The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers

Which mortal might become nemfected?

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KurtinStGeorge:
I have two questions I want to ask everyone.  Well, maybe two questions.  If you think that no mortal characters will be nemfected for the rest of the Dresden Files, or that mortals simply cannot become nemfected, just say no to question one.  I know some readers believe only the fae can be nemfected.  If that's you and you think the next likely target to be taken over by Nemesis will be the Erl King, Eldest Gruff or whoever, please post that WAG in another thread, this is just about mortals.

Question #1.  Do you think a mortal character will be taken over by Nemesis sometime in the series? (Including the BAT.)
Let me be more specific.  I don't mean manipulated by Nemesis or one of it's agents, I mean fully taken over like we saw with Cat Sith.  Personally, I don't believe Victor Sells or Leonid Kravos were possessed by Nemesis.  I think they were manipulated into using black magic or were already doing so and promised more power and were trained up.  The corrupting effects of black magic did the rest.  The FBI were tainted by using the wolf pelt belts, so Nemesis infection wasn't there either.  (Lily was as unreliable a narrator in the DF's as we could get.)   

Question #2 If you think it's possible or even likely someone will be possessed, or perhaps already is, who is it, or who will it be?  (Actually there's a second part to this question, so really there are three questions.) Part 2b.  And why do you think Nemesis might target this individual?

I've been thinking about posting a WAG about this for some time, but I'd like to see if anyone else is thinking along the same lines or has another character in mind as the likely target.  Actually, I don't want to post a WAG at all.  They can be very tiresome to write and I've already started on this particular WAG three times and it became very long, tedious to read, and just wasn't fun to work on any longer.  I'll leave this post alone for ten days to a couple of weeks and see what kind of responses I get, if any.  Then, in as short amount of space as I can, I will give you my candidate and why they are, or will be chosen.

Mira:


   If any mortal can my guess it would be the Knights for either Summer or Winter.  On the other hand
that might be the realreason why the Queens chose a mortal to be their Knight, because as a mortal they cannot be infected or infested.

Arjan:
Cowl. I think he shows the right suspicious behaviour and mental instability. Peabody is a possibility as well.

Mira:

--- Quote from: Arjan on December 04, 2019, 04:25:56 PM ---Cowl. I think he shows the right suspicious behaviour and mental instability. Peabody is a possibility as well.

--- End quote ---

   In my opinion Cowl didn't show he was mentally unstable, but merely evil or at the very least very
committed not unlike Nic to his cause and the masters he severs.   Peabody is possible, but it could also be from the beginning he agreed with Margaret that the system employed by the White Council needs reform.  Where as she made herself an outlaw by going outside the Laws of Magic to spark change, he elected to do it from the inside very cleverly manipulating the Senior Council with his magic ink.   Now you can say that was under the influence of Nemesis, but how do you prove it?

Kindler:
I think that if Peabody were Infected, he would have spread Nemesis to the Senior Council ASAP. He was using mind-affecting ink instead of transmitting Nemesis itself, which would be the logical way to do things, in my opinion.

Though that may be explainable by the process of Nemesis Infection itself. Jim hasn't revealed the precise method of transmission. If it requires overpowering someone and holding them down for an hour or something, then that's going to be difficult for someone like Peabody.

What we know about that:

1. It should be possible to spread Nemesis via an inorganic object. The object itself may or may not need to be sufficiently powerful on its own. The Athame could have been used for a couple of reasons that I can see: either it's necessary for the object to have a certain level of power (Athame, the Swords, relics like the Holy Grail or some other kind of artifacts), or it simply had to be powerful enough to tempt Lea into trading for it.

2. It's possible to Infect someone quickly, like they did with Cat Sith. He was off-page for about, what, five hours? Ten? Cold Days all happens within a 30ish-hour period (Harry leaves the party for Chicago sometime after midnight but before dawn, and the final confrontation on Demonreach is before Dawn on the following day. 2-3am-->1-5am, in my opinion). But the point is that, between the time Harry first talks to Lily and Nemesis is revealed and the Wild Hunt v. Outsiders Cage Match, Cat Sith is captured and Infected.

3. Those who are Infected can be made aware of their own Infection. This means that Nemesis works best when it lays low for a long time, slowly altering the Vector until they're behaving in the way Nemesis wants. When Cat Sith was confronted with his out-of-character behavior, Nemesis was forced to take direct control. I take that to indicate that he was a rushed job, because we haven't seen that behavior from other confirmed Infected (namely, Maeve).

4. There is likely some kind of cost for Nemesis to spread to too many things. This is speculation, but I think that, if Infection was a free action for them, then they wouldn't have stopped with Lea and Maeve. I think that most of Winter would've been Infected. Maeve was Infected for years, and she has the time, power, and clout necessary to go around and Infect countless other Fae, but didn't. Either that means that there is a cost to spreading itself to too many different entities, or doing so would have had undesirable results—like maybe the Infection would've been noticed and stopped sooner.

It's also noteworthy that Lily wasn't Infected, despite the fact that Maeve spent lots of time with her, and doing so would've been easy enough. Instead, Nemesis opted to manipulate her. Why not Infect the new Summer Lady? Why is manipulation a better option? Surely it would've been advantageous to have both Ladies Infected and influence both sides of the Fae, right?

I therefore infer that there is some kind of cost associated with Infection. Either Nemesis can maintain a limited number of active Infections, or there is some other kind of cost I can't conceive at the moment.

5. No mortals have been confirmed to be Infected. Some insist that mortals can't be Infected at all, but I don't see why that would be the case, and haven't seen any evidence beyond "No confirmation of Infected Mortals = Can't Be Done." Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

6. The most powerful entity that is confirmed to be Infected was, at one point, Lea (in her own words, she's second only to Mab in Winter). Mab tortured her (or, at the very least, put her through "exquisite pain") to "cure" her of the Nemesis Infection. That means that, even if it can't be fully cured, the symptoms can be treated if the host wants to change. Lea is shown to have the "mad glint" in her eye once, briefly, after her treatment by Mab. It is possible that Nemesis remains within Lea, but is currently held at bay by something (maybe even simple negative stimulus conditioning, like that "How to Stop Being a Freemason" Monty Python sketch). It's also possible that Nemesis is gone, but the effect on Lea still lingers, and she must make the occasional conscious effort to suppress it.

That is all that I can recall about Nemesis.

On topic, I think that the likeliest mortals to be Infected in the future are:

1. Senior Council members. Any of them, really.
2. Kumori, if she isn't already. Cowl, too.
3. Fix. I think he'd be a good target.
4. I don't think it will happen, but Infecting Murphy would break Harry just as badly as her death would. In fact, it might be worse, because he'd be crazy enough to hope to fix it.

Those who may already be Infected:
1. Elaine.
2. I hate to say it, but Justine.
3. Christos.

I say Justine because of the shape of her character arc. She's gone through some radical changes throughout the series. Like, really, really big ones. In fact, when she reveals that she's regained her faculties to Harry (in White Night? I can't recall), she simply states that there's no time to explain how she's recovered, and it's never revisited. And now she's having Thomas's baby, which gives her leverage over Thomas, the White Court, and Harry. I think it's possible that, during her period of disability, she was Infected, and Nemesis managed to not only help her recover faster, but increase her influence in the White Court. Can you think of another mortal who worked so closely with anyone in the upper echelons of the White Court? Certainly not for as long as she has. Lara defends her with her life, and not just because Justine is important to Thomas.

That's my WAG about it, anyway.

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