Dresden Files: Winter is coming (Cold Days Spoilers)

[Spamotron]

You're misinterpreting what I'm saying.

I'm saying those two power sources are fundamentally incompatible. You can't mix them without blowing up the structure (Harry).

Honestly, I hope Harry doesn't take up a Coin. It doesn't seem totally in-character for him. I'd rather he win more on his own skill and power (I was sad enough he took up the Winter Knight mantle, and hope something can be done about that).

While awesome, it's doubtful. Jim said it doesn't have runes or anything, and that it's just a plain-jane .45 Long Colt Winchester Rifle.

I would imagine he'll either make a new staff, or come up with an alternate focus device (maybe something that requires less juggling of items in his hands).

The most common fan hypothesis about how Harry can take up a coin without becoming a mustache-twirler is that when the time comes Lasciel will attempt to absorb Lash from inside Harry's mind and that will go very poorly for Lasciel. If the presence inside the coin isn't evil anymore it and the sword aren't incompatible anymore. Though I don't think Harry will take up one of the swords either they require a mindset I just don't see Harry ever having.

The harder part is the Darkhallow initially people said oh just do it in an area with no innocent bystanders. But then Changes established that spirits even if they aren't the ghosts of dead humans are still people who can change, grow and have dreams of their own. As such the Darkhallow which devours huge quantities of spirits en mass is pretty damn evil no matter where you do it. One thought is that Harry could empower himself by only devouring evil destructive spirits but that's still pretty damn grey morally speaking, and how does that even remotely sound like a good idea for Harry's sanity?

[Mauve Shirt]

I love that Lash theory. Those two ARE going to fight, according to WoJ.

"Pretty damn grey" and "not remotely good for Harry's sanity" pretty much describe all of his decisions to date!

[Weimann]

Honestly, I hope Harry doesn't take up a Coin. It doesn't seem totally in-character for him. I'd rather he win more on his own skill and power (I was sad enough he took up the Winter Knight mantle, and hope something can be done about that).

Harry's victories have never (or, well, at least not past the first few books) been a matter of him overcoming his opponents through sheer overpower, despite that being his forte in terms of magic. They have always been messy affairs where his determination, compassion and readiness to make sacrifices have played a huge part in the outcome.

He's practical like that; if he believes he needs a Denarian coin to be able to do what he needs to do, then he will take it up. He'd rather avoid it, of course, but if push comes to shove, then he'll bite the bullet and try to deal. Push him to a sufficiently critical limit, and yeah, I'd call it in character for him.

[KnightDisciple]

Harry's victories have never (or, well, at least not past the first few books) been a matter of him overcoming his opponents through sheer overpower, despite that being his forte in terms of magic. They have always been messy affairs where his determination, compassion and readiness to make sacrifices have played a huge part in the outcome.

He's practical like that; if he believes he needs a Denarian coin to be able to do what he needs to do, then he will take it up. He'd rather avoid it, of course, but if push comes to shove, then he'll bite the bullet and try to deal. Push him to a sufficiently critical limit, and yeah, I'd call it in character for him.

I mentioned his skill, and his sheer stubbornness is part of his skillset.

To a point, I agree.

My issue is that if he takes up a coin, he will stop being Harry. With the Knight's mantle, we know he's his own person.
(Seven words, remember?)
But with a Coin, there's a very real risk that he'll be lost to the demon, or at the very least adversely affected. We saw how he got more aggressive and temperamental with just the shadow of Lasciel in his brain, a shadow he was affecting as well. But with the Coin, it won't be a small fragment; it will be the full demon. That...would not bode well for Harry staying Harry.

As for that fan theory....eh. Not really a fan of it.

[Eldan]

Lasciel will overpower him and make him angry and irrational? Harry will take up a different coin, of course!

I vote for Nikodemus'

[Soras Teva Gee]

The most common fan hypothesis about how Harry can take up a coin without becoming a mustache-twirler is that when the time comes Lasciel will attempt to absorb Lash from inside Harry's mind and that will go very poorly for Lasciel. If the presence inside the coin isn't evil anymore it and the sword aren't incompatible anymore. Though I don't think Harry will take up one of the swords either they require a mindset I just don't see Harry ever having.

I happen to believe ideas like this make the Fallen positively giddy with the opportunities they offer to pervert and ruin you.

While not explicit by the way the Nickelheads should be functioning... the coins themselves have no power to be stolen like this. The Fallen backing it is loaning/expressing its power through the host in exchange for the eventual damnation of the soul involved and opportunity to cause misery and sin on Earth. The Fallen don't want to, they don't have to. Best case would be Lash and Harry blocking out Lasciel, but they'd not be able to use anything from it. More likely Lash 'dies' in an instant.

