Denarian Short Story

[SerScot]

We’ve seen Dresden beat Nicodemus three times.  It makes Nic and the Denarians seem somewhat less than threatening.  Would anyone else be interested in reading short story where the Denarians win?

[Mira]

We’ve seen Dresden beat Nicodemus three times.  It makes Nic and the Denarians seem somewhat less than threatening.  Would anyone else be interested in reading short story where the Denarians win?

Well, they don't exactly lose either.....

[SerScot]

Nic is foiled each time.  It works to weaken him as an antagonist.  I’d like to see what he’s like when he wins.

[Mira]

Nic is foiled each time.  It works to weaken him as an antagonist.  I’d like to see what he’s like when he wins.

Sort of, but the Denarians go on...  We know what he is like when he wins... Do you not remember the scene where he wiped the frozen cement with Murphy?  How he whispered sweet nothings in her ear as he did it?  Stuff that long term will make her question everything she has ever stood for?  How he manipulated her so skillfully into going where she and he wanted to go, resulting in a broken Holy Sword?  Yeah, long term it got set right, but if you want to see how it looks when Nic wins reread those passages in Skin Game..

[nadia.skylark]

We’ve seen Dresden beat Nicodemus three times.  It makes Nic and the Denarians seem somewhat less than threatening.  Would anyone else be interested in reading short story where the Denarians win?

Definitely!

Well, they don't exactly lose either.....

To date, their "successes" have been:
1) killing a guy who was already dying, and who chose to let it happen;
2) giving Harry a Denarian Shadow, whom he redeemed;
3) torturing two powerful people briefly, ensuring that they would hate them and work to screw them over; and
4) breaking a holy sword which was remade even stronger not a day later.

Even without discussing their outright losses, this sure looks like losing to me.

Nic is foiled each time.  It works to weaken him as an antagonist.  I’d like to see what he’s like when he wins.

This.

[123Chikadee]

Same here. It'd be cool to see Nic get a definitive win.

[KurtinStGeorge]

Well, they don't exactly lose either.....

We've seen a short story from Marcone's point of view so I wouldn't mind seeing one from Nic's POV.  However, I think it would have to take place after the events of Skin Game.  Nicodemus is on his own and fighting off whoever Marcone sends after him.  We see a hunted Nicodemus turn the tables on his pursuers and decide he had become too reliant on Deirdre, and too reliant on other denarians like his unpredictable ex-wife, and in the end Harry and Michael had done him a favor; by being alone and without allies they helped Nic sharpen his wits and skills.  Near the end of Skin Game, Nicodemus offered one of the coins to Goodman Grey.  At the end of the short story we could see Nicodemus decide he has regained his confidence and decide now is the time to take on a new disciple and ally.  We see him offer the coin which he still had with him, but we don't see who he offers it to.     

[SerScot]

We've seen a short story from Marcone's point of view so I wouldn't mind seeing one from Nic's POV.  However, I think it would have to take place after the events of Skin Game.  Nicodemus is on his own and fighting off whoever Marcone sends after him.  We see a hunted Nicodemus turn the tables on his pursuers and decide he had become too reliant on Deirdre, and too reliant on other denarians like his unpredictable ex-wife, and in the end Harry and Michael had done him a favor; by being alone and without allies they helped Nic sharpen his wits and skills.  Near the end of Skin Game, Nicodemus offered one of the coins to Goodman Grey.  At the end of the short story we could see Nicodemus decide he has regained his confidence and decide now is the time to take on a new disciple and ally.  We see him offer the coin which he still had with him, but we don't see who he offers it to.   

Precisely.  If Harry always beats Nic (and he has three times now) Nic loses his sense of threat.  We need to see how Nic wins, without qualification.

[Mira]

We've seen a short story from Marcone's point of view so I wouldn't mind seeing one from Nic's POV.  However, I think it would have to take place after the events of Skin Game.  Nicodemus is on his own and fighting off whoever Marcone sends after him.  We see a hunted Nicodemus turn the tables on his pursuers and decide he had become too reliant on Deirdre, and too reliant on other denarians like his unpredictable ex-wife, and in the end Harry and Michael had done him a favor; by being alone and without allies they helped Nic sharpen his wits and skills.  Near the end of Skin Game, Nicodemus offered one of the coins to Goodman Grey.  At the end of the short story we could see Nicodemus decide he has regained his confidence and decide now is the time to take on a new disciple and ally.  We see him offer the coin which he still had with him, but we don't see who he offers it to.   

  Actually I think things are being set up for Nic to change sides because he is increasingly being isolated..  He is losing out as the leader of the Denarians,  however for him it isn't just about giving up coin and noose, if he does those things he turns to dust..

You are not going to see a total win for Nic, because that has a huge ripple effect of the Fallen winning over Heaven...  Not saying it couldn't happen, but not likely..

We have yet to see the aftermath for Murphy after her losing encounter with Nic..  Not just the physical, but the emotional as well..  If ultimately that turns her away from Harry for example, that could be a huge win for Nic...   If she is more physically limited than anticipated she may be tempted to take up a coin thinking she can handle it...  Unlikely, true, but then again I don't think the Murphy/Lasciel dynamic of Harry's nightmare/wet dreams was fully played out in Skin Game satisfactorily...  As in Hannah/Lasciel just didn't have the same impact as ultimately a Murphy/Lasciel would verses Harry.   It could be foreshadowing of things to come.

[Mr. Death]

When Nic wins without qualification, it's things like the Black Plague.

