The Night of Bad Dreams

[RobReece]

Was there ever a consensus of reasoning behind the Night of Bad Dreams at the end of Changes?  Or was it just rather blunt foreshadowing of a future related event?

[Melriken]

It was caused by the booodline curse that killed the red court… all the death and black magic sweeping the world gave people bad dreams.

[RobReece]

That affected pregnant women and those who had recently given birth with dreams of dead children and the world in flames.  Too specific and unrelated to red court and what it was experiencing.
I don't buy it.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

I suspect the destruction of the Red Court created a new time-line, one which could lead to Apocalypse, so everyone with an smidgin of oracular capability got a warning of a dire future unfolding all at once where it didn’t previously exist..

[RobReece]

I find this more likely

[Conspiracy Theorist]

This presumes pregnant/recent mothers inherent tiny oracular capacity is boosted by pregnancy, which if you think about it would be a pro-survival trait, and would be self-selecting genetically, as mothers with a stronger boosted oracular capacity would survive and pass this onto their children  This may be where the human talent for magic arose from, especially as it is matrilineal.

The talented were also especially affected which would be consistent with my theory. Harry has previously split the timeline in Grave Peril, but the effect was not so pronounced because an Apocalypse was much more distant. Conversely in binding the Titan Harry split the timeline again leading to the Apocalpse being pushed back, again not producing the immediate oracular backwash the destruction of the Red Court created.

We are headed to the BAT but Harry’s decisions can bring it forward or push it back a bit, by creating new time-lines. Harry’s journey is to the one where he eventually wins the BAT, so sometimes two steps forward means taking one step back, such as killing the Red Court, Harry brought the Apocalypse forward, but it’s one he can ‘win’. Where he failed the Apocalpse was delayed due to the Red Court waiting to build its strength, but was where he totally lost.

[Snark Knight]

It's unfortunate that Harry didn't recover the memory of those minutes he lost after the curse went off while his memories were no longer limited by meat storage during Ghost Story.

On the other hand, spending a few months screaming wouldn't have been conducive to being the fulcrum for Molly and Mort to stop Corpsetaker, so maybe not after all.

[The_Sibelis]

Was there ever a consensus of reasoning behind the Night of Bad Dreams at the end of Changes?  Or was it just rather blunt foreshadowing of a future related event?

generally, aided by farther connections present in the DF between dreams and alt reality, I consider it a Mandela effect. Though the why is purely theoretical. I think going after Eb, after Harry's bloodline would have hit the root bloodline that birthed magic into humanity. It would have effectively killed practitioners as a thing at the root. The farther deaths are directly caused by that loss, as Dresden says, babies have more magic than the strongest firestorm he can whip up. With magic, creation, to sustain them..

[g33k]

It's unfortunate that Harry didn't recover the memory of those minutes he lost after the curse went off while his memories were no longer limited by meat storage during Ghost Story.

On the other hand, spending a few months screaming wouldn't have been conducive to being the fulcrum for Molly and Mort to stop Corpsetaker, so maybe not after all.

I expect it's Chekhov's Amnesia -- something Really Significant happened there.

It will prove to be very important, when we (Harry) learn the details.
 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

The term for it is the Mandela effect, collective false memory

[Melriken]

This presumes pregnant/recent mothers inherent tiny oracular capacity is boosted by pregnancy, which if you think about it would be a pro-survival trait, and would be self-selecting genetically, as mothers with a stronger boosted oracular capacity would survive and pass this onto their children  This may be where the human talent for magic arose from, especially as it is matrilineal.

The talented were also especially affected which would be consistent with my theory. Harry has previously split the timeline in Grave Peril, but the effect was not so pronounced because an Apocalypse was much more distant. Conversely in binding the Titan Harry split the timeline again leading to the Apocalpse being pushed back, again not producing the immediate oracular backwash the destruction of the Red Court created.

We are headed to the BAT but Harry’s decisions can bring it forward or push it back a bit, by creating new time-lines. Harry’s journey is to the one where he eventually wins the BAT, so sometimes two steps forward means taking one step back, such as killing the Red Court, Harry brought the Apocalypse forward, but it’s one he can ‘win’. Where he failed the Apocalpse was delayed due to the Red Court waiting to build its strength, but was where he totally lost.

I like this theroy, it rings true to me.

I think going after Eb, after Harry's bloodline would have hit the root bloodline that birthed magic into humanity. It would have effectively killed practitioners as a thing at the root.

That is a terrifying thought, but I am not convinced that the curse can ripple through the dead that far...

As in it can hit a sibling even if the parent's are dead, but I doubt it can hit cousins or second/third cousins without steps between... It's a question of connection between two living people... it is able to hit Eb from Harry with one dead connection between them, but from Eb to anyone other than Harry might be 3, 4, 5 or more connections all dead... I doubt it can skip very far through the dead.  The Red Court didn't really have dead links, and the curse could work around them when they did exist.

[The_Sibelis]

Ahh but point of fact, it wasn't a ripple of death. Unborn died without the mother's. The curse itself doesn't explain that, the death of magic itself would. The curse, goes backwards through the bloodline, as far as we know, it doesn't rebound back down the bloodline. This is why her being the youngest ramp mattered. But the oldest being it will, if that being is some kind of god/concept of magic(which isn't all that unheard of) then it's death killed magic... Like how they tried to kill death in DB, they're going after core concepts governing reality.

[Avernite]

Well I am satisfied with the explanation for both Harry's amnesia and the bad dreams that an explosion of REALLY bad magic swept over the earth (and the nearer NeverNever) and probed who to blast out of existence. Babies (and their mothers) felt the probing and the potential impact scared the bejeezus out of them. Harry was at ground zero and the blast wrecked his mind.

But eh, if it proves portentous I'll be happy enough