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The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: Gigglestomp on January 03, 2020, 06:31:29 PM
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Jim has always said that Justin is DEAD. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Harry's Justin is dead. We have seen that necromancers such as corpse-taker can possess another body. Kemmler got killed "A couple of times" because he never stayed dead. Either he body snatched someone or he went through a resurrection ritual like in Ghost Story.
I suspect when Justin DuMorne wasn't actually a bad guy. He went with the council to kill Kemmler the last time - Kemmler body snatched him. That kimmler "Died" but was actually Justin. Justin is D-E-D-DEAD. Kimmler-Justin took bob home from the scene and laid low. Then he recruited a couple of starborn apprentices and kicked off our series.
Harry didnt kill Kemmler either - that would be laughable. Harry only thinks he killed Justin. Kemmler-Justin is the founder and leader of the Black Council and he set harry on a path.
He sent Elaine to the summer court to corrupt and infect the summer lady with Nemesis.
He went to Justin's old master Simon and convinced him to join up. They torpedo-d arch-angel using the reds and faked his death.
They manipulated things to pick the next Senior Council Member, and Simon became Cowl. Kummori is Elaine. She manipulated things so that The Leanansidhe took the corrupt blade and became infected by Nemesis who then infected Maeve. We know as well that Elaine has used outsiders at least once - mortal magic was used in Summer Knight at the Walmart to create the mind fog. Dresden said the Mind Fog was an outsider I believe. They kind of brushed the implications aside.
I haven't decided if Simon has truly drunk the cool-aid or not. He may be trying to take down the black Council from within. He may be corrupt. I believe out of the two I am more inclined to think he is corrupt and Black Council and not a mole inside the black council. Though if hes been working to destabilize them from within that could be an interesting twist.
Justin-Kimmler could have an intact body or he could be in a brand new body if he burned up Justin's in the fire. That adds a whole new level of paranoia for the secondary characters betraying Harry.
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Nice theory!
I don't know about the mind fog being Outsider-related, though. Butters makes mind fog bombs.
Why not just have Kemmler be Cowl? Would make even more sense to have Elaine be Kumori, since she would have been his thrall all along. Maybe he isn't as strong as he used to be because Justin's body is too weak. Kind of like how Luccio is not as strong in her new body.
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... We know as well that Elaine has used outsiders at least once - mortal magic was used in Summer Knight at the Walmart to create the mind fog. Dresden said the Mind Fog was an outsider I believe. They kind of brushed the implications aside...
+1 with spiritofair ... I think you missed this element, but otherwise you have an intriguing WAG!
I agree that if we could definitively tie Elaine to Outsiders, it'd put her solidly into the "untrustworthy, probable enemy" category, but I don't think the mindfog shows it.
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I think Bob presents a problem for this theory. Why wouldn't Bob know that Justin and Kemmler are the same person? On the other hand, it would explain why "Kemmler's Bob" made the comment "the master will not be pleased you have meddled with his servant." Bob also makes comments about finally being able to leave Harry behind, but doesn't say anything about Justin.
Another point is that Cowl's arms are scarred. Maybe by a house fire? Also Cowl says "I have nothing but disdain for the madman Kemmler." Was this misdirection or the truth?
Harry just said the mind fog was illegal and he wasn't sure a faerie queen could pull it off outside of the Nevernever.
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The reality is that as long as there are body switchers, anything is possible. But Bob would have known that Kemmler jumped to a new body, wouldn't he?
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The reality is that as long as there are body switchers, anything is possible...
True dat! Infinite WAGs...
... But Bob would have known that Kemmler jumped to a new body, wouldn't he?
I would presume so, yes. Based upon Bob's conversations with Harry, it appears that Bob switches between normal vision and the Sight VERY often (or maybe has some wonky always-on dual-vision). So yeah, I've got to presume Bob seen the Aura, and would have known; and COULD have said something... if he were permitted to! A K-swapped J could easily have ordered EvilBob to Say Nothing, Slave! and then whatever Harry did to OrangeBob him might have accidentally suppressed the info (alongside all the other EvilBob info) before OrangeBob could volunteer it ...
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Harry just said the mind fog was illegal and he wasn't sure a faerie queen could pull it off outside of the Nevernever.
