Author Topic: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]  (Read 23733 times)

Offline TheCuriousFan

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #60 on: July 24, 2020, 11:29:07 AM »
I totally agree with TCF (also, hi! I haven't seen in a while, I don't even know if you visited your birthday thread)
I drifted away after the Berserk like release schedule kicked in. Nice to see you're still around.
Currently dealing with a backlog of games.

If you want me to type up a book quote or find a WoJ quote, send me a PM.

Rest in peace mdodd.

Offline ClintACK

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #61 on: July 24, 2020, 12:08:25 PM »
Y'know what really confused me about Lara in PT?

The conversation at the end with Harry where she's like "I cannot comprehend your motives here". Bitch, they are literally the same as yours, He wants to save his fucking brother, it's not that goddamn hard.

Like, how does she think he's doing this to hold one over on her? Nobody that knows anything about Harry would buy that bluff. "Yes I, Harry Dresden, will totally hold my only brother's life as a hostage".

How are we supposed to believe there is any confusion here?!?!?

It's like the conversation with Mab at the end of Cold Days, where she tells him how impressed she is with how he groomed and manipulated Molly in ways he totally hadn't intended. He did all those things, but that wasn't how he was thinking about it. He was always trying to do the right thing.

Lara also loves her brother, but she is delighted to use him as a lever against Harry. She assumes that Harry is the same -- that he loves his brother, and will ruthlessly use him as a lever against Lara anyway. (In truth, we could come up with several examples of him actually doing so -- or at least superficially doing so because "that's how you talk to predators" or something like that.)

We all see other people by using our own brain to model their behavior. This leads people to "project" their own tendencies onto others. The con-man believes that no one can ever be trusted, while trustworthy folk fall for the con precisely because they are trustworthy.

You might expect a master manipulator like Lara to be better at understanding very different human motives, but it's a classic old trope -- the Devil understanding all of humanity's dark motivations and being totally flummoxed when we do things out of selfless love.

Offline Bad Alias

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #62 on: July 24, 2020, 05:05:23 PM »

   It means that as of Turn Coat he could feel everything that went on on the island..  However not until Cold Days, did he understand that he could manipulate it and more to the point if he wanted,
ask Alfred to grab Mab and throw her in the slammer, and it was possible.

Since Lara didn't witness any of that in Turn Coat or was there in Cold Days, she wouldn't know any of the above.
I guess your word choice of officially confused me because he was Warden the moment he bonded with Alfred. He just didn't know it yet. He didn't really understand it until some point after CD. It seemed to me that you were disagreeing with me that Lara wouldn't know that Harry's power on the island was much more than it had been.

She assumes that Harry is the same -- that he loves his brother, and will ruthlessly use him as a lever against Lara anyway.
If you recall from DB, Harry has ruthlessly risked the secret that Thomas is his brother when Harry blackmailed the leader of the White Court by proxy. From Lara's perspective, Harry has played her game.

Offline vultur

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #63 on: July 27, 2020, 01:00:37 AM »
She clearly strategizing for the future, but not increasing her own power level seems like an odd failure on her part while she's doing all this other work. 

I'm sure she's well-fed, and at about 100% of her upper-limit potential, but I don't think she can really increase it past that.

Just like human physical strength. People can get stronger by working out, but eventually they hit an upper limit.

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But I guessi expect her to have felt a need to match her father's power level pre-curse as a prerequisite to the position she holds.

She doesn't really need it. She took down Lord Raith when he was vastly weakened, and a few years later basically all the potential challengers got killed (in WN and TC).

She's the strongest living Whampire, except maybe Thomas, who won't challenge her for leadership.

And Lara is really enormously powerful. If she can move mortal military forces around and hire Valkyries, her relative *personal* weakness (compared to say PT-era Harry or a powerful Blampire; she's still superhuman) isn't that relevant.

Just... charging somebody with a knife is about her weakest area. That's why it seemed so odd.

Offline Grifter

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #64 on: July 27, 2020, 01:26:36 AM »
I'm sure she's well-fed, and at about 100% of her upper-limit potential, but I don't think she can really increase it past that.

Just like human physical strength. People can get stronger by working out, but eventually they hit an upper limit.

She doesn't really need it. She took down Lord Raith when he was vastly weakened, and a few years later basically all the potential challengers got killed (in WN and TC).

