Then how can they be saved? And why do the fallen in the coins bother with them?
OK, both of those questions are taking what I had said out of context. Let me re-phrase.
The free will that Nicodemus and Tessa have does not give them the ability to touch Michael’s house. This is why the two must stand on the sidewalk while their vanilla mortal goons open fire. That’s why Nicodemus has to pull Tessa’s hand back when she almost retaliates
onto the yard. If Nick and Tessa could stand to the side and even shoot
guns at the yard, they wouldn’t need goons. That is a border they cannot cross. To do so would invite retailiation.
Just like the angels have to wait ineffectively sometimes. And we still do not know exactly how the rules work, they have plot clauses I suspect.
If I understand you correctly, it sounds like you’re suggesting that they just wait because they have to wait, and we don’t know why they wait and we can’t infer the answers from all of the evidence – it’s just some sort of arbitrary rule designed to fit the plot.
I disagree. I think that we have substantial evidence from the way that Nicodemus, Tessa, and Grey respond, plus the way that Binder and Bob and the Toungueless Goon Squad responds, to infer what would happen if Nicodemus reached onto Michael’s property with his will in order to retrieve something, even his coin.
Besides – if Nick and Tessa and Grey are all pretty darn sure that stepping onto that property would invite angelic retaliation, what on earth means that Anduriel would be safe if his vessel entered into that area?
They can block the summoning with the box and holy hankie thing. It is all part of the rules.
The coin laying in the grass is not the same thing.
Wait, what rules? I thought you said we couldn’t know how the rules work? Now you know how they work?
If you believe that a blessed handkerchief is able to prevent Nicodemus from retrieving his coin better than a dozen angels tasked to destroy any force they perceive as malevolent from entering their area of guardianship, then please, give us some sort of evidence. These are two different forces that are powered by and governed by the same force, and I’ve provided logical arguments as to why it wouldn’t work. If an inanimate object that is blessed with God’s will is able to protect it better than twelve active and focused beings
doing that will, which are also powerful enough to destroy planets when on-mission, cannot – you need to provide some sort of evidence to back up such a claim.
So far, all you’ve stated is that Dresden could have used Lashiel’s instruction to magically reach past Dresden’s wards and the circle of protection in order to yoink the coin. But it’s not Michael’s fence or his threshold that is the danger here; the angels aren’t a ward to get past. They’re an active force and
will act on anything that is inside their area of guardianship.
Which it did for Harry too in small favor. Karen gave it a try and the sword did its best maybe it could have succeeded but....
Um. Well. Yes, you can argue that the sword
did shine while Harry was holding it in Small Favor, but with reflected firelight. Not with holy light.
I took two steps forward, ignoring Michael, and drew the sword from its sheath. Fidelacchius was a classic chisel-tipped katana, encased in what looked like an old wooden walking cane. I kept the blade clean and oiled while it was in my care. It came free of its casing without a sound and gleamed coldly in the violet light of the fire.
--
Murphy’s fingers closed around the hilt of the holy blade. She drew it maybe an inch from the scabbard. White light blinded me, blinded Deidre, blinded Murphy, blinded Thomas, blinded everyone.
This is the same light that is in Skin Game when Murphy holds the sword. It’s described as glowing blue, up until the moment that she chooses to use the sword selfishly.
“Damn you!” Karrin snarled. Her hips and shoulders twisted to deliver the lethal slash. The light of the blade died away as abruptly as an unplugged lamp. The thrum of power that resonated through the very air vanished.
So no – Karrin still could have made the right choice. Dresden even sees the trap and tries to warn her before, though the Genoskwa prevents him from speaking.
Again you are talking about how she performed as a knight while I was talking about her decision to pick up the sword in the first place with all her doubts about being proper knight material. Both the decision and the doubts were correct in my opinion.