I don't think Harry would have understood it as well if it was Outsider work. He's shown resistance to that, but it's never been anywhere near as easy to counter as his trick of tying ribbon around the fingers to keep it out.
It's illegal, but pretty mundanely illegal.
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The is a very clever OP, but that doesn't mean I agree with it. Aside from the problem of Bob knowing Kemmler and Justin were the same person, I think there are other problems as well. Harry should have been able to get a feeling for Justin's magical aura. If Justin was body swapped by Kemmler, when Harry met Kemmler's disciples in Dead Beat, he should have noticed the similarity between the feel of their magic and Justin's.
However, my big problem has to do with the dark hallow ritual. Kemmler was trying to pull it off when the White Council killed him for the final time in 1961. Harry was born 26 years before the events in Storm Front which occurred in 2000, give or take a year or two. Source: https://www.jim-butcher.com/timeline (https://www.jim-butcher.com/timeline) So that means Harry is born sometime between 1972 and 1976. Harry is adopted by Justin at the age of 10. Around nine years before SF when Harry is 16, Harry has his showdown with Justin. This occurs sometime between 1989 and 1993. To simplify things I'm going to guess that Storm Front took place in 2000. Harry is born October 31, 1974, he is adopted in late 1984 or early 1995 and has his battle with Justin in late 1990 or sometime in 1991 before October 31.
Let's go with the 1991 date for Harry battle with Justin. Justin who is really Kemmler has thirty years to plan and attempt to pull off the dark hallow, and he never makes an attempt. I'm not buying it. Kemmler wouldn't need to find any books. He would already know how to do it. Think of the odd circumstances which led Harry to learn about the Word of Kemmler. Because Justin/Kemmler wouldn't have to look for the Word, it would be virtually impossible for anyone to know what he was doing until it was too late to stop him.
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Good point KSG, very unlikely Cowl is Kemmler based on what you're saying about the Darkhallow. Also, if Cowl was Justin was Kemmler, Harry would have recognized him and/or his magic.
But, Kemmler could still be lurking about in another body. Maybe he hopped into Justin, corrupted him, then hopped out and went on to someone else? As morris said, infinite WAGs if that's the case.
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Good point KSG, very unlikely Cowl is Kemmler based on what you're saying about the Darkhallow. Also, if Cowl was Justin was Kemmler, Harry would have recognized him and/or his magic.
But, Kemmler could still be lurking about in another body. Maybe he hopped into Justin, corrupted him, then hopped out and went on to someone else? As morris said, infinite WAGs if that's the case.
At first I read, " he (Kemmler) hopped into Justin, corrupted him, then hoped out went on to someone else," I thought OK, maybe that works, but thinking about it I've got to question that idea too. It depends on Justin remaining in his own mind but being overwhelmed by Kemmler. Similar to a denarian taking over the coin bearer's decisions or nemesis taking over one of its victims. We don't have any indication a necromancer can do this. Corpse Taker could paralyze Harry and make him forget he was in danger, but she couldn't corrupt Harry or make him think in differently about right and wrong.
So where does this leave the idea of Kemmler jumping into Justin and then moving into someone else? Well, there is one candidate for him to have jumped into, Elaine. This might seem like a really nasty twist that would be emotionally devastating for Harry; "Yes, Harry Dresden, when you thought you were killing Justin du Morne you were really killing your first love," but it runs into the same problem of Elaine/Kemmler having more than a couple of decades to plan and pull off a dark hallow and not doing so, and Elaine/Kemmler playing private detective and helping minor magical talents survive the Fomor and other supernatural baddies. As Mr. Spock would say, "That is highly illogical." (And I mean real ST TOS Mr. Spock, not pathetic emo Star Trek Discovery Spock.)
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At first I read, " he (Kemmler) hopped into Justin, corrupted him, then hoped out went on to someone else," I thought OK, maybe that works, but thinking about it I've got to question that idea too. It depends on Justin remaining in his own mind but being overwhelmed by Kemmler. Similar to a denarian taking over the coin bearer's decisions or nemesis taking over one of its victims. We don't have any indication a necromancer can do this. Corpse Taker could paralyze Harry and make him forget he was in danger, but she couldn't corrupt Harry or make him think in differently about right and wrong.
