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Messages - Carl

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DF Spoilers / Re: Molly
« on: October 28, 2018, 04:57:47 PM »
Quote from: Arjan on October 28, 2018, 07:43:59 AM
That is your interpretation of free will. In my interpretation nobody has complete free will anyway and the only thing that matters is if somebody had enough of it to be held responsible for his choices and of these choices had enough influence to make her (partly) responsible for the outcome.

Angels tend to be quite harsh on both accounts.He warned her via Murphy and told her to hide, not explicitly but clear enough. he knew what he was telling Murphy would have been told to Molly and he did not have to tell Murphy. Ramirez saw no way to save Molly inside the council. He used the power he had and could not have done anything more.Grey is the equivalent of a scion of a fallen angel. He is half fallen. And Uriel had to think about it and did not give Harry an answer, he was glad he did not have to answer that question. Grey is a completely different case because he is more involved in the conflict between heaven and hell.

Uriel had no problem with Molly in the house. Besides the angels are not there to interfere with free will. The Carpenters can probably invite everyone they want. There are big holes in that defense system.

1. Um no thats my facts on how the human mind actually works under some circumstances. Free Will as it exists in the Dresdenverse is pretty clearly laid out as well. But unless JB is basically saying that humans in the Dresdenverse aren't really human they're still constrained by the normal limits of human mental workings as to the range of choices they can make. And under some circumstance they really cannot make a range of choices, they're limited very narrowly.

2. I don't have a clue what your talking about there. You seem to be talking about Ghost Story, i'm talking about the later short story when Ramirez explicitly tell Molly he spoked several operations mounted by groups of other wardens.

3. Uriel specifically uses the phrase tried in relation to Gray coming in, given that he can cross thresholds no problem (and the threshold is at the house door in any case), the only way he cold not come in if he wanted is if he was stopped. His very use of try tells us Uriel would be obligated to stop him.

Also he's a scion of a skinwalker, not a fallen Angel. Skinwalkers have no relation to christian mythology and thus Lucifer. It also doesn't matter if that would have made the difference. In fact thats really the core of my argument. There's no question his heritage is from the bad side of the street despite the fact that he'd never actually do any harm under the circumstances in question. Yet Uriel was obligated to not let him in. Are you seriously telling me Winter Fae are better than him under those circumstances.

In effect for whatever reason riel is being forced to exclude him under the basis of what he is, not whether he's an actual danger. There's no reason the same thinking wouldn;t apply to Molly as the Winter Lady.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Molly
« on: October 28, 2018, 06:48:25 AM »
Quote from: Mr. Death on October 27, 2018, 10:07:31 PM
Harry straight up told Molly to seek out Ebenezer. She could have done that. Instead, mainly out of guilt, she let herself live like a hobo and work under Lea instead.
Multiple characters in Ghost Story offer Molly a place to stay and shower and get herself together. She outright refuses. Seems like a free-willed choice to me.
It probably wouldn't have ended with her being Winter Lady.
Ramirez was the sum total of the White Council's "efforts" to hunt down Molly, and he straight up admits to her in Cold Case that he was not really bothering. He wasn't hindering others from hunting her down -- he was the one tasked with hunting her down, and he went, "Oh, yeah, sure, top of my list wink wink."
Whether or not someone took advantage of her emotional issues, she still had a choice.

She could have gone to Harry's friends and allies and taken shelter there, or she could've gone murderhobo and studied under Lea.

She chose the latter.
Remember what Cait Sith said.

As long as a Faerie doesn't mean or cause harm, they can cross through a threshold no problem.

Multiple points.

1. Your making a key assumption here. That someone in a sufficiently fragile state is capable of making certain choices. One of the big things about many types of psychological disorder, (and the kind of state Molly was in in GS definitely counts), is that they're quite literally incapable of doing certain things or not doing others because they've got a hard psychological block in place as a result of their disorder. Given Mollys state at the end of GS the odds that she doesn't have some somwhere are virtually nil. For somthing to be the result of a free willed choice there has to be choices the individual is actually capable of making that produce different end results.

2. Ramirez in CC explicitly says he spoked operations by other wardens against her. Are you seriously telling me he managed to spoke every single op they mounted?

