True Love's Protection

[Mr. Mouse]

I thought the explanation for why Harry's protection disappeared was disappointing, sort of 'the narrative necessitates Lara be able to touch him and I don't want to bother with Harry having sex with someone else so there it is.'

A better explanation than Mab's would have been: "The protection is a feedback loop between the lover and the beloved. When one of them dies it fades quicker than if mere distance separates them." That gets Jim out of the corner he painted himself into without making it seem that ones later loves don't matter as much, which is an odd position to espouse when writing about characters with multi-century lifespans.

[Mira]

I thought the explanation for why Harry's protection disappeared was disappointing, sort of 'the narrative necessitates Lara be able to touch him and I don't want to bother with Harry having sex with someone else so there it is.'

A better explanation than Mab's would have been: "The protection is a feedback loop between the lover and the beloved. When one of them dies it fades quicker than if mere distance separates them." That gets Jim out of the corner he painted himself into without making it seem that ones later loves don't matter as much, which is an odd position to espouse when writing about characters with multi-century lifespans.

That really doesn't work either, Harry still burned Lara's lips in White Night five years after his split with Susan.  True, she was still alive, but he had had no contact with her at all in all those years.  To my mind, the love you feel lingers more after one loses a loved one to death than a split up, because you are still loving the memory and there is no distraction from it.  I skimmed the book before I started to read it, and when I saw that question come up, I thought was it more a quick passion than true love between Harry and Murphy?  That actually might have made things more interesting even if disappointing for both Harry and his Murphy shipping fans.

[Mr. Mouse]

That really doesn't work either, Harry still burned Lara's lips in White Night five years after his split with Susan.  True, she was still alive, but he had had no contact with her at all in all those years.  To my mind, the love you feel lingers more after one loses a loved one to death than a split up, because you are still loving the memory and there is no distraction from it. 

Personally, I agree with you about the love lingering more after a loved one dies, especially if one is summoning the shade and playing boardgames with it every night. But narrative necessity triumphs over all.

They might not have had contact, but Harry still felt love for Susan after 5 years and hadn't been with someone else. Susan still felt love for Harry after 5 years and hadn't been with anyone else. Ergo, lack of contact alone doesn't break the protection.

The problem Jim created was that Harry burned Lara while Murphy was alive, but not 4 months later. He needed  Lara to rock Harry's world with a superkiss on Halloween which should have burned her lips off if the protection held. His excuse of "I just fed" from the first date won't hold if she is indeed feeding on him.

Second alternative, Jim could have said it was Odin's scooping her up that broke the connection.

[LaraBeck]

I thought the explanation for why Harry's protection disappeared was disappointing, sort of 'the narrative necessitates Lara be able to touch him and I don't want to bother with Harry having sex with someone else so there it is.'

Couldn't agree more. If self-loathing was the cause, Harry should have lost the protection when Susan got turned. And granted, Harry himself says that he never felt as bad as he's feeling in Twelve Months over Murphy, not even when Susan got turned. But come on, it just makes no sense when we have other prior lore like Lara being burned by a wedding ring.

By that metric, will the protection returns as Harry makes peace with himself? It would be logical, except Lara still can touch him at the end of Twelve Months. And what is Murphy returns? (which is likely) Will the protection return?

I felt like there was a lot of seeding doubt into Harry and Murphy's love and I felt that was unnecessary. I mean, sure Jim needed to build up the relationship with Lara, but I don't appreciate trying to soft-retcon Murphy's character or her relationship with Harry.

Not when in the same book Harry tells us that he wanted to spend his life with Murphy.

It was like seeing two completely different Harry's chapter to chapter. I dunno, this was a major disappointment for me in this book, which overall wasn't that great to begin with.

I saw one reviewer saying that the book was soft-reboot of the series, and indeed, I feel that is accurate.

I mean, Lara, who is practically Thomas' mother, now is softer and emphathetic when she was pretty much okay with him being dead a few books in the past. And we're going to play that "she's just misunderstood" game now.

