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The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: Yuillegan on December 18, 2019, 05:17:25 AM
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I know this doesn't quite fit the pattern, but could there be Denarian or members of the Circle in Storm Front?
Someone had to give Victor Sells the knowledge of the heart-ripping spell, which Vadderung implied was the same one as the Red Court uses in Changes.
Someone had to give Sells his Three Eye recipe, or at least guide him on how to invent such a thing.
Someone had to give him the knowledge of how to summon the Toad Demon.
My bet is the Circle. We are introduced to Bianca in this book, and we know that the Circle/Black Council wanted the war between Wizards and the Vampire Courts to happen. This whole book, the heart-ripping spell in particular, led Harry to Bianca. Where she ended up killing her assistant, and held Harry responsible.
Interestingly, Harry says that no Vampire sorcerer could pull that spell off (outside of the Nevernever). My belief is that Harry was wrong and that he was too naive and arrogant to believe any being but a mortal could do it. He also mistakenly believed that it was more likely a woman who did it as "women hate better". Aside from that ridiculous unsubstantiated statement, I also believe that these little issues were a result of Jim being such a young and inexperienced writer at the time. So perhaps much was retconned.
But if Harry's initial hypothesis is (still) true and even a Vampire Sorcerer couldn't pull it off outside of the Nevernever, I think that indicates that knowing Bianca couldn't pull it off they (the Circle/Black Council) had to use someone else.
The Circle killed a girl from the Velvet Room and one of Marcone's employees. So to me that seems plausible enough that they might have wished to get the only local loudmouth wizard to investigate, knowing he did consulting work for S.I. and knowing he might aggravate Bianca. Hell perhaps they actually knew something like that event would happen, as Wizards gain foresight over time AND clearly many supernatural types have prescient powers.
The whole book is a set up for the war, in order to end the White Council and establish an unobstructed New World Order (assuming that is the Circle's end game).
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I know this doesn't quite fit the pattern, but could there be Denarian or members of the Circle in Storm Front?
I /absolutely/ believe "the Circle" or "the Black Council" (or some agent(s) of theirs) was behind things in Storm Front.
As you say, the Heart-Ripper was likely from the Red Court, who Harry pegged as a Black-Council catspaw.
But it could also have been Papa Raith, who seems to have had a copy of the spell (was planning to use it on Thomas and Harry, to break Mama-Maggie's death-curse). But we suspect from Raith's magic-immunity ward, and know from the appearance of an Outsider at the big curse at the end, that Raith had Outsider backing... which we suspect points to Circle/Blouncil involvement.
I wonder if the Reds got it from Raith, or vice versa... or if each were given it by a 3rd party (e.g. the Circle).
Three-Eye was another OP tool given to Sells; the effect is too potent and too precise to be the formula of a rando-warlock newly come to power (as per his wife's testimony). A good potion like that (or at least, the formula for it) is really hard to create!
It's possible Sells just stumbled into some Grimoire of the Toad, and the Lightning-Fuel Spell, but the pattern is that Sells was being fed a bunch of OP tools.
Note the repeating pattern, BTW, of "minor/moderate badguy gets a serious powerup from being given OP tools." Burnt-out FBI agents get hexenwulf belts; Bianca gets Mavra-tutored, Kravos gets a power-up'ed (twice!), etc...
I'm... not really seeing Denarians anywhere in this. Except maybe Thorned Namshiel, who seems to be the best "wizard" amongst the Denarians, AND a member of the Black Council... and thus may have been the agent who created the Heart Ripper and other magics, and gave them to designated agents of the Circle, or the Blouncil, or whatever we're calling it this week. Of course, we suspect several very-senior & very-powerful human wizards (e.g. Cowl) are also on the Blouncil, and could equally-well have done it without calling Nammie for any "pointers".
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Also, I'm pretty sure we have WoJ that the whole series, including Storm Front, is a contiguous arc; not just "Harry's Story" but all part of the Bad Guys' grand plot (I mean, besides the grand "Jim Butcher gets rich and famous" plot).
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The "mysterious bad guy(s) behind everything" was definitely behind Sells.
Raith wasn't using the heart exploding spell. He was just using Thomas as a sacrifice for the entropy spell. Two different spells.
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Raith wasn't using the heart exploding spell. He was just using Thomas as a sacrifice for the entropy spell. Two different spells.
Raith was breaking the Death-Curse so he could feed again; THAT was (supposed to be) the Heart-Exploder; and it needed one (or both?) of Maggie LeFay's blood-children to do it.
But yes, the entropy-curse is a different spell, and ALSO came from Raith's library of magic (and WTF, dude... where'd he GET all those uber-powerful spells? (the Blouncil, obvs) And more to the point, at this point: does Lara have them now? Why isn't she using them? If she doesn't have them... who does?)
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Raith was breaking the death curse by killing Maggie's children. He was doing this by sacrificing Thomas as fuel for the entropy curse targeting Harry. It was being done at a specific time. The heart exploding curse doesn't have to be done at a certain time.
Why do you think Raith was using the heart exploding curse in Blood Rites? The only reasons I can see for thinking that is that they tried to kill Thomas by stabbing him in the heart and Harry and Thomas are related.
As to Lord Raith's library, I don't think we can assume where it came from or even that it all came from one place. I imagine he collected a great deal of it from various sources. The only reason I see to suspect the heart exploding spell came from Raith's library is the theory that he was Sell's employer. That theory is possible, but I don't think it's more likely than not.
Lara probably has the library. Maybe she is using the library. It's probably unlikely for her to use that specific spell to deal with problems. Not every solution calls for the same spell that Harry would be likely to recognize if used where he would become aware of the death.
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But it could also have been Papa Raith, who seems to have had a copy of the spell (was planning to use it on Thomas and Harry, to break Mama-Maggie's death-curse).
He wasn't planning to use the heart-ripper in BR. Thomas was going to be the blood sacrifice to point HWWBh's entropy curse at Harry ... because Lord Raith is a complexity addict who just couldn't do the job with two bullets.
That said, he very well might have also been setting Sells up with spells from his black magic library. Sells' employer sounded like a white court punny front company name, in hindsight.
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because Lord Raith is a complexity addict who just couldn't do the job with two bullets.
This is especially glaring when you consider that he was already at the point where he was getting his hands dirty. He personally captured Murphy and Harry, so it's not like he was hiding behind eighteen layers of cutouts and pawns anymore. Just... just shoot them in the head. Bam. You win!
Bond Villain Stupidity indeed. HE EVEN LEAVES THE ROOM!
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Oh yeah, someone from the Circle guided a depressed Victor Sells to those books in the first
place. I also doubt that he thought up the idea to cook up the Three Eye to addict kids. Also
someone had to introduce him to the Beckitts, and they had to further be convinced to get
involved in a sex orgy to call up a frog demon and power a spell to rip out the hearts of a couple
they had never met miles away. I believe what Harry said about what happened to Victor was
true, black magic is addictive and he was in over his head from the beginning. Having said that
he was a mere tool, it was no accident as to who was targeted to set up a chain reaction so Bianca
would be further inspired as she was at the party in Grave Peril. I doubt that Lord Raith had anything to do with any of that. His family branch of the White Court is much more subtle than
that, the whole series of events in Storm Front is just to messy for them to be a part of it.
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This is especially glaring when you consider that he was already at the point where he was getting his hands dirty. He personally captured Murphy and Harry, so it's not like he was hiding behind eighteen layers of cutouts and pawns anymore. Just... just shoot them in the head. Bam. You win!
Bond Villain Stupidity indeed. HE EVEN LEAVES THE ROOM!
Bond villain stupidity works, because if didn't Bond would die in the first act. Raith makes Lara look oh so much more dangerous by acting like a Bond villain. She's smart and he's stupid. Maggie stuck it to him on the way out the door, and twisted. And smiled, even though she knew she was f**ked. All the women in his life did what they did because he was a pompous ass.
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Having said that he was a mere tool, it was no accident as to who was targeted to set up a chain reaction so Bianca would be further inspired as she was at the party in Grave Peril. I doubt that Lord Raith had anything to do with any of that. His family branch of the White Court is much more subtle than
that, the whole series of events in Storm Front is just to messy for them to be a part of it.
