Digger/WMG

Ed is Grim Eyes' father

It's not exactly impossible now, is it? We know Bloodmare, mother of Blood-Eyes (Ed's late mate) is Grim Eyes' grandmother, as is Bloodtail, Bloodmare's daughter, her aunt. We know (by Boneclaw Mother's words) that Bloodtail was envious of Blood-Eyes' mate. Ed's story only mentions "sister of Blood-Eyes, mother of Blood-Eyes sister" as being crazy with grief, with no mention of more family...

• Forgot to mention, Ed's been exiled 17 years. 30 years is the difference between "old hag" and "still looking" for hyenas, so it's possible agewise, too.
• It really is all but stated outright. Practically confirmed.

Ed Will Die

..But in a manner that restores his honor with the tribe, and in death he will be given the proper rituals. We'll find out his name, to boot. After all the talk of He Is and the coincidences of Ed's past... plus, it'd be one hell of a reason for a CmoA

• Distressingly likely now that he's accompanying Digger into the hole.
  • Confirmed.

Ed's real name is Skin-Painter

It follows the pattern of other hyena names, and he hasn't necessarily forgotten it, it might just be that its use is forbidden.

• He clearly says he remembers it. But, as he put it, he remembers the rabbit he ate, too, and both it and his name are still gone.
  • Possibly confirmed by Boneclaw Mother?
• Unlikely, skin-painter is more a job description than a name (skin-painter as a surname might work, after all there are plenty of Smiths, Fletchers, etc. around these days).

Ed's eaten name is Grim-something.

Or, how the Hyena naming system might work.

Blood-Eyes, her mother Bloodmare, and her sister Bloodtail all have the word "Blood" somewhere in their names. Blood is kind of like their 'surname', while 'Mare', 'Eyes', and 'Tail' are sort of like 'given names'.

Grim Eyes, though, doesn't have her mother's surname. She does share her mother's given name, however. Maybe Hyena naming, at least for secondborns (and the very rare surviving firstborn), works by taking the father's surname - taken from his mother - and combining it with the mother's given name, thus starting a new matriline. Later children would have the mother's given name and the surnames of other male relatives, like maternal uncles and grand-uncles. Never paternal uncles, I'd imagine - none of Ed and Blood-Eyes' hypothetical later children would have been partially named after Owl Caller.

Anyway, if this is how Hyena names work, Ed's 'surname' was once Grim. Goodness knows what his 'given name' was.

• Grim Painter?
• Or maybe Grim Caller? or Grim Owl? Or look below to the theory that says that he is Boneclaw mother's son, maybe Boneclaw something?
• I reckon Bone and Claw make up her name, and being called Mother has to do with being the eldest. Admittedly the names aren't consistently hyphenated, compounded, or spaced...
• I found a possible monkey wrench in this WMG - apparently one of the elders is named Stone-in-the-Ear. Of course, Shadebones calls her that right before saying they should just go with what Boneclaw's decided, so it could also be a lighthearted insult among equals, I suppose.
  • Also Digger's Hyena name is "Little Mother of Earthquakes". But there again, she doesn't have a Hyena mother and father to pull from, and her adoption was a unique situation to say the least.

Ed's eaten name is Hare-caller.

Utterly random, I admit, but Hares keep springing up in the Hyena mythology, and his only known male relative is a [something] -Caller.

Captain Jhalm has been corrupted - or at least influenced - by Sweetgrass Voice.

Jhalm was mistrustful of Digger to begin with, but has since moved on to paranoia regarding her, even seeing the Statue of Ganesh as suspect in regards to its feelings concerning her. He also believes that the attacks by the cold servants are related to a desire by He Is to be freed from his prison, and plans on descending into the cave to break the shackles binding him.

We know that breaking the shackles is a singularly Bad Idea, as this would release Sweetgrass Voice - and that is exactly Sweetgrass Voice's plan. Further, we know that he fears Digger as told to us (and Digger herself) by Shadowchild, and she has the best possible chance of destroying him by destroying He Is's heart, and he's more than likely viewed her as a threat since the very beginning. Sweetgrass Voice might have seen Jhalm's mistrust and dedication to the greater good as a way to kill two birds with one stone: free himself and be rid of a major problem. And since he works primarily by cajoling and suggesting, Sweetgrass Voice was able to bend Jhalm's thoughts to the path he wanted, doing it subtly and slowly enough to avoid the detection of the Statue.

The God's heart is a Xanatos Gambit.

There's a few things we know:

• They're trying to kill a hyena god.
• Gods are shaped by mortal belief (see the Black Mother).
• Hyenas believe that their soul resides in the liver.

Destroying the heart will release the Sealed Evil in a Can, and Digger and co. will have to stop it.

• What else was there left to destroy? Besides, although He-Is was a hyena god, he was bound by humans, dwarves and wombats, so it's more than possible that their belief (or the heart containing the soul or whatever) overrode the hyena one.

Boneclaw Mother is Owl Caller's sister, and maybe Ed's mother

In the character profiles it's stated that Grim Eyes is the grand daughter of Boneclaw mother, and it's almost confirmed that Ed is Grim Eyes's father, Yes? Okey, we do know that Boneclaw mother is not the mother of Blood Eyes (Grim Eyes's mother), that was Blood Mare. So that would mean that Boneclaw mother should be Grim Eyes's paternal grand mother, Ed's mother. Now, from Ed's story we know that Owl Caller is his maternal Uncle ("Only mother's brother, Owl Caller, bothers say go anymore"), which means he is Boneclaw Mother's brother. (Augh! so confusing, we need a Family Tree!)

• Possibly Jossed - she specifically mentions that her brothers are all dead when adopting Digger Little Mother of Earthquakes, and calls Owl Caller "old friend" instead of "brother". On the other hand, if the Hyenas follow matrilinal views of descent (not an unreasonable guess), they may not consider your father's-sisters to be your aunts at all: only mother's-sisters. So while most/pretty much all of the audience would see Boneclaw as Grim Eyes' grandmother if the above is correct, the Hyenas themselves might not.
  • Yep: Boneclaw Mother specifically states that all her brothers are dead in the oath she gives as she adopts Digger, so definitively Jossed. A far nastier but still plausible possibility is...

The Hyenas language does not differentiate between Grandmother and Great-grandmother or Great-aunt. Boneclaw Mother is Blood-Mare’s mother or Blood-Mare’s sister.

It then follows that Blood Tail and Blood-Eyes are/were Boneclaw Mothers granddaughters / nieces, and Grim Eyes is her great-granddaughter/ grand-niece. It would explain why Boneclaw mother party blames herself for Blood-Mare and Blood-Tail’s malice/ Blood-Eyes insanity, and it explains the telling line “ I was glad when she [Blood-mare] finally died: it is a sin to admit it, but her death came as a great relief to me.”

Blood-Eyes was a first born child: lack of oxygen to her brain during birth at least partly caused her mental problems later in life.

Very unlikely, if Blood-Eyes was "lucky" Ed would have mentioned it in little-skin painter's story. She seemed to be obsessed with the fact that her mate was lucky. We also know that madness is common in the tribe(apparently among females), and lucky children are not. And Ed's a first born child and he doesn't seem to have mental problems (though he DOES talk weird...)

• • Ed talks weird because he hasn't spoken at all in seventeen years.

Ursula reads this WMG.

Looks like there really is something wrong with SGV, the heart and the liver.