There's a lot of trying to make Lara fit into Murphy's place and I'm not happy with that, yes, partially because I still think Harry and Murphy should be together, but also because it was clumsily done in this book.

[CrusherJen]

Since I devoured the whole thing in one sitting, it's difficult for me to sort out if my initial reactions are fully baked or not... but yes, I agree, this doesn't hit well for me at all.

To a degree, the soft-retconning could be attributed to Harry learning more about how the world really works... but in this case I can't buy it. It's too different from what we saw Harry go through after Susan, or even the way we saw Lara get burned one book ago, and I really hate throwing doubt on Murphy's feelings after she died. We got books and books of build up between those two, it feels insincere to even imply "sour grapes" now. It's not just kicking someone when they're down, they're dead, and that just seems mean, in a way the saga typically hasn't been before.

I'm not all that committed to any ship but even if Harry winds up with someone else by the BAT, it doesn't mean that what he had with Karrin wasn't real while they were together, just as what he had with Susan was real at that time.

IMHO, any of the alternative explanations in this thread would have been better than what we got in the book.

It's one thing to have an unreliable narrator (which Harry is), but too much backtracking and retconning can damage a reader's faith in the narrative, creating distance and doubts, and that's not a good thing. Yes, maybe Lara can pull back on her power to some degree, she's probably old and powerful enough to have that much control, but between that AND the oh-so-conveniently waning protection AND Mab's catty little swipe at Murphy, it's all too much. 

[LaraBeck]

We also got Harry saying "she was often wrong" about Murphy, when that's not what we've seen him think about her in all previous books.

We even got a "she held back from you" about Murphy from her shade and from Mab.

And sure, yes, that happened, they both held back IMO, Harry and Murphy, but to point it out solely about Murphy, indeed feels like kicking her when she's down. Harry could have done some introspection about that, it was clear he was "holding himself back" in Peace Talks.

And I mean, that woman was willing to walk through fire for Harry, she got into the battle field for him as much as for the safety of Chicago.

I could argue though, that these comments about Murphy "holding herself back" might be either 1. to seed doubt in their love, or 2. to seed the possibility that nothing will stop that woman from coming back for Harry, because they have unfinished business.

[Mira]

To a degree, the soft-retconning could be attributed to Harry learning more about how the world really works... but in this case I can't buy it. It's too different from what we saw Harry go through after Susan, or even the way we saw Lara get burned one book ago, and I really hate throwing doubt on Murphy's feelings after she died. We got books and books of build up between those two, it feels insincere to even imply "sour grapes" now. It's not just kicking someone when they're down, they're dead, and that just seems mean, in a way the saga typically hasn't been before.

As a widow of a marriage of over forty years, it's been my experience that you don't stop loving someone just because they have died.  And my husband died ten years ago, for Harry it had not even been a month since Murphy died!  Then there was the whole thing about Murphy's shade not able to move on because of how she felt for Harry.. So yeah, a kiss from Lara should have burned her face off!  Maybe Mab was messed with that if she can? Because she would also know about the true love thing.  The other thing that bothered me was I thought that Murphy went to Valhalla? 

[LaraBeck]

As a widow of a marriage of over forty years, it's been my experience that you don't stop loving someone just because they have died.  And my husband died ten years ago, for Harry it had not even been a month since Murphy died!  Then there was the whole thing about Murphy's shade not able to move on because of how she felt for Harry.. So yeah, a kiss from Lara should have burned her face off!  Maybe Mab was messed with that if she can? Because she would also know about the true love thing.  The other thing that bothered me was I thought that Murphy went to Valhalla?

Mira, I think this might be one of the few times I've agreed with you so much. So, so much. Love doesn't work like it's been described in this book. Lara should have burned, badly. Mab's explanation is... lacking, something doesn't fit.

