Another question(s) for the great Stroud!

1. Bartimaeus (sp.?) stated that he was 5000 years old, and there are undoubtly hundreds of djinn, but they never said anything about producing new ones. Are they just there until their supply runs dry, or something else?

2. So Djinn have a limited lifetime?

3. In your books, you stated that Bartimaeus can look as far as the seventh plane, and anyone looking further than that was showing off. Does that mean there are practically infinite planes, or just the seven, as all 'magical' events in the story are taking place?

4. Kitty visited the ruins somewhere near the end of the book, and said something along the lines of "So much for your promises". Did this mean she actually held feelings for the two, and if so, was it a romantic relation, or a friendly one?

5. What happened to Jane Farrar?!


By the way...

Edited by Gladstone

Hope I make a little comment, if you don't mind? To number three, Bartimaeus talks about a theoretical eighth plane...so, there may be more. Heh...maybe you're asking questions Stroud designed, not knowing the answer...perhaps he never found the need to consider the later planes because they are not relevant to the story.

But, that's my two cents.

- peels off his Stroud costume and strolls through his walk-in closet of thousands of other identical suits. -

Hi - thanks for the questions. Here are some answers...

1. It's been roughly 5,000 years since Bart was first summoned to our world (by some Mesopotamian priest, probably), so this is how long it's been since he was first ripped out of the Other Place and effectively separated from its essence. Once a spirit has been unwillingly 'formed' in this way, it is always vulnerable to being summoned again, even if it spends centuries (of our time) back in the Other Place. Almost certainly the amount of available essence in the OP is infinite, so theoretically there is no limit to the number of spirits that can be produced, but in recent centuries magicians seem to have relied on just summoning spirits that are catalogued in old books - they don't attempt to 'extract' new ones. Maybe the original art to doing so has been lost. Djinn themselves would have no desire nor need to produce new ones (in the way that mortal creatures do); quite the reverse - ideally they'd all be forever reabsorbed in the swirling essence of the OP and not be individualised at all.

2. The OP's essence seems to be perpetual: only when some of its essence is separated into a spirit of some kind and brought over to our world does it become vulnerable to harm and death. Providing Bart can avoid danger/keep running away at the right moments he can survive forever - but to maintain his strength he has to return frequently to the OP.

3. Well, Krim's right, I think. There may well be a number of other planes, but you won't hear about them from Bart who is v. peeved at not having access to them. He's only about halfway up the hierarchy of spirits, so things like Ramuthra/Nouda etc must far exceed his capabilities, much to his irritation.

4. Kitty's remembering the last things B and N said to her when she fled the scene - implying that they'd see her soon, ie. survive. She is certainly regretful that they've both (as she thinks) died - but exactly how far her feelings extend for them is up to you to decide...

5. All the signs are that Jane F bit the dust during the chaos of the final night. I toyed with her being involved directly in the finale, but in the end I wanted to focus right in on our 3 heroes, and their relationships with each other, and she didn't deserve to gatecrash the party.

Hope this answers those questions (a bit, anyway!).

Jonathan