don’t where I was going with this, I just thought that iPods weren’t invented until 2007 lol. But, upon further research, the first iPods didn’t really start being sold to the general public until 2002. Furthermore, check out this graph on statistica on the sale of iPods:

(Source)

This kinda rules out 2002/3. Kinda, because they were a thing at that time, but not everyone had them. Most people in the early few years of iPods were probably rich, and even though I’m not entirely sure on what income level Sophie’s human parents were at, they give off middle class vibes.

What are some other years?

2008

Why this year? Well, this was the year when Shannon Began writing the series!

Directly from her website: “I was in the middle of working on one project when I had THE BIG IDEA. The scary, much-more-complicated-than-I’d-ever-planned-to-write story that told me I AM THE ONE! (in case you can’t tell, I’m talking about the story that became Keeper of the Lost Cities.) That happened way back in 2008. I spent the next year doing the world building for the Lost Cities, and another two years after that writing the book and revising it (and then revising it some more—and more after that. The published version of the book is actually draft 20!) (yes, really). And after all that hard work, I was so excited when an editor at Simon & Schuster offered to buy it.“

Referring to the graph, this was the peak time for iPods.

Let’s also take a look at something else: The clothes of the characters. An easy way to tell what time period something may be set in (or what location) is how the characters are dressed.

Here’s a picture from the annotated addition:

In this picture, you can see that Sophie is wearing cuffed skinny jeans. Skinny jeans have been a thing since the 70s, but skyrockected in popularity around 2008/9. I’m not going to speak on what Fitz is wearing because he’s an elf and probably just put on the first “human clothes” he found. 

Overall, it could defiantly be plausible that 2008 was actually the year that KOTLC takes place in!

2012

This is the year that the book came out! I believe it’s one of the more popular years as well!

This is actually the year that I believe that KOTLC takes place, despite that I have a bias and was 12 years old in 2012 as well lol. I do remember wearing skinny jeans, and I do remember iPods being a thing. There’s no other small little tidbit from the book that directly points to the series taking place in this year, but it does perfectly align with some thing that we have discussed so far. However, (and sorry for using iPods so much as my measure for what year KOTLC took place in) I do remember that iPods were slowly loosing popularity around this time. iPhones could do the exact same thing as iPods, in addition to their normal cell phone functions and were more easy to use. The advancement of the iPhone was what stopped the iPod around 2014, so 2014 is the earliest year KOTLC could take place in.

What do you guys think? Does KOTLC take place in 2002/3, 2008, or 2012? Maybe it takes place in somewhere in between, maybe it takes place in 2016!

[maesramblings]

KOTLC Analysis: Worldbuilding

(Here’s the better quality version of it.)

To begin my analysis of the Keeper books, I would like to begin with discussing one of the most important aspects of fantasy novels: World Building.

Currently, I’m on book one of my re-read. I only got to book five by the time I originally stopped reading the series, so if something new has been mentioned in the newer books since, feel free to let me know! It’s been a few years lol.

The Actual World

What do we know about the world? Well, we know it co-exists with the human world, as illustrated on the map above. Maybe this was just me lacking brain cells, but I truly believed that the elves lived in a different “world”, not alongside ours. This clarification would have saved me some headaches, as I don’t remember there being a specific explanation on how the Elven world works in connection with the human world. Are the Elven locations simply invisible to the human eye, or are they actually different, “hidden” location unbeknownst to humans?

A quick quote from book one states, “The Ancients didn’t want violence, so they disappeared, forbid any contact with humans, and left them to their own devices.” (Book One, Chapter 4, p. 26)

Nothing much is mentioned on how the elves “disappeared”.  It did happen a long time age, so it would be natural for humans to forget the existence of elves, but how exactly was it done? Wouldn’t humans remember that at some point, actual magical beings were living alongside them? The treatment of humans in the series is a whole different conversation, but one that I would like to acknowledge. It’s very strange how the series treats humans as useless and elves as these super powered and smart creatures that are superior to humans in every sense.

In the annotated edition, Fitz even gloats that “Elves are way better.” (Book One Annotated, Deleted Scene 1, page 1144 (The page number is so high is because I’m using the e-book version of the annotated edition)) in comparison to humans.

To be fair, the elves’ powers are implied to be superior to that of other intelligent species as well.

According to the book, the intelligent species are:

Humans (formally)

Elves

Gnomes

Dwarves

Ogres

Goblins

Trolls

(Book One, Chapter 4, p. 26)

One of the first creatures introduced to us are gnomes. Here is an expert from chapter 7:

“So… you have gnomes as servants?” (Sophie)

Alden stopped to stare at her. “We would never have servants. The gnomes chose to live with us because it’s safer in our world. And they help in our garden because they enjoy it. We’re privileged to have them. You’ll get your first taste of gnomish produce during lunch, and you’re in for quite a treat.” (Book One, Chapter 7, p. 56)

The way this was worded is, um, interesting to say the least. The relationship isn’t necessarily parasocial, but it does feel that way since the gnomes are actively helping the elves constantly by gardening and harvesting food but all the elves do in return is “protect” them.

Let’s go to the goblins. The goblins are frequently used as bodyguards in the books. That’s how we are exposed to them, “Two elves with floor-length velvet capes draped over their black tunics emerged, followed by dozes of bizarre creatures marching in military formation down the rocky path.” (Book One, Chapter 4, p. 25)

We know that the gnomes help the elves because the elves give them protections, but what about the goblins? They don’t need protection, they do the protecting.

Another question that I have is: How many elves are there exactly? Since they’re immortal, and have a governmental matchmaking system in place, you’d expect a decent amount of elves to exist. However, there seems to be very little culture among the elves. In fact, the only schools that we know to exist are Foxfire and Exillium. On top of that, the teacher to student ration should be near even, considering that all teachers have one-on-one lessons with their students. “She’d be a “prodigy” - their word for student - and she would carry eight subjects, most of which were taught one-by-one by a Mentor, who were members of the nobility.” (Book One, Chapter 11, p. 95)

To touch again on the subject of culture, the Elven cities seem to be very spread apart, as shown by the map above. I could write a whole essay on the topic of the BIPOC in the books, or the lack thereof.

Atlantis seems to be the most “different” of the cities (at least that I know of). “She’d begged to wear pants, but apparently it was a sign of status for a girl to wear a gown, especially in Atlantis, which Alden explained was a noble city, which meant members of the nobility had offices there.” (Book One, Chapter 9, p. 71)

A lot of fantasy books get passes for the lack of world development because the authors have limited amount of pages in their books or because there simply aren’t enough books in the series. Well.. that clearly isn’t an issue for the Keeper series. Shannon defiantly had room to develop the world more, instead of making it simply interesting on its surface.

Again, feel free to remind of anything I didn’t talk about in this post! Especially if you disagree with some of the points I made, I think it’s interesting to see other perspectives!

[maesramblings]

Hi!

My name’s Mae, I’m 21, and an aspiring writer! I read the Keeper series back when I was 12, stopped reading it when I was around 16, and then decided to pick it back up again when I began writing a story of my own! Keeper is pretty similar to what I’m currently writing, but at the same time drastically different. Some advice that I was given was to read similar books to what you are writing, as it can give you inspiration and help you catch flaws in that story that can help guide your own story. So, that’s what I’m doing.

Currently, I’m only going to do analysis of the Keep Books, but I hope to eventually re-read the Harry Potter, Hunger Games, and Percy Jackson books at some point!