Peace talks excerpt indications

[g33k]

... Michael's description is vague but it includes tentacles...

OTOH, he also described that as "the usual" so it's hardly a definitive field-mark!

[Yuillegan]

If you catch the attention of one of them, they will hunt you FOREVER.

Just saying.

Very interesting idea.

[123Chikadee]

Right! This would explain why time magic is forbidden by the council. I wonder if Rashid has to fight these creatures off all the time or what?

[g33k]

If you catch the attention of one of them, they will hunt you FOREVER.

Just saying.

That's the original Hounds of Tindalos; but of course we cannot be sure that the Cthulhu-Mythos origin of the Hounds (and other Mythos elements (which AFAIK is our best model for Outsiders, besides what canon shows and WoJ says)) is any proof of HPL being as specifically-correct-in-every-detail as Stoker was about BCV's.  "Cornerhounds" may be similar to HoT's but not identical...

IIRC there is WoJ that HPL was "onto something" in a similar manner to Stoker, but of course the Outsiders are a much more diverse and unknowable group than the BCV's.  Dracula was explicitly a "bible for BCV-slaying."  I don't think anything comparable is POSSIBLE for Outsiders; at best, the Mythos Stories are more of a "survival guide," a how to not die guidebook, in hopes of being rescued.  And a limited Guidebook, at that:  recall the Cold Days scene at the Outer Gates, where the Outsiders were more notworthy for NOT having any commonalities, than for any recognizable types or kinds.
 
Last but not least:  HoT's aren't even HPL's work!  So even if HPL himself was "onto something" (per WoJ) there is a clear line of argument that HoT's aren't part of that.  They were invented by one of his admiring sub-authors (whom HPL then later explicitly honored by copying into his own work).  But "the Mythos" as a whole is only partially HPL's work, and I suspect at this point it'd take a some effort (which may already have been done, in some wiki or article or somesuch) to extract the pure-HPL from the extended Mythos corpus.   AND YET... here they are, Cornerhounds, very Tindalosian, and explicitly Outsider-y.

I dunno, maybe... maybe the "Cthulhu Mythos" is sort of "Outsider-Template-ish," and Outsiders find it much easier to manifest if they do so via something Mythos-flavored that a bunch of humans already conceptualize...?  Maybe?  Call it a WAG...

All of which is, I guess, my way of arguing that we really cannot draw many firm conclusions at this point!
 

[morriswalters]

I've never read Lovecraft.  I don't generally care for horror as the real world scratches that particular itch. 

[g33k]

I've never read Lovecraft.  I don't generally care for horror as the real world scratches that particular itch.

Ditto, more or less.

I think I read one of his shorts (in an anthology I was reading) many many years ago.  Also don't play CoC the RPG, except on a rare occasion when it's the game my group is playing, and I just play along; maybe 5ish times in total?

But I do look into the Mythos, sometimes... such as when DF is making clear Mythos references!  ;-)

[Avernite]

I've never read Lovecraft.  I don't generally care for horror as the real world scratches that particular itch.

To be honest I didn't find it too horrible - as a non-native speakers, many of the more arcane words to describe certain horribleness just didn't come across as bad. You get a few stories where the horror is deeper (and thereby still comes across) but sometimes the horror is not much worse than 'oh the horror, those people interbred with other human 'races'' 

[Kindler]

Lovecraft isn't horror, it's Cosmic Horror. It targets a different fear response: inevitability and madness rather than sheer terror. Also helplessness; there's virtually nothing the protagonists can do most of the time. How are you supposed to stop Azathoth? You're not. The good news is that Azathoth doesn't notice you anyway, because he's taking a nap. If he wakes up, the universe ends. Better hope he stays asleep.

It's kinda like knowing about gamma ray bursts. Life on Earth could randomly come to an end one day if a star halfway across the Milky Way goes supernova. There is literally nothing anyone here can do to prevent that (though there's also nothing anyone here can do to cause that either).

