Crazy HWWB theory revisited [CD SPOILERS]

[Serack]

I have to read your entire post, but I want to point out that in one of the book signing Q&A's one of the guys asked about the headaches and said that they had been happening throught the books.  Jim deliberately corrected him and said they started after a specific point.

The specific point is important.

So If the headaches are due to the parasite, and the parasite is from Harry's encounter with HHWB, then something later must have trigered it's... rambunciousness.

Or there is another explenation that doesn't involve the HHWB encounter.

[Haru]

Holy crap. That made me think about the people who tell Harry he has darkness or a stain or whatever on him. I doublechecked what the ThreeEye junkie said to Harry at the police station in SF: '...I see you wizard! I see the things that follow, those who walk before and He Who Walks Behind! They come, they come for you!' So the junkie saw BOTH walkers just by looking at Harry???

That's a sobering thought. And if Jim put it up in the first book, that is simply amazing.

Though it opens up another question: If the 3Eye junkie saw it, wouldn't other wizards who examined him have seen it as well? Or for that matter, anyone who soulgazed him. Maybe there was a special ingredient in 3Eye, that not only opens the sight but also makes you more aware of outsider presences. Would come in handy in the war, even if it is a double edged blade.

[Cenphx]

Serack--yeah, both this OP and the earlier one are long winded, sorry! I did theorize a bit about the timing of the headaches coinciding with Lash tighter, logically speaking, than with HWWB, but gave some possibilties for why the headaches started recently. The best of my stuff is the idea that the walker is ramping up because the outsider's plan is hitting critical mass and HWWW is fighting for control. I like the ideas by some of the other posters about potentially Lash and HWWW fighting.

[Blackblade]

The specific point is important.

So If the headaches are due to the parasite, and the parasite is from Harry's encounter with HHWB, then something later must have trigered it's... rambunciousness.

Or there is another explenation that doesn't involve the HHWB encounter.

In White Night, Harry gets some major recurring headaches after Cowl sends him a mental whammy via Little Chicago.  He doesn't seem to have any particular headaches after Lash's death.  He doesn't have any headaches in Small Favor, but Turn Coat opens with one. 

Maybe Cowl gave him Nemesis via LC, and the headaches are due to that.  Alternatively, maybe the Headaches in TC (and Butters mentions they've been happening for a while) were due to Uriel restoring that part of his brain that contained Lash as his "second intervention."

[Cenphx]

Haru-interesting stuff about the possible effects of ThreeEye. But Sells made it and he was infected with Nemesis, right? Why would the outsiders want people to be able to have wizard's sight and/or be able to see outsiders better??   Everything leads to more questions!

[Elegast]

Is there somewhere a list with all the quotes about Harry's migraines?

If no could you help me found them: - I know there are two in TC, one in CD , and some SmF.

Here are some, plz give all the one you have:

rubbed my finger at a spot between my eyebrows where a headache was coming on.

He started cleaning up everything he’d set out during the improvised surgery. “So. How are the headaches?”
They’d been a problem, the past several months—increasingly painful migraines. “Fine,” I told him.
“Yeah, right,” Butters said. “I really wish you’d try the MRI again.”
Technology and wizards don’t coexist well, and magnetic resonance imagers are right up there. “One baptism in fire-extinguishing foam per year is my limit,” I said.
“It could be something serious,” Butters said. “Anything happens in your head or neck, you don’t take chances. There’s way too much going on there.”
“They’re lightening up,” I lied.
“Hogwash,” Butters said, giving me a gimlet stare. “You’ve got a headache now, don’t you?”
I looked from Butters to Morgan’s recumbent form. “Yeah,” I said. “I sure as hell got one now.”

Pain stabbed me in the head, ice picks plunging into both temples. I flinched and doubled over. Blasting rod. Familiar words. I fought to summon an image of what went with the words, but I couldn’t find anything. I knew I had a memory associated with those words, but try as I might, I couldn’t drag it out. It was like a shape covered by some heavy tarp. I knew an object was beneath, but I couldn’t get to it.

On the opposite side of Ivy, Rosanna launched more traditional lances of flame from her open palms, much like the ones I
—a savage pain went through my skull for a second—son of a bitch—
—but Ivy dispersed them with delicately applied wedges of air,

Mouse pawed at my leg and looked up at me. I bent over to scratch his ears, and instantly regretted it as someone tightened a vise on my temples. I straightened up again in a hurry, wincing, and entertained wild fantasies about lying down on the floor and sleeping for a week.

Demonreach growled.  In all capital letters.
And the headache vanished.
One second, my scalp was tightening up as two separate ice picks dug into my skull in the same places they always did, and the next the pain was utterly gone.

Hell’s bells. Like I didn’t have enough on my mind. I rubbed my thumb against the spot between my eyebrows where the headache was forming. “I did not need this on top of everything else. Which is why she did it.”

[Haru]

Was he infected? We know (?) that he got his mojo from someone in the black council, so he might have gotten the recipe for 3Eye as well. I know that people are assuming that the black council are the bad guys, but what if they are just a "the ends justify the means" sort of club? If they know what is going on and try to work against it, they are going to be all kinds of paranoid about it. If they think that everything is already lost, they might as well ignore collateral damage and just focus on gathering enough power to have a chance of standing up against the outsiders.

