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The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: wardenferry419 on November 07, 2017, 11:23:46 PM
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What were all of Cowl's plans for being at Bianca's party?
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Furthermore he stated in Dead Beat that much more went on at that party than Harry realized. Was there anything else besides the knife passing to Lea that happened?
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Since Cowl is Simon Petrovitch, the White Council's vampire expert, and since he wasn't "dead" yet, he was there to witness inner Rampire court ceremonies.
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Other things
1) A meeting of key players - Bianca, the white court (derailed by Papa Raiths plans to kill his son), red court, black council --- it has to be hard for these players to get together without raising warning flags. The party is a good excuse - although I expect the start of the war through those plans into a blender.
2) The dragon got a gift - is he also nemfected?
3) Lea was nemfected by her gift.
4) I wonder if the black council expected some other gift from Lea -- although the knights sword was probably welcomed... That they would get a return gift was clearly known.
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Other things
4) I wonder if the black council expected some other gift from Lea -- although the knights sword was probably welcomed... That they would get a return gift was clearly known.
Since Bianca turned around and gave it to Mavra, I can only assume that they knew it was coming.
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I was rereading the party scene to get a fix on the timeline of effects when I came across this little interlude:
Thomas took Justine's hand, and the two of them stood off to my right, where Michael kept a wary eye on them. "Thank you, wizard. I'm afraid I'm not well loved here."
I glanced over at him. There was a mark on his neck, black and angry red, like a brand, in the shape of lovely, feminine lips. I would have thought it lipstick, but I sensed a faint odor of burnt meat in the air.
"What happened to your neck?"
His face paled a few shades. "Your godmother gave me a kiss."
"Damn," I said.
This was right after we saw Lea seal a deal with Susan by kissing her on the forehead. It makes me think that Lea and Thomas struck a deal. To my knowledge this has never been mentioned again. I wonder what exactly transpired here.
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You don't kiss and tell, everybody knows that. LOL.
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One theory is that when Leah took Susan's memory, she touched on Susan's true love of Harry. When she kissed Thomas, this is what burned him.
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Either Susan's or Lea's love for Harry.
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Both logical loves to burn Thomas, but why kiss him in the first place. She kissed Harry's head to heal his head wound. She kissed Susan's head to seal their pact and take away her memories. I think there is another motive for that kiss that was not revealed or has not been revealed yet.
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Thomas probably had his own deal going on.
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Cowl only touched one thing, the Knife, while it may have been the vector that endangered the whole Winter Court with Nemesis... It is my theory that Lea was already infected.. Ask yourself what her motives were when Harry screwed up and Am fell into her hands? Was she looking to gain that Knife for her Queen, or to make herself more powerful? Why would she want to aid Bianca in the first place to unmake a Holy Sword since at that moment as far as we know the Winter Court didn't have an ax to grind with either the Red Court or the Holy Knights..
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Lea probably had readied plans, looking for opportunites, and doesn't mind have some extra resources like holy swords available. She din't seem surprised by what she got and what was going on at the party. Knowing the situation and working angles goes a long way to advancing ones position.
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Furthermore he stated in Dead Beat that much more went on at that party than Harry realized. Was there anything else besides the knife passing to Lea that happened?
Not necessary. That knife was exactly the much more that happened.
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Since Cowl is Simon Petrovitch, the White Council's vampire expert, and since he wasn't "dead" yet, he was there to witness inner Rampire court ceremonies.
Simon is dead. It is time to look at more plausible candidates like the merlin.
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Cowl only touched one thing, the Knife, while it may have been the vector that endangered the whole Winter Court with Nemesis... It is my theory that Lea was already infected.. Ask yourself what her motives were when Harry screwed up and Am fell into her hands? Was she looking to gain that Knife for her Queen, or to make herself more powerful? Why would she want to aid Bianca in the first place to unmake a Holy Sword since at that moment as far as we know the Winter Court didn't have an ax to grind with either the Red Court or the Holy Knights..
