The YLC (Why Little Chicago) thread

[Orbweaver]

This depends on whether the properties are inherent in the material of the entire sword, or are inherent in the nail which could be separately removed (or at least, from Harry's descriptions of Amoracchius in GP, the nail seems to exist as a physically distinct entity rather than being melted down into the substance of the sword.)

Yes, and then we go even further into whether it was the hilt/nail that was damaged and resulted in a reforging or whether it was the entire sword that needed repair work. If the nail exists as a separate entity from the sword, but still has the capacity to interact with/exert influence on the sword, is there anything blocking those energies from flowing back the other direction (from Sword to Nail)? I don't think so, as the text implies that using the sword itself to murder an innocent would destroy the weapon's power source (i.e. the nail, even though it was the blade that was used to kill).

Maybe; I'm not seeing it as impossible that they are both fairly familiar with the WG's rules of engagement and have faith in the swords being destroyed if those rules are broken from experience of seeing corresponding rules broken in non-sword situations, though.

So they're trusting the WG to keep to his rules of engagement? That's odd, considering they've been at odds with the entity and his followers for as long as humankind has existed.

[Aminar]

It's odd to trust God?  I'm pretty sure that's like the whole religion...  And the denarian's believe.  They know he'll follow the rules.

[Orbweaver]

It's odd to trust God?  I'm pretty sure that's like the whole religion...  And the denarian's believe.  They know he'll follow the rules.

TWG. And yes, I don't think that they're going to give him carte-blanche on any set of "rules" he lays out. If they were going to do that, they'd have simply followed him instead of becoming what they are today. To quote Nicodemus: "The church has always had excellent propaganda."

[Aminar]

It's always seemed to me that they're fight is about exploiting his rules.  They're on the planet to balance his actions after all.  Of course they'd trust the dude that invented physics to follow the laws he set down.

[Orbweaver]

It's always seemed to me that they're fight is about exploiting his rules.  They're on the planet to balance his actions after all.  Of course they'd trust the dude that invented physics to follow the laws he set down.

After we've had Uriel, who supposedly conned the father of lies? Jim has openly stated that in the DV, Heaven is not above using evil to their own ends. Nicodemus and his crew know better than to trust what they're being told by the other side of the conflict. That's just common sense.

[Cozarkian]

I don't see how you get from "he didn't know about Demonreach" to "he can't have known about LC".

Gatekeeper would need to know a lot more than just the existence of LC to set up the accident-delay plan. He would need to know LC has a flaw, that Harry will use LC in response to his message to look for black magic, and that Harry will receive a phone call from Molly at <time>. Then, he would need to know exactly how much time Harry will spend preparing to use LC in order to devise a means to delay Harry long enough to make sure he can't use LC before the phone rings, but not so long that Harry doesn't make it home in time to accept the call. Selecting an accident as his method, Gatekeeper needs to find a way to insure the accident causes just enough damage to make sure Harry can't drive home without injuring Harry and would need a method for determining precisely the amount of time he will be delayed by the cops (including Murphy). That is an awful lot of knowledge. Thus, the fact that Gatekeeper incorrectly predicted the outcome in TC because of a lack of knowledge about Demonreach being Harry's sanctum is strong evidence that the Gatekeeper also lacked the knowledge to set up the accident as a delay.

Here's another problem with the accident-as-delay theory. Why didn't Harry's benefactor cause the accident and then immediately go fix LC? They even could have disconnected Harry's phone to prevent the interrupting phone cal. Why wait until sometime after Molly calls and before Harry needs to use LC to find her? Granted there are possible explanations (e.g. the fix occurred while Bob was gone and the benefactor couldn't have fixed it earlier because Bob/Mouse was still there), but it adds yet another complication to theory. Do we really think the Gatekeeper can secretly access Harry's apartment and fix LC but that he can't find a way to do it while Bob/Mouse are there?

I'd note that the car-bomb in WN is, i think, not confirmed as having anything to do with the plot of that book, so it's not impossible mysterious random killer strikes twice in two adjacent books.

