I get that Mab was manipulating Harry and Harry was so off his game he didn't fully grasp what was going on.  Harry asked for the boon that Mab was willing to give him and that she wanted to give him; even if it was forced on her by Harry, because it got Mab the results she wanted to achieve in any case.

However, I get where Lord Kinbote is coming from.  As a writer, I think Jim played a very dangerous game with how he resolved Harry's problem with Mr. Etri.  It comes close to looking like a Deus ex machina solution, except in this case the deus in question set up being asked to solve Harry's problem.  So it's not a Deus ex machina solution, but the resemblance is there.

Another comparison about how Harry's problem with Mr. Etri was solved is to think about the task Harry was given in Ghost Story, to find his murderer.  Harry didn't really do anything conscious to achieve that goal.  At some point Harry says that he hasn't done anything to find his murderer, I think it was Lea who countered, (Not the exact quote, but close) "You've been doing nothing but look for your murderer since you arrived."  Harry was frustrated with that answer and some readers; myself included, were frustrated with Ghost Story itself.  The manner in which Harry eventually did find out how he got shot was very well done, the problem was that much of Ghost Story that came before that point felt like it was just meandering on with no clear direction. 

Twelve Months did not have that problem.  The story was told in a much cleaner and crisp manner, but it failed to show us Harry even trying to think of a solution on his own.  As in Ghost Story, the readers didn't see Harry do anything to attempt a solution.  When we got the solution, it wasn't as satisfying as the one in Ghost Story because it wasn't as clever and it didn't carry the same emotional weight as Harry finding out he used Molly to set up his own murder.   

Here is what I thought was going to happen as I was reading the story.  When Harry told Mr. Etri about Nemesis, I thought Harry would use his detective skills to find Justine or find something Nemesis wanted to draw Justine out and capture her; and then with Mr. Etri on hand but probably in hiding, demonstrate that Nemesis was in control of her.  Even if Harry still needed Mab to draw up a final agreement with Etri which involved Thomas losing his child, that would have felt more like a Dresden Files story we are familiar with.  (Side note, I didn't think the solution would be as straightforward as I described.  Harry might have to look in Lord Raith's library for clues or become inspired by something Ebenezar would tell him to get a hint how to draw out Nemesis, but I thought we would see Harry being a detective, putting clues and ideas together to reach his adjective.)

Maybe Jim was trying to stretch himself as a writer by doing something different than give the readers a typical Dresden Files novel ending, but it felt as if Jim might have written himself into a corner and came up with Mab offering Harry a boon as a cheat code to get out of the writer's trap he had stepped into.

To consider the title of this thread, we should count who we know have been taken over by Nemesis and add names who could have been infested to hopefully get a better picture of who the 13 puppets are or were.

Aurora, Lea, Maeve, Cat Sith and Justine make five.  Who else should we consider adding to the list?  I think there are a fair number of people; and not people, to consider, even if we don't add all of them.

Victor Sells, Kravos the Nightmare; before he turned himself in a ghost, Mr. Ferro, the Red King, either Tessa or Rosanna, Cowl, Mavra and Elaine or someone currently on the White Council.

Someone or something corrupted Victor Sells and Kravos.  There is nothing to definitively prove they were Nemesis puppets but they still have to be considered possibilities.

Mr. Ferro received a gift at Bianca's party as did Lea.

Nicodemus told Harry that someone on Tessa's crew was taken.

Why do I include the Red King, Mavra, Cowl, Elaine and think someone on the White Council could be or have been a Nemesis puppet?  I think; I'm guessing, at least one individual from or close to every major faction has been taken.  It's good strategy.  Why go after one or two factions strong enough to oppose you when you can go after all of them?

Way back in the old forum I remember someone putting forth the idea that the Red King had been taken.  The evidence they claimed backed this idea up was part of the conversation between Harry and the Red King.  Something the Red King said about Arianna not being open to new possibilities.

Mavra?  We know the Black Court are tied up with Outsiders.  Harry guessed that in his last conversation with Lash.  But like the White Court of vampires, maybe the Black Court has a relationship with Outsiders, but Nemesis needed more than that.  Nemesis needed someone, something? on the inside to better control the Black Court.  Isn't it odd that Mavra was the weakest of the crew Drakul sent to Chicago, but she was smarter than the rest of Drakul's crew?

Cowl?  Why not.  It makes sense seeing as Cowl had been doing so many things to help Nemesis.

