The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Unsolved Mystery Book9 Cowl again
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
Could I ask you to either quote inline or cut the bits you're not responding to ? Seeing a whole post of mine with several different points block-quoted and responded to like that makes it a ways from clear which bit of yours is responding to which of mine.
--- Quote from: Arjan on December 02, 2017, 10:47:11 PM ---One problem I have with this line of reasoning is that if you weaken everyone it basicaly lets the bulk of winters forces at the gates intact and no tools left to hit them with.
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Why would anyone need to hit them directly when it is clearly possible to work around them? Regardless of how Nemesis works, summoning the Walkers to Earth does not seem to be something they automatically block.
--- Quote --- As soon as everyone is weakened enough the turmoil will stop. It is only going on because several players see chances to improve their positions.
--- End quote ---
And so long as no one party lets too much of a lead, the sort of people stupid enough to feel they have to leap at the prospect of immediate gain will keep doing so even when they are so beaten down they can barely crawl.
--- Quote ---It is not a working strategy because we can assume the outsiders have only a relative small number of real agents at this side of the gates.
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I'm not seeing why we can, or whether number matters near so much as power there.
--- Quote --- It is just that the outsiders had the red court nicely on track and that the red king was also planning to defeat the council at that moment. There was no reason for them to end the red court because they would spend their energy doing what the outsiders wanted anyway.
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I see no reason to assume the Red Court are doing what the Outsiders want, because the war with the White Council is very much against the Red Court's interest and the more sensible members of the Red Court are continually doing their best to stop it.
I firmly believe there is no way the Red Court can have defeated the White Council, except possibly in the narrow window between DB and PG, and furthermore, that what Changes illustrates is that the White Council can, given the decision to do so, destroy the Red Court in a matter of days.
--- Quote ---Mab's involvement may have had other reasons as well but all those powers together point only to one thing.
--- End quote ---
Indeed; the chance to get Harry to do some much-needed growing up.
Arjan:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on December 02, 2017, 11:04:56 PM ---Why would anyone need to hit them directly when it is clearly possible to work around them? Regardless of how Nemesis works, summoning the Walkers to Earth does not seem to be something they automatically block.
--- End quote ---
Because I think the gates have to be broken to get the bulk of the outsiders here and that means defeating the bulk of winter. Nemesis influences players either by direct infection or by manipulation and playing on their nature but at the end they need to do something big to get through. Something apocalyptic that takes three books.
--- Quote ---And so long as no one party lets too much of a lead, the sort of people stupid enough to feel they have to leap at the prospect of immediate gain will keep doing so even when they are so beaten down they can barely crawl.
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Not enough. If everyone is equally beaten down that will stop for a while or become meaningless. The big powers will still be untouched however and the bulk of winters troops as well.
--- Quote ---I'm not seeing why we can, or whether number matters near so much as power there.
--- End quote ---
Not number of mooks, they probably have quite a few cults with mooks, but agents that really matter at least at Cowl’s level.
--- Quote ---I see no reason to assume the Red Court are doing what the Outsiders want, because the war with the White Council is very much against the Red Court's interest and the more sensible members of the Red Court are continually doing their best to stop it.
--- End quote ---
They lost. And I am not so sure they even tried that hard. I think you take Duke Ortegas words far too seriously. And also they did exactly what the outsiders wanted from them by waging war with the white council and continuously escalating it.
--- Quote ---I firmly believe there is no way the Red Court can have defeated the White Council, except possibly in the narrow window between DB and PG, and furthermore, that what Changes illustrates is that the White Council can, given the decision to do so, destroy the Red Court in a matter of days.
--- End quote ---
I do not think that is true at least not the white council on its own. and if it were true it would be reason for Cowl to strengthen the red court and not to weaken it.
And changes was a unique opportunity, it illustrates both strengths and weaknesses of the red court. It also shows a lot of arrogance.
--- Quote ---Indeed; the chance to get Harry to do some much-needed growing up.
--- End quote ---
Doubtless big on Uriels agenda but was that enough to get the whole coalition there?
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Arjan on December 02, 2017, 11:42:20 PM ---Because I think the gates have to be broken to get the bulk of the outsiders here and that means defeating the bulk of winter. Nemesis influences players either by direct infection or by manipulation and playing on their nature but at the end they need to do something big to get through. Something apocalyptic that takes three books.
--- End quote ---
I genuinely do not think we are going to get one overall apocalyptic thread, rather than three separate events, in the BAT.
--- Quote ---Not enough. If everyone is equally beaten down that will stop for a while or become meaningless.
--- End quote ---
You've said that before, and I still disagree. How beaten down do you think people would need to be to stop? In the absence of the events of Changes, for example, do you have difficulty believing in the last surviving White Council wizard and the last surviving Red Court vampire being more interested in killing each other than in stopping to take a breath and figure out what else is going on?
--- Quote --- The big powers will still be untouched however and the bulk of winters troops as well.
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Which big powers? Do you think that Cowl and allies have been doing things offstage to weaken entities like Ferrovax?
--- Quote ---They lost. And I am not so sure they even tried that hard. I think you take Duke Ortegas words far too seriously.