I'd have to read WN again to discuss this in detail, to see if there is some tie we missed, and I don't have time to do that. Even if it is a case of random killer strikes twice in two adjacent books, it would still make sense if something in PG set those events in motion and the attack in WN arises from those events, rather than just being entirely random.

Indeed, we could be Occamian and suspect Uriel of that intervention.

Yeah, I've seen the Uriel did it theory passed around. I reject it largely because it doesn't fit Uriel's M.O. of using tools rather direct action and there is also no evidence of a prior cheat. I realize we have differing opinions on Uriel, but I don't think we need to get into those here, because you are arguing for Gatekeeper, not Uriel, and I don't think Gatekeeper has the same level of knowledge as Uriel. Uriel, for example, probably knew about the Sanctum invocation.

Some of us believe it is already that to a large extent; that Harry's free will is all the more significant for being a thing he uses really rather infrequently.

Not to be too reductionist here, it is ultimately going to be a series of novels in linear text with only one endpoint, so there are levels at which I do not find that metaphor inapt.

There is definitely evidence that greater powers are warring to use Harry as their pawn. The point is, if there are so many powers all try to use them, there ought to at least be competition where they can interfere with each other's plans. If the eventual outcome is already defined and their competing efforts are futile to change it, then it's a math problem, not a story. The difference is, the math equation only has one solution regardless of whether you know it or not, while the ending of a story is subject to change until it is actually written, regardless of how unlikely it might be too change.

Also, Harry might use his free will infrequently, but the case books are the situations where he is using free will, so those are the situations where a person can't rely on a complicated accident-delay plan when simpler methods are available. The difference between a novel and a mathematical proof is that a mathematical proof always only has one endpoint regardless of whether you know what that is. A novel doesn't become definite until after it is written

At a telling-a-good-story level, given that Jim has explicitly introduced characters who have the degree of ability to out-think a human angels have, it would seem inconsistent and unconvincing to me for any that are interested in Haryy not to mostly be able to play him much better than he knows or can see coming.

Better than Harry sees coming, yes, but not perfectly and not without the possibility that other players might ruin their plans. They control Harry by predicting his emotional responses. Less emotional choices like "Do I call a cab, ask Murphy for a ride, walk, etc...." are harder to predict and can't be relied upon in setting up a plan. That's why the accident-delay doesn't work, because you don't really know how Harry will choose to get home. I also doubt you can accurately predict the precise amount of damage he will sustain in an accident that is serious enough the cops suspect it was an intentional attack.

OK, from a meta-story perspective ?

PG seems to me to be notably different from all the preceding books in terms of how standalone it is.  A larger proportion of the significant players are people we've met before, and it's the first one where rather than there being a couple of loose ends, the ending is Harry explicitly acknowledging he doesn't have a clue about what was really going on at the centre of events.  From an Aristotelian point of view, the eight book of planned twenty-plus-three is the transition between Beginning and Middle, and the differences I mention above fit with that.  So if there was going to be a book for which "here is a random snippet of arc plot that could technically fit anywhere" was appropriate, PG seems like the best one to me.

That makes sense, but rather than just "introduce random snippet of arc plot" here, it makes even more sense to introduce that random snippet by tying it into the plot of PG.

I'm inclined to think, considering how on-the-ball and well informed Rashid is in SK, that there's something specifically about Demonreach that is throwing him off in TC, rather than that TC is a reasonable standard for judging his degree of clued-in in general.  And he has specified he will not set foot on the island.

That's a good rebuttal theory. However, if Demonreach can put a blind spot in Gatekeeper's knowledge, I would think some of the other players in PG could do the same. Gatekeeper doesn't appear to be on quite the same level as Uriel and Mab and I think there is still too many things that could have happened between the accident and phone call for the Gatekeeper to have engineered a perfect delay. Honestly, I don't think Mab could have managed that either. Finally, anyone who could have done it could also have found a simpler way to do it.

