The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Choices
EBRIEN:
If we consider Harry as a decent person even in the Mirror universe and makes a decision that, in effect, is decent (but questionable--ie. Molly helping her friends), then maybe something subtle becomes much more---adding up to him taking up the coin of Lashiel.
I'm most curious about how we'll find him in Mirror Mirror. Is he under the radar or out and hello on wheels, so to speak.
B
g33k:
--- Quote from: EBRIEN on April 14, 2025, 07:02:15 PM ---If we consider Harry as a decent person even in the Mirror universe and makes a decision that, in effect, is decent (but questionable--ie. Molly helping her friends), then maybe something subtle becomes much more---adding up to him taking up the coin of Lashiel.
I'm most curious about how we'll find him in Mirror Mirror. Is he under the radar or out and hello on wheels, so to speak.
--- End quote ---
Mirror!Harry is not a decent person any longer, no; he has gone full-on villain. Not sure if he's just gone overboard on the "fighting the good fight" theme, embracing "acceptable losses" in collateral damage, or if he's actually working towards objectively bad ends.
I'm pretty sure there is WoJ specifying that one of Mirror!Harry's closest allies is (brace yourself) ... Mavra. And he has discovered how to contact/summon other Alt!Harry's from other universes, and has been substituting them in for himself, when he's deeply trapped... letting those Harry's die in his place.
His foes keep thinking they've "killed Harry Dresden" because they have... just not their Harry Dresden, the one native to their own universe, who keeps slipping out the side door while the summoned Harry dies.
Mira:
--- Quote ---Mirror!Harry is not a decent person any longer, no; he has gone full-on villain. Not sure if he's just gone overboard on the "fighting the good fight" theme, embracing "acceptable losses" in collateral damage, or if he's actually working towards objectively bad ends.
--- End quote ---
Do we know that for sure, or assume that? When you consider the original Trek story which supposedly this is the inspiration for Jim's story, we see what we think is "evil Jim Kirk" verses the good Kirk of our world.. However taken in the context of his universe, "evil Kirk" really isn't at all, because everyone with the exception of the Spock of that parallel universe is like that. In other words, "evil Kirk" is the norm for his world and because he is every bit as clever and resourceful as our Kirk he has used the tools and morals of his world to get to the top. We and our Kirk may have seen him as evil but who knows, our Kirk may have screwed up big time by telling that Spock to assassinate the "evil Kirk" when he returns and change their universe. He also added that this Spock had the same values as his Spock of his universe... Maybe, or because both Spocks had logic in common Kirk just made the assumption that their values were the same. When you think of it, it was logical for the other universe Spock to want the Captain Kirk of his universe back to set things right again... In other words our Harry may see that Harry as evil, but he will have to be seen in the context of the world that he lives in.. In the "evil Harry's" world, Murphy may be a corrupt cop with no morals at all and Molly might be entering a convent to become a nun! Then what? If our Harry screws with those norms, he may have screwed up more than he fixes in doing that.. Which I might add maybe the point of the story and why time travel is one of the forbidden Laws of Magic.
peterwiggin94:
@g33k,
While I may have misremembered (I can't find the specific WOJ), I don't think it's improbable that Harry would have been able to do a mini-Darkhallow. I think that Harry's been tempted to do something like that several times from the very beginning. I'll add a description of the very first time that this has happened in the end of Storm Front below here. For context, Harry has just driven up to Victor's house and he's thinking about his past brush with Dark Magic, the suspicions he's gotten from the White Council, and how slighted he feels.
--- Quote ---[Harry] could kill the Shadowman, now, before he knew I was here. I could call down fury and flame on the house and kill everyone in it, not leave one stone upon another. I could reach out and embrace the dark energy he had gathered in this place, draw it in and use it for whatever I wanted, and the consequences be damned.
--- End quote ---
When I look at the part that I italicized for emphasis, Harry is pretty clearly thinking about a Darkhallow-type action. While he isn't discussing absorbing the power of ghosts permanently, he is pretty clearly discussing using the dark emotional energy to power a destructive spell. Harry has also made it clear at other points in the series that doing things like this affects the practitioner. I think that this is what evil Harry did in the end of Grave Peril. Evil Harry absorbed the emotional energy of Bianca's building then lashed out at Bianca with it. Our Harry summoned ghosts then pointed them at Bianca. My memory isn't perfect though so I might have messed something up.
Mira:
--- Quote ---When I look at the part that I italicized for emphasis, Harry is pretty clearly thinking about a Darkhallow-type action. While he isn't discussing absorbing the power of ghosts permanently, he is pretty clearly discussing using the dark emotional energy to power a destructive spell. Harry has also made it clear at other points in the series that doing things like this affects the practitioner. I think that this is what evil Harry did in the end of Grave Peril. Evil Harry absorbed the emotional energy of Bianca's building then lashed out at Bianca with it. Our Harry summoned ghosts then pointed them at Bianca. My memory isn't perfect though so I might have messed something up.
--- End quote ---
I believe you got it right as far as I remember and what I thought reading that passage in Grave Peril. Yes, Harry did summon and point the ghosts at Bianca, however doing more than that wasn't needed because the ghosts were Bianca's victims and they wanted revenge.
Harry did have dark thoughts when he drove up to Victor's house, using dark magic would have been the easiest way to deal with it.
But then possibly it was his mother's spirit intervened, he felt pressure on the pendent she had left for him and felt a slim hand on his, then he thought again..
page 278 Storm Front
--- Quote ---I took deep breaths, struggling to see clear of the anger, the hate, the deep lust that burned within me for vengeance and
retribution, that wasn't what magic was for.
--- End quote ---
Harry has usually thought things through in that manner, even in Changes when he thinks of the three options open to him to save little Maggie, accepting the coin, Darkhallow, or Winter Knight, he picks the least bad of the bad options.
--- Quote ---While I may have misremembered (I can't find the specific WOJ), I don't think it's improbable that Harry would have been able to do a mini-Darkhallow. I think that Harry's been tempted to do something like that several times from the very beginning. I'll add a description of the very first time that this has happened in the end of Storm Front below here. For context, Harry has just driven up to Victor's house and he's thinking about his past brush with Dark Magic, the suspicions he's gotten from the White Council, and how slighted he feels.
--- End quote ---
Except until he met Cowl and got and read Kemmler's book, I don't think while he might have known what Darkhallow was, I don't think he had much of an idea of how to do it.
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