Edit: I don't see how discussion of the SG sample chapters can add to this topic, and I'd really like Griff's input, but he won't read it unless we avoid the sample chapters. So...no SG sample chapter spoilers in this topic please.
So I doubt I'll be able to finish my current reread before the SG release (too much Diablo 3 in my free time) but I'm currently working my way through FM, and this passage got me wondering...
"You're unconscious, moron," my double said to me. We can finally talk to one another."
The thing is, this is the second time
that day that Harry had been unconscious due to injuries and fatigue. The first time, the night before, he passed out after getting shot in the shoulder and using magic to cover their escape. He ended up not waking again until the afternoon of the day Id showed up.
The first possible explanation I can give for “why then?” is the Doylist reason that that’s when Jim needed him to advance certain things in the plot. However, if we want to ascribe more significance to Id, then we should have better reasons than that, so we have to ask what happened when he fell unconscious this time that is somehow different.
I’ll try to bust out the following excerpts in chronological order, and discuss their relevance before coming to the next one.
“A stuffed animal, man!” I roared at him. “Don’t mess with a wizard when he’s wizarding!” I let out a cackle that threatened to bring the wild hysteria that still lurked inside me back in full force, and banished it with a ferocious scowl. Poor Rudolph bore the brunt of both expressions,”
This is a passage illustrating how Harry is demonstrably a little unhinged in the sequence of events before passing out and spending time with Id. This particular quote is significant to me because it reminds me a lot of some of his behavior in SmF during the Hobbs fight when he was dealing with the mental whammy Mab laid on him to wipe his memory of fire magic. It’s also significant because during the Id sequence, Id straight up said, “If you weren’t getting pretty close to crazy, would you be talking to yourself right now?”
Next passage:
Something nagged me about this entire deal, something that was missing, but I’d be damned if I could figure out what it was
I think Harry might have thought something similar a couple times running up to falling unconscious, but this one is practically on the same page as the excerpt above. It implies that Id his “subconscious” is trying to get something through to him right then.
I gripped my blasting rod and started sucking in all the power I could reach, scooping up my recent terror, reaching down into the giggling madness, scraping up all the courage I had left and pouring it into the kettle with everything else. The power came rushing into me, purity of emotion, complex energies of will, and raw hardheadedness, all combining into a field, an aura of tingling, invisible energy that I could feel enveloping my skin.
[snip]at least a page of intervening stuff[/snip]
Red anger flooded me, rage that I realized with some dim part of my mind was as much a part of the beast and its blood-maddened frenzy as it was of me.
I included these two excerpts together even though a page of action intervenes because I wonder if when grabbing for energy, he pulled in some kind of taint from the curse’s aura. The timing and the “realized with some dim part of my mind” quip make me wonder if it’s tied to Id’s showing up. Just a thought.
This also ties a bit into the next passage, considering some of what he did with that energy. First a summary though. Harry pulls off a moment of awesome blasting the Loup Garou through multiple buildings in a blast of rage and fire. Then after debating using thaumaturgy to burn the Loup Garou from existence, he instead goes the protection rout and cripples him using the snoopy doll intending to save both MacFinn, and any of his potential victims. Immediately after casting these two spells he thinks:
“It seemed so empty to me, at that moment. Meaningless to be a hero. I felt burned on the inside, as though the fire I had hurled at the creature had scoured away all the gentle feelings that had been there and left a fallow ground behind where only red emotions could flourish.
So not only did Harry apparently expose himself to the Loup Garou’s aura while wielding magic, but we know that
how you use magic affects who you are. Interestingly, though, Harry cast two spells with natures almost diametrically opposed immediately before these haunted thoughts. One was a massive, destructive evocation that wreaked havoc, and the other was a working of thaumaturgy designed to protect both the target and anyone who could have ended up in the target’s path.
What an amazing snapshot of Harry’s inner struggle in using his strength to wreak havoc and protect at the same time.
The stairs were tough, and for a minute I thought I might just lie down and die on the first landing, but a helpful old fire-man lent me a hand down to the first floor, asking me several times if I needed a doctor. I assured him that I was fine and prayed that he didn’t notice the handcuffs dangling from either wrist. He didn’t. He was as wide around the eyes as everyone else, stunned.
Woahboy. SmF makes “helpful old man” cameo set off flags in my head. Could be nothing, but it happens practically the same page as Harry passed out. Maybe Uriel was on the scene during these events, and maybe he has some influence on the Id front…
Soooo, in conclusion, if being unconscious due to fatigue and trauma earlier that day wasn’t enough to elicit a visit from Id, then three possible influences that enabled the Id sequence would be (interesting enough, this order is both sequential, and IMO, of probability)
- Harry was getting unhinged by what was going on.
- Harry exposed himself to some bad Loup Garou mojo, and possibly exacerbated it when using his magic to wreak havoc.
- Vague possibility of angelic influence
Edit: Some great posts below about the possibility that Uriel made a cameo in this sequence. To sum up, including the above point, there are 3 flags that indicate a possible Uriel Cameo here is reasonable.
- Like the fireman in this scene, "helpful, nigh anonymous old man" seems to be how Uriel would appear when he wanted to be subtle in SmF.
- Griff points out that Uriel's "advice" to Harry in GS, the line from Buckaroo Banzai, "No matter where you go, there you are" was also said by Id Harry in this scene.
- ballplayer72 points out that Carmichael died in this scene and ended up recruited to serve in Uriel's shadow Chicago police corps. Uriel might have been on the scene to do the recruiting and took a slight detour to help Harry down the stairs.
