Post by Gemminie on Jun 2, 2021 3:32:01 GMT
Not in my opinion, no. It mainly reiterated, summarized and discussed the topic of the relationship between Annie and her father, and concluded in Annie's monologue what she now thinks about him. I didn't see the plot advancing except on the last page, and even that is almost superfluous considering the new chapter's title is basically enough to realize the Shadow Men are ready to give Loup the lake water and enact whatever scheme they have most certainly cooked up.
- The Shadow Men are concerned enough about Recombined Annie's mental state to send Jones to investigate it prior to their next move, which everyone guessed was returning the lake water to Loup (and that is now all but confirmed by the next chapter's title, unless it's somehow about some other lake)
- We still don't know much about what happened to Annie in chapter 79, but we do know that Tony is unable to be emotionally open with Recombined Annie
- We know a lot more about what Tony's inner life is like and why he was able to open up around Forest Annie, and how ironic that is
- Tony loves Annie and is heartbroken now that there isn't even one Annie he can express that to
- (I'm even more certain that the scene in chapter 51 was completely manipulated by the Court into happening exactly as it did to break Annie down and let Tony take the fall for it)
- The student characters have been getting homework to do, even though there are no regular classes now, but they're playing Koi-Koi instead; Tony's also been giving Annie homework
- Paz has been gossiping about Annie and feels guilty about confronting her in chapter 74 (or at least claims to)
- Idra and James are still an item (Idramore? Eglidra? Jidra?); Margo and John are still together, as are Janet and Winsbury, and Kat and Paz (though we didn't see them together in this chapter, but that's not surprising considering they weren't the focus of it)
- Annie can see through Renard's eyes
- Annie and Parley have gone somewhere to test Annie's firepower on at least one occasion since her recombination
There's a lot of stuff that got advanced. Chapter 80 advanced the Annie and Her Father story arc considerably and drew some dotted lines onto the Annie's Destiny arc and its Annie Duplicated sub-arc (I'd really like to see some more focus on those). It barely advanced the Court vs. Forest arc, but that's happened in plenty of earlier chapters, so I see no reason to require that a chapter not be considered valid unless it advances that arc. I know everyone's been waiting for the lake water shoe to drop, but it's not the only thing in the world.
While I'm here, I really don't think we're anywhere near the end of the story. Even if Loup dies before this chapter's over, do you really think that's going to end anything? What if Loup dies by being split back into Coyote and Ysengrin – or new versions of each of them – or two entirely different new beings? What if Loup dies, and the Ether creates a new Coyote and a new Ysengrin because their stories are part of the Ether? What if Loup dies, but takes a bunch of people from the Court and/or Forest with him, and they take Loup's story into the Ether, so a new Loup arises? What if Loup realizes that he's actually been Coyote all along? Nothing about the lake water requires that the Court use the Omega Device during this chapter, assuming it's ready to, and even if it does get used, we still don't know what it does, whether it'll work right, or what long-term far-reaching side effects it might have even if it does work right. I think Tom's nowhere near ready to end this story.