Tales of MU/WMG

Not all demons are Evil

 * Mack's father made a good case against Kheris in his last visitation, actually pointing out that Khersis' actions actually made demons more powerful, and even seemed to imply that it was Khersis' actions that made humans hate demons. So, maybe Demons are the most misunderstood of all the "monster" types. MackDaddy didn't kill MackMama, and as far as we know, neither has Mack. Her "rampages" have all centered around sex. Maybe breeds of demons are good.
 * If so, it's a remarkably deep misunderstanding, with most every race considering demons malign, even if focused on human victims. Even Steff and Amaranth discuss demons in terms of the threat they pose.
 * But everyone discusses mermaids as basically positive until we find out otherwise from FeeJee. Apparently no humans realize that mermaids are bad news.
 * Alternately, any human in a position to discover the mermaid's secret generally doesn't live long enough to tell anyone. Even if the manage to not get eaten, odds are that they will just drown.
 * Also, hiding that a race *does* eat humans is one thing - hiding that they *don't* is another thing entirely.
 * Mack's rampages haven't all been centered around sex. She bit off someone's finger in a fight; another time, she almost beat Amaranth to death because Puddy went to grab Two (and Amaranth dived between them).

Demons? Evil
And the author is saving up a big Kick the Dog moment for the Mack Daddy, what with all his fans. ;)

List Steff theories here.
These theories have since been Jossed, but are kept here for posterity.
 * My guess is some kind of sexually transmitted "Spring of the Drowned Man" curse. Okay, I know the only detail supporting this version over less insane forms is the protection discussion in Chapter 62, especially the line, "Iâ€™m just trying to think of everything I wish somebody had told meâ€¦" but what is Wild Mass Guessing for if not insane theories?
 * Alternatively, Steff is, in fact, a hermaphrodite, but flat-chested enough to pass for a guy who looks a little too good in a dress. What does Delia the Dark Elf have to say on the subject of Steff? "Your language doesn't have enough pronouns." Also, Steff tells Mack that (s)he doesn't care if she prefers boys or girls... This could be interpreted as him/her being neither/both.
 * While this does appear to be Jossed, Dee's later comments still suggest that Steff herself may not be entirely aware of her true nature. While Steff is not a hermaphrodite in the classic sense (her genitals are definitely male) it seems that among the subterranean elves, ambiguous sex is more common than in humans (or perhaps just not stigmatized the same way). It may be that this is true of the surface elves as well, but that that (being both very young and half-human) no one ever explained this to Steff.
 * Also, because this is WMG and thus hermaphrodite equals Yubel, he/she/it is actually the brains behind a lot of Amaranth's more extreme sexual experiments, in no small part for the thrill of hearing about it afterwards. Considering the nature of their friendship and the fact that Steff wouldn't be surprised if Amy took that "masturbation pamphlet" joke seriously and actually went off to make and distribute the things, it's almost certain the elf put more than a few ideas in the nymph's head, and not really that unlikely that Steff was hoping for some cheap second-hand voyeuristic kicks from hearing about it afterwards.
 * Even without the WMG Logic, that seems likely. Nymphs are supposed to be "inherently clean", and a dirty mind would seem to preclude that (even considering what Amaranth is supposed to be, and with whom she's been hanging out [including Steff]).

Mack's love of pain comes from her demonic heritage

 * Because something has to explain it.
 * This troper disagrees. If demons are anything like the typical version, they get off on delivering torment, not receiving it. Alternate theory: Mack's grandmother and caretaker was always tormenting her. Thus she equates love with being tormented. "Kheez, if she doesn't care enough to beat me, then she doesn't care at all..."
 * Similar, but somewhat different; Mack's love of pain comes from her devotion to demons being a bad thing. She's hugely invested in the idea that demonicness makes you bad; thus, when she's put in pain, because she's "bad", that she's being punished is a good thing. Hence why it isn't simply pain, but general unpleasant things she enjoys - it's all punishment for the bad demon, which is a good thing, and has now got hooked into her sexuality.
 * I trust the sex-empath nymph, here. Shame, self-loathing, indoctrinated disgust with her own body, etc. seem more likely factors.
 * Shame and self-loathing which come from her believing that she's a bad, bad demon. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Kiersta isn't actually entirely human, but doesn't want people to know what she actually is.
Alternately, she is physically human but was raised in some other society, and doesn't not think if herself entirely as human.

