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Peace Talks Thoughts [SPOILERS]

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Alablast:
I just finished reading Peace Talks last night aaaand I have THOUGHTS on it.


First off, I loved the scenes with Maggie and Bonea.  It was great seeing them transition from 'plot points' like they had been the past few books to not-entirely-full-grown characters, and it was adorable.  <3  It made things a lot more impactful when Dresden was considering things, and the 'why are you sending me back' scene when he moved to protect her was really well done/full of 'ack'.  I'd been waiting a while to see those two and I was not disappointed.

I was also amused that apparently Laschiel knew over two hundred different recipes for pancakes.  Definitely the Temptress.

Other than that, though...  I kind of got a 'rushed' feel from the book.  I know it's meant to be spread across two books so there's a lot that isn't going to come to fruition until later, but... it still felt like there were points where things got 'crammed in' and didn't really get fleshed out/didn't raise some things that felt natural.  Two in particular stand out:

1.)  At the beginning, when Harry and Thomas are talking about what the baby might end up doing to Justine... nobody brings up that Justine is protected.  That comes up again later when Dresden touches Lara, and we have Word Of Jims about the other branches of the White Court being vulnerable to opposing emotions (courage, etc), but it seemed very odd that Dresden didn't even ask if that would make Justine safe.  Given how it seems pretty rare for White Court to have kids it seems like it would be entirely possible there had never actually been a mother who was protected by love like Justine will be.  I get that most of what Thomas did was probably motivated by that 'I have a solution in mind' comment in regards to protecting Justine, but... it just seems extremely out of character for Harry and Thomas to not even suggest it.  Especially given that Harry knows how much Thomas cares for her, and what he would do if her life was threatened.  It seemed like something he would have talked about for a bit or tried to help with.  Which ties into my theory as to what's going on with Thomas and the assassination (more later), but if so then it feels 'rushed' for the purpose of making that possible.

2.)  At the end, when Dresden is back in what is left of his basement.  I *hate* assuming Jim Butcher forgot about something, especially with how much he remembers and how much calls back to things earlier in the series, and how things that are out of place are usually hints at something bigger going on, like Mab messing with his knowledge of fire spells, but... what jumped out at me almost immediately was that Dresden didn't have a copper summoning circle in his basement.  There are two sentences devoted to it specifically; Dresden points out it had survived somehow, then ruminates over the floor of the living collapsing and shielding it from the worst of the flames.

But in Changes, Dresden had upgraded his 'old copper summoning circle' (direct quote from the book) to a brand new one.  The swartalves had made it for him; he talked about how difficult it was to convince them to work with iron.

So does it mean something that the old one is there now instead?  Or was it something that got overlooked with the thousands of other threads Butcher was keeping together?

That said, I still really enjoyed the book.  And I'm looking forward to Battle Ground; I really want to see what happens next, and find out what was going on with Thomas.  And I want to find out if the Lightsaber of Faith can cut through that titan bronze or not.  >=D

Since it's the big thing still left dangling, my theory with Thomas/the assassination:

I think Cristos is a Grade A certified jerk.

Thomas was pretty obviously motivated with saving Justine's life.  Thomas' actions were probably all meant to protect Justine, and the thing threatening her was the baby feeding off of her.  There may be other ways to suppress the Hunger, but as far as we know Thomas only knows of one way to stop a White Court vampire from being able to feed: a wizard casting a spell.

We know from how things ended that the Outsiders were working with the Fomor and trying to disrupt the conference, or at least the response to the Fomor invasion - they started attacking the Outer Gates right before the attack so that Winter couldn't help out.  If their goal was to make it as hard for the Accords to respond as possible, having an assassination attempt occur seven minutes into the conference would be a good way to do it; it would make them all even more suspicious and much less willing to work with each other, even against a huge threat.  Since we know the Black Council is working with Outsiders, my theory at this point is that somebody dangled an enchantment in front of Thomas that would protect Justine so long as he attacked and killed somebody.  If true, that means Cristos knew all about it and was 'diplomacing' to cause more problems with the swartalves and the White Court later, perhaps even counting on a rescue attempt once Thomas was moved.