Both Mab and Lea herself after she was cured disagree.
Lea needed something of equal worth to the athame to exchange gifts with the red court and the sword was suitable. Otherwise she had to balance things in some other unpredictable way. As it turned out is was as she claimed a treacherous gift. She had been betrayed and she had to balance that out as she did in changes with Harry's help.
It would not have been a treacherous gift if she was already infected. It all makes it more likely that Cowl himself was infected.
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Both Mab and Lea herself after she was cured disagree.
Lea needed something of equal worth to the athame to exchange gifts with the red court and the sword was suitable. Otherwise she had to balance things in some other unpredictable way. As it turned out is was as she claimed a treacherous gift. She had been betrayed and she had to balance that out as she did in changes with Harry's help.
It would not have been a treacherous gift if she was already infected. It all makes it more likely that Cowl himself was infected.
I agree with you, however, to play devils advocate .... Unless the true treachery of the Athame hasn't been revealed yet.
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I agree with you, however, to play devils advocate .... Unless the true treachery of the Athame hasn't been revealed yet.
Let's work backwards for a second: how did Cowl get the Athame in the first place? If it's an artifact with enough power that Lea was able to challenge Mab, how the crap did he manage to find it?
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Let's work backwards for a second: how did Cowl get the Athame in the first place? If it's an artifact with enough power that Lea was able to challenge Mab, how the crap did he manage to find it?
Cowl is senior council level and had a sidekick as strong as Harry. He can find an ancient relic if he spends a few decades looking for it.
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4) I wonder if the black council expected some other gift from Lea -- although the knights sword was probably welcomed... That they would get a return gift was clearly known.
Since Bianca turned around and gave it to Mavra, I can only assume that they knew it was coming.
Why, that presumes way too much future knowledge. The easiest explanation is that they had something else in mind for Mavra. However, the sword was a much better gift on many levels so they just changed the plan. After all, Mavra is already working with black council and did not really need a super special pre-nemfected gift like the dragon and lea did.
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It would not have been a treacherous gift if she was already infected. It all makes it more likely that Cowl himself was infected.
If we had any proof that the athame could infect anyone other than Faerie, this would be a more appealing theory to me.
Harry jumping on Nemesis as an explanation for all sorts of weirdness in CD doesn't change there being plenty of other perfectly satisfactory explanations for all of that weirdness excepting only Aurora going loopy prior to CD, and is notably similar to Harry leaping on the "Black Council" as a one-size-fits-all explanation at the end of PG, which he's been notably quiet about since the Nemesis concept came along.
(Since the whole series is largely a detective story, it's an article of faith with me that any "one theory explains most of everything" that Harry comes up with before the end of the last book has to be wrong. There is no "Black Council", just a bunch of different enemies with different agendas all sometimes working together and sometimes screwing each other over, and Nemesis is most likely, and most parsimoniously, a specific anti-Faerie weapon. I look forward to debunking another wrong theory of Harry's on this scale probably about book 18 and at least one more during the BAT.)
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Unless the Black Council and Nemesis are elements of the same unified theory?
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If we had any proof that the athame could infect anyone other than Faerie, this would be a more appealing theory to me.
Harry jumping on Nemesis as an explanation for all sorts of weirdness in CD doesn't change there being plenty of other perfectly satisfactory explanations for all of that weirdness excepting only Aurora going loopy prior to CD, and is notably similar to Harry leaping on the "Black Council" as a one-size-fits-all explanation at the end of PG, which he's been notably quiet about since the Nemesis concept came along.
(Since the whole series is largely a detective story, it's an article of faith with me that any "one theory explains most of everything" that Harry comes up with before the end of the last book has to be wrong. There is no "Black Council", just a bunch of different enemies with different agendas all sometimes working together and sometimes screwing each other over, and Nemesis is most likely, and most parsimoniously, a specific anti-Faerie weapon. I look forward to debunking another wrong theory of Harry's on this scale probably about book 18 and at least one more during the BAT.)
