Obernewtyn Chronicles - Powers of The Mind

Powers of The Mind

Powers of the mind play a significant part in the series, and may manifest themselves in a variety of ways and as a variety of abilities. Minor, weak powers, such as the ability to true dream, or the possession of a knack for guessing correctly, seem to be rather widespread, although mostly these abilities exist only in the unconscious levels of the brain. As such, many individuals with these powers are not aware of their abilities and cannot control them.

Sentient powers are called Talents, and may be used at will by their possessor. The seven most common Talents, as defined and named by the Misfits of Obernewtyn, are farseeking, coercion, empathy, healing, futuretelling, beastspeaking, and teknopathing. A Talented Misfit may possess one or more of these Talents, although one particular power will usually manifest itself more strongly than the others. Some combinations of Talents, such as farseeking and beastspeaking, are quite common, while others, such as coercion and empathy, are rare.

At Obernewtyn, each Misfit belongs to a group, or Guild, consisting of similarly Talented individuals. A Misfit is free to choose which guild he or she wishes to belong to, but usually the guild corresponding to their strongest Talent is chosen. Each guild is led by a leadership group consisting of a Guildmaster or Guildmistress (who is usually, but not necessarily, Obernewtyn's strongest possessor of that Talent), a Guilden, and one or more Wards. Guilds are responsible for nurturing their members' abilities, and also for contributing something to Obernewtyn as a whole; the Farseeker Guild, for example, is responsible for scrying out Talented Misfits. Guild leaders meet to discuss the affairs of Obernewtyn in meetings called Guildmerge.

An outline of the seven Talents, examples of powerful possessors, and each guild's master are:

Outside of these seven Talents, other powers have emerged or have been expressed in different ways in the series.

Elspeth possesses a mysterious power known as the killing power, related to her coercion Talent, something she has described as a "dark snake" coiled at the base of her mind. It has the power to kill individuals as shown in the novel Obernewtyn, when she used this power to kill Madam Vega. The killing power can also be used to augment her other powers to increased levels, as shown in Ashling when Elspeth uses it to break through Dragon's mental defences, and in The Keeping Place in order to break through the demonband static.

Other powers to have emerged include Dragon's illusion-generating abilities, which have been described as the result of a critical mass of coercion mental power (other coercers display this power but not to the same degree). Freya's empathy also displays abilities outside of the normal range. Her power is described as "enhancing"; allowing people under its effect to perform better than they otherwise would. Ariel's rare empathy and coercion combination allows him to feed his victims ghastly visions of torture while using empathy to make the victim think they're enjoying the experience. He is described by Domick, a victim of this torture, as an "empath turned inside out".

Two children described in the series, Lidgebaby (first seen in The Farseekers) and Gavyn (The Keeping Place), also have strange abilities. Lidgebaby's coercion powers allowed him to link other Talents to him, effectively binding them to him to the effect that they were compelled to protect and love him above all else. A side-effect of this never before seen merging was the generation of mental static that cancelled out all other powers, as experienced by Elspeth in The Farseekers. Gavyn is described as "adantar", beastspeak for "link". He has an unusual amount of control and effect over animals even though he isn't a beastspeaker. Elspeth and the beasts believed he is some sort of enthraller, whose powers only affect beasts.

In addition, the animals of Obernewtyn have formed the Beast Guild. Their leader is the mare Avra. The Beast guild have equal rights to participate in Guildmerge. It seems that most, if not all, beasts can communicate with each other mentally. Most species of beast are also able to communicate with any human beastspeaker, although some, such as cats, dogs and horses, are more able to do so than others, such as cows and wolves. As humans cannot beastspeak birds (besides the Agyllians), it is not known if birds can beastspeak each other, or if other animals can beastspeak with birds.