*happy dance*

I figured out how not to kill Janis!!!

[row of partying smileys, plus a Cool Cthulhu]

(okay so the Cthulu probably doesn't really fit but I thought it was cute while I was browsing the smileys)

It all started with my last blog, where I was trying to figure out how to work in Iorli. Robert's comment, combined with some offsite comments from Galen about clan totems, followed by a lengthy Robert ramble offsite, all got me thinking.

I have some idea how exactly Iorli is going to fit in. There's a pivotal fight scene in the library basement that he was originally going to miss by arriving late. Well... first, he's going to show up in time for at least the end of it. And second, he's going to know where to show up because he was bumbling around in one of the spirit realms - and he saw Janis there. (Her torture consisted of being forced to astrally project into different spirit realms, over and over.) And third, the whole Janis=clan totem thing has to have a lot more consequences than I was previously figuring on.

This led me into more backstory worldbuilding - what's a clan totem, where do they come from, how are they passed on, etc. I still don't know ALL of the details yet but I know a lot more now than I did before! How? Because of the way Thomas reacted when I pictured the scene of her partial tainting.

And this was in the original version of events as well; in order to save her life, he has to gift her with some of his taint because it gives her the physical strength she needs to heal.

However, doing that causes her to stop being the clan totem. Which was something that is a rare, special kind of relationship between the totem and the cougar clan leader, who happens to be Iorli. And this clan totemship is passed down the family line from when it originated back in Amulet I, where Aliacorba started it and had Iorli's great-grandfather swear an oath of protection. So when Thomas is forced to break the line, he's ending the relationship and also taking away something from Janis.

(I realize I'm being vague. Not all of the details have fully come into focus in my mind yet, just the barebones. I'm waiting for Thomas to recover enough to tell me the rest of it.)

The crux of the matter is that Thomas knew what he would be sacrificing in order to save her life. And he did it anyway because he loves her that much.

What exactly does this do to Iorli? That I haven't figured out yet either. It might kill him, the way that the wolf line ended with the demise of the Golden Flame. Either way, neither Iorli nor Janis are quite the same afterward and there's no way to go back again.

But Janis gets to live on and do what she's supposed to do in the next part of the timeline in Birthright.

So ... yay! :)

(Okay. Definitely going to bed now that the sun is up.)