So where does this leave the idea of Kemmler jumping into Justin and then moving into someone else? Well, there is one candidate for him to have jumped into, Elaine. This might seem like a really nasty twist that would be emotionally devastating for Harry; "Yes, Harry Dresden, when you thought you were killing Justin du Morne you were really killing your first love," but it runs into the same problem of Elaine/Kemmler having more than a couple of decades to plan and pull off a dark hallow and not doing so, and Elaine/Kemmler playing private detective and helping minor magical talents survive the Fomor and other supernatural baddies. As Mr. Spock would say, "That is highly illogical." (And I mean real ST TOS Mr. Spock, not pathetic emo Star Trek Discovery Spock.)
Yeah, I don't buy any of that. I think Justin is the honest cop that got corrupted, after all the years
he gave as a warden to find himself with very little to retire on.. From there it was a slippery slope.
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I don't think it was because he didn't have any money. See generally How do Wizards make a living? at https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53261.0.html (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53261.0.html). I think he was either corrupted by Simon, who was a bit iffy, or corrupted for some other reason.
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Yeah, I don't buy any of that. I think Justin is the honest cop that got corrupted, after all the years he gave as a warden to find himself with very little to retire on.. From there it was a slippery slope.
I agree on that last sentence; "from there it was a slippery slope." But I don't think money was what brought him to the edge, pushed him over.
Justin was a wizard. What got to him was power, and/or knowledge.
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I agree on that last sentence; "from there it was a slippery slope." But I don't think money was what brought him to the edge, pushed him over.
Justin was a wizard. What got to him was power, and/or knowledge.
I wasn't as clear as I should have been, I was talking in terms of corrupt cops in general as far as money goes. Yes, power and knowledge, but at the same time let's not totally rule money out of the equation, because even wizards have to live. Up until Skin Game, unless he totally squanders his shoe box full or half full of diamonds one of Harry's biggest struggles has been to make ends meet financially. While he hasn't become corrupt because of it, a driving need to pay the rent has pushed him into making some less than wise choices in the past.
Wardens do get paid, but apparently not that much because in Harry's case at least, he still struggled after he became a warden. Justin might have felt that he had given the White Council the best century of his life with little thanks. This breeds resentment, which might lead to him helping himself to the skull/Bob when they took Kemmler down in payment. This dissatisfaction leaves him
vulnerable to outside influences that would capitalize on his dissatisfaction and eventual rebellion which made him complicit in the plans of the enemy. However Justin's reputation was so sterling that no one ever suspected until Harry took him down and even now many refuse to believe.
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... let's not totally rule money out of the equation, because even wizards have to live ... one of Harry's biggest struggles has been to make ends meet financially...
I think Harry is unusually impoverished, for a wizard. They have LOTS of ways to get rich, or just comfortable, should they choose to avail themselves. Many of them wouldn't get anywhere close to breaking any Laws of Magic, or break Mortal laws, either. I've always taken it to be DresdenStuborness(tm) (the unwillingness to do anything as "selfish" as making money easily with magic) that kept him poor. I mean, Harry is an unusually powerful wizard, with a decided knack for "finding things" -- how many lost/unclaimed treasures d'you suppose Harry could find, if he didn't think that was "icky"? I think it'd be a LOT... And it doesn't even have to be valuables that he takes to liquidate; I bet there are troves of documents that historians would pay a premium to get, and he could grab a cool million or more as a "finders fee," etc etc etc.
If Justin DuMorne was actually hard up for money, it was similarly a "choice."
... While he hasn't become corrupt because of it, a driving need to pay the rent has pushed him into making some less than wise choices in the past ...
Yeah. Harry's stupid that way. Because he's got these magic powers, because he can do stuff... that makes him a real target for manipulation; choosing to be poor hangs a great big lever off himself saying, "Pull Here to motivate Harry Dresden."
... However Justin's reputation was so sterling that no one ever suspected until Harry took him down and even now many refuse to believe.
Do we actually know Justin's reputation?
I mean, he was obviously known as a very combat-capable Warden (or he wouldn't have been on Kemmler duty)! Presumably, he shared in the general "Warden" rep -- the greycloaks are kinda grim, very dangerous, implacable, etc...
But what was his personal rep? "Sterling," or "another powerful greycloak," or do we even know?
But I think the "refusal to believe" is just human nature, they don't want to face it. Just like the mundanes will do almost anything to convince themselves that magic doesn't exist, that the supernatural beasties are just myths, etc.