Neurovore, what are the wrong theories of Harry's that you are looking forward to debunking, if you please?
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Neurovore, what are the wrong theories of Harry's that you are looking forward to debunking, if you please?
New ones he makes up between now and then based on information neither he nor we have yet. I just reckon that, as detective stories go, there will be more than one wrong apparent explanation in the remaining space of the series before we hit on the right one.
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Similar to old Bogey movies, where he meanders from one scene to another, gets his butt beaten or does some beating, all the while the clues keep misfiring until enough of them sync and fire off the right solution.
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Let's work backwards for a second: how did Cowl get the Athame in the first place? If it's an artifact with enough power that Lea was able to challenge Mab, how the crap did he manage to find it?
I wonder if it wasn't part of the same hoard that Bony Tony got access to, where the Word of Kemmler came from.
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I wonder if it wasn't part of the same hoard that Bony Tony got access to, where the Word of Kemmler came from.
That hoard only came into the picture later during dead beat, not before grave peril.
Cowl is a senior council level wizard and probably twice as old as Harry at least. He probably knew Kemmler and his expressed disdain might have been sincere or not.
He could have been looking for the athame or some similar artifact for decades and finding it could have been stuff for several novels as far as we know. It could have been in Kemmlers possession and Cowl simply picked it up after his dead, Cowl could have been a warden like Justin.
Or the outsiders gave it to him, they could have picked it up centuries ago in an earlier attempt to break through.
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That hoard only came into the picture later during dead beat, not before grave peril.
We only became aware of it during DB. Cowl being aware of it during GP is not impossible. Marcone being set up to become aware of it in DB is not impossible.
The net result of it being released into the wild is a) Grevane and Corpsetaker break cover after several decades of successfully staying off the White Council's radar, and ensuingly get caught and killed, b) Cowl is able to convince Harry that he has tried for the Darkhallow and failed, and is believed dead. Both of these seem to me to fairly obviously serve Cowl's interests.
It also seems to me to be part of the set-up for "convince the Red Court they are shortly going to have a post-Darkhallow necromancer on their side; therefore they assess it as safe to take the chance of attacking the Council in Winter*; therefore they get hammered by Mab's intricate revenge plot in PG".
*I do not think it is specified in PG that the Council were in Winter when the Red Court attacked them, but we know from SK that the Council have right of passage in Winter but not in Summer.
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It is power. People want power. I think it is just more likely that he tried to take all the power he could get especially after all the effort he put into it than every other explanation.
Really if he wanted something else he would not have set the erlking loose for example.
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It is power. People want power. I think it is just more likely that he tried to take all the power he could get especially after all the effort he put into it than every other explanation.
So as well as convincing Harry, he convinces you ?
I think part of the development through the series overall is Harry learning that not every villain thinks short term, and some of them have smarts enough to pass up immediate gain for more solid longer-term gain.
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So as well as convincing Harry, he convinces you ?
I think part of the development through the series overall is Harry learning that not every villain thinks short term, and some of them have smarts enough to pass up immediate gain for more solid longer-term gain.
Then there should be a convincing long term alternative he could have gained from not getting the power which there is not. Convincing people he is dead is totally unimportant because he could simply drop the cowl disguise and take another one.
Killing his competitors is an important goal but that is served by taking the power as well. The goals he does seem to have like promoting the outsiders interests would have been served by taking more power.
There is no convincing reason for him not to take it even if he had other reasons to get involved. He actually started taking it and if he was not planning to take it he could simply have disappeared like he later did, less dangerous and a disguise is disposable anyway.
But he started it so there is no reason not to think he would have finished it.
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Then there should be a convincing long term alternative he could have gained from not getting the power which there is not.
As well as the two points of mine you dismissed on this front, there is the larger-scale consequence that the red Court ends up seriously weakened, which also works for me.
But he started it so there is no reason not to think he would have finished it.
