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The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: prince lotore on February 10, 2020, 09:28:58 PM
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So with the new short story we have a new spin for a mirror mirror. What if Morgan got to harry 11 hours earlier and raised him as his apprentice. Harry now becomes that unstoppable warden that haunted his nightmares. But he never becomes the guy at the center of the problems. The faeries are at war, the red court is at the height of its power and the circle rules supreme. And that harry, desperate to hang on to the old ways that he was raised to respect and uphold, (after the Sr council was killed by a new god cowl) breaks and goes full Vader. All in the name of doing good and saving the innocent
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So with the new short story we have a new spin for a mirror mirror. What if Morgan got to harry 11 hours earlier and raised him as his apprentice...
Except that doesn't match what Jim Butcher has said about Mirror Mirror. Of course, Jim does lie sometimes, so I guess anything's on the table, really! ;D
But Jim stated that the premise of MM will be:
[It’s] going to be… How will the world be different if Harry had made one choice differently... Dresden as he would have been if he made one choice differently, and the fallout from that effect on his life ... the big decision at the end of Grave Peril
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Except that doesn't match what Jim Butcher has said about Mirror Mirror. Of course, Jim does lie sometimes, so I guess anything's on the table, really! ;D
But Jim stated that the premise of MM will be:
So he lets the Holy Sword be shattered? Leaves Susan to her fate? Lets Bianca live.. Which has the most impact? Not sure that a Holy Sword broken in a human sacrifice can be remade.. All kinds of implications there. If Susan was killed or became a full vamp, no little Maggie.. The Red Court would still be around. If Bianca lived not only would the Red Court still be around the war wouldn't have been set off prematurely, and that could have real serious implications, because they are a cat's paw for a much bigger player... On the other hand the Former would be held in check.. However that might not be such a good thing..
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I'm fairly certain that the choice happens after the Vampire Ball. That's pretty much in the middle of the story.
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I'm fairly certain that the choice happens after the Vampire Ball. That's pretty much in the middle of the story.
All of the above except for letting the Holy Sword be shattered happens after the ball. Harry's decision to go and save Susan, Bianca's death which supposedly triggers the duel which in turn triggers the war with the Reds, which is premature, Susan and Harry have unprotected sex, little Maggie is conceived, the Red King kidnaps her to sacrifice to trigger the generational spell to kill off
Harry and Eb, Harry reverses spell which kills off the Red Court, which in turn triggers the the rise of the Fomor... There are a number of things in there that if changed could change everything.
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In re-listening to Grave Peril, I latched onto Lydia's prophecy that she told Harry near the beginning of the book. The prophecy fits with the story of the book, but also seems to set up the entire series. It's pretty cool...
"Fire," she whispered. "Wind. I see dark things and a dark war. I see my death coming for me, out of the spirit world. And I see you at the middle of it all. You're the beginning, the end of it. You're the one who can make the path go different ways."
The last one, about Harry being the beginning and end of it and he can make the path go different ways... hell, it feels like it could refer to Mirror Mirror where Jim has said that the premise is that Mirror Harry made a different choice in Grave Peril...
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“I love her,” I said. I didn’t say it very loud.
“What?” Bianca stared at me. “What did you say?”
“I said, I love her.”
“She is already half mine.”
“So? I still love her.”
“She isn’t even fully human any longer, Dresden. It won’t be long before she is as a sister to me.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” I said. “Get your hands off my girlfriend.”
Bianca’s eyes widened. “You are mad,” she said. “You would flirt with chaos, destruction—with war. For the sake of this one wounded soul?”
I smote my staff on the floor, reaching deep for power. Deeper than I’ve ever reached before. Outside, in the gathering morning, the air crackled with thunder.
Bianca, even Ortega, looked abruptly uncertain, looking up and around, before focusing on me again.
“For the sake of one soul. For one loved one. For one life.” I called power into my blasting rod, and its tip glowed incandescent white. “The way I see it, there’s nothing else worth fighting a war for.”
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All of the above except for letting the Holy Sword be shattered happens after the ball.
It was going to happen during the ball, right before the fighting started. See chs. 29 & 30.
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In re-listening to Grave Peril, I latched onto Lydia's prophecy that she told Harry near the beginning of the book. The prophecy fits with the story of the book, but also seems to set up the entire series. It's pretty cool...
