The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
[CD spoilers] Small Favor
Vairelome:
Excellent work, Elegast and knnn. I have one quibble with a side point, however--the motivation for messing with Marcone.
Marcone has been a repeated target of Nemesis's plotting since SF, which long predated his connection to the Accords. I agree that targeting him in this instance had the additional benefit of forcing Mab's hand to protect her Accords, but I think Marcone has value to Nemesis in his own right, either in subverting or removing him.
(My own WAG regarding Marcone's importance is that he's something of a darker foil for Harry, and like Harry, could be a person-of-significance in repelling Nemesis's designs. I don't mean to suggest that he's also starborn, necessarily, but that he's got something special going on. In specific, I think the background of the Mirror Mirror universe will have Marcone as the central hero, and a darker and harder Harry as the sometime-ally, reversing their relationship in the main universe's plotline.)
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
This is a remarkable piece of work. Well done indeed.
Question it raises for me, though; if Nemesis-through-Namshiel is working towards entrapping and infecting the Archive, what's Nemesis-through-Maeve's motive in sending in the hobs ? Crossed wires or variant motives among the Nemesis hosts seems to run counter to what we are told in CD about the nature of Outsiders.
Given how outgunned the hobs are by the combination of Harry, ivy, Kincaid and Michael, is "the hobs are a heads-up from Mab to prompt Ivy to take more care with her security" still salvageable in this model ?
I am still suspicion of the precise timing of Mab's burst of rage at the end of the book, and how effectively it seems to deflect Harry from thinking about Namshiel basically ever again. I think the similarity with Mab messing with his mind at the beginning of the book to remove his memory of combat-fire magic while freezing his eyes from spite is not accidental. Before CD I argued that the line about Mab and Uriel having a common enemy that day could refer to those specific events having happened to put Mab in conflict with the Denarians as a whole, to whom Uriel is long-term opposed; at this point, I can read that the other way around, that events happened to put Uriel into conflict with an enemy to whom Mab is long-term opposed.
Is Mab actively distracting Harry from that line of inquiry to conceal that Namshiel is working for her all along still salvageable ?
Another thought; Nicodemus' monologuey bit while watching the fish in the tank, with his shadow circling outside, seems to be parsed by Harry as a metaphor in which the fish are mortals and the beings outside the tank are Fallen; if we take that rather as the fish in the tank are everyone in the universe and the beings outside are Outsiders, which bits of information is Nicodemus trying to determine whether Harry knows ? (I do not, myself, believe Nicodemus' reaction of surprise and anger is any more than trying to keep Harry distracted.) I do think there's a recurring series pattern of Evil Overlordy monologues pretty much always having an ulterior motive, from Victor Sells; projected shadow delaying Harry until the demon can catch up with him in the storm in SF to Cowl keeping Harry occupied while Kumori steals Bob in DB.
Orbweaver:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on December 14, 2012, 08:16:07 PM ---This is a remarkable piece of work. Well done indeed.
Question it raises for me, though; if Nemesis-through-Namshiel is working towards entrapping and infecting the Archive, what's Nemesis-through-Maeve's motive in sending in the hobs ? Crossed wires or variant motives among the Nemesis hosts seems to run counter to what we are told in CD about the nature of Outsiders.
--- End quote ---
Possibility: Nemesis is keeping the identities of those it has infected separate from infected hosts. The right hand, so to speak, does not know the left's intentions, motivations, or identity. That way, if one infected agent is coerced into revealing information, he or she effectively cannot present a list of other infected members to an enemy. It presents a huge logistical problem in terms of a pawn's plan countering or even nullifying other plans of equal import by another pawn, but this is counterbalanced in that one agent may not effectively expose the rest. It was oft repeated in Cold Days that identifying the presence of Nemesis is far from a simple task.
Edit: This does seem to beg the question of what happened when Mab asked Lea who else was infected.
Gman:
This Nemesis infection sounds kind of like the Shadow of a Fallen. Sort of like Lash is but instead with a more powerful Outsider. It will influence and corrupt you but lets you do mostly what you want as long as that doesn't conflict with it's mission. It can take over the host temporarily when mission demands but mostly it is just influencing and corrupting. The host can fight it. It can be gotten rid of but that is real hard. That's my guess to the Nemesis infection.
Ms Duck:
One thing about SmF.. Mab forsaw much of it, part of what happens is Mab first introduces Harry and the island together. In CD, harry himself notes this ;)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version