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The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: groinkick on October 04, 2017, 05:42:54 PM
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In Changes, on the surface we saw Harry, and his band of friends fight the Red Court, save his daughter, and slay the Red Court. This was all on the surface. However I'm pretty sure there were possibly some things that happened off screen. There was a lot of time that Harry was not with his allies, meaning they could have been doing their own thing.
First who was invested in this fight?
TWG - KoTC involved
Mab - Her right hand was there
Grey Council/probably White Council Senior members
Venatori? Thomas was there as Harry's brother but I would not be at all surprised if he was also there in an official capacity for the Venatori
Odin - He plans way far out in advance. He recognized the importance of this conflict and got involved... It was a big deal
Blackstaff was there
I know I know some will think that Eb abuses his position or whatever. However he may have also been there not only to help Harry, but in an official capacity as the Blackstaff to strike down those who were using the laws of magic against the White Council. The Black Council was almost there for sure.
So with all these forces in one place it makes me wonder if there were also Fallen, Old Ones, Outsiders, and more on the opposite side. Thomas may have done things behind the scenes that we aren't aware of. Same for Leah, the Grey Council, Odin, and KoTC.
Think there could be something to this, or am I looking too much into it?
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Don't forget the Chicago PD. They had one of their department heads on the scene.
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Don't forget the Chicago PD. They had one of their department heads on the scene.
lol...
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We saw only a small portion of that battle.
Don't forget that there were "vanilla" mortals there too. Both Mercs and sacrifices.
Once the Reds were killed and the half-rampires were turned, and started aging and the like, there were still others there who were fighting for their lives.
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Well, we clearly know from the words uttered through Murphy's lips that there were angelic forces at work, forces that had likely gently influenced events in order that the Red Court would be destroyed. TWG works that way, manipulating one group of people to be the executors of judgement for another.
Yes, the gray council was there. And if you believe that they're made up of a group of good people fighting for good and right things, then it's pretty surface. On the other hand, if you believe they're more than what they appear, it becomes an act of removing one patsy who wasn't toeing the line and replacing it with another, and a desperate attempt to save the life of their leader. Or, if you believe that Dresden has other living family, it becomes, I dunno, an effort to save Merlin trapped in Demonreach and clearly being the keystone that holds it all together.
Or something.
Mab's the interesting one. The Reds are signatories of the accords, and you wouldn't think that Lea could indulge herself if the Reds hadn't offered them any insult. Either the act of Harry being Winter Knight meant that the past-tense act of kidnapping his daughter became a declaration of war, or it's a "if you're not alive to complain, I can get away with it" sort of deal.
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First the whole point of the ritual was to kill mortals with magic. Those mortals being a senior council member and the most powerful wizard of the younger generation.
if the black staff didn't do something that would almost be negligence on his part.
second remember the reds using the ways without permission counted as a declaration of war and the white council were astonished that the fey did nothing. Not only that they summoned outsiders in mass into fey territory which we now know would have particularly infuriated the fey. Its just that immortals see time differently. To Mab this was probably a rather quick response.
The part that blows my mind is that the ritual was one of the dumbest things the reds could do.
They know for a fact that when Ortega went after Dresden in a underhanded manner a satellite crashed and destroyed everything for hundreds of yards around his house.
That was meant to be an example, so yes they know it wasn't random.
So their great plan is to go after Dresden in a underhanded manner while gathering all of their strongest members and almost all of their weaker ones within a couple hundred yards.
they were not even particularly secretive about the fact that they were all gathering there. With the senior councils information gathering ability its almost a sure thing that they would find out.
Thats the main reason i think their was some more important goal than killing Ebeneezer. If their wasn't the red court would have died out long ago from similar stupid plans.
Also thats my theory on what Merlin meant when he said they were going to exterminate the reds. Drop a satellite on the pyramid and mop up the survivors with wardens and senior council. Maggie being their messed up that plan because only Ebeneezer could drop the satellite.
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I think it's a lock that Mab had an interest, because the Reds have made a habit of summoning Outsiders while on the ways through Faerie to aid them in battle with the WCW. That is a significant insult to Mab in my eyes. Careless too, and undermining of her war efforts. The reds also play into the founding conspiracy of the series somehow, with the schemes around creating a starborn, which ultimately led to Harry. Ariana's presence at that dinner with Lord Raith, Maggie, and Eb is evidence enough to convince me of that. Whether that conspiracy is the same thing as the Circle or BC or Nemesis remains to be seen, but it is certainly another major dark center of power, however it identifies.
