How Donut and Zev

Spoilers ahead for Books 5 and 7:
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Theory on how Donut and Zev overthrew the Borant Corporation.

Original Credit to this I’m pretty sure goes to /u/BouncyPaw who is constantly making great posts.

TLDR: Donut gets the gondii worms (I don’t think they are Valtay) from the gnoll guard and smuggles them in her mouth to Zev. Zev teleports herself and the worms back to HQ where the worms take over.

Full theory:

I read the first part of this theory a couple months ago with the parts from Butcher’s Masquerade. I wish I could remember who first posted it. But since it was fresh in my mind, when I listened to the audiobook of Ruin, one comment stuck out at me and pretty much confirmed the theory.

In Butchers Masquerade, before they meat Bea on Odette’s show, Carl and Donut go for security screening, and one of the gnoll guards scratches Donut’s chin. Carl asks if she let that dog guy scratch her chin. She doesn’t say anything in reply.

Then they teleport to the production trailer. Zev is there in person, for the first time without her full body diving suit, wearing a rebreather. This is the only time I can think of that Donut doesn’t immediately greet Zev with a “Hi Zev!”. First thing Donut does? “Donut lowered her head and pushed it against the small fish woman in greeting.”

Next up is this convo - Zev is up to something big and Carl is asking about it

— “This is such terrible timing,” Zev said. “This shouldn’t be happening now. This is too big to be happening now.”

“Goddamnit,” I said. “There’s something else going on. Why are you so damn nervous?”

She turned to me and pulled her webbed hand to her lips in a shhh motion. She leaned in and whispered. “Donut is going to need you. Focus on that.”

“Look,” I began. “I’m worried that you’re…”

“All you need to know is that you need to close that yap of yours right now. Please.” —

Next up the interview starts and Zev has to leave -

Zev: Sorry guys … I’m being called back to the office, so I won’t be in the studio when you get out. I’ll ping you later after the interview. Talk to you soon.

Then the interview with Bea finishes, Donut goes off on Zev, and we get this -

— “I can’t imagine it’s going to be that big of a news item anyway,” Donut said. “Odette and Zev are right. The timing is awful.”

“So it’s true?” Odette asked. She sighed happily. She looked over her shoulder and gave someone I couldn’t see a thumbs up.

“What?” I asked. “What the hell are you talking about? What is going on?”

Admin Message. This is an automated message. Due to a system regency change

…

“She did it,” Donut whispered. “She did it.”

I looked down at Donut. “What the hell? What happened? Did you have anything to do with this?”

She looked up at me. “Viva la revolución, Carl.” —-

Ok. So we’ve come that far with just the one scene in Butcher’s Masqueade.

The final bit of proof comes from book 7. In Chapter 30, when the gondii worms are taking out and taking over mages, we get this conversation

— I grunted. “We need to focus on the compromised mages. And we need to do it fast, before they figure out how to crack the throne room.”

“I could have told you that,” Donut said as she pointed out another monkeywrencher to the crossbowmen. “You can smuggle them anywhere, and they can crawl in your ear, kill you, and take you over in just a few seconds. It’s absolutely disgusting, but they’re quite good allies when they’re on your side. You can fit like five of them in your mouth at once.”

…

Tipid also continued to talk, and it took me a moment to realize he was still talking about the Valtay worms … “And you really gotta watch out if they don’t care about the body they’re in. Once they’re in, they can take over a body in seconds, reboot it, and animate it long enough to repair whatever damage caused the death in the first place. But if they’re not planning on staying long, they can and do hop from host to host.”

—

I include the last part because the takeover happens within about 45 minutes. I’m not sure if the worms actually forcefully take over the Bloom Kua-Tin or if they just body hop killing all the leadership. It happens during the duration of the interview. So maybe 45 minutes so either is possible.