What's happening in Peace Talks?

[Rob]

The first rule of a con is: don't let the mark think too long about things.  I'm pretty sure Harry is being conned, but I don't know by whom.  That said, I have some thoughts on the matter.

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First: Although several people 'know' Justine is pregnant, we never actually see evidence of a pregnancy. Harry makes some vague quip about an aura, but he never actually uses the Sight.  You'd think he'd jump at the chance to see his niece-or-nephew with the Sight when the niece-or-nephew is still in the process of being formed: you want to talk about magic, that's potent stuff right there.  And, come to think of it, literally nobody else saw any evidence, either.  The people who know, know only because Thomas or Justine told them.  Prediction: Justine's not pregnant, but Thomas certainly thought she was.  Why?  Because it made him much easier to manipulate into doing something recklessly stupid and foolish and inexplicable.

Second: Did I mention Thomas's attempted assassination is recklessly stupid and foolish and inexplicable?  What if the entire point of the attempted assassination isn't to kill anyone, but to create chaos that forces Harry to do terrible damage to his own alliances?  Look, e.g., at what Harry did to his relationship with Ebenezar.  Look at how he almost wrecked his frenemy status with Lara.  Look at...

Third: The Titan is a hell of a distraction, isn't she?  She's taking up all of Harry's attention right now, isn't she?

Fourth: What if there was a bad guy so powerful, so subtle, so over-the-top, that this bad guy would be willing to orchestrate a Titan attacking Chicago just to ensure Harry was going to be too distracted to notice what was happening around him?

Fifth: Don't we already have a bad guy like that?  Namely, Nemesis?

Sixth: Isn't it kind of interesting that Thomas isn't able to say anything clearly?  Harry just assumes he's saying 'Justine' and asking Harry to look after her.  What if Thomas is saying 'Justine' because he's trying to warn Harry?

Seventh: Nemesis has infected Justine.  Nemtine then manipulated Thomas into doing something so reckless it would force Thomas's number one ally, Harry, into a series of reckless and potentially alliance-wrecking moves in order to save him.  The Titan's arrival is both a feint and an attack all at once: if Harry wrecks his alliances, the Titan will make short work of him.  If Harry keeps them, the Titan will keep him busy for long enough so that Nemesis can advance its own agenda.

Eighth: But wait, Justine's a mortal.  Isn't there something about mortals and free will, and whenever that's threatened by forces-from-beyond Uriel gets off the bench?

Ninth: What if Uriel has already come off the bench and Harry is his unknowing agent?  What if Uriel saw this coming, and thus ensured Harry would have the placard and the Spear of Longinus and two Knights of the Cross on-call?

Tenth: I'm thinking virtually all the action in Peace Talks is a shell game, it's three-card monty, meant to distract the readers from what's really going on.

Discuss! 

[Rob]

Having now read Battle Ground, I have to say I'm kind of pleased with my predictions above. 

[Mira]

Having now read Battle Ground, I have to say I'm kind of pleased with my predictions above. 

 What I want to know, is the mortals cannot be infected bit purely a theory stated here by us that said long enough and hard enough believed to be absolutely true?  Or is there a WOJ out there that states that and either Jim out right lied to us or changed his mind on the subject?  Or did he just sing, "I ain't a going to tell you..." And we just ran with it believing what we wanted to believe?

[Rob]

Every WoJ I've seen says the secret sauce mortals bring to the party is free will, is the ability to make choices.  That leads me to believe Nemesis can't infect a mortal: it has to be invited in.  The monsters might be able to make you do things, but they can't make you choose to do them.

Or to put another way: if Nemesis can overrule free will, then why hasn't it overruled Harry's already?

[morriswalters]

What I want to know, is the mortals cannot be infected bit purely a theory stated here by us that said long enough and hard enough believed to be absolutely true?  Or is there a WOJ out there that states that and either Jim out right lied to us or changed his mind on the subject?  Or did he just sing, "I ain't a going to tell you..." And we just ran with it believing what we wanted to believe?

I don't know that Jim has spoken to it at all.  One of the more common ways to lie is to talk so much that nobody can keep track of exactly what you said.  A safe assumption is to believe that Jim will do whatever he thinks he needs to do to achieve what he wants to achieve. Three months from now and 30 book signings later alter there will be 30 new WOJ's full of his current thinking.

[Mira]

I don't know that Jim has spoken to it at all.  One of the more common ways to lie is to talk so much that nobody can keep track of exactly what you said.  A safe assumption is to believe that Jim will do whatever he thinks he needs to do to achieve what he wants to achieve. Three months from now and 30 book signings later alter there will be 30 new WOJ's full of his current thinking.

In other words we ran with what we wanted to believe, that mortals couldn't be infected.  I was also right that it might have been Justine that called up the Outsider cornerhounds after Harry and Eb.  As Harry has said before and in Peace Talks, only a mortal can call up an Outsider, but I guess maybe the doorman is still suspect.