Are you suggesting Bianca's employee was the real target there? I thought she was collateral damage of attacking Marcone's lieutenant - Sells' whole turf war was with Marcone.
The 'two-fer' being deliberate would have required careful timing to strike just as they were intimate enough to get both with one use of the curse. I kind of doubt Sells would have been up to prepping the curse ritual and spying through shadows on them to time it that closely.
And, granted, exploding hearts is a bit overt for Lord Raith. But if his involvement was to give Sells some black magic spell books and point him at Marcone, he might not have been micromanaging the particulars of how Sells went about it. It's more important that the proxy not be tied back to him than that the proxy works particularly elegantly himself. The Circle master could readily have been Cowl, too, though.
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Are you suggesting Bianca's employee was the real target there? I thought she was collateral damage of attacking Marcone's lieutenant - Sells' whole turf war was with Marcone.
No, what I am saying is Victor was used as a hit man by someone because he didn't know either party. Ripping someone's heart out, even from miles away is a very personal killing.
The problem with saying Marcone was the real target is at that point though it rapidly changed,
he was still on the fringe of the supernatural world at that point. So the crime itself made no
sense at all on a lot of levels.
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In terms of the plot, the killing was a message. I can reach you anywhere, at any moment. And you use the tools that you are good with. In this case magic and ritual. So a message directed at Marcone. And he would have known what it was. Much as everyone knows what bodies hanging off overpasses in Mexico is communicating.
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In terms of the plot, the killing was a message. I can reach you anywhere, at any moment. And you use the tools that you are good with. In this case magic and ritual. So a message directed at Marcone. And he would have known what it was. Much as everyone knows what bodies hanging off overpasses in Mexico is communicating.
Except that Marcone didn't want Harry to look into it, on the contrary.. In the soul gaze Harry got
no indication that Marcone saw it as a message of any kind to him. So if it was the kind of message to Marcone that you are implying it failed totally. Marcone wanted to deal with it in his own way
without interference. If it was intended as a message to Marcone, who ever sent it was totally
misreading the man.
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... If it was intended as a message to Marcone, who ever sent it was totally misreading the man.
This seems to me to be very, very possible! Well into "probable" in fact... ;)
... In the soul gaze Harry got no indication that Marcone saw it as a message of any kind to him...
I don't think a soulgaze works that way. It's totally non-telepathic, there's nothing about current situations, tactical evaluations, planning, etc.
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I don't think a soulgaze works that way. It's totally non-telepathic, there's nothing about current situations, tactical evaluations, planning, etc.
Harry described Marcone from the soul gaze as a man as cold as a featureless stainless steel fridge..
That is the kind of man that even the type of murder that his man suffered wouldn't be freaked at all
by it. So yeah, the soul gaze told Harry a lot about what Marcone would do.. That is one of the points of them, by giving a read on the type of person you are dealing with, thus predicting what they did do, would do, and will do..
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There is what we know about Marcone versus what Sells could know. We have access to special knowledge. And of course Marcone wanted to communicate as well.
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There is what we know about Marcone versus what Sells could know. We have access to special knowledge. And of course Marcone wanted to communicate as well.
Actually we don't. We know according to his wife that Victor was a decent enough husband and father, then he was fired from his job and it changed him. He began to check out books about
magic at the library and it went down hill from there. None of that surprised Harry, that in his anger, desperation he could turn to the dark arts, lots of sorcerers according to him start out that way. Someone obviously got a hold of him during that time and guided him. My bet is that it would be
someone like Cowl..
Keep in mind that during all of this time it has been about divide and conquer.. Going forward to
Summer Knight, why try to frame Mab for the Summer Knight's murder? Answer, while the courts are rivals, Both courts are united in how they view the enemy. The murders in Storm Front stirred the pot fracturing what normally would basically ignore one another.
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My take on Storm Front is that it was all about getting Three Eye onto the market for some purpose. That's what I think the Circle/Black Council/Whatever really wanted.
So they guide Sells down the path to Criminal Prosperity by helping him start up this magical meth lab, right? That's the Circle's real goal. Marcone becomes a problem for Sells, and he gets enough power to "handle him" on his own, either through further research and experimentation or just by getting a hookup from the Circle. But he needs Marcone's hair or something, else he'd have just offed him from the start. That's why he was paying off what's his face, the guy who got Harry's hair who bit the dust in the original Velvet Room courtesy of Cujo Hendricks. It just so happened that Harry got in the way and was a more immediate threat, and so was prioritized over Marcone. I fully expect Sells to have gotten to Marcone during the following storm if Harry hadn't stopped him. In fact, it might've been during that SAME storm if it lasted long enough.
But yeah, I think the Circle wanted something to happen with the Three Eye. I just don't know what that something is.
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Are you suggesting Bianca's employee was the real target there? I thought she was collateral damage of attacking Marcone's lieutenant - Sells' whole turf war was with Marcone.
The 'two-fer' being deliberate would have required careful timing to strike just as they were intimate enough to get both with one use of the curse. I kind of doubt Sells would have been up to prepping the curse ritual and spying through shadows on them to time it that closely...
In terms of the plot, the killing was a message. I can reach you anywhere, at any moment. And you use the tools that you are good with. In this case magic and ritual. So a message directed at Marcone. And he would have known what it was. Much as everyone knows what bodies hanging off overpasses in Mexico is communicating.
I'm not buying the "collateral damage" theory. This isn't a random spell that would've hit everyone in the room, or everyone in the bed... etc... Every victim is a target; it rips out specific hearts, not "any heart in the right spot."
We know the Ramps have the big-ritual heart-ripper (they used it in Changes) and we know from Vadderung that it's basically the same spell -- of the same origin -- as what Sells used. That says to me that the origin (of both) is the Black Council.
But there's more than one thing going on, and they may not -- in fact, probably were not -- all coming from the same people pulling strings.
There's the overt criminal turf-war, Sells-v-Marcone. I think Sells is his own agency here -- Big Man doing some dick-waving, gonna challenge Marcone.
Another turf-war, Raith-v-Bianca (because the Ramp was operating in the Whamp's "sex" domain). Raith figures the Sells/Marcone thing as his cover, letting him "pull the strings."
There's a magical turf-war, a new player in town staking a claim: the magical drug, but also the heart-ripper, the lightning-fuel, etc. On the one hand, that's Sells again, more dick-waving; but at a deeper level, that's whoever is backing Sells, supplying him with his rituals & formulae &c.
Ultimately, as noted, the Heart-Ripper comes from the Black Council. They may well have nudged Raith into motion; I figure Papa Raith for a BC asset, maybe even a member of the BC's Senior Council / Inner Circle / whatever... probably not quite that high, and likely an "external" asset, not actually a part of the Circle.
Then there's the secondary/reactive effects -- the "turf wars" were ACTIONS, and we all know those lead to REACTIONS...
For our purposes, getting Harry involved was a key reaction. Who wanted Harry in this thing? Whoever was feeding the high-level magic to Sells was probably doing so (at least in part) to get Harry involved (unless that specific person was a cut-out, being manipulated by someone ELSE who wanted Harry involved (and how many layers deep into THAT recursion do we care to delve?)).
But Harry's involvement was pretty inevitable in a magical kerfuffle of this scope. There's no way he could have not noticed (and being who he is, no way he wouldn't get involved). This in turn implies either someone who knows Harry very well indeed, or someone with extensive intelligence-resources and a good profile of Harry; more on that below.
Marcone and Bianca were likely to react, given that both their people were murdered & both of them take that sort of thing as threats. Marcone finally elected his "reaction" simply be letting Harry be his stalking-horse to handle the Shadowman situation, while Marcone himself waited to take advantage of whatever the outcome. Bianca, as we know, ALSO let Harry be her proxy against Sells (but also began laying plans against Harry himself).
Sells seems likely to have been sending the threat to Marcone... but not so much threatening Bianca (which as noted seems to imply Raith).