While Celia got upset at having a human RA, assuming that it was because the school authorities didn't trust non-human students, Kiersta only replied that she was a 'full-blooded human'. However, at least three others (Raquel, and Leighton twins) on the same floor could say the same while still having attributes that would cause them to be seen as non-human. Furthermore, she has never given a surname, something which is distinctly atypical for IRM human society but common for several of the demi-human species.

It is possible that she is a human by birth, but under some enchantment or curse which, while not readily visible, would make her unwelcome elsewhere when it was revealed, especially if it was something that occurred recently. An obvious possibility is some form of thieranthropy, which (as far as this troper knows so far) has not been mentioned in the series to date; it is noteworthy that she has not (again, AFAIK) been seen around during a full moon, though the same could be said of several other characters. Any number of other magical conditions or maladies are possible, however, especially in a school of magic. She may not be completely at ease with whatever has altered her, and in any case probably still thinks of herself as human, at least technically.

Another possibility is that she is of a magically-altered subspecies that is nominally human, but unusual or undesirable in some way (e.g., some versions of doppelgangers are human, but sexless, and need to replace a normal human in order to breed, a sort of hominid cuckoo). In this case, she may not have been aware of her own unusual nature until recently, and discreetly arranged to be transferred to Harlowe after she found out.


 * Possible evidence: a mention of therianthropes came in chapter 294, when Steff joked that Hazel might be a "very short werebear" after discovering her Berserk Button. So it seems that they do exist. Of course that could turn into a Wild Mass Guess on its own.

== Puddy deliberately plays up her dwarven ancestry to distract from the much more recent - and significant - Draconic and/or Giant ancestry, or perhaps some other non-human ancestor which she hasn't mentioned. == Puddy's strength is a match for Mackenzie's or nearly so, something that doesn't seem likely even for a fullblooded dwarf (Mack has beaten, and tore through ghouls like they were cheap tinfoil). She is able to live on a diet of wine and pudding pops, and has occasionally shown some surprising abilities. She hoards her things like she lives on them, but beyond that ignores them. Yet she rarely mentioned anything but a distant Dwarven ancestor, and occasionally a nymph ancestor (which she mostly uses to excuse her sexual habits, and specifically the times she's had sex with men - though that was only just mentioned once in passing AFAIK). She is an extraordinarily effective manipulator and reader of human motives, when she wants to be, so it would be in character for her intentionally distract attention from some of family past if she thought it would serve as a ace in the hole (so to speak). What is her real game?
 * If this is true, it may simply be that she gets certain privileges from her dwarf and nymph ancestry (access to alcohol and the boy's dorms, respectively), and the the dragon and/or giant ancestry would give her no such loopholes in the rules. For that matter, they may not have let her if her  is directly related to her being related to dragons or giants.
 * It is currently unknown whether part-dragons are given any special treatment, but it has now been revealed that Imperial laws do not apply to dragons. As in, someone who was killed by a dragon is considered to have died of natural causes. This is how . Discuss.
 * Possibly a 50 ton full dragon can work wherever it darn well pleases, but a 160lb 1/4 dragon merely has no rights to citizenship (or even to be regarded as a being), since its/her/his weight would be considerably less to throw around, especially with no three-foot fangs or fire breath?

Puddie's wine isn't just wine, she had some other drug mixed in.
This occurred to me after I noticed that everyone who drinks it not only gets drunk but behaves in a very specific way (trying to rape Mack).
 * Then again, it may just be a repeated aesop about drinking responsibly.
 * Certainly, the other times Mack and others have gotten drunk, they behaved just as badly, if not worse. Gabe in particular had the "let's gang-rape Mack" thing going after a couple of beers, so it isn't just Puddy's wine.
 * Mack kept from molesting a psuedo-willing Sooni while toasted on elven wine. Tyler the divinity student had been drinking, but he was willing to give his blood to the half-demon girl he'd injured in his stupidity. Gabe...Gabe is just one of those people who exist to be bad examples.
 * One minor character, an alchemy student, mentions that potions of super heroism and alcohol shouldn't be mixed. Many M Unkeys think that's what was in Puddy's wine.
 * But what was in the pudding pops?
 * Pudding
 * Apparently jossed in the Q&A...if you can believe anything Puddy says.