Indeed. If the object of the exercise is to corrupt Harry's judgement without him knowing it - as witness the anger issues Murphy calls him on in WN, which are already showing in PG (where he concentrates on roasting the Giger-Alien fetch rather than stopping to help one of its victims, whom he then realises he might have been able to save if he'd acted differently).  It fits that pattern.

How exactly does secretly fixing LC corrupt Harry's judgment without Harry realizing it? Not fixing it and or fixing it just enough for Harry to survive would teach Harry that refusing Lash's offer to help him if he picks up the coin cost Molly her life. Secretly fixing it doesn't given Harry any reason to seek Lash's help in the future.

The latter only works if she assumes Harry will be dispassionately rational about accepting her help, which he won't, because a) he has a pretty strong conviction that accepting help from Fallen will have long-term bad effects, and b) given a), Harry being Harry is going to be extreme ends of stubborn about it.

Yeah, Harry does have pretty strong convictions about not accepting help from Fallen. That's why Lasciel needs to wait for ideal situations to offer her aid. Knowing Harry, the perfect such situation would be one where he needs Lasciel's help not to save himself, but to save the life of someone else. In other words, Harry's need to help Molly is the precise type of moment when he is most susceptible to temptation. If Lasciel had any bargaining chip to play in that situation (knowledge of the flaw) she would have played it. Instead, she appealed only to his self-interest to stay alive and the general fear that LC was a dangerous and unready spell.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

TWG. And yes, I don't think that they're going to give him carte-blanche on any set of "rules" he lays out. If they were going to do that, they'd have simply followed him instead of becoming what they are today.

I'm not sure I'm with you on this, because to my mind it's entirely possible to be utterly at odds with some entity and still trust them to be consistent with their nature and have the virtues of their flaws.  (I can refrain from going into yet another rant about how Harry assumes "evil" always equals "self-destructively selfish" at any time.)

Indeed, I'd argue that if the Fallen did not trust the WG to play by its own rules they're less likely to have rebelled, because there would have been more of a plausible risk of it arbitrarily squashing them like flies.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

It's always seemed to me that they're fight is about exploiting his rules.  They're on the planet to balance his actions after all. 

yes, but is that their objective/intent, or is that a thing the WG forces on them ?

I have difficulty believing that Nicodemus would continue playing Armageddon lotto if he had sound reason to believe that Armageddon inevitably meant a beating of his side.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

After we've had Uriel, who supposedly conned the father of lies? Jim has openly stated that in the DV, Heaven is not above using evil to their own ends. Nicodemus and his crew know better than to trust what they're being told by the other side of the conflict. That's just common sense.

It depends on whether you see trusting Heaven's overall moral objectives and trusting Heaven's strategic approaches as the same thing.  Uriel may have conned the Father of Lies, but unless he's running a long con on Harry and all the supposedly clued-in Church and related people Harry interacts with (which i am entirely prepared to believe), he is bound by rules of engagement.

[Orbweaver]

It depends on whether you see trusting Heaven's overall moral objectives and trusting Heaven's strategic approaches as the same thing.  Uriel may have conned the Father of Lies, but unless he's running a long con on Harry and all the supposedly clued-in Church and related people Harry interacts with (which i am entirely prepared to believe), he is bound by rules of engagement.

Then why has Uriel been taking actions that deliberately break the "rules of engagement" in order to "keep the balance", as he suggested he's been doing with Harry? He specifically said that because seven words were used to "break" the rules, he also gets seven words he can use. If Heaven is trying to have their cake and eat it too, I don't think Nicodemus and his crew are just going to sit back and let them do so.

That means the Denarians are expecting the rules of engagement to almost routinely get broken. By both sides.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Gatekeeper would need to know a lot more than just the existence of LC to set up the accident-delay plan.

No argument there.

I would argue that everything you list can be answered by him looking at the future for the information in question.  He doesn't have to insure the accident causes the right amount of damage if he can look at the accident, see how much damage it causes, and direct harry into the situation accordingly.