Most wizards aren't actually very combat-capable (as the Spooky community judges such things). They don't want to believe that one of their Wardens -- the very ones who keep them save from Warlocks and other Bad Magic -- can turn so evil, and be so undetected.
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I could see his service as a Warden disillusioning him. He spends his life fighting the forces of darkness only to see the forces of darkness continue to do as they have always done. (I'm not sure that would have been an accurate view after Kemmler was defeated. Eb says some stuff like "you don't know how bad it can be, boy" to Harry at some point that makes me think the White Council has done a much better job than Harry would believe).
I don't see money playing into it at all. I disagree that Harry was having money troubles after he became a warden. Harry basically lies to Murphy when he says his warden salary isn't enough to leave him extra cash to fix his door. It is. He just would rather spend the money on Little Chicago.
I think we can all agree that having limited resources is different than having financial difficulty. I also think we can all agree that covering all of one's necessities, some luxuries, and some savings and/or investments is not struggling financially. Now I won't be surprised it we don't agree that that's exactly what Harry is doing by Proven Guilty. By that point, Harry is covering his rent, keeping the Beetle running, spending a lot on a Little Chicago (which is either a luxury item or maybe a not so great investment in his P.I. business), setting aside sufficient cash to bail someone out of jail with a record in ~2008 Chicago (before criminal justice reform was a thing I'd heard of) for what's likely aggravated battery twice over. I'm going with a floor of $1,500 based on this document http://directives.chicagopolice.org/forms/CPD-11.909.pdf (http://directives.chicagopolice.org/forms/CPD-11.909.pdf).
Does Harry mention money troubles at any point after Dead Beat? I can't recall any (other than not having any money in Cold Days with having been dead and then in Faerie for about a year).
They don't want to believe that one of their Wardens -- the very ones who keep them save from Warlocks and other Bad Magic -- can turn so evil, and be so undetected.
This. No one who isn't on the receiving end of a law enforcement encounter wants to believe the cops are corrupt.
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Do we actually know Justin's reputation?
I mean, he was obviously known as a very combat-capable Warden (or he wouldn't have been on Kemmler duty)! Presumably, he shared in the general "Warden" rep -- the greycloaks are kinda grim, very dangerous, implacable, etc...
As far as I know we don't know his reputation, but we do know some things that might be indicative:
1. Former Warden. This would probably get him a good reputation with the council, except we don't know if the "former" was his choice or not. If he "retired" I would anticipate a good reputation with the council, but if it wasn't it may not be.
2. Apprentice of a Senior Council Member. This almost certainly would have gotten him in with at least some of the senior council as he would have a powerful sponsor/supporter and good connections.
3. A known associate (at least to some) to Margaret LeFey. This should probably have been problematic to most people. Especially since he was an ex-Warden and the wardens didn't like her. This may be an indication that he was an accomplished travelers of the Ways, since the Gatekeeper seems to indicate people who are, are something of a fraternity and because of that he knew her too.
Now, we can also assume that some of his Master's reputation might influence him. Simon was obviously powerful enough that he was on the council and was respected enough that he ran the "brute squad." The brutes of the squad obviously trusted him enough to serve under him, and the council trusted him enough to let them, and enough to let him be their vampire specialist. We also know he was also an Ally of Eb's. BUT, we also know that Eb, as the blackstaff, had to warn him several times for the stuff he was doing near the fall of the Russian Empire so he probably didn't have a sterling reputation.
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At first I read, " he (Kemmler) hopped into Justin, corrupted him, then hoped out went on to someone else," I thought OK, maybe that works, but thinking about it I've got to question that idea too. It depends on Justin remaining in his own mind but being overwhelmed by Kemmler. Similar to a denarian taking over the coin bearer's decisions or nemesis taking over one of its victims. We don't have any indication a necromancer can do this. Corpse Taker could paralyze Harry and make him forget he was in danger, but she couldn't corrupt Harry or make him think in differently about right and wrong.