And I'm going back to Harry's original theorizing, that the killer(s) were involved with the victims, which implies that Sells knew both of them. Maybe it was as simple as Sells being one of Jennifer Stanton's "Johns," and he got obsessive / jealous. Alternatively, maybe Sells had a partner -- Sells got Tommy via hating Marcone, and the partner got Jennifer via hating Bianca. You recall what Harry said: this magic needed the caster to hate really intensely, to believe whole-heartedly in the outcome.
But the real hate we know of in this situation? It's Helen Beckitt's hatred of Marcone. She was only Sells' "flunky" on the magical side of things, but she hated Marcone with the kind of passion that could easily encompass murder.
So I'm guessing that minor-talent Hatin' Helen got pointed at strong-but-untrained Victor by somebody. That may or may not be the person who was giving Sells the sophisticated rituals & formulae.
I bet Mab is involved, somehow, making a move to groom her Winter Knight. I'm nominating her to have pointed the Beckitts at Sells, so Helen's hate could fuel & focus the heart-ripper. That "feels like" a Mab-move, the kind of secret she'd know (about Marcone shooting her daughter, and her resulting hatred), the kind of manipulation that puts Helen & and BlackCouncil-catspaw Victor into one anothers' orbits.
This STILL leaves a question of who hated Bianca (or Jennifer) enough; I don't have a good theory here, alas.
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New let's get back to "getting Harry involved." As I said above, someone had to know Harry himself, his reactions. Either personal knowledge, or a good profile.
Of personal knowledge, we have Eb and Elaine (and maybe Justin, if one of the "Justin Survived, or came back" theories is true). I don't think Eb got Harry involved -- the mess was TOO messy, to many likely ways for Harry to get killed, and I'm pretty sure Eb wants Harry to live. Elaine... maybe. I think she's too junior an operator, at this point; but her information could have been used by Aurora, or by Nemesis. If Nemesis knew of a Starborn wizard, I could see "likely to get killed" as a good motivation. But I... kind of think that's it, on "personal knowledge." At the beginning of Storm Front, it looks like Harry was a bit of an antisocial magic-nerd: going to work, then "socializing" with Bob in his la-BOR-a-tor-y, and no other life.
But... having a profile on "Dresden, Harry (Wizard(WC). Starborn(?)" ...?
Egads... who DOESN'T have a file???
We know the Whamp's keep such files; Lara gloated about the file on Ramirez, for example. I assume therefore that the Ramps kept such files, too (their extensive record-keeping was a repeated element in Changes, where they raided not one but TWO Ramp datacenters!!!). Vadderung had a file (of course). The White Council, and their Wardens, and presumably the Black Council. Mab (and likely Titania) -- not "files" as such, but extensive information they knew. Ivy -- Harry's own writing, plus anything any mortal wrote about Harry.
As noted above, my bet is on Mab. Possibly detecting that the Black Council was moving to address "the Dresden Problem," and acting preemptively herself.
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My take on Storm Front is that it was all about getting Three Eye onto the market for some purpose. That's what I think the Circle/Black Council/Whatever really wanted.
So they guide Sells down the path to Criminal Prosperity by helping him start up this magical meth lab, right? That's the Circle's real goal. Marcone becomes a problem for Sells, and he gets enough power to "handle him" on his own, either through further research and experimentation or just by getting a hookup from the Circle. But he needs Marcone's hair or something, else he'd have just offed him from the start. That's why he was paying off what's his face, the guy who got Harry's hair who bit the dust in the original Velvet Room courtesy of Cujo Hendricks. It just so happened that Harry got in the way and was a more immediate threat, and so was prioritized over Marcone. I fully expect Sells to have gotten to Marcone during the following storm if Harry hadn't stopped him. In fact, it might've been during that SAME storm if it lasted long enough.
But yeah, I think the Circle wanted something to happen with the Three Eye. I just don't know what that something is.
I'm not at all clear that the Circle actually wanted ThreeEye to be a success.
I mean... you may be right! On the face of it, it looks like an awfully silly thing to do, if they DIDN'T want it to succeed.
On the other hand, maybe they counted on somebody to take down Victor, stop the drug... Harry, Bianca, Marcone, Raith... Sells was operating out of his league. He had raw power, but very-minimal training, and little info on the wider supernatural community. It was inevitable that someone would end him. The BC could eventually have just killed him themselves, if nobody else managed it.
The thing is: if they really wanted to make ThreeEye a success, they should have launched it somewhere else. Somewhere without a ruthless crime-lord possessing startling self-discipline and a flair for strategic thinking; somewhere away from one of Papa Raith's chateaux; somewhere far from a powerful wizard with a WhiteKnight complex, like Harry Dresden. Somewhere without a resident Knight of the Cross!!! Build their base in small farming towns, in rural places, etc. If for some reason they want it in Chicago, then start it in all the areas AROUND Chicago, and let it filter into town... maybe even just cut a deal to distribute through Marcone! That's the way to get it going, if spreading the drug was a goal in itself.
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What led you to the conclusion that I meant there was anything random about it? Sells may have used sympathetic magic and targeted the lust event in that hotel room. It was how he powered his ritual. All this happened over Bianca's head, or behind her back. Or she came up with the idea. Take your pick. And who knows what Jim was thinking.
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That's why he was paying off what's his face, the guy who got Harry's hair who bit the dust in the original Velvet Room courtesy of Cujo Hendricks. ...
But yeah, I think the Circle wanted something to happen with the Three Eye. I just don't know what that something is.
"Gimpy" Lawrence.
I think whoever supplied Sells with Three Eye and the Heart Spell likely had multiple agendas. I'm convinced someone was testing out the Heart Spell for down the road that ended up being used in Changes, whether that was the original goal, something close to it, or something completely different. The Three Eye might just have been "payment" to Sells, but I don't think so. Hell, it could just be a plan of starting a bunch of practitioners down the black magic path to sow chaos or develop possible alias. Any who die sorted themselves out of the potential ally pool.
That's the way to get it going, if spreading the drug was a goal in itself.
It could be that they underestimated Marcone. The supernatural factions usually underestimate mortals ability to accept the supernatural and deal with it.
Jennifer Stanton (Sell's sister-in-law) was the target because she was going to tell Tommy Tom (Marcone's man) who Sells was (Marcone's rival). Tommy Tom may have been specifically targeted because of this, or the "splash" got him.
I don't think someone was trying to get Harry involved with Sells. It was Harry's first big case, so there probably aren't a lot of players who new Harry's character and skill well enough to know how it would play out. One of the themes of the books is that Harry's opponents underestimate, or at least misread, him.
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We know the Ramps have the big-ritual heart-ripper (they used it in Changes) and we know from Vadderung that it's basically the same spell -- of the same origin -- as what Sells used. That says to me that the origin (of both) is the Black Council.
That isn't a unique spell though, anyone with enough power and knowledge can use it if they use the dark arts. That is why Harry became suspect, he had the knowledge and enough juice to deploy it without the turbocharging his spell with a sex orgy, electrical storm, and a frog demon. The heart
ripping spell was deployed by an amateur with just enough knowledge to be dangerous and who was used. Marcone comes into the equation because of the Beckitts, they might have been brought in
and agree to run the sex part because of a promise of gaining revenge eventually for their daughter.
by someone else in the same league or higher than Harry.
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I'm not at all clear that the Circle actually wanted ThreeEye to be a success.
I mean... you may be right! On the face of it, it looks like an awfully silly thing to do, if they DIDN'T want it to succeed.
On the other hand, maybe they counted on somebody to take down Victor, stop the drug... Harry, Bianca, Marcone, Raith... Sells was operating out of his league. He had raw power, but very-minimal training, and little info on the wider supernatural community. It was inevitable that someone would end him. The BC could eventually have just killed him themselves, if nobody else managed it.