About Murphy being in Valhalla, she is. Her shade is not really her, it's just an impression of her at the time of her death. So, nothing in the book contradicts that the real Murphy is in Valhalla.
I still found it so odd that Harry gets Vadderung on the phone (is that easy to communicate with him apparently) but there's no question about Karrin, no intent to find out more, at the very least, to confirm that she's okay?

There are some weird choices in this book, IMO.

[Mira]

About Murphy being in Valhalla, she is. Her shade is not really her, it's just an impression of her at the time of her death. So, nothing in the book contradicts that the real Murphy is in Valhalla.
I still found it so odd that Harry gets Vadderung on the phone (is that easy to communicate with him apparently) but there's no question about Karrin, no intent to find out more, at the very least, to confirm that she's okay?

There are some weird choices in this book, IMO.

  Murphy is in Valhalla but her shade isn't?  What is her shade then?  Her soul?  What?  So this might be what the rule is about, by that I mean, if Murphy's shade or soul has moved on, her body might return as a soldier for Odin, but it really isn't her.  So when and if Harry meets up with Murphy as one of Odin's soldiers, it's just her body and not her?  That should be interesting.

A couple of more things about the true love problem, not just the Harry/Susan love and Lara's lips burning after five years of them splitting, but the elaborate moves Thomas and Justine went through to keep from buring him.  To the point where she was wearing a latex suit so Thomas could touch her, then in Changes she has lesbian sex and finally they could have sex?  You mean the two of them were madly in love for all that time and they didn't have sex?  Or Thomas would be okay with Justine being unfaithful with another woman but not a man?  I think it was a cool idea at the time that Jim wrote it, and used it from time to time, but in the long run of the series wasn't really practical..  So now after the whole Murphy/Harry thing that so many fans were heavily invested in, not like they were with Susan/Harry, we get this weak explanation as to why Lara's face isn't burning off now.

[LaraBeck]

  Murphy is in Valhalla but her shade isn't?  What is her shade then?  Her soul?  What?  So this might be what the rule is about, by that I mean, if Murphy's shade or soul has moved on, her body might return as a soldier for Odin, but it really isn't her.  So when and if Harry meets up with Murphy as one of Odin's soldiers, it's just her body and not her?  That should be interesting.

A couple of more things about the true love problem, not just the Harry/Susan love and Lara's lips burning after five years of them splitting, but the elaborate moves Thomas and Justine went through to keep from buring him.  To the point where she was wearing a latex suit so Thomas could touch her, then in Changes she has lesbian sex and finally they could have sex?  You mean the two of them were madly in love for all that time and they didn't have sex?  Or Thomas would be okay with Justine being unfaithful with another woman but not a man?  I think it was a cool idea at the time that Jim wrote it, and used it from time to time, but in the long run of the series wasn't really practical..  So now after the whole Murphy/Harry thing that so many fans were heavily invested in, not like they were with Susan/Harry, we get this weak explanation as to why Lara's face isn't burning off now.

No, the shade is not her soul, this was explained in Ghost Story and is again pointed out in Twelve Months. This is not what the "rule" (einherjar) thing is about. Her shade is not Murphy, it's an impression of her, a copy of her at the time of her death. It won't have nothing to do with her memory or who Murphy truly is or where her soul is. Her soul is effectively in Valhalla, for all we know.

If Murphy is to return, it will be her, maybe slightly changed due to the new mantle of power, but it will be her. Just like Harry is still Harry with the mantle. It makes no sense, otherwise, to collect a honored warrior for their qualities, just to null them by turning them into people that they weren't. There's no point in that, if that was the case, they'd collect anyone.

[Dina]

I agree with LaraBeck about the shade being just a copy. She is not Murphy's soul.

