True Love's Protection

[LaraBeck]

This is a minor point but I think it's funny.  Well, maybe more confusing than funny.

I've seen a video that came out sometime after Battle Ground was released; probably in 2021, where Jim answered the question, "When did you decide to kill Murphy."  And you are correct, Jim said it was around time Turn Coat was released.

However, there is a new interview video that was recorded a few days before TM was released where Jim was asked the same question.  Jim's answer: "I always planed to kill her off."

I have no idea which answer is true; and theoretically, they could both be lies or both be partially true.  Example: Jim could have made the decision to kill Murphy off after he finished writing Blood Rites; or any other novel before Turn Coat, in which case both statements are false.  On the other hand, Jim may have always known he was going to kill off Murphy but he didn't decide which novel it would happen in until after Turn Coat was released.  In that case both statements contain part of the truth.  I would guess the second scenario is probably the correct one, but only Jim knows for sure.

Yeah, I remember the interviews from around 2023 where he would say that he knew he was going to kill her like 10 or 15 years ago.

In a recent AMA he was asked what was the biggest change he made to the overall story, and he said that it was murphy's death.

Then in some recent meet & greet or something, someone reported that Jim said that he knew she was going to die in book 10, that'd be Small Favor, but that he was feeling it out since Grave Peril, when we see the Sight of her.

So, all slightly different versions.

I went through alternating between hope and despair about this (as a Murphy fan) since Battle Ground, I always felt that thematically, and considering all the build up around her character, Butcher did what he did because it was the only way to power her up to be able to stand at the end with Harry.

Then, when I heard those first interviews post BG when he was very dismissive of the few questions he got about Murphy and happily saying "well, sometimes people die", plus the shoehorning of Lara into that space (that extends to 12Months IMO), made me think that nope, we've lost her forever.

But then with these more recent comments, and other people that attended his events reporting (again) that he said that "her story is not over yet", I think that maybe indeed she is and was always meant to be one of the characters that make it to the end, but he realized early on that he would need to power her up eventually. It's a two for one situation, you give Harry what he wants and needs, you torture him (just like Jim likes) and then at the end you give him back an ally who's now capable to stand beside him.

But who knows... 12 Months left me even more on the limbo than Battle Ground did about the direction of the series, tbh.

[KurtinStGeorge]

What was wrong with Lara kissing Harry and not getting burned?

It appears to me most readers who don't like this scene go to Mab's explanation of how True Love Protection can fail and find fault with that.  I already wrote my take on Mab's explanation, so there is no point in beating that dead horse. 

In finding fault with Mab's explanation, some readers are saying it made far more sense for Lara to get burned when she kissed Harry.  I think it was Mira who said, "Lara should have gotten her face burned off."  That may be going a bit too far, but in general I don't disagree with those opinions.  But there is something else going on this scene that everyone seems to have missed, and this missing element is the real problem.  When I put this together, I realized there was an alternative scenario Jim could have written that would have made Mab's tortured explanation of true love protection unnecessary.  In fact, it's so obvious to me that maybe Jim considered taking this route but for some reason rejected it and we got what we got.  I'll get to that point last.

Ask yourself this question.  How did Lara know she wouldn't get burned when she kissed Harry?  Before you start coming up with possible explanations, think about the last time you accidentally touched a hot stove or the last time or you touched a casserole dish or any other food container that you took out of a hot over with pot holders, but a few minutes later you accidentally brushed your hand against it and it was still hot enough to raise a blister on your skin.  We have all done something like that at sometime in our lives and it is something we try our best to avoid doing and with good reason.  Even minor burns are annoyingly painful.

So either Lara would have had one hell of a good reason to accept burning herself or she would had to have known Harry's love protection was gone.  The problem is, while I can think of a couple of ways to explain how Lara could have known Harry was no longer protected, in different ways I think each of these explanations are just as unsatisfying as Mab's explanation of why Harry's true love protection broke down.

First, there is no way Lara could physically detect that Harry was no longer protected.  We can put that possibility out to pasture.  The White Court has had over two thousand years to work on this problem and Lara getting burned by Harry in Peace Talks tells us they haven't figured out a way to do so at this time.

