The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
We gotta talk about Margaret LeFay
g33k:
--- Quote from: LordDresden2 on August 05, 2024, 04:38:26 AM ---On the subject of Margaret, it occured to me today to wonder about something: did she know Kemmler?
She could have. The Council iced Kemmler in 1961. We don't know exactly when Margaret died, but it has to have been the early-to-mid 1970s. I'd say 1975-76 at the very latest, probably a little earlier. Harry is probably in the neighborhood of 50 these days, but IDR if it's ever been said precisely how old Harry is.
So it's possible that Margaret knew him. Heck, she might have fought alongside the Council against Kemmler, for all we know. Or possibly (though not I think very probably) she might have been on Kemmler's side against the Council.
Certainly, she was in the Game at the time when the Council took Kemmler down.
--- End quote ---
You're right, it's very possible they knew one another (I think inevitable that they at least knew of one another) . I'm betting there were some sort of meetings between them: it's exactly the sort of thing I think Jim would use to torment Harry!
The timing certainly works (Kemmler died about 10-20 years before Margaret, but they had over a century where they were both running 'round the world getting into trouble). We just don't know if there were ever any same-place-same-time actual face-to-face encounters. Detail-oriented fans created a semi-speculative timeframe (I think likely more-fully-researched than anything Jim himself ever did). It's good enough that Jim "adopted" it, and it's now hosted at his official website:
https://www.jim-butcher.com/timeline
Mira:
--- Quote ---I am going to assert that it's virtually always incorrect to presume "Anduriel is only pursuing the simplest and most-straightforward plan, here" in any scene where Nic/Anduriel is onscreen (they are like Mab (and Odin) in this regard).
--- End quote ---
There are a couple of unknowns, 1) Has Harry always been on Nic's radar? 2) Can Anduriel monitor every human at the same time?
I don't think it is Anduriel who is calling the shots as far as a plan goes. His value, and it is a HUGE advantage is gathering total intelligence about everyone.. I don't think Mab or even Odin can do this, there are things they don't know even now about Harry or how he thinks. Nic has that intelligence, that's why it was so easy for him to sucker Murphy into a fight and get a Holy Sword broken.
g33k:
--- Quote from: Mira on August 06, 2024, 01:36:02 PM ---There are a couple of unknowns, 1) Has Harry always been on Nic's radar? 2) Can Anduriel monitor every human at the same time?
I don't think it is Anduriel who is calling the shots as far as a plan goes. His value, and it is a HUGE advantage is gathering total intelligence about everyone.. I don't think Mab or even Odin can do this, there are things they don't know even now about Harry or how he thinks. Nic has that intelligence, that's why it was so easy for him to sucker Murphy into a fight and get a Holy Sword broken.
--- End quote ---
1) I (very strongly) suspect so! Nic seems to have known Margaret -- possibly well -- and I suspect he particularly would have taken extra pains to "look in on her" when she fled from Papa Raith. Meeting Malcom, getting pregnant... these would have been known to him. Her baby being on-track for being Starborn, and the Salic-Law offspring of an unusually-powerful White Council witch, seems likely to be of passing interest to Anduriel. Whether Anduriel informed Nic... unknown.
2) I'm pretty sure Anduriel can multitrack much more info than humans can, but I'm guessing the limit is there, and likely more on the order of dozens-hundreds than the billions of "all of humanity" at once.
3) Anduriel has found a partner in Nic who already had a closely-aligned agenda, and millennia to subtly influence & adjust Nic's outlook to be even closer. Anduriel "called his shots" over millenia, with that subtle influence; and now mostly just sits back and "lives off the interest of those prior investments." He still steps in on Nic, occasionally. We saw it in the fight in Hades' vault, when Michael & Harry tried to get Nic to give up the coin: I don't think Nic was allowed to hear them.
Nic boasts to Harry that he's a "full partner" but that's honestly delusional of him: he has only the "independence" that Anduriel permits him (but that's a fair amount because Nic began close and only got closer as the years passed).
4) I think Anduriel & Mab & Odin each have different sorts of info where they have advantage "gathering intel." I doubt Anduriel's "listen from the shadows" ability is widely-known, and I think it very meaningful (and not at all accidental) that Harry was told. Fundamentally, though, the Fallen seem unable to understand humanity's "better side" -- recall that Harry baffled Lasciel's Shadow more than once, and that was "the Temptress'" best effort to create a mortal-influencing simulacrum (presumably the "Master of Shadows" is less-skilled). Faerie'dom has its own huge intel-gathering power (witness Harry using Toot & the Guard), and Mab thus surely knows stuff that Anduriel doesn't. I'm unclear what Odin's "special abilities" are, in this regard, but he surely has tricks of his own, advantages of his own.
LordDresden2:
--- Quote from: g33k on August 05, 2024, 09:39:52 PM ---I am going to assert that it's virtually always incorrect to presume "Anduriel is only pursuing the simplest and most-straightforward plan, here" in any scene where Nic/Anduriel is onscreen (they are like Mab (and Odin) in this regard).
They don't play 7-d chess, they live and breathe it 24/7/365 and have been doing so for centuries.
In fact, Occam's Razor is the least-valid approach to these sorts of characters.
--- End quote ---
Not really.
I actually disagree about their 'living and breathing' this stuff. Yes, they're good at it. Yes, they're often playing a deeper game, and usually a deeper one yet within it when they do. But they still have limits. Nicodemus is still a human being, an incredibly long-lived and very smart one, granted, but it's a mistake to see him as all-foreseeing, all-calculating, nigh-infallible. Sometimes he's just doing what he appears to be doing.