The thing is: if they really wanted to make ThreeEye a success, they should have launched it somewhere else. Somewhere without a ruthless crime-lord possessing startling self-discipline and a flair for strategic thinking; somewhere away from one of Papa Raith's chateaux; somewhere far from a powerful wizard with a WhiteKnight complex, like Harry Dresden. Somewhere without a resident Knight of the Cross!!! Build their base in small farming towns, in rural places, etc. If for some reason they want it in Chicago, then start it in all the areas AROUND Chicago, and let it filter into town... maybe even just cut a deal to distribute through Marcone! That's the way to get it going, if spreading the drug was a goal in itself.
I think it only happened in Chicago because that's where everything seems to happen. Which, considering what we know about the Circle, is actually a pretty good idea.
Most of the established Supernatural Powers consider North America the boonies. The White Council had, what, five Wardens stationed in the US? Harry, Ramirez, Wild Bill, the other one who reported to Harry, and then maybe one or two who reported to Carlos? The Red Court didn't seem to have a huge presence there, either; Bianca's elevation to Margravine (I think that was the title she was given in Grave Peril, please correct me if I'm wrong) was a really big deal, and it's not like she was running Chicago. She ran a brothel.
Winter and Summer didn't really have an established presence there at the time yet; Aurora and Maeve had recently moved in during Summer Knight (I forget the exact timeline, but it was within a year or so of the start of SK).
The only truly major player in the area at the time that the Supernatural Powers would really care about was the White Court, and they didn't seem interested in the local drug trade. They're barely present in the story until Blood Rites.
And Harry hadn't exactly gotten himself his reputation for White Knighting yet. Storm Front is his first truly big case (well, it's treated that way in the text; I haven't read the comics, so I'm not sure if there's a major event that takes place before SF). He was a potential warlock that the Outsiders had some kind of interest in; if anything, I'd think that the Circle would want Harry on their side, and would view his presence as a potential upside, but represent relatively minor risk.
So at the time in Chicago, you've got: Bianca's Velvet Room; Chateau Raith; Marcone; Chicago PD; Harry Dresden, Broke-Ass Wizard. That's a far cry from what would be there even a few books later (expanded White Court presence and influence, Winter and Summer presences, a Black Court scourge, the Chicago Alliance, the Alphas, a supernaturally savvy Marcone + Monoc Security contractors (VIKINGS), and Harry Dresden, Terror Hero, Warden of Demonreach and the White Council, Winter Knight, pseudo-Denarian, He of the Gross Left Hand, Friend of Mouse, Bane of Bad Guys and Personal Hygiene). There's also Michael, of course.
But anyway, I don't see how the Circle could have thought that Marcone would be important enough to even care about. The only answer to things like that is Time Travel or Prophecy, and at that point almost every mystery can be answered similarly. My personal WAG about Marcone in SF/Fool Moon is that Odin saw the potential for Marcone to become a player after Storm Front and arranged for the belts to be delivered to Denton's Pack as a test. I don't think it's an accident that the next time we see Marcone after Fool Moon, he's working with Gard.
But in Storm Front? Nah. I don't think any of the supernatural powers, including the Circle/Black Council even gave mob outfits like Marcone's a second thought.
I sometimes think that they were flooding the streets with Three Eye as a way to find something. More specifically, someone who would react to the drug in a specific way.
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But in Storm Front? Nah. I don't think any of the supernatural powers, including the Circle/Black Council even gave mob outfits like Marcone's a second thought.
I sometimes think that they were flooding the streets with Three Eye as a way to find something. More specifically, someone who would react to the drug in a specific way.
I think there is more to it than that, remember the kid strung out on Three Eye who told Harry stuff
that only HWB would know? The question is what and how skilled an author Jim is in tying all these loose ends together by the BAT..
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That isn't a unique spell though, anyone with enough power and knowledge can use it if they use the dark arts. That is why Harry became suspect, he had the knowledge and enough juice to deploy it without the turbocharging his spell with a sex orgy, electrical storm, and a frog demon.
Both Harry and Morgan think it wouldn't be possible for Harry to pull off the spell without harnessing the storms.
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I think the circle gave it to him and specifically it was given to him by their agent The White King under orders from Kimmler (My theoretical leader for the circle). The ritual is the reds ancient ritual and also the one TWK used on Margaret.
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The heart spell and the entropy curse are different spells.
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... I think whoever supplied Sells with Three Eye and the Heart Spell likely had multiple agendas.
Agreed... And I agree strongly enough to think there were several distict actors behind the Sells situation. ;)
... I don't think someone was trying to get Harry involved with Sells. It was Harry's first big case, so there probably aren't a lot of players who new Harry's character and skill well enough to know how it would play out...
Except we are beginning to see that people DO know Harry. Apparently the whole "Starborn" thing is known in the upper tiers of supernaturals, and it's beyond belief the DuMorne might have not ONE but TWO potential Starborn apprentices.
Harry wasn't a known entity to the low-level foes he THOUGHT he was facing, but they were never shaping policy any more than raw recruits do on a battlefield.
Consider Nicodemus "tempus fugit" Archleon, for whom an imminent deadline is looming, but never the near-term plot Harry is fighting... Time is always pressing, for Nic, but it's coming in a few years, after building for centuries. Consider Lasciel, whose Shadow, when she finally joins team Dresden, outlines a major Starborn info-dump... Indicating, to me, substantial Denarian plans laid around a Starborn.
Sells?
Kravos?
Bianca?
Nobodies.
Paws, each and every one of them, whose cat doesn't let them know what the Right Paw is doing, nor what they may face in Harry Dresden.
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No, what I am saying is Victor was used as a hit man by someone because he didn't know either party.
Sells' three-eye ring had been pushing on Marcone's conventional drugs business territory for a while before, though.
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Sells' three-eye ring had been pushing on Marcone's conventional drugs business territory for a while before, though.
But that would suggest that it would be Marcone hitting on Sells and not the other way around.
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... remember the kid strung out on Three Eye who told Harry stuff that only HWB would know? ...
IIRC, the kid only cited HWWBh's name... which was sufficient to get Harry engaged. He didn't say anything the Outsider would have "known," but he somehow saw & identified the Outsider's stain on Harry's aura.
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The quote is....
"Wizard!" he trumpeted. "Wizard! I see you! I see you, wizard! I see the things that follow, those who walk before and He Who Walks Behind! They come, they come for you!"
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@g33k: I don't think any of the players knew Harry well enough to manipulate him to where they wanted. They never have, Nicodemus maybe more than the rest. And I don't buy the "it happened this way, so that's what the powers that be planned." If that's the case, Harry is the one of the most boring and inconsequential characters. He's just a pawn with no agency.
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@g33k: I don't think any of the players knew Harry well enough to manipulate him to where they wanted. They never have, Nicodemus maybe more than the rest.
The Loa, Ulsharavas, asks some pretty pointed questions. I think they are equally obvious to any of the Big Players. Even petty little Bianca knew enough to predict Harry would Die Doing the Right Thing. I don't think Harry is a complete cipher... although I agree that the BadGuys&Gals underestimation of Harry is a recurrent theme!
But, for example, I'm pretty sure that Mab had a huge amount of the events in Proven Guilty laid out, and that Harry (and most of the others) operated broadly (VERY broadly) as Mab expected... up to and including dumping power into the Winterwell (I suspect the Summerfire was a nasty surprise; the Starborn power was what she was after).
It's not 100% established as fact, but after it happened Harry suspected Lydia had been used to manipulate him into giving up a powerful spirit-shield talisman.
And of course we know the Fallen got Harry to commit suicide.
What the Bad Guys lack is the ability to predict over the long term, when Harry's particular mix of { selfless X stubborn X insightful X Starborn X ?? } is involved. They may have identified each of the traits, but some of those (like selfless) are essentially beyond their understanding, and it screws up their ability to lay out a maze that the Dresden-rat will navigate as they predict.
... And I don't buy the "it happened this way, so that's what the powers that be planned."
No, I agree. Mostly, Harry goes off the rails and smashes stuff, particularly including BadGuy plans. But they find him to be predictable enough that they can engage him, suck him into their plots, engage in specific tactical manipulations. He boards the railway using the ticket given by the BadGuys... but then swtiches trains, changes which track goes where, and derails at least one train.