She's the strongest living Whampire, except maybe Thomas, who won't challenge her for leadership.

And Lara is really enormously powerful. If she can move mortal military forces around and hire Valkyries, her relative *personal* weakness (compared to say PT-era Harry or a powerful Blampire; she's still superhuman) isn't that relevant.

Just... charging somebody with a knife is about her weakest area. That's why it seemed so odd.
But that's what I'm saying. Her allowing herself to have a weak spot is surprising to me. 

Even if she does have a reservoir limit, I'm struggling to believe that her reservoir is so low. She fed Thomas for an hour and it wasn't enough to put a dent in his hunger, but it drained her?

And if it is that low, then I would expect her to find ways around it. 

If Harry can create rings that store kinetic energy, and can create a belt buckle that will store energy to increase his physical attributes, and Lara has seen at least some of those in action, then I would honestly expect her to find a contractor to help her find a way to have an additional reservoir, artificial or not, to supplement her. 

Seeing her flail helplessly after nursing Thomas for an hour was just sad and disappointing. 

Offline vultur

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #65 on: July 27, 2020, 03:42:11 AM »
But that's what I'm saying. Her allowing herself to have a weak spot is surprising to me.

It's only "allowing" herself if she has a choice. I doubt if she does. She can't just give herself new powers without paying a cost that would be unacceptable to her - Lara wants to be in charge, not to be in debt/in thrall to some other power (like a Fallen in a Denarian coin). Working with Odin/Monoc Securities is just a business relationship, she can still be in charge of her own.

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Even if she does have a reservoir limit, I'm struggling to believe that her reservoir is so low. She fed Thomas for an hour and it wasn't enough to put a dent in his hunger, but it drained her?
Thomas was really damaged, enough to be non-functional/near-death.

If Thomas's Hunger is at least as strong as hers, she probably couldn't transfer enough energy to get him back to normal without reducing herself to non-functional/near-death, even if it was a 100% efficient transfer.

And it might not be efficient, because Thomas was too out of it to really feed - and the White Court probably aren't set up to give energy away (as somebody else pointed out).

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If Harry can create rings that store kinetic energy, and can create a belt buckle that will store energy to increase his physical attributes, and Lara has seen at least some of those in action, then I would honestly expect her to find a contractor to help her find a way to have an additional reservoir, artificial or not, to supplement her.

Do we know that this would actually work?

The kind of energy the White Court feed on seems more personal and less "magic physics" than what Harry uses, it might not be able to just be stored in an inanimate battery.

Otherwise Harry could just have done a spell to "top up" Thomas... with time to do thaumaturgy, he could probably draw much more energy than Lara could provide. Since Lara didn't suggest that, I think it probably takes feeding on a living being.

I don't think the Whampires can just get out of their inherent limitations that way, any more than the most powerful Rampires or Blampires could avoid drinking blood.

Offline Grifter

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #66 on: July 27, 2020, 04:56:43 AM »
It's only "allowing" herself if she has a choice. I doubt if she does. She can't just give herself new powers without paying a cost that would be unacceptable to her - Lara wants to be in charge, not to be in debt/in thrall to some other power (like a Fallen in a Denarian coin). Working with Odin/Monoc Securities is just a business relationship, she can still be in charge of her own.
Thomas was really damaged, enough to be non-functional/near-death.

If Thomas's Hunger is at least as strong as hers, she probably couldn't transfer enough energy to get him back to normal without reducing herself to non-functional/near-death, even if it was a 100% efficient transfer.

And it might not be efficient, because Thomas was too out of it to really feed - and the White Court probably aren't set up to give energy away (as somebody else pointed out).

Do we know that this would actually work?

The kind of energy the White Court feed on seems more personal and less "magic physics" than what Harry uses, it might not be able to just be stored in an inanimate battery.

Otherwise Harry could just have done a spell to "top up" Thomas... with time to do thaumaturgy, he could probably draw much more energy than Lara could provide. Since Lara didn't suggest that, I think it probably takes feeding on a living being.

I don't think the Whampires can just get out of their inherent limitations that way, any more than the most powerful Rampires or Blampires could avoid drinking blood.
She wouldn't have to sell her soul.  She'd have to trade like she did with Mab, or buy like she did with Monoc. 