Perhaps Lara could have bargained with someone with enough information to know if Harry was still protected.  Of course I'm talking about Mab.  There are a couple of problems with this.  While Mab appears to know the nuts and bolts of how true love protection works and why it may fail to work, would she have known that Harry was no longer protected?  She might have known, but we can't be certain.  Even if Mab could have reasoned out that Harry was no longer protected, that is the kind of information Mab doesn't hand out for free.  But there is another problem to consider.  Even if Lara could offer Mab something in return for this knowledge, even asking about it would be an open admission from Lara that she planned to enslave Mab's knight for her own ends.  It is far too obvert a move for Lara to make.  That alone should end this line of thought.

OK, perhaps Lara's understanding of how true love protection works told her that Harry was no longer protected.  I don't think this explanation works either.  First, true love protection is supposed to be rare to begin with.  Lara would not only have to know that a person who longer feels worthy of being loved can become vulnerable to the White Court, she would have to know with certainty that this applied to Harry.  Knowing that Harry was in grief and suffering from PTSD might be a clue that Harry was vulnerable, but it wouldn't give Lara certainty that she wouldn't get burned if she laid a massive kiss on Harry.

As I suggested above, Jim actually laid the groundwork for an alternative scenario that I think works much better than what we got.  It has to do with Lara's blue eyes, which in the past we have only seen described as being grey to silver and once white.  Lara told Harry she'd fed extra heavy before their first date.  Her hunger being satiated was why it wasn't trying to feed on Harry and Lara didn't get burned when she casually touched Harry with her hands.  It made Lara look less dangerous than normal.  It didn't have to be that way.

Jim could have given Lara a second reason for giving her demon an extra heavy feeding.  Extra feeding for her demon should also give Lara more vampire mojo if she got into a serious fight and needed to heal quickly, without having to immediately feed again.  In this scenario Lara's blues eyes don't make her less dangerous, they make her more dangerous.

So when Lara gets annoyed with Harry at her party, when she gives Harry the kiss, he has the same reaction we saw in the book, but this time Lara pulls back in sudden pain as blisters break out on her lips and the skin closest to her lips.  Then Lara gets a determined look on her face, the blisters disappear, her eyes are still blue, but a lighter shade of blue than before and Lara kisses Harry a second time and he's powerless to stop her.  When Lara again pulls back in pain; maybe she curses, but again she heals herself and her eyes are now dark grey.  Harry is all but on his knees at this point.  Then Lara tells Harry pretty much the same thing she said in the book, but somewhat modified.  Lara tells Harry that she understands he is in pain, that he isn't at the top of his game, but she needs him to focus on the task at hand.  Both of them are in danger, and if she needs to do so, Lara can enslave Harry without taking him to bed in order to get him to do his job.  Lara gets more energy with sex included, but it isn't necessary when her main goal is just to gain control of someone.  Lara tells Harry that just a couple more kisses will do the trick and she could do that right now, but she doesn't want that.  Lara tells Harry she doesn't want to offend Winter and she thinks Harry will be more effective "if you can think for yourself." 

This way we could have had a more dangerous Lara and avoided Mab's clunky explanation of how true love protection can fail.  We know it was going to fail if or when Lara and Harry get married. I don't think much was achieved by having it fail in this book.  Plus, the reversal of fortune when Harry unknowingly addicted Lara to Winter would have hit that much harder.

[Dina]

Mm, this is interesting but I think Harry's deal with Mab prevented her for some things, even if her host obligations have been challenged by the Winter Knight behaviour.

Small digression: I don't actually think what Harry did was so bad from the Supernatural etiquette point of view. He did not say "I am going to kill you" he said "die". I think words matter,  forms matter, and a supernatural member wishing another one ill should not be a problem. A direct threat would have been more complicated. In my opinion, not so bad either unless Harry said "I am going to kill you right now", which of course would have been unacceptable.

Back to the point. I think Lara began kissing Harry thinking she was not going to feed from him, her hunger previously seated, so was not worried about the burnt. Then. I don't know, he smelled Harry or something and her instincts took off and she began feeding. And it suprised me that she was not surprised herself by the not burning.