Here's another problem with the accident-as-delay theory. Why didn't Harry's benefactor cause the accident and then immediately go fix LC?

Not causing a paradox because of seeing that that's the way things worked out ?

Do we really think the Gatekeeper can secretly access Harry's apartment and fix LC but that he can't find a way to do it while Bob/Mouse are there?

Considering the sort of power levels Mouse is showing in later books, I can well see Rashid erring on the side of caution with regard to Mouse's presence.

I realize we have differing opinions on Uriel, but I don't think we need to get into those here, because you are arguing for Gatekeeper, not Uriel, and I don't think Gatekeeper has the same level of knowledge as Uriel. Uriel, for example, probably knew about the Sanctum invocation.

For what it's worth, I think the most likely explanation for who actually fixed LC is somebody persuading or magically compelling Murphy or Thomas to use their keys to get through Harry's wards; I can see either Murphy or Thomas being persuadable on "if LC is not fixed harry will kill himself with it" grounds, but it takes Rashid or someone who is getting information from someone with at least Rashid levels of foreknowledge to know there's an issue in the first place. 

There is definitely evidence that greater powers are warring to use Harry as their pawn. The point is, if there are so many powers all try to use them, there ought to at least be competition where they can interfere with each other's plans.

Oh, I am sure there is.  I'm less sure that the consequences of that competition will ever be unambiguously overt.

If the eventual outcome is already defined and their competing efforts are futile to change it, then it's a math problem, not a story. The difference is, the math equation only has one solution regardless of whether you know it or not, while the ending of a story is subject to change until it is actually written, regardless of how unlikely it might be too change.

I'm not sure I'm buying that one; the end of a game of solitaire is a maths problem if you have perfect knowledge of where all the cards are, but it can still generate dramatic tension along the way, and given that we're getting the story through Harry, I can get quite enough tension out of Harry not knowing where things are going in the end regardless of whether Uriel does actually know to the last decimal place or not.

Also, Harry might use his free will infrequently, but the case books are the situations where he is using free will,

To an extent, sure.  But not all the time - it's very striking to me having just reread Changes how little Harry uses his free will in that book, he is determined all the way through to do whatever it takes to rescue Maggie and he doesn't shirk from doing whatever seems best in the moment to get him to that goal.

so those are the situations where a person can't rely on a complicated accident-delay plan when simpler methods are available.

You keep talking about the putative plan here as if it were "set all these factors going that will interact in complicated unpredictable ways", and that is not what I am suggesting it is, which makes me feel like we are talking past each other.  I am talking about a situation where the Gatekeeper as seen that if he does certain things Harry will, with absolute certainty, end up in the right place at the right time.  Zero possibility of error.  It looks fluid to Harry because from his perspective it's the future, but the Gatekeeper can see a point at which it has already happened, and is therefore, given the right start conditions, one hundred per cent reliable.

They control Harry by predicting his emotional responses. Less emotional choices like "Do I call a cab, ask Murphy for a ride, walk, etc...." are harder to predict and can't be relied upon in setting up a plan.

I'd argue that they can be if you can look into the future and see in advance what value those variables have.

That's a good rebuttal theory. However, if Demonreach can put a blind spot in Gatekeeper's knowledge, I would think some of the other players in PG could do the same.

No argument there, but I'm not seeing evidence for any other such player doing so in PG.

How exactly does secretly fixing LC corrupt Harry's judgment without Harry realizing it?

Easing him into using something really rather powerful without the degree of thinking through its dangers than he otherwise might ?

Secretly fixing it doesn't given Harry any reason to seek Lash's help in the future.

Which is why it makes sense to me that Lash would do it in PG, after being confronted in DB with precisely how stubborn Harry is and what extremes it takes to get him to ask her help, and as an element in the same strategy of corruption involved in his anger-management issues in pg and WN, which also do not involve him asking for her help.

