The YLC (Why Little Chicago) thread

[Snaps At Fireflies]

Another thing to mention, is that even though LC was described as having a massive amount of power in it, that doesn't mean it would explode in a deafening blast, with concussive shock waves and such.  The "explosion" could have simply been a massive amount of concentrated fire, enough to flash fire the room and the whole building.   Or maybe the power would've come out in a magical method of destruction.   Remember Bob said the amount of power he had poured into it was roughly equivalent to the power in his fully charged Force Ring.   But it wasn't the same kind of magic.  The power he had pumped into it was one of seeking, investigation, discovery and revelation.  Not a kinetic asskicking spell.    Magic varies based on what type of power you are channeling and to what purpose, so just because the amount of power is equal to a ton of those force rings, doesn't mean it would manifest in the same way.   For all we know, the sympathetic link to Chicago made the power dissipate across the links, making all of Chicago slightly warmer for a fraction of a second.  Or maybe an odd flash of light, and a mild bang sound happened, something disregarded by the population.  Or maybe the fire simply dissipated it, fire is a cleansing force after all, magically speaking. 

Remember, just because a powerful spell is disrupted, doesn't mean it blows up.   Look at Harry when he destroyed the Great Circle trapping Ivy in Small Favor.   He made a point to explain just how much power was in that circle, and how even having just one thing out of place, could level a huge area.  Then what did he do?  He smashed it with his staff, destroying every aspect of that spell.   Did he blow up?  Did the spell site blow up?  Did Demonreach?  No, in fact, nothing negative happened until the very last vestige of the spell structure was destroyed, then the spell broke, and as I recall it was simply a bit of sound and light.  That's it.   Nothing negative or destructive happened, as evidenced by the fact that Ivy and the Heroes were all still alive, and standing at Ground Zero.   And I'd be willing to bet that the Great Circle to keep the Archive restrained, had more juice in it than LC.   So if that spell can be destroyed without leveling an island, I think LC can be burned out without leveling a city block.

[Cozarkian]

Another thing to mention, is that even though LC was described as having a massive amount of power in it, that doesn't mean it would explode in a deafening blast, with concussive shock waves and such.  The "explosion" could have simply been a massive amount of concentrated fire, enough to flash fire the room and the whole building.   Or maybe the power would've come out in a magical method of destruction.   Remember Bob said the amount of power he had poured into it was roughly equivalent to the power in his fully charged Force Ring.   But it wasn't the same kind of magic.  The power he had pumped into it was one of seeking, investigation, discovery and revelation.  Not a kinetic asskicking spell.    Magic varies based on what type of power you are channeling and to what purpose, so just because the amount of power is equal to a ton of those force rings, doesn't mean it would manifest in the same way.   For all we know, the sympathetic link to Chicago made the power dissipate across the links, making all of Chicago slightly warmer for a fraction of a second.  Or maybe an odd flash of light, and a mild bang sound happened, something disregarded by the population.  Or maybe the fire simply dissipated it, fire is a cleansing force after all, magically speaking. 

Remember, just because a powerful spell is disrupted, doesn't mean it blows up.   Look at Harry when he destroyed the Great Circle trapping Ivy in Small Favor.   He made a point to explain just how much power was in that circle, and how even having just one thing out of place, could level a huge area.  Then what did he do?  He smashed it with his staff, destroying every aspect of that spell.   Did he blow up?  Did the spell site blow up?  Did Demonreach?  No, in fact, nothing negative happened until the very last vestige of the spell structure was destroyed, then the spell broke, and as I recall it was simply a bit of sound and light.  That's it.   Nothing negative or destructive happened, as evidenced by the fact that Ivy and the Heroes were all still alive, and standing at Ground Zero.   And I'd be willing to bet that the Great Circle to keep the Archive restrained, had more juice in it than LC.   So if that spell can be destroyed without leveling an island, I think LC can be burned out without leveling a city block.

Personally, when I talk about LC exploding, I don't really mean a physical explosion. The explosion is a backlash of magic that would fry Harry's brain, exactly like what happens when Cowl catches Harry tracking him with LC in a later book (except Harry had built an extra safeguard that saved him). LC itself might also be destroyed (I envision melting) but I see the destruction as being internalized to LC and the person trying to use it with very little, if any, external damage.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

JB is a lazy writer and doesn't introduce events that don't have a significance. Granted the significance might be character development rather than plot development, but there really isn't much character development in the fact that Harry can be the victim of random accidents, so I doubt that is the case. Now, the accident was the means JB used to prompt the Harry/Murphy conversation, and it's purpose could have been limited to setting up that conversation. However, like Uriel, JB likes to kill two birds with one stone, so I think the accident will have later significance. Specifically, I think Harry will discover the attempted murder was a moment-of-opportunity attack by someone who was present in Chicago for the execution and saw an opportunity to possibly remove Harry as a problem.