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I think we saw the important bits. I don't think the RAMPS expected to need outsiders for that fight, and if there were some there we'd have heard about it. Politically there is kind of more, but for the most part I doubt it's an Arctis Tor Scenario.
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Don't forget the Chicago PD. They had one of their department heads on the scene.
No, not during Changes. Murphy was demoted between Proven Guilty and White Night.
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Mab's the interesting one. The Reds are signatories of the accords, and you wouldn't think that Lea could indulge herself if the Reds hadn't offered them any insult. Either the act of Harry being Winter Knight meant that the past-tense act of kidnapping his daughter became a declaration of war, or it's a "if you're not alive to complain, I can get away with it" sort of deal.
I'd say that providing Leah with Nemesis infection under the rules of hospitality, and the reds defending her was reason for her to drop the hammer. I even think Leah mentioned taking her revenge on those members in Changes. So they appear to have been involved.
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Well...Eb was there because they were trying to kill him too, technically. Don’t think it counts as abuse of power in that case.
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Well...Eb was there because they were trying to kill him too, technically. Don’t think it counts as abuse of power in that case.
Eb was there, BUT he used the Blackstaff. I guess technically by using a curse to kill people, that is using magic law against the Council (the Council cannot use this kind of magic as it requires human sacrifices). I think that might be the case anyways.
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It also seems to me that the Blackstaff can do just about whatever the hell he wants. Part of having a deniable asset is that you don’t want to know what they’re doing most of the time.
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It also seems to me that the Blackstaff can do just about whatever the hell he wants. Part of having a deniable asset is that you don’t want to know what they’re doing most of the time.
Yeah. This debate has been hashed out, and not looking to have it again, at least not on this subject. So I will leave it at that ;)
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The part that blows my mind is that the ritual was one of the dumbest things the reds could do.
They know for a fact that when Ortega went after Dresden in a underhanded manner a satellite crashed and destroyed everything for hundreds of yards around his house.
That was meant to be an example, so yes they know it wasn't random.
So their great plan is to go after Dresden in a underhanded manner while gathering all of their strongest members and almost all of their weaker ones within a couple hundred yards.
they were not even particularly secretive about the fact that they were all gathering there. With the senior councils information gathering ability its almost a sure thing that they would find out.
Thats the main reason i think their was some more important goal than killing Ebeneezer. If their wasn't the red court would have died out long ago from similar stupid plans.
Ok so let's argue the value of the ritual.
* The initiator of the ritual is Arianna, not the Red King. She needed something public, something dramatic and something deadly. The ritual was way over the top, but that is what her power struggled called for if she was to overthrow the Red King. And she probably had the support of a lot of the Lords of Outer Night behind her --enough that the Red King dare not squash it.
* The Red King, once Arianna is dead, also needed something dramatic. It is unlikely he would have kicked off the ritual himself, but if Arianna did - utilizing the ritual himself makes perfect sense. So the Red King would not have been in some hurry to end the ritual. He needed the ritual to shore up his support as well for almost the same reasons as Arianna.
* Consolidating all the Red Court together in one place is not that major a risk. They disabled a lot of the White Council already. The Lords of Outer Night were no doubt on guard against some kind of magical assault (falling satellite for example) and would not be killed by such an act. The Lords of Outer Night could swat that satelite out of the sky in an instant. Maybe the Fellowship could have hidden a nuclear bomb at the site and blown them all up -- but outside of that scenario it is hard to see how the Red Court would have been seriously threatened. After all, even with the surpise intervention of three knights of the cross, at least one minor god (odin), an army of Kenku, leah, the new winter knight, and some of the biggest heavy hitters on the council --- the white council was clearly loosing. And that was without the lords of the outer night playing a significant role in most of the battle. The conditions that allowed Harry to win were real "threading the needle in the middle of a hurricane" type conditions.
* The value of the kills is huge. Killing Harry and you kill the boogieman scary enough to cause red court vampires to run away in battle -- and whose death would allow the red court leadership to end the premature war now and finish off the council in 30 years. Killing Eb destroys the most powerful war wizard in the white council and likely destabilizes the leadership of the white council.
* Further more, it is possible that the curse would be so powerful that it shatters the wards around Edinburgh when it takes out Eb. It would take the white council weeks or months to repair those wards. I can totally see the Red court celebrating victory when they complete the ritual and then spending the very next night attacking Edinburgh. The vamps are running an a victory high and the wizards are sickened, scared and demoralized. They obviously could not count on Eb being there, but it would be a nice bonus. Even if the ritual did not crack the wards, the momentum they would get from these events would probably allow the Red Court to break the White council in weeks.