3. I'm talking about the angelic Guardians, not the threshold, there's no question that Grey would have meant no harm, but because of what he is they'd still have been obligated to stop him if he'd tried to come in.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Molly
« on: October 27, 2018, 07:33:59 PM »
Quote from: Mr. Death on October 26, 2018, 03:57:16 PM
Point of clarification: Molly's choice leading to her being the Winter Lady wasn't just "Be nearby when Maeve kicked."

She'd spent most of a year working with Lea, becoming more like Lea (i.e., more like a fae) the whole time -- slightly unhinged, enigmatic, avoiding her friends and family. Lea was grooming her, likely at Mab's direction, for the possibility.

Molly may not have known the consequences of her choice to continue associating with Lea, but she still made that choice.

Further, she made the choice to accept effective citizenship with the Svartalves -- i.e., Molly chose to become the member of a faerie nation.

She could have chosen differently -- she could have taken up her friends' offers for shelter and help instead.

Did she make an affirmative, informed decision to become the Winter Lady? No. But she made choices -- consistently over the course of several months -- that put her on, and kept her on, the path to becoming the Winter Lady.

Bearing in mind what mab had to say later there zero chance what Molly wanted would have had any effect on Lea. She was subbing for Mab in Subbing for Harry while he was incapacitated. Unless Molly figured that out and effectively quit out of being Harry's apprentice Lea was never going to leave Molly alone unless someone made her, and who exactly is there who could have done that?

Your also making a major assumption that Molly's reaction to people trying to help her was A) in any way a a free willed choice, B) would have worked out any better. Frankly without Lea running interference and her active hiding i doubt even Ramirez could have kept her from getting hunted down by the WC. And given human psychology, Lea's no doubt knowledge of it, Molly's emotional state and the general fae willingness to manipulate could have completely taken free will out of the equation. But since that Trauma was basically >90% a result of the manipulation of Harry it may be indirect enough of a way to take Uriel out of the can act picture. In fact that was my interpretation of the whole plot uriel pulled off in ghost story. Some aspect prevents him directly interfering, but somthing about the situation is off enough he can't act directly, (or it could just been the Fae Courts jobs means he's not allowed to interfere regardless of rules violations), so he has to work indirectly.

You could argue this was all a consequence of her decision to become Harry's apprentice, but you can't keep passing the buck back for forevermore, there comes a point at which it becomes inherently stupid because it requires someone to make a completely nonsensical decision that no normal mentally stable person is going to make because the whole point of being a normal mentally stable person is that our psychology is setup so that we cannot make such nonsensical decisions, our brain is inherently wired to disregard them. Hell even a not mentally stable person in most cases has a defined decision making limit set that constrains the decisions within their mental processes they're actually capable of making, (some mental disorders aside ofc).

That said as far as Mollys current will. Consider she can still go onto the Carpenter Property no issues. If she was bound by all the usual winter fae nastiness stuff there is no way in hell the guards would let her in, family or not.


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DF Spoilers / Re: Molly
« on: October 23, 2018, 10:12:58 AM »
There's an actual WoJ on the soul thing somwhere. She;s ok but if she lets go too much she can lose it. From reading the short and doing a bit of reading between the lines i think basically the more she leans on the mantle the less "human" she becomes and the more bits of her soul get cut off. On the other hand WoJ confirmed that Mab may or may not still have a bit of hers left, he basically gave the shrug of god. And Mab is ancient given we've been told to look at celtic queens for hints as to her human identity.

Her response to mab at the end about not being done with the conversation vis a vis Tribute speaks strongly in her favour overall. She's not just giving in and going along with everything the fae way.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Why a fortress? And why at Harry's old boarding house location?
« on: August 25, 2018, 05:48:43 PM »
Quote from: morriswalters on August 25, 2018, 01:07:46 PM
At 4 am these questions started running through my head.  I hate me at times.  But, why?  While JB doesn't call it a castle in has all markers to make it sound like one. It isn't really fortress in a modern sense, since no wall will stop modern weapons.  And I'm pretty sure that they would run afoul of zoning laws in a residential neighborhood.  If it is simply Marcone thumbing his nose at Harry, or his memory, why not a McDonald's?

I doubt it's a full blown castle, but if it was it would seriously impede modern weapons. There where a number of fortified monasteries and old castles that gave the allies all hell when advancing through italy because you needed serious heavy artillery to even scratch them, and even then it wasn't remotely quick or easy.