== Mercy is eventually going to find another male half-demon, and having three males, will start bringing more pressure on Mack, possibly by arranging 'accidents' that are likely to make her lose control. ==

Mack's mother had a way to keep control of Mack, which is why Mack didn't begin to manifest her Infernal powers until after she died.
While it is unlikely that she had given Martha's opposition to it, we know that Laurel Anne was able to use them, and may have been using them to suppress Mackenzie's Demonic side.

Mackenzie was somehow involved in her mother's death.
The obvious possibility is that Mackenzie started a fire in their home when her powers began emerging, and that Laurel Anne had been caught in it. A more sinister possibility is that young Mack had had some sort of frenzy, and killed her while out of control. Either of these would be traumatic enough to explain why she doesn't remember what happened.


 * This is at least partially Jossed now since ...whether or not Mack was actively involved still remains to be seen.

Martha Blaise blames herself for the death of Mack's mother
As seen in one flashback story set before Laurel's death, Martha was stodgy but affectionate towards her estranged daughter and downright grandmotherly towards Mack. Only after Laurel's death do we see her as an stoic hardass alienated from everyone else.

Perhaps Martha thinks she was too lenient and permissive towards Laurel and Mack, and that her "softness" lead to the death of her daughter and the orphaning of her granddaughter. That, coupled with the trauma of losing Laurel, might explain some of her hard-line craziness and much of her behavior since.

Mackenzie's father is an Incubus.
Assuming the  is Mack's father, it would appear that he is more the corrupter type of demon rather the sort who rends humans indiscriminately. He most likely was, which certainly is more in line with the succubus/incubus legends than the other sorts of demons described so far. It would explain both Mackenzie's specific feeding needs, and her rather tumultuous sex life (affecting both her own behavior and that of those around her).

The series is in fact coded racist propaganda
The only non-human races who apparently don't want to eat/rape-and-enslave humans? Drow, who make no attempt at mass immigration and stay where they belong -hundreds of miles underground
 * Where is stated that Gnomes want to rape and enslave humans? Plus, the nasty features of many MU races is balanced by the frequent indicators that Humans Are the Real Monsters.

Mermaids are secretly part demon
Think about it for a moment. Whenever Mackenzie's demon side is played up her eyes change, and the rest of her catches fire and is altered. Similarly, mermaids eyes turn completely black and their forms change. Additionally it has been stated that nearly all sentient races can breed true, and that whales, dolphins, and some types of fish are sentient. All it takes is a few fish and a few demons. This explains in a way their desire to eat human flesh as a necessity, as Feejee seems to have a hard time going long without it. I'd imagine this would have happened so long ago that it would have been nearly or completely forgotten(and wouldn't exactly be spread around).
 * Between dragons, ogre's and the rest, it's safe to assume that humans have been a large part of the food chain in the series until almost the present day, looking at it like that, mermaids just fill an ecological niche. Mostly, I just can't imagine any infernal plan that would be furthered by seducing a whale or fish.

Magic is secretly Magic From Technology
Way I see it, mechans are among the more accurately portrayed magical scientists(what that says about the genre is another topic entirely), factoring in the fact that no one knows where magic came from or can describe it in any terms that seem consistent I'd guess that, as the Arkanites believe gods are Sufficently Advanced creatures are at least type four.

Mack is 3/4 demon.
Her grandmother hates demons so much because she made a mistake and slept with/was raped by one of her targets. Her mother's powers consumed her, which was both why she died young and how she could control Mack. Mack's Super-Powered Evil Side is from her mother's flesh-rending, "grar rar" demon side, and the "nice" mack is a combination of her half-demon mother's human side, her incubus father's "sleep with me, I'm charming" blood, and her crazy grandmother messung her up.

Mack's grandmother isn;t as evil as the series makes her out to be.
Mack is shown to be an unreliable narrator, both in the series and in narrating the series. It's possible that her demon side sees hunters as Exclusively Evil, she was kept away from others on request of their parents after the Super-Powered Evil Side drained some kid of a lethal volume of blood, and a lot of stuff Mac remembers is a twisted version of her simply trying to survive Mack's evil side getting loose. She did make sure to feed her all those years, even at the inconvenience of the other humans in their family, and in the flashback with the mask (the only flashback to that time period this troper recalls that had a different source of displeasure), she seemed genuinely caring even through Mack's narration. It's possible that she was merely borderline Lawful Stupid, or even partly Stupid Good looked at through demon-powered Unreliable Narration.
 * Of course, Your Mileage May Vary on whether Mack's grandmother is really made out to be evil so much as a battle-traumatized, hard-core religious fanatic who, despite showing genuine love and kindness, was simply a poor parent. The "three buckets of water" flashback exemplifies this - she threatens Mack with a holy-water dousing, but she makes Mack take the threat seriously by sticking her own arm in boiling oil, with no proof that the decorated third bucket had anything but normal water in it. Traumalicious and emotionally abusive, but still, horribly, something that could be motivated by genuine good intentions crossed with a poor ability to relate to people.