And yes, the true love thing truly disappointed me. It makes not sense. I was ok with Lara touching Harry with all the explanation that she was not trying to fed, bla, bla that worked for BG. Besides, it was not necessary from a narrative POV. Lara could have projected his aura over Harry before feeding (we know the saliva of the whampires and I think their pheromones have a alluring effect) and then, when she actually tried to feed, she could have been burnt, retreat, but still had taken a taste of it. Or directly, Jim could have omitted that scene but added a scene where Mab insisted in Lara feeding from him as part of the alliance, and so Harry made a test of magically feeding Lara without her actually touching him. It would have make sense to do that small test even before when he tried to split Lara and her hunger.

This was the most disappointing thing in the book for me.

[Mira]

No, the shade is not her soul, this was explained in Ghost Story and is again pointed out in Twelve Months. This is not what the "rule" (einherjar) thing is about. Her shade is not Murphy, it's an impression of her, a copy of her at the time of her death. It won't have nothing to do with her memory or who Murphy truly is or where her soul is. Her soul is effectively in Valhalla, for all we know.

If Murphy is to return, it will be her, maybe slightly changed due to the new mantle of power, but it will be her. Just like Harry is still Harry with the mantle. It makes no sense, otherwise, to collect a honored warrior for their qualities, just to null them by turning them into people that they weren't. There's no point in that, if that was the case, they'd collect anyone.

That doesn't make sense to me, sorry but it doesn't.. An impression of her, but not her? So why the need to move on?  It's her soul that moves on.  As an einherjar she won't have any mantle of power, non of the einherjar we've met have any power, they have their skills as warriors, this is why they were selected, but they have no power.

I could argue though, that these comments about Murphy "holding herself back" might be either 1. to seed doubt in their love, or 2. to seed the possibility that nothing will stop that woman from coming back for Harry, because they have unfinished business.

Again, if Murphy was holding herself  back presumably out of love for Harry and his love still held true, then it shouldn't matter whether Lara had just eaten or not, her lips still should have burned off.

[Snark Knight]

No, the shade is not her soul, this was explained in Ghost Story and is again pointed out in Twelve Months. This is not what the "rule" (einherjar) thing is about. Her shade is not Murphy, it's an impression of her, a copy of her at the time of her death. It won't have nothing to do with her memory or who Murphy truly is or where her soul is. Her soul is effectively in Valhalla, for all we know.

Also, think back to Grave Peril, where Harry purposefully flatlined to create a shade of himself, a copy at the moment of (near) death, to help him double-team Kravos' nightmare ghost.

The shade accomplished his unfinished business when they won, and just faded away.  The actual Harry returned to his body thanks to the girls keeping it viable with CPR.

[LaraBeck]

That doesn't make sense to me, sorry but it doesn't.. An impression of her, but not her? So why the need to move on?  It's her soul that moves on.  As an einherjar she won't have any mantle of power, non of the einherjar we've met have any power, they have their skills as warriors, this is why they were selected, but they have no power.

Yes, by the lore/mythology or whatever you wanna call it in the books, that's how shades work, they're not the souls of the deceased. The point is reinforced in Twelve Months and it doesn't contradict what we already knew since Ghost Story, so there's no continuity error there in this regard, at least. The shade is not Murphy, or Murphy's soul. Her soul is already where it's supposed to be, apparently.

I dunno how she'll come back, an einherjar or whatever, but in any case, it does not make sense that she changes, or that she's suddenly an empty vessel. The people recruited are recruited for who they are, it makes no sense to redefine that, so all the more reason to believe she'll be the same and not a "different" person than she was when she was alive.

Also, think back to Grave Peril, where Harry purposefully flatlined to create a shade of himself, a copy at the moment of (near) death, to help him double-team Kravos' nightmare ghost.

The shade accomplished his unfinished business when they won, and just faded away.  The actual Harry returned to his body thanks to the girls keeping it viable with CPR.

Yes, I imagine Murphy's shade faded away when Harry "let go" of her.

Again, if Murphy was holding herself  back presumably out of love for Harry and his love still held true, then it shouldn't matter whether Lara had just eaten or not, her lips still should have burned off.

I do agree with you on that.

[Dina]

I think the one who needed to move on was Harry, not the shade.