Originally Posted by
jasminesylphs
Who Else Could He Be?
Well, lets examine that a little, with two ideas I've picked up and am going to mash together until they fit:
#1 KMM has said that the concubine was a mortal from a world not Earth... which means she has to have a race, culture and a people of her own.
#2 If we're to assume that after the concubine's death, the UK was seeking a type of post-mortem forgiveness from her, chosing the life of a mercenary ("to the core"; i.e. no compassion during a job and loyalty only to the one who hired him for the length of the contract) seems out of the character for which he was trying.
A better theory is that JZB is something other, and... I postulate that he is of the concubine's original race.
In KMM's world, people that catch the eye of Fae royalty are beautiful and powerful in their own right: Hawk is a gorgeous laird, Gabby is a beautiful lawyer/sidhe-seer, Mac is a beautiful warrior sidhe-seer, even Alina was beautiful, smart, and driven. All of these people (with the possible exception of Gabby) had others that would fight for them if they disappeared, or left their own world and were shut-ins in a mirror-boardered world. Why would the concubine be any different? I think that the people of her world would notice her absence and mourn her, even if she went willingly.
Continuing on... a few other points:
The concubine was shut in for thousands of years, awaiting the UK's attempt to make her... immortal? Fae? I can't remember which at the moment, but either way the result is the same: if all he wanted was her with him forever, and if it was so easy for Adam to steal the immortal-elixer from Aoibheal... why didn't UK do that (it only takes one treatment)? And what if the UK did do that... she was alive for thousands of years. She wouldn't have a soul to reincarnate after her suicide and Mac couldn't be the concubine. If we are to assume UK found another way to keep her alive until he could make her Fae, making her Fae would be no different for the state of the concubine's soul as Fae don't have them... so why not use the potion in the meantime? It has been stated before that immortality and souls are two things that never mix for long, so I doubt Mac is the reincarnate concubine. (Ergo, the case for JZB to be UK is weakened.)
However, my previous arguement is on shaky ground if one assumes UK had a different, soul-preserving way to keep the concubine alive (like Cian, since she was in the mirrors). But, please also note, that if UK wanted her Fae, she still wouldn't have had a soul at the end of it.
Now, we know the concubine had to leave the mirror-world and go back to the mortal world to die (which supports the above arguement for soul-preserving). She would go home, I would assume, to a world that she knew before UK. Now, barring any kind of HUGe time-shift differences, after a thousand years gone, she would be a legend in her own world, a story. Like us suddenly discovering a cryo-frozen King Arthur and his Round Table somewhere in the mountains of Scotland and reanimating him. And she isn't going to be silent about what happened to her... she hasn't seen her people in millenium (and I think it implies she didn't see anyone but the UK (& possibly his creations) during her time in Fairy), so she's going to tell her story and then she's going to die, eventually. KMM never says whether it's natural old-age style, a swift dagger between her breasts (there are a shortage of perfect breasts in the world), or whether like Cian's story, she crumpled to dust after failing to pay the mirror its gold. And imagine what finding a cryo-frozen King Arthur would do in our world... we'd have men and women from all over the world rushing to England to pledge themselves to the Round Table, there would be rallies to instate him as King of England and people would riot in the streets. So, at the very least, we can assume that at least nine men pledged themselves to avenging her and attempted to find Danu and the UK and bring him to justice. We can assume that these men would work dark arts to make themselves immortal, traverse dimensions, and fight on planets not their own. (Heck, maybe the "mortality" of the concubine's people is somewhere between 70 years and forever, and she and the nine can live millenia under their own steam and still be "mortal". just sayin')
So, long point short, Barrons could be an "other." A person of the concubine's own race that was so offended by her captivity and the loss of her self (remember how he snarled at Mac to fight for survival... perhaps because his "bright star" was so beaten down with despair that she willed herself to die?) that he's been following and fighting the Fae since her death...
'Nother point, he's someone V'lane fears enough not to speak out of turn, but is unafraid enough to fight for the priviledge of Mac's bed.
Cuz honestly, you guys, Cauldron of Forgetting or not, if V'lane really thought JZB was UK, he would not be throwing a temper tantrum over who sexed Mac back from pri-ya... the UK's anger split their home planet in two... even with the "evil" cut out in the book, the guy is still a force to be reckoned with, the oldest Fae around, and a pretty scary dude in general. And V'lane is... childish... when it comes to the tug-o-war with Mac's lady-lotus. Dunno about you, but I wouldn't throw a temper tantrum in front of the Queen of England, even after Prince Charles takes the throne and her figurehead-slash-State-function-job passes onto someone else. Because royalty is born not made, and even without the power of state behind her, she could be one scary-ass lady.
Finally, I think that JZB fans shouldn't want him to be the UK... yah, the idea is a love story to traverse millenias is ooh, so romantic, but really think about who the UK would have been at the time of the concubine's death.
If she's the tragic figure here, then the UK's obsession with keeping her with him in a permanent fashion borders on psychotic. In today's world, if a man locks a woman up so she won't be discovered by his wife, performs gross genetic experiments to force an unlock to immortality he's a super-villian in a comic book. Then when you add that he at turns ignores the object of his affections (cuz really, by this point she is an object to him) to avoid suspicion then goes and makes crazy-fabulous-bordering-on-desperate-love to her he turns into a pathetic road-stop, motel-renting, sleaze-ball cheater. Keep in mind, he's doing all this while morally devolving to something that is capable of possessing someone, taking it home to murder everyone they love before killing themselves (has ANYONE noticed that damn book's MO and been even a leeetle creeped out by it?). This continues ad nauseum for thousands of years until the only escape she had (and it was escape, he didn't let her out willingly) was HER death???? This isn't a love story, this is a police report after a murder-suicide!!! Any if JZB is UK, he's back for seconds?
Reading JZB like the UK, the lines, "I will never let you die" don't so much sound romantic and star-crossed, they sound like something a snapped husband said right before putting the last brick into the wall the encases his tied-up wife! Thousands of years of separation, forget about it! Even if the UK goes into abusive-husband treatment and has spent several millenia in recovery, the most loving gift he could give the reincarnation of his love is a wide berth: let her love and be happy without him.
Anyway, I know there are HUGE UKJZM fans out there, and I don't mean to offend, but I guess I'm hoping for something more interesting and less obvious in Shadowfever. (ooh, like MAC's the UK and Jericho is the concubine... swapped by a spell!)
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But I totally agree with the message from Mercedes Veronica a few messages above.