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Unless Harry is playing right into the BadGuys hands, I don't know why any of them would try to involve Harry in their plans (other than revenge and/or stupidity). I could see why a good guy might want to.
Bianca expected Harry to die doing the right thing. This was after two years of planning focused on Harry. She was wrong. I know Ortega was surprised when Harry "did the right thing" in Grave Peril, but I don't recall if Bianca was too. Harry certainly didn't die like she planned. And if Harry died in Changes, he didn't die doing the right thing.
Everything else is 4+ books in where I can easily believe that the BadGuys planned on Harry getting involved, or at least should have. I still think most of the "planning of Dresden to get involved" was more contingency than "this will further my plans." The "this will further my plans" group were all morons. Members of this camp include Nicodemus (every time), Lara in White Night, Mavra. That's 5 out of 15 books. Not counting the people in the next paragraph, are there any others who either explicitly planned on Harry furthering their plans or did something that makes it obvious that they planned it?
People who involve Harry and are successful in their goals are Mab every time, Marcone in Fool Moon and Skin Game, Uriel in a couple of stories explicitly and maybe every other story not explicitly, various members of the Senior Council, Odin (arguably, but not necessarily), Thomas, Mavra (arguably twice), Murphy, maybe Lara from above. Most of these are people (loosely speaking) coming up to Harry and asking him to do a job. Mab is usually straight forward, for a fairy Queen. Only a couple of people manipulated Harry from afar.
People who involved Harry to get revenge were Bianca, Arianna, Madrigal. Maybe Mavra and Nicodemus, but that would have been more of a bonus.
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Unless Harry is playing right into the BadGuys hands, I don't know why any of them would try to involve Harry in their plans (other than revenge and/or stupidity) ...
I think the Bad Guys may be beginning to learn their lesson. :-) Someone said there's a WoJ (I haven't seen it) that at this point, Nicodemus is terrified of Dresden.
But previously? If (as I WAG) a bunch of the Big Players know about the Starborn thing -- know what it is, know (or strongly suspect) that Harry is one -- then there's really good reason to involve him: they want to turn him to their side (or if they're Outsider (or ally thereof) get him Killed Doing the Right Thing (or maybe turn him to Team O? because maybe he'd be as USEFUL to them as an ally, as he is DANGEROUS to them as an enemy... another WAG, that; and an especially W one!).
Lots of Supernatural Hotness coming Dresden's way, and he's usually hard-up, and has a weakness for women... Temptations for power, too... Situations with knife-edge moral choices of aaallllll sorts...
Plenty of reason to get Dresden involved! Including (as Marcone notes more than once) Harry's penchant for wrecking BadGuy(tm) plans -- if you're a BadGuy(tm), just clear your forces from the field, aim him at a rival, and... let Harry be Harry.
... Ortega was surprised when Harry "did the right thing" in Grave Peril, but I don't recall if Bianca was too ...
Oh yes, she very much was surprised. She evidently thought she had overwhelming advantage, and could force Harry to capitulate.
... Not counting the people in the next paragraph, are there any others who either explicitly planned on Harry furthering their plans or did something that makes it obvious that they planned it?
Harry points out (as part of deducing the Black Council) that the large amount of overpowered magic coming to underprepared practitioners in Chicago has not just "strained" but outright broken the bonds of credulity. Someone(s) has been sending them there (apparently aimed at Harry, I think... although I don't think Harry knows it yet).
Similarly, things like having every kind of werewolf hit Chi-town simultaneously isn't credible as a "coincidence."
I don't count things like Nicodemus coming to Chicago to launch a Plague-Curse, that's just a tactical thing with the transit hub; also, a Big Player moving personally (not a puppetmaster trying to engage Dresden from behind a catspaw and two cut-outs).
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Harry described Marcone from the soul gaze as a man as cold as a featureless stainless steel fridge..
That is the kind of man that even the type of murder that his man suffered wouldn't be freaked at all
by it. So yeah, the soul gaze told Harry a lot about what Marcone would do.. That is one of the points of them, by giving a read on the type of person you are dealing with, thus predicting what they did do, would do, and will do..
The woman that was killed with Tommy Tomm was Sells' wife's sister Jennifer Stanton. She was the target... she was encouraging Monica Sells to leave Victor. It was just luck that she was with Tommy Tomm... or somehow Victor knew they would be together.
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The woman that was killed with Tommy Tomm was Sells' wife's sister Jennifer Stanton. She was the target... she was encouraging Monica Sells to leave Victor. It was just luck that she was with Tommy Tomm... or somehow Victor knew they would be together.
Which completely excludes Marcone from the original motive, Tommy Tomm just happened to be the poor smuck making love to her at the time. Or Tommy was the target and it is a sad coincidence that Jennifer was there..
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Or he got a twofer.
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The woman that was killed with Tommy Tomm was Sells' wife's sister Jennifer Stanton ...
I've seen this claimed before, but I don't recall it from the book.
Where do we learn that Monica Sells' sister was Jennifer Stanton?
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"All right," I said. I leaned against the kitchen counter. "You know Jennifer Stanton, don't you. You're related to her."
Her expression didn't change. "We have our mother's eyes," she confirmed. "My little sister was always the rebel. She ran away to become an actress, but became a whore instead. It suited her, in her own way. I always wanted her to stop, but I don't think she wanted to. I'm not sure she knew how."
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Similarly, things like having every kind of werewolf hit Chi-town simultaneously isn't credible as a "coincidence."
Not really. The only one that is coincidental is the Hexen Wolves, and that was clearly a plot by someone to do something. The lycanthropes were based in Chicago. MacFinn was opposing Marcone because he was a loup garou and wanted the "northwest passage." Tera taught the Alpha's to be werewolves because she came to Chicago with MacFinn. (Her motivations are still a mystery). They were together because they were both wolf/human shapeshifters.
I have a feeling that the more important magical events happen somewhere, the more important magical events will happen somewhere. Grave Peril weakened the barrier between the Nevernever and the mortal world in Chicago. After that, the Ladies moved to Chicago. Things snowballed after that.
I've seen this claimed before, but I don't recall it from the book.
Where do we learn that Monica Sells' sister was Jennifer Stanton?
In Monica's kitchen with all the cows. It's explicitly stated that she was going to rat on Victor to Marcone through Tommy Tom. We don't need to guess at any of this. (Morris beat me to it, but I already typed it).
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I've seen this claimed before, but I don't recall it from the book.
Where do we learn that Monica Sells' sister was Jennifer Stanton?
I didn't remember it either, but I did find it in the book.
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TYVM morriswalters & Bad Alias!
Now I feel stupid. I recognized the scene as I began reading the quote.
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IIRC, the kid only cited HWWBh's name... which was sufficient to get Harry engaged. He didn't say anything the Outsider would have "known," but he somehow saw & identified the Outsider's stain on Harry's aura.
But the point is, how would this strung out kid even know? How would he know that Harry was a wizard even? Here is what he said..
page 135 Storm Front, hardback
"Wizard!" he trumpeted. "Wizard! I see you! I see you, wizard! I see the things that follow, those who walk before and He Who Walks Behind! They come, they come for you!"
For starters if the is a regular vanilla kid who happens to be strung out on Three Eye, yes he maybe
able to see some stuff out of the ordinary, but it won't give a name to what he is seeing. He wouldn't know either a wizard or an Outsider if he saw one, let along call out the Outsider by name, which he did.
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But the point is, how would this strung out kid even know? How would he know that Harry was a wizard even? Here is what he said..
page 135 Storm Front, hardback
For starters if the is a regular vanilla kid who happens to be strung out on Three Eye, yes he maybe
able to see some stuff out of the ordinary, but it won't give a name to what he is seeing. He wouldn't know either a wizard or an Outsider if he saw one, let along call out the Outsider by name, which he did.
Good point! Did the 3-eye give an outsider access to mortals? If so, holy cow!
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Wrong point of view. In Storm Front Jim has Harry use the Third Eye. His wizard sight. The kid is seeing the real Harry by using the drug to see the same effect.
