Boy, oh boy. So many other things to talk about.
Let's start with the whisperer.
Uriel's description of the perp is pretty damned clear: Not just an angel, not just one of the Fallen but, "A being who could know a mortal's entire life. Could know his dreams. His fears. His very thoughts. Such a being, so versed in human nature, in mortal patterns of thought, could reliably predict precisely how a given mortal would react to almost anything." (GS page 450)
There's only one such being who has been in the position to know Harry in particular that well. Lasciel's Shadow. To me the conclusion seems painfully clear and inescapable:
Neurovore was right.
Not only was Lash not 100% gone after the end of
White Night, she was not 100% redeemed. I don't think it's a coincidence that we were introduced (rather forcefully) in this book to the possibility and consequences of a spiritual being splitting itself into pieces over a deep disagreement, as Bob did with NecroBob.
My hypothesis at this point is that while the majority of the entity known as Lash accepted Harry's gift of a name and a piece of his soul, and gave up her existence––or at least that part of her existence that was directly connected to his brain––to save him from Vitto Malvora, in doing it, she left behind a very small portion of herself that disagreed with the decision. It was too weak to carry any connection to the true Lasciel anymore, thus the loss of the mark and the Hellfire, but just strong enough to hang in there for years, waiting for the right moment to blow its wad in a last ditch attempt to wipe him off the face of the earth. (Whether in retribution for resisting her or to try and prevent him from playing the role for which he is needed in future events hardly matters.)
But that still leaves the question open:
How was that cheating? Harry and Lasciel's Shadow spoke many times during her residency. She provided him with Hellfire, showed him tricks for escaping from dangerous situations, and generally interfered in his life a great deal, without any noticeable balancing efforts from the other side. So how is this one sentence different?
To try and answer that question, I think it would be useful to consider the previous episodes of the Shadow's actions that
did draw balancing retaliation from Uriel and/or his crew. We have:
- Two instances of the Shadow appearing to Harry's conscious mind (as Sheila) before Harry had consciously accepted her offer of Hellfire. She points this out as being a dodge herself when he confronts her about it.
"I told you that I could not make open contact with your conscious mind. That is why I created Sheila."
This action then, appears to have been balanced by Someone allowing Harry's dad (another member of Uriel's Between police, anyone?) to visit him and offer encouragement on two occasions in the same book.
Two unauthorised visits==two balancing, normally unauthorised visits. (in which Malcom spends a good bit of time harping on the same strings Uriel is so interested in: You have to make the choices, and you don't lose control of your life until you believe you've lost control of it.) - Then there's Uriel giving Harry access to Soulfire. Whether that power is something that was self-contained within Harry or a connection with a redeemed but no longer communicative Lash, it surely represents a huge interference in the mortal world. Uriel implies that it's the response to Lucifer helping the Denarians with the power for the huge pentagrams.
Huge loan of otherworldly power==huge loan of otherworldly power. - The seven word whisper==seven word whisper.
In the first two cases it's pretty easy to see where the 'other side' crossed the line. No talking to the conscious mind until he invites you in. No spewing power around in the real world wherever you like. But how is the last remnants of a Fallen's Shadow whispering to her subject crossing a line?
My best guess, is the fact that her statement,
"And it was all your fault, Harry," is an out-and-out lie. I know it seems pretty weird to say that a fallen angel lying might be out of bounds, but think about all the examples we've seen elsewhere in the books of the difference between actual, direct untruths and deception, manipulation and word games. Her statement, unlike the waffling and misleading commentary of the Sidhe was a claim that is simply
not true. Not
everything is Harry's fault, no matter how often he tells himself otherwise.
This idea, that the Fallen in the coins can no more directly lie to their victims than a Sidhe can, really appeals to me, in part because it seems to explain the simple fact that Lash never did seem to have directly lied to Harry, even when it would totally have been in her best interests to do so. She could hit him with illusions all day (which are far more deceptive than words, if you don't place some vast and particular weight of meaning on words), but when she
said something, no matter how twisted up it was by her weird perspective, it seems to have been true.
So why is a lie of seeming or implication fine, where a simple statement in words that contradicts reality is not? Here's another quote that might shed a little light on that idea: "In the beginning was the Word."
Okay, this has gone from a post to an essay. I wonder how many TL:DRs I'll get?
LML