Elaine?  Jim has suggested she is not Kumori.  Someone had to infect Aurora.  That makes Elaine a candidate.

This makes nine candidates for a total of eight positions.  I think most of them are or were Outsiders puppets.  Aurora, Maeve and the Red King are dead and Lea is cured.  Victor Sells and Kravos are dead.  Justine has been neutralized.  It is possible that five Nemesis puppets are dead and two have or are on the way to becoming to being cured.  That would leave six left, at a minimum. 

What was wrong with Lara kissing Harry and not getting burned?

It appears to me most readers who don't like this scene go to Mab's explanation of how True Love Protection can fail and find fault with that.  I already wrote my take on Mab's explanation, so there is no point in beating that dead horse. 

In finding fault with Mab's explanation, some readers are saying it made far more sense for Lara to get burned when she kissed Harry.  I think it was Mira who said, "Lara should have gotten her face burned off."  That may be going a bit too far, but in general I don't disagree with those opinions.  But there is something else going on this scene that everyone seems to have missed, and this missing element is the real problem.  When I put this together, I realized there was an alternative scenario Jim could have written that would have made Mab's tortured explanation of true love protection unnecessary.  In fact, it's so obvious to me that maybe Jim considered taking this route but for some reason rejected it and we got what we got.  I'll get to that point last.

Ask yourself this question.  How did Lara know she wouldn't get burned when she kissed Harry?  Before you start coming up with possible explanations, think about the last time you accidentally touched a hot stove or the last time or you touched a casserole dish or any other food container that you took out of a hot over with pot holders, but a few minutes later you accidentally brushed your hand against it and it was still hot enough to raise a blister on your skin.  We have all done something like that at sometime in our lives and it is something we try our best to avoid doing and with good reason.  Even minor burns are annoyingly painful.

So either Lara would have had one hell of a good reason to accept burning herself or she would had to have known Harry's love protection was gone.  The problem is, while I can think of a couple of ways to explain how Lara could have known Harry was no longer protected, in different ways I think each of these explanations are just as unsatisfying as Mab's explanation of why Harry's true love protection broke down.

First, there is no way Lara could physically detect that Harry was no longer protected.  We can put that possibility out to pasture.  The White Court has had over two thousand years to work on this problem and Lara getting burned by Harry in Peace Talks tells us they haven't figured out a way to do so at this time.

Perhaps Lara could have bargained with someone with enough information to know if Harry was still protected.  Of course I'm talking about Mab.  There are a couple of problems with this.  While Mab appears to know the nuts and bolts of how true love protection works and why it may fail to work, would she have known that Harry was no longer protected?  She might have known, but we can't be certain.  Even if Mab could have reasoned out that Harry was no longer protected, that is the kind of information Mab doesn't hand out for free.  But there is another problem to consider.  Even if Lara could offer Mab something in return for this knowledge, even asking about it would be an open admission from Lara that she planned to enslave Mab's knight for her own ends.  It is far too obvert a move for Lara to make.  That alone should end this line of thought.

OK, perhaps Lara's understanding of how true love protection works told her that Harry was no longer protected.  I don't think this explanation works either.  First, true love protection is supposed to be rare to begin with.  Lara would not only have to know that a person who longer feels worthy of being loved can become vulnerable to the White Court, she would have to know with certainty that this applied to Harry.  Knowing that Harry was in grief and suffering from PTSD might be a clue that Harry was vulnerable, but it wouldn't give Lara certainty that she wouldn't get burned if she laid a massive kiss on Harry.

As I suggested above, Jim actually laid the groundwork for an alternative scenario that I think works much better than what we got.  It has to do with Lara's blue eyes, which in the past we have only seen described as being grey to silver and once white.  Lara told Harry she'd fed extra heavy before their first date.  Her hunger being satiated was why it wasn't trying to feed on Harry and Lara didn't get burned when she casually touched Harry with her hands.  It made Lara look less dangerous than normal.  It didn't have to be that way.

Jim could have given Lara a second reason for giving her demon an extra heavy feeding.  Extra feeding for her demon should also give Lara more vampire mojo if she got into a serious fight and needed to heal quickly, without having to immediately feed again.  In this scenario Lara's blues eyes don't make her less dangerous, they make her more dangerous.