For reasons I don't have time to go into now, I am marked, indelibly, with the remnants of the presence of a hunter-spirit, a sort of spectral hit man known as He Who Walks Behind. I had beaten long odds in surviving the enemy of mine who had called up He Who Walks Behind and sent him after me—but even though the hunter-spirit had never gotten to me, the mark could still be seen upon me by those who knew how, by using the Third Sight, stretching out behind me like a long and horribly shaped shadow. Sort of a spiritual scar to remind me of the encounter.
Jim is still feeling out the mechanics. He also refers to He Who Walks Behind as a hunter spirit. And little Amanda Beckitt was shot in a shootout between some Jamaicans and Marcone's thugs.Murphy's jaw tensed, little motions at the corners of her face. Then she said, "Greg and Helen Beckitt. Three years ago, their daughter, Amanda, was killed in a cross fire. Johnny Marcone's thugs were shooting it out with some of the Jamaican gang that was trying to muscle in on the territory back then. One of them shot the little girl. She lived for three weeks in intensive care and died when they took her off life support."
Early days and some serious retconning in later books.
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Wrong point of view. In Storm Front Jim has Harry use the Third Eye. His wizard sight. The kid is seeing the real Harry by using the drug to see the same effect ...
Yep! So the mundane kid had an artificially-induced Third Eye. It saw Harry as a wizard, and it saw HWWBh's mark on him. Nothing specifically and only known by HWWBh and/or Harry, but definitely Third Eye material, stuff that could only be seen that way.
... Jim is still feeling out the mechanics. He also refers to He Who Walks Behind as a hunter spirit...
Nope. Harry pretty explicitly didn't know HWWBh was an Outsider, at this point.
One of Harry's Supernatural Hottie Crew (Lash, IIRC, in White Night?) breaks the news to Harry that his earlier duel with HWWBh was actually a duel with an Outsider (and one of the more badass of them, at that).
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Wrong point of view. In Storm Front Jim has Harry use the Third Eye. His wizard sight. The kid is seeing the real Harry by using the drug to see the same effect.
Wrong! This is the kid relaying this knowledge to Harry, which shocks the hell out of Harry. Here is what Harry is saying on the next page.
But only a wizard had that kind of vision, the abilty to sense the auras and manifestation of magical phenomena. And that junkie was no wizard,
The problem is the kid while yeah, seeing all this stuff maybe, wouldn't have a clue of what he was seeing. He might be able with the drug to see creatures etc following Harry, but he shouldn't be
able to call it out by it's name, He Who Walks Behind. He might see something is very different about Harry looking though the Three Eye, but since he doesn't know any wizards how does he know he is a wizard? He has no point of reference because he has never been part of that world.
Yep! So the mundane kid had an artificially-induced Third Eye. It saw Harry as a wizard, and it saw HWWBh's mark on him. Nothing specifically and only known by HWWBh and/or Harry, but definitely Third Eye material, stuff that could only be seen that way.
Perhaps seen that way, but the kid still shouldn't be able to put a name on them because it is beyond
his experience. It is like a cave man being dumped in our time and exposed to air planes and cars, he might describe them after a fashion but he wouldn't say, "oh look at the air plane and oh look at the car.." Because these things do not exist with in his experience.
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Wrong! This is the kid relaying this knowledge to Harry, which shocks the hell out of Harry. Here is what Harry is saying on the next page.
The problem is the kid while yeah, seeing all this stuff maybe, wouldn't have a clue of what he was seeing. He might be able with the drug to see creatures etc following Harry, but he shouldn't be
able to call it out by it's name, He Who Walks Behind. He might see something is very different about Harry looking though the Three Eye, but since he doesn't know any wizards how does he know he is a wizard? He has no point of reference because he has never been part of that world.
Perhaps seen that way, but the kid still shouldn't be able to put a name on them because it is beyond
his experience. It is like a cave man being dumped in our time and exposed to air planes and cars, he might describe them after a fashion but he wouldn't say, "oh look at the air plane and oh look at the car.." Because these things do not exist with in his experience.
Gonna WAG here.
But I'm gonna assert it as a not-very-Wild WAG.
What the kid saw didn't NEED interpretation.
A "wizard" is a known thing, our culture has the referents. Here's this guy whose Aura glows with power, festooned with magical trinkets that shine on their own, etc etc etc... whatcha gonna call it? A Hephalump? "Yo! Mr. Shiny Dude!" ? What's more, the kid was likely an addict, had been using ThreeEye for a while. Has seen other supernatural stuff. Knew it was real. And suddenly... hardcore badass magical human. That's... well, a wizard.
Slightly Wilder, but still not very: I will suggest that the "stain" of HWWBh might be the kind of thing you don't so much see in a visual sense, as experience. Including the only possible name it could have... because magic. I assert this as not-terribly-Wild because... well, because the kid DID know the Name, off of no more than seeing Harry's Aura.
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Possible secondary WAG -- the kid had previously seen HWWBh, and recognized the Aura from that! Maybe the kid was being used by Sells -- or somebody working with Sells -- in rituals or whatever, and there had been a summoning; maybe HWWBh had been sent to kill somebody and the kid saw it; maybe LOTS of options... but whatever, maybe the kid had personal experience to line up with Harry's Aura.
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A "wizard" is a known thing, our culture has the referents. Here's this guy whose Aura glows with power, festooned with magical trinkets that shine on their own, etc etc etc... whatcha gonna call it? A Hephalump? "Yo! Mr. Shiny Dude!" ? What's more, the kid was likely an addict, had been using ThreeEye for a while. Has seen other supernatural stuff. Knew it was real. And suddenly... hardcore badass magical human. That's... well, a wizard.
Unless someone told him what he was seeing, he still wouldn't know what he was seeing? Actually, Shiny Dude makes as much sense....
Possible secondary WAG -- the kid had previously seen HWWBh, and recognized the Aura from that! Maybe the kid was being used by Sells -- or somebody working with Sells -- in rituals or whatever, and there had been a summoning; maybe HWWBh had been sent to kill somebody and the kid saw it; maybe LOTS of options... but whatever, maybe the kid had personal experience to line up with Harry's Aura.
But did Sells have any clue of the connection between Harry and HWWB? I think not, and it still doesn't make any sense that he'd know HWWB by name...
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The sight given him by the drug gave him everything. He Who Walks Behind. You read it from your point of view, but spoken it isn't purely a name, more a description of what he does. The capitalization is for the reader to point out the Walker as something special.
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The sight given him by the drug gave him everything. He Who Walks Behind. You read it from your point of view, but spoken it isn't purely a name, more a description of what he does. The capitalization is for the reader to point out the Walker as something special.
My point of view had nothing to do about it, it is what Harry says about it. He says how wizards learn to control the Third Eye, to keep it closed unless they need to use it. He goes on the say the the drug is opening it on untrained vanilla mortals, because it just wasn't causing ordinary hallucinations.
page 137 Storm Front, bolding and italics mine.
I shivered. If the drug was real, if it really did open the Third Eye in mortals instead of just ordinary hallucinations upon it's users, then it was far more dangerous than it seemed, even with the deleterious effects demonstrated by the junkie I had tackled. Even if a user didn't go mad from seeing too many horrible or otherworldly things, he might see through the illusions and disguises of any of a number of beings that passed among mankind regularly, unseen---which could compel such creatures to act in defense, for fear of being revealed. Double jeopardy.
I think the above is more significant than we first think, the making of Third Eye wasn't just a way
to make money or even gain power over Marcone's empire, but another way to open another front in the coming war. If beings that otherwise be allies in the fight against the Enemy were now engaged in protecting themselves against mortals it would be an advantage.
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Your point of view has everything to do with it. If this was a visual medium Jim could do it another way, but if he doesn't put a label on it, it loses its punch. So wizard and he who walks behind makes sense. Anything else doesn't. The assumption Jim hands you is that the sight interpreted what he saw, for him.
Your second quote has all the meat. Why Three Eye? To reveal things that someone wants concealed. Wizards for instance. Wide use of Three Eye would have destroyed the masquerade.
