You have been warned, there will be spoilers for Prince Lander and the Dragon War in this post. If you haven't read the book yet and would like it to remain un-spoiled, you should probably leave now.
Are they gone?
Okay. Moving on to the spoilers, then!
And thank you, @Kilmarnock228 for your post, which reminded me I wanted to do this.
So first. Mother Saramack. Was it just me, or does she remind you of Mrs. Weaver? I believe at one point, she (Mother Saramack) said something about "you must be who you are, and let us be who we are" sounds familiar, right?
Nickell Drekker. So this is kinda far out but... Winnie called him Nick. And it seems like he's important enough that someday he could have a place named after him so.... Nick's Hollow? Like I said, it's far-fetched, but... I think it's plausible.
Winnie Drekker. Honestly, she reminds me of Weezie, with the like, "No one tells me what to do", "I will train with weapons, I don't care if I'm a girl" kind of attitude. Just a thought.
Tommy Decker. He wasn't in the book. BUT. It was pointed out at some point that Timmy Decker might have been descended from Jimmi Docker. Unfortunately, Jimmi Docker wasn't in Prince Lander and the Dragon War, making me believe that he (sadly!) may have died. So my new thought is that Tommy Decker may be descended form the Drekkers. Drekker to Decker seems pretty plausible I think.
Okay, time to address one last thing... Massie. So for a while I've thought that Massie was the Pilgrim. BUT. In Ember's End, there's this exchange between Helmer and the Pilgrim. (I don't have my book with me, so this won't be spot on.) Helmer: "Have we met before, My Lord?" The Pilgrim: I'm no Lord, Helmer there. But you remind me of an old friend."
Well. We now know that after the Dragon War, Massie became the first Lord Captain, therefore he would've been a Lord, meaning that Massie is most likely not the Pilgrim.
I don't really have any other theories as for who the Pilgrim is right now, but I'm sure I'll have some weird ones soon.
Also, does anyone else wonder if this is meant to be the last Green Ember book? The epilogue, umm, what's the right word for this... kind of shadowed the prologue to the first book, just like the first chapter of The Green Ember and the last chapter of Ember's End did.
I think that's all for now. Have a great day!!
On the subject of Massie's appointment to Lord Captain disqualifying him from possibly being the Pilgrim:
Even if this position technically made Massie a "lord", it's clearly different from the likes of Fleck or Rake. For another thing, by the time of Ember's End, Massie-if he is the Pilgrim-is most likely considered to be dead and thus no longer in the position of a Lord Captain. Or he could be kind of like Helmer, who didn't make use of the "Lord" part of his title for much of the books. Helmer himself even said "I'm no lord" in The Green Ember and objected to other rabbits referring to him as "Lord Captain" except in certain moments.
In the case of the Pilgrim, if he IS Massie, most likely he wouldn't assert his title of Lord Captain-even if it's still applicable-because it helps nobody for him to do so. Adding another officer of equal rank to the overall commander in the middle of the biggest battle in the history of Natalia was only going to confuse people, which is certainly the last thing Massie would want to do. It's also probably been over a century since he acted as a Lord Captain, so he wisely left that position to one who had been doing it more recently and both knew and was known to the rabbits he commanded. The exchange between him and Helmer seems like a pretty good indication that the Pilgrim IS Massie, since he's clearly making a reference to Helmer's namesake Brindle Cove.
Of course, there were other rabbits who knew Brindle and might recognize any family resemblance, but Massie seems like the strongest candidate. We don't know his fur color specifically so far as I know, so it could be brown like the Pilgrim's. The implication seems to be that the Pilgrim is not a member of the royal family, but loyal to it. Based on the idea that he's a kingsbuck from the time of Whitson Mariner and Lander who knew Brindle Cove and didn't die in the Dragon War, we have a few possibilities, but Massie seems the most likely based on a number of factors:
Fleck is said to have gray and/or black fur, not brown. He was also a lord, though if he were the Pilgrim he could presumably no longer consider himself one due to the title passing down through his descendants. There's also no word on him being an archer.
Galt has gray fur, and also displays no aptitude as an archer. He also seemed pretty dedicated to serving as leader of Terralain, so I don't see him abandoning that position except perhaps in favor of one of his sons or some other rabbit he trusted as a successor.
Gavin was an archer of some ability, but his fur is known to have been white. He also seems to have been devoted to Kingston, even expressing the wish to return there rather than remain with Lander's company after the end of the Dragon War.
I find it doubtful that S.D. Smith would have made the Pilgrim someone we didn't know from either The Black Star of Kingston or Wreck and Rise, since Dragon War hadn't yet been published. I also don't think that he would have such a significant character turn out to be someone inconsequential from those books. I mean, why hype up the character if he's just going to turn out to be Brephen, Kay Jack, or Jake or Frill Able?