Marcone, we're able to root for and read his short story because as bad a guy as he is, he's up against something worse.

I don't want to read a story about Nicodemus successfully murdering innocents by the truck load to fuel his own selfish agenda and -- in all likelihood -- also murdering good people like the Knights trying to stop him.

If I wanted to read that kind of thing I'd have stuck with Game of Thrones.

[toodeep]

To be fair he does have one big win - he has the holy grail.

Also, he can have definitive wins that don't cause the apocalypse.  The short story could be about him raiding a church facility to free up some coins and destroy/corrupt some data about himself, and successfully give a recently liberated coin to someone in the upper hierarchy of the Church or something else that would be a more subtle way of complicating Michaels life.  Though that wouldn't advance the overall story line much.

It might be interesting if in addition to doing some of those things he was doing/gaining something that would help in whatever his plans are for the grail.

[Mira]

When Nic wins without qualification, it's things like the Black Plague.

Marcone, we're able to root for and read his short story because as bad a guy as he is, he's up against something worse.

I don't want to read a story about Nicodemus successfully murdering innocents by the truck load to fuel his own selfish agenda and -- in all likelihood -- also murdering good people like the Knights trying to stop him.

If I wanted to read that kind of thing I'd have stuck with Game of Thrones.

Amen...

[nadia.skylark]

When Nic wins without qualification, it's things like the Black Plague.

Marcone, we're able to root for and read his short story because as bad a guy as he is, he's up against something worse.

I don't want to read a story about Nicodemus successfully murdering innocents by the truck load to fuel his own selfish agenda and -- in all likelihood -- also murdering good people like the Knights trying to stop him.

If I wanted to read that kind of thing I'd have stuck with Game of Thrones.

I don't mind if Nicodemus' win is countered later, so long as it takes a while. Like, if it had taken a couple of books to repair Fidellachius, rather than having it happen less than a day after Nicodemus broke it.

Maybe we could see him convince one of Harry's friends to take up a coin and leave, then have a book where you see the person slowly being corrupted, then in another book something happens and Harry has to work with whoever while they still have a coin, and at the end of that book Harry has managed to convince them to surrender the coin, but they still feel awful about what they did. Something like that. I feel like that would be something that would feel like a win for Nicodemus for long enough to have an impact, without being super depressing.

My main problem with Nicodemus is that none of the bad stuff he does seems to have negative consequences past the end of the book he does it in. Even when he gets Harry to touch Lasciel's coin, the very next time we see anything to do with the Harry and Lasciel's shadow thing, it's Lasciel's shadow helping him to avert a disaster, and the worst Harry ever does because of Lasciel's shadow is damage a couple of storefronts.

To be fair he does have one big win - he has the holy grail.

I'd thought Michael indicated that there wasn't much Nicodemus could really do with that. But I might be wrong.

Also, he can have definitive wins that don't cause the apocalypse.  The short story could be about him raiding a church facility to free up some coins and destroy/corrupt some data about himself, and successfully give a recently liberated coin to someone in the upper hierarchy of the Church or something else that would be a more subtle way of complicating Michaels life.

This.

[Fcrate]

Nah. But it might be fun to see Nicodemus win in the past. One of his successes, or the story of his infiltration of the church to remove all records talking about him. Retrieving coins. Any of that, I'd be up for.

[Mr. Death]

I don't mind if Nicodemus' win is countered later, so long as it takes a while. Like, if it had taken a couple of books to repair Fidellachius, rather than having it happen less than a day after Nicodemus broke it.

I kinda see the point, but then you'd have people thinking that Jim "chickened out" of leaving it broken. Having it fixed in the same book it's broken makes it clear that was the plan all along.

Maybe we could see him convince one of Harry's friends to take up a coin and leave, then have a book where you see the person slowly being corrupted, then in another book something happens and Harry has to work with whoever while they still have a coin, and at the end of that book Harry has managed to convince them to surrender the coin, but they still feel awful about what they did. Something like that. I feel like that would be something that would feel like a win for Nicodemus for long enough to have an impact, without being super depressing.

We already saw all that from Harry's perspective. We don't need to see the exact same thing from the outside. And nearly all of Harry's friends have been personally injured by one of the Denarians, there's no way in -- or out of -- Hell that they'd be stupid enough to take a coin. If they were that stupid they'd already be dead.

My main problem with Nicodemus is that none of the bad stuff he does seems to have negative consequences past the end of the book he does it in. Even when he gets Harry to touch Lasciel's coin, the very next time we see anything to do with the Harry and Lasciel's shadow thing, it's Lasciel's shadow helping him to avert a disaster, and the worst Harry ever does because of Lasciel's shadow is damage a couple of storefronts.

Shiro is still dead. Michael is still crippled. Murphy is still grievously injured. At least one Splattercon!!!-goer is dead because of Lasciel's influence.

Sure, if you only measure it on the basis of "did he successfully kill or completely turn the main character to the dark side," then sure, he's harmless.

But then, so are the vast majority of villains ever written.

I'd thought Michael indicated that there wasn't much Nicodemus could really do with that. But I might be wrong.

Too early to say. Even Nicodemus just destroying it or perverting it could be a bad thing.

This.

Again, I really don't see the appeal of 30 pages of Nicodemus doing bad things to good people and getting away with it.

Plus? A story's mainly interesting if it challenges its protagonist in some way. Nicodemus isn't going to be challenged by that. He's challenged by people like Harry and Michael.