So when Lara gets annoyed with Harry at her party, when she gives Harry the kiss, he has the same reaction we saw in the book, but this time Lara pulls back in sudden pain as blisters break out on her lips and the skin closest to her lips.  Then Lara gets a determined look on her face, the blisters disappear, her eyes are still blue, but a lighter shade of blue than before and Lara kisses Harry a second time and he's powerless to stop her.  When Lara again pulls back in pain; maybe she curses, but again she heals herself and her eyes are now dark grey.  Harry is all but on his knees at this point.  Then Lara tells Harry pretty much the same thing she said in the book, but somewhat modified.  Lara tells Harry that she understands he is in pain, that he isn't at the top of his game, but she needs him to focus on the task at hand.  Both of them are in danger, and if she needs to do so, Lara can enslave Harry without taking him to bed in order to get him to do his job.  Lara gets more energy with sex included, but it isn't necessary when her main goal is just to gain control of someone.  Lara tells Harry that just a couple more kisses will do the trick and she could do that right now, but she doesn't want that.  Lara tells Harry she doesn't want to offend Winter and she thinks Harry will be more effective "if you can think for yourself." 

This way we could have had a more dangerous Lara and avoided Mab's clunky explanation of how true love protection can fail.  We know it was going to fail if or when Lara and Harry get married. I don't think much was achieved by having it fail in this book.  Plus, the reversal of fortune when Harry unknowingly addicted Lara to Winter would have hit that much harder.

I probably need to do a complete reread of Twelve Months.  I was very busy last week.  My reading was both rushed but also limited by various duties I had to attend to.  On top of that, I had a family event to attend in Southern California this past weekend, so I stopped about 3/4 of the way through and finished Monday night when I returned home.

I really enjoyed the first half to perhaps two thirds of this novel.  At the moment I can’t pinpoint where the story started to lose momentum for me.  It was only after I finished did I start to wonder what went wrong, why did my enjoyment of Twelve Months take such a sudden dip?

I don’t know if any of you are familiar with the YouTube channel, Red Letter Media.  They do humorous reviews of really bad science fiction, fantasy, horror and action movies and TV shows.  Sometimes they also do reviews of more serious fare and they often do retrospective reviews of older movies and TV shows.  About a week or two ago they did a couple of fun videos about the first season of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. 

This channel has been around since near the beginning of YouTube but they really gained traction about ten years ago with a fictional dirty old man character named Mr. Plinket, who did a series of videos that dissected and thoroughly eviscerated; with a lot of dark humor, the George Lucas’ Star Wars sequels.  The Disney sequel reviews were even more savage.  Mr. Plinket has a line that he uses whenever a character does something that runs counter to clearly established character traits or does something that violates accepted cannon, but something that might happen so quickly that you do not immediately realize it.  Mr. Plinket will say when pointing out these writing errors, “you didn’t notice it, but your brain did.”  Consciously you didn’t pay attention to it, but deep down you pick up on these contradictions and they create a kind of cognitive dissonance.  For me, the cognitive dissonance was really enjoying Twelve Months and then feeling something is really off here.

First off, I don’t think this is a terrible novel and it has some really good elements.  It just has more flaws than I expect from a Dresden Files novel.

I’m not going to go into why I think Mab’s explanation of how love protection from the White Court can break down was problematic and how I think it could have been done better.  I did that in the thread about True Love Protection yesterday. (And I am fully aware of how arrogant that might sound coming from someone who isn’t a published author or an author of any fiction at all.)

I am also not going to address Lara’s kiss with Harry and what I think was wrong with that.  I think everyone’s missed something and I’m going to write about that later and probably in the True Love Protection thread.

I had a slight problem with Ebenezar deciding that he would no longer contest Harry’s decision to keep Maggie close to him and mellowing out rather quickly.  I get that Ebenezar was shocked and ashamed that he lost control and tried to kill Harry so I can accept Ebenezar wanting to make amends, but that change seemed a bit fast to me.

There was some something else that bothered me about that conversation.  Maybe I misread the conversation Harry and Eb had in Peace Talks about the White Court, but I got the impression that Ebenezar’s hatred of the White Court began long before his daughter became entangled with Lord Raith.  I had the impression there was someone else the White Court corrupted who had been close to Eb.  In their latest conversation Ebenezar only talked about Margaret and how angry he became because his only child had come under White Court influence.  Maybe that is also another indication Twelve Months takes place in a different part of the Dresden Multiverse; I’m not certain, but even if that is the case it feels like lazy writing rather than a clue we are in a multiverse.

