The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Chapter 4 Drop
toodeep:
--- Quote from: knightedbishop on June 24, 2020, 01:32:34 AM ---Not surprised he has issues with the svartalves. At this point I'd be surprised to hear of anyone McCoy doesn't have issues with.
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Apparently he gets along well with the Kenku. :)
Yes, this entire chapter seemed needlessly angry. Harry has been dealing with these issues for years, so you would think he would have dealt with it better, and Eb is old enough to know how to have a civil conversation even over an emotional topic. It seemed purposefully designed to allow them to meet, to drop a whole bunch of hooks, but not allow them to resolve any of the things they could resolve by just talking for 15 minutes like adults. Obviously Eb will die before being able to tell him most of the things they should have discussed here.
Mira:
--- Quote from: toodeep on June 24, 2020, 01:58:25 PM ---Apparently he gets along well with the Kenku. :)
Yes, this entire chapter seemed needlessly angry. Harry has been dealing with these issues for years, so you would think he would have dealt with it better, and Eb is old enough to know how to have a civil conversation even over an emotional topic. It seemed purposefully designed to allow them to meet, to drop a whole bunch of hooks, but not allow them to resolve any of the things they could resolve by just talking for 15 minutes like adults. Obviously Eb will die before being able to tell him most of the things they should have discussed here.
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Actually I don't think Harry was needlessly angry. Yes, he has been dealing with this for years, in pain for years, that doesn't go away just because you grow up. Who got angry first here? It was Eb who went on the attack. Hey there are thousands of adults in therapy right now dealing with the same issues Harry is. The answer is no, they don't go away, not easily.
--- Quote ---And Harry wouldn't have been born and there would be no Dresden Files. Which is all neither here nor there. If his point was to get her to an age where she could protect herself then Eb achieved what he set out to do.
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Really? Perhaps if she had better support and guidance from her father from the get go, though maybe she would have been more physically vulnerable, but she may not have engaged in the behavior that eventually led to her death. Something Eb said is really troublesome, he eluded to the idea that he would only be interested in her once she showed talent. That fits with why young Harry was allowed to go into the orphanage/foster care system, at six he was too young to show talent..
--- Quote ---This has nothing to do with blame or responsibility. Any more then the Small Pox virus holds any moral responsibility because someone dies when exposed to the virus. None the less, if you catch it you die. It is what it is. Harry is a walking zone of death because of what he is. He didn't choose to be that thing, but that doesn't change what he is.
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A Small Pox virus isn't an emotional being either.. Harry is a human being, he lost both parents by the time he was six, that has left huge scars and questions... Eb is telling him by the mere fact of being a live birth he is the cause of his mother's death! Which in of itself may not be true at all, Lord Raith may have done it simply because Margaret left him for a mere vanilla mortal man.
--- Quote ---All I said was that choosing to let Maggie control when she would choose to talk to Eb was a good choice. Maybe.
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Did he really have a choice?
Another point, Eb said if Harry had left Maggie with the Carpenters she'd be totally safe.. Not true, well protected, yes, but not totally safe. We saw in Skin Game that mere mortals can enter their yard and pose a threat, I also seem to remember, after Proven Guilty, Harry was doing the snow ball thing with Molly at her house when they were attacked by beings from the Nevernever.
--- Quote ---The proper way is probably to ask each other questions and listen to their explanations but that would give too much of the plot away. Now we will get all kinds of misunderstandings to drive the plot even further.
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True, it would give too much of the plot away.. But also the asking and listening calmly bit takes
time, and sometimes outside help because we are not talking rationality here, we are talking emotions. If we go back to the first books, the one thing dominating Harry's thoughts and color
a lot of what he does is the emotional pain he is in because he was orphaned at such a tender age.
He is then adopted, he did love and respect his adopted father, Justin. What happened there? Justin wanted to enslave him for his own purposes, Harry had to kill him to survive.. That kind of screws up trust don't you think? Then he is taken in by Eb, who he idolizes only to find out in Blood Rites, that he'd been hiding a lot from him as well.. Finding out further down the road that this was his grandfather! His grandfather who left him abandoned in a orphanage all those years.. It is enough to make anyone a bit pissed off, bewildered, and touchy on the subject of whether or not he was doing right by his own daughter. No, it was perfectly normal for Harry to react as he did.
Arjan:
The problem is unchecked emotions are dangerous for wizards. Both should have known better.
Mira:
--- Quote from: Arjan on June 24, 2020, 03:27:12 PM ---The problem is unchecked emotions are dangerous for wizards. Both should have known better.
--- End quote ---
That is also very true, I agree as far as Eb goes, he is older, while Harry should know better,
as victim I don't think he can completely help himself. I've had a little experience with this from
my husband. His mother died when he was nine months old, his father sent him and his brothers
and sisters to live with their maiden aunt in a small town in another state. Reason being it was thought to be better for them there then living in a big city with their very busy father. The father
visited once a year for hunting season. On the surface this seems perfectly reasonable, and maybe it was. However my husband's aunt, though she kept them fed, clothed, and gave them all very good moral values, couldn't demonstrate a lot of love. To be fair, she and her brother grew up in a time when one didn't show a lot of emotion.. Nor, though he did ask plenty of questions, did my husband ever get any real honest answers.. Yes, we had a loving mostly happy marriage for over forty years until his death, but underneath, my husband was a very unhappy man. He finally did begin to confront both his father and his aunt about it, it wasn't pretty to witness. As an outsider
I can say maybe my father in law and his sister had very good reasons looking out for my husband's welfare. However all my husband felt was years of pain over it, it was impossible for him to react calmly.
So one can argue that Eb may have had very rational and real reasons why he treated both Margaret and Harry the way he did. Harry knows only the pain he felt and went through, the only way he can react is emotionally, especially when Eb is coming across not only with anger, but totally critical as well. Let us not also forget that it isn't like Harry didn't agonize a bit before he made the decision he made about little Maggie. Yeah, it was complicated, his guilt because he did kill her mother, but also because he knows he is a trouble magnet.
EBRIEN:
A thought about the title...
Perhaps PEACE TALKS is not only the Fomor and Accords, but also about healing a rift between Harry and Eb. Or something like that. I'm sure someone's discussed it, but it seems to me that after this chapter (and previous ones), family is going to be one of the throughlines connecting PT with BG. I know, obvious.
Cheers---Brien
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