That said i think others hit the nail on the head. It's as much a political statement to anyone watching about Marcone's stance on the Formor as it is a practical place.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Will the Big Moment Come in Peace Talks?
« on: August 25, 2018, 07:22:14 AM »
Quote from: Arjan on August 23, 2018, 03:05:30 AM
You mean the accused has rights?. I don’t see any evidence for that. The Merlin fully expected Harry to have killed Molly in stead of calling Edinburgh and wasting everyone’s time.

Fair trial is not high on the list. If the accused usually does not get to say anything, has no formal defender, is blindfolded and can not understand what is going on because everything is said in a dead language you can not expect other considerations of fair trial to be high on the list.

And even Molly did not get a second soul gaze. Even when the Merlin did not trust Harry at all. The Merlin probably thought one soul gaze was already overkill. She was proven guilty, kill her and be done with it.

The merlin isn't free to do as he pleases, he has to pay attention to the other council members, (usually anyway), and not all of them are as dumb as he is.

Quote from: morriswalters on August 24, 2018, 02:31:09 AM
It's actually a paraphrase of a Bible quote, uttered by Christ. John 2.4.  Evidently referring to his Crucifixion.

The Gatekeeper seems to be conveniently always around to have something enigmatic to say. He pops up in some weird places. He's hob nobs with the Mothers and has pissed off Demonreach.  I smell a talking head.  Version 2.

It is almost certain that Harry will go head to head with some members of the Senior Council, assuming that the Black Council is represented there.

Nah IMO the gatekeeper will become more important further down the line, but he needs pre-established characterisation first. Your probably not wrong that he's serving a bit of a talking head function in the process. But well, tropes are tools. In this case a period as a talking head to establish him is ok. The talking head issue only becomes an issue if all he ever does is provide info.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Faerie Kisses
« on: August 24, 2018, 06:18:41 PM »
Quote from: Mr. Death on August 24, 2018, 06:12:05 PM
Early in the story, when they decide to work together, Ramirez puts out his hand to shake, but Molly smooches him, and her inner monologue remarks that apparently Winter Sidhe seal deals differently.

Ahhh thank you for jogging the old memory, i remember that. I read it as another expression of the innate high lust Molly was suffering from. I don't recall kisses featuring in all past winter fae deals. So my suspicion is somthing specific to the circumstances determines what the expression of agreement to a deal is.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Who fixed Little Chicago?
« on: August 24, 2018, 06:16:00 PM »
Don't forget though anyone with the knowledge level to produce that sort of thing and enough power to scry through his wards could become aware of it and know how to fix it. And thats assuming the same person who realised the error was also the one to fix it. Someone else with no interest in interfering could have seen the error and then somehow, (probably by accident), handed that info over to someone with an interest in interfering.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Faerie Kisses
« on: August 24, 2018, 06:08:35 PM »
Wait did i miss somthing from cold case, (it's possibble given all the wow moment i did ofc), the only time i remember Molly kissing anyone is Rameriez at the end, and that was first lust and second part of her apologising to him for what happened.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Right in the feels (favourite heartfelt moments)
« on: August 24, 2018, 06:06:25 PM »
Quote from: Arjan on August 19, 2018, 08:17:47 AM
You don’t have to take that literally. It just means she is going to suffer and Harry is going to suffer because of that.

https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/47/messages/407.html

Can also be used in the third person. Murphy is going to do something dangerous.

The first chapter is released to a select incrowd so you need to know the right people to read it. Sometimes the members of this secret society forget that they are the keepers of hidden gnosis and blurb it out. The black helicopters will come.

Nah that doesn't track, it's not the way that phrase would be used grammatically speaking when talking about writing somthing.

Quote from: Avernite on August 20, 2018, 05:58:07 AM
I'd say Jonny Marcone deserves to be in your top 3; apart from Murphy I think he's the only other regular to be around since Storm Front.

As to the 'feels' moments:
Changes, the final battle. It has the ups (Murphy the Avenging Angel, Lea smacking down the LoON) and downs (mostly Susan's death).

Mouse faking his injury in Turn Coat. A small one, maybe, but still powerful.

Harry versus Sharkface. Smacking an otherworldly horror down by saying your name? Awe inspiring.

Harry and Carlos entering the scene on queue (cue?) in White Night.