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Your point of view has everything to do with it. If this was a visual medium Jim could do it another way, but if he doesn't put a label on it, it loses its punch. So wizard and he who walks behind makes sense. Anything else doesn't. The assumption Jim hands you is that the sight interpreted what he saw, for him.
Huh? You are not making any sense... Let's read the quote again shall we? 134-135 Storm Front
The young man looked at me, and his eyes rounded and dialated, until I thought they had turned into huge black coins dotted with his bloodshot eyeballs. Hiseyes rolled back into his head until he could hardly have been able to see, and he started to shout in a clarion voice
It is the kid strung out on Three Eye looking at Harry.. Harry isn't using his wizard sight, he isn't interpreting anything.. He is just startled by this kid looking at him and now shouting at him...
"Wizard!" he trumpeted. "Wizard! I see you! I see you wizard!
That is the kid recognizing Harry for what he is, though how would he know a wizard when he saw him? How would he know a wizard from someone else with a magical aura? The kid yelling at Harry, "Wizard!" Vocal, no interrelation needed from Harry or us...
Next line, this is the strung out kid further telling Harry.
"I see you wizard! I see the things that follow, those that walk before and He Who Walks Behind! They come, they come for you!"
It's the kid who sees Harry not only as a wizard, but that he was mixed up with the likes of He Who Walks Behind. Not only would this kid not know a wizard on sight, but how in the hell would know an Outsider if he saw one? Let alone his name?
Harry goes on to say lower down on page 136 that he is marked by his encounter with Outsiders, he goes on to sayBut only a wizard had had that kind of vision, the ability to sense the auras and manifestations of magical phenomena. And that junkie was no wizard.
That is the mystery, not just that Three Eye is real, it enabled the kid to see auras and magical phenomena, but it still doesn't explain how he'd know that Harry was a wizard or HWWB by name.
If you reread his shout out to Harry, "I see you wizard!" I get the feeling that the kid was sending
a message to Harry from someone.. The kid was somehow taught what to say if he ran into Harry a head of time, someone who knew the very mention of HWWB would freak Harry out, which it did a bit... Then the question becomes, who taught him?
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... Wide use of Three Eye would have destroyed the masquerade.
Not destroyed it, I think. Not very quickly.
It's really hard for normals not to dismiss this as just more drug-induced hallucinations and psychoses (yeah, paranoia / psychoisis / etc are "normal" side-effects of many street drugs). Normals WANT to believe that everything's "normal," right?
Can you imagine a ThreeEye druggie, off his high and actually wanting to do the right thing, dragging a beat cop -- or even a detective for whom he's a stoolie -- over to Thomas Raith, saying, "No, really... he's like, this VAMPIRE, he's got, like, this DEMON INSIDE HIM, it makes him HUNGER for people, for their life!!!"
I can certainly imagine that...
But I can't imagine that sort of thing actually damaging the masquerade.
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I subscribe to early installment weirdness (EIW) as the reason the junkie new Harry was a wizard and knew the name He Who Walks Behind, but for the sake of argument, I will attempt to explain why he could have known that even if it wasn't EIW. The sight works differently for everyone. I have no idea which book it's in, but Harry says something about how Carlos's sight. I recall something about colors and/or music. Harry describes his own sight as the vaguest he's heard of.
So it could be that this kid see's images with labels as to what they are. Or he sees images and just knows what those images are commonly called. It's actually easy to explain how he could know that Harry was a wizard. He could see him with that Mickey Mouse blue wizard hat with stars on it or some other common cultural reference to wizards. Coming up with something he could see that would explain why he said He Who Walks Behind is harder to understand.
Another point is that Harry is not surprised that the someone using the sight says He Who Walks Behind but that the kid is using the sight at all.
Mira's point that three-eye is about destroying or damaging the masquerade seems like the most likely answer I've seen. Through the novels and WoJ we've seen that if supernatural violence reaches a certain point, the masquerade will begin to be questioned. If three-eye were as widely used as pot, opiates, or meth; a sufficient percent of supernaturals responded to being discovered with violence + a sufficient number of users used enough to be convinced of the truth of the supernatural but not be addicts; then the masquerade would definitely be damaged.
@g33k: I'm pretty sure it was Bob in White Night. I'm 100% sure that's the right book.
I'm fairly certain that the sight had EIW in Storm Front because Harry see's the future of everything he looks at when using it at the lake house. Other than "the sight coming in" thing in Small Favor and the soulgaze with Molly, does anyone recall any connection between the sight and seeing/predicting the future?
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@Bad Alias
I'm speaking from a Doylist perspective. So your POV, versus Dresden's. If Butcher doesn't make the quote special by giving the effect a voice, the reader has nothing to hang his hat on. And the kid might as well be taking some potent Acid. To the average person magic doesn't exist, so nothing the user would see would make any sense, since he couldn't put a name to any of it.
@g33k
I can imagine it going to a FBI lab and starting some very interesting discussions.
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@g33k: I'm pretty sure it was Bob in White Night. I'm 100% sure that's the right book.
No, it was Lash.
About 1/3 of the way through Ch.41, while Harry's brain is sped-up, Lash finally switches sides, and tells Harry about having anti-Outsider powers, and that the demon he nailed back when he was 16 was an Outsider.
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I'm fairly certain that the sight had EIW in Storm Front because Harry see's the future of everything he looks at when using it at the lake house. Other than "the sight coming in" thing in Small Favor and the soulgaze with Molly, does anyone recall any connection between the sight and seeing/predicting the future?
It was Small Favor, Harry is on Demonreach for the first time to rescue Ivy and Marcone and he
feels like he has walked it's paths before.
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@morriswalters: I don't disagree with your interpretation of why Jim had the guy say what he said. I'm just saying I think he would have done it differently if his rules had been as developed as they are today. I'm also saying you can fit it in with his rules as they have been developed, but I believe the real explanation for why it seems out of place is actually just EIW.
@g33k: I was thinking about the conversation with Bob about how Walkers "aren't killable," which doesn't mention Outsiders and isn't even in the right book.
@Mira: And Lucio says it's something that happens to older wizards, not young ones. This doesn't prove that Harry couldn't have seen the future with his sight when he was younger, but suggests it when combined with it only definitely happening in one other instance and only maybe happening a second time in a soul gaze.
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@Mira: And Lucio says it's something that happens to older wizards, not young ones. This doesn't prove that Harry couldn't have seen the future with his sight when he was younger, but suggests it when combined with it only definitely happening in one other instance and only maybe happening a second time in a soul gaze.
Lucio says that after Harry mentions to her what he experienced on the island. Actually she says he is about the right age to begin to experience that sort of thing.
page 419 Small Favor
"Can I get your take on something?" I asked her.
"Certainly."
I told her about my experience on the island, and the eerie sense of familiarity that had come with it.
"Oh that," Anastasia said. "Your Sight's coming in. That's all."
I blinked at her. "Uh. What?"
"The Sight," she replied calmly. "Every wizard develops some measure of precognition as he matures. It sounds to me as if yours has begun to stir, and has recognized a place that may be of significance to you in the future."
Harry then wants to know why he hadn't heard of it before? She explains that they keep it quiet otherwise young wizards would see everything as prophecy, so it thought that it was better that they find out about it for themselves. So while yeah, Harry may have seen the future in a soul gaze when he was younger, he apparently wouldn't know what he was seeing or in other words, the future.
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@Bad Alias
Yeah he's all over the map in the first two books. However I think Three Eye will be back in some fashion. Looking back from today this looks like something the Fomor would cook up. It also looks like something a clandestine group would use if they went up against wizards.
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@morris: I basically agree. My only point of difference is I'm neutral on three-eye making a return. Wouldn't be surprised at all either way.
@Mira: Harry was 25 in Storm Front. He's 34 in Small Favor. He sees possible futures of everything he sees with the sight in Storm Front and knows that's what he's seeing. In Small Favor, he's about the right age for his precognition to begin to develop, it does, and he's put off by it because, dare I say, it's something he wouldn't have expected to happen. This strongly suggests EIW to me.
I'm not sure if you're disagreeing with me or just adding clarifying citations to my references.
