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Messages - Bad Alias

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1
DF Spoilers / Re: Battle Ground end scenes
« on: September 19, 2021, 04:11:38 AM »
Just as she has no choice in collecting on the favor Harry owes her for making the glamour he used to evade Eb.
What annoys me about that is that Harry agrees to go with Molly to her parents house in the same conversation as he incurs a debt to her. He could have just repaid the debt by going with her.

2
DF Spoilers / Re: Mirror Mirror character changes ideas
« on: September 19, 2021, 04:05:26 AM »
I don't think that decision is close enough to the end of GP to qualify, but sometimes Jim isn't as precise as we like to give him credit for.

3
DF Spoilers / Re: DragonCon 2021 Starborn or Star Born?
« on: September 19, 2021, 03:52:55 AM »
[1]If you go back and change something then your create a new future, a branch, [2]but you have to remain in the branch you started from because there is another you in that new branch.
[1]Time travel in the Dresden Files might not work that way. Choice makes new universes. Time travel that changes something might destroy that universe or rewrite it. It could create a new branch. It might create temporary deviations that eventually fold back in due to the conservation of history.

[2]Why do you have to go back to your branch? What if you kill the other you or are willing/capable to live in the same universe?

Follow the logic if you can find any in time travel.  They felt the echos of the attack.  But the attack never happened.  How could they feel the echo of an event that never took place? This is where the multiverse comes in.  The attack did happen somewhere.
It depends on whether the echos are of an attack (i.e., what we saw the Lady's doing) or of a successful attack (i.e., Demonreach exploding). The text isn't entirely clear which one it's referring to.

Yep, we agree. In any case Jim will do something different then either of us suspect. That's why he gets paid the big bucks.
I don't know (if that's why he gets paid the big bucks). A lot of the people who get paid big bucks write some painfully predictable stuff.

Dollars to donuts that the White Council is tempted to behead Chandler if he comes back from an alternate reality for breaking Laws.
Which one?

4
DF Spoilers / Re: What will Eb do?
« on: September 19, 2021, 03:23:36 AM »
The vampire leaders knew from Maggie Sr’s dinner argument. I’d be surprised if any senior council member was unaware except maybe Cristos tbh.
It seems pretty obvious that Ancient Mai doesn't know from TC where she says that Harry was never really Eb's apprentice. To me, this strongly suggests that she thought Eb was acting out of loyalty to an apprentice, not family member.

I'm really hoping Ziusudra is the founder and leader of the Librarians. I think he'd be perfect for it.
  • He could be an amalgamation character in the Dresden files, and Harry could meet him and learn at the end that he's also known as Atrahasis, Utnapishtim, and Noah.
  • He could have overseen the growth of the earliest empires, and the wonders they built, from the gardens of Babylon to the pyramids of Egypt to the lighthouse of Alexandria.
I'm not a big fan of the "this guy was everywhere in history and responsible for all the things" trope. I'm fine with such a character being involved in a specific eternal quest, like spreading and preserving knowledge.

Lara: Where are we getting Lara's age from? The most direct thing I can recall about age it the portraits in Papa Raith's library, which isn't very direct. We're never told that he's done this for every child in his 2000 year history or that he started after a certain point in art history. The first portrait suggests the woman (Emilia Alexandria Salazar) is from the 16th or 17th century (15 or 1600's). I kinda doubt that's the first time Papa Raith had a child considering the history of birth control.

It's explicitly stated that she's the oldest, BR: Ch. 15 - "'Harry," Thomas said. 'This is my oldest sister, Lara.'" Lara has known, in her head, that Papa Raith doesn't love her for a century. (I didn't remember either. Had to look it up).

Lara says in BR that she's seen siblings challenge Papa Raith before, so they could have been the older siblings.

All that taken together makes me think Lara is was born no later than the 1600's. She could be older if Papa Raith didn't always do portraits. She could be younger if Salazar was an older, now deceased, sibling's mother. The only information about the frequency of the portraits is that no two are within 20 or 30 years of each other and they "steadily grow closer to the present day."

I find it interesting though that White Court vampires don't often use it on powerful beings. None of them tried it on the Naagloshii, or on the Denarians, or the Fomor (the leaders, not the hybrid warriors). Seems like they don't just throw it around at everything. We've never even seen it tried on another vampire. Which makes me wonder if it's really only effective on mortals or other White Court vampires (and maybe some Faeries).
Lea seemed concerned about Thomas. She wanted Susan's "love" or her memories of Harry. Then Thomas was burned by Lea. I don't think that's a coincidence. At best, it's a misdirection.