--- End quote ---
I take them seriously because he backs them with his actions. He puts his own life on the line in an attempt to stop the war.
--- Quote --- And also they did exactly what the outsiders wanted from them by waging war with the white council and continuously escalating it.
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This feels like there's circular logic in here somewhere. Why do you think that "waging war and continually escalating it" rather than "waging war and losing as much as they win" is what the Outsiders want here? The latter is a much better fit with what actually happens prior to Changes.
--- Quote ---Doubtless big on Uriels agenda but was that enough to get the whole coalition there?
--- End quote ---
I would argue yes, because, as I argued in the post I linked you to a bit ago, I think that Harry is nearly unique in the DV, as part of a joint plan involving Uriel, Mab and Odin (and after SG I am willing to put Hades in their camp also) that has been running since well before he was born, with the objective of giving him access to pretty much every supernatural power source in the DV, in order to back up his near-unique ability against Outsiders. The Red Court are at best a bunch of enemy foot soldiers; Harry is the Manhattan Project. He's clearly much more important to their plans, and the end of GS is such a perfect manipulation to put him where he will serve Uriel and Mab's interests both, I do not believe that is an accident.
Arjan:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on December 03, 2017, 05:19:53 AM ---I genuinely do not think we are going to get one overall apocalyptic thread, rather than three separate events, in the BAT.
--- End quote ---
We don't know but I suspect three apocalypses somewhat connected and all leading to the final one with the outsiders.
--- Quote ---You've said that before, and I still disagree. How beaten down do you think people would need to be to stop? In the absence of the events of Changes, for example, do you have difficulty believing in the last surviving White Council wizard and the last surviving Red Court vampire being more interested in killing each other than in stopping to take a breath and figure out what else is going on?
--- End quote ---
You only do that when you are living close to each other and are locked in an a fight for survival.
In Dead Beat the white council does not even know where the reds are based beyond somewhere in latin america. For the red court this was not, until the final act of changes, an existential fight for survival. The real Mayan have not even been into the picture before Changes. War caused some turmoil in the red court but mainly because it removed some middle management and lower placed vampires saw it as an opportunity to climb the pyramid. It looks like the red court was somewhat frustrated that their hunt for the white council was not successfull and finally decided to bring in the big guns.
In that context the most logical thing for the red court to do when beaten significantly is to go back to their liars, lick their wounds and wait for better times. Both sides will somewhat recover and Winter can in the meantime concentrate on its real problems, the outsiders do not win in that scenario.
That only changes if the outsiders have a really big influence on the reds, not just a little push in a direction compatible with their nature. And that would be a very good reason to get rid of them.
--- Quote ---Which big powers? Do you think that Cowl and allies have been doing things offstage to weaken entities like Ferrovax?
--- End quote ---
Hades, Mab, the mothers. They have not been really touched by the outsiders schemes yet and that should happen in or just before the bat. For that the outsiders need really big tools, the red court would not be enough. I think they tried to create a fomor-red court coalition against winter. The fomor have a lot of grudges against winter so that helps the outsiders.
--- Quote ---
I take them seriously because he backs them with his actions. He puts his own life on the line in an attempt to stop the war.
--- End quote ---
It seems that way. He is full of shit and when he loses the duel he cheats again. Ortega is a lying manipulator on the level with Nicodemus in some respects.
--- Quote ---This feels like there's circular logic in here somewhere. Why do you think that "waging war and continually escalating it" rather than "waging war and losing as much as they win" is what the Outsiders want here? The latter is a much better fit with what actually happens prior to Changes.
--- End quote ---
Winter guards the gates and so must be the ultimate target. What the outsiders wanted is that the reds were so pulled into the war with first the white council and then winter that there was no way back for them. That is why they were pushed to break the accords. In that sense they were highly successful because the reds earned Lea and Mabs enmity and sooner or later a full scale war with winter.
They did not need to weaken the reds because the reds were not strong enough for that task. But with the Fomor maybe.
--- Quote ---I would argue yes, because, as I argued in the post I linked you to a bit ago, I think that Harry is nearly unique in the DV, as part of a joint plan involving Uriel, Mab and Odin (and after SG I am willing to put Hades in their camp also) that has been running since well before he was born, with the objective of giving him access to pretty much every supernatural power source in the DV, in order to back up his near-unique ability against Outsiders. The Red Court are at best a bunch of enemy foot soldiers; Harry is the Manhattan Project. He's clearly much more important to their plans, and the end of GS is such a perfect manipulation to put him where he will serve Uriel and Mab's interests both, I do not believe that is an accident.
--- End quote ---
Harry has the possibility to become that unique person but he was not the only one. But he becomes more and more important in every book. So yes educating Harry was an important motive but I do not think that all those powers would have encouraged Harry in his course to Chichen Itza if the reds were a useful or necessery part of the current structure. They all wanted the red court gone every one including Uriel.
jonas:
Idk so much that it's more than one threat, as that threat is going to manifest different ways of trying to break reality. for instance... 3 BAT's and 3 walkers 'touching'. Metaphor for a trilogy lol?
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