Carlos Ramirez is now what; a secret agent working with Harry while pretending to be an ordinary, paranoid White Council Warden?  Where did that come from?  Again, it could be a multiverse thing, but I don’t think so.  For Ramirez to suddenly begin to trust Harry I think we needed another or extended scene to tie it together.  Carlos meets Harry as a Warden, but  when they are alone he tells Harry, “I’m going to extend you some trust, because I know you were setup by the Merlin and and someone else; someone whose voice I couldn’t identify, to be kicked off the Council.  I overheard part of a conversation…”  I’ll leave it you to figure what Carlos might have overheard, but you get the idea.  Give us a reason why Warden Ramirez suddenly accepts that Harry might still be one of the good guys.

There were things I was expecting to happen that did not occur that I found a little disappointing.  Now this is on me.  Just because I expect something to happen doesn’t mean Jim has to write it that way. 

First and most obvious, we didn’t get twelve months, we got about ten months “and then I had two more dates with Lara.”  (Not a direct quote.)  Really?  I get that this might have been the best place to end the story, but it felt to me like Jim decided to save LTW coming to see Harry for the next book and also to save Harry from being summoned; probably just before the marriage ceremony, to the Mirror Mirror world until the beginning of that book as well.  The second one is more understandable.

I thought we would see people from The Library show up.  We will probably find out that those boring ordinary inspectors were with The Library, but they didn’t really do anything of interest.  Maybe in the next book we will find out they planted magically immune listening devices in the castle.  When Harry first noticed something kept passing overhead, I thought it was a drone that was sent up to watch Harry by someone from The Library.

Speaking about that, I don’t know how anyone else felt about the gargoyles, but I found them to be rather boring.  I don’t have anything really good or bad to say about them.  Maybe in a future book we will get a more full backstory and perhaps this will give them more depth.
 
Someone else said they thought this would have been a good time for Lea to make an appearance and they were disappointed that it did not occur.  I can see their point of view on that.  I thought this might have been a very good time for Elaine to reappear.  We haven’t seen her since White Night and I think Twelve Months would have provided a good opportunity for her to show up and tell Harry, “I told you so” in regards to her distrust of the White Council and Harry getting kicked off of it.

Finally, I think that Lara Raith needed to show her teeth a bit more. (Figuratively speaking).  Some readers have said she was retconned into a kinder and gentler Lara.  I didn’t think of it as a full retcon, but those criticisms aren’t wrong either.  I think Lara Raith is at her most fun for readers when her sexiness and intelligence are balanced by us seeing how dangerous she is, not by Harry telling us how dangerous she is.

Now I’m going to start writing why the scene where Lara kissed Harry was messed up.  I hope you will enjoy it.  It will be posted in the True Love Protection Thread.  I will probably post it Sunday.

I had a different take on the soulgaze between Harry and Lara.  After long consideration, I think two things happened and neither of them is a continuity error.  This isn’t a defense of Jim’s writing in Twelve Months, just my subjective analysis of it.

First and most obvious, I think Lara never having soulgazed Carlos Ramirez or any other wizard is just one more example of the Dresden Files taking place in a multiverse.  Just like we have read about the Better Future Society and the Brighter Future Society and Bianca having a girlfriend / vampire saliva addicted slave with different names.

The idea of a multiverse is hardly new.  According to whatever A.I. I was using, the first use of a multiverse in fiction goes all the way back to a short story published in Astounding Fiction in 1934.  Unfortunately for Jim, Marvel has made some truly half-assed use of the multiverse concept in their movies and TV shows in the past decade, making the idea of a multiverse seem rather lame for many people.  I’m hoping that Mirror Mirror will put Jim’s use of the multiverse to bed so we don’t have to see Jim use it again.

This brings me to the second thing I believe I have detected.  However, this is completely subjective on my part.  I admit I could be wrong about this.  About eight or nine years ago, I saw Jim at a Con; I’ve seen him a couple of times, and he said something about wanting to make his writing more compact and being to tell stories in a more efficient manner.  Clearly this didn’t happen in Peace Talks and Battle Ground, seeing as Jim originally wanted the entire story he told there to be a single novel.  He has been far more successful in Twelve Months.  If we ignore Peace Talks and Battle Ground, because originally they were supposed to make up a single novel, the word count for Twelve Months is the lowest Jim has used since Turn Coat was released and Turn Count is only about 6,700 words shorter than Twelve Months.