So where does this leave the idea of Kemmler jumping into Justin and then moving into someone else? Well, there is one candidate for him to have jumped into, Elaine. This might seem like a really nasty twist that would be emotionally devastating for Harry; "Yes, Harry Dresden, when you thought you were killing Justin du Morne you were really killing your first love," but it runs into the same problem of Elaine/Kemmler having more than a couple of decades to plan and pull off a dark hallow and not doing so, and Elaine/Kemmler playing private detective and helping minor magical talents survive the Fomor and other supernatural baddies. As Mr. Spock would say, "That is highly illogical." (And I mean real ST TOS Mr. Spock, not pathetic emo Star Trek Discovery Spock.)
Think more so what Corpsetaker did to Luccio. She traded bodies with her as she was dieing. I am saying kemmler did something simillar to Justin the day they "Took him out" and since then, and harry's entire life, Justin has been Kemmler-in-Justin's-Meatsuit. Justin was in kemmler's body and died. There is no fight going on internally. He is dead.
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Think more so what Corpsetaker did to Luccio. She traded bodies with her as she was dieing. I am saying kemmler did something simillar to Justin the day they "Took him out" and since then, and harry's entire life, Justin has been Kemmler-in-Justin's-Meatsuit. Justin was in kemmler's body and died. There is no fight going on internally. He is dead.
Yeah, but -- as noted -- if Kemmler were alive all those years, there's no good explanation for him NOT going to some massive Darkhallow Hulk-out. (Never mind the Michigander Indian tribes... let's talk Somme in WWI, or Stalingrad in WWII, running 1 - 2 MILLION violent deaths. Chang-Ping, with hundreds of thousands of battle-dead and THEN close to a half-million executed prisoners of war. Darkhallow THAT.)
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I think what turned Justin was learning the truth about the Outer Gates, and realizing What Was Coming, which is why he was looking to mold a pair of Starborn (Starborns? Starsborn?). The only thing we know for sure about Starborn is that they lack some of the weaknesses mortal wizards have against Outsiders.
Based on that, I see three reasons Justin would want that. Either:
A) He wanted to fight them and prevent the Outsider Apocalypse that the series appears to be building toward. This is active opposition to the Outsider Plot.
B) He wanted to suborn the Outsiders and, in some fashion, use their power for himself. I don't know if he thought that Starborn might be able to mentally dominate Outsiders, for example, but I'm sure the idea of enslaving an army of them would have appealed to him if he thought it could be done. Maybe the Starborn would instead have been responsible for a Darkhallow-ish ritual that can only be performed if you can get magic to stick to Outsiders in the first place, and Justin would've legit become an Outsider-level god. Lots of different possibilities with this one that I can see.
C) He wanted Harry and Elaine to be Humanity's Backup Plan. If the walls of Reality crumbled and humanity was about to die off after the Outsiders "won," the two of them would be the seed from which the species could persist. This is the least likely, because I have no clue how Justin would have thought he could have possibly kept the two of them safe if the universe/multiverse was destroyed by Outsiders.
Anywho, I dunno if Justin was planning to fight, steal, or build an Ark. I personally believe he was planning to Steal, and was just dumb about it.
I do go back and forth between Steal and Fight, though. Because if he was really looking to bend Harry and Elaine to his will, he screwed up MASSIVELY, and I can't see Justin being as dumb about it as he was. He basically already had Harry and Elaine on Team Justin. I don't know about Elaine, but I know that Justin was Harry's first paternal figure since Malcolm died. Harry already would have probably done quite a few questionable deeds if Justin had simply asked him. If he had taken just a little more time—a year, maybe, or even six months—he could have manipulated both of them into becoming the thugs everyone claims he wanted.
I've said this before on this forum (well, technically the last one—thanks again, Griffyn), but it's really not that hard to manipulate teenagers. Getting them to do dirty work is easy enough with standard cult-like indoctrination. There's no magic required there; it's all about breaking them down and building them up to your liking. Sadly, it happens all the time in reality—I've known people whom I've tried to help get out of situations like that (sadly unsuccessfully). It is not difficult to accomplish; it just takes time and a complete lack of morality. I've seen young people turn from bright and skeptical to dead-eyed and unshakably credulous over the course of a single year.
I therefore believe that either A) Justin no longer had the luxury of time to accomplish this, and had to rush things for one reason or another (which is compatible with all of the above possible motivations), or B) Justin never intended to turn them into simple thugs in the first place, and what Harry and Elaine went through was either meant for some other purpose, or Justin was no longer in charge. That's really only compatible with the first possible motivation (raising two Starborn to fight the Outsiders), in my opinion. If this is the case, then I think it's possible that the OP is both right and incorrect; Harry did know Justin DuMorne, but the one Harry killed was not the same Justin DuMorne he knew and lived with. I think it is possible that Kemmler OR Nemesis OR Both OR Something Else got to Justin, and possessed/reshaped him such that he was no longer calling the shots.