We've actually seen in-story that Nicodemus can be, and has been, outplayed by Harry, Mab and John Marcone. Now granted both the latter are masters at this themselves, but it's an example of Nicodemus' fallibility. Nicodemus is very good at this, but he's not necessarily the best there is. Though I think he thinks he's better at it than he really is.
(I think Margaret had some of the same thing going on.)
Remember what Uriel (a true 17-dimensional chessmaster) was doing during the Hades adventure. Even as Mab and Marcone played Nicodemus, Uriel was using that to destroy Nicodemus' illusion of omniscience and Ultimate Badassness with his own minions, in hopes of freeing them and eventually saving them. Seeing Nicodemus run away, totally outplayed, wiped out the perception they had of him as being a mega-infallible badass...and left them potentially open to better things.
And even the master-level players are not always playing at master level. I think it's a mistake, for example, to ascribe that sort of ability to the Black Council, or Nemesis. They too are to some degree playing it by ear, I think.
--- Quote from: g33k on August 05, 2024, 10:00:51 PM ---You're right, it's very possible they knew one another (I think inevitable that they at least knew of one another) . I'm betting there were some sort of meetings between them: it's exactly the sort of thing I think Jim would use to torment Harry!
--- End quote ---
Good point.
We just don't know enough about Margaret's motivations, back in the day, to assess what her attitude toward Kemmler would probably have been. Even if she was corrupt at the time herself, that doesn't guarantee they'd have gotten along, as an old line from a Disney show goes, sometimes 'the last thing a villain needs around is another villain'.
--- Quote from: g33k on August 07, 2024, 06:15:13 PM ---
3) Anduriel has found a partner in Nic who already had a closely-aligned agenda, and millennia to subtly influence & adjust Nic's outlook to be even closer. Anduriel "called his shots" over millenia, with that subtle influence; and now mostly just sits back and "lives off the interest of those prior investments." He still steps in on Nic, occasionally. We saw it in the fight in Hades' vault, when Michael & Harry tried to get Nic to give up the coin: I don't think Nic was allowed to hear them.
--- End quote ---
I might need to reread that scene, but I don't think Anduriel was blocking Nicodemus' ears, so to speak. I'm not sure he'd have been allowed to do that, under the circumstances. IIRC, my impression was that Harry and Michael almost reached Nicodemus for a moment, he seemed to waver, and then Anduriel whispered something to him and fed his pride and ego and got him back on the evil track again.
--- Quote --- Nic boasts to Harry that he's a "full partner" but that's honestly delusional of him: he has only the "independence" that Anduriel permits him (but that's a fair amount because Nic began close and only got closer as the years passed).
--- End quote ---
Absolutely. No mortal is ever really the one in control with those Coins in play. They'll let a mortal have his or her head if it's useful, but the final say is always in demonic hands. Deep down, Nicodemus probably knows that, even if he can't admit it to himself. The only way a mortal gets the last word with a Coin is by refusing it, or surrendering it.
Mira:
--- Quote ---We've actually seen in-story that Nicodemus can be, and has been, outplayed by Harry, Mab and John Marcone. Now granted both the latter are masters at this themselves, but it's an example of Nicodemus' fallibility. Nicodemus is very good at this, but he's not necessarily the best there is. Though I think he thinks he's better at it than he really is.
--- End quote ---
They did, but only because they now understand Nic's advantage. That's why the planning to out con Nic's con in Mac's bar worked so well, blocking Andriel removed Nic's advantage. Mab and company picked one of the few places where Andriel couldn't listen to their plans to plant Gray. Nic is clever, but it is easy to be clever when you know before hand what the other side is planning. Andriel is a fallen angel, so at one point he did have perhaps not all the power of an archangel, but he was still powerful. When he chose the wrong side and fell and became the prisoner of the coin, he still retains a lot of power, but he is only as good as his host in many ways. In other words, Nic has always been power hungry and is convinced that Andriel's cause is right, and has bought into the idea that they are an equal partnership. In my opinion one main reason why it didn't work out between Harry and Lasciel is that accidental soul gaze Harry had back in Death Masks when he first met the Denarians. From that he understood where any "partnership" was heading no matter how many promises Lasciel made, still it was a close thing because of the temptations of all the advantages given a host of a coin. Harry in the end didn't want to end up like the image he saw, thus with the help of his starborn unbelievably strong will he resisted and rejected Lasciel's coin. Nic doesn't have that kind of will, I also think he is more full of fear than ego and pride, that's why he didn't give in to Harry and Michael in what seemed like a weak moment. He still needs time as things around him turn south and he is no longer on top before he makes his decision.. We have yet to see what influence the Grail will have on him in the end. I trust Michael on that, and he thinks school is still out on that one.
--- Quote ---I might need to reread that scene, but I don't think Anduriel was blocking Nicodemus' ears, so to speak. I'm not sure he'd have been allowed to do that, under the circumstances. IIRC, my impression was that Harry and Michael almost reached Nicodemus for a moment, he seemed to waver, and then Anduriel whispered something to him and fed his pride and ego and got him back on the evil track again.
--- End quote ---
I don't think Anduriel was blocking Nic either at that point, I don't think it was so much pride and ego that got to Nic, but fear.
Nic has been willing to sacrifice even his only beloved daughter for the cause, perhaps even believes that his daughter will rise again. My point is, Nic isn't disillusioned yet by why he is doing what he is doing, he still believes in it. Also he has no clue as to what would happen to him if he gave up his coin, he has been on the earth for a couple of thousand years maybe because of the coin. Nic has seen what has happened to those who did give up their coin and became mortal again. I mean the man is a couple of thousand years old, would he age rapidly like Cassius and die after a few years? Or just turn to dust?
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