The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
The Soul Gaze in Blood Rites, Something Margaret Said to Harry About Justine..
Mira:
I was rereading the passage in Blood Rites where Harry has his soul gaze with Thomas and has a conversation with Margaret.
She tells Harry something about Thomas, the Hunger Demon, and Justine that caught my eye.
Blood Rites, page 171
--- Quote ---My mother nodded at Thomas."The girl he loved. She is gone. She was his strength. It knows that."
--- End quote ---
Margaret doesn't say that Thomas thinks she is gone. She doesn't say, Believes she is gone.No, she says quite clearly that Justine is gone. Maybe I am just splitting hairs here, but it seems to me that Margaret isn't beating around the bush here, Justine is gone, as in dead. You might ask the question about how would she know for sure? Which is a good question, but Margaret also says that the Hunger Demon in Thomas knows. So if Margaret meant that Justine was indeed dead, could this be the moment when Nemesis made it's entrance? Also there is a reason for the Hunger Demon to go along, if it is connected to Outsiders. Anyway, if I am right, Thomas did kill Justine after all in Blood Rites, and then her body was taken over by Nemesis, the Hunger playing along. Nemesis needed years to get all the chess pieces in place, years to manipulate Thomas into striking when he did. Nemesis needed Justine's body for that, needed to be Justine to manipulate Thomas into the events that led to Battle Ground.
g33k:
--- Quote from: Mira on August 18, 2024, 08:32:38 PM --- I was rereading the passage in Blood Rites where Harry has his soul gaze with Thomas and has a conversation with Margaret.
She tells Harry something about Thomas, the Hunger Demon, and Justine that caught my eye.
Blood Rites, page 171
Margaret doesn't say that Thomas thinks she is gone. She doesn't say, Believes she is gone.No, she says quite clearly that Justine is gone. Maybe I am just splitting hairs here, but it seems to me that Margaret isn't beating around the bush here, Justine is gone, as in dead. You might ask the question about how would she know for sure? Which is a good question, but Margaret also says that the Hunger Demon in Thomas knows. So if Margaret meant that Justine was indeed dead, could this be the moment when Nemesis made it's entrance? Also there is a reason for the Hunger Demon to go along, if it is connected to Outsiders. Anyway, if I am right, Thomas did kill Justine after all in Blood Rites, and then her body was taken over by Nemesis, the Hunger playing along. Nemesis needed years to get all the chess pieces in place, years to manipulate Thomas into striking when he did. Nemesis needed Justine's body for that, needed to be Justine to manipulate Thomas into the events that led to Battle Ground.
--- End quote ---
It's an interesting notion.
But before analyzing too deeply, I want to ask: what -- not who, but what -- was Harry talking to?
I had been presuming a sort of pre-programmed simulacrum, a miniature "spirit of knowledge" along the lines of Bob (or Lash & Bonea (and likely the Archive)) that Margaret had constructed for Harry before her death; albeit a vastly-lesser one.
But for this thing to be tracking all sorts of extra info -- Thomas, and Thomas' girlfriend -- happening out in the world, it'd need to be considerably more robust, not just pre-programming. Able to conduct reconnaissance, to learn, to adapt... not really "lesser," in fact quite robust.
The "robust" examples -- that we we know of for sure -- are all the work of a much-more-competent & powerful entity than a WC wizard with just a century or so of lived experience... particularly since we already know that her amazing & impressive "best skill" is with the Ways & with faeries. For her to also have stunning (& centuries-beyond her justified skills) degree of experience constructing spirits-of-knowledge would seem to be unlikely.
Which leads me to the next option: it really was his mom... her "ghost" or "spirit" or "soul" or etc. And exactly how that could happen is entirely unexplained... unless she's explicitly working in Uriel's "Spook Service" with Captain Murphy, Carmichael, etc?
But I repeat: before speculating on "what did Margaret mean by that," I'd be looking at "what even was that thing, presenting itself as Margaret??!?"
Mira:
--- Quote ---But I repeat: before speculating on "what did Margaret mean by that," I'd be looking at "what even was that thing, presenting itself as Margaret??!?"
--- End quote ---
We don't. It could very well be that she said that Justine was gone, because in his mind at that moment Thomas believed she was gone. As simple as that and the gift of insight was just theatrics. However when she talks about her arrogance, regret about the burden she put [presumably star child, which Harry or Thomas had no clue of at that point] on Harry alone. That's not something you'd expect to find in Thomas's mind, because he simply didn't know about it. That fits with what Malcolm said, and what Lash tells Harry later in White Night. Notice Thomas doesn't say anything about what he saw at his end of the soul gaze of what was in Harry's head, other when Harry says their mom said to tell Thomas she loved him.. Thomas merely says she said to tell Harry the same thing.
--- Quote ---Which leads me to the next option: it really was his mom... her "ghost" or "spirit" or "soul" or etc. And exactly how that could happen is entirely unexplained... unless she's explicitly working in Uriel's "Spook Service" with Captain Murphy, Carmichael, etc?
--- End quote ---
Actually it is entirely possible that her and Malcolm both are working for Uriel. Malcolm did tell Harry that he wasn'tallowed to come to him before he did, so someone is in charge of what his soul does at any rate, why not Margaret's soul as well? An no, it isn't explained, but normally, at least in all of the soul gazes Harry has had and talked about afterwards, he never actually held a conversation with what he saw, he just observed.
Anyway, it is a tin hat theory, but it is one that could account for how Nemesis managed to get a hold of Justine.. Oh I might add Justine wasn't really the same after "near death" either...
LordDresden2:
--- Quote from: Mira on August 19, 2024, 03:06:47 AM --- We don't. It could very well be that she said that Justine was gone, because in his mind at that moment Thomas believed she was gone. As simple as that and the gift of insight was just theatrics.
--- End quote ---
I lean toward this. I don't think Harry was addressing Margaret's ghost (copy or real soul), I think he was talking to a Lash-style simulacrum, albeit a baby verion of one. I think the only things the simulacrum knew was what Margaret encoded into it, plus data from the host mind, but I think it was present in both Thomas' and Harry's minds, so to speak, or copies of the program were present. I think they linked up in the soulgaze and could share files.
(I suspect she learned how to do the simulacrum by studying the Denarians.)
So I think the simulacrum believed Justine was dead because Thomas and his demon both believed Justine was dead, and so the Thomas-copy of the simulacrum thought that, too.
But that's my hypothesis. It could be something more, but I don't think we have any evidence for it. We just don't have any against it either.
Mira:
--- Quote ---But that's my hypothesis. It could be something more, but I don't think we have any evidence for it. We just don't have any against it either.
--- End quote ---
Which is kind of my point, however it is a possible opening for Nemesis. Also and I don't know this for sure either, but wouldn't the Hunger know if it had fed until death? It's been a long time since I read Blood Rites, but the soul gaze happens after Thomas nearly dies, he is in pretty good shape at that point when he tells Harry he is his brother, but no one has told him that Justine lived? Not even Lara? Apparently not, if in the soul gaze it reads that she is gone... But then again "gone" can mean Justine is gone, but her body survives..
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