I'm not saying it's super likely to be true, but I do think it's possible. It would certainly explain my personal hangup about Justin's sudden Kung Fu grip on the Idiot Ball.
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(Starborns? Starsborn?)
I vote Starborn as both a singular and a plural. Like deer. How did Justin have a Kung Fu grip on the idiot ball? As I see it, his mistake was not expecting Harry to skip school to check on Elaine. That's about it, unless you count not knowing how to program people through non-magical means.
We should keep in mind that Justin was "dirty" from the moment that he took Bob.
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I vote Starborn as both a singular and a plural. Like deer. How did Justin have a Kung Fu grip on the idiot ball? As I see it, his mistake was not expecting Harry to skip school to check on Elaine. That's about it, unless you count not knowing how to program people through non-magical means.
We should keep in mind that Justin was "dirty" from the moment that he took Bob.
I think it works both ways, depending on how you use it, speaking of starborns in general or referring to the starborn in general.. I agree though, Justin didn't count on Harry skipping school to check on Elaine, that was his first mistake.. His second mistake was underestimating Harry's stubborn will, which made enthrallment impossible. The thought just came to my tired brain. Harry has always prided himself on his force of will, it has saved his ass many a time. I've always thought that the strength of his will came from him being a starborn. Many of us, me included thought that Justin selected Harry and Elaine because he thought one or both might be starborn.. But what that wasn't his motive? Because why try to enthrall Elaine if she might be starborn because it wouldn't work.. It flat out didn't work on Harry... Then again Elaine still could be starborn and her enthrallment was an act, she seemed to imply that in Summer Knight.
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... I've always thought that the strength of his will came from him being a starborn...
I have wondered that myself. I concluded it was not the case.
The powerful Immortals, the Mab's & the Fallen &c, clearly know what these "starborn" are. They have probably dealt with them before... as we see from all the attention Harry gets, being Starborn is significant. None of the prior ones are likely to have escaped attention from the Movers & Shakers.
If vast & superhuman powers of teh 5tubb0rnz are an inherent Starborn feature, none of these beings would keep presuming Harry had ordinary willpower.
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But they might be honing and shaping that power.
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But they might be honing and shaping that power.
The fact that Harry will tell her to stuff it when she needs it, is the quality Mab admires most about Harry.
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There was a similar discussion a few years ago.
Here's my theory: Kemmler body-swaps with Justin just before the killing stroke (Justin is D-E-D dead...). K realizes that every time he pops up and tries a darkhallow, the WC shows up and kills him. So he modifies his plan.
He (Kemmler/Justin or KJ) seeks to find or create a Starborn. Either as a new, more powerful body that can fight off the wardens or as a disciple to fight the WC while he does a darkhallow. KJ finds Harry or conspires with Margaret to create one.
KJ has the skull. instructs the spirit to teach Harry but to NEVER reveal that he is Kemmler. The spirit knows that if it has to answer Harry's questions, there is the possibility it may accidentally reveal what it has been ordered not to. To prevent this, it creates a separate personality without access to any knowledge of Kemmler for dealing with Harry. Harry Names this personality Bob.
Harry has some special power with changing the nature of beings by Naming them (think Lash), add to this the original spirit doesn't have a Name. This leads to Bob becoming the dominant personality and eventually (on Harry's orders) amputating the original and all of it's proprietary knowledge.
This is when KJ's plan goes awry and has to fake his death again.
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KJ has the skull. instructs the spirit to teach Harry but to NEVER reveal that he is Kemmler.
This could explain why Evil Bob in Death Masks says something along the lines of "I don't know what you'be done with the master."
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I vote Starborn as both a singular and a plural. Like deer. How did Justin have a Kung Fu grip on the idiot ball? As I see it, his mistake was not expecting Harry to skip school to check on Elaine. That's about it, unless you count not knowing how to program people through non-magical means.
We should keep in mind that Justin was "dirty" from the moment that he took Bob.