The issue here isn't too little data, but too much.  In that while the dots fit together for your explanation of the accident, as well as for the "Rashid ran Harry off the road to ensure timing about the phonecall", they can also fit together with other things on a long-term arc level;  given Jim's response to being asked would we see Ace from SK again with querying whether we were sure we hadn't, it could as easily have been him and unrelated to the rest of the plot of PG entirely.

First, as indicated by the cop's comments, the accident was far too serious to be a benign attempt to save Harry. Second, there was far too much time between the accident and the phone call and the phone call was far too close to the start of the ritual for anyone to have planned it so precisely. If anyone could accurately predict the exact time that Harry would use LC, it makes far more sense that they would manipulate the timing of the interrupting phone call than trying to delay the use of LC until after the call.
(..)
It's much easier than setting up an accident and hoping it causes a long enough delay to stop Harry from using LC while not injuring Harry too severely.

If it were "setting up an accident and hoping the timing works out precisely", I'd agree with you, but that is not what I am postulating.

I am positing the Gatekeeper foreseeing exactly how the timing of the accident works, in terms of long enough a delay and not injuring Harry too severely, and then going forth and doing what he knows will get the desired result.    I think that works whether he's looking at a fixed future, or looking at a set of options and picking the one that does what he wants.

Lash spent considerable effort to convince Harry not to use LC. If she had known about the specific flaw, her next step would have been to use that as a bargaining chip. Once Harry had proven he was going to use LC at any cost, she would have told him she knew of a specific flaw and warned him that he would never be able to fix it in time to save Molly. She then would have offered to identify the flaw and taught him to fix it, either as part of a bargain (maybe an agreement that he would sit and talk with her for 30 minutes) or as a display of her good will (i.e. making Harry more dependent upon her knowledge). There is no way she has Harry secretly fix it, losing whatever advantage she could have gotten from helping him fix it.

I am wary of any argument based on the logic of how an entity noted even among Fallen for her deceptiveness is going to argue; I can equally well believe, for example, that her arguing against Harry using it but not mentioning the flaw is intended to stop him suspecting her having any knowledge of the flaw when he does find out about it.

[Orbweaver]

I don't think we do, because the swords have not actually been unmade; how many "oh, sword at risk - ooh, fortuitous rescue before it gets harmed" instances do you need before you start suspecting the WG of poking things here and there to prevent them ever actually being destroyed ?

Well, not entirely true. We know that at least one sword has been reforged, or reshaped. Are we absolutely certain that the Sword itself wasn't destroyed for this to happen?

[Decorus]

Actually Lash wouldn't tell Harry, because he wouldn't have believed her.
Harry would have seen her attempt to warn him about the flaw as another ploy to get him to take up the coin.
She also had plenty of time while using the illusions to slow him down.
People often forget Lash knows exactly what Harry will and will not do and the best ways to manipulate him.
Telling Harry that it was flawed and would kill him wasn't a viable tactic.

It still comes down to her being the only being that knew about LC, could fix it and was present.
The Gatekeeper doesn't fit the bill as shown by Turn Coat he didn't know Harry had taken Demonreach as his Sanctum.
Also fixing LC would have been him altering time directly creating paradox and lots of bad things would happen to him.


Mab has already answered the question about her replacement choice if Harry died.
She would recruit Thomas to be her Winter Knight instead...

[Cozarkian]

There are two possibilities for the accident:

1. Someone was trying to hurt Harry.
2. Someone was trying to save Harry from using LC before the phone call.

If #1 is correct, then we have the follow up question, why put a mysterious and random attempt to hurt Harry in PG rather than any other book? Here we have 3 possibilities - a) It was an attempt by someone who isn't normally in Chicago, so that was their only opportunity, b) it was specifically designed to try to keep Harry from interfering with the events in PG or c) PG is just as good as any other book for a random, mysterious accident and JB needed an excuse for Harry to talk to Murphy, so it was convenient to use in PG. Notably, it could also be any combination of any of the above.

