Loose ends and other questions and Minna’s answers

[Kevin_Redcrow]

Maybe the mother started a fire, and died running away, but did not start the final fire.

Actually, I'd prefer to think that this is Minna's joke and not canon.

Ever  since I first read the dream sequence with Emil, Lalli, and the fire; I assumed that the fire was simply an incidental touch.

Emil says something to Lalli like, "The dream always ends before the fire gets here".

This is not unlike the rando things everybody sees in their dreams which have nothing to do with the dream itself.

[thorny]

Interesting. I always assumed that the dream ended before the fire arrived because whatever happened with the fire was so traumatic that something in Emil's mind protected him by waking him before he had to relive it.

[tehta]

The fact that he says "BEFORE it gets here" suggests that he expects that the fire would get there, at some point. It could be just that it is moving closer, so having it reach the house eventually is an interpolation, but I prefer the explanation that Emil has seen the fire reach the house at some point, in reality.

Anyway, the mansion burning down is a good way for his family to lose their money. Although I am not sure how this would have affect Torb and Siv, who obviously did not live there. I suppose they might have been receiving a stipend from Emil's dad? Also, the timing really does get confusing, if the fire was set by Helga: if she was alive while Emil ate his lonely meals, why wasn't she there or even mentioned? (I suppose it could be that she was also a pretty neglectful parent, to the point that Emil and Emil's nanny stopped expecting her to show up.)

[Róisín]

I think I remember Minna saying, very early on, that one of the prologue characters was still alive in year 90, though very old? Since by then I think Ensi was known to be dead or otherwise gone, I think I had presumed it was Veeti?

[wavewright62]

Well, maybe they went to Keuruu because Veeti used to live there? Their one known relative even if he's as distant as their grandmother's cousin. Old one, not living long after that.

We don't know a lot about Veeti in canon. He was somewhere between 8-12 at Y0 and we have no details what happened after that except that he and his wife had a daughter in Y49 (Taru's age was given as 41 for Adv 1, in Y90).  So he lived until at least his late 50s.  His daughter went into the military, and so I imagine you're correct that they are the connection to Keuruu.  We're not sure how long before the events of the story Taru left its employ - although she hadn't been based in Keuruu for the last 11 years, and she appeared well-versed in the protocols involved in dealing with the Nordic Council by Y90.  She could have been sent to Reykjavik at intervals while her refugee cousins were growing up in Keuruu.

Spoiler: show

 ("I told you people to dress respectably!")  On the other hand, Taru was under the impression that a monocle and pearls was respectable dress for dealing with the Council, so maybe that was her first time actually fronting the show.

(Even as I write that, I have to sigh at the futility of analysing these details at this late stage of the proceedings.)

Thanks again to Jitter for transcribing these comments from Minna.

[Jitter]

Tehta, it’s his dream so the sequence of events could be scrambled. Combination of his two big traumas, missing parents and the fire, could be in a changed order.

However I’m not going to take the mum part as canon. The important thing we didn’t know about yet was that Emil did not start the fire. This was something Minna didn’t need to consider at all.

This is not to say that a fanfic interpretation of the event could not have him do it nevertheless.

[tehta]

I agree that Emil's dream could (and likely is) conflating many events. However, I was assuming that the 'rich kid neglected by his workaholic father and semi-comforted by the help' experience was not a conflation, but something that he did live through, probably repeatedly. (I don't see how to easily separate the 'rich' and 'comforted by the help' parts.) To me, that idea that Emil's mother died at the same time as his father's job and wealth went away (which is what Minna said) implies that the mother should have been alive when he was being neglected/comforted, so why wasn't she mentined? It feels like a bigger plot-hole to me than Minna's wish to half-orphan Emil early.

The thing I said about the fire reaching the house was meant as an explanation of how a fire in a research facility, or even just in town, could have turned a rich family into a poor one.

[Jitter]

She probably didn’t remember the specifics, i.e. that there wouldn’t likely be a nanny acter becoming poor.

I (as well as Topazpearl, who tried to get more info) was particularly interested in “the research facility” which was dropped like it was a known thing. Have we been aware of such? I mean Siv is working in on, but that can’t be what was meant as this facility was in Östersund, had to do with the Västerströms fortune, and burned down when Emil was a child.

[tehta]

The nanny/housekeeper said that Emil's dad's job was very important. She didn't say what it was, though...

This is all odd to me because, in Minna's place, I would absolutely keep a file of all the information I had shared with readers about anything of importance. But different people have different processes, and I suspect her rather intuitive process is one that can work beautifully, as long as the author keeps her brain immersed in her work.

[Jitter]

Yeah, she said a couple of weeks ago that “next time I do a long form comic I need to set up a system to keep tabs of the references and ideas” or something like that. So, she definitely doesn’t have one of those now.

[lwise]

Emil had tutors, then went to public school for about two years, then joined the Cleansers and served for about two years.  Since he was 19 when the first adventure started, that means he was 14 or 15 when he stopped having tutors.  He wouldn't have had tutors after the family became poor, so that can't have happened while he was a small child.

[thorny]

The thing I said about the fire reaching the house was meant as an explanation of how a fire in a research facility, or even just in town, could have turned a rich family into a poor one.

If the family's money was tied up in funding the research facility, or otherwise in things in town, then it could easily have happened. Especially if the fire did damage to other people, and the family was held responsible and therefore had to pay for that.

Plus which, if the fire was close enough that it could have spread to the house, then either the house was in or right next to the town, or the research facility wasn't in town and instead was close to and/or on the same property as the house.

Emil had tutors, then went to public school for about two years, then joined the Cleansers and served for about two years.  Since he was 19 when the first adventure started, that means he was 14 or 15 when he stopped having tutors.  He wouldn't have had tutors after the family became poor, so that can't have happened while he was a small child.

In addition, if they'd become poor when he was a small child, then he'd have grown up being poor; it wouldn't have come as a shock to him, and he'd have learned the habits mostly of poor people, not of rich ones (though his parents might have kept some of the habits of rich people, which might still have affected him. But his mother's habits couldn't have continued to affect him if she was already dead --)

[Suominoita]

So...
Emil's mother died earlier and his workaholic father left him in the care of the helo?
Or maybe his mother liked shopping (a..ka. "burning money").

Or, if it was a real fire, maybe Emil managed to get some attention because of the fire (due to his parent worrying that he might have died or something) and that's how his pyromaniac tendencies began even if he didn't quite realize those before he went to the Cleansers. He keeps having that same dream over and over.

[tehta]

In addition, if they'd become poor when he was a small child, then he'd have grown up being poor; it wouldn't have come as a shock to him, and he'd have learned the habits mostly of poor people, not of rich ones (though his parents might have kept some of the habits of rich people, which might still have affected him. But his mother's habits couldn't have continued to affect him if she was already dead --)

A very good point. I think becoming poor at 14/15 makes absolutely the most sense in terms of character.

[NightMareMage]

I take the "this is cannon now" comment as a joke. That said, I think the idea that Helga started the fire could be great for fanfiction but would likely not have worked well in cannon. It would be a very diffent kind of family drama then SSSS has given us and could easily feel off tone (if that makes sense). That said, if it had to have happened, I don't think Emil would know about it.