He didn't start it; Grevane started it. Cowl was hiding and invisible until after Harry had disposed of Grevane. What do you think Cowl would have done there if Harry had not turned up at the right time ?
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My guess is that Cowl would have shot Grevane then stepped up to take his place.
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My guess is that Cowl would have shot Grevane then stepped up to take his place.
So, in this line of thinking, why has Cowl not already done so? What is Cowl's motivation for letting Grevane get that close to that much power if it's not stage-managing Harry ?
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As well as the two points of mine you dismissed on this front, there is the larger-scale consequence that the red Court ends up seriously weakened, which also works for me.
He didn't start it; Grevane started it. Cowl was hiding and invisible until after Harry had disposed of Grevane. What do you think Cowl would have done there if Harry had not turned up at the right time ?
The athame places Cowl firmly in the outsider camp most probably as their tool. Introducing Nemesis into the Sidhe Courts is simply too big for someone who merely uses the outsiders for his own purposes.
The outsiders want to weaken the Sidhe courts and most probably the white council as well. One of the functions of the seven laws is to keep the outsiders out and a side effect of the hunt for warlocks is the reduction of the number of potential outsider summoners.
There is no reason for Cowl to flush out Grevaine and Corpstaker, they are no hindrance for his plans except as competition for exactly what was happening, the darkhallow.
There was no reason for him to weaken the red court, the red court was his tool against the council and was probably intended as a tool against the winter court later. It had enough enemies so weakening was not an issue, strengthening was and the darkhallow would have been an ideal tool for that.
There was of course reason for Cowl to stirr the red court up but they were doing that fine already and a successful darkhallow followed by the destruction of the senior council would have done that job quite well.
So Cowl did the heavy lifting for the darkhallow while Grevane and Corpstaker were trying to kill each other. He took Bob and freed the erlking so his spirits could have been consumed as well. He helped to get the darkhallow forward and at the end he started taking power, that was the moment Harry started his dead curse and everything spiraled out of hand.
So weakening the red court was not an issue. If anything he wanted them stronger because the Winter court was still far stronger than the red court.
Flushing out Grevaine and Corpstaker was no issue because they were only a problem for the white council, not for him. Unless he wanted the darkhallow because then they would be competition but then the flushing out would be a side effect and not the purpose.
Making Harry think he was dead was no issue either. He was wearing a disguise so it was just simpler to drop it and assume another one if he wanted to disappear without anyone being any wiser.
Getting power was an issue. It would help him with whatever purpose he had and the side effects were not important anyway when the gates were broken.
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So, in this line of thinking, why has Cowl not already done so? What is Cowl's motivation for letting Grevane get that close to that much power if it's not stage-managing Harry ?
He was stage-managing but not just Harry. He was waiting for the moment. Kumori showed up behind Harry. So, that meant she was probably monitoring his activities and tracking his path to the vortez. Let the wild card take out the other players. Weaken the opposition and then walk up with strength and seize the power.
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He was stage-managing but not just Harry. He was waiting for the moment. Kumori showed up behind Harry. So, that meant she was probably monitoring his activities and tracking his path to the vortez. Let the wild card take out the other players. Weaken the opposition and then walk up with strength and seize the power.
Everyone was killing each other nicely so he put himself into position to wack the winner and get the prize. He did not know who he was going to confront him at the end of course but his final opponent would be weakened and he would be ready.
Why let someone else get away with the prize when he had done all the hard work?
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There was no reason for him to weaken the red court, the red court was his tool against the council and was probably intended as a tool against the winter court later.
OK, that's a very different read on things from mine. To my mind the objective of the series villains as a whole is to weaken all the strong supernaturals, mostly by getting them to fight each other.
There was of course reason for Cowl to stirr the red court up but they were doing that fine already and a successful darkhallow followed by the destruction of the senior council would have done that job quite well.
This does depend on believing that a completed Darkhallow would have left a god-tier power actually able to operate on Earth afterwards; we have I think circumstantial evidence that this is not the case, such as Harry explaining in PG that all the old gods are in the NN, and the bassanid in "Last Call" seems to think that was a thing actively and deliberately done.
