I think with Twelve Months we will reach a crescendo of continuity errors. Well, maybe Peace Talks and Battle Ground was where the crescendo occured and Twelve Months will contain the coda of the continuity errors we have been seeing for a long time now. The topic of continuity errors isn’t anything new, but I noticed how both frequent and egregious they became in Peace Talks and Battle Ground and I am seeing them in my most recent reread of Skin Game, which I’m only half way through.
It is particularly noticeable in Peace Talks when Harry tells Lara while they are doing some staff training that he has a guy watching Justine but at the end of Battle Ground Lara berates Harry for not telling her that he had someone watching Justine.
In Skin Game, while Butters was telling Harry all the reasons why he was losing trust in him, he told Harry that his ghost told Butters and company that he was dead and gone. Of course, that didn’t happen at all. Harry’s ghost self specifically told Butters that he didn’t know if his condition was permanent. It was Mort who was certain that Harry having produced a shade meant that the real Harry was dead and gone.
There is also the dream sequence in Skin Game where Harry sees multiple versions of himself and Molly driving down the same road. These errors are not errors at all, but clues to the fact that a multiverse is in existence. Actually, I think that is pretty obvious by now to just about everyone. I think what isn’t obvious is what this will lead to. It will lead to a confrontation and conclusion in Mirror Mirror.
The real significance of Mirror Mirror won’t be Harry meeting his evil self. The Harry that made one bad choice in Grave Peril that led to series of other bad choices. Superficially, that is exactly what will happen, but I suspect the greater significance of this meeting is it will lead to a fulcrum event. When all the alternate versions of Harry and company will settle onto a single path, for better or for worse.
All the slightly different versions don’t necessarily have to become one; though I suppose that might happen, but either our Harry wins and all the other versions of Harry can continue to fight the good fight or all of them are tainted or cut short by Alt-Harry’s path.
I think with the conclusion of Mirror Mirror, we will see the end of the Brighter Future Society and the Better Future Society seeming to exist at the same time, along with other minor contradictions, unless Jim makes a real mistake and none of the Beta readers spot it.