I count the fact that he went to enthrall them at all as grabbing the Idiot Ball. It was totally stupid and unnecessary, a completely hamfisted approach to getting what he wanted out of a pair of teenagers. Justin has never been characterized as stupid or shortsighted. Enthralling Harry and Elaine is both, in my opinion.
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... We should keep in mind that Justin was "dirty" from the moment that he took Bob.
Remember the skull wasn't "Bob" then.
I think secretly taking a magic-knowledge bank of the Evil Necromancer is pretty much a demonstration that Justin was already well-along the Darkside path.
Luccio described it as frightening, and said the Wardens "destroyed it, of course."
Departing from that "of course" wasn't DuMorne's first step down that path!
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@Kindler: I disagree. Teenagers are difficult.
@g33k: My point is that he should be categorized as dirty from at least that point. It's not like we know of a single thing he did before that. (He wardened and likely associated with Margaret).
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@g33k: My point is that he should be categorized as dirty from at least that point. It's not like we know of a single thing he did before that. (He wardened and likely associated with Margaret).
Fair enough!
I just think that's an awfully huge swing to the Darkside, if he had been faithfully doing good Warden duty until then. I mean, seriously: you were just part of taking down the most dangerous warlock in modern memory... you're riding high on victory & virtue! So you shit on it all and grab some dangerous, needs-destroying black magic ??!?
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Had he been faithfully doing good Warden duty until then? Or was he dragooned into service as a Warden because of the Kemmler situation?
Taking Bob1 doesn't violate a single Law of Magic. Bob isn't black magic. He's knowledge not quite incarnate. Naked power. The good or evil of Bob is almost entirely in the holder.
Stealing Bob isn't even close to warlock territory. It's corrupt. It's "dirty." It's helped Harry save the world repeatedly.
I do think we should all be able to agree that Justin wasn't a loyal upstanding Council member long before he decided to adopt some heavy hitter wizardlings to use as enforcers (or some as yet unknown purpose).
1: I'm going to call him Bob because what else should I call him? The spirit currently known as Bob? Kemmler's air spirit?
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Had he been faithfully doing good Warden duty until then? Or was he dragooned into service as a Warden because of the Kemmler situation? ...
You know... I think we don't actually know very much about Justin's past.
Maybe he was dragooned into the Wardens to fight Kemmler, just as Harry was dragooned to fight Kemmler's heirs... That's not my impression, but I don't recall any canon I can quote, or WoJ I can link, to show support for the "long-term warden" as Justin's backstory.
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Taking Bob1 doesn't violate a single Law of Magic. Bob isn't black magic. He's knowledge not quite incarnate. Naked power. The good or evil of Bob is almost entirely in the holder ...
Not so.
Recall that when Harry re-united Bob with Kemmler-era Bob, we got Evil Bob.
Evil Bob is... well, evil. Just having the memories made the change -- Harry was still the Boss of Bob, technically (even EvilBob had to obey the return-to-skull conditions Harry had laid down), but Bob tried to KILL Harry; and you recall the WWII-Nazi bit of the Nevernever that EvilBob cooked up.
If Bob were as neutral as all that, destroying the skull wouldn't have been a priority -- Bob could have "safely" been retained and studied by the Council. Instead, it needed to be destroyed... "of course."
Early on in the series, Harry explains (or sometimes just narrates what/why he can't explain) to Murphy how some research will get him killed, if the WC were to find out. Some knowledge is inherently Black-Magical, or at least a presumptive death-sentence.
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About Justin: The closest we have to evidence of his upstandingness is whatever it was that LaFortier said in Summer Knight. I think that's it. On the other hand, we have everything else we know about him from stealing Bob to Harry killing him that would lead us to believe he wasn't a good guy.
About Bob: I don't know. Bob, on his own, destroyed as much "Evil Bob" as he could and locked away the rest. Kemmler was evil. That's why Bob was evil. I think the Council was ignorant as to Bob's true nature. I will freely admit Bob is extremely dangerous because he himself is neutral. He has no internal moral limits. It'd be really bad if an evil person got a hold of him.
About Harry's research in Storm Front: I think that had more to do with the Doom, Morgan being a hardcase, and Early Installment Weirdness. Let's ignore EIW because it isn't too helpful and is just my opinion. I don't think Harry was allowed within spitting distance of violating the Laws. See his interactions with Toot. For an example of Morgan being a hardcase about the Laws, see the his reaction to the "standard practice" wards on Harry's storage unit in Turn Coat.
