[EDIT 11/9/22] just noticed smth!!!! there are 12 beams of light from Sophie's crystal on the cover and there are 12 beams of light coming from the star in the Stellarlune symbol!! :O [EDIT 11/8/22] *JOY* ITS OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *SCREAMING* HELLO HELLO ahahahaha so over the past few days I’ve been theorizing abt the new kotlc Stellarlune cover, so I thought I’d share them w you guys! (for those of you who don’t know, keeper of the lost cities is a SUPER awesome book series by shannon messenger- if you haven’t read it you totally should!!) !!!!BEFORE YOU CONTINUE READING, BIG SPOILER WARNING FOR THE KOTLC SERIES. DON'T READ BELOW UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE SPOILED!!!! /nm First, I know a lot of people are disappointed that Dex isn’t on the cover (I’m w you ahh) bUT WHAT IF HE IS maybe Biana’s w him and she’s holding his hand so they’re both invisible bc they’re secretly following after Sophie. *brain explodes* Okay, okay, but now onto some actual theories/observations lol The first thing I noticed was Maruca’s psionipath powers looking a bit different? And Sophie has her hand on Maruca’s back, so I think it makes sense to say that she’s enhancing Maruca. (I also noticed that Maruca has two armbands that I’m not sure she usually wears? Tinker might’ve made them for her and they could be doing smth to Maruca’s ability, too). Maruca’s psionipath ability might also have smth to do w what looks like a portal they’re going through? Going off of that, it appears that they’re going through some sort of elemental portal, maybe somehow related to Maruca (it’s been a while since I read the series so I don’t remember how exactly psionipath powers work sorry ahah) BUT. There’s a pretty obvious ring of glowing flowers + vines encircling the three girls (similarly colored to Marella’s flame- idk if this means anything tho) AND there’s a lot of tree branches behind the red glass mosaic thing. SO I’m wondering if one of the gnomes is somehow helping them teleport/travel/go through a portal (side note, the flowers aren’t the same kind as Calla’s flowers from her tree, just fyi) You’ll notice that the tree branches are the thickest in the top left corner, which is also closest to the leaping crystal that Sophie is holding (I assume that’s what she’s holding, at least) sooo this could be another point for the gnome idea, tho idk exactly how. I want to touch a little on the torch w/ blue, yellow, and pink fire Marella is holding, too. (Ahh so I also noticed another thing- the torch that Marella’s holding is also close to where the tree branches are thickest in the top left corner, so maybe they’re related? The flames and the flowers have pretty similar colors, so they might have smth to do w/ each other). The fire COULD be balefire (if you don’t remember what balefire is, here’s a quick definition I snatched from the keeper wiki ahah “Balefire was Fintan's trademark before Ev!rblaze. It is a flame that burns blue and is used to light many places including Candleshade, and Atlantis. Silver is needed to bottle balefire, and it is fueled by small sources of heat such as warmth from breath and body heat. It was also mentioned in that in Exile, Councillors and people sent by the Councillors are given a balefire pendant to light their way.”) but I’m pretty sure balefire is less colorful and more of an icy blue? SO, maybe the fire Marella’s holding is smth she can do w/ her pyrokinetic powers that she possibly unlocked w Linh’s help? That brings me to another point- if you look closely at the place Sophie, Marella, and Maruca are coming from, you can see a lot of blue- possibly water behind them!! I suspect this might be Linh using her powers to help Marella/help the girls go through some sort of portal/or she might be occupied w smth else, idk. If you look to the bottom right of Maruca, that’s where it looks a bit more like water. The blue might just be some other sort of water not related to Linh, tho, or it could be light. Glimmer is a flasher, so she could possibly be behind this. Or it could be Wylie.
And now that brings me to another point! The girls MIGHT be coming from Elysian. Elysian was mentioned in Unlocked by Kenric in Oralie’s cache. We know it’s related to stellarlune bc Kenric was asking Fintan if he knew anything abt stellarlune and Kenric slipped and mentioned something about Elysian. He said it was “absolutely essential to keep everything about Elysian fragmented” (pg 524 of Unlocked) and wouldn’t tell Oralie anything about it. Since reading Unlocked, I’ve been wondering why Kenric thought Fintan would know anything. Fintan’s a pyrokinetic. Marella’s a pyrokinetic. She’s on the cover… Okay, before I get into that thought, Elysian is a place in Greek mythology in the afterlife where people receive honor and happiness. It also relates to “heaven” or “paradise.” This pretty much right away makes me think of light. Light is super important to the elves, so I wonder if Elysian will tie in everything that the Councillors taught Team Valiant abt light and bring it into Stellarlune. I theorized this a while ago, but Elysian is basically a paradise of bliss/pureness. I’m wondering if people who have faded miiight come into play with this? The Prime Sources are Sunlight, Moonlight, and Starlight. There's Lodestar (star) Stellarlune (moon and star, too) and Elysian (paradise, bliss, pure, afterlife, could refer to sun??) Sooo the sun is related to fire, right? Fire = pyrokinetic. Basically, I’m guessing Marella will have some sort of role to play w/ whatever Elysian is, especially when she’s on the cover. Anyways, I brought Elysian up bc on the cover, the lighting + colors look very vibrant from the place Sophie and the other girls are coming from, so there might be a chance they’re coming from Elysian. Also, maybe the light from Elysian hit Sophie’s leaping crystal, + THAT might be related to where they’re traveling to. The torch Marella is holding might also be from Elysian :0 maybe the flowers/plants, too. Elysian might not even be a place, tho. It could be a project of some sort, so… ig we just have to wait for Stellarlune to come out :D (*inwardly sobbing bc it’s been two. years.*) Now that I’ve dumped all my ideas on you guys, I want to talk abt some things I like and don’t like abt the cover hah. I really love the outfits they’re wearing!! Also, the color scheme on the cover in general is really pretty. Maruca’s face looks a bit off tho? Like the placement of the eyes I think… my friend Crim fixed that, actually, you should check it out hehe (she fixed more than one problem actually… ;)) https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/645716520/ Sophie looks a lot older, too, when compared to Keeper :0 my favorite thing might be Marella’s face XD it’s just SO PRETTY,, I love the eyes and the expression ee and her hair too aaaand I think that’s all! Thanks for reading ^^ if you guys have any thoughts/theories abt the cover or what’s going to be in the next book I’d love to hear em! Or if you just want to talk abt kotlc in general ahah EDIT there's a symbol that Sophie and the rest can't figure out what it's related to (SPACE/CLICK IN THE PROJECT) It has what looks like two crescent moons around a star. Stellarlune translates to "star" and "moon" jsdvkshdfglirh so the symbol must be related to stellarlune?? also, Gisela made Keefe deliver a letter w/ that symbol to the humans Gisela later murdered with that symbol on it. we also know Stellarlune is related to Elysian from Kenric. Elysian is probably related to the humans so uhhhh, it kind of all adds up???