The most hopeful stories in the Cthulhu Mythos (the collective works of many authors) are usually the ones with human antagonists rather than Things From Beyond. Sometimes it's stuff like "there's a cult trying to summon or awaken a Thing, protagonist finds out about it, temporarily thwarts the plan, and must live with the knowledge that anyone else could pick up and complete the rite whenever they want." Then there's the "group of people who Bred With Something They Shouldn't Have" kind of stories (Innsmouth stuff). Those are usually all right, too.

And yeah, obviously Jim needed a new Monster. But having one that appears to be based off of an existing creature and stating that it's an Outsider is extremely interesting. I'm already smelling tinfoil. It all depends on how much of the source material for the Cornerhound (if indeed Hounds of Tindalos are the source for the Dresden creature) Jim wants to keep. We'll know based on either Eb's/Bonea's/Someone Else's exposition or Harry's internal narration: if it mentions Time at all, then hold onto your butts.

[morriswalters]

Lovecraft isn't horror, it's Cosmic Horror. It targets a different fear response: inevitability and madness rather than sheer terror.

So I assumed, thus my comment on the real world.  I like stories with hope. 

[Yuillegan]

Kindler, great argument!

I quite like the sobering nature of Lovecraft, and would find it both amusing and interesting if Jim pulled a fast one on us and for example revealed that TWG is Azahoth or something. He almost certainly won't, but it would be quite funny.

Mostly I think beings like Azahoth are analogous to the Old Ones (dresdenverse - can we really say that if they exist outside his Creation...?) and TWG/Creator/Almighty seems above or at least more than equal to them. But it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. I do find it interesting how much DnD is in there though, although almost certainly Jim has combined the Demons of the Abyss with that of the Far Realm to create the Outsiders.

To my mind, they gave us this scene (with this particular monster) for a reason. They want us to think about it. It wasn't just by accident - which says to me that this monster isn't going to be just a run of the mill, in this scene and never again type of problem. They could have given us any scene with many other types of villains. But they chose this.

[Bad Alias]

A lot of the time, "they" give us something tantalizing but not spoilery. Or at least try to.

So I assumed, thus my comment on the real world.  I like stories with hope. 

Same.

[Kindler]

I don't generally read horror, because I personally dislike gore. I prefer fear over squick. Like, I'll never watch or even be able to enjoy stuff like Hostel or Saw (after the first one, anyway), because I mostly just find it gross rather than scary. I remember when Fear Factor was first airing, and like half of the "challenges" were "eat this bucket of spiders." Not exactly measuring fear there.

But genuine fear, tension, and horrifying suspense? Hell yeah, I'm on board. I remember reading 'Salem's Lot at three in the morning by candlelight. I spent the whole night holding a cross and keeping one eye on my bedroom window. I didn't move until the sun came up.

Lovecraft doesn't usually illicit that strong of a fear response for me. I mostly read it because I find it terribly interesting. Most of it is unsettling rather than scary, in my opinion.

BUT! If you're not into hopelessness, you're not into hopelessness!

[morriswalters]

I don't generally read horror, because I personally dislike gore. I prefer fear over squick. Like, I'll never watch or even be able to enjoy stuff like Hostel or Saw (after the first one, anyway), because I mostly just find it gross rather than scary. I remember when Fear Factor was first airing, and like half of the "challenges" were "eat this bucket of spiders." Not exactly measuring fear there.

But genuine fear, tension, and horrifying suspense? Hell yeah, I'm on board. I remember reading 'Salem's Lot at three in the morning by candlelight. I spent the whole night holding a cross and keeping one eye on my bedroom window. I didn't move until the sun came up.

Lovecraft doesn't usually illicit that strong of a fear response for me. I mostly read it because I find it terribly interesting. Most of it is unsettling rather than scary, in my opinion.

BUT! If you're not into hopelessness, you're not into hopelessness!

