I realize this is skating on very thin touchy topics thin ice here, but it is an important question. If her life is in that much danger from the Hunger, why doesn't Justine abort the pregancy?  Why didn't Thomas insist on it to save her life?  Or is there something about the embryo Hunger that makes an abortion medically impossible?  Or is there something else going on,like a possible power struggle among those in the White Court that depends on a viable pregnancy? Thomas must of talked to Lara about it, is that why she talked to Mab about cashing in on favors owed?   

Something weird is going on here.  Thomas told Harry in effect that White Court Vamps for all intents and purposes are sterile, or "all but sterile" as he put it. He and Justine still used birth control in spite of that, yet she still got pregnant. The pregnancy threatens Justine's life,big time,but there is no move to end it. Yeah,to end it would be heart breaking for both of them, but would Thomas's heart be less broken if he loses Justine? Are they banking on the fact that because this baby was the result of their true love, the Hunger might just burn itself out? If they are, Thomas didn't say anything to Harry about that hope.

Going a couple of steps back, what if the pregnancy itself was a set up?  Has someone pulled supernatural strings to make it possible in the first place, setting off this whole chain of events?

   Okay, the big thing about Murphy has always been what a smart fighter she is.  That her advice
to Harry has always been smart, she is called a warrior..  Well, maybe not so much.. 

In Skin Game she went by her rules and not those of the Sword, broke it and got herself pretty
broken.  Then as now, perhaps love has fried her brain a bit?  What I am talking about is on
the final couple of pages of Peace Talks on the boat.  She is in so much pain she says she can
hardly move.  Harry tells her that a good warrior knows when it is best to avoid a fight.  He suggests
that there are a group of people, the paranetters who are going to be very scared and need wise
council and protecting, that they need her.  She objects to that says she won't sit out this fight, and insists that she is going to join him in the fighting.  Harry doesn't argue the point, because he knows he cannot change her.. However what she is doing isn't really brave, it certainly isn't smart, it is very selfish and could get her killed, more to the point get Harry killed because he now cannot fully concentrate on the enemy, he has to worry about her.. Oh I know the argument, Murphy has always taken care of herself and Harry too.. But now the odds are that she cannot and there are people who do need her, especially when things get really hairy.   So this kills the idea that if she never improves physically she will be happy running the show from behind a desk.  No, she won't.  She is good at
fighting, and perhaps it is simply a matter of her that love has once again addled her brain, but she is no warrior, and she is very selfish..  This is may be heavy foreshadowing of her doom..

   Thomas is Nem infected, he was being used by it, the assassination attempt was a huge diversion, so the Outsiders, Fomor and the Titian Lady can attack..  That is what he is trying to tell Harry, what the name of the Outsider behind it is, not Justine as Harry assumes.  In fact the Hunger Demon may be related to Nemesis.  Nemesis is who is really protecting Lord Raith, it keeps it's foothold in this world. Being coupled with him as long as she was, Margaret figured it out, that is why she ultimately ran away to give birth to a star child.  This was Raith's true motive for killing her..  However the knowledge about Raith and what his Hunger Demon really was, is why in her death curse while she couldn't kill it, she could make it unable to feed.

Eb is hell on wheels... How did he know that Harry was star born?  Did Margaret tell him? Kind of creepy, born every six hundred and sixty-six years, or 666. . .

It appears that there is really going to be a huge changing of the guard if Rivershoulders is right,  sounds like this is going to be the last battle for a lot of old favorites.

I also think Murphy's death is really being foreshadowed in this book.  There is no miracle healing for her, yet she insisted on fighting. Harry even says it will most likely lead to her dying in battle, but he says he cannot stop her from going.   I don't think that is just hyperbole. 

Butters, HE IS THE MAN!  Two wolf ladies?  He got more than a light sabre in his pocket...

Vampires, what did they take from Eb? Many think his wife, perhaps, or something more... Why is it that everyone, [including Alfred] can see that they cannot be trusted and the evil in them except for Harry?  Has love for his brother blinded him to it?  Or will in the end the love he has for his brother Thomas burn out the Hunger Demon?

So Harry made a deal with Uriel with the help of Mort to hang around as a ghost of some kind to protect little Maggie if he gets killed?  Sweet...
 

Just got a notice from Amazon, "delay in shipping sorry for the inconvenience!"  CRAP!!!!

   Almost finished rereading Summer Knight and a lot of questions about Elaine have popped up in my
head.  We know Harry's connection to Winter was through his mother.  What was Elaine's connection to Summer?   We have no clue, yet when Harry took Justin down and she ran, the place she ran to was Summer.  There has been lots of speculation that it was Elaine that infected Aurora.  We have no clue of what her state of sanity was before Elaine's arrival.

Maeve was a wild child to be sure, but was she insane before Slate presented her with the knife he had just stabbed Elaine with?  That in of itself was a set up, he stabbed Elaine in the back,but didn't kill her.. Odd.. And she singed him with fire, he had burns, yet he was able to stab her in the back.   I'd always been under the impression that it was the Knife that Lea got at Bianca's party that spread the infection, first to Lea and from her, to Maeve.  But what if it was Maeve who infected Lea?  Lea was wearing the Knife she got at Bianca's party in Summer Knight, yet showed no symptoms of infection.  In fact she seemed saner than usual, which in of itself I suppose could be a symptom..

