The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Murphy in Peace Talks (WoJ spoilers)
Mira:
--- Quote from: huangjimmy108 on September 01, 2017, 04:10:05 AM ---True, but Harry might still die. Saving a life is more important than punishing the evildoers. You might hurt Nick by taking the coin, but chances are good you'll suffer casualties as well. Following the code of the knights, not taking the coin should be the right choice.
--- End quote ---
It is always a possibility that you'd take casualties.... There was no guarantee that Harry wouldn't have died anyway if she had succeeded in killing Nic.. Geno could of just crushed his skull out of spite with Nic's death. At that point supposedly the agreement with Mab was violated and that is why Nic ordered Harry killed. However it was all a ruse to get a Sword broken. No, according to the code of the Knights taking the coin is always the right choice, because without that influence the host can now chose to seek redemption which is what the Knights and the Swords is all about. It isn't about hurting Nic by taking the coin, it is about giving him a chance for redemption..
peregrine:
It's just as much a ruse to break a sword as it is Harry trying to help Nic by giving chase to Butters.
Which is to say not at all.
I mean, if you're basing this whole thing on what Nic says, why do you constantly ignore the first part of his statement where he explicitly compares what he did with what Harry did as an explanation for why he won't get eviscerated by Mab for it?
Mira:
--- Quote from: peregrine on September 01, 2017, 02:07:40 PM ---It's just as much a ruse to break a sword as it is Harry trying to help Nic by giving chase to Butters.
Which is to say not at all.
I mean, if you're basing this whole thing on what Nic says, why do you constantly ignore the first part of his statement where he explicitly compares what he did with what Harry did as an explanation for why he won't get eviscerated by Mab for it?
--- End quote ---
No, I am going with Nic's stated mission since Small Favor, the reason Harry first dangled Fid in the first place to trade for Ivy and Marcone. The whole reason Harry dangled the Sword, he knew Nic wanted it to unmake it.. Duh... Denarians want to break Holy Swords, they and the Knights that wield them are their enemy.. What is the one thing that strikes more terror in a Nicklehead than anything else? A Holy Sword shining brightly in the hands of a Knight... Nic isn't afraid of Michael without his Sword, but put Am in his hands and Nic shits his pants..
So Nic isn't lying he is bragging on how clever he was setting up Murphy and Harry with the unwitting aid of Butters to accomplish his goal.. He lies about a lot of things true, but not about this, breaking Swords is his goal, planning to accomplish that is his business, and this time out he won, if only for a little while.. At that point in time, Fid was shattered on the sidewalk, useless..
Your mistake is thinking since Nic lies, everything he says is a lie, however it is a lot more complicated than that...
DonBugen:
Wow, so a lot about whether or not Nicodemus can lie. Which obviously he can; he's a mortal. It's slightly questionable whether Anduriel can lie or not, but Nicodemus isn't held back by the limitations. The thing is, though, Nick probably just doesn't see the point in lying much; he's not ashamed of what he does, and he's very matter-of-fact about his actions. He's the hero of his own story. But he will certainly deceive others, and certainly lies throughout Skin Game. Huangjimmy's already pointed out some of the best points, so I don't really need to do too much here.
Jimmy - I agree with pretty much everything on your second response to me (the one about profitability) except for this last bit.
--- Quote from: huangjimmy108 ---What matters to Karrin is this. If Karrin does not appear and wield fid, at that point, thus depriving Nick from his true target, would Nicodemous just sigh in regret and let Harry go free?
Obviously not. If murphy does not wield fid and thus granting Nick what he wants, he'll likely take out his fury on Harry. This is why I mention that fid's breaking becomes Harry's salvation. Either Nick's target is truly Harry, and Murphy wielding fid distracted him from his true target, or it gaves Nick his real target and allow Harry to escape calamity.
--- End quote ---
At the point where Karrin appears with Fid, Harry and Butters have basically given up on being able to escape Nicodemus' trap and have decided to fight them. Everyone's preparing for a fight, and the second Dresden strikes, they all die. If Karrin doesn't show up with Fid, then Nick gets personal revenge and Mab is obligated to replace him with a servant of equal competence - which she has. Technically, Mab could offer Lea's services, and I think that Lea would have a pretty easy chance of getting through the gate of ice.
Also, I’ve been thinking more about the ‘pro forma quid pro quo’, and I don’t believe that it signifies that both Harry and Nicodemus broke the pact, and so therefore they cancel each other out. Yes, quid pro quo does signify that one thing is being exchanged for another, but pro forma is a statement that something is done as a matter of form, or as an estimate.
When the two latin phrases are put together and viewed in the context of the conversation, it seems that what Harry calls ‘pro-forma quid pro quo’ is the fiction that each of them are hiding behind. Nicodemus wouldn’t really have betrayed Harry unless he killed him, and Harry wouldn’t really have betrayed Nicodemus unless he had actually ushered him off to Michael’s house in safety. It is an exchange of an estimate of what would happen. Otherwise, there's no need for 'pro forma' in the sentence if it just means 'quid pro quo'.
Besides, it’s Latin. As Harry is far from an expert in Latin (dang correspondence course!) I wouldn’t take anything that he says in it as unassailable fact and interpret the scene from it. Unless he also makes lately and needs him a new laundress as well.
On a slightly different topic, I’ve been thinking of the Genoskwa’s actions during this fight. Nicodemus commands Gen to kill Harry and to make it hurt. And Gen… just doesn’t take the opportunity. Yes, it can be argued that maybe Gen was just enjoying torturing Harry too much. But he’s made it perfectly clear that he would enjoy nothing more but killing him. Why doesn’t Gen kill Harry when ordered to?
It’s clear that whatever thing that Nicodemus is attempting to achieve, that this heist is deadly critical to achieving that goal. He would not sacrifice his daughter, the person that he loves and trusts more than anything in the world, in order to just get a new supernatural artifact that he just found out about. If it’s critical enough to kill Deidre over, then I don’t think that there’s a chance – not a chance in hell – that Nicodemus would knowingly do anything that would rob him of the person he needs to get through the gate of ice.
Which means that Nicodemus wouldn’t put anything up to chance. I don’t believe that he would chance killing Dresden unless it was completely obvious that he had betrayed him, simply because he doesn’t know for sure if the Queen of Tricksey Faeries has eyes on the situation or not. That’s not something that Nicodemus would risk on a job so critical. And by the same token, I don’t believe that he would give the command for the Genoskwa to kill Dresden unless he was absolutely certain that he would not. Because if there’s any ambiguity about Dresden’s death, then the job is off.
So when the Genoskwa does not kill Harry, even though given ample time to and commanded to do so, this strikes me as very conspicuous.
I think it was more than likely that Nicodemus had a conversation with all of his hidden Denarians – that due to the circumstance of the bargain with Mab, none of them were allowed to kill him. Period. That makes the most sense; if Dresden is to die, Nicodemus would want to be in control so that he could not accidently lose the retainer from Winter that he was owed.
Arjan:
I think he had a backup plan for Harry. Hannah with Lasciels help could handle a gate and the Genoskwa could handle the ice door thing.
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