We already know what the Denarians want and they are worse then anything Harry's yet come across. The weak are playthings for anything stronger, and the strong are daughter-****ing rascist liars that will kill millions/billions for a few evulz without even the delusion of more then pain and suffering as the end.

Endgame for Harry taking up a coin isn't stealing demonic power to punch out Cthulhu... its after that choking out Nick to steal his noose, offing Deidre too, and then giving one those coins to Maggie and Molly (probably over Michael and Charity's corpses) to carry on right where Nick left off. If that makes you feel a little sick to your stomach don't be alarmed, it is only sign that you have properly understood why the Nickelheads are worse then anything else.

The harder part is the Darkhallow initially people said oh just do it in an area with no innocent bystanders. But then Changes established that spirits even if they aren't the ghosts of dead humans are still people who can change, grow and have dreams of their own. As such the Darkhallow which devours huge quantities of spirits en mass is pretty damn evil no matter where you do it. One thought is that Harry could empower himself by only devouring evil destructive spirits but that's still pretty damn grey morally speaking, and how does that even remotely sound like a good idea for Harry's sanity?

People talking about the Darkhallow I find often forget how 'Big Magic' in the Dresdenverse relies on symbolism, emotion, and circumstances. To use something like a curse you have too want the target dead and/or harmed, the morality of the whole affair is a prerequisite and the acts to accomplish something big will play out accordingly. There just isn't going to be a way around committing heinous acts with this

If a savvy guy like Cowl could have performed the rite without something closely resembling the circumstances we saw he would have.

[Eldan]

Harry could always attempt a Darkhallow in the middle of something like a Fomorian city.

I mean, if he could, he would probalby have done it in the middle of Chichen Itza.

[Spamotron]

It's still mass murder for the sake of personal power. Also the Fomorians keep slaves and unlike the movies slaves don't stay in one massive pen from which you can free them all. They'll be all over said city doing various jobs. No possible way to evacuate them all.

[The Glyphstone]

People talking about the Darkhallow I find often forget how 'Big Magic' in the Dresdenverse relies on symbolism, emotion, and circumstances. To use something like a curse you have too want the target dead and/or harmed, the morality of the whole affair is a prerequisite and the acts to accomplish something big will play out accordingly. There just isn't going to be a way around committing heinous acts with this

If a savvy guy like Cowl could have performed the rite without something closely resembling the circumstances we saw he would have.

That, and we know the Darkhallow is powered by the ghosts it consumes. If Dresden does it out in the middle of nowhere like some suggest, either it has no effect because there weren't any spirits to eat, or its radius just expands and causes more devastation until it's hit the Minor God Quota.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Quite aside from the ghosts its worth remembering that one of the preparations Cowl made was blacking out Chicago to create a climate of fear. And the Reds at Chitzen Itza had a whole massive murder orgy in the lead up. Truly large scale magic seems to require certain environmental factors to function.

Even aside from the ghosts one needs a certain human population to set the right mood for things. So say Formor or Red Court vamps would not be a substitute (even aside from being technically faeries in the former case) since they wouldn't fit the formula by not being human. To say nothing of the numbers issue.

[Aidan305]

I came up with an interesting, yet plausible tinfoil hat theory earlier:

There's a third side to the conflict, with whom are involved Mavra and the Formori. Not only that, but Mavra is a mole inside the Black Council working for this third party.

This is based off a few things that we've seen thus far:
Firstly, Mavra and Cowl
These two know each other. We can be fairly certain of that since it's probable that Mavra was the one who taught Bianca sorcery. She was with Bianca, Cowl and Kumori at the Party Where Stuff Happened. A popular theory because of this is that Mavra is involved with the Circle.

However, if this were the case, why is she so adamant in Dead Beat that Cowl not get his hands on the Darkhallow? After all, a win for Cowl is a win for Team Evil, right? Evidently not. Specifically because of Mavra's intervention, Harry entered the fray and stopped the Darkhallow. Since (we believe) Mavra can't use the Darkhallow anyway, it could very well be that this was her plan all along, and getting a powerful grimoire out of it was simply an added bonus.

We've seen from Blood Rites, and its consequences in Dead Beat that Mavra knows how to pull Harry's strings to get him to do what she wants. She knew that he would go after the vampire nest so that she would be able to get the photographs.

I will, at this point, avoid linking to the Chessmaster trope.

Having established that Mavra has worked against the activities of the Circle before, I would like to fast-forward to Changes.