He helped to get the darkhallow forward and at the end he started taking power
Levitating under the thing is not demonstrated the same thing as taking power.
We know from how quickly Cowl and Kumori vanish in the fight with the Alphas earlier that they are very good at fast gates out (the clue that it's a gate rather than a veil is leaving a lingering smell of the same place Peabody runs to at the end of TC.) So setting up a quick getaway that looks like a faked death is well within Cowl's capacities there.
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He was stage-managing but not just Harry. He was waiting for the moment. Kumori showed up behind Harry. So, that meant she was probably monitoring his activities and tracking his path to the vortez. Let the wild card take out the other players. Weaken the opposition and then walk up with strength and seize the power.
We know Cowl is Senior Council power level, I am willing to trust Harry's assessment of that. And we have a reasonable notion of what that means from what we have seen of Senior Council in combat, and more, what we have heard of about Eb's actions.
Given that, Cowl just knocking Carlos out rather than reducing him to a pink mist, just after that bit with Kumori, feels to me like it has to still be a set-up. If Cowl were ruthlessly killing everyone in his way to get to power, there is no reason to leave Carlos alive there; he sucker punches him far too fast to have to worry about a death curse.
There is also no reason for him to have Kumori put a knife to Harry's throat and keep Harry around as a witness, rather than sucker punching Harry from hiding similarly once Harry has taken out Grevane, unless he is setting up a witness.
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Either Susan's or Lea's love for Harry.
To harm the white court, it has to be romantic love between equals (i.e. parent-child love doesn't harm them) and it has to be reciprocated. Harry hella definitely isn't in love with Lea. Occasional lust maybe, but mostly he's afraid of her.
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OK, that's a very different read on things from mine. To my mind the objective of the series villains as a whole is to weaken all the strong supernaturals, mostly by getting them to fight each other.
This does depend on believing that a completed Darkhallow would have left a god-tier power actually able to operate on Earth afterwards; we have I think circumstantial evidence that this is not the case, such as Harry explaining in PG that all the old gods are in the NN, and the bassanid in "Last Call" seems to think that was a thing actively and deliberately done.
Only if you take all the power and even then you can give something up later as Odin shows. The biggest powers are dormant but the lesser powers have quite some influence and can do things. I do not think he necessarily wanted to take it all but...
I do not think Kemmler would have wanted it or anyone would have wanted it if it transformed you into a powerful garden plant. Everyone thought the first thing the new god would do is to eliminate the competition.
If he is really an outsider tool as I think he is not interested in the long term problems of too much power and the effects on himself. He just takes it to kill and break and the rest be damned.
Besides the gates are in the nevernever. He can do quite some damage there. And I do not think the new god Cowl would be concerned with the effect of him being on earth anyway, the more chaos the better.
Levitating under the thing is not demonstrated the same thing as taking power.
He was about to begin, he was so close to it:
The tip of the vortex spun down, danced lightly upon Cowl's lips, and then slipped gently between them. Cowl howled out the last repetition of his chant, his mouth opening wide.
That is more than just levitating. That was why Harry could do so much damage with his staff, Cowl was at his most vulnerable point.
The blow connected, right on what felt like the tip of his upturned jaw, snapping his mouth shut and knocking him to the ground. The vortex abruptly screamed and filled with a furious red light. I choked out a cry and fell down on my right side to the ground
No use making yourself so vulnerable or going so far with the ritual if you are not trying to take a big chunk of power.
We know from how quickly Cowl and Kumori vanish in the fight with the Alphas earlier that they are very good at fast gates out (the clue that it's a gate rather than a veil is leaving a lingering smell of the same place Peabody runs to at the end of TC.) So setting up a quick getaway that looks like a faked death is well within Cowl's capacities there.
He obviously can get away quickly but I do not think that is sufficient reason to stay behind. The argument is that faking his dead is useless because he is just faking the dead of a fake identity. It forces him to assume another identity otherwise the whole effort would be undone the next time he is seen.