To make his writing more compact I think Jim is; sometimes, becoming more sparse or Spartan with his use of dialogue, trying to convey what he wants with as few words as possible.  There are times when he simply can’t do this.  For example, if Harry and Mab are having a conversation / debate about something, the nature of the relationship Jim has set up with those two characters and the complex counter-arguments Mab may use to support her case, sparse use of language may be difficult to impossible to achieve, but is more achievable with other characters.

So in Twelve Months, when Harry asks Lara, “Do you know what a soulgaze is? Lara replies, “What little you’ve said.  I’ve…I’ve read descriptions of them.”  That is an example of sparse language to make a point.  It’s enough to tell me we are in one universe of the multiverse where Lara never had a soulgaze with Ramirez, but at the same time, as dialogue between these two specific characters it feels a bit weak to me.  Worse, it makes Lara seem ignorant and weaker than she should be. When I say Lara’s seems weaker, I mean less like the intelligent and competent leader of the White Court Lara is supposed to be.   

As I said above, this is just my interpretation of what Jim is doing as a writer today compared to how he wrote the older novels in the series.  I strongly suspect that if this conversation had taken place in Blood Rites or White Night; prior to Carlos and Lara’s soulgaze, I think Lara’s answer would have been more complete.  Maybe something like this:  “Of course Dresden, the White Court keeps extensive intelligence files on wizard capabilities.  However, while I’ve read descriptions of what a soulgaze is, I’ve never experienced one and to my knowledge no one else in the White Court has either.  I suppose this is one area where my knowledge may be less than adequate.”

This way Lara would have continued to be the highly competent character we met in the earlier novels and less the; damsel in distress is an exaggeration, watered down version of Lara we got here.  I think there is no way; even in a part of the multiverse were she didn’t have a soulgaze with Carlos Ramirez, that Lara didn’t read an intel report about wizard soulgazing ability.  It should have been explicitly stated.

I think what will ultimately make or break the relationship is how Lara handles Harry's grief.  It's more complicated then you think, good intentions are not enough, timing is important, where the person on the recieving end of the process is important, and what may seem like the right thing to say or do could be taken totally wrong by the one grieving.. Conversely Lara may have to cut Harry a lot more slack than she is used to, because his responses may not seem rational, could even be offensive.

I hadn't thought about how Lara will react to Harry dealing with grief, other than trying to use it to gain some kind of advantage over him.  Lara is the closest thing to being immortal as a flesh and blood being can get.  Though she can be killed, she barely ages.  I wonder if she has ever felt grief herself.   

Do White Court vamps ever feel and suffer through grief in their own extended lives?  To feel grief you probably have to have empathy, otherwise you wouldn't feel anything.  But most White Court vamps seem to revel in their own psychopathy, if the conversations we've he have heard with Lord Raith, Madeline Raith, Madrigal Raith and Vito Malvora are any indication.  Empathy just isn't their thing.

Lara is smarter than the average bear, which means she should have a greater understanding of what Harry is going through; at least on an intellectual basis.  Lara might also be a little closer to having a normal personality than most white court vampires, though only by a tiny sliver.  Thomas is the real outlier in his family in this regard.

So I think I agree with you Mira.  The way Lara reacts to Harry's grief should be very important in shaping how their relationship will progress.

My guess about Mouse being with Harry in the Mirror Mirror world is pretty simple.  Something takes Maggie out the room that she Harry and Mouse are in.  Yes, it is rare for Maggie to go anywhere without Mouse.  This can be in someplace she feels safe like in Harry's castle or the Carpenter Home.  That is one solution.  Perhaps Maggie has a cold and Harry takes Mouse for a walk because Maggie can't.  The exact mechanism that separates Mouse from Maggie isn't important.

Harry gets summoned or pulled into Mirror Mirror World and power of the summoning pulls Mouse in due to his proximity to Harry.  Perhaps the summoning opens up a portal and Mouse jumps through it to follow Harry, though that image is more like City on the Edge of Forever than the Mirror Mirror episode of Star Trek TOS.

Unlike traveling to the Nevernever where time moves forward even though it can move at a different rate, I don't see a reason why at the end of Mirror Mirror, Harry and Mouse might return moments or only a few minutes after they left.

Totally separate issue, but I wonder if Mab would notice that her Knight was missing and feel this loss almost instantly?  This assumes the part of Winter that is within Harry travels with him to Mirror Mirror world.  If that part of Winter remains behind it should go back to Mab which would probably make her believe that Harry is dead.  Maybe Mab or Molly will perform a summoning spell that brings him back.