With #2, we introduce a character whose level of knowledge of future events and ability to manipulate Harry and the future are at least equal to Uriel. It turns the entire themes of the Dresden Files on its head. Rather than being a story about Harry and free will, it's a story about godlike entities who can control everything Harry does. And since they all have such perfect knowledge, it isn't even a chess game where one godlike entity might outmaneuver another, because they already know who will win in the end, so it is really just a complex math equation that only has a single proof.

Okay, forget the boring story aspect of #2, there is a better reason the accident wouldn't just be a delay tactic. From a Doylist perspective, it adds absolutely nothing to the story. Imagine this scene of events: Gatekeeper warns Harry, Harry drives home and prepares to use LC, just before he finishes using LC, the phone mysteriously rings. Tada, JB could tell the exact same story without ever using an accident. It would have the exact same outcome and provide the exact same mystery (why did the phone ring at that precise moment?). The only benefit JB would get from setting up a complicated superentity plan to delay Harry by the precise amount of time needed is that JB has an opportunity to have Murphy and Harry talk without relying on a "random accident." I'm sure JB could have found some other explanation if that was his goal. Like maybe Murphy knocking on his door (instead of a phone call) and asking Harry why there is a girl named Molly at the station begging someone to call Harry Dresden instead of her parents.

Okay, onto specifics.

given Jim's response to being asked would we see Ace from SK again with querying whether we were sure we hadn't, it could as easily have been him and unrelated to the rest of the plot of PG entirely.

Sure, but if it was a random attempt by Ace, why put it in PG instead of another book? Likely the answer would be that Ace has some reason to try to keep Harry from being involved in the events of PG, a fact we will discovery later.

I am positing the Gatekeeper foreseeing exactly how the timing of the accident works, in terms of long enough a delay and not injuring Harry too severely, and then going forth and doing what he knows will get the desired result.    I think that works whether he's looking at a fixed future, or looking at a set of options and picking the one that does what he wants.

That is a heck of a lot of knowledge for a guy that in TC, didn't even realize that Harry had claimed Demonreach as Sanctum and incorrectly predicting that Harry's plan would fail and cause more damage than good. Maybe Gatekeeper is just a really good actor and his entire appearance was just an excuse to provide some obscur advice to Harry that would alter future events in the precise manner the Gatekeeper wanted, but I'm inclined to believe it shows the Gatekeeper is not as all-knowing as you argue he is.

I am wary of any argument based on the logic of how an entity noted even among Fallen for her deceptiveness is going to argue; I can equally well believe, for example, that her arguing against Harry using it but not mentioning the flaw is intended to stop him suspecting her having any knowledge of the flaw when he does find out about it.

To what gain? You think she secretly helps Harry and covers his tracks so he won't be angry that she secretly helped him, thereby insuring that Harry gets the benefit of having the coin without ever realizing the benefits he is receiving? That is a terrible way to manipulate someone. Instead, she could avoid Harry's anger by providing help, forcing Harry to realize that with her help he can accomplish far more good (saving Molly) than he can without your help. Which is a better lesson for Lasciel "You need help from a mysterious source that wasn't me in order to accomplish your goals" or "I can help you accomplish your goals?"


 

[Cozarkian]

Actually Lash wouldn't tell Harry, because he wouldn't have believed her. Harry would have seen her attempt to warn him about the flaw as another ploy to get him to take up the coin.

Harry isn't dumb. He wouldn't just ignore Lash. He'd bargain or try to force her to give him enough information so he (or Bob) could verify the existence of the flaw. Then he would bargain or try to force Lash to show him how to fix it (if he or Bob couldn't figure it out themselves). Either way, Lash still gains more because Harry learns that she has power/knowledge that can help him successfully perform magic that will save lives (in this case Molly's).

She also had plenty of time while using the illusions to slow him down.

So Lash is so powerful she can hit Harry with illusions while simultaneously fixing LC (or causing Harry to unknowingly fix LC while fighting the illusions) and yet there are no other instances in the story where she comes close to displaying that kind of power? I'm not even convinced there is enough evidence that Lash could have fixed LC while Harry was unconscious. There certainly isn't enough to suggest she could fix it without his knowledge while actively fighting him for control of his perceptions.

It still comes down to her being the only being that knew about LC, could fix it and was present.

What evidence do you have that she could fix it, or even knew it needed to be fixed?

