The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Could Maggie have taken up a Coin?
LordDresden2:
--- Quote from: Mr. Death on February 06, 2018, 05:22:50 PM ---Pretty sure you can't cast a Death Curse if you don't have magic.
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Actually, I question that, because of the nature of a death curse.
Remember, a death curse works by drawing on the magical energy that makes a living creature a living creature, instead of aa mass of complicated organic compounds. That's why it kills you to throw it (or usually does, I can imagine freak circumstances where it might not quite kill you). Another way to think of a death curse is that it is self-human-sacrifice to power a spell.
That's why Harry was going to be able to throw one even when Aurora had him entrapped in a circle in Faerie. He was tapping into his own life-force which was already in the circle with him.
That suggests to me that a normal mundane, if they had the necessary magical knowledge, could probably throw a death curse, if they were ready to die to do it. It might not be as powerful as a Wizard's, but it would probably be plenty potent.
But...how would a normal learn that necessary knowledge in the first place? Why would they bother to study magic at that level of complexity, just to throw a spell one time that costs them their life to do it? Why would a Wizard or the equivalent teach someone that knowledge? It would be the equivalent of strapping on a suicide vest.
I suppose a ruthless Wizard might marshal a group of fanatics willing to do it, but somehow I suspect the Council would take a very dim view of a member weaponizing mundanes that way...they might even regard it as a violation of the First Law.
That said, I have little doubt Margaret still had access to her magic at the end. I suspect she would have to make use of it to evade the Court and the Council so long.
LordDresden2:
--- Quote from: Mr. Death on February 06, 2018, 07:54:16 PM ---The only info we have about it says that Maggie getting with Malcolm was her getting out of the plans and such she had with Lord Raith et al. Not that it was just another step in the plan.
He doesn't say she ended up loving him "in the end," just that she fell in love. I don't see anything in that description that would indicate that she met Malcolm for some ulterior motive -- Ebenezer clearly says she met him after running away from her former associates and, presumably, from the plans she had with them.
There seems to be this everpresent impression of Maggie Sr. of this ultimate planner that did everything completely purposefully and with foresight, but the evidence suggests she very much was not.
She was someone who slept with Lord Raith. On purpose. Multiple times.
If that alone doesn't spell, "Way too arrogant and really bad at predicting the outcomes of your actions," then nothing does.
As a rule, your master planners generally don't end up having to run away from damn near everyone on the planet that's aware of them for two years before being killed. That kind of thing happens to people who only think they're master planners.
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This^^^.
I have never believed Margaret was this supergenius Xanatos-gambit-playing chessmistress. Nothing we know about her suggests anything of the sort, what we do know (including the testimony of her own 'shadow' to Harry) is that she was overconfident, arrogant, and in deep, deep over her head.
But I agree she probably did think she was all that, at some stage. Remember when Harry was looking the painting of Margaret that Lord Raith made? It captured that attitude.
My guess, and this is all it is, but I strongly suspect, that Margaret was a particular type. She was very, very intelligent (which is not the same as smart or wise), very powerful, and probably mastered her magic early, and outraced her peers fairly quickly.
My guess is that she was cocky and arrogant and her failures, such as they were, were not such as to teach her humility. She was probably very, very clever...and cleverness is not necessarily a virtue. It can easily be a vice if not coupled to practical humility.
So you have a very powerful witch, with a long of knowledge, not much practical experience, very intelligent but not much first-hand knowledge of people, not many failures to haunt her, all ready to fix everything and go around the rules and so forth. Naturally, she rapidly got into deep trouble once she was out on her own.
I suspect she figured she could handle the supersex, so why not enjoy it? More than a few drug addicts have ruined their lives starting from exactly the same overconfidence. "I can handle it."
Harry inherited a little of that tendency, but he's smarter than his mother, and his life has pounded some humility into him along the way, too. But remember the incident with Chaunzoggoroth? Dealing with him was exactly the sort of thing I suspect Margaret used to do all the time, and like his mother, Harry was in over his head. By luck (or maybe a bit of help from Michael's Boss), Harry found out quickly what he was really dealing with, before it was too late.
Harry's also been learning in recent books a lesson Margaret didn't learn in time, Harry's beginning to realize that his elders often have good reason for their stuffy, annoying rules.
Regarding whether she actually had a Coin, I tend to doubt it. But she did, I suspect, get a chance to study the Denarians up close. For one thing, remember that shadow-copy of herself that she placed in Thomas and Harry somehow, triggered when they soulgazed (or maybe it was in the pentacles). It's not Lash, but it looks to me like something she might have learned to create by studying the Denarians, a baby version of Lash, sort of.
LordDresden2:
--- Quote from: Mr. Death on February 12, 2018, 04:06:18 PM ---Lord Raith may not have known that Harry existed for a while. He probably didn't know about Maggie Sr.'s marriage -- if he had known that much about her, he probably would've been able to get to her sooner.
And he may not have known the exact mechanics of the curse against him. It's not like it would've popped up with an infobox detailing what's keeping it on him -- just, one day after he killed Maggie Sr., he couldn't feed. He might have guessed/presumed it was her death curse, but even if he did know it was anchored to her bloodline, he would've thought of Thomas first -- and given he didn't start trying to kill him when he was five, he apparently didn't know this for a while.
Long enough to have completely lost track of Harry and Malcolm Dresden, if he even knew about them in the first place. Hell, if he was aware of Malcolm Dresden, he's probably the type who would've tried to kill him immediately for the crime of taking a woman that Raith believed was his.
So to my mind, evidence points to Raith simply not knowing the nature of the curse against him or Harry's existence until much later in life.
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This^^.
We need to keep in mind that other characters have their own stories going on at the same time as Harry. Just as Harry is learning things all the time, including some stuff others knew and didn't tell him, the same is true of the others. I'm sure Lord Raith learned a lot of things over the years as he went, and figured out some stuff, just as Harry has.
I also agree that if LR had known about Malcom and Margaret, he'd have gone after them immediately. Ditto the Wardens, they wouldn't have anything against Malcom, but the were definitely ready to serve warrants on Margaret, with swords.
As for the timing, it could be that LR just happened to track them down as she was about to give birth. Odd coincidences do happen all the time, even in real life. In this case, too, it might have been a 'coincidence'. That is, it might be that Lord Raith just happened to find out when he did, but his finding out still served some larger plan or chain of events unfolding.
We already know from Lash that it wasn't coincidence that Margaret broke away from LR when she did, but that doesn't mean it was anything she planned or set up or knew about.
As for Thomas, we already know he kept secrets from his family, but we don't know enough about his life before to form any conclusions about the details. We know he didn't even know he was supernatural until his first kill, but other than that, not much.
LordDresden2:
--- Quote from: Griffyn612 on February 11, 2018, 07:35:47 PM ---WoJ is that Lasciel knew everything Lash did.
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Could I have a link to that one?
Griffyn612:
--- Quote from: LordDresden2 on February 18, 2018, 04:32:42 AM ---Could I have a link to that one?
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Sorry, can't find it. I combed through the new WoJ site but couldn't find hide nor hare. But if I recall, it was someone asking if Lasciel knew what happened to Lash, and his response want that Lasciel knew everything Lash did.
Maybe someone else recalls it, or knows where it ended up.
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