"Fire," she whispered. "Wind. I see dark things and a dark war. I see my death coming for me, out of the spirit world. And I see you at the middle of it all. You're the beginning, the end of it. You're the one who can make the path go different ways."
The last one, about Harry being the beginning and end of it and he can make the path go different ways... hell, it feels like it could refer to Mirror Mirror where Jim has said that the premise is that Mirror Harry made a different choice in Grave Peril...
This pretty much has to be about he series rather than that book. She has prophecy that people are doomed to not believe, but is always right. It is impossible to avoid. The prophecy says, "my death coming for me," but she lived through the book, so the prophecy cannot be about the events of the book. She has to die at a later date where Harry will (continue to) be the fulcrum of how things turn out.
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I'm not saying you're wrong, but just because her death was coming for her doesn't mean it would get her.
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In re-listening to Grave Peril, I latched onto Lydia's prophecy that she told Harry near the beginning of the book. The prophecy fits with the story of the book, but also seems to set up the entire series. It's pretty cool...
"Fire," she whispered. "Wind. I see dark things and a dark war. I see my death coming for me, out of the spirit world. And I see you at the middle of it all. You're the beginning, the end of it. You're the one who can make the path go different ways."
The last one, about Harry being the beginning and end of it and he can make the path go different ways... hell, it feels like it could refer to Mirror Mirror where Jim has said that the premise is that Mirror Harry made a different choice in Grave Peril...
I am assuming that his choice had far reaching implications, that is why to me something really
bad is going to happen with the Fomor in Peace Talks that makes Harry wish he hadn't triggered the events that led to the death of the Red Court and the rise of the Fomor.. However my guess is he is going to learn that further down the line it would have been a lot worse if the Red Court survived and the Fomor stayed in the background.. Cannot imagine at this point what that would be, but perhaps they are really good at fighting Outsiders and are immune to Nemesis?
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I am assuming that his choice had far reaching implications, that is why to me something really
bad is going to happen with the Fomor in Peace Talks that makes Harry wish he hadn't triggered the events that led to the death of the Red Court and the rise of the Fomor.. However my guess is he is going to learn that further down the line it would have been a lot worse if the Red Court survived and the Fomor stayed in the background.. Cannot imagine at this point what that would be, but perhaps they are really good at fighting Outsiders and are immune to Nemesis?
Oh, I had never thought about that. What if they were a team and red court was planning assault and white council/mortal world at the same time the Fomor would have attacked their old enemy the Fey to take over the near part of g tv he never never. Would have prevented the fey/council cooperation that helped defeat the red court
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I am assuming that his choice had far reaching implications...
I think the "far reaching implications" is implicit in the premise of Mirror Mirror!
But I'm expecting a real "butterfly effect," like the butterfly-wing that launches a hurricane. The "choice" will seem small -- will seem to have been small, at the point of divergence; with effects that snowball further and further and further -- but in retrospect the consequence will be huge.
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@Mira: Kind of like It's a Wonderful Life.
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@Mira: Kind of like It's a Wonderful Life.
With less warm&fuzzy Jimmy Stewart.
But yeah, I have been looking at some likely parallels to IaWL, in addition to the ST TOS episode Mirror Mirror.
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The difference between DF: Mirror Mirror and ST TOS: Mirror Mirror is that Kirk didn't encounter a world that was radically different because of his actions. And IaWL isn't about a choice of George's making everything different, but all his choices.
I think a major difference is that Mr. Potter will get his in the DF version much like the SNL "lost ending" version introduced by William Shatner. https://youtu.be/vw89o0afb2A?t=95 (https://youtu.be/vw89o0afb2A?t=95).
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The difference between DF: Mirror Mirror and ST TOS: Mirror Mirror is that Kirk didn't encounter a world that was radically different because of his actions. And IaWL isn't about a choice of George's making everything different, but all his choices.
I think a major difference is that Mr. Potter will get his in the DF version much like the SNL "lost ending" version introduced by William Shatner. https://youtu.be/vw89o0afb2A?t=95.
