Choices

[Snark Knight]

Assuming Jim hasn't changed his mind, he's told us what the big choice was. It's at the end of Grave Peril when Harry goes to save Susan. Our Harry summons a bunch of vengeful ghosts to kill the vampires when he could have absorbed their power and lashed out. The other Harry does the later.

He said the divergence was late in GP.  There's still room for it to be a few possibilities.  One of the big possibilities is !Harry might have taken Bianca's coward's bargain, to abandon Susan and walk free. 

Depending how far back you stretch late in Grave Peril, it could also be a few other things. There was a moment relatively late in the book when Thomas came to Harry to return Amoracchius after he recovered it from the earlier fighting and propose teaming up to rescue Susan and Justine, where Michael wanted to kill him without even seeing what was in the box because vampires are all bad.  If Harry hadn't gone to bat for hearing Thomas out at that point?  Well, that could start a pretty dark timeline.

[Mira]

It had been a single timeline, up until the GP "choice;" that was where they diverged, where the alternative timelines branched apart; Mirror!Murphy didn't grow up any differently from our Murphy.  For Murphy to be "corrupt" in Mirror Mirror, she'd have to have turned that way since the time of GP.  I don't think that's possible for her (unless some mindbender broke her mind).

Really?  No, a choice is like a pebble thrown into a still pond, it creates ripples.. Everything is altered.

[Bridger]

Mirror!Harry is not a decent person any longer, no; he has gone full-on villain.  Not sure if he's just gone overboard on the "fighting the good fight" theme, embracing "acceptable losses" in collateral damage

This has been my pet hypothesis.  Nicodemus argues in these terms.  His rationalization for all the murder and mayhem he causes is that it is in pursuit of a much greater good.  Harry could, one death at a time, rationalize his way down that road.  Maybe not as far as Nic, but to the point where he's a lot less careful about how he uses his magic to achieve his goals, and shuts down the part of himself that would normally feel immense guilt over collateral damage.

[Mira]

This has been my pet hypothesis.  Nicodemus argues in these terms.  His rationalization for all the murder and mayhem he causes is that it is in pursuit of a much greater good.  Harry could, one death at a time, rationalize his way down that road.  Maybe not as far as Nic, but to the point where he's a lot less careful about how he uses his magic to achieve his goals, and shuts down the part of himself that would normally feel immense guilt over collateral damage.

Yeah, but I doubt that that is the choice since then you'd think it would be more along the lines of deciding to accept the coin or not to ultimately reject the temptation of Lasciel's Shadow, both of which happen in a later book.  No, if it's the decision he made at the end of Grave Peril, then there were several that could have sent things going in another direction... It could also be that as a person Harry isn't any different than the Harry we know and love, but because he made the wrong choice he has to walk a whole different path that ruins what our Harry has been trying to do..  Then it's possible that what Uriel told him in Changes about straying from the path and why, as in out of love does matter.. This could be yet another object lesson that Uriel is trying to teach Harry.. Could be that Mirrormirror turns out to be more "It's A Wonderful Life," than a classic Star Trek remake.

[g33k]

Really?  No, a choice is like a pebble thrown into a still pond, it creates ripples.. Everything is altered.

A change in a moment only ripples forward in time, though.
Harry's choice in GP can't have touched Murphy's childhood, upbringing, young adulthood, etc.

She was a truly-good person going into GP; only one Murphy.
There is potential for change by the end of it, Mirror!Murphy's life begins to diverge (as do others).

[Mira]

A change in a moment only ripples forward in time, though.
Harry's choice in GP can't have touched Murphy's childhood, upbringing, young adulthood, etc.

She was a truly-good person going into GP; only one Murphy.
There is potential for change by the end of it, Mirror!Murphy's life begins to diverge (as do others).

 A stone tossed in a lake sends out ripples in all directions..  And as far as that goes, Murphy and Harry's lives touched from The
Restoration of Faith..  However if Harry's choice changes the world, it changes everything around him as well, not just him.  That's why time travel is so dangerous. 

[g33k]

A stone tossed in a lake sends out ripples in all directions..

Your simile is misleading; time has flow, an inherent direction.  It is not a placid lake amenable to "ripples in all directions."

An event has consequences moving forward in time.  Causality does not go backwards (until you time-travel backwards -- but then only forward again, from whatever point you insert yourself).
 

[Mira]

Your simile is misleading; time has flow, an inherent direction.  It is not a placid lake amenable to "ripples in all directions."

An event has consequences moving forward in time.  Causality does not go backwards (until you time-travel backwards -- but then only forward again, from whatever point you insert yourself).

You misunderstand.. Time has flow, but if Harry is different from the Harry we know because of a poor choice, everyone he touches also is changed because of the way he affects them and what has happened because of his choice.  The Murphy you know has been shaped by the Harry we know, she made her own choices because of him... If it is a different Harry, we won't see the same Murphy.. Now Michael, who is shaped by his devotion to God and being a Holy Knight would be perhaps constant, because his choices are shaped more by faith than Harry.