The La Belle family has significant amounts of sidhe ancestry.
Moeli was fairly certain that Cerridwen, as in the name of the settlement, was a Fae word. Of the three La Belle girls at MU:
 * Ceridwyn (Puddy) revels in her non-human ancestry, and while listing her non-human heritage in chapter two, does indeed mention sidhe blood in the list.
 * Keridwen (Keri), in Mackenzie's history class, has problems with absorbing, retaining, and/or understanding the material, which may simply mean that she's not the sharpest crayon in the box, or may point to a fundamentally non-human thought-process, such as the sidhe have been hinted at possessing.
 * Ceridwen (Winnie) is known to have befriended Semele, an elfmaid, when generally humans and elves steer clear of each other, socially. Elves share a rapport with the Sidhe that most other races do not.
 * Though Semele is a social misfit among the local elves due to her ethnicity and ...peculiar flirting style.
 * Even assuming that what Semele told Winnie about elvish racial relations is entirely accurate - and I really am not sure whether I believe one way or the other - her behavior can be summed up as so incredibly elf-like it makes the other elves uncomfortable. That would be unlikely to endear her to a human, unless said human had something about her that made her unusually sympathetic to elves.

Mother Khaele doesn't hate Mack at all...
...She's just dissatisfied with how Amaranth is handling her relationship with Mack. Amaranth is horribly arrogant at times, and she seems to believe now and then that she can get Mack to abandon all her inhibitions, which seems just a tad unlikely. Her recently increased commitment to working on their relationship may please the goddess.

Mother Khaele doesn't hate Mack at all...
...She just objects to Amaranth loving anyone most of all.

Mother Khaele has a plan
Both Amaranth and Barley have been wayward in her eyes, but both are still in touch with her and both have been told to avoid the other. She might have a purpose behind all of this happening.
 * Likely jossed in the Q&A, where she seems simply worried about Barley in particular.

Jamie's friends and Mack's friends are headed for a conflict
These groups have never crossed paths without some confrontation or quiet social hostility. Jamie mildly dislikes Steff and actively dislikes Mack without so much as their actually saying a single word to each other. As of the time of writing, Barley will be rooming next door to Jamie; he and Violet think she's a sweet, put-upon soul, not a would-be rapist who keeps trying to "reconcile" with Mack, whom in turn Jamie suspects of being a scheming villain of some sort.

Barley may well actively try to cause this conflict once her hurt feelings after her Veil night confrontation with Mack and Amaranth slip into anger and resentment.

Jamie and Mack will have one brief chat
After crossing each others' paths a number of more times, they will engage in small-talk for a few minutes, perhaps before their graduation ceremony.

Both will have very different impressions of the encounter.

Mack's father has marked her as a target
Mack's socially stunted and a half-demon, but damn, the girl picks up a lot of enemies who are fixated on killing her or possessing her in some way. Coach Callahan's efforts to get permission to kill her are remarkably obsessive considering her one POV scene involving Mack and how inconsequential she found her. On the other hand, if the Mack Daddy had marked her in some way that made her seem like a target to people, that could be part of a plan to make her defensive and isolated right at the time she's trying to integrate into society - thus making her more likely to turn to demonic society, or at least him.

Half-demon girls are just "naturally yummy"
Perhaps as part of some evolutionary/divine mechanism to keep demons from interbreeding too much with their food supply, two-legged predators find female half-demons irresistible. They don't survive contact with male half-demons, obviously curtailing the spread of demonic blood into human populations and vice versa.

This could certainly explain the mermaids and even Mercy. One wonders what Mack smells like to her demonic father...
 * I don't believe that Mack is in any physical danger from Mack Daddy. They have similar dietary needs, true, with both feeding off of innocence, but while Mack needs a physical representation of it - virgin's blood - her father seems to be able to feed off of the abstract quality directly - see his interactions with Mack's mother.
 * He only hung around with Mack's mother some of the time, over the course of years. He clearly wanted a child; what he was feeding on may not have involved Mack's mother at all.
 * Apparently confirmed, as of updates at the end of Volume One and the (currently) new Volume Two - Mack now takes "anti-fertility potions" to change her hormonal balance (ala birth control pills) and her scent, making her less enticing to "two-legged predators".