Yeah, the premise that Jim describes about Harry's choice seems more IaWL than Mirror Mirror, but not quite IaWL either, because that really isn't about Jimmy Steward's choice either, he tries to commit suicide an angel named Clarence stops him. The Jimmy Steward character says the world
would be better if he had never been born.. Clarence grants his wish and he finds out what a positive impact he had on the world after all. Star Trek Mirror Mirror isn't about choices either, a transporter
accident throws Kirk and company into a parallel word the opposite of their own. The figure it out and in the end as they leave to go back Kirk suggests a choice for that world's Spock to murder that Kirk and things better.
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About the only thing Mirror, Mirror the Dresden title has in common with the Star Trek title is the idea of parallel dimensions, the TOS version was silly at the time and is still silly today. The City On The Edge Of Forever did the idea better. Much better. It is probably the best episode of TOS, period. And it deals precisely with the central point of Jim's deceit. How would the difference of one act by the protagonist change the world. Jim's Trek lore has been shown to be deficient. Hell the title even invokes Chicago in the Dresdenverse.
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About the only thing Mirror, Mirror the Dresden title has in common with the Star Trek title is the idea of parallel dimensions, the TOS version was silly at the time and is still silly today. The City On The Edge Of Forever did the idea better. Much better. It is probably the best episode of TOS, period. And it deals precisely with the central point of Jim's deceit. How would the difference of one act by the protagonist change the world. Jim's Trek lore has been shown to be deficient. Hell the title even invokes Chicago in the Dresdenverse.
Yes, it deals with the difference one act make, but not by deceit. Doctor McCoy accidentally injects himself with a drug that makes him trip severely, he transports down to a world they are
orbiting and goes through a time gate, everything in the present is changed and not for the better.
Kirk and Spock go back to the time to try and fix it. Turns out McCoy saves a women who's actions
seem good at the time changes everything not for the good. She was supposed to die in a car accident, of course Kirk falls in love with her, but has to stop and does, McCoy from saving her life and everything is put back the way it was.
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My Trek lore is up to snuff. I grew up in a SF deficient world and watched Trek every Sunday at 11 AM for years. However the central
deceitconceit is how the event of either saving or letting one character die, completely changes the world, and in the case in point means that Star Fleet and the Federation never comes to pass. Kirk's question is, do I save Edith Keeler and destroy the future, or let her die and put things back as they occurred. It fits very closely the choice Harry makes in the passage I cited.
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Considering the timeline, I think the options are probably:
1. Whether he starts a war with the red court over Susan, or
2. Whether he runs away with Susan to South America
Personally, I think that 2 makes the most sense because he really does consider it, it is a decision we can really see Harry choosing. The problem is, it makes for a terrible story. He’s gone from Chicago and isn’t there to stop the Fairy court war, to stop Nicodemus from kicking off a huge plague, or to stop Cowl from becoming a God. Those things ravage the world and make it a hellscape and Harry learns he should never have left Chicago? That seems like a poor lesson.
So I think it is choice number 1, he refuses to save Susan because a war would be too deadly. Because of that he loses his moral center and increases in self loathing which allows him to become a bad guy. He probably accepts an offer from Marcone, but eventually turns on him, then accepts a denarian coin, but discovers they don’t play so nice with each other either. Maybe accepts the winter night mantle somewhere in there as well, but isn’t as good at managing it as our Harry. War kicks off where Red Court goes after the council allied with outsiders and the Fomor, who go after the fairie courts. Massive war going on with no good allies and he has taken to summoning other version of himself when danger looms so that they can be killed and he can escape with people thinking he is dead. At the end of the book Harry has to face off against himself and “save him” to be able to get home. Possibly by either making him the winter knight or bringing him into line as winter knight so he can get Mab’s help in getting home.
I don’t see it being a choice about the sword, because that happened earlier than “the end” of the book.
This could all be wrong, it would be a very different book if the Harrys trade places like the Kirks do in Star Trek, but it wasn’t my impression that was how it was going to be written.
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My Trek lore is up to snuff. I grew up in a SF deficient world and watched Trek every Sunday at 11 AM for years. However the central deceit is how the event of either saving or letting one character die, completely changes the world, and in the case in point means that Star Fleet and the Federation never comes to pass. Kirk's question is, do I save Edith Keeler and destroy the future, or let her die and put things back as they occurred. It fits very closely the choice Harry makes in the passage I cited.