Also Bigfoot Irwin was enthralled, so we have reason to believe wamp powers work on bigfeet and extremely powerful fae.

Ramirez as eventual Merlin: I think we're going to have Harry as founder of a new, reformed council. Maybe leader for a short while, then he "retreats to the wilderness." Not sure what the wilderness would be in this day and age.

A pro like Kincaid will center of mass it, no headshot.
Kincaid explicitly takes headshots.

Quote
If you’re shooting at someone, you’ve already decided to kill him. There’s no reason to shoot him anywhere other than the head, if you can. And I can.
https://www.jim-butcher.com/posts/2020/microfiction-3-con-swap-and-virtual-signing

Pretty sure Maggie Sr. was not a WC member when she died. She was being hunted by the wardens.
Morgan was a WC member when in TC.

5
DF Spoilers / Re: Did the FBI Agent's soulgaze look into the future?
« on: July 26, 2021, 06:34:12 PM »
Two thoughts on this.

1. Harry as an agent for retribution: In either DM or GP, Harry is worried about his bad acts coming back on him three fold in a sow the wind, reap the whirlwind kind of way. Michael, who has soulgazed Harry, asks Harry if he has ever considered that Harry is the whirlwind.

2. It's definitely possible that the soulgaze gave him a glimpse of the future: In StF, the Sight definitely lets you see the future. This is pretty much left behind in later books, but not entirely. Harry has different visions of who Molly can be in PG, and Luccio tells Harry about how the Sight "comes in" as a young wizard matures in SmF.

6
DF Spoilers / Re: Jim on character vs character
« on: July 26, 2021, 06:23:20 PM »
Yeah. I think Odin's a lot like (Infinity War)
(click to show/hide)
He knew what he was doing before he did it. I think we can say that just about every time we've seen Odin.

7
DF Spoilers / Re: Gregor?
« on: July 26, 2021, 06:11:29 PM »
I think I read something about him being eaten by the dragon, but I have no idea about the source.
I remember it too. I'm thinking it must of been a WoJ or the Paranet Papers because it's definitely not from the books.

Didn't Charity say Gregor went mad when Michael killed his patron?
Yes.
Quote
When Siriothrax died, Gregor went mad. Utterly mad.
Ch. 32.

So I too definitely remember something about him being eaten, but the book clearly states that he outlived the dragon.

Jim makes a lot of little mistakes like that. Rereading StF, I noticed his circle starts out as brass when Jim sets up how the circle is covered in clutter, but ends up as copper when Harry has to clear it to avoid being eaten by the toad demon.

8
DF Spoilers / Re: Total WAG: Cowl's Real Plan
« on: July 02, 2021, 07:44:40 PM »
But at the very end, Harry did something Cowl didn't plan for - working with Lara to get out.
Because Cowl doesn't know about Harry's loyalty to Thomas because he doesn't know about their relationship.

I like this theory, with one significant quibble: If that was all planned, it was Cowl's contingency plan if he was unable to successfully complete the Darkhallow.
That does seem more likely.

9
DF Spoilers / Re: "It is not yet your hour."
« on: July 02, 2021, 07:41:08 PM »
I feel like Langtry being the bad guy is the red herring of the series...
I wouldn't be shocked if Langtry, incognito, shows up on Harry's door and presents a totally different picture from what Carlos told Harry.
I desperately want Langtry to have orchestrated kicking Harry out of the Council so as to have someone outside of the Council to investigate the Black Council.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense or seem too likely; I just really like the idea.

I don't know if these are Jim's personal views or not but Harry definitely has a bit of a libertarian vibe. Not that I am saying that's a bad thing or a good thing, just the read I got from what Harry says about such things from time to time.
That's kind of how Marcone is portrayed too. Basically all the crime we read about Marcone's organization doing is just business between mutually consenting adults. Even his protection racket is mostly portrayed that way in recent books. The people paying protection are protected from the Fomor. (Normally protection rackets are protection from the person the victim is paying).

We know from Proven Guilty that Merlin holds ALL their proxies.
I suppose Langtry could have pulled rank to move if from an open council vote to Senior only based on the rule Eb used in SK that any senior councilor can move a vote from open to senior council only.
That takes three votes (and maybe the presence of a quorum. I don't have the book available to look it up right now). That was the problem Eb introduced in the beginning of PT. Were there three votes after the Battle of Chicago? As Mira points out, Carlos does say that the Senior Council voted. Is there an emergency vote provision we don't know about? Was the vote expelling Harry illegal?

what do you think will cause Harry to take a direct stand again the White Council?
My money is it's going to be Harry calling them on their BS. I'm sure what form their BS is going to take. Something like Molly's hearing in PG. Maybe the Council will have become too corrupt.

