Question - suppose I get a surrendered coin and place it in a circle? Would that have it beyond retrieval? Harry just buried his. The Vatican would know how to create a barrier if anyone human could.
You cannot compare Harry to the others because though he did pick up the coin, which allowed Lasciel's shadow to make contact with his brain, he never
acceptedit. Accepting and making contact are two different things. The point of the shadow in his head was to tempt him and break down his defenses so that he'd ultimately accept the coin. This is what made Harry special and got the attention of Heaven, before Harry, if I remember correctly, no one had refused a coin once it's shadow was in his or her mind. So in a last ditch effort to save herself and Harry in White Night, Lash tried to get Harry to summon the coin buried in his basement.. As we know Harry refused, this impressed Lash and along with her love for him, motivated her to sacrifice herself for him.
Cassius had physically accepted and carried the coin for years, then he gave it up to surrender in an effort to save his skin... It was all over, he then could not get it back. In my opinion it is set up that way because by giving up the coin you are supposedly going to use the time remaining to you to try and redeem yourself, like Sanya.. Poor Cassius never intended to seek his redemption.
I wonder about this scene. For Murphy to have broken the sword, did Nicodemus have to be sincere in surrendering the coin? I would think a false repentance to be particularly blasphemous and so Nicodemus would have earned any judgment inflicted by Karen.
That's what happened to Cassius, he never was sincere about it, but his surrender of the coin was accepted and he was then screwed. I think if Murphy had accepted Nic's surrender the same thing would have happened to him. However Nic though Andriel knew that Murphy would never accept his surrender of the coin in hope he might redeem himself. He knew she had already judged him and felt him deserving of only one thing, execution... And since she is not the Almighty, it is not up to her to judge him, nor execute him, especially with a Holy Sword, which got it broken when she attempted it.