The scariest thing I've seen is Alien. This film made my wife furious with me.    The Exorcist is right up there as well.  However John Carpenters the Thing while scary left me cold since it is unresolved.  The difference is in the endings. As a general rule print can't hit me that way. so I've read Preston and Childs, The Odd Thomas Books and so on. And I don't do torture porn.

[Just Al]

I read Horror for much the same reasons I read Sci-Fi and fantasy. I enjoy seeing what an author can do with an idea. Much of it is meh, relying on the gross-out factor rather than coming up with something that can genuinely be frightening.

That said, I'm hard to frighten because I have to believe something could actually happen before I'm frightened by it.
Semi-immortal serial killers?  yea, right. Nuclear war? I could see that happening.

[KurtinStGeorge]

To get back to the OP.  Because of the amount of time since the last book, I; make that we, have had a long time to think about Peace Talks.  I; and probably a few of you out there, have thought this book could be the right time and place for Harry to permanently lose his mentor.  It's not that we want to see Ebenezer die, but the basic structure of the Hero's cycle is that at some point the mentor character leaves the scene; usually feet first, leaving the hero to stand on their own.

Of course, the risk of doing something expected (predictable) is that the writer's work can start to look stale and unimaginative.  So I'm thinking something else might be about to happen.  Something that makes Harry stand out to the rest of the White Council, but doesn't necessarily kill off Eb.  Plus, Jim has said he prefers to torture his characters, as opposed to just killing them outright.

So re-reading that scene with Ebenezer and Harry, I was taken with the phrase, "the most feared wizard on the planet."  Ebenezer is feared because he wields the Blackstaff.  Perhaps not every potential supernatural enemy is as well informed as Kincaid is on this fact, but I bet every potential supernatural enemy knows that Ebenezer McCoy can do some extremely scary stuff.  So we see Eb's hands are trembling from the psychic attack he is undergoing.  Harry also felt this attack, but he fought it down and is in better control of himself.  Now add to this something from way back, the last conversation Harry had with Lash just before she took a psychic bullet for him.  She told Harry he had "the potential to wield power over Outsiders."  Well so far that power has allowed Harry to recover from and resist Outsider mental attacks and trash talk one of the Walkers, HWWBf.  Oh, and Harry's name is now some kind of a weapon.  It's impressive that Harry can stand up to Outsiders, but it's not my idea of how a wizard would "wield power over Outsiders."  I believe there's got to be more to what Harry can do to or with Outsiders that he hasn't discovered yet.

Remember Lucio's reaction when she saw Zombie Sue.  She was impressed but there was more than a little revulsion in her reaction as well.  So imagine the reaction of the Senior Council if Harry publicly demonstrates some of this hidden power over Outsiders.  Depending on how it plays out, I could see a reaction going something like this; "Yea!  You've saved us.  Holy crap, did you see what Dresden did?  Dear God, what if he aimed that power at us?"  As usual, the White Council will misinterpret what they see.   They; and probably a good chuck of the supernatural community, will begin to see Harry Dresden as the most feared wizard on the planet.  They thought Harry was scary when he wiped out the Red Court and came seemingly back from the dead, so now they will see something that scares them even more.  So even if Eb doesn't die in Peace Talks, even with the Blackstaff he won't be able to produce the results that Harry does.  So a kind of changing of the guard occurs, no matter what Eb's fate is.  Oh, something bad could still happen to Eb.  Remember what I said about Jim torturing his characters, but I don't think he has to die in order for Harry to stand on his own.

On a totally unrelated matter.  The Dresden Files being highlighted in Entertainment Weekly?  I don't think that has ever happened before.  Good for Jim that his work is getting a major push.  Jim may be a best selling author, but I doubt his work puts up J.K. Rowling's numbers.  A lot of people in the entertainment industry are looking for the next "Game of Thrones."  (If we forget season 8 and a good chunk of season 7.)  This could be a sign that someone; probably the people who purchased the TV rights to the DF's, are trying to give Jim's work a chance to be the material for that show.