Mab has already answered the question about her replacement choice if Harry died.
She would recruit Thomas to be her Winter Knight instead...

Mab also went through a great deal of effort in GS to make sure she didn't have to pick Thomas as Winter Knight instead. Fixing LC would be significantly less effort.

[Decorus]

No Harry isn't dumb, but he is a stubborn idiot especially when he's already made up his mind.
Lash also isn't stupid enough to waste time using illusions to stop Harry when she already knows that it won't work and Harry will do it anyway.
Lash has the ability to completely stop Harry from doing anything see Turn Coat where Nico fully expected Lash to be able to completely neuter Harry.
Making Harry think he's fighting illusions and winning while using his body to fix LC is no harder then making Harry fight illusions.
Lash even told Harry he was going to die and the model was going to blow up and Harry didn't care he was going to do it anyway.
Even even threatened to do it while she was mucking around with his concentration.

Lash was able to accelerate Harry's brain, block mental attacks and has advanced magical knowledge that goes back to the begining of time.
Lash even knows the how and why Harry can hurt Outsiders with magic.
Lash actively keeps Harry from finding out what she can and can not do, because every time Harry learns these things its one less effective tool in her tool box.

[Cozarkian]

No Harry isn't dumb, but he is a stubborn idiot especially when he's already made up his mind.

He was going to use LC, but he isn't so stubborn that he wouldn't give her a chance to prove the flaw existed so he could fix it. His goal is to save Molly, not kill himself. So he's going to investigate if she claims to have knowledge that would help him save Molly without dying.

Lash also isn't stupid enough to waste time using illusions to stop Harry when she already knows that it won't work and Harry will do it anyway.

She doesn't know Harry will do it anyway. In fact, she is completely flabbergasted to discover that Harry is essentially willing to commit suicide for a small chance that he might save Molly. That scene is actually one of the key moments in showing why Lash changes. She didn't believe someone like Harry could exist, someone who is willing to try to help others even when the likely outcome is that he fails and dies as a result. It's what makes Lash start to think Harry might be worth saving. Without the PG events, Lash wouldn't have chosen self-sacrifice in WN.

Lash has the ability to completely stop Harry from doing anything see Turn Coat where Nico fully expected Lash to be able to completely neuter Harry.

Temporary paralysis and altering his perceptions (illusions and the time-warp thing) are likely significantly easier than forcing Harry to take physical or magical actions or from affecting the world outside of Harry. We've never seen her ability to do that. Also, I'm sure Harry would be able to fight and break her effort to stop him completely. It might have been long enough for Nico's purposes, but Harry would win that mental fight eventually. Point of fact, we also only actually know that Nico thought it was possible for Lash to stop Harry completely. Harry's prior battles with Lash, including locking her away in his mind, might have already trained him enough to fight that.

Making Harry think he's fighting illusions and winning while using his body to fix LC is no harder then making Harry fight illusions.

Then why is Harry absolutely amazed when Ivy can simultaneously cast different spells? Using magic requires focus and it's difficult to focus so completely on multiple tasks at once. There is no way Lash could focus on fixing LC and keeping Harry unaware of it and making Harry see illusions despite his active attempts to resist it.

Lash even told Harry he was going to die and the model was going to blow up and Harry didn't care he was going to do it anyway. Even even threatened to do it while she was mucking around with his concentration.

Right, and if she knew about the flaw she would have gone that one step further and told him "I'm not guessing, I've seen a flaw and you will die, but I can help you fix it, for a price." Clearly, she wasn't holding back in trying to stop him from using LC, so why would she hold back the one piece of information that would be almost certain to at least make him take a moment to reduce his chance of death?

Lash was able to accelerate Harry's brain, block mental attacks and has advanced magical knowledge that goes back to the begining of time.
Lash even knows the how and why Harry can hurt Outsiders with magic.

All of those are internalized uses of magic and personal knowledge that provide very little to no evidence that she could fix LC or force Harry to fix it. Further, they are not evidence that she even understands how to fix LC. There are lots of powerful and old Wizards who are far more knowledgeable than Luccio, yet only she knew how to make Warden swords. Just because Lasciel has lots of ancient magical knowledge that Harry lacks, building LC could still be one are of magic that he actually knows more about than Lasciel.

Lash actively keeps Harry from finding out what she can and can not do, because every time Harry learns these things its one less effective tool in her tool box.

