[Spoilers!] First chapter of PT

[Mira]

Why can't the baby feed like a regular human baby

   We are talking about the fetus inside the placenta.  The fetus will get it's food like any normal fetus, the Hunger demon inside the fetus also has to have something to eat, so it feeds off of mom's emotions while she is carrying the baby. 

Quote

    “Yes,” Thomas said. “And my kind are all but infertile to boot. Happened anyway.”

Which means he had very good reason to believe he was sterile...  In other words a very low sperm count..

[didymos]

Which means he had very good reason to believe he was sterile... 

No, it means he had good reason to believe he was all but infertile.  Not the same thing.

In other words a very low sperm count..

We don't know that that is how the Hunger affects fertility.

[Yuillegan]

Because it doesn't?

Except that the baby’s Hunger will draw life energy from Justine. She’s going to be fed upon continuously for the next seven and a half months.

1. Just another example of Jim adding in information when it suits, retconning previously established canon.
2. WCV eat emotion, they choose which one based on the house they are raised in generally. But in Blood Rites it is explained that it is usually during sex (Thomas even says rape is the traditional way to settle differences in the Houses of the White Court). I guess you all will say that it just feeds on the Mother's emotions during it's formation. So what does it feed on once it is born? As established previously, WCV don't actually become their full selves until they feed for the first time. And if you say well that's because they don't need to feed before that transformation, well then why do they feed in the womb? And you can't argue they feed of their own emotions, otherwise the White Court wouldn't need to feed on humans.
3. So back to the argument. The baby, underdeveloped WCV feeds on just ambient emotion from the Mother. It then either A) stops feeding until it's first feeding at 18 or B) it somehow feeds itself one way for 18 years then suddenly changes that entirely and completely changes form into a full blown WCV.

The whole thing would be much simpler if Jim hadn't broken his own rules and the baby was just a pretty normal baby and fed like a regular baby.

[didymos]

1. Just another example of Jim adding in information when it suits, retconning previously established canon.

What was the previously established canon?  I don't recall anything being said about WCV pregnancies. 

BTW, this info about WC pregnancies isn't new.  Jim told us about it back in 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gmu76ritoQ&t=3586

[Arjan]

Thomas the hairdresser only needed intimacy.

[g33k]

1. Just another example of Jim adding in information when it suits, retconning previously established canon.

Except there is no prior canon on fetal WCV's.

Biologically, there's critical developmental stuff happening; it makes some sense that the same might be true of the Whamp-Demon.

Of course, there's ALSO a bunch of critical biological development that happens between birth and puberty...

In theory, one could argue (or rather:  one could have argued) that the Hunger/Demon isn't "born" until first feeding.  But (per @didymos' link, above), this info isn't actually new in 2020; we've just never seen it before (like the whole Oblivion War being off-screen, until revealed in Backup; one could equally argue that Jim "just made it up" then, too...), unless we caught that WoJ online (I find that the info IS reflected in the text-based WoJ compilation... is that a recent add, or has it been there for a while?)

So WCV's Demon is more like a caterpillar/chrysalis/butterfly thing:  caterpillar while babe is in the womb, leeching off the mother.  Shortly after birth, it does a chrysalis-like thing.  Then the hormones rage in the teen years, and the Demon hatches from the chrysalis-or-whatever, and it's a bee-yoo-ti-ful butterfly... which rapes someone to death.

[Mira]

Thomas the hairdresser only needed intimacy.

   Or rather he nibbled to keep from starving if I remember correctly..  He tried not to feed at all
but it didn't work out. 

[g33k]

Or rather he nibbled to keep from starving if I remember correctly..  He tried not to feed at all but it didn't work out.

IIRC, (it's at least implied that) Toe-moss could have fed more deeply, even as a hair-dresser.  Could have rendered his clientele into helpless pleasure-thralls, addicted to his touch.

He chose instead to send them on their way with a pleasant feeling of sensuality and eros, to go delight (and delight in) their chosen lovers.

But you're right -- he was nibbling to stave off starvation, never "eating a full meal."
 

[Mira]

IIRC, (it's at least implied that) Toe-moss could have fed more deeply, even as a hair-dresser.  Could have rendered his clientele into helpless pleasure-thralls, addicted to his touch.

He chose instead to send them on their way with a pleasant feeling of sensuality and eros, to go delight (and delight in) their chosen lovers.

But you're right -- he was nibbling to stave off starvation, never "eating a full meal."

Going back to what Thomas said at the end of Turn Coat,  eating the way he'd really like to
would be stupid.   Thus even then I think he walked a fine line between nibbling/giving pleasure to the hair dressing experience and setting off red flags that would draw attention to him.

[Arjan]

   Or rather he nibbled to keep from starving if I remember correctly..  He tried not to feed at all
but it didn't work out.

If the foetus keeps doing that for nine moths it will add up to something quite big.

[Mira]

If the foetus keeps doing that for nine moths it will add up to something quite big.

  The fetus does feed for nine months,  that is why a pregnant mom is told she is eating for two.  I guess the embryo Hunger demon has to as well.   Different from adult Thomas, once the Hunger demon is reawakened by that first feeding becomes a true symbiotic relationship.  If the Hunger demon is starved of the emotion it needs for nourishment, then it's host starves.  Until he went into the hair dressing business when he was living with Harry, Thomas was actually starving to death no matter how much food he ate.  So the host feeds the Hunger demon with emotions and in turn the host lives a longer life, is stronger, heals at a rapid rate.

[Bad Alias]

The whole thing would be much simpler if Jim hadn't broken his own rules and the baby was just a pretty normal baby and fed like a regular baby.

I agree. The best explanation is probably some sort of dormancy period like a lot of insects. Which is basically what Jim says in the video in didymos's comment:

(click to show/hide)

What was the previously established canon?  I don't recall anything being said about WCV pregnancies. 

BTW, this info about WC pregnancies isn't new.  Jim told us about it back in 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gmu76ritoQ&t=3586

IIRC, they don't feed on emotions, they feed on souls using powerful emotion as a vector. The text probably repeatedly refers to them feeding on emotion, but if we look to what happens to Justine in Blood Rites and what Molly says about it after her SoulGaze in Changes, I think it's pretty clear that they feed on souls. I'll look up quotes if there is general disagreement.

IIRC, (it's at least implied that) Toe-moss could have fed more deeply, even as a hair-dresser.

It's somewhat implied in the short story Backup, but it could also be read that feeding deeper would be accomplished by another means.

Based on what Jim said, I wonder if a severe childhood injury or illness would cause the dormant Hunger to awaken.

[Arjan]

I do not think they feed on souls. They feed on your spiritual power, your life energy.

[didymos]

I do not think they feed on souls. They feed on your spiritual power, your life energy.

That's what Harry says in Blood Rites:

Thomas was a vampire of the White Court. They didn’t drink blood. They fed on emotions, on feelings, drawing the life energy from their prey

Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 15). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[g33k]

That's what Harry says in Blood Rites:

Yeah, but Harry's knowledge & expertise in the matter of Souls was, at that point, the famous fraction  diddly/squat.