[Snark Knight]

I don't know that Jim has spoken to it at all.  One of the more common ways to lie is to talk so much that nobody can keep track of exactly what you said.  A safe assumption is to believe that Jim will do whatever he thinks he needs to do to achieve what he wants to achieve.

From a Doylist perspective, Nemesis is somewhat diminished as an antagonist / plot device if it can't cause Harry to second-guess the fairly good chunk of his friends and allies who are 100% human.

Then again, I'm not sure Justine isn't a scion of something.

[Mira]

From a Doylist perspective, Nemesis is somewhat diminished as an antagonist / plot device if it can't cause Harry to second-guess the fairly good chunk of his friends and allies who are 100% human.

Then again, I'm not sure Justine isn't a scion of something.

She could very well have been a scion of something, that is the simplest explanation.  However that could become a plot device well that by the end of the series Jim goes down once too often, making it predictable.   Another possibility, just as simple and unique to Justine, she suffered from mental illness to begin with, suggesting that she might have been infected from the get go.  It would have failed as an experiment by Nemesis to infect mortals however somehow she was thrown in the path of the White Court, specifically, Thomas.  His feeding kept Nemesis from driving her completely insane.. Oh boy, this smells of a set up from the beginning..

[vultur]

From a Doylist perspective, Nemesis is somewhat diminished as an antagonist / plot device if it can't cause Harry to second-guess the fairly good chunk of his friends and allies who are 100% human.

Also, the Gatekeeper wouldn't have to be so careful about talking about Nemesis if every member of the White Council was 100% immune to Nemfection.

[Yuillegan]

I for one never believed mortals couldn't be infected by Nemesis. In fact, when Cold Days came out and Lily literally stated which mortals had been infected most people said she is probably mistaken. Ridiculous. Even when the author tells you straight up, it's like no one trusts him.... ah well that's his own fault.

Truth is, Jim is far more consistent than he is given credit for and it's a better assumption to assume what he writes is true and speculate from there than assume it's false.

But I am not so certain now that Nemesis does infect multiple people. I am reading back but can't find any solid evidence that it infected multiple people at once. If anything, it seems to be that it possesses the victim. Maybe one a book I'd say.

[Pirate101]

Wasn't Nemesis infecting Maeve at the same time as Lea at some point? I think there might be a limit to the number of outright possessions, but definitely more than just one at a time. Or maybe it makes a huge difference whether Nemesis receives an invitation or not.

Free Will has never been invincible. Other possessions (by some of the Denarians e. g.), mind-magic, dehumanizing transformations by the Fomor .... are all part of the Dresdenverse. The theory that Nemesis can't infect humans is based on them having Free Will. Imho that's too easy. Maybe humans have the potential to resist Nemesis because of Free Will, but they'd have to actually use it to do so. Justine has always been the victim type, I doubt it that Nemesis found it difficult to corrupt her. In hindsight, we should probably have a close look at the situations where she appears strong and smart. It started during or shortly before White Night...

[Rob]

I am amused by how many people think I'm saying mortals can't be Nemfected.

I'm only saying I think mortals get a choice in it.  And that's the thing about choice: sometimes people choose badly.

Remember that the Deniarians can't subvert a mortal's free will.  But they can persuade, tempt, seduce, bribe.  Even when Harry touched the coin and had Lash in his brain working 24/7 to corrupt him, even then he had a choice.  Not even a fallen angel can touch mortal free will: mortals always get to choose.

Even when Lasciel drove Harry to suicide, Uriel is careful to point out that suicide was still Harry's choice.  Lasciel influenced mortal free will but did not subvert it — and even just that subversion was, itself, enough cause to get Uriel to come up off the bench and start directly taking a hand in matters.

If Outsiders can infect mortals and subvert their free will willy-nilly, where's Uriel?  Where's Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael?  The fact we haven't so far seen the Archangels get involved in any way against the Outsiders suggests strongly to me that the Outsiders are respecting free will.

They're just really, really good at tempting mortals into saying "yes"... Deniarian-level good at it.

[Arjan]

Or it just suggests that outsiders are not their department. The whole thing about acting when the fallen act is probably specific for the fallen.

[Thana†os]

Rob -

You should really predict more stuff LOL

[vultur]

The theory that Nemesis can't infect humans is based on them having Free Will. Imho that's too easy.

The argument I remember pre-BG was not so much that it was impossible as that it wouldn't really accomplish much - changing a mortal's Nature is a lot less effective if they aren't bound to their Nature and it is constantly changing anyway. But yeah most people don't seem to actually use Free Will that often/that strongly.

But anyway - in CD we saw outright possession/control with Cat Sith. That seems to be what happens with Justine at the end of BG.

Wasn't Nemesis infecting Maeve at the same time as Lea at some point? I think there might be a limit to the number of outright possessions, but definitely more than just one at a time.

Maybe one outright possession/total control at a time, but once Nemesis changes someone's Nature (as was done with Maeve) it stays changed without constant input from Nemesis?