I've stated my theory before that Harry was being used in that book by someone wanting to reduce the influence of the Black Council. The Alliance between the Reds and the Circle has been known since the outsiders were summoned during an attack on the White Council, and given the presence of Cowl and Kumori at The Party it probably goes back a good bit further than that.

The rise of the Formori, as we've seen from Aftermath, was no mere opportunistic grab for power. It was carefully calculated, and it just happened to co-incide with a large power vacuum opening up.

Now, pretty much everyone in the supernatural world considers Harry dangerous, but there are few who understand just how spectacularly lethal he can be if you get him really angry. Marcone, Nicodemus, Mavra, Lara, McCoy, Mab and Lea are the only ones I would consider capable of both understanding this, and understanding how he would react if his daughter were taken.

I don't think that Martin would. Not unless he was prompted by someone else, and I think that someone was Mavra. She placed the idea, and it went forward and the Red Court did something spectacularly stupid. They never took Harry seriously, otherwise they wouldn't have gone near Maggie.

But someone knew what would happen. Someone was working with the Formori to make sure they would be read when the Red Court, the Circle closest ally, fell.


And I'm willing to bet it wasn't the Grey Council.

[Spamotron]

The main thing that screws with everything is that we know Time Travel magic is possible otherwise there wouldn't be a law against it and a powerful and respected elder mage tasked with enforcing it.

It must be extremely hard, yes. But the Black Council has an extreme amount of power on its side doesn't give a damn about the laws of magic and thematically the entire point of courting Outsiders for power is to do things normal magic won't let you do because they are in a sense "outside" the natural order.

Of course we know that in the future Jim plans to dedicate an entire book to the subject. But the question is why is it just one book and the entire series hasn't been about an intertemporal war?

Actually, how do we know that it hasn't?

[Soras Teva Gee]

You don't have much in the way of time travel because time travel only works to be pretty meaningless with no real changes taking place, you can tell by how everything exists in the first place.

There are abuses to be had but not in to edit history, most certainly not your own, so a villain even if insane enough just won't be able to say rewrite the political situation of the supernatural world.

The worst abuse really useful would be retrieval of something that no longer exists in the present, whether an item or information. Abusable certainly but for presumably a lot of work its kinda a low pay-out as to effect your own time whatever you gain will have to be brought back and used in real time.

(Presumably most villains liking the idea of existing in the first place simply don't bother and those so unhinged are either self-defeating or obtain little benefit)

And Prescience beyond the sort of vaguest of potential plot threads is a trap all its own for anyone but the Big G, just ask Paul Atreides about how badly it sucks.

[Spamotron]

It let's you do a lot more than that if the foreshadowing in Changes is any indication. Forzare

[lord_khaine]

Of course, if Harry's the original Merlin, then according to another theory he's his own grandpa. That theory being of course that the journals in Eb's office are not only from master to student but from grandfather/father to son.
Going only by the Dresden Files, Merlin founded the white council, wrote all the laws, and was custodian of one sword. Harry founded the gray council, will break all the laws, is custodian of two swords.

Oh, and he's also a guide and mentor for troubled magical youths.

Ahh, Harry did not found the grey council.

[Mauve Shirt]

Yeah, I know, the only ones that really work are the sword one, the troubled magical youths one, the inherited journals and the being a wizard.

Harry and Molly are Cowl and Kumori from the far future gone back in time to destroy the White Council. Harry took up a coin and went evil and also got more powers. He became Kemmler's apprentice. He wanted to start the Vampire War to lead Past Harry into becoming this self. He hadn't tried the Darkhallow in his previous past, and didn't get to complete the Darkhallow on this attempt because he foolishly got caught by his younger self. Kumori doesn't kill Harry because she knows he has to save her life from faeries the following year.
Time travel theories are fun!

[Lvl45DM!]

It let's you do a lot more than that if the foreshadowing in Changes is any indication. Forzare

What foreshadowing?

[hamlet]

Ahh, Harry did not found the grey council.

No, but he named it.

And the Black Council.

Among other things.

That seems to be one of Harry's greater powers: naming. Or at least his willingness to name things. It changes a lot of things, even if only in subtle ways and, as best I can tell, there's actual magic in it. Naming the Archive Ivy actually did a bit to change her from the impersonal thing she was to what she became later, and is in the process of becoming (seriously, I see her having a crush on Harry, which could lead to all sorts of ugliness in the road ahead).

Naming Shagnasty and the "Nickleheads" robs them of their gravitas, fear, and power. Not to mention dignity. It diminishes them.

What significance does it have for the story? Don't know. But I think it will later on.

[Eldan]

Don't forget Uri. That was a good one.

I'm thinking it gives him power over Outsiders. Naming the unnameable, and thereby making it possible to be affected by magic.

