Which mortal might become nemfected?

[nadia.skylark]

Your speculation doesn't appear to match the text. Michael tells Harry that if he gives up his magic that the shadow will fade.

This quote tells you two things.  One that someone has done it, else why did Michael suggest it. And given that we have some idea of how long Charity's magic took to dwindle, we know that they must have carried it for at least as long as Harry.

Actually, the quote you cited doesn't tell us either of these things. There was a thread a while back dealing with this, and with the fact that Michael also said, during Small Favor, that no one had ever gotten rid of a Shadow without taking up the Coin: https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,52773.0.html

The short version is that it was eventually concluded that no one had ever gotten rid of a Shadow by giving up their magic, and that Michael a) knew it was possible because TWG told him; or b) told Harry to give up his magic because, due to the way that hellfire was entwined with it, using his magic would reinforce the Shadow's influence on him. (Note that the thread this comes from is 11 pages long, so this is a very abbreviated summary.)

[morriswalters]

“Give up the coin of your own will. And set aside your power. If you do, Lasciel’s shadow will dwindle with it and waste away.”
“What do you mean, set aside my power?”
“Walk away from your magic,” he said. “Forsake it. Forever.”

“I don’t know of another way to end Lasciel’s influence, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one out there. If you should change your mind about the coin, Harry, if you want to get rid of it, I promise that I’ll be there for you.”

Obviously Michael's assertion isn't quite as absolute in Small Favor as it seems to be and is more about  Harry's strange behavior then about anything else. Harry's friends are doing an intervention.  As I said Lash getting burned out of Harry's head is a Black Swan event. No one expected it.

The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain:

    The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology.(and Magic!!!)
    The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities).
    The psychological biases that blind people, both individually and collectively, to uncertainty and to a rare event's massive role in historical affairs.

[Mira]

Obviously Michael's assertion isn't quite as absolute in Small Favor as it seems to be and is more about  Harry's strange behavior then about anything else. Harry's friends are doing an intervention.  As I said Lash getting burned out of Harry's head is a Black Swan event. No one

Part of Michael's advice or the way I read it, he assumes that Harry actually accepted the coin, which he hadn't.

[nadia.skylark]

Obviously Michael's assertion isn't quite as absolute in Small Favor as it seems to be and is more about  Harry's strange behavior then about anything else. Harry's friends are doing an intervention.

I am really very definitely not having this argument again. It was fun the first time, but I doubt there's anything new to say about it.

I only brought it up in relation to the line in Small Favor where Michael states very definitely that no one has ever gotten rid of a Shadow without taking up a Coin, and how the contradiction between that line and the one in Proven Guilty can be resolved without requiring Michael to lie (since not lying is such a fundamental character trait of Michael).

...Unless someone is saying that Michael was lying in Small Favor. That might actually be an interesting discussion, if anyone could find reason or evidence for it.

[Avernite]

Going back to the last post of the previous page, arguing Thomas as Nemfected option...

Nothing would throw the world in chaos like someone unmasking the Venatori (the real ones), and if Nemesis is what we think it is, throwing the world into chaos must be its priority (see also the attack on Demonreach). So IF Thomas was Nemfected, Nemesis would almost have to keep it low-level to prevent anyone finding out. It wants to find the Venatori. So that part kinda checks out.

Of course it then also follows that Lara is its next target; but, who would've infected Thomas, and wouldn't they rather have gotten Lara directly then? Thomas offers a stronger link to Harry, sure, but a weaker one to the Venatori... unless of course we should blame Lea/Winter agents for his infection too, since they have been obsessed with Harry since forever (but at least since Summer Knight).

[morriswalters]

I would assume in this context that mortal would mean without power or magic, so why Thomas?

[Arjan]

I would assume in this context that mortal would mean without power or magic, so why Thomas?

Because Mab said he was mortal enough for her?

[morriswalters]

It might as well be Thomas as anybody then. Although Peace Talks could settle it.  Thomas has to die.  He's murdered multiple innocents and as such I wouldn't think he could have a happy ending.

[KurtinStGeorge]

Before I talk about Thomas, I want to get into what I think is going on with Nemesis.  One of the fun elements of the Dresden Files is the complexity of the magical world the story takes place in.  In the second and third novels; Fool Moon and Grave Peril, we find out there are several different types of werewolves and vampires in the Dresden universe.  Nemesis takes over the minds of its victims, but thinking about it, there are many flavors of mind influence and mind control in the Dresden Files.
 
Wizards who specialize in mind magic like Molly and Corpse Taker, appear to have a wide scope of actions they can use to influence and control the minds of mortals.  The Fae use glamour to distract the minds of mortals, but when they gain control of a mortal because of a deal they made with them, their direct mind control abilities become much stronger and more focused; such as Mab removing Harry’s memory of fire magic.  The White Court’s use of mind control is more subtle.  They can elicit emotions from their victims in order to find on the psychic energy these emotions produce.  The Raith’s also addict their victims to the pleasure they feel.  In Turn Coat we learned White Court mind control can be much stronger than that; such as Madeline Raith’s control of the lawyer who had a private detective watching Harry’s home.  The Red Court used a drug in their saliva to seduce their victims and addict and enslave those mortals they decided to keep around for a while.  Mavra of the Black Court so completely crushed the minds of those she mentally enslaved, they were little more than zombies afterwards.  Finally, the Denarians can introduce the copy of the mind of a fallen angel into the head of their victims, in order to corrupt that person’s soul, and do whatever the fallen angel is trying to get done.