Then towards the end when Harry talks Elaine into helping him by moving the thorns aside so he could take on Aurora to save Lily,  Elaine says something very curious.  Harry mentions her betrayal of him, trust, the love they had at one time for one another.  To which Elaine answers, "You don't know whatI am."  I can see her saying "who I am," people change, they hadn't seen each other in years and both had been through a lot..  But "what"? 

Supposedly Harry and Elaine were being raised as enforcers, both supposedly had the potential to be star children.  But what if that only applied to Harry?  We know the back story about why Justin took them in from Ghost Story isn't exactly what Harry thought it was.. Justin himself might have been double crossed.   

If Harry was bred to be a star child, what if Elaine was bred to be a Trojan Horse?  What if she never was enthralled by Justin?  It just appeared that way,  the plan backfired when Harry got away, turned the tables on HWB and came back and killed Justin.  When she fled she went to Summer and infected Aurora turning her mad.. Then with the help of Slate infected Maeve etc of Winter..

Yes, I know supposedly she is now helping the Paranet, but she is still playing things awfully close to the vest,  she could still be a Trojan Horse..

   On the reread after reading Turn Coat it isn't very hard to connect the dots really.  In the meeting of the White Council and just before Eb is informed that his friend Simon has been attacked and murdered by the Red Court.   He is shocked as is the rest of the Council when they hear the news, Simon was the Red Court Vamp expert, his tower was impregnable, the consensus is that someone from the inside had to have betrayed him, but who? 

Okay, this is kind of dropped because they need to seat a new member of the Senior Council to take
Simon's place.  As we know Eb challenges for the seat, so the Merlin turns to Peabody essentially to
call the roll of those present in line for such a position..  Very deliberately in my opinion,  Jim writes about Peabody muttering something then "brushing his nose with his finger leaving a big smear of ink.  Hello.. Since in Turn Coat under the influence of Peabody's ink Luccio murders LaFortier, it isn't to great a leap to surmise that Peabody with his ink influenced someone to betray Simon to the Red Court.  The question is who ordered him to do it?

  Page 322 Cold Days Harry knocks some small clay pots from a shelf... The have labels, he makes an
effort to pick them up, Mother Summer takes the cracked small pot from Harry's hands..

As gently as if handling a newborn, she took the little clay pot from me and turned it slowly, closed her eyes for a moment, and then put it reverently back on the shelf.

When she took her hands from the little pot, I saw letters written in silvery light upon it and the neighboring pots, as if letters had been awakened by the warmth of her hands.

The writing on the cracked pot said simply Wormwood.

The letters began to fade, but I saw some of the others: Typhus.Pox. Atermors. Choleros. Malaros.
Typhus. Smallpox. The Black Death. Malaria. And Wormwood.

I bring this up because today on NPR they were saying that they have found that a simple tea brewed from Wormwood can cure schistosomiasis, a very nasty parasitic disease common in Africa, and that it is also a useful ingredient in a treatment of malaria... I remember when Cold Days came
out there was a rather long thread on this passage, mainly speculating on wormwood...  The radio said simply that it is a common bush in Africa, had been used against worm infestations by the natives for years hence the name wormwood... And that they have found in a study that the tea from it is more effective than a fancy expensive medicine they've come up with.  Notice that Mother
Summer handled the little pot that contained it with reverence..   Because it can bring a cure to so many things?  An answer to be found among the so many dreaded diseases...

    I realize that this bleeds heavily into two other current threads, but I think it is different enough that it deserves it's own thread at the risk of hijacking the other two. 

So here is the basic question, why is it that some can have a brush with black magic and be rehabbed and others go full warlock?  We've discussed what constitutes "gray areas" of the Seven Laws, what is breaking them and what isn't...  However other than perhaps the ultimate punishment for what is seen as breaking them, what if that is beside the point?

What if the real answer comes down to a matter of addiction?  We know in the case of alcohol and even drugs to some extent, some people can take a drink, even on rare occasions get drunk, but they do not develop a craving or addiction to it..  While others have no tolerance at all for alcohol, they "feel" one drink..  Some find pleasure in this feeling, some get a "high," others don't find the experience pleasant at all... 

So what if black magic has a similar affect on the wielder of it?  Like teenagers everywhere young people experiment with alcohol, even drugs.. Some get by with it for whatever reason, for others it ends tragically...  Let's add that most know before hand some of the affects of these things, but being kids do it anyway..  Young kids with talent, without a wizard mentor have no clue, but they do know the sense of power over others it gives them.. That is the high they become addicted to, if they are too far gone, they cannot recover from it..  Some can dance in the gray areas of it without lasting affects, but the more susceptible may not.. So simple act of making a love potion may be a mere exercise for some, with others it signals a  slippage into that craving for power..