Barbara Books Q&A

[Hagbard Celine]

Did anyone watch the live stream today?  There were a few nuggets, but Jim dropped one that made everyone cuss.  Someone asked who the Warden of Demonreach was before Harry, and Jim said he knew who it was but wouldn't say, but he did say that the one before that was Kemmler.  (!). 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

It explains where Kemmler got a lot of his material.

[Yuillegan]

It gave away quite a few points.

1. The Brit (if he has Free Will - implied he might) can't be held by Demonreach forever as Demoreach cannot hold any being with Free Will indefinitely. Including Thomas

2. Gods got told to let humanity do it's thing and many of them agreed and are now wrestlers and rock stars etc. Very few are like Vadderung.

3. Kemmler was the Warden TWO Wardens before Harry. We know who the one before Harry is I think, but not necessarily the one before that (who succeeded Kemmler). And the Senior Council would never do it as it would make them a target for the rest.

4. The Merlin might not actually run the White Council, i.e. he is a figure head.

5. You could send different parts of a being out of Demonreach while keeping the rest. Like sending Kringle and keeping Vadderung.

[TheCuriousFan]

The other interesting ones are:

• Paranoid Gary's magical gift is being an oracle.
• Teasing the Paranet signing onto the Accords after joining together and militarising enough to be taken seriously.
• Kincaid and Ivy's relationship is broken, he's turned into a drunken stalker who still keeps trying to protect from a distance and she's not quite ready to deal with that emotionally.
• Dresden was mostly let off the hook when it came to bonding with Demonreach because they could tell it was sincere ignorance and they're strapped for manpower, if it was one of the senior members who was in the know and went for it the other senior council members would panic and assume malice. A lot of the fighting with Kemmler was focused on preventing him from returning to the island because then things would get much worse.
• Harry probably could get an ice addition to his blasting rod since they're basically the same thing but he hasn't made that emotional leap yet. On thinking of just how many ways he can use this to screw with Harry Jim says he has to do it.
• He got real coy when asked about how mad Langtry was about Harry returning and asked if we really think anyone in charge of the white council is really what they look like. There's a plot twist coming there.
• If a prisoner on Demonreach has multiple hats/mantles you can release one specific one while leaving the others behind and this works well with compelling them into service. The catch is you've got to fight them and win.
• Related to the above, Harry could use it to shed the WK mantle if he didn't mind ripping off a part of himself. It's also delicate enough psychic surgery that Jim isn't sure Mab could take away the mantle without shredding his brain a bit and potentially having to get the mantle repaired before she can pass it along again.
• Life as Maeve generally sucked, she was also real worried about the potential for Mab to send a mindbroken Lloyd Slate after her. She was not allowed anywhere near Sarissa in most circumstances.
• Some of the politics in Harry's life is getting chucked into and established in short stories centered around him having to attend certain political events.
• Butters hopping in the ring now that he has a lightsaber is going to happen.
• Gods at some point got slapped with the restriction that if you want to stay involved with humanity you'll have to be subject to mortality by the creator after an unspecified amount of time of being free to act as guides. As it is now they mostly just stick to being wrestlers and rock stars for the worship.
• Might be a Battle of the Bands style graphic novel coming up at some point.
• Water magic ties into connections and empathy, it's why the water mages Harry runs into tend to be more sympathetic when it comes to him.
• Thomas could feed on fae, eating false emotions would have the mental equivalent of what happens when you eat fae food on him and would just turn him into a monster the moment he's back in the world.
• Demonreach cannot permanently hold anything with free will. Thomas cannot be held forever.

EDIT: There's also quantum wizards, it sucks to be a millennial wizard because you can't go with most of the usual ways of making money in the modern world and a lot end up in shady businesses.

Link: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/jim-butcher

[Mira]

Demonreach cannot permanently hold anything with free will. Thomas cannot be held forever.

However can one argue that Thomas has limited free will because of the Hunger Demon?  When the Hunger needs to feed, Thomas has to obey or die.  I guess he can chose to die, but that isn't much of a choice.  You'd think there would be a way to lock up the Hunger and let human Thomas go free.

[peregrine]

It's not much of a choice, but it's a choice nonetheless.  Humans have to eat or they die as well.  And they still have Free Will.

[Arjan]

But if the hunger took over completely like when the skinwalker let him loose then it might be different.

[Mira]

But if the hunger took over completely like when the skinwalker let him loose then it might be different.

 Yes, because at the point where Shaggy brought in the young girls, for the Hunger it was feed or die, how much did Thomas really have to do with it?  That is underscored by what was happening to Thomas when Harry brought him to Demonreach.  The Hunger needed to feed to survive, so it began to feed on it's host, but when it finished feeding on it's host and it died, so would the Hunger.

What I want to know, is if Kemmler is a former Warden of Demonreach, was he allowed to quit?  Mab asked Harry if now that she is his prisoner and in his power would he use the Titian to his own advantage?  If this is true, why didn't Kemmler remain Warden and use the prisoners as he pleased?

[Rigil Kent]

why didn't Kemmler remain Warden and use the prisoners as he pleased?

Who says he didn't? Maybe that explains how he kept coming back to life?

[Conspiracy Theorist]

It’s probably clear this is the source of his necromantic knowledge.

[BrainFireBob]

Who says he didn't? Maybe that explains how he kept coming back to life?

I assume that was either body hopping Capiocorpus style, or he'd performed a low-level Darkhallow that regenerated him slowly.

[vultur]

Yeah the Kemmler thing really surprises me. If the Warden can release the prisoners (as Alfred/Demonreach told Harry) why didn't he release some Ethniu-level power on the condition that it swore a magically-binding oath to destroy the White Council?

Maybe something to do with the 'starborn cycle' made Ethniu more freely able to act in the mortal world than would have been possible a century ago?

Still, even a half-dozen naagloshii assassins could have seriously messed up the White Council's war efforts, likely enough for Kemmler to win.

I assume that was either body hopping Capiocorpus style, or he'd performed a low-level Darkhallow that regenerated him slowly.

I thought it was what Corpsetaker tried to do in GS, except that Kemmler succeeded where she failed.

He definitely did do some kind of "low-level Darkhallow" however, since Mab says that eating spirits was the secret of the power that let him defy the Council. It's not just something he knew how to do but never got a chance to use - he actually gained power from it.

[Rigil Kent]

Still, even a half-dozen naagloshii assassins could have seriously messed up the White Council's war efforts, likely enough for Kemmler to win.

Which sort of tracks with their desperate attempts to keep him from getting back to the island, though...

[vultur]

Which sort of tracks with their desperate attempts to keep him from getting back to the island, though...

Well, it's just that, if I were an evil warlock Warden of Demonreach, I'd know that as a warlock the White Council was my largest threat.  So I'd release some powerful beings oathbound to destroy the White Council as my first move.

IE why did he leave the island before the White Council was gone?

In a chaotic world with the Council destroyed, he could then start setting up a magical organization of his own.

[BrainFireBob]

Bindings are difficult and the beings aren't trustworthy.

Anything he released to annihilate the council- could he confine it himself?

"I bind you to me, for me you must destroy the White Council."

*Pause*

"What's that?"

"I incited thermonuclear war/the plague to end all plagues. Trust me, Council's gone. Good luck with the fallout."