The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers

Some thoughts on Stormfront

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kbrizzle:
@Con
I’m not sure the Ramps were involved with Sells given Bianca’s reaction to Harry’s questioning in StF - granted Bianca may not have been in the know, but that seems unlikely given her status as head of the Ramps in Chicago. Although the use of the heart-ripping spell is interesting & probably not coincidental.

@Kindler
The mental attack thing is interesting - I hadn’t thought of that angle. That kind of mental ‘realignment’ would need a wizard or a Whamp.

@Mira
Oh absolutely - Sells was an alternate path Harry could have gone down (given that they were both being groomed into becoming magical bruisers with little in the way of refinement).

@Bad Alias
It’s fairly apparent that Lily knew very little of Nemesis - I mean she thought she could actually detect it through a touch-based spell (a useful fiction concocted by Maeve no doubt). I think Maeve listed Harry’s first 3 cases as a way of throwing suspicion on him - that Harry & Nemesis are somehow connected & it’s possible that Harry has since been Nfected.
Remember that Lily thinks Harry is Nfected until his genuine befuddlement about what’s going on convinces Lily to use her Nemesis ‘test’.

Avernite:

--- Quote from: kbrizzle on October 05, 2019, 05:53:11 PM ---@Con
I’m not sure the Ramps were involved with Sells given Bianca’s reaction to Harry’s questioning in StF - granted Bianca may not have been in the know, but that seems unlikely given her status as head of the Ramps in Chicago. Although the use of the heart-ripping spell is interesting & probably not coincidental.

--- End quote ---
Not coincidence could also mean, of course, that a deeper play was played against the reds. Even before Papa Raith was ousted, the Whites were seemingly reluctant allies only, rather than frontrunners in the war.

So maybe the Raiths ran a trial, told the Reds (after Bianca was safely dead) what a good idea it was, then got Harry to abuse their stupidity by using the loaded gun on the Reds.

Yuillegan:
Lord Raith being behind everything, including the heart-ripping spell, seems unlikely. He may have a library full of deep occult knowledge, but he was more a ritualist than a sorcerer. Also considering he was defeated rather easily...he hardly seems like the big bad.

The House of Raith may have been attached to everything that is going on, but I think the WOJ is that Raith knows what is going on this cycle and wanted to come out on top, but Maggie (Dresden's mother) ruined it for him.


--- Quote from: Snark Knight on October 05, 2019, 11:34:35 AM ---According to Lily, who was deceived about a lot.

According to WOJ, the first N-fected character to appear on stage was in GP. I'd be surprised if that was one of the rare occasions when he had to lie in a Q&A to prevent spoilers, since Sells is ancient history at this point. I think the N-fected character was Sells' teacher, either Lord Raith or Cowl.

--- End quote ---

Can you find that WOJ? I haven't had much luck tracking it down. Not that I am saying he didn't say that - but it seems odd. He has also been quoted as saying that he set up things in Storm Front that won't appear till the BAT. He has planned a lot of big stuff long term.

Morris - be that as it may, it doesn't really explain why Maeve would lie about it. Why reveal your hand just to fuck with little old Dresden. Had Dresden not known of Nemesis, he wouldn't have worked out Maeve was infected. It only slightly helped point him in the direction of Mab instead, but it would have been easier to just kill or infect Dresden himself.

I also think that just because black magic drives people mad, doesn't mean it is the only thing that does. Why did Sells even reach for power in the first place? It twisted him. Why did the FBI take magic belts to enforce and execute the law? Corruption. Otherwise these instances would be far more common place. Sells wasn't some young warlock first discovering magic, he was an average if unhappy Father who suddenly became incredibly ambitious beyond reason and turned to occult and strange dark methods.

Bad Alias - Explicitly. In the law if I ask you if you have drugs, and you say yes, you are not implying you have drugs. You are explicitly admitting to it. Dresden was checking with Lily, and she confirms. That is explicit enough.

Secondly, if Ebola taints you, you have been infected. Why would Nemesis be different?

Thirdly, Maeve wants to fuck with Dresden. Nemesis seems rather to view him as an annoying impediment, based on his one brief chat with it (Cat Sith). But this whole scene doesn't work if Lily's reveal is a lie. This reveal allows Dresden to understand his theoretical Black Council might just be an offshoot of something larger, and might not even just be Wizards. He begins to understand that his problems are so much bigger - which is what this whole book is about. To then go and retract this later just to say "gotcha" devalues the scene and will confuse his revelation.