You could see Cowl like that, for example. At least DB Cowl. Sure, thousands of people dying is pretty bad, but it sure would have been nice to have a demigod in the trenches. On the other hand, weakening Cowl like that might have been what Nemesis needed to get inside and corrupt him, so while Harry might have saved a few thousand people that day, he might have done more harm than good in the long run.

Headaches:
I looked through TC and SmF, and there weren't really any interesting situations regarding headaches. There is in WN though:

(click to show/hide)

Something like New Mexico. Jesus. I didn’t want to think about that. I rubbed at the fresh headache sprouting between my eyebrows.

Which, to me, kind of sounds like the headache Harry gets in SmF, when his mind is wandering to his blasting rod and is abruptly stopped by Mab's geas. The other headaches are, at least as far as I saw it, only due to him being exhausted or hit in the head. This one stood out, though.

[Elegast]

I've gathered all the quotes about headaches I remembered.

What's highly suspicious is that "ice picks" is used in CD and SmF. In SmF it's supposed to be Mab, in CD the parasite. Mab=Lash=Molly? This doesn't make sense at all...

[Elegast]

There seems to be two sets of headaches: one with 'ice picks' in the temple, the other with pain between the two eyes.

[Haru]

You're right.

Maybe the ice pick headache in CD is Lash trying to find a way to communicate with Harry. She is giving him a sensation he has felt before (we know she is capable of it), and that she hopes he will associate with loss of memory, just like Mab did to him in SmF.

That is, if the whole Lash fighting Nemesis in Harry's head is correct.

The other headache might be Nemesis, or they might not have any significance at all, other than Harry being tired. Then again, given that there is a huge amount of time dedicated to the flashback to New Mexico, and here Harry is having a distracting headache, as soon as he starts to think about it, it seems too good to be a coincidence. Especially, since the ghouls returned in the deeps, so maybe something more happened in that cave with the ghouls, something that Harry is not allowed to remember.

[Tarion]

Is there somewhere a list with all the quotes about Harry's migraines?

If no could you help me found them: - I know there are two in TC, one in CD , and some SmF.

Here are some, plz give all the one you have:

The issue with picking out headaches is that a lot of them are justifiable.  Harry essentially makes a living getting beaten up by supernatural creatures.

Storm Front - He complains about a headache, but only after getting his skill pounded by a thug.

Maybe this had been another reminder from the mob boss. It had that kind of mafioso feel to it.
I staggered to my kitchenette and fixed myself a tisane tea for the headache, then added in some aspirin. Herbal remedies are well and good, but I don't like to take chances.

Fool Moon - He develops a headache while working on potions and researching Werewolves:

I tried to ignore the headache that was creeping up the back of my neck toward the crown of my head, but it did little good.

Grave Peril - He has a headache while hunting for Charity.  Maybe justifiable, in that he was stressed.  He'd also been drugged earlier (But that caused pleasure, not pain) and had a ghost chew out his magic.

Hell’s bells, all I had was a headache, an hourglass quickly running out of sand, and a case of the shakes.

Summer Knight - He develops a headache while researching the Queens

I felt the headache start at the base of my neck and creep toward the crown of my head. "Okay, Bob. I need to know about these Queens...

I stared at the skull for a second, while the headache settled comfortably in."

It came back while talking to Meryl

The headache started coming back. "Look, Meryl, I've got a lot on my plate already."

Death Masks - No mention of headaches!  Or at least, not specifically.  He did get hit in the head though:

Light exploded behind my eyes and I dropped to my hands and knees at the bottom of the stairway. Anna had slugged me with something. A second burst of light and pain drove my head far enough down to splash some cold water against my forehead....

I tried to lift her body, but the effort brought a surge of pain to my head and I almost threw up.

His head also hurt while being held by Nicodemus.

I came to my senses in complete darkness, under a stream of freezing water. My head hurt enough to make the wound on my leg feel pleasant by comparison.

Blood Rites - Harry gets hit in the head.  At this point, who's surprised?

Multiple injuries, including a vicious headache from where Inari had socked me.

Dead Beat - 3 guesses on what happens. 

I started to look around for the source of the noise.
And then someone hit me on the back of the head.
I remember that part, because I'd been through it before...

Then I stood up. My head pounded with a dull, throbbing beat of pain, and I bowed my head forward for a moment, letting cold rain fall onto the lump forming on the back of my skull. The worst of it passed after a minute, and I got the pain under control. I'd taken harder shots to the head than that one had been, and I didn't have time to coddle myself.

Proven Guilty - Harry has a headache.  He was in a car crash though

My headache started rising up again...

My headache flared up with a vengeance, and the light of my amulet and staff both faded.

He then complains of a headache after using his Sight

“It’ll pass. Just got this damned headache...

My headache finally began to fade away just as Murphy returned...

I spat a few times into the trash can and stood up. My headache started to return.

Then he gets hit in the head. 