In other words, Harry's need to help Molly is the precise type of moment when he is most susceptible to temptation. If Lasciel had any bargaining chip to play in that situation (knowledge of the flaw) she would have played it.

Again, I flat-out do not believe that assertion. She tried that strategy in DB with innocent lives at risk and saw the limits to how much it would work.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Then why has Uriel been taking actions that deliberately break the "rules of engagement" in order to "keep the balance", as he suggested he's been doing with Harry?

I think I'm seeing the rules of engagement at a different scale from what I may have come across as meaning, then, and I am sorry I was unclear.

I do not think Uriel is breaking any rules of engagement, ever. I think Uriel is quite clear about being permitted equal and opposite interventions to some specific class of actions from the Fallen - I don't think that's breaking any rule, I think it is a rule.  And rather a specific one, down to the level of seven words for seven words. I also think it's clear that if Uriel ever did break the rules under which it is allowed to work, it would Fall.

[karlmaier]

We have seen this before with the belt buckle power-up, Harry creates a tool and then never uses it again. I think the reason Jim got rid of Little Chicago is because it is too time consuming to maintain in a similar way to the belt buckle, both require Harry's consciously pouring power into them every day, unlike his rings which he just has to wear. For this reason I don't think we will see the crystal shield we saw in TC which we saw Molly use to protect herself from Thomas. As far as who fixed LC I think the only one who could have done so had to come in through from the Never Never, and Harry's Godmother has that end covered, so either she or Mab are the only ones who could have got in behind Harry's wards and fixed it.

[Cozarkian]

No argument there.

I would argue that everything you list can be answered by him looking at the future for the information in question.  He doesn't have to insure the accident causes the right amount of damage if he can look at the accident, see how much damage it causes, and direct harry into the situation accordingly.

Not causing a paradox because of seeing that that's the way things worked out ?

There is a logical fallacy here. Part of your argument depends on the future being fixed and part of it depends on the future being changeable. If the future can be changed such that Gatekeeper can prevent Harry from using LC at the wrong time, then Gatekeeper can't look in the future and see exactly how much damage occurred from the accident, because that future could also be changed.

Considering the sort of power levels Mouse is showing in later books, I can well see Rashid erring on the side of caution with regard to Mouse's presence.

I can too, but only because I don't think Gatekeeper is nearly as powerful as he would have to be to be the source of the LC fix.

For what it's worth, I think the most likely explanation for who actually fixed LC is somebody persuading or magically compelling Murphy or Thomas to use their keys to get through Harry's wards; I can see either Murphy or Thomas being persuadable on "if LC is not fixed harry will kill himself with it" grounds, but it takes Rashid or someone who is getting information from someone with at least Rashid levels of foreknowledge to know there's an issue in the first place. 

Interesting theory with a nice synergy to the Thomas was home theory.

Oh, I am sure there is.  I'm less sure that the consequences of that competition will ever be unambiguously overt.

The point is, if Harry's benefactor was depending on the accident to cause the perfect amount of delay, that plan leaves a lot of wiggle room for something to go wrong. Given there are multiple very powerful entities that might use that time to ruin the plan, it is far too risky for someone to use the accident as a delay mechanism, and if the benefactor could be certain the plan couldn't be ruined even by his peers, then there is no competition at all, because the outcome is inevitable.

I'm not sure I'm buying that one; the end of a game of solitaire is a maths problem if you have perfect knowledge of where all the cards are, but it can still generate dramatic tension along the way, and given that we're getting the story through Harry, I can get quite enough tension out of Harry not knowing where things are going in the end regardless of whether Uriel does actually know to the last decimal place or not.

Unlike a math proof, solitaire has multiple different outcomes depending on how the game is played. It's possible none of them will result in victory or for there to be different paths to victory.