The charm that lust demons have in affecting humans signifies deliciousness to other two-legged predators...
But while a full demon is both powerful enough to kill most predators, as well as both the body and spirit tasting disgusting to anything that doesn't prey on demons specifically, a half-succubus/incubus/lust demon/innocence feeder will simply "smell" like a slightly singed human virgin/maiden/youth, no matter their actual state. Many being-eating creatures in mythology have a preference for innocents of varying type, and an aura of virtue or innocence is more likely to seduce truly innocent beings than an aura of slutty-demon-ness.

Coach Callahan doesn't want to kill Mack
By all accounts, she views Mack as "a joke". Why would she spend so much effort writing letters to get permission to kill her off? She wants to kill Steff - and bring her back, since she has the funds. Why? She is a freaky little monkey, and she may not be all that wrong about Steff finding the experience entertaining. (However, once she sees the New and More Feminine Steff, she may lose interest.)
 * Remember, though, Callahan has admitted that she gets a great deal of enjoyment out of killing immortals. Mack may be immortal enough to qualify.
 * Because they're dangerous, experienced, and powerful. Mack probably wouldn't be a challenge for Callahan with Steff and Ian backing her up.
 * Apparently jossed, as Callahan just wants the right to kill off the most annoying and useless student in class. Early versions of student waivers didn't cover this...
 * Seems, based on much of Callahan's characterization, that she loves the thrill of challenge, and has determined that it would be more challenging to make Mack a competent fighter than to kill her.
 * Perhaps even further, Callahan offhandedly mentions that people who've stuck up for Mack lately are getting bureaucratic grief...right after dealing with an attempt to sabotage her class. (Mack doesn't pick up on it, but that's Mack.)

The "Weapons Policy" was introduced at MU at about the same time as Embries was hired, and for the same reason
Supporting points:
 * A while back, a half-demon student went on a rampage, starting a riot that destroyed a lot of the school before it was finally stopped (somehow).
 * This led directly to the hiring of Vice-Chancellor Embries, a  who would presumably be able to nip another such incident in the bud.
 * MU's current Weapons Policy is that each student who doesn't have a special exemption must keep a magical weapon on their person, and be able to draw and wield it quickly, at all times.
 * Mack Daddy complained in a dream about how a demon's one true advantage over humans is invulnerable skin, which has been pretty much negated by the proliferation of magical weapons in recent times.
 * Had this policy been in effect at the time of the last demon riot, it's likely that other students would have been able to stop the instigator before it got out of hand.

Coach Callahan came to MU hoping to get a chance to kill Mercy.
Callahan and Mercy have some history together, but in the flashbacks, it doesn't appear that Callahan had any kind of emotional attatchment to Mercy beyond being impressed by the gray elf's martial prowess. However, in her interview with Vice-Chancellor Embries, Callahan outright states that she enjoys the thrill of killing immortal beings, including elves. Although we don't know much about her background, Mercy is definitely immortal, and with her fighting ability, killing her would be a challenge, even for Callahan. Callahan may have chosen to work at the university in the hopes that sooner or later, Mercy would try to acquire a student in some way that was less than legal, giving Callahan an excuse to go after her in defense of her charges.
 * Apparently jossed, at least if we can believe Callahan in the Q&A installment.
 * One can't help but wonder if the fate of her team's mage is playing into her desire to train would-be victims into more combat-capable individuals. Callahan probably would never admit something like that, even to herself, but it seems pretty plausable.

Most, if not all, violent "demon" attacks are carried out by half-demons.
IIRC, we have no reports so far of a full demon physically attacking someone. There are at least two instances of demonic possesion, and Mack's father seemed to be feeding off Laural Ann just by corrupting her, but all violent, physical attacks have been from half-demons - Mack, Mercy's Dogs, the unnamed student who destroyed a large part of the campus years before.

I propose that full demons can feed off of abstract qualities without physically harming the victim, but a half-demon's mortal heritage prevents her from directly feeding without some physical symbol of what she is consuming. Both Mack and Mack Daddy need to consume the innocence of others, but while Mack Daddy can get what he needs by intellectually and sexually seducing a young girl, Mack needs the physical symbol of virgin's blood.