Things still standing out:

- I think Wild Bill is infected by Nemesis.  :(  I can't put my finger on what exactly it is, but something about how he was acting in the stop after Dresden visited Lara makes me think something is wrong/up with him.

- Who was in the third car trailing Dresden and Murphy?  I thought the Jeep might have been the White Council following him, since it seemed old/they use older cars, but I have no idea who might have been in the silver car.  That seemed White Court, but he was on the way to visit Lara so it didn't make much sense they would follow him there.  Think that's going to be Important.

- It seems like Marcone was leaving a message for Dresden by putting Thomas where he did.  Keeping the subbasement as it was would be one thing and would make some sense if he was trying to learn about the wizardy stuff Dresden had left around (did Little Chicago survive/does Marcone have it now?), but putting Thomas there seems pretty deliberately a message that he knew Dresden would be coming to rescue Thomas.  I think Marcone might know about Dresden/Thomas.

ANYWAYS those are my initial thoughts.  I was really glad to read another Dresden novel, and am really looking forward to Battle Ground now!

Bad Alias:
You should put the summoning circle in the continuity errors thread.

Dina:
Hi Ala! So good to see you.
I just have finished reading it. I liked it a lot even when I am very sad. I don't like what is happening with Thomas, or Lara for that matters. She is one of my favorite frenemies too  :)
But I agree with the rushed feeling, specially at first. The first chapters seemed...disjointed. Like different postcards placed in the same album. I commented a few things in specific threads about each of the sample chapters but only a few comments:
In the first chapter Harry sees giant footprints...and does nothing. Tells nothing to anyone. He does not ask Bonea. He does not ask Bob (when he visited Butters).
Apparently, he and McCoy not tell anyone about an outsider attacking them
He does not ask Bob for the sneezing either. I mean, he asks Butters, but he does not ask him to ask Bob. Not even the paranet!
Lara was described twice with very few chapters in between. And we are already familiar with her, so it was boring.
Ramirez placed an ink dot in Harry's waist...long before Harry was hurt and Butters do a hard cleaning of Harry's hands. How did the dot survived?
Lastly, Ramirez acted much more suspicious in the "ambush" than at the party, which was weird.

Things I really like: what you said about Maggie and Bonea (well done), McCoy skills, Grey, River Shoulders, the heist.

About Thomas in the basement, I actually believe Marcone was trying to help Harry to rescue Thomas (without directly doing so, of course), perhaps because he knows Harry would be too dangerous if they killed Thomas, but also...I think he just likes Harry.

Bad Alias is right, you should put the circle in the continuity errors.

IIRC, Justine is not protected, they have sex with other people so they can touch and all that.

Bad Alias:
It's my understanding that Justine is protected because she looses the protection so Thomas can feed. Once Thomas feeds, she has the protection again. That's why she says something like "repeat as necessary" to Thomas in Ghost Story. However, there's always the chance that the True Love protection is gone because they are no longer at that level. They weren't always there. Something changed in Blood Rites. Who's to say something didn't change again at some subsequent point?

Regenbogen:
This has been discussed somewhere in a sample chapter thread, but I still feel confused about the vampire baby feeding off its mother. Of course every baby feeds off its mother, but this seemed to imply, he meant the baby's hunger demon. But as I understood, WCV are born human and turn vampire during their first feeding, which is always lethal. If they have true love that first time, they stay human:
 Blood Rites, Inari.
The unborn baby's hunger demon feeding would mean, the demon is active during pregnancy and turns inactive after birth. Doesn't make sense to me.
Maybe this is some mind manipulation, too, I wonder.

Edit: And Harry doesn't ask more about that. I mean, he knows, he was there when Inari almost killed him. ;)
The only reason I can think about now, is that the demon protects itself by hiding inside a baby and toddler, because they don't have a lot of control and therefore it would risk being exposed too early in it's life. So it feeds during pregnancy a lot, so that it can survive until puberty. Hitting puberty it is so starved that it can't be stopped, before it kills.
Also it would be a totally different tone in a story if it showed toddler White Vamps feeding. Ahem.

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