You keep talking about the putative plan here as if it were "set all these factors going that will interact in complicated unpredictable ways", and that is not what I am suggesting it is, which makes me feel like we are talking past each other.  I am talking about a situation where the Gatekeeper as seen that if he does certain things Harry will, with absolute certainty, end up in the right place at the right time.  Zero possibility of error.  It looks fluid to Harry because from his perspective it's the future, but the Gatekeeper can see a point at which it has already happened, and is therefore, given the right start conditions, one hundred per cent reliable.

I'd argue that they can be if you can look into the future and see in advance what value those variables have.

No argument there, but I'm not seeing evidence for any other such player doing so in PG.

Yes, this highlights my problem with your theory. It isn't possible for Gatekeeper to look into the future and know with zero possibility of error what will happen. Such knowledge would require either that the future is unchangeable (which would mean he couldn't change the future to save Harry in the first place) or he would have to have perfect knowledge of how every other entity of his power or equal is going to act. The mere possibility that another player might act to ruin his plan would prevent him from using a plan that leaves so much time for someone else to step in and interfere. In order for Gatekeeper to have 100% confidence, he would have to be so powerful it would be impossible for any of the other players to interfere.

Easing him into using something really rather powerful without the degree of thinking through its dangers than he otherwise might ?

If that was the goal she could have not revealed how dangerous she was by threatening him with illusions. She would have been better served just to let him use it with nothing more than a quick plea and offer to help protect him if he picks up the coin.

Which is why it makes sense to me that Lash would do it in PG, after being confronted in DB with precisely how stubborn Harry is and what extremes it takes to get him to ask her help, and as an element in the same strategy of corruption involved in his anger-management issues in pg and WN, which also do not involve him asking for her help.

Again, I flat-out do not believe that assertion. She tried that strategy in DB with innocent lives at risk and saw the limits to how much it would work.

So she tries a strategy, gives up on it when an even better opportunity arises, then returns to the same strategy (in WN) she previously abandoned? I doubt it. Lasciel plays long-term. She'll apply the pressure every time an opportunity arises until eventually a situation arises where Harry will take the bait.

[Orbweaver]

I think I'm seeing the rules of engagement at a different scale from what I may have come across as meaning, then, and I am sorry I was unclear.

I do not think Uriel is breaking any rules of engagement, ever. I think Uriel is quite clear about being permitted equal and opposite interventions to some specific class of actions from the Fallen - I don't think that's breaking any rule, I think it is a rule.  And rather a specific one, down to the level of seven words for seven words. I also think it's clear that if Uriel ever did break the rules under which it is allowed to work, it would Fall.

No need to apologize, Neuro, I took no offense. I do think on a different wavelength than most other people seem to, which is probably why the miscommunication happened.

To me, it looks as though Uriel is allowed to commit actions that it would normally not be able to if, and only if, the other side did it first. As we haven't really had a good look at what determines the actions it may take in response, I can't conclude that Uriel hasn't broken a rule of engagement in response to another broken rule. It may be that TWG allows it to "break" or "bend" the rules under very specific circumstances- but to me, doing something it otherwise would not be enabled to do, in response to a stimulus from the other side, is still a bent rule.

It also helps to clarify what Nicodemus meant when he spoke about the Church having excellent propaganda. Consider Sanya, for example- Heaven allowed him to pick up a coin, in order to make him a Knight later on down the line. They let him run around with Magog's brute strength and the knowledge of a Fallen Angel, doing no small amount of harm to the other humans/creatures running around the planet, in exchange for what he would do as a Knight of the Cross.

Heaven not being above using evil to their own ends means that the "White" part of TWG's title has a bit of a scuff on it. Do I think the Denarians are going to use the actions of their counterparts in Heaven as "proof" that they are just as corrupt, or possibly worse in nature, to justify their own actions? Absolutely. Two wrongs very rarely, if at all, equal a right. So in order to "right" the other side's "wrongs", the lies, betrayal, stealing, loss of life, bending or breaking of Will, etc... well, you get the point, I think.

Their "trusting" TWG, or it's agents, to hold to their "word" just doesn't fit with what we've heard from Nicodemus, Lash, or even with what we've seen with regards to a current Knight.