Yeah agreed! My favorite scene is Fakir and Ahiru's conversation at the bottom of the lake, and after all the ending doesn't so much relieve the self-critical and resigned feelings they express there as give them room to cope. I guess I would have preferred a little stronger of a suggestion as to what kind of stories await them and why, or what the balance to be sought is between... entertainment value GRRM-style and actual human ethics...? something. But I do see the interest and possibilities in its open-endedness, and I would probably be less stuck on this question of Tutu's explicit-vs-implicit messages if I didn't always want stories to lay out their worldbuilding in detail sufficient for me to make definitive moral judgments about. /)_o

I should absolutely read 7 Seeds. I looked with admiration on your summary post of the same, it was a thing of mingled joy and terror.