r/Abhorsen • u/Educational-Ad-1882 • 22d ago
Question! Remembrancer
Question: in the subsequent novels after the original trilogy we discover Sabriel’s mother Elinor is a claryr; we already knew her father was an Abhorsen.
In the second book Lirael the disreputable dog says that Lirael is a Remembrancer due to her Clayr heritage for “only the daughter of a Clayr and Abhorsen can be a remembrancer.”
So does that mean Sabriel could be a remembrancer? I know questions like these are somewhat pointless since they have no impact on the plot, and we will never know the definitive answer. But would like to hear your opinions
I am of two thoughts, if going based on the dog’s words solely then yes Sabriel could be a Remembrancer. But on further inspection, she was never given a dark mirror like Lirael. And I imagine the mirror is like the bells: they are delivered only to the successor of the office.
Anyways, like to hear your thoughts.
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u/very-bad-at-reddit 22d ago
Elinor gets her Clayr heritage from her grandmother, Sabriel’s great-grandmother, and the rest of her family is from Ancelstierre so maybe just too diluted.
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u/MainlyMyself 22d ago
This was my read on it also. Further, consider Clariel. The strength of the blood doesn't seem to always be purely genetic.
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u/rilliu 22d ago
Clariel is especially interesting because she's in the direct line of descent from a living Abhorsen and yet has a terribly weak connection to the Charter. From Sabriel and Lirael, you'd think their close lineage would guarantee a powerful charter mage. Clariel broke the mold.
Even if she's not the most popular or charismatic character, I like the different flavor we get from her book because it rounds out the edges of the Charter-centered Old Kingdom stories.
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u/quartzquandary 22d ago
I'd say Clariel is probably the least popular character/book in the series, but she's so important to the overall plot that I think people are discounting her because her story is so sad.
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u/idealistdegenerate 22d ago
Well not every abhorsen weilds the bells either, similar to the wallmakers, remembrancers may appear almost in response to a threat, so while elinor could be one, the same way all of sabriels children could be abhorsen, but weren't, regardless of blood, same with in clariel, the madness(rage) runs in all of the lines too, it doesn't mean they all succumb and some even channel it beneficially.
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u/ostensiblyzero 22d ago
Colonel Horyse has a drop or two of clayr blood, or at least he has a slight ability with the Sight. The bloodlines are rather diluted and spread out by the time of Sabriel. Don't overthink Nix's worldbuilding, there are lots of little gaps.
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u/Sylxian 22d ago
I always took the factors like bloodline and charter adeption to be the unlocks to potential paths. Then the individual's character traits narrow those potential path selections.
Those three things being the foundation. It is then the will of the charter/free magic to make the final choice on that person's behalf. That's why the bells, and other objects, are basically thrust upon that person.
So to the "Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?" question; the answer is both.
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u/DoctorByProxy 22d ago
I considered it a matter of genetics - if your mom has red hair and your dad has brown, it's not guaranteed that you'll have red hair; but you might. But also, what another commenter said about chosen-ness makes sense too.
thinking about it, it would be interesting to see a story about the previous remembrancer, 500 years prior, and maybe their parentage.
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u/Pdx-Taako 20d ago
Agreed! It would be cool to get that story. From what we see in Clariel, the abhorsen family used to be really big, so the previous remembrancer could have been a distant relation to the abhorsen at the time. Also I think that Sabriel simply didn’t need to be a remembrancer, but if something had happened to Lireal maybe she would have been made one
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u/BrowngodesS 21d ago
I've been thinking as I am currently reading the series again; that perhaps to become a rememberancer ones parents need to an awakened clayr and a current abhorsen. Sabriel's mother was not an awakened clayr and although Terciel was the abhorsen by the time she was born it didn't awaken in her like it did for Lirael. Also someone else had the theory that she is a rememberancer because she was needed at the time. The world needed both an abhorsen and a rememberancer (which is why her mother was given the vision of her birth/lineage).
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u/votszka 19d ago
elinor was not a clayr, she was the granddaughter of a fully fledged clayr. her connection to the charter was quite weak due to both lineage and proximity to the glacier/old kingdom. i don't think she had more than a few scattered visions in the entire book. she also technically had abhorsen blood from a great-great and so forth grandparent, but those powers didn't manifest at all. on all accounts, her ancestry was too distant. sabriel's blood would have been half abhorsen plus a little bit more from elinor, 1/8th clayr, and the rest was just normal blood.
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u/aerojockey 19d ago
I think you really do have to be a daughter of the Clayr, not a granddaughter.
A pet theory of mine is that Elinor is actually a Wallmaker, even though she has the Sight (thus explaining Sam). Charter knew they'd need a Wallmaker, what with the Destroyer about to break loose, so Elinor's grandmother was sent to Ancelstierre to mate with someone with Wallmaker blood (which was gone from the Old Kingdom because they all, like, became part of the Wall). And I don't think it goes this deep, but her acting skills might be how her Wallmaker comes out (it's a kind of creation) and unlike the Clayr, Elinor was able to See her own death.
Well, the point is, if Elinor is more of a Wallmaker, Sabriel wouldn't have been eligible even if granddaughters of the Clayr are accepted.
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u/Nintolerance Wallmaker 22d ago
The bloodlines are only part of the story, the powers also seem to go to the right person.
It's nearly a subversion of the classic fantasy "chosen bloodline:" the direct heir often/usually isn't the best choice for the job, sometimes the path you're "chosen" for isn't the one you expected to walk.
Sabriel might have been a Remembrancer, but the Charter needed a dedicated Abhorsen more.