10
DF Spoilers / Re: Elaine wag
« on: April 01, 2021, 06:11:53 PM »
Explicitly? I don't recall that. I do get that impression from the end of Battle Ground but I don't think she actually said it outright.
Mab said “The fusion of bloodlines is how these things are generally arranged,” so I guess she called for it implicitly.

11
DF Spoilers / Re: Balancing the scales?
« on: March 12, 2021, 08:41:58 PM »
Yeah, well, I don't think "mere mortals" are supposed to have Soul Fire, let alone be able to do stuff with it.
I don't think much hatred is because mortals aren't "supposed" to have soulfire. I think it's because Namshiel hates humans.

You will remember that Shaggy was offended by the fact that Harry used against him as well.
I don't remember that.

12
DF Spoilers / Re: Someone playing with Harry's mind?
« on: March 12, 2021, 08:36:43 PM »
The first time anything is mentioned about it is when HWWBehind calls him "Child of the Stars" in their fight at the gas station. But let's ignore that one until Ghost Story where Harry walks down memory lane because he tells us he didn't remember it as clearly as he does in GS. The next mention of it is Lash talking about the circumstances of his birth. I think she more defines starborn instead of using the word. Harry has plenty of time to ask Bob, Bonnie, and Alfred about all of these. He had a really long time to ask Bob about what Lash said in White Night. He spent a few hours on the boat with Bob in CD. He wasn't alone, so maybe that's why he didn't. He probably had enough time to ask him about it walking down the stairs on Demonreach. He's definitely had enough time to ask Bonnie. He might not have had enough time to get a coherent or useful answer out of Bonnie.

Maybe he hasn't made it a priority.

13
DF Spoilers / Re: Ferrovax Identity - crazy theory
« on: March 12, 2021, 08:21:11 PM »
The loss of wings is an interesting idea, but then again it isn't like the Fallen lost their powers either. We haven't seen any Fallen (normally represented by shadows) have wings.
There are a couple of Denarian forms with wings or wing like features. There's "Shaggy Feathers" as Harry calls it and Rosana's Denarian form had the classic bat-like wings of a demon.

As to the appearance of angels, I think Jim might be basing that off the Bible. https://overviewbible.com/angels-demons/; https://biblia.com/books/nasb95/Eze1. The descriptions are often pretty wild stuff that bears no relation to the Renaissance paintings that have come to dominate the iconic imagery of beautiful humans with wings or fat babies with wings. In other parts of the Bible, it's the reaction of the human who the angel appears to that makes me think they look startling.

As to the Creator issue, I think a less than all powerful creator is a good choice for a fictional fantasy setting, or just don't directly answer the question. It makes avoiding or addressing "the Problem of Evil" a lot easier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil. But Jim has answered that question with free will. It might be an unsatisfactory answer for real life, but it's more than enough for me in a book series that I've repeatedly heard described as "popcorn" or "palette cleansers."

One of the things I really like about reading the DF is Jim addresses what we call touch topics with enough skill and knowledge so as to not make a caricature of anyone's beliefs. That's typically what I see in pop culture. It's annoying whenever I know enough about the subject matter to catch it even if I don't share those beliefs.

On the Antichrist point, there's a bunch of argument over whether there's an antichrist, a bunch of antichrists, or both, so having every starborn be a potential antichrist (and several being more than just potential ones) isn't stretching things too much.

14
DF Spoilers / Re: Was Eb a lot more like Harry in the past?
« on: March 06, 2021, 07:47:36 PM »
Betrayal is something that is difficult to forgive, and I suspect that either one major event, or a series of smaller ones led to Eb becoming what I can only describe as bigoted towards things that aren't human.
Eb seems bigoted towards some inhuman things, but he seems respectful of the danger posed other inhuman things as well. And bigoted/racist/etc. aren't really the best words when talking about fictional species. They are in fact different. All these supernatural species are dangerous. Sure, some are underestimated, but that danger is ignored at the rist of great cost. See Dead Faerie Queen and the Little Folk.

15
DF Spoilers / Re: Why Ethniu was so powerful in BG
« on: March 06, 2021, 07:38:50 PM »
Consider that most of those being who didn't chose to step-back from reality or give up most of their power were probably taken out or locked-up. Question is, who was doing all that? The Wizards seem like an obvious choice...but probably not unaided.
The Archive, covertly of course, probably had a hand in it. It's got to be a lot easier to obliviate a being if it's locked up in Demonreach and unable to preserve humanity's knowledge of it.

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