No she doesn't. She frequently helps him voluntarily in hopes that he will become more and more dependent upon using her and eventually agree to pick up the coin.

[Viktor]

YLC?

#2 part 2 LC v2.0
If the point of LC was to show that Harry was building thaumaturgy muscle (specifically with theater spanning voodoo dolls) and the logical progression after the first one was destroyed is that he would build a 2nd that is more ambitious, what will v2.0 be like? 

I suspect that such a device would somehow be tied to Demonreach.  There is good reason to believe that Harry will end up dwelling in the hut by the lighthouse, and that will be where his new lab will be... So I posit that either LCv2.0 will be one of 2 things. 

• A portable model of Demonreach that he can carry around and use as a portable link to the benefits of that sanctum.
• A fixed model of something else (the world?) built in a new lab on Demonreach.  This diserves some extra bullets
  • Harry's new ability to go pretty much anywhere he wants via ways his mother found would certainly help facilitate gathering material for thaumaturgy links for such a model.
  • Such a model might have some interesting interactions with Harry's Demoreach Sanctum benefits.  Intelectus wherever the model goes?

You know what I just realized? LC is a MUCH weaker version of the Genus Loci(probably spelled it wrong) that Demonreach provides Harry while on the Island. It's use may have been to give Harry training on how to create such a tool, and perhaps now that he HAS it through Demonreach, he can attempt to replicate it across a wider scale given his newfound power and previous attempt (LC 1.0) at it.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Well, not entirely true. We know that at least one sword has been reforged, or reshaped. Are we absolutely certain that the Sword itself wasn't destroyed for this to happen?

I am seeing a distinction between the being reforged level of remade, and being destroyed by gross misuse such as sacrificing an innocent life, as is threatened in GP; that latter does not seem to be anything anyone involved with sees as being recoverable from.  I'm not seeing that a sword being physically melted down and reforged would need to entail any change in or risk to its metaphysical status.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

People often forget Lash knows exactly what Harry will and will not do and the best ways to manipulate him.

If we go by Uriel's description of angels, Lasciel does; whether Lash, who is constrained to running on a human brain, has Lasciel's level of ability to predict what a human will do is not a thing I would consider as being solidly established.

It still comes down to her being the only being that knew about LC, could fix it and was present.
The Gatekeeper doesn't fit the bill as shown by Turn Coat he didn't know Harry had taken Demonreach as his Sanctum.

I don't see how you get from "he didn't know about Demonreach" to "he can't have known about LC".

[Orbweaver]

I am seeing a distinction between the being reforged level of remade, and being destroyed by gross misuse such as sacrificing an innocent life, as is threatened in GP; that latter does not seem to be anything anyone involved with sees as being recoverable from.  I'm not seeing that a sword being physically melted down and reforged would need to entail any change in or risk to its metaphysical status.

Ok. Next question:

How do you take a Sword, which has the inherent qualities of Sacrifice (and I think it was Hope, right? I can't remember whether it was Fidellachius or Amorrachius that went through the reformation) and the Crucifixion itself imbued in it- and then not destroy and/or lose any of that while melting or replacing the blade and/or hilt? You're messing with more than just the physical properties of the thing itself by removing and/or adding to it to achieve a new shape.

I think of it as being like what happens when you try to implant a foreign blood type into your own system. Not only would it not recognize the incoming substance, but it would be likely to attack it. In this case, I think it makes more sense for the Sword itself to have been totally destroyed, making the later version necessary.

Edit: Also, Nicodemus, Lea, and a number of other entities certainly seem to have faith that the Swords can be unmade. It seems much more likely that they got that information from it having already happened somewhere along the line.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

If #1 is correct, then we have the follow up question, why put a mysterious and random attempt to hurt Harry in PG rather than any other book? Here we have 3 possibilities - a) It was an attempt by someone who isn't normally in Chicago, so that was their only opportunity, b) it was specifically designed to try to keep Harry from interfering with the events in PG or c) PG is just as good as any other book for a random, mysterious accident and JB needed an excuse for Harry to talk to Murphy, so it was convenient to use in PG. Notably, it could also be any combination of any of the above.

I'd note that the car-bomb in WN is, i think, not confirmed as having anything to do with the plot of that book, so it's not impossible mysterious random killer strikes twice in two adjacent books.

With #2, we introduce a character whose level of knowledge of future events and ability to manipulate Harry and the future are at least equal to Uriel.