I think the Nemesis infection is most similar to that of the Denarians.  As I read it, Nemfection introduces a discrete personality into its target.  We’ve seen evidence of this in the behavior of both nemfected Cat Sith and Lea when Harry discovered her half encased in ice at Arctis Tor.  When the personality of real Cath Sith was completely suppressed, the voice that Harry heard came from a distinctly different personality.  The same is true when Lea changed her mind, or more accurately had it changed for her, and screamed at Harry to free her from the ice she was trapped in at the top Mab’s fortress.

However, the discrete Nemesis personality differs from a being like Lash in a couple of ways (probably).  Nemesis isn’t trying to corrupt anyone’s soul.  (Of course, in the case of the fae, there isn’t a soul to corrupt.)  Nemesis wants someone to help it get it fully into our reality so it can take it over said reality.  Functionally, there may another major difference between the Nemesis personality and the copy of the Fallen.  We know about the conversations Lash had with Harry and we once got a snippet of Anduriel talking to Nicodemus.  Unless an individual is already travelling down the left-hand path, the copies of the Fallen and the Fallen themselves, most probably have to directly communicate with their victims in order to lead them into temptation.  In contrast, it’s possible that the Nemesis personality never or only rarely talks directly to the original or real personality of its victims.
 
It’s possible Maeve had a direct, back and forth conversation with the Nemesis personality, but it’s also possible this did not occur.  Maeve may have noticed the foreign influence that was now within her, and simply liked what it was doing to her.  Once Maeve realized she could exercise freewill to get back at her mother, she happily went along with whatever ideas that personality sent into her head after that.

We don’t have an indication of how Cat Sith reacted when he learned of the Nemesis personality within him.  Perhaps he didn’t fully realize what had happened until Harry told him to fight it.  We have no way of knowing.  We can surmise that Lea must have realized something had invaded her mind, and we know she was strong enough to keep it together long enough to seek Mab’s help.  However, the character that I find most interesting is the former Summer Lady, Aurora.
 
This is just speculation on my part, but as I read Summer Knight, I think it’s possible Aurora had no clue what was happening to her and believed her new radical ideas were all her own.  She even told Harry that she didn’t understand why he wasn’t on her side.  Her final words, “I don’t understand” may have been about more than not knowing why Harry had opposed her.  Maybe Aurora was expressing a deeper lack of understanding of everything that had brought her to her end.  If the latter is the case, it makes Aurora’s story more poignant, more tragic.

Stories where one person or creature can control the mind of another aren’t new.  Culturally, the idea of mind control probably goes back to belief in demon possession.  However, my guess (so you can call this a WAG) is Jim may have been inspired by a type of mind control used in the TV series Babylon 5.  He is a big fan of that show.  However, I’m not referring to the psycops like Mr. Bester and other telepaths like Lyta Alexander.  I’m referring to a specific episode of the second season of B5, “Divided Loyalties.”  In that episode, one of the show’s main characters; the telepath Talia Winters, is discovered to be a sleeper agent who didn’t know that she was carrying a hidden personality within her who was secretly calling the shots.  Now this story was created because the actress playing Talia Winters: Andrea Thompson, wanted off the show.  She wasn’t the only major character who was eventually written out of Babylon 5, but the sudden departure of her character was handled about as well as any I have ever seen.  Jim being a Babylon 5 fan, might have liked this episode too.  That is another reason why I think Aurora might not have understood what was happening to her.
 
With all of that in mind.  Now you know why I think it’s possible that if Thomas is nemfected, he might not even realize it.  There’s another reason I think Thomas might be in the dark and that has to do with why Nemesis targeted him in the first place.  Damn, I’ve rambled on too long as usual.  I’ll have to get into why Thomas makes a good Nemesis target tomorrow.  (This time for sure.)

[morriswalters]

  I just reread the scene in Cold Days where Maeve dies.  You might be right, she may have never known what had really happened to her.

Side issue not related to the point.  Where was Murphy hiding her holdout gun?

[nadia.skylark]

Where was Murphy hiding her holdout gun?

Well, normally she has it in an ankle holster. I haven't read Cold Days in a while, so I don't remember if Murphy and the rest covered themselves in Demonreach's mud with or without their clothes on. If they did so with clothes, then it was probably still in her ankle holster.

[morriswalters]

It isn't clear.  Oh well, I have a twisted mind.

[g33k]

...  Unless an individual is already travelling down the left-hand path, the copies of the Fallen and the Fallen themselves, most probably have to directly communicate with their victims in order to lead them into temptation... 

Lash definitely gave Harry some severe "anger issues," or maybe just weakened his self control.  If she had tipped him over to actually killing someone -- before he realized Lash existed -- she might have been able to fill him with the kind of hopeless despair that leads to Falling...

[Bad Alias]

[W]e know she was strong enough to keep it together long enough to seek Mab’s help.

How do we know that? I always assumed it was Mab who discovered Lea was infected and, then Lea accepted Mab's help. Not the other way around.

[nadia.skylark]

How do we know that? I always assumed it was Mab who discovered Lea was infected and, then Lea accepted Mab's help. Not the other way around.

I'm pretty sure that in Changes, Lea says, while talking of her infection, that, "It was shame that drove me to my Queen," so that sounds like Lea went to Mab, rather than the other way around.