So big upside, little chance for downside. Why not do it.
I do agree that the Reds should have stationed a lot more guards around the trigger, but remember the logic that Bob said. Unless you sacrifice a red court vamp on the alter, it is hard to see how the ritual could hurt the red court. And almost the entire Lords of Outer Night were there to defend the ritual when Harry got there.
I do agree it was arrogant for the Red Court to create such a weapon that another could take from their hand. But the United States builds nuclear bombs and there is always a remote chance that somebody could steal one and use it against us. We still build them because the bombs are damn useful in the right circumstances so we accept the small risk. At the end of the day, the Reds did not think anybody had a real chance to take their weapon and they died because they were wrong.
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I'd add that, not only did the active parties play a role - a lot of people acted by not opposing their counterparts.
Who's the natural enemy of the Winter Knight and Mab's handmaiden acting so brazenly? Summer. And they were not there.
Who's the natural enemy of the Knights of the Cross? The Denarians. And they were not there.
The Red Court was really not being particularly risky, they were insulated from anything but every other active member of the supernatural community acting or not-acting together in an effort to crush them. And even then, it was pretty damned close.
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they were not even particularly secretive about the fact that they were all gathering there. With the senior councils information gathering ability its almost a sure thing that they would find out.
What makes you say that? The council didn't know; Eb was shocked to learn it, no more than a half hour before Dresden appeared on the scene. Dresden petitioned every one he knew to find the info out, and had to get it from a literal god. The Fellowship of Saint Giles had no idea, and it seems like they're the ones who track the courts activity most closely. Everything all points to that they arranged it and organized with great secrecy and took out all potential observers.
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Makes me wonder if Harry's part of the "source" bloodline. Meaning that all wizards are connected like branches on a tree, but Harry's bloodline could run all the way to the root, a more direct connection. A curse like that on him, would do to the White Council, as it did to the Red Court.
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Some wonder if it was Vadderung himself that was the ultimate target of the death curse. He could be the main progenitor of a great many wizards.
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Some wonder if it was Vadderung himself that was the ultimate target of the death curse. He could be the main progenitor of a great many wizards.
Possible... Mostly because I think Vadderung is Merlin.
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Possible... Mostly because I think Vadderung is Merlin.
Man, Vadderung is Odin, is Santa Claus, is he also Jesus and Superman too.
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“Your actions have already done so,” I said.
The wispiest shade of a smile line touched the corners of his eyes. “Ah. You have a certain amount of perception, then.”
“I used to think so,” I said. “Then I started getting older and realized how clueless I am.”
“The beginning of wisdom, or so Socrates would have it,” Hades said. “He says so every time we have brunch.”
“Wow,” I said. “Socrates is, uh, down here?”
Hades arched an eyebrow. He lifted his free hand, palm up.
“Right,” I said. “Sorry. Um. Do you mind if I ask . . . ?”
“His fate, in the Underworld?” Hades said.
I nodded.
Hades’ mouth ticked up at one corner. “People question him.”
The dog took note that it was no longer being petted, and the nearest head lifted up to nudge itself beneath Hades’ hand again. The Lord of the Underworld absentmindedly went back to petting it, like any man might with his dog.
I like to read this with Hades really being Socrates.
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Man, Vadderung is Odin, is Santa Claus, is he also Jesus and Superman too.
Well I will respond to your sarcasm with words of Jim. "Odin has many hats".
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Apologies, the sarcasm was meant with a light touch and humor.
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Hmm back to the original question. I agree, I do think there was a lot more going on in this fight than Harry realized. After the fight, Eb himself says after Harry recognizes Vadderung that he [Odin] rarely gets involved these days but when he does, something big is about to go down.
On a grander scale, this was the Home Team neutralizing the Outsiders’ opening salvo - as others have pointed out, the fight involved the coming together of many different factions against the RCV, because the Ramps had begun to ally themselves with Outsiders, allowing TWG to intervene more directly through the KoTC & Uriel.
So this fight was essentially a proxy fight between the agents of TWG & the Outsiders using agents & cats paws. Since the home team won, the Outsiders resort to plan B which we see in any cold Days (breaching the prison on Demonreach).
