So with Ember’s End published, our fears for various characters have been relieved or realized. We know-for the most part-who’s going to live on in the Mended Wood, and who didn’t make it. This takes some of the suspense away from future spin-offs, like the third Jo Shanks book S.D. Smith has confirmed he’s working on. Any peril won‘t really have weight unless it involves either characters exclusive to the new book or who didn’t have their fates addressed in Ember’s End...not really a wide field, so far as I can think. I can’t imagine myself feeling too bad if Jo’s old buddy Lund doesn’t make it, since he wasn’t even mentioned in First Fowler or Ember’s End.

On the other hand, there is a Natalia storyline where things are a bit more up in the air. I am referring, of course, to the Tales of Old Natalia. Now, granted we know-or at least presume-that most of not all of these characters will die long before the events of Ember’s End. However, there’s still the question of how they’ll end up passing on.

Well, it’s pretty much a given that neither Whitson or Lander are going to die in this book, unless one of a couple things happens. One is the idea that we might get a flash forward scene at the end of the book to either Whitson or Lander dying. The other would be if, as we’ve seen before, history gets garbled in the period between Tales of Old Natalia and The Green Ember. In this case, said history would have to be the claim that Whitson built First Warren before Lander succeeded him as king.

The only real reason for assuming that Whitson won’t do this is the fact that Lander apparently made the decision not to destroy the dragon seeds. Of course, it’s possible that Whitson will merely be incapacitated during the Dragon War, forcing Lander to take charge while his father recovers. It’d be kind of nice if one good rabbit king lived to die of old age, am I right?

That being said, quite a few other characters have no such security. Will Fleck Blackstar return only to perish? Is Massie not destined to become the Pilgrim as has been speculated? Will Lord Grant join the old bucks of Golden Coast in a heroic death?

Or will S.D. Smith risk a riot by killing off...Jimmi Docker?