Likewise, the offspring of a demon who saps strength might need to consume muscle tissue, or the child of a demon that feeds off of bravery might get what he needs by eating the hearts of his victims.


 * Mercy mentioned a rampaging full demon as the father of her four female half-demons.
 * Would a rampaging full human convince you that all humans in the MUniverse were barely-contained vessels of demonslaying rage? And no, I hadn't been thinking of Mack's grandmum, but the parallel does fit. Actually, Coach Callahan might be a better example.
 * ...Bwuh? The suggestion is that demons don't rampage, citing as support lack of mentions of violently rampaging full demons - and that's a specific counter-example.
 * Ah, my apologies. I misunderstood that as an attempt to shoot down the entire theory (based on the "most, if not all") and must not have been reading carefully enough the first time through to notice the reference to which it was counterpoint was that "all violent, physical attacks were by half-demons".
 * Maybe I should have said that there don't seem reports of a full demon physically attacking someone with the intent to kill or maim - a "rampaging" demon that leaves behind at least ten or twelve offspring doesn't necessarily sound like a demon in a murderous rampage. A rapacious rampage, certainly, but I think that my point that demons aren't generally a threat to life and limb still stands.

Half-Demons aren't as violent and corrupt as suggested.
Considering the recent depiction of Mack's half-brother, it could very well be that the violent, feral behavior of Mercy's half-demons is the result of living under the thumb of a vicious monster who uses rape and other abuse as training.

The cited cases of half-demons who commit violence, lead uprisings, etc. might well be balanced by an unknown number of half-demons keeping their heads down, safely feeding their hungers, and staying out of trouble.

Mack's weakness to Kherstian and faith-based objects is (at least out of her Super-Powered Evil Side) psychosomatic.
The reason Kherstian symbols, objects, and prayers harm her more than the others is not because Khersis is particularly strong or has a lot of worshippers, but rather because she was raised in a society of prominently Kherstian faith. When someone starts praying in fear, or waving around an un-blessed holy symbol, it triggers a reflex to stop messing with the mortals before someone gets hurt. Full demons actually do have to deal with the gods themselves, and other half-demons (if they've been shown in-story at all to be harmed by faith and the symbols thereof, rather than straight divine magic) are harmed because they messed with the natural order of things, and killed too many beings under the protection of a more powerful demi- or full-deity. If divine magic is present every time other half-demons were harmed, then this theory holds for Mack's Super-Powered Evil Side as well. It would explain why Mack felt sick around (Dee?)'s Flat Earth Solipsist symbol but not the Mechan stuff (since she considered the former a "true but lesser" faith and the latter a bunch of kids playing around at being the universe's equivalent of Ninja Storm Power Rangers).


 * Mack isn't weak to faith-based objects, but divinity, which is in direct opposition to the nature of demonhood (as AE stated on her Formspring when asked if there was such a thing as a "demon god"). Mechans don't invoke the divine, which is why she's safe there. Khersis is a particularly anti-demon god, which is why he causes her particular discomfort.

One of Mercy's clients is hiding, or is a demonblood
Think about it. Demons need part of a human every month or so, and Einwich has a source of humans that can be bought, cooked, prepared to unrecognizability, and delivered. To a half demon who knows how to lay low(move silently without telling the government, don't attract media attention. Essentially everything Mack ISN'T doing) this is more or less a dream come true in enough food without hassle any time you want if you have cash. Mercy's "research" seems to amount to looking for known demonbloods, and then not very hard if she's lived in the MU area when all these half and quarter demons attended and she didn't scoop at least a few up.

Dee’s occasionally mentioned older brother
We are told multiple times that Dee had an elder brother who died before she was born, an event which has left her mother deeply depressed and longing for a son. What if her brother is only symbolically dead (as in ‘dead to me’) rather than literally dead and in fact ran away to the surface in the manner of Forgotten Realms’s Drizzt. Part of the reason Dee’s been sent on her own surface path would be to find him. Of course, given that this is Tales of MU, the whole run away Drow cliché would be turned on its head.

Callahan is a Death Seeker
Her greatest fear is living forever. One reason for her omnicidal mass-murdering tendencies is that she finds pleasure in ending immortal life. Another one may be an urge to die in battle - but she has not yet found a being in the world who could defeat her. She might be teaching combat classes simply to groom students as possible worthy opponents - and particularly Mack.