SPOILERS FOR THE 8TH BOOK. DON'T KEEP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS!!! okay.
I've been wondering why Taranis took Samantha when he said he was taking the pieces of Apito.
Her memory and sense of self is completely fried from being in the Nothing, as we can hear from her disjointed recounting of faction wars to Tipid. It's the first time we hear her thoughts, which I think is important (as we can see from Quasar's previous feature in the book summary, they aren't just there to summarize the last book for people who aren't reading back-to-back but can act as a set-up.)
The Scavenger has only ever been described as being Apito, Scolopendra, the unnamed brother or all three. This means whoever the Scavenger is, no matter what, they're related to Apito in some way.
At this point, I think it's obvious Samantha is heavily related to the Scavenger. If her sand ooze daughter was the result of a union between her and King Blaine, one might assume in that case that King Blaine is the Scavenger, but Samantha herself says that she had to be assisted in getting pregnant, and was tricked by Kimaris into birthing a being that was meant to destroy the crawl. This either means King Blain is only acting as her connection to Theia (her supposed mother who he left her for), he IS the Scavenger but something is wrong about the way Samantha is remembering this (the brother is supposed to be out in the fields collecting lost souls or whatever, he's not a dungeon entity as far as I'm aware), or he's just a coconspirator and they used Samantha's interest in him against her.
Plus, the Skyfowl who is sponsoring Theia tells Psamathe Theia is not her real mother, even clarifying it's not HIM he's saying isn't her mother, but that THEIA herself isn't. This makes me think something major is going to be happening related to Samantha, and it's either going to make or break the party despite her possible absence from the next book (or at least her absence from the party.) This makes me think since Samantha realized she wants to kill KIMARIS' mother, maybe her anger at Theia is solely because of her relationship with King Blaine, and for whatever reason that translated into her being a mother, and if Samantha can't remember who her mother is... then it's probably the woman who stole her man!
The most interesting about all this is that people outside the dungeon seem aware of Psamathe's role. It makes me wonder if there have been plotlines revolving around her in the past, making her an infamous figure for her ability to TPK with her ridiculous quests (ie her relation to Geyrun's murder.)
This might be a little disjointed or I misremembered a few details, but I've been trying really hard to piece together what on earth is going on with her because she seems way more important than a sex doll head should be. I appreciate any theories or ideas others might have since I'm totally lost myself HAHA