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About Justin: The closest we have to evidence of his upstandingness is whatever it was that LaFortier said in Summer Knight. I think that's it...
<heh>
<heh, heh>
And we all know LaFortier to have been an upstanding pillar of righteous behavior & exraordinarily-good judgement.
:o
... About Bob: I don't know. Bob, on his own, destroyed as much "Evil Bob" as he could and locked away the rest ...
Yeah... Bob did that. Harry's Bob. Kemmler's skull? No, that was actively evil. And that evil was there inside, waiting a chance to get out. And without any proximate owner to order it to, it tried to kill Harry (and nearly succeeded).
(BTW -- I know Bob "locked away" as much of the Kemmlerian stuff as he could; but I don't know that he "destroyed" any of EvilBob, or was even capable of doing so: if he could destroy his knowledge, he could have been safe from Mab by getting rid of the Immortal-Killing info...)
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(BTW -- I know Bob "locked away" as much of the Kemmlerian stuff as he could; but I don't know that he "destroyed" any of EvilBob, or was even capable of doing so: if he could destroy his knowledge, he could have been safe from Mab by getting rid of the Immortal-Killing info...)
He says he destroyed some of it:
“Kemmler was bad, Harry,” Bob said. “He…he took what I was. And he twisted it. I destroyed most of my memories of my time with him, and I locked away everything I couldn’t. Because I didn’t want to be like that.”
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 33). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
As to getting out of trouble with Mab, how would she ever know he'd done it?
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He says he destroyed some of it:
...
TYVM!!
I wonder what it was he (supposedly) destroyed? I mean... EvilBob got back a LOT of stuff!
Maybe Bob actually "forgot" (locked away) the fact that he couldn't actually destroy any of it...
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As to getting out of trouble with Mab, how would she ever know he'd done it?
Some time when he gets a "pass" (or has a slightly-loose phrasing on a specific mission), he could send a message via dewdrop or other low-powered faerie.
Harry calls Bob "one of the most powerful spirits I have ever seen." There's got to be a LOT of ways for him to get a message to Mab's attention...
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TYVM!!
I wonder what it was he (supposedly) destroyed? I mean... EvilBob got back a LOT of stuff!
Maybe Bob actually "forgot" (locked away) the fact that he couldn't actually destroy any of it...
My theory is that he could destroy the day-to-day stuff about being around Kemmler, but couldn't destroy the stuff directly related to magic.
Some time when he gets a "pass" (or has a slightly-loose phrasing on a specific mission), he could send a message via dewdrop or other low-powered faerie.
Harry calls Bob "one of the most powerful spirits I have ever seen." There's got to be a LOT of ways for him to get a message to Mab's attention...
Would she believe it? Can Bob lie?
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Yeah... Bob did that. Harry's Bob.
Harry never met any version of Evil Bob until Dead Beat. The Evil Bob from Dead Beat seemed to have no knowledge of Kemmler's death or Justin's ownership of him. Admittedly, that whole scene raises a lot of questions, but I think Bob eliminated/locked away the Kemmler stuff on his own without anyone's influence. He definitely had done it without anyone ordering him to.
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Well here’s how I see it - Bob can’t destroy anything he learnt from Kemmler that changed his views of how magic works, or really knowledge that Bob has used later - there are too many memories to destroy in these scenarios. However any knowledge gained from Kemmler that hasn’t been put to further use/ fundadementally change how Bob sees magic can safely be ‘deleted’.
@Kindler
I’ve been thinking a lot about Justin’s slide & will make a new thread about it soon.
One of the theories I’m seriously considering (especially in light of the new Morgan short story) is that Harry & Elaine were ‘marked by the Adversary at birth’. I think Justin found out that someone he was working with (likely Simon/ Cowl) was planning on Nfecting his Starborn foster-kids soon, so as a result he decides to enthrall them to keep them secretly loyal to him - IIRC he was creating fine thralls, not the brute force submission kind.
This would also explain why HWWB didn’t try to subdue or kill 16 yr old Harry - instead he was testing Harry to see if DuMorne did a good job in raising him (which the Walker wouldn’t need to do if it were regularly in contact with Justin). I suspect Simon sent HWWB after Harry.