Yes, but it is McCoy's choices that had destroyed the future.. If you can consider it a choice, he felt he had no choice, he is a doctor and he was there to push her out of the way of the on coming car. Yes, that was Kirk's dilemma, do the selfish thing for his own short term happiness? Or think of the future of mankind? He had to chose to restore the future he lived. It is different from supposedly Harry's choice because it is a choice he made that has made the present what it is. He supposedly wants to go back and chose differently.. On that level a bit more like IaWL when Jimmy Steward proclaims that everything would be better had he never been born.
So from what little information we have, we know Harry made several choices after the party, which led to several things of consequences in the following books to the present. The biggie now is the rise of the Fomor after the Red Court was wiped out.. I can see things going very badly at the peace talks and as per usual Harry suffering immense guilt and going down the slippery slope of "if only I had.." So in a combo of Mirror Mirror and IaWL, someone is going to wise him up to, "yeah, and if you had, this is the resulting world and it's a hell of a lot worse..." Or not, and Harry does change what he did..
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@Morris: I think you mean conceit, not deceit. Also, Mirror, Mirror fits Jim's naming convention. He's also mentioned he's going full tilt at it with "evil" goatees and the whole nine yards. But I think Jim's story will be more of a mix of the two TOS episodes and IaWL than predominantly any one of them.
@toodeep: If I recall correctly, the option of running off with Susan isn't addressed until Death Masks.
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@Morris: I think you mean conceit, not deceit. Also, Mirror, Mirror fits Jim's naming convention. He's also mentioned he's going full tilt at it with "evil" goatees and the whole nine yards. But I think Jim's story will be more of a mix of the two TOS episodes and IaWL than predominantly any one of them.
@toodeep: If I recall correctly, the option of running off with Susan isn't addressed until Death Masks.
Not trusting Thomas is one option because just at the end of the party when things go to hell, I seem to remember Thomas pushing Susan towards the vamps to save Harry.
As I said, the Mirror Mirror plot line has nothing to do with our Kirk and crew's choices, it was just a transporter accident. Then again, Jim cannot totally borrow the plot.
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I think not trusting Thomas comes too early, but it's possible. I tend to think the choice revolves around Susan.
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@Morris: I think you mean conceit , not deceit.
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I wouldn't have said anything, but it appeared to be creating confusion.
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No problem. Thanks.
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I think not trusting Thomas comes too early, but it's possible. I tend to think the choice revolves around Susan.
It does revolve around Susan, I'd have to go back and read the exact quote. Off of the top of my head, in the confusion of the fight, Thomas looks directly at Harry, and chooses to trade Susan and two other women to the vamps for Justine. That almost ended Harry's relationship with Thomas before it began. Harry might think if he had handled that differently Thomas wouldn't have had to
choose and perhaps he could have gotten Susan away safely.
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It does revolve around Susan, I'd have to go back and read the exact quote. Off of the top of my head, in the confusion of the fight, Thomas looks directly at Harry, and chooses to trade Susan and two other women to the vamps for Justine. That almost ended Harry's relationship with Thomas before it began. Harry might think if he had handled that differently Thomas wouldn't have had to
choose and perhaps he could have gotten Susan away safely.
Harry chooses to trust Thomas in Ch. 31. There are 39 chapters. I think that's to far from the end. There's almost a full quarter of the book left.
And let me clarify what I was trying to say; I was a little vague. I meant a choice directly involving Susan. A choice to let Bianca have her, a choice to not tell her he loves her, etc. I'd say the choice to not trust Thomas is indirectly about Susan. It's a choice about Thomas based on what he did to Susan.
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Harry chooses to trust Thomas in Ch. 31. There are 39 chapters. I think that's to far from the end. There's almost a full quarter of the book left.
And let me clarify what I was trying to say; I was a little vague. I meant a choice directly involving Susan. A choice to let Bianca have her, a choice to not tell her he loves her, etc. I'd say the choice to not trust Thomas is indirectly about Susan. It's a choice about Thomas based on what he did to Susan.
If I remember correctly a big reason why Harry choose to trust Thomas after the incident with Susan at the party is he brought the Sword back, up until that moment Harry thought the Sword was lost.
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And even then he didn't really trust Thomas, which may have saved Thomas's life.