The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Did Ebeneezer use Mind Magic to make Thomas try the hit?
morriswalters:
We have no idea what Margaret's childhood was like or where she was reared. Certainly Harry doesn't. Who could have told him?
Mira:
--- Quote from: morriswalters on September 26, 2020, 01:12:31 AM ---We have no idea what Margaret's childhood was like or where she was reared. Certainly Harry doesn't. Who could have told him?
--- End quote ---
You miss the point, in my husband's case it wasn't that he had a bad childhood, he didn't. However he resented bitterly the absence of his father, who in his view couldn't be troubled with the burden. His father's view was all together different and from his view point, practical. However my husband never saw it.
As far as Margaret goes, if Eb kept out of her life until she was say eleven or twelve when her talent emerged, and then tried to dictate to her as her master and she an apprentice. She'd resent it, and eventually rebel and perhaps extend that view to the likes of the White Council. Harry doesn't have to be told, he can imagine it, it is how he feels he was raised, that is what boiled out of him when Eb suggested he give up Maggie. God reading that argument brought back flashbacks of what I'd heard before.
morriswalters:
Is there some place in the text that Eb actually says that he stuck Margaret in a barrel and hid her as a child? And if there is, could you point me towards it? This, you abandoned me to chance, seems a little out of left field, since Jim hasn't established it in the text. When last I read, we don't know who put Malcolm down and sent Harry to the bad place. That whole grandfather and grandson fight seemed rather poorly contrived and motivated.
Mira:
--- Quote from: morriswalters on September 26, 2020, 12:51:39 PM ---Is there some place in the text that Eb actually says that he stuck Margaret in a barrel and hid her as a child? And if there is, could you point me towards it? This, you abandoned me to chance, seems a little out of left field, since Jim hasn't established it in the text. When last I read, we don't know who put Malcolm down and sent Harry to the bad place. That whole grandfather and grandson fight seemed rather poorly contrived and motivated.
--- End quote ---
Here it is, a pretty good admission on how Eb treated his daughter in her early years or didn't.
page 33 Peace Talks. Eb first talks about keeping little Maggie safe, and then Harry has his retort.
--- Quote ---I ground my teeth. "You have a better idea?"
"She needs to be somewhere safe. Somewhere away from you. At least until such time as he shows potential talent of her own, so that she can learn to protect herself."
"Assuming she ever does."
"If she doesn't our world will get her killed."
At that I felt my temper rising. "I guess you did it differently," I said.
"I did do it differently, "he snapped. "I made your mother grew up far away from the dangers of my life."
"How did that work out?" I asked him. "Let's ask Mom. Oh, wait. We can't. She's dead."
--- End quote ---
With that retort, Eb really gets pissed.. On page 34 goes on about dangers to little Maggie from monsters etc, because she is living with Harry... Then how Harry really feels
comes out.. page 34 Peace Talks
--- Quote ---"Boy," he said, "don't push me."
"Why? What are you going to do? Let me vanish into the foster care system? For my own good of course."
The old man's head rocked back as if I had slapped him.
"Mom died when I was born," I said in monotone. "Dad when I was coming up on kindergarten. And you just let me alone."
Ebenezar turned from me and hunched his shoulders.
"Maybe you thought you were protecting me," I continued, without inflection. "But you were also abandoning me. And it hurt. It left scars. I didn't even know you existed, and I was still angry with you."
--- End quote ---
So there you have it, and it is very close to real life, as I've said, I witnessed and suffered hearing this argument between my husband and his father for years. My father in law thinking until the day he died that he did the right and practical thing for his children. And my husband thinking until the day he died, that his father had abandoned him, hurt and angry, and it wasn't worth any financial inheritance he may have gotten from it.
morriswalters:
It says nothing to the point. And it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Margaret was 170 or so when she died. Obviously Eb's plan worked. Eventually you grow up. and you can't blame everything that happens to you after that point on Mom and Dad.
And nothing in the text prior to Jim writing that, said that Eb had anything to do with what happened to Harry after Malcolm's death. Jim pulled this out of his ass with no foundation. And the Morgan short story shows that Morgan believed Justin had done the deed. It never really mentions Eb at all.
All things being equal, if I found myself related to Harry, I'd change my name, move to the Congo and hide in the deep jungle. Eb is a one man Death Squad who calls down comets and blows up volcano's, with no more of a rationale than he believes it to be the right thing to do. Margaret has murdered with magic, conspired with the Black Council or was at the minimum a fellow traveler, who abandoned one child and arranged the birth of another to create a weapon.
As for Harry, if I was a women I wouldn't get around him without an asbestos suit, body armor and a steel neck protector. He makes deals with no intention of keeping them. And has a brother who is a serial killer. He runs a Super Max prison and pisses off everybody at one time or another because he can't shut up.
This is what really shows the Jim is a rare writer, he makes Harry and his friends lovable. :o ;)
Three more days while there is still a Dresden book I haven't read.
Toodles
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