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@morris: I basically agree. My only point of difference is I'm neutral on three-eye making a return. Wouldn't be surprised at all either way.
@Mira: Harry was 25 in Storm Front. He's 34 in Small Favor. He sees possible futures of everything he sees with the sight in Storm Front and knows that's what he's seeing. In Small Favor, he's about the right age for his precognition to begin to develop, it does, and he's put off by it because, dare I say, it's something he wouldn't have expected to happen. This strongly suggests EIW to me.
I'm not sure if you're disagreeing with me or just adding clarifying citations to my references.
Maybe splitting hairs, but in Storm Front when Harry is looking at the house, he is purposely using
his wizard's Sight, he senses a lot of things among them is death, he sees the house surrounded by death, as he says it could be his own. However I think it is very different from what he experienced going down the path on the island in Small Favor. When he is looking at the house in Storm Front, yeah, what he saw panned out, shortly there would be death in that house, however it was also the scene for the past orgies of death that ripped out hearts from miles away. Sells was preparing one of those to take out Harry, so Harry was seeing it present tense for what it was it was, a place of death. What he experienced on what would become Demonreach was still a couple of years or so in the future. So one was merely what is always revealed to him if he uses his wizard's sight, while
what happened in Small Favor is normal precognition which is sometimes experienced and perfectly normal in wizards as they mature.
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Harry talks about how he sees things in houses's future and all the seasons. Then he says the future seen with the sight is changeable. "No matter how strong the vision, how powerful the image gained with the Sight, the future was always mutable, always something that can be changed." - Storm Front
I think it is very different from what he experienced going down the path on the island in Small Favor.
If you add "and all the other books" to your quote, that's my point.
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Harry talks about how he sees things in houses's future and all the seasons. Then he says the future seen with the sight is changeable. "No matter how strong the vision, how powerful the image gained with the Sight, the future was always mutable, always something that can be changed." - Storm Front
If you add "and all the other books" to your quote, that's my point.
But my point is he is using his Sight in Storm Front, he purposely opened his Wizard's Third
Eye to look at the house and he saw all of these things, he understands that he would. In Small Favor it just happens on it's own, which is something that has never happened to Harry before, that is why he asks Luccio about it. He doesn't know what he had just experienced is.
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It seems like there's some sort of doubling-up of the term "Sight" here.
There is the "True Sight" of the Third Eye -- pierces veils, sees Things As They Are. Everything seen this way is unforgettable, often agonizingly so. As far as Harry knows, this is an intentional "turn-on / turn-off" phenomenon.
This thing from Small Favor (that Luccio calls "the Sight") seems to be something different. From what she says, it is based around precognition, and so it's a chancy thing, subject to being changed by Free Will; it may or may not be subject to conscious control (it wasn't when it happened on the island), but doesn't have that overwhelming, soul-searing immediacy.
Thus I conclude it's two different phenomena, that both seem to go by the same name.
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It seems like there's some sort of doubling-up of the term "Sight" here.
There is the "True Sight" of the Third Eye -- pierces veils, sees Things As They Are. Everything seen this way is unforgettable, often agonizingly so. As far as Harry knows, this is an intentional "turn-on / turn-off" phenomenon.
This thing from Small Favor (that Luccio calls "the Sight") seems to be something different. From what she says, it is based around precognition, and so it's a chancy thing, subject to being changed by Free Will; it may or may not be subject to conscious control (it wasn't when it happened on the island), but doesn't have that overwhelming, soul-searing immediacy.
Thus I conclude it's two different phenomena, that both seem to go by the same name.
Exactly, and it is a bit confusing. The big difference is with the Third Eye Wizard's Sight, a wizard has some control over using it, though no control of what he or she might see with it. With the "Wizard's Sight" as described in Small Favor, there is no control, it just happens.
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The sight is one thing with three aspects. The two g33k pointed out and soul gazes. According to the Paranet Papers, all wizards have the sight, but not all who have the sight are wizards.
Storm Front is the only time Harry opens his sight and sees the future. This hasn't ever happened again.
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The sight is one thing with three aspects. The two g33k pointed out and soul gazes. According to the Paranet Papers, all wizards have the sight, but not all who have the sight are wizards.
Yeah, all too true..
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The sight is one thing with three aspects. The two g33k pointed out and soul gazes.
I'm willing to believe that a Soulgaze is related; but it isn't the same.
You can only have it once per person; it begins, happens, and ends. If you don't avert your gaze, it is unavoidable.
It is something mutual, so even if the other party has no Sight, they still join in... just as if they had initiated it themselves, and did have the Sight.
These each seem to be different things. I'm willing to believe the three are related, to believe they have some common causal feature. But I'm not convinced of it; I don't think we have in-'Verse canon, or WoJ.
As you say -- it doesn't take a Wizard to have "the Sight," the true-seeing aspect of it. But IIRC you do have to be a Wizard to do a Soulgaze; not just anyone with Sight can do that.
I'm unclear on the involuntary-precog thing... it's something that happens after a while of wizarding, but can it happen to others? It's not quite Cassandra's Tears... but it's not entirely dissimilar, either.
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And when a wizard looks into a person's eyes, it's just another way of using the Sight.
Grave Peril - Chapter 35.
Jim:
You got to have some serious magical chops before a soulgaze is an issue–and yes, it’s one of the markers that the Council uses to see if you make the cut, though it’s far from the only one. There are folks running around who can do it who aren’t on the Council, but not many of them.
I'm assuming that "on the Council" and wizard are synonymous here, but I could be wrong on that.
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Grave Peril - Chapter 35.
TYVM! Provisionally, then, I guess a Soulgaze is a specific form of "the Sight." I say "provisional" because it's early enough in the series to be Early Installment Weirdness (and as I noted, Sight-vs-Soulgaze have some notable differences); but then, it hasn't AFAIK been explicitly contradicted, so I'll go with that.
I'm assuming that "on the Council" and wizard are synonymous here, but I could be wrong on that.
I think the Council tries to make them synonymous, but doesn't always succeed. Kemmler wasn't on the council (AFAIK), but was "a wizard" by every measure except that neither party would accept the other. I bet Elaine isn't the only wizard who intentionally failed her entry-exams. Etc.
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By "here" I meant "for the purposes of this (Jim's) statement." Part of the reason I'm assuming that is the first sentence; "one of the markers ... far from the only one."
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TYVM! Provisionally, then, I guess a Soulgaze is a specific form of "the Sight." I say "provisional" because it's early enough in the series to be Early Installment Weirdness (and as I noted, Sight-vs-Soulgaze have some notable differences); but then, it hasn't AFAIK been explicitly contradicted, so I'll go with that.
I think we have to be careful trying to lump soul gazes, Wizard's Sight, and the precognitive Sight
that a wizard sometimes experiences as he matures together. It gets into comparing apples with oranges, while yes, both are fruit that grow on trees, they are also totally different from one another.
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I think we have to be careful trying to lump soul gazes, Wizard's Sight, and the precognitive Sight that a wizard sometimes experiences as he matures together ...
I am inclined to agree; but up above, Bad Alias came up with a quote that explicitly said a Soulgaze was another form of the Sight.
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I am inclined to agree; but up above, Bad Alias came up with a quote that explicitly said a Soulgaze was another form of the Sight.
Apples,oranges, and tomatoes are all fruit, however they are very different from one another.
I can go along with the Soulgaze, the Wizard's Sight, and the precognitive Sight, are all wizard sight, but like fruit one is very different from the other.
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I can do a lot of different things with a hand. It doesn't mean I have a lot of different hands. The books refer to it as the Sight. They don't refer it as to a bunch of different things like "Future Sight," "Soul Sight," and "Regular Sight."
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I can do a lot of different things with a hand. It doesn't mean I have a lot of different hands. The books refer to it as the Sight. They don't refer it as to a bunch of different things like "Future Sight," "Soul Sight," and "Regular Sight."
Yeah, and if you practiced from youth you can do as much with your toes as your fingers... Actually it should be classified the way you suggest because while all wizard have a mental ability
called "the Sight," there are different aspects of it and they are very different from one another.