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Hmm back to the original question. I agree, I do think there was a lot more going on in this fight than Harry realized. After the fight, Eb himself says after Harry recognizes Vadderung that he [Odin] rarely gets involved these days but when he does, something big is about to go down.
On a grander scale, this was the Home Team neutralizing the Outsiders’ opening salvo - as others have pointed out, the fight involved the coming together of many different factions against the RCV, because the Ramps had begun to ally themselves with Outsiders, allowing TWG to intervene more directly through the KoTC & Uriel.
So this fight was essentially a proxy fight between the agents of TWG & the Outsiders using agents & cats paws. Since the home team won, the Outsiders resort to plan B which we see in any cold Days (breaching the prison on Demonreach).
I think that you've got it. But in addition to the TWG, this was also the chance for Mab and Odin to also take direct action against the Ramps / Outsiders / Blank Council. All of them grafting themselves onto Harry's cause as a convenient excuse to make a strike they desperately wanted to make anyway. And the best insight you added was that Cold Days represents plan B for this side after CI fails so spectacularly.
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If it was Plan B, it was hurried. My guess is that they wanted to take advantage of an inactive Harry Dresden/Winter Knight.
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Thanks Froklsnt! Yup, I think some of the factions who are clearly in the anti-Outsider camp like the Winter Court, Vadderung, the Grey Council had been wanting to strike at the Red court for a while (I’m sure Mab wanted to after the Ramps encroached on her territory in SK) but were probably waiting for the RCV to exhaust themselves in the fight with the White Council. TWG/ Uriel instead helped create a successful ambush that has the necessary firepower to succeed before the Ramps could take out a Starborn (the world’s most potent weapon against Outsiders).
@wardenferry
I do think it was hurried, & furthermore planned by Maeve, so somewhat sloppier than the elegance of Mab that we’re used to. Harry surviving Changes & coming out even stronger than before in CD must’ve alarmed the Black Council - they saw that Alfred was beginning to be of real help to Harry (kept them physically alive after a gun shot wound for 6 months, with help of course) so they had to neutralize him before he became fully aware of the islands capabilities & secrets - being ancient & brilliant, Nfected Maeve has concocted the plan so that keeping Harry the Starborn in check is almost a secondary benefit to the Black Council from this plan. Primary being of course, the rampant death & destruction created by the prisoners on the island, some of whom may be out & out Outsider allies.
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Consider the possibility that anyone around Harry and Eb when it went off would be caught in the shockwaves. Precision strikes have collateral why not dark magic missiles
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Maeve couldn't go at Mab directly; so, she figured creating some chaos might do the job for her. Maeve was a very lazy planner.
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I could not agree more, WF. Look at how she tried to get Summer's Emmisary in SK. Very hurried and not well thought out.
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Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if she really thought 2+2=5.
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You can't lie if you believe. Then you're just wrong.
No, she knows how to add. She's just too impatient. Not getting any for, well for ever, would do that to me, for sure.
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I was joking with the math; but, yeah, Maeve was not a chess master.
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Consider the possibility that anyone around Harry and Eb when it went off would be caught in the shockwaves. Precision strikes have collateral why not dark magic missiles
If that were true then every around the Reds when it went off would have been caught in the shockwaves - including everyone at Chichen Itza.
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If that were true then every around the Reds when it went off would have been caught in the shockwaves - including everyone at Chichen Itza.
Are you talking about effects of having the bloodline curse working on the Rampires, and there being a bleeding over to others nearby?
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Given how quick the Formor were off the mark, I think they had pre-cogs saying something big was going to happen. By the time the book starts, I think the possible futures had narrowed down to the end of either the Red Court or the White Council. That implies either the bloodline curse was going to do more than just take out a pair of Wizards or that the White Council's attempt to stop the curse could have ended disastrously. Losing the Grey Council and the Fellowship could have been enough to make the end of the war a foregone conclusion. We saw how the end of the RC came about, though the Grey Council's original plan might have been nasty enough to take out enough of the Court to knock the reds down to Black Court levels of power.
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I don't know about pre-cogs, but I agree that they were ready a bit too quickly. Almost like they had planned on it.
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Are you talking about effects of having the bloodline curse working on the Rampires, and there being a bleeding over to others nearby?
Yes. I'm pointing the fact that didn't happen at CI as evidence it wouldn't have happened at Edinburgh if the Reds had been successful.
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I thought the spell was directed, and therefore there would have been no "Bleed-over" like radiation from power lines. The Spell is a fantastic conduit and insulator.