[Mira]

I have no idea which answer is true; and theoretically, they could both be lies or both be partially true.  Example: Jim could have made the decision to kill Murphy off after he finished writing Blood Rites; or any other novel before Turn Coat, in which case both statements are false.  On the other hand, Jim may have always known he was going to kill off Murphy but he didn't decide which novel it would happen in until after Turn Coat was released.  In that case both statements contain part of the truth.  I would guess the second scenario is probably the correct one, but only Jim knows for sure.

  This is a guess, but a logical one I think, but I think Jim decided or began to contemplate that Murphy had to die once she was off the police force.  Characters in fiction often take on a life of their own and don't always go in the direction the author intended.  Given the personality that Jim gave Murphy, which fitted her as a cop perfectly, it didn't fit being a Holy Knight, it didn't fit her becoming a vigilante, and it didn't fit her being a security guard for Vadderung either.  Making her Harry's lover made a lot of readers happy, but in my opinion it didn't do much for the story.  What I disliked about it was, for all her toughness, Murphy tended to come off more like she was Harry's mother than lover in my opinion.  I found myself more and more rolling my eyes when she was on page because of her constant preaching to Harry.  Whether it works out or not, I so far have liked Harry's relationship with Lara, I liked it back as early as Blood Rites, why?  Harry and Lara really do treat each other as equals, they respect that both are very dangerous, they respect that both are also very intelligent, they talk things out as equals.  That was missing between Murphy and Harry, I got tired of her claiming she had the moral high ground over him on many subjects and she clearly didn't.  That's one aspect that I wish Jim had addressed before he did kill her off, what he never addressed was Murphy's big screw up when she got a Holy Sword broken.  Yeah, it turned out okay in the end for the Sword, but the reason it got broken is Murphy's idea that she was morally superior to everyone and thus could judge Nick. 

[Xamion]

While Mab appears to know the nuts and bolts of how true love protection works and why it may fail to work, would she have known that Harry was no longer protected?  She might have known, but we can't be certain.

You forget, that Twelve Months explicitly confirmed on page, that Mab *knows* *exactly* what Harry thinks and *feels* at a given moment. Mab would 120% *know* whether Harry is protected or not, otherwise, her plan to get her (Lara) addicted to Harry wouldn't be even possible in the first place.

[Bad Alias]

You forget, that Twelve Months explicitly confirmed on page, that Mab *knows* *exactly* what Harry thinks and *feels* at a given moment. Mab would 120% *know* whether Harry is protected or not, otherwise, her plan to get her (Lara) addicted to Harry wouldn't be even possible in the first place.

I think she is only sometimes aware. She's often surprised by what Harry does or says to her.

[Xamion]

I think she is only sometimes aware. She's often surprised by what Harry does or says to her.

It's quite likely that she has to actively focus or deliberately recall such information post-facto, but it is definitely firmly established, that such knowledge is absolutely part of either her "natural" abilities or her Winter Queen intellectus.
But this fact, combined with the fact that she knows more about the "mechanics" of true love protection against White Court vampires, is enough to understand that she absolutely knows whether Harry is or isn't protected at any given point in time.

In regards to Mab often being surprised by Harry's (re)actions, that's quite logical, because even people themselves don't really know how they will act, based on what they think or what they (think they) feel, much less other humans. What Mab most certainly can do (and does all the time) is calculate (and far better than most humans can) based on the thoughts and feelings of others, since while she no longer experiences those things exactly the same way humans do, like she said: "[she] was mortal once."

[Mira]

In regards to Mab often being surprised by Harry's (re)actions, that's quite logical, because even people themselves don't really know how they will act, based on what they think or what they (think they) feel, much less other humans. What Mab most certainly can do (and does all the time) is calculate (and far better than most humans can) based on the thoughts and feelings of others, since while she no longer experiences those things exactly the same way humans do, like she said: "[she] was mortal once."

True, and over a millina or so Mab, if she hasn't seen it all, has seen a lot of it as far as human nature goes.

[Bad Alias]

such knowledge is absolutely part of either her "natural" abilities or her Winter Queen intellectus.
...  she absolutely knows whether Harry is or isn't protected at any given point in time.

I don't think the case is that strong. How she knows what Harry is thinking isn't known.