I came to with a headache, and my stomach attempted to slither out of my mouth. Its escape attempt was blocked by some kind of gag. I had the taste of metal in my mouth, and my jaws were forced uncomfortably wide. The blindfold on my face was almost a mercy, given the headache.

White Night - What looks like another stress headache when Molly looks at the dead girl

I muttered under my breath, rubbed at the incipient headache beginning between my eyes, and thought dark thoughts.

Then Little Chicago takes a hit for him

And then there was a geyser of scarlet pain, as if someone had seized both halves of my skull and torn it into two pieces.

And another one

I leaned against a wall—unless maybe, since we were on a ship, it was a bulkhead—and rubbed my finger at a spot between my eyebrows where a headache was coming on.

Then he gets hit in the head, yet again, although it's healed by Elaine

My head hurt, even more than it had after Cowl had finished ringing my bells the night before, if such a thing was possible. I didn't want to regain consciousness, if it meant rising into that.

It pops up a little bit again

It had been a long night, and despite Elaine's incredible hands, my headache had begun to return

Small Favor - Harry gets kicked in the nose

I hunched my shoulders and rolled, only to be kicked in the nose by a cloven hoof, and an utterly gratuitous amount of pain came with a side order of whirling stars.

Then Mab freezes his eyes

Mab’s frozen-berry lips lifted in a silent snarl, and the world turned into a curtain of white agony that centered on my eyes. Nothing had ever hurt so much

And his head hurt some of the times he tried to remember his blasting rod/fire magic

—a savage pain went through my skull for a second—son of a bitch—...

“Where,” he said gently, “is your blasting rod?”
This time I heard the words.
Pain stabbed me in the head, ice picks plunging into both temples. I flinched and doubled over. Blasting rod. Familiar words. I fought to summon an image of what went with the words, but I couldn’t find anything. I knew I had a memory associated with those words, but try as I might, I couldn’t drag it out. It was like a shape covered by some heavy tarp. I knew an object was beneath, but I couldn’t get to it.
“I don’t…I don’t…” I started breathing faster. The pain got worse.
Someone had been in my head.

Turn Coat - the actual migraines start:

They’d been a problem, the past several months—increasingly painful migraines

The reason I've covered these books in particular is

a) You already got the later ones

and

b) I think it's worth remembering that Harry has always complained about his head hurting.  He develops headaches when he's stressed, and if he didn't have Wizard healing, his brains would have been pounded out of his ears by now.  He's also had some fairly unpleasant things done to his mind and face.  We need to bear that in mind when discussing headaches in the newer books.

I suspect the headaches developing in the spot between his eyes is his usual stress headache (, while the "twin points" headaches are the ones we're interested in.  Throbbing pain is when he's been beaten up.  However, at the beginning of the series, his headaches crept up the back of his skull.

Basically, my conclusion is that his headaches are all over the place, especially at the beginning of the series.  It sort of undermines the real "plot-relevant" headaches. 

[madness]

I wonder about the pain between his eyebrows and a possible correlation with the symbolic location of his third eye.

Coincidence?

Or perhaps a natural symptom of magic related mental problems?

[Serack]

I added one for you elegast, I'll quote it here too.

I tried to ignore the head-ache that was creeping up the back of my neck toward the crown of my head, but it did little good.

Edit:  BTW, this one does not seem to conform to the trends of the other ones in that it is described as starting in his neck, but it's a headache reference, so I'm quoting it to be thorough.

[Cenphx]

Wow...helluva list everyone. Before this thread, I really thought a point could be located when Harry's headaches started. But looking at this list, we would need to separate stress headaches vs trauma-induced vs possible lash-regeneration vs possible HWWW parasite activity vs memory tampering pain. Those are a lot of variables to nail down with any accuracy.

[Orloth]

I have never been able to come up with a satisfactory answer for where Lash was in GS. Anywhere you put her creates other problems.

Like if she was Inez in the cemetary, and I think some of the language Inez used fits a fallen angel kinda nicely, but then, who was Mab's proxy? Since there is a WoJ I believe, that DR and Mab each had a proxy there. 

If Lash was the whisperer at the church, then where was Lasciel in the book? Plus, the Whisperer seems more evil and out to get Harry, and I don't peg Lash as that antagonistic.

I suppose Lash could appear as to Harry as another person, like she did in DB as Sheila.  I haven't reread GS looking for a character with whom only Harry interacts while he is alone.  But this feels like a stretch to me.

So I'm stuck.

I've always interpreted Leah as being Mab's proxy in Ghost Story.  This leaves Inez free to be either Lasciel or Lash, and the bedside shade to be the other.  (though I am still in favor of the parasite being Lash, but I'm biased)

@ the headaches:  I think we need to home in on the point at which they were specifically pointed out as a recurring problem: Butter's comment in Turn Coat.  Before then, most of the headaches can be attributed to stress, trauma, or Geas.  Was there anything significant that happened between Small Favor and Turn Coat?  A short story? (I don't have Side Jobs nearby to check.) If not, it is certainly safer to assume it has something to do with Lash departing at the end of White Night (which give whatever problem; be it physical, magical, or parasite; time to develop into a full scale problem)(and has been pointed out, there was enough head pain going on in Small Favor that migraines could be easily missed in the Background Radiation).