Indeed, we could be Occamian and suspect Uriel of that intervention.

It turns the entire themes of the Dresden Files on its head. Rather than being a story about Harry and free will, it's a story about godlike entities who can control everything Harry does.

Some of us believe it is already that to a large extent; that Harry's free will is all the more significant for being a thing he uses really rather infrequently.

And since they all have such perfect knowledge, it isn't even a chess game where one godlike entity might outmaneuver another, because they already know who will win in the end, so it is really just a complex math equation that only has a single proof.

Not to be too reductionist here, it is ultimately going to be a series of novels in linear text with only one endpoint, so there are levels at which I do not find that metaphor inapt.

At a telling-a-good-story level, given that Jim has explicitly introduced characters who have the degree of ability to out-think a human angels have, it would seem inconsistent and unconvincing to me for any that are interested in Haryy not to mostly be able to play him much better than he knows or can see coming.

From a Doylist perspective, it adds absolutely nothing to the story. Imagine this scene of events: Gatekeeper warns Harry, Harry drives home and prepares to use LC, just before he finishes using LC, the phone mysteriously rings. Tada, JB could tell the exact same story without ever using an accident. It would have the exact same outcome and provide the exact same mystery (why did the phone ring at that precise moment?). The only benefit JB would get from setting up a complicated superentity plan to delay Harry by the precise amount of time needed is that JB has an opportunity to have Murphy and Harry talk without relying on a "random accident."

OK, from a meta-story perspective ?

PG seems to me to be notably different from all the preceding books in terms of how standalone it is.  A larger proportion of the significant players are people we've met before, and it's the first one where rather than there being a couple of loose ends, the ending is Harry explicitly acknowledging he doesn't have a clue about what was really going on at the centre of events.  From an Aristotelian point of view, the eight book of planned twenty-plus-three is the transition between Beginning and Middle, and the differences I mention above fit with that.  So if there was going to be a book for which "here is a random snippet of arc plot that could technically fit anywhere" was appropriate, PG seems like the best one to me.

That is a heck of a lot of knowledge for a guy that in TC, didn't even realize that Harry had claimed Demonreach as Sanctum and incorrectly predicting that Harry's plan would fail and cause more damage than good.

I'm inclined to think, considering how on-the-ball and well informed Rashid is in SK, that there's something specifically about Demonreach that is throwing him off in TC, rather than that TC is a reasonable standard for judging his degree of clued-in in general.  And he has specified he will not set foot on the island.

You think she secretly helps Harry and covers his tracks so he won't be angry that she secretly helped him, thereby insuring that Harry gets the benefit of having the coin without ever realizing the benefits he is receiving?

Indeed. If the object of the exercise is to corrupt Harry's judgement without him knowing it - as witness the anger issues Murphy calls him on in WN, which are already showing in PG (where he concentrates on roasting the Giger-Alien fetch rather than stopping to help one of its victims, whom he then realises he might have been able to save if he'd acted differently).  It fits that pattern.

Instead, she could avoid Harry's anger by providing help, forcing Harry to realize that with her help he can accomplish far more good (saving Molly) than he can without your help. Which is a better lesson for Lasciel "You need help from a mysterious source that wasn't me in order to accomplish your goals" or "I can help you accomplish your goals?"

The latter only works if she assumes Harry will be dispassionately rational about accepting her help, which he won't, because a) he has a pretty strong conviction that accepting help from Fallen will have long-term bad effects, and b) given a), Harry being Harry is going to be extreme ends of stubborn about it.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

How do you take a Sword, which has the inherent qualities of Sacrifice (and I think it was Hope, right? I can't remember whether it was Fidellachius or Amorrachius that went through the reformation) and the Crucifixion itself imbued in it- and then not destroy and/or lose any of that while melting or replacing the blade and/or hilt?

This depends on whether the properties are inherent in the material of the entire sword, or are inherent in the nail which could be separately removed (or at least, from Harry's descriptions of Amoracchius in GP, the nail seems to exist as a physically distinct entity rather than being melted down into the substance of the sword.)

Edit: Also, Nicodemus, Lea, and a number of other entities certainly seem to have faith that the Swords can be unmade. It seems much more likely that they got that information from it having already happened somewhere along the line.

Maybe; I'm not seeing it as impossible that they are both fairly familiar with the WG's rules of engagement and have faith in the swords being destroyed if those rules are broken from experience of seeing corresponding rules broken in non-sword situations, though.