I think "The True State of Affairs" is a FASCINATING story. I wrote half a chapter on it in my thesis. It's interesting to trace similarities to the later Dalemark: the gods are Norse rather than the Undying, but I find myself wondering if Adon derives from Odin? The mistaken identity that sets up Emily's imprisonment may be an early working of the Maewen/Noreth plot, and I wonder if the father/son imprisonment and escape also became the one referred to in Drowned Ammet and Cart and Cwidder.

Interestingly, though, I discovered that most scholars (including no less than CS Lewis) believe that the woman James falls in love with in The Kingis Quaire is the woman whom he married. DWJ is wrong to say that the narrator abandons her at the end; he doesn't - they are reunited and he credits her with his survival.