Marcones more on the Mab, Lea, Michael level, he's around in a fair few books but there's some where he's not around and others where he's not very relevant. Dead beat is the only one Murphy has skipped and she was still one of the key driving elements of the plot. Marcone is important but he's not main supporting character level, he's more important secondary character.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Little things I noticed in the Dresden Files
« on: August 13, 2018, 04:26:00 PM »
Quote from: Arjan on August 13, 2018, 11:09:20 AM
Demonreach understands that better than us, he had to dumb it down for Bob. He understood it was still just a potential future. It was attacked. If Mab said it could have acted differently I tend to believe her. But it knew Maeve belonged to Mab so it decided to wait for her.

Could act differently and would act differently are two entirely different things. Per mother summer in the same book Mab could pull the troops off the outer gates and use them to try to exterminate Summer, doesn't mean she would do so however.

Also for something to be a potential future it actually has to be possibble for it to happen. Lilly and Maeve had to have an actual shot at winning that fight or there is no potential future where it happens to echo back.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Little things I noticed in the Dresden Files
« on: August 13, 2018, 04:59:45 AM »
Quote from: Snark Knight on August 12, 2018, 04:08:00 PM
I don't think infection rendered Maeve a complete slave who would have willingly sacrificed herself for the Outsiders, though. She wanted to usurp her mother. It might have deluded her, but she was still in the game for what she thought were selfish reasons.

Maybe she would have been willing to get blown up in the morning and spend a few decades putting herself back together as the price of knocking Mab off her throne in the long run, but I don't think she was prepared to perma-die for the cause.

She specifically says she setup someone nearby to receive the mantle, she even took Lilly out to kill Mabs obvious backup option. I think she was just out to spite her mother any way she could, and tearing the courts apart and undermining their purposes did that the only way she could.

Quote from: morriswalters on August 12, 2018, 10:52:05 PM
The above quote from Cold Days shows Maeve knows some of the scope.  She knows Chicago will perish.  She believes the Sleepers will be freed and they will not be killed by the fail safe.  And by inference she will back stab Lily. Implied by Winter and Summer going to war and the fact that Maeve is armed.  It really didn't matter if Mab or Harry had gotten into the circle, Lily was toast.  What Lily believes is irrelevant.

After Mab is summoned she thanks Demonreach.The obvious question is why didn't he?

Not necessarily. As long as Titania was either ignorant of Lily's part or believed she'd been talked into it by Maeve, ll Maeve had to do was make it look like her actions where a her mothers behest and Titania would probably assume Mab had gone rouge. That was her whole plan A for Dresden, make him think Mab was the one that had gone insane, no reason she couldn't be planning to try the same on Titania.

Quote from: Arjan on August 13, 2018, 03:51:54 AM
Mab and demonreach have much in common. He is there to keep the monsters locked in and she is there to keep the monsters locked out. They both understand duty and they did some bonding watching over Harry’s corpse. And Demonreach understands deals. It is much better to have Mab in your debt than to piss her off.

Doesn't track, the echoes aren't a result of the attack, their a result of the future in which the well IS breached. That means Demonreach would have to be willing to not take action even if it meant the well was breached.

The more likely answer is the old chestnut about the more power something has the more limited it's options. It likely couldn't take action without Harry's permission. And Harry didn't know enough about how the island worked or what it could do to use that. If he had he could probably have broken the circle and shut Maeve ad Lilly down in the first few seconds after he stepped ashore. I mean it's magic could see off a freaking Walker off and according to WoJ could even take Mab. Lilly and Maeve didn't really have a hope if it acted.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Little things I noticed in the Dresden Files
« on: August 11, 2018, 05:06:57 PM »
Quote from: Arjan on August 11, 2018, 06:20:32 AM
I got the idea that it was one of the islands protections. I do not think the Ladies actually used it.

Someone, (Fix i think), specifically says Lilly walked the circle to activate it.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Little things I noticed in the Dresden Files
« on: August 11, 2018, 06:08:13 AM »
It was never clear to me weather Lily created it or if she just activated it, either way they clearly activated it to protect themselves while they worked, which means they intended to be done before it went down.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Little things I noticed in the Dresden Files
« on: August 10, 2018, 09:48:49 PM »
Quote from: Arjan on August 10, 2018, 12:01:08 PM
Lilly did not know and Maeve was infected. It could have been a suicidal mission anyway.

The point is the circle was put up to keep people away from them while they dealt with demonreach, they clearly intended to be done before the circle fell, which it wouldn't do until the same time the mortality clase expired.

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