Canon inconsistencies

The Daevabad series is heavily detailed and while it was all written by the same author (S.A. Chakraborty), there are still some inconsistencies.

## Timeline-related

### Daevabad's Calendar and the Number of Generations After Suleiman's Blessing

In The City of Brass, Ali's first day in court in chapter 8 is announced as being on the "ninety-fourth Rabi' al Thani of the twenty-**seventh** generation after Suleiman's Blessing." Rabi' al Thani is the fourth month in the Islamic calendar, and 'Suleiman's Blessing' refers to when the ancient daevas were freed from Suleiman's control and changed to their new mortal bodies, which took place "three thousand years ago, give or take a few centuries." Considering chapter 8 is the *ninety-fourth* Rabi' al Thani, this implies that a generation has at least 94 years in it. Indeed, 6 years into the future is when they celebrate the end of the century and the beginning of Navasatem in The Kingdom of Copper! However, when everyone gathers in the court to witness this in Kingdom of Copper's chapter 26, Ghassan calls a close to the "twenty-**ninth** generation of Suleiman's Blessing."

### The Season of Jamshid's Birth/Queen Saffiyeh's Death

In The Kingdom of Copper, it is stated that Queen Saffiyeh died during the **summer** that Manizheh stayed too long in Zariaspa, because she ignored Ghassan's pleas to return to Daevabad early in order to heal the ailing queen. Manizheh ignored those calls to return because she was giving birth to Jamshid, and could only spend a week with her newborn baby before finally returning to Daevabad. However in The River of Silver Ch. 1, which shows the story of Manizheh's week with baby Jamshid and her return to Daevabad, the season is described as "**Spring**, but... still early in the season." Manizheh also mentions that she had "overstayed her visit by three months," and when she's back in Daevabad and suffering from post-labor complications, she thinks "it had been a couple weeks" since Jamshid's birth. Unless the seasons went backwards for this one year, there is no way for these events to line up.

### Alizayd's Age in The River of Silver

Alizayd al Qahtani is stated to be 18-years old in The City of Brass, meaning that with the five-year timeskip that starts The Kingdom of Copper, he would be 23-years old during the second book. In a timeline document that S.A. Chakraborty shared on Instagram in 2020, she states The Kingdom of Copper "takes place over about eight months" and the main Empire of Gold story "takes place over about six months," and then has the '6 months later' epilogue. She even states in this document that Ali would be nearly 25 at the end of Empire of Gold, and cut out dialogue referring to his birthday. And yet, The River of Silver's final story (Ch. 15) that celebrates Ali's 25th birthday takes place **"a year and a half"** after The Empire of Gold. Even assuming that Ali turned 23 in chapter 2 of Kingdom of Copper and assuming that Empire of Gold's 6-months later epilogue overlaps with the "and a half" part of the timeskip for River of Silver's Ch. 15 (and there's no evidence of this), this still means Ali would be about 8 months into his 25th year when they celebrated it, if not much longer without those allowances.

## Description-related

### Suleiman's Seal Tattoo Placement

In The City of Brass chapter 6, the location of Suleiman's seal --the eight-pointed star tattoo on Ghassan's face-- is described as being on Ghassan's left temple early in the chapter and then mentioned to be on his right temple at the end of that same chapter. Later books solve this confusion by never describing which side of the face the tattoo appears on. (Though as a note, both Dara's Afshin mark and Ali's marid-carved Suleiman seal were also described as being on their left side.)

### Location of Facial Tattoos (Ghassan's, Dara's)

In addition to the above problem, throughout the trilogy Ghassan's Suleiman's seal tattoo and Dara's Afshin mark are interchangeably referred to as appearing on their temples, their brows, their upper cheeks, and the cheek in general. This pattern continues in The Empire of Gold when Ali has the seal.

### Location of Nahri's Arrow Wound

During the climatic final battle in The Empire of Gold, Nahri is shot by Dara with an arrow. First described as "protruding from her chest," it later is described as being "speared through her shoulder" before the two locations become interchangeable in later mentions.

## Things That Don't Add Up

### Dara's Legendary Beauty

During Nahri's first day in Daevabad in The City of Brass, Zaynab remarks to her that Dara "is even more handsome than the legends say, although I guess that's to be expected from a slave." (Because part of the ifrit curse is to "make them more alluring to their human masters.") Even The Empire of Gold mentions how Dara was "so handsome even his enemies wrote poetry praising his beauty." However, no one outside of the line of Qahtani kings & emirs even knew that Dara had been enslaved until he showed up in Daevabad with Nahri. As far as everyone else knew for 1400 years, he just vanished from the battlefield one day during the height of his rebellion. So where did those legends come from?

### Lake Marid Giving Ali the Power of Suleiman's Seal

In the climatic finale of The City of Brass, Ali is possessed by the Lake Marid and the symbol of Suleiman's seal is carved onto his cheek. Under the marid's control, the symbol is activated and just like the real seal, all djinn magic is disrupted. How were the marid able to have and give the power of Suleiman's seal to Ali?

## References

1. ↑ The City of Brass, ch. 8, pg. 149
2. ↑ The City of Brass, ch. 5, pg. 106
3. ↑ The Kingdom of Copper, ch. 26, pg. 427
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 The Kingdom of Copper, ch. 34, pg. 515
5. ↑ The River of Silver, ch. 1: Manizheh
6. ↑ Shannon Chakraborty on Instagram - September 20, 2020 - Daevabad Timeline
7. ↑ Assuming KoC takes 8 months and EoG takes 6 months, that equals 14 months total, or 20 months to include the EoG epilogue. RoS ch.15 being a year and a half later is 12+6= 18 months. Depending on whether the EoG epilogue overlaps with RoS ch.15's timeskip, this means the total time between the beginning of KoC to the end of RoS ch.15 is 14+18= 32 to 38 months total. You can map this out on paper yourself, but if Ali is 23 years old at the beginning of KoC, it only takes 24 months for him to turn 25 years old; which at best would be about 4 months after the Empire of Gold epilogue.
8. ↑ The City of Brass, ch. 6, pg. 117
9. ↑ The City of Brass, ch. 6, pg. 131
10. ↑ The City of Brass, ch. 3, pg. 40
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 The City of Brass, ch. 27, pg. 482
12. ↑ The Empire of Gold, ch. 44, pg. 670
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 The Empire of Gold, ch. 44, pg. 674"
14. ↑ The Empire of Gold, ch. 46, pg. 710
15. ↑ The City of Brass, ch. 16, pg. 290
16. ↑ The Empire of Gold, ch. 26, pg. 399
17. ↑ The City of Brass, ch. 14, pg. 251