The Dresden Files > GS Book Club
Ghost Story Book Club - Chapters 46-FINISH **MAJOR SPOILERS**
Jared:
--- Quote from: john4200 on July 31, 2011, 05:13:43 AM ---That seems an unimportant distinction. What do you think Demonreach should call the tree, if not parasite? My woody thrall? ;D
--- End quote ---
Magic is created by life and Demonreach is sitting on/part of(?) a leyline, which is a concentration of magic. So I would think that he'd call a tree part of the magical cycle.
Ashen0DarkFyre:
One question.
Who hired Stevie D, the pistols gunman who almost offs Butters in Changes?
Jared:
--- Quote from: LogicMouseLives on July 30, 2011, 07:50:58 PM ---Boy, oh boy. So many other things to talk about. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Let's start with the whisperer.
Uriel's description of the perp is pretty damned clear: Not just an angel, not just one of the Fallen but, "A being who could know a mortal's entire life. Could know his dreams. His fears. His very thoughts. Such a being, so versed in human nature, in mortal patterns of thought, could reliably predict precisely how a given mortal would react to almost anything." (GS page 450)
There's only one such being who has been in the position to know Harry in particular that well. Lasciel's Shadow. To me the conclusion seems painfully clear and inescapable:
Neurovore was right.
Not only was Lash not 100% gone after the end of White Night, she was not 100% redeemed. I don't think it's a coincidence that we were introduced (rather forcefully) in this book to the possibility and consequences of a spiritual being splitting itself into pieces over a deep disagreement, as Bob did with NecroBob.
My hypothesis at this point is that while the majority of the entity known as Lash accepted Harry's gift of a name and a piece of his soul, and gave up her existence––or at least that part of her existence that was directly connected to his brain––to save him from Vitto Malvora, in doing it, she left behind a very small portion of herself that disagreed with the decision. It was too weak to carry any connection to the true Lasciel anymore, thus the loss of the mark and the Hellfire, but just strong enough to hang in there for years, waiting for the right moment to blow its wad in a last ditch attempt to wipe him off the face of the earth. (Whether in retribution for resisting her or to try and prevent him from playing the role for which he is needed in future events hardly matters.)
--- End quote ---
I have two questions.
1) Why did Lashadow appear to be outside of Harry's body in Uriel's flashback?
2) If some of Lashadow survived, why could not some of Lash survive? That would allow Lash to be the one that said "Lies..." and give a nice bit of symmetry.
--- Quote from: LogicMouseLives on July 30, 2011, 07:50:58 PM ---But that still leaves the question open: How was that cheating? Harry and Lasciel's Shadow spoke many times during her residency. She provided him with Hellfire, showed him tricks for escaping from dangerous situations, and generally interfered in his life a great deal, without any noticeable balancing efforts from the other side. So how is this one sentence different?
--- End quote ---
Those were all requested and accepted by Harry. The trick to block out pain, as I recall, Harry had to ask for. And Lasciel didn't translate Etruscan until he said to. The Hellfire's a little trickier. He did explicitly call it up later on, I would need to look back for the first couple of uses.
--- Quote from: LogicMouseLives on July 30, 2011, 07:50:58 PM ---The seven word whisper==seven word whisper.
--- End quote ---
I'm still bothered by that. Seems way too easy.
dsolo:
I think everyone's being a little harsh about Harry involving Molly. He trusts her, and he was literally out of options to save his daughter. A choice between saving Maggie/becoming a monster or being completely helpless while the BC and the Red Court took over. Either way, his friends would have been in trouble. Kincaid was a good choice, because he's a professional and he'd make it clean. How would Molly have felt if he survived as Winter Knight, and turned into someone like Lloyd?
My feeling was that he wasn't going to get out of that contract so easily, and since he was in the lake, I thought Demonreach would have something to say about it. Losing everything in "Changes" seemed to be a good way to enable him to set up shop on Demonreach.
I only read the first 8 pages of posts, so someone else may have noticed this. In the flashback with Shagnasty (maybe Harry is a namer), it seemed like he recognized Harry as something other than a wizard. I got the impression that he was trying to take Harry out before he became more powerful.
re: Harry and Molly, the age difference between them is a lot less than between Harry and Luccio, so no agism here. Karrin has too many hangups to be a good long term match for Harry, but she would be a kickass Knight (tiny, but fierce!). Do you think he and Elaine will ever reunite?
As for missing characters, I did notice Mac's absence. He's not a major character, but he's always just there, being mysterious and competent. Harry wasn't the only one wondering about Thomas. I'm glad we got to see him at the end. Any chance that becoming a Knight would eliminate his vampire traits, and reunite him with Justine?
It's time to reread "Changes", or perhaps the whole series. It just keeps getting more complex and interesting. BTW, Billy should be a dad now (per the events of "Even Hand"). Does Harry even know about that?
LogicMouseLives:
--- Quote from: Jared on July 31, 2011, 06:46:38 PM ---I have two questions.
1) Why did Lashadow appear to be outside of Harry's body in Uriel's flashback?
2) If some of Lashadow survived, why could not some of Lash survive? That would allow Lash to be the one that said "Lies..." and give a nice bit of symmetry.
--- End quote ---
Well,
1) She almost always showed up as a separate entity when they were talking (any time it wouldn't be too much of a distraction for him), and the flashback Uriel was showing him is certainly not likely to be precisely representative of what a person standing there at the time would have seen. She's 'perceived' as an outside force, for the sake of being perceived at all.
2) I think you missed some of the point of this bit of my comment:
--- Quote from: LogicMouseLives ---Not only was Lash not 100% gone after the end of White Night, she was not 100% redeemed. I don't think it's a coincidence that we were introduced (rather forcefully) in this book to the possibility and consequences of a spiritual being splitting itself into pieces over a deep disagreement, as Bob did with NecroBob.
--- End quote ---
I think (based more on cryptic comments from Jim than anything in the books to date) that Lash did survive in some form, but she may very well not be present in the same manner, or her voice (if she even has one at this point) might not have the power to properly balance the dark-Lash's comments. Or maybe Uriel just wanted to do it hands on, because he sort of promised Harry that he would.
--- Quote ---
Those were all requested and accepted by Harry. The trick to block out pain, as I recall, Harry had to ask for. And Lasciel didn't translate Etruscan until he said to. The Hellfire's a little trickier. He did explicitly call it up later on, I would need to look back for the first couple of uses.
--- End quote ---
Hmm. Good point. But there were plenty of things Lasciel's Shadow did that Harry didn't ask for: playing shell games with the envelope in Proven Guilty, terrifying him into almost jumping out the window in Dead Beat after he figured out what Sheila really was, quite possibly other things we still haven't found out about. But none of those things appear to have been 'out-of-bounds' as far as the cosmic laws, the way the whisper was. So the mystery remains.
LML
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