SPOILERS stop reading now if you haven’t read/finished it! Loved The Will of the Many, but am a little frustrated with the to be continued ending. Even knowing it’s a series and not meant to be all wrapped up, there were SO MANY loose ends. Far more unresolved questions than answers.
Usually I make a post-it of unanswered plot points to refer back to when the next book comes out, and I think I need some crowd-sourced help here. Please contribute if you think of something!
1) Why was Eidhin unable to run the Iudicium? To do so would make Vis “unable to trust him” and get them both expelled. Is he also a secret Will-user (kinda sus that he survived a year in a sapper unharmed)? Presumably Viridius pressured him, perhaps part of the “graduate and serve or your tribe gets sappers” (note how unlikely it is for a remote village kid to get into the Academy to start with).
2) What is Emrissa’s deal? We know she has secret info (Indol’s plans), illegally uses Will, and “has to” win the Iudicium. Maybe working with Viridius or the Anguis?
3) The rough translation at the cloning-blade-thing was “Here’s the way to Luceum and Obiteum, offered to all who would contest our extinction”. So Cataclysm happened there too, maybe worse? And it wasn’t meant to be so exclusive to go there as all this maze running etc had made it now. “Know that none who accept this task may remain” – your original body isn’t meant to survive in Rus. “The burden of harmony is reserved for the one who seals the authors of the war from this world. Only he may exceed the hobbled capabilities of this duplication. He and he alone may risk harmony to make the great sacrifice.” Perhaps the harmony is the capability exist in all three universes at the same time, if you manage to stop the warmongers who created the rift?
4) Viridius, probably at least not completely evil, seems to be working with the Angius (the stranger at the end knows about the gate, larger Angius revolutionary plans, and Viridius’ intents).
4) Vitaerium (forcing Will into anything that can decay) seems set up to be a thing. The eye-less corpses in the ruins, the spectral maze guides.
5) So, cloning benefits are: warping in and out of reality to sneak around, the ability to channel enormous amounts of Will (Melior), can sense enemies, recovery from wounds. Drawbacks: tainted blood that people will kill you over
6) Suus is sus. Hinted to be magical: Vis has slight clone-type abilities from the get-go (sensing enemies, recovery): Heirarchy determined to conquer for a small backwater.
Please add more ongoing mysteries and unanswered questions! I left off the big obvious ones (what caused the Cataclysm, how exactly does Will-cedeing work, etc), but those are fun too if you want to explore them.
by SpicySweett