[hamlet]

Don't forget Uri. That was a good one.

I'm thinking it gives him power over Outsiders. Naming the unnameable, and thereby making it possible to be affected by magic.

Indeed, Uriel got upset with Harry because Harry left of the "-el" suffix. That has a whole lot of negative connotations in context. LOTS of them. More than have been commented on than I've seen.

As for Outsiders . . . I dunno. I think that might possibly be part of it, but I don't think that's the entirety of it. A lot more has to do with the runes on Demonreach and the day of his birth and what his mother was planning. Not enough data at this time.

[Lord Seth]

Looks like I can finally preorder the book now, it now has a release date of November 27.

[Soras Teva Gee]

I'm thinking it gives him power over Outsiders. Naming the unnameable, and thereby making it possible to be affected by magic.

While I can't say that this would apply to all of them... Outsiders have names. He Who Walks Behind has an identity and so forth.

More generally I think they have names, we just were made to forget them *BANG*

Thomas: Nothing to see here folks. Move along.

[thorgrim29]

I still have not read backup.... Probably should be doing that. And yeah, naming things is important, don't forget Bob in dead beat. The day was basically saved because Harry named him, and I'd be willing to bet that Bob's hornyness is a side effect of being the tutor of a powerful hormonal teen who has a rather undefined power to affect stuff he shouldn't be able to.

I don't know about you guys, but I can see Harry pulling a con on the Nickleheads, using them for something gratuitusly destructive and then completely eliminating them. Something to keep in mind regarding trickery is that Loki is still a good-ish guy since Ragnarok hasn't happened yet and Harry is backed by Odin. Speaking of Ragnarok, want to bet that Surtr is hiding in the woodworks?

[lord_khaine]

I still have not read backup.... Probably should be doing that. And yeah, naming things is important, don't forget Bob in dead beat. The day was basically saved because Harry named him, and I'd be willing to bet that Bob's hornyness is a side effect of being the tutor of a powerful hormonal teen who has a rather undefined power to affect stuff he shouldn't be able to.

Its a personality trait he had long before Harry aquired him, according to comments he has made about seducing shepherdes.

[Eldan]

Speaking of Ragnarok, want to bet that Surtr is hiding in the woodworks?

The nordic giants actually sound like good candidates for Fomorhood.

[hamlet]

Speaking of Ragnarok, want to bet that Surtr is hiding in the woodworks?

Harry is Surtr.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Its a personality trait he had long before Harry aquired him, according to comments he has made about seducing shepherdes.

Loosely supported by his comments that Kemmler... changed... Bob while he was in possession of the skull.

The nordic giants actually sound like good candidates for Fomorhood.

Well we more or less know what the Fomor are but I don't recall everything they were mentioned to be related too.

It is tremendously annoying to me that Even Hand is not in Side Jobs as having read that first would have immensely improved Aftermath in that book.

I still probably unfairly think they are going to be a suspicously similar substitute for the Reds. Not that they are anything alike but in story role. Be a large force to provide a background of trouble, be icky and with zero sympathy points, and probably going to be of minimal actual involvement in the story as it develops. We may well hear more about them then we see.

[Eldan]

Leah mentioned that they were not just the celtic Fomorians, but that it was a general term for creatures form all over the world that, in their mythologies, lost some kind of war and were banished from the earth. So the giants could fit.

[Aidan305]

The more I read Ghost Story and Aftermath, the more I find myself desiring to run a post-Changes game set in Ireland, with the Formor trying to take back the land which was once theirs.

Incidentally, has anyone here got any speculation about who Murphy's Royal ancestor might be?

[Soras Teva Gee]

Leah mentioned that they were not just the celtic Fomorians, but that it was a general term for creatures form all over the world that, in their mythologies, lost some kind of war and were banished from the earth. So the giants could fit.

From what I remember of Bob's rant its all far enough back a lot of modern distinctions wouldn't hold because everybody was having "Epic Sex" or whatever.

Still by what they've shown tells us what they really are. Something I find pretty disappointing actually.

Incidentally, has anyone here got any speculation about who Murphy's Royal ancestor might be?

Sure:

Spoiler

Show

No this doesn't quite actually work... I don't care. Irish mythology overfloweth with characters anyways so there's no way to tell.

....

And well Ireland is close enough that that this:


Is just as plausible too. Who says the Murphy's go back entirely on the Emerald Isle, lot of demographic shifts over the centuries you know.

Besides we already have the Merlin end connected...

Which reminds me? Do people think Jim either did not know or did not care that Fidelacchius shouldn't be a katana for what sword it supposedly is?