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miky91ftw · 6 years

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The Stravaganza Series: An attempt at in-universe timeline (1/3)

PART 2 [X]

Eh, I know that the Stravaganza fandom on Tumblr (and pretty much anywhere else tbh) is quite non-existent, but, nevertheless, I wanted to share this surely excessive and probably unnecessary ramble/analysis concerning the actual timeline of the show, based on a series of notes I wrote last year, that where then conveniently forgotten in my HD until i remembered about them the other day.

I was inspired to write them down after noticing that events seems to be happening at a way faster pace in later books than in the first ones, so I wanted to verify it this was really the case (spoiler: it is). I also added information about various character’s birthdays and age during the series, as stated or implied from a variety of sources*.

Please note that my estimations are based on several fundamental assumptions, such as:

The day in which a saint is celebrated is the same in both worlds;

Easter is calculated with the same criteria (implying that moon phases are the same in both universes)

People in Talia are already using the Gregorian Calendar (despite the fact that it was adopted only in 1582, while the series ends in 1580).

This said, let’s get started with the first part, covering the first two books!

CITY OF MASKS

Our universe time: from May 2002 to March 2003 (approx. 10 months).

Talian time: from May 16, 1577 (Marriage with the Sea) to March 8, 1588 (Last day of Carnevale) (approx. 10 months).

Ok, Let’s start with the years: Rodolfo tells Lucien that they are in 1577 during their first meeting, so that’s pretty much set. I don’t remember if the year in our universe is actually mentioned, but it can be inferred from what is said in latter books (it also matches the time the book was published).

Given that Lucien and Arianna are both 15 at the start of the book (turning 16** during the time gap between Arianna’s election and the Epilogue), we can deduce their birth year are, respectively, 1986 and 1561.

As for the exact days, we know that Marriage with the sea is celebrated on Ascension day, so 40 days after Easter. If we calculate Easter 1577 on the base of the aforementioned assumption, we get 7 April, so Ascension day is May 16. May 17 is the forbidden day, and it is also the day of Lucien’s first Stravagation to Talia (the last person to do so before him was Dr. Deathridge himself, who arrived in Bellona 24 years before, so around 1553).

Another important day is the Feast of the Maddalena, which we can assume takes place in the same day Mary Magdalene is remembered in the saint calendar, 22 July. This makes sense if we take into account that the Maddalena is supposed to be reminiscent of Venice’s Redentore, which is celebrated in July as well. So, by the time the celebration rolls in, Lucien has at least two months of experience regarding Bellezza and its surroundings.

Now, I do not have exact information about what happens next (i need to read CoM again), but I believe it is safe to say that all the other events from Maddalena onward (Lucien’s trip to Venice, Arianna’s incarceration, the murder in the Sala di Vetro, etc.) take place in at least three weeks/a month. In this case, Lucien’s death falls around late august/early September, and thus the main plot of CoM takes about three months and a half to unfold. I know that there is a two-week time shift around Lucien’s death due to the gate instability, but I won’t go into detail as A) this would make things even more complicated, and B) the phase shift eventually gets corrected, so let’s just forget about it.

CITY OF STARS (where things get complicated, thank you Falco -.-)

Our universe time: from late spring/early summer 2003 to 15/16*** September 2004 (approx. 1 year and 2-3 months).

Talian time: from early summer 1578 (Merla’s birth) to 15/16 September 1578 (Stellata di Falco) (approx. 3 months).

See that huge-ass incongruence in the dates? Yeah, this time it won’t be easy.

Well, we know that the time shift happens right after Falco’s death,which in turn happens the day after the Stellata, on 16August 1578 (the day of Stellata is fixed, and is 15 August). As for when the book starts, we don’t have a precise date, but I believe we can safely put Merla’s birth at least two months before the Stellata (this would still make her growth exceptional, if we consider that a horse’s weaning doesn’t happen before the fourth month).

So,what does this implies for the characters, age-wise?

For starters, we know from chapter 9 that Georgia is a Gemini. This means her birthday is between 21 May and 21 June. Given that we didn’t get any mention of her birthday since she started stravagating, we can assume**** she already celebrated it before going to Remora, and thus her being 15 would mean that her birth year is 1988. This means that she is finishing year 10 at the start of the book, and that she is 16 and starting year 12 in the epilogue (which should be the case if the “exams” mentioned in the aforementioned epilogue are the GCSE, which is taken at the end of year 11).

For Arianna and Luciano, they are both 16, turning 17 after the epilogue. This means that, after the time shift, the age gap between Luciano and Georgia is less than a year, around 5/6 months (!). (So much for spending half of the remaining books fawning over Luciano-Senpai)

For the two di Chimici, Falco and Gaetano, we can play it safe thanks to the dates on their family tree, as provided in the afterword. So, Flaco is 13/14 (we don’t know the exact birthday, but I sort of headcanon him as a Scorpio*****, so that would make him 13 at the time of the main events, and 14-soon-to-be-15 in the Epilogue). Gaetano is 17/18. We know from Falco’s story that his birthday is in summer, so we can assume that he just turned 18, or that he does so before the end of the book.

We also know that Benedetta, the brothers’ mom, died in 1577******, while Falco’s accident happened the year before, in 1576. Poor Falco, talk about traumas.

this said, the vast majority of the plot takes place is about a couple of months, and, again, this is sort of a reasonable time for the events to unfold (especially if you take into account that the whole, beautiful mess that is City of Flowers takes place in barely 6 weeks. But we’ll deal with it in part 2)

FOOTNOTES

*: most of which are now basically gone, in particular: the official site and the promotional Facebook and Twitter accounts created to promote books 4-6. Unfortunately, only part of said page is retrievable via The Wayback Machine.

**: Arianna’s and Luciano’s birthdays were actually revealed in the aforementioned Facebook/Twitter pages,which are now unfortunately gone. As the only proof I have is my notes and my memories, I am pondering about trying to contact Mary Hoffmann herself and ask her about said dates, so to have a reliable sources for my fanwanks. Btw, Arianna was born on 12 October 1561, while Luciano was born on 22 november 1986.

***: I don’t think it was explicitly stated, but I believe that the time phase that happened after Falco’s death was completely cancelled by the time of the second Stellata. This would also make sense if we consider how Falco, now Nick, felt that he had to stravagate back once again, as if it was now safe for him to move across time and return to Talia in the day dedicated to his remembrance.

****: I know this is a bit of a stretch, but Hoffman is usually really coherent and precise on the chronological integrity of her works , so I refuse to believe that she intentionally had Georgia said she was a Gemini without mentioning any eventual upcoming birthday in a paragraph that was all about births and zodiac signs. I mean, that would be extra poor™️ writing and Hoffman can do better than that.

*****: look, we all know that there is only one sign who can realistically believe that dying twice and hopping through dimension is the way-to-go solution to all of your problems, together with “pretending to be a ghost to stop your murdeous parent by scaring the life out of them”. Gaetano is also totally a sweetheart Cancer, btw.

******: this would also explain why we barely get to hear about the big powers in Giglia for most of City of Masks. They were busy mourning the death of their Duchess.

ANYWAY I LOVE THIS SERIES AND EVEN IF THIS TOOK ME FOREVER YOU SHOULD READ IT AND ALSO READ THE BOOKS!!

#stravaganza #stravaganza series #mary hoffman #city of masks #city of stars #ya literature #michele rambles

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