As for the backup reservoir, I'm not saying it'd be easy to make on the fly, which is the only way Harry ever makes anything.  But given that we've seen several sorts of magic power, as well as soul power and love power, be permanently or extendedly imbued into objects, it stands to reason that there should be a way to artificially store lust power as well.

Theoretically it wouldn't have to be that much different than what Harry already did.  The belt buckle wasn't kinetic energy.  It was a magic reservoir.
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   I touched my left hand to my belt buckle and whispered, “Fortius.”
   Power rushed into the pit of my stomach, a sudden tide of hot, living energy, nitrous for the body, mind, and soul. Raw life radiated out into my bones, running riot through my limbs. My confusion and weariness and pain vanished as swiftly as darkness before the sunrise.
   This was no simple adrenaline boost, either, though that was a part of it. Call it chi or mana or one of thousand other names for it—it was pure magic, the very essence of life energy itself. It poured into me from the reservoir I’d created in the silver of the buckle. My heart suddenly overflowed with excitement, my thoughts with hope, confidence, and eager anticipation, and if I had a personal soundtrack to my life it would have been playing Ode to Joy while a stadium of Harry fans did the wave. It was all I could do to stop myself from bursting into laughter or song.
If Harry, an amateur wizard in his twenties with little to no formal training, can manage to do that, then I don't see a problem with an older, wiser with wizard or mage or Monoc contractor doing something similar, but with a focus on storing a supply of lust energy.  It could just take a little from each feeding to keep it topped off. 

And honestly, I could see where she might take it a step further.  Give a white pearl or diamond or opal to every Raith that will be their personal reservoir, and link them together so her larger gem would get a slice from each feeding.  Then she could strengthen her own people and gain power from them.

It'd just be combining things we've already seen in the series.

As for it having to be from a living being, we know magic comes from living beings, but can be stored in inanimate objects.  And we've seen a wamp feed on energy from another now, sans the sex, so we know it doesn't have to be just that for Raiths.  Even if there's an inherent loss in storing and tapping, it'd be better than just shrugging at the idea that she'd find herself physically challenged to the point that she'd be tapped out and helpless.

Offline vultur

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #67 on: July 27, 2020, 09:33:56 AM »
She wouldn't have to sell her soul.  She'd have to trade like she did with Mab, or buy like she did with Monoc.

Trading favors is one thing, the Fae do that all the time. Hiring mercenaries likewise. But the only ways we've seen to get a big power upgrade beyond your "basic type of supernatural being" involve a lot deeper commitment or transform you - becoming Summer or Winter Knight, taking up a Denarian coin, performing an ascension rite/Darkhallow. That sort of thing.

Lord Raith probably did something of this sort, making some kind of Outsider pact with HWWB to get his anti-magic shield. Obviously we don't have any details though...

I don't think that this is a limitation that could be gotten around with equipment, or Harry would have done something like it for Thomas. The White Court's need to feed on life force is pretty fundamental. It would take a radical transformation of Lara's nature IMO.

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If Harry, an amateur wizard in his twenties with little to no formal training, can manage to do that, then I don't see a problem with an older, wiser with wizard or mage or Monoc contractor doing something similar, but with a focus on storing a supply of lust energy.  It could just take a little from each feeding to keep it topped off. 

Only if "lust energy" can be stored in that way. I don't think it can.

Or, rather, I think there isn't really any such thing as "lust energy" in the Dresdenverse. I think the White Court are using emotions as a conduit to draw life force energy. (The Houses can switch over -- Madrigal Raith learned to feed from fear. So it's not locked specifically into lust, despair, or whatever.)

It seems to be a more general process in the Dresdenverse - the phobophages/fetches from PG do something similar, for example.

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As for it having to be from a living being, we know magic comes from living beings, but can be stored in inanimate objects.  And we've seen a wamp feed on energy from another now, sans the sex, so we know it doesn't have to be just that for Raiths.

I think the problem isn't the kind of energy. It's the access to it, the "conduit", which requires emotions. An enchanted item doesn't have emotions, so I don't think the White Court's Hunger could access energy from it.

Offline Grifter

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #68 on: July 27, 2020, 12:25:48 PM »
Trading favors is one thing, the Fae do that all the time. Hiring mercenaries likewise. But the only ways we've seen to get a big power upgrade beyond your "basic type of supernatural being" involve a lot deeper commitment or transform you - becoming Summer or Winter Knight, taking up a Denarian coin, performing an ascension rite/Darkhallow. That sort of thing.

