YLC?So why did Jim put so much effort into developing LC only to destroy it in the conflaguration of Harry's appartment without getting a proportionate bang out of it first?
Someone asked Jim if it was destroyed in the fire and got this response (
post #330)
#330 “Jim–someone else asked this as well, but I couldn’t see an answer: Little Chicago wasn’t mentioned in Turn Coat, and was barely mentioned in Changes… was it destroyed in the fire? Did the FBI notice it? It’s it gone for good?”
It was made of (mostly) pewter. The rest was plastic. Harry hadn’t taken steps to make it less destructible (which would have interfered with its function anyway–it was built to be sensitive, not tough). There was just no way it could have survived the fire. And no, the FBI didn’t confiscate it.
Changes is, in many ways, about loss. About encountering it and feeling its pain. That happens to all of us, sooner or later. There’s no avoiding it.
The real question is, how do you pick up the pieces and keep going, afterward.
#1 A weak attempt to to explain YLCA sufficiently persistant theorizer could argue that Jim didn't say that it
was destroyed, and that someone other than the FBI might have wisked it away... and thus it is still in play. Which might answer YLC, but that's kind of cheap, so what are alternate theories?
Edit: 6/25/13 I just had someone point out to me that Harry hadn't explicitly seen LC since Small Favor so it could have been wisked away books before Changes.
#2 Another attempt to explain YLCThe
whole point of LC was to exemplify Harry's development in his stated magical strength. Thaumaturgy.
"None of the evil geniuses I ever worked for could have handled something like this." He paused. "Though some of the psychotics could have, I guess."
A continuing theme in the series is that Harry is developing as a wizard. Jim is doing an amazing job of showing this development in terms of accomplishments, hard earned skills, tough lessons learned, reexamination of foundational principals while teaching a padawan, earning allies and markers... you know,
power-ups that enrich the story rather than just advancing to super saiyan level 9000. The thing is, with the level of effort Jim put into this thaumatalogical "power up" I highly suspect he has something important that it is building up to rather than just a general goal of showing Harry is a more developed wizard. Which leads to answer
#2 part 2#2 part 2 LC v2.0If the point of LC was to show that Harry was building thaumaturgy muscle (specifically with theater spanning voodoo dolls) and the logical progression after the first one was destroyed is that he would build a 2nd that is more ambitious, what will v2.0 be like?
I suspect that such a device would somehow be tied to Demonreach. There is good reason to believe that Harry will end up dwelling in the hut by the lighthouse, and that will be where his new lab will be... So I posit that either LCv2.0 will be one of 2 things.
- A portable model of Demonreach that he can carry around and use as a portable link to the benefits of that sanctum.
- A fixed model of something else (the world?) built in a new lab on Demonreach. This diserves some extra bullets
- Harry's new ability to go pretty much anywhere he wants via ways his mother found would certainly help facilitate gathering material for thaumaturgy links for such a model.
- Such a model might have some interesting interactions with Harry's Demoreach Sanctum benefits. Intelectus wherever the model goes?
#3 All this effort is turning it into a Red Herring (another tvtrops warning) (Thanks
neurovore for
pointing this out)
#4 The big firing of the Chekhov's gun happened off screenSo what if the hugely important YLC reason was something that happened off screen, like when it was fixed. Maybe someone really needed LC so they somehow got down into Harry's basement and fixed it in order to use it for some hugely important reason that only LC could satisfy?
One of the reasons why I like this idea is because this means that the YLC answer happened in the same book that LC was introduced, and most of the work placing it on the mantle was done. The flip side of this though is that for the gun to truly have been fired, it should be part of the story or what's the point. So this resonates strongly for me with the theories that Time Traveling Harry (TTH) fixed LC. But here's the twist this adds. TTH's fix of LC was
NOT to save his own past self's life, but rather to use it "himself" for some earth-shatteringly important reason that we didn't see in PG.
#4 is my own version of Cozarkian's theory layed out in reply#78#4 also applies doubly to something Priscellie said in
my LC fix timing thread.
Still, Jim is pretty good at keeping his books lean and relevant. If something isn't necessary for a book, why put it there? The Doylist argument of "He just figured this [time travel] out and wanted to show it off" doesn't hold up to me. I don't think he'd contrive to include a "this is how time travel works" treatise in PG if time travel wasn't crucial to the events of that novel.
#5 (added 4/24/15)Harry's experiences with Little Chicago in White Night (and to a lesser extent Proven Guilty) seem to mirror some of his experiences in Ghost Story. Perhaps LC conditioned his soul somehow to prep him for being able to flit about in a naked soul in GS. (more thoughts on this in
this post)