It is no use to fake the dead of a fake identity. It is only usefull to fake the dead of a real one.
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I do not think Kemmler would have wanted it or anyone would have wanted it if it transformed you into a powerful garden plant. Everyone thought the first thing the new god would do is to eliminate the competition.
And that looks to me like exactly the thing you want your competition to believe is possible if it does actually turn you into something nominally powerful but practically useless.
He was about to begin, he was so close to it:
That is more than just levitating. That was why Harry could do so much damage with his staff, Cowl was at his most vulnerable point.
I've read those passages too, and I disagree. There's no point in faking things unless you fake them convincingly, and I read that as Cowl doing just that; I see no necessary connection between Harry hitting Cowl in the jaw and the vortex flashing red, I find it every bit as convincing that the thing was going to do that just then anyway.
No use making yourself so vulnerable or going so far with the ritual if you are not trying to take a big chunk of power.
No use trying to deceive someone if you are going to fail on plausibility at the key moment; besides, I am arguing that Cowl isn't actually meaningfully vulnerable at that point because he knows he can get away quickly and safely.
The argument is that faking his dead is useless because he is just faking the dead of a fake identity. It forces him to assume another identity otherwise the whole effort would be undone the next time he is seen.
It is no use to fake the dead of a fake identity. It is only usefull to fake the dead of a real one.
As we see earlier in DB, "Cowl" is a recognisable identity; Harry knew him from Bianca's party in GP. There were lots of other supernaturals at that party, and I see no reason to expect any of the older, serious players to be any less perceptive than Harry.
So "the weird wizard who showed up with an extremely powerful athame at Bianca's party, wearing a hooded robe and distorting his voice in ways that could not scream I AM HIDING MY IDENTITY more if he had a pink neon sign over his head saying that" is an established identity many powerful and dangerous entities could have recognised, and blamed for his part in the subsequent chaos; Winter, at least, is going to want his head at some point in retribution for the damage the athame caused/enabled. Faking the death of that identity is therefore a worthwhile exercise, to my mind.
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And that looks to me like exactly the thing you want your competition to believe is possible if it does actually turn you into something nominally powerful but practically useless.
We have seen beings at those power levels. They are not useless, they do things. They can even do more if under outsider influence, see Maeve.
An outsider infected after darkhallow Cowl would have been a real disaster.
I've read those passages too, and I disagree. There's no point in faking things unless you fake them convincingly, and I read that as Cowl doing just that;
And the most convincing way of faking it is just doing it.
I see no necessary connection between Harry hitting Cowl in the jaw and the vortex flashing red, I find it every bit as convincing that the thing was going to do that just then anyway.
Normally it would not end, it would go on until the power was absorbed. But it stopped and that saved a lot of lives.
No use trying to deceive someone if you are going to fail on plausibility at the key moment; besides, I am arguing that Cowl isn't actually meaningfully vulnerable at that point because he knows he can get away quickly and safely.
As we see earlier in DB, "Cowl" is a recognisable identity; Harry knew him from Bianca's party in GP. There were lots of other supernaturals at that party, and I see no reason to expect any of the older, serious players to be any less perceptive than Harry.
So "the weird wizard who showed up with an extremely powerful athame at Bianca's party, wearing a hooded robe and distorting his voice in ways that could not scream I AM HIDING MY IDENTITY more if he had a pink neon sign over his head saying that" is an established identity many powerful and dangerous entities could have recognised, and blamed for his part in the subsequent chaos; Winter, at least, is going to want his head at some point in retribution for the damage the athame caused/enabled. Faking the death of that identity is therefore a worthwhile exercise, to my mind.
That is why you use a disposable identity. You can just drop it any time and noone will be any wiser. But he did not drop the identity, he used it again in White Night.
So if he wanted to fake the dead of Cowl it makes no sense to appear as Cowl only a few books later, he could have started a different disguise.