Lord Raith probably did something of this sort, making some kind of Outsider pact with HWWB to get his anti-magic shield. Obviously we don't have any details though...

I don't think that this is a limitation that could be gotten around with equipment, or Harry would have done something like it for Thomas. The White Court's need to feed on life force is pretty fundamental. It would take a radical transformation of Lara's nature IMO.

Only if "lust energy" can be stored in that way. I don't think it can.

Or, rather, I think there isn't really any such thing as "lust energy" in the Dresdenverse. I think the White Court are using emotions as a conduit to draw life force energy. (The Houses can switch over -- Madrigal Raith learned to feed from fear. So it's not locked specifically into lust, despair, or whatever.)

It seems to be a more general process in the Dresdenverse - the phobophages/fetches from PG do something similar, for example.

I think the problem isn't the kind of energy. It's the access to it, the "conduit", which requires emotions. An enchanted item doesn't have emotions, so I don't think the White Court's Hunger could access energy from it.
In SF Harry describes the lake house as being saturated in lust and fear and hate due to the magics worked there, because of the method used to empower the drug. Even unintentionally, emotional energy is imbued in a thing.

And in the scene I quoted from BR, the belt buckle energy invokes an emotional response in Harry. 

I haven't seen anything that would suggest it isn't possible, other than 'we haven't seen it be done'.

And remember, the method proposed would be reducing the amount absorbed during the feeding, which is not something that your typical Wamp would want to do, and not something that would help Thomas given his already limited feeding restrictions (doesn't kill, only sips).

Offline vultur

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #69 on: July 29, 2020, 10:00:49 PM »
But on another line of thought... what if there's something wrong with Lara?

There are a lot of highly suspicious things about Thomas in PT. To the point that I'd tend to think that "Thomas" is not actually Thomas, and he's conveniently (posing as?*) too beat up to talk so Harry can't tell that he doesn't have Thomas's personality or knowledge.

*I think a Goodman Grey-level shapeshifter could fake that without actually being physically impaired.

But he's able to take energy from Lara, and one would think Lara would notice something 'off' - even if the physical duplication was perfect, surely the White Court vampire powers wouldn't duplicate exactly (sure, a naagloshii or fetch can feed on fear, so the power may be vaguely similar, but...)

But - if Lara is "mind-whammied" by fake-Thomas, we can't necessarily know that her report of what happened is accurate. And that might also lead her to attack Harry physically when she should have known that was a near-certain loss one way or another (even without Demonreach).

Offline TrueMonk

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #70 on: July 29, 2020, 10:18:42 PM »
What makes me wonder about Lara is why she uses any of the favours. It seems to me she could have achieved both things without them. I mean how would Harry not join the rescue of his brother? Or introduce her to someone if it would aid in that. At least she could easily have gotten all the help she needed with one favour.

Maybe there is some other reason she needed Harry to introduce her to Christos and Etri?

Offline Dina

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #71 on: July 29, 2020, 10:25:34 PM »
Agree with that.
Vultur, I simply don't think that Thomas encasing would have worked if that was not his name. Also, Alfred called him "kin" with Harry and I am sure he would have known if he was not Thomas. Also, Harry himself would have felt something when probing him mind in Demonreach.
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Offline ClintACK

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #72 on: July 29, 2020, 10:26:00 PM »
Re: Lara and favors...

That was really suspicious. It makes me think she and Mab are in cahoots, likely with Marcone as well (the gaping security flaw and using Harry's lab as the prison cell are pretty big cluebats). Lara got three favors, perhaps with an understanding about what she'd be using them for?

And remember that the introduction really did pay off -- she might have sweet-talked Christos without it, but Harry vouched for her to Etri and that seemed to make a difference.

Offline Bad Alias

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #73 on: July 30, 2020, 12:53:53 AM »
But on another line of thought... what if there's something wrong with Lara?
Lara goes from saying there is nothing she can do, then the next time she's on page, everything's changed because she has a plan? Suspicious right there.

Offline Arjan

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Re: What is Lara's problem? [PT Spoilers!]
« Reply #74 on: July 30, 2020, 01:19:53 AM »
Lara goes from saying there is nothing she can do, then the next time she's on page, everything's changed because she has a plan? Suspicious right there.
Happened to me a few times. You tell someone that nothing can be done and then you start thinking again and get back.
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