In that case, Harry should have shot Morgan in the back during Summer Knight.  Morgan was a wizard and threat - he might not have been an active danger to Harry at the time but he was an existing threat to Harry.

And he should have arranged for a deadly accident for Marcone - who is also a threat.  And (by extension) Hendricks.  And he should have killed that White Court Vampire that was stalking him before Thomas revealed that he was Harry's brother.  And Fitz - Fitz should have died for shooting at Molly.

But Harry isn't a killer who neutralises threats like that.  He's deal with a danger while the danger exist and then tries to prevent the danger from coming back.  At least that's who he was before he killed a woman he loved to protect the daughter he never knew.   That's who he still was when he didn't have glans interfering with his thought process.  Will he be the same person in a few books time? Who knows?

Those dark influences keep adding up and he hasn't had the chance to interact with any light influences (Micheal, Maggie, etc) for a while.

Richard

Neither Morgan nor Marcone are active threats of that magnitude.
Morgan is/was bound by the laws of wizardry. he was a dangerous opponent but he played by the rules.  Morgan is a big, mean dog inside a fence, wearing a collar and chained in a dog run.
Marcone is just not that much of a threat to Harry. He certainly wasn't seeking Harry out to destroy him at any point in the series. Marcone is a wolf in the woods.


Cassius on the other hand, was perfectly happy to use magic to try to kill. Cassius was not bound by the laws of magic, had obviously been planning on killing Harry for quite some time, and he would not be stopped short of his own death. Cassius is a big, mean hungry rabid dog that has gotten inside your house, and thinks you look yummy, and that you make interesting noises when you're in pain.

Still having really slow response.

Some  things are a bit different - Usually the first 3-4 pages or so load OK, and then after that it just slows waaaaaay down - like between 30 sec and 1 minute to load a page. Does this consistently with both home and work accounts, and on different browsers...

Soooo frustrating!   

Are the boards being extra-pokey for anyone but me?

I've tried from multiple computers on different connections/providers, and things just seem considerably slower responding for about the last couple of weeks or so.

Hi Priscellie -

I'm pretty sure that this:
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,27176.0.html     (New season of "Trueblood")

ought to be over in Media, not DF Books...

#1
Sandra Marling is usually pointed to as the main orchestrator for all things nasty that happened at Splattercon since she motivated Molly to use fear, and people point out that she didn't touch Harry.  However, if she were powerful enough to knock out the lights and set up the cold wards around the Fetch attacks, she might have trouble using a cell phone:

This doesn't definitively show that she wasn't the one throwing around magic but.  It's a strike against her, and indicates there was another player in the background, that might have been using her as a cutout.  

If Sandra Marling is non-human (or potentially half human) that would answer the cell phone use issue.
I'm not saying that's how it was, just that it is a possibility...


Love the WAG about Rawlins (though I don't actually buy it.  ) but the premise that there's an infiltrator from the Bad Guys^TM planted/working in SI is probably worth examining, particularly if we assume that Rawlins is a Renfield/thrall, rather than an actual power.
It could/would just mean that he reported Harry's preparations to... someone else... like say a handler for the 'event', named, just perhaps, Sandra...

Wow - why didn't I see this earlier?
This is awesome-good theoretical work knnn!


To throw a little more fuel on, consider this...
If we extend that future vision just a little bit, it makes more sense to me that Raschid would be more concerned with saving massive quantities of WC casualties/fatalities than he would be concerned about one still very minor warlockette.

By moving the pieces just so, he* arranged for Michael to accompany a whole lot of WC personnel thru the NN back to Chicago - thus preventing the RCV+ Outsider ambush from becoming a rout & a slaughter. 
In PG, Eb himself seems to think that the RCVs combined with the outsiders they encountered would have been much more deadly without a KOC there to deal with 'tentacles and things'.

While I'm certain (from his actions / word choice) that Raschid was offended by what the Merlin was intent on doing to Molly,  IMO the real goal was probably to save all those young wardens - and the experienced wizards accompanying them. It was also an effective action against outsiders, which is admittedly something that Raschid has a professional interest in...

So, I'm positing that the Gatekeeper was warning Harry about black magic as part of a goal to save WC lives AND act against outsiders. Saving Molly may have been just a nice bonus... 

It is a case of wheels within wheels...



*As food for thought: Were two seemingly unrelated plans (Mab and Gatekeeper) that just happened to wind up supporting each other quite well a mere coincidence?
It is possible I suppose, but if there is some kind of communications channel between the Gatekeeper and Mab (which I have suspected at least somewhat since the Gatekeeper turned up with that chunk of stone table AND when Mab recognized his anti-Fae eye-unguent) then I think it hangs together somewhat better...

Serack - I LOVE this!

One thing to possibly consider... We have WOJ that one of Harry's primary 'character powers' (exclusive of in-story powers) is his ability to act as a catalyst to make *others* more that they were or (extrapolating a bit) perhaps more than they could have been before.  Does that impact or change how we look at / think about Harry's allies?

Toot may be a good example, I think.  Something about his interactions with Harry have changed him from simple dew-drop fairy to a creature with some sense of loyalty and ambition - which is sort of odd behavior, at least from what we've seen.

To know how much more powerful *Harry* gets we might need to consider how his *allies* get more powerful/knowledgeable as well...

Thoughts?

Whenever are you not silly Piotr? 
Good morning by the way, how goes your day?

Uhhh... Ya know Snowy, I don't actually recall the last time I *wasn't* silly...
Probably the last time Herself quietly threatened to skin me alive if I was awful in public.
I wasn't too worried though - I can run faster scared than she can mad! 
Until I got to wondering if I could stay scared longer than she can stay mad...
So I behaved⁽¹⁾ myself.

And I am ridiculously better than I deserve.

How about you? Are you recovered from the move, all unpacked, settled in, and everything OK?







⁽¹⁾For certain values of "behaved". Obviously not badly enough to get skinned...