Kindler - why would Nemesis worry about some random sorcerer via manipulation? A cosmic level power worrying about Sells beggars belief. How and why Sells was infected is one of the most important things.

No one has accounted for what Nemesis is trying to do. Nemesis had a goal when it infected Sells. To test the heart-ripping spell. Perhaps the Three-Eye too. Perhaps it too was testing its reach into mortal law with the FBI. With Aurora, it wanted to upset the Fairy balance to weaken Winter's position at the Outer Gates. But had Aurora succeeded in her plan, she would have made Winter stronger.

Almost all of the event seem to rope Harry in, and one might wonder if it was done to test him as well. But the real goal of Nemesis has been to upset the Status Quo, which every normal supernatural entity and nation seem very protective of (even the more evil ones).

kbrizzle:
@Yuillegan
I don’t think Lord Raith is behind everything - I do think he is behind Sells though. Given his ‘impotence’, Lord Raith needs a magical enforcer to maintain power (WN shows that it has been slipping for decades). His absence from Bianca’s ball in GP is also noteworthy given that it is this cycle’s opening salvo - perhaps this is one of the reasons both Mavra & Cowl take pot shots at him in BR & WN.

About the Heart Spell
The Ramps could’ve tested the heart-ripping spell any time they wanted, had they known about it (they don’t really need Sells’ proof, they could obtain it in a few days) - iirc, Martin is the one to tell the Red King about it in the first place (so maybe he read the same book Sells had?). Besides, Sells performing the ritual sloppily on one person at a time when he has their hair/ fluids vs. the Ramps using it to erase an entire bloodline globally from a child are almost 2 separate things - like the difference between stabbing person X & launching laser-guided missiles at X & the 10-15 people directly related to him simultaneously.

Regarding Nemesis
While I don’t disagree with Outsiders being involved in StF, I don’t see why Sells had to be Nfected for any of their plans to work - after all, Lord Raith or Cowl could have manipulated Sells well enough without Nfection into performing some of the stuff you mention.  For Nemesis to make sense it has to have limits - one of which is likely the number of people it is allowed to Nfect at one time (so not like Ebola). All of it’s confirmed targets so far (Aurora, Lea, Maeve & Cat Sith) are high-ranking Fae - they all have a significant amount of power in their courts. Sells is however, a poorly educated but moderately powerful sorcerer.

What was Nemesis’ end goal of a Nfecting Sells? It is clear that he would not have stood a chance against a real combat wizard. If Harry wasn’t able to stop him, Morgan surely would.

If I were a believer in the humans can be Nfected theory, I’d wager that one of the SC (or Luccio) is Nfected - it follows Nemesis’ pattern of Nfecting the Elders of whatever Court they are infiltrating.

Or

Since it is hard to possess older wizards, a candidate like Hannah Ascher would make much more sense - she is already trained in basic magic theory & is fairly powerful. If she were Nfected, kept in the shadows & made deals where she could, she could’ve potentially become Kemmler 2.0. I don’t see Sells being able to do this - he’s just too much of a noob.

g33k:

--- Quote from: kbrizzle on October 07, 2019, 04:22:03 AM ---  About the Heart Spell
The Ramps could’ve tested the heart-ripping spell any time they wanted, had they known about it (they don’t really need Sells’ proof, they could obtain it in a few days) - iirc, Martin is the one to tell the Red King about it in the first place (so maybe he read the same book Sells had?). Besides, Sells performing the ritual sloppily on one person at a time when he has their hair/ fluids vs. the Ramps using it to erase an entire bloodline globally from a child are almost 2 separate things - like the difference between stabbing person X & launching laser-guided missiles at X & the 10-15 people directly related to him simultaneously ...
--- End quote ---
I think Sells got the spell from Papa Raith.

I think the Ramps have had that spell for millennia (Aztecs and heart-ripping, doncha know).

I don't think we necessarily have good evidence for the "origin" of the spell.

But I am inclined to think it does have a single origin, because of what Vadderung said -- that the Sells spell, the Raith spell, and the Ramp ritual are all versions of the same spell, and being used as part of a concerted plan.

Given Vadderung's reveal, I peg the spell to be Black Council, (possibly learned from the Ramps, who presumably had a seat on the BC); possibly an actual Nemesis or even Outsider spell.

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