I agree that it’s not a great idea to take up the sword if there were any doubts. If Dresden was custodian and offered her the sword, asking for her oath to uphold all that the Knights do, she would have either refused it or have made the decision to uphold the code earlier, and not have been so easily manipulated by Nicodemus. But she still had the choice here. She
could have made the right one and put her faith in TWG, and she didn’t.
And miss the chance of even getting more out of it? Harry was getting himself into problems quite nicely.
OK, so if Nick is just holding out in order to get a chance of destroying a sword, which he didn’t even know would be in play until Karrin pulls it out, then what else is he holding out for after he puts Murphy down? Why didn’t Nick say, “OK, Gen, now REALLY crush his skull.”?
Nick can harm Karrin because Karrin attacked him, but she didn’t do so on Dresden’s orders. Her actions and choices were her own. And when Nick tells Harry to “call off your dog before I put her down” he tells him to end the little doctor and things can go back to normal. Harry finds a way out by seemingly
attempting to end Butters and failing, which is how they get into Nick’s next ploy.
Nicodemus will say what suits him. That is what he always does, that is his nature. Even if it bites him in the ass later.
Um, let me re-phrase again. Nick cannot just say whatever he wants afterwards
and expect Mab to agree to his version of events and give him another Winter Knight. And where is this “his nature is to say whatever he wants, even if it bites him in the ass later” thing coming from? Nicodemus is a schemer and a plotter, every move he makes considers the likely consequences and long-term results of his actions. Him killing Dresden and claiming that Dresden betrayed him, even though he offered Nick no violence, fought the stone lion, fired magic at a fleeing target and blasted said target with the same amount of kinetic force as a 55 MPH truck? No. Dresden stuck to the letter of the agreement. Nick is in the same position that Harry is in later at Hades’ vault – if Nick wants to justly kill Dresden, he has to provoke Dresden to attack outright, which could not be misconstrued as anything other than a betrayal of the agreement.
It would not matter if you were dead.
I do not understand this argument. It does not make sense in the context of what I was saying. Do you disagree that it is Mab’s interpretation of events that ultimately matters?
Nick knows this, so he offered Harry a way out by surrendering Butters. It is at this point when Harry truly broke the deal by shooting Butters over the carpenter's fence. He is obligated to help Nick and Nick specifically ordered him to surrender Butters, but Harry do exactly the opposite right in front of Nicodemous. At this point Nick already have a free hand. which is why the moment Harry forzare Butters over the fence, all sorts of things happens at once. The Genoswa move, Nick pull out a gun and shoot Murphy, because at this point the truce is truly broken by Harry.
I disagree; if the truce was truly broken at this point, then why would Harry have phrased his attack by saying first, “Sorry, Butters, nothing personal” before blasting him in the chest? Directly before this, Nick does not call for Harry to
surrender Butters; he calls for him to
end him. Forzare is primarily used as an attack spell. Dresden and Mab can certainly lawyer that Harry
did attempt to end Butters; he just did a particularly incompetent job of it. The reason that everything moved when it did was because Nick suddenly lost one point of leverage, and needed to gain another – instead of threatening Butters’ life, he threatens Harry’s.
And from earlier… forgot to respond to this one; sorry.
Uriel does not think human life that important anyway, the soul is more important.
Their souls are saved and for Uriel that is the most important point but Karen took the sword to save a loved one.
OK, chew on this. In The Dresden Files, we *know* that there’s an afterlife. We know that the soul, the true core of a person’s being, is eternal and lives onward. We know from Harry’s specific experience that the act of dying is not necessarily a horrible experience, and that there are other things onward. And we know from Deidre’s fate that there are some really, really horrible ways that you can spend all of eternity.
If that was the case… why
wouldn’t the state of the soul be far more important than a person’s life? Compared to eternity? Absolutely, it is worth risking a life to save a soul. To paraphrase Harry in Proven Guilty – everybody dies. What matters is, what are you going to do with the time you have?
Life and death are certainly important, but we mortals on this side of life have a very one-sided, limited perspective. Death is not an end, but a change, and a beginning of sorts in the Dresden Files.
