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Topics - Cenphx

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1
Site Suggestions & Support / Moderator approval for new threads?
« on: May 28, 2014, 11:19:58 PM »
Is there a rule about creating new threads such that certain threads need to be approved by a moderator before they can be posted? I got a message like that about a recent thread, but then no message at all about the next thread, so I am unclear if there was something in my post that was problematic causing it to be flagged. It was approved, so I am guessing it was alright, but if there is a rule I am not clear about, I rather know about it and follow it!!

Any help would be cool!! Thx

2
DF Reference Collection / Proof that Time Travel Harry did not fix Little Chicago?? (CD Spoilers)
« on: February 11, 2013, 11:19:00 PM »
         We learned from Odin that there are laws that govern the progression of time in relation to space. Altering the future is easier than changing one’s past, which is more than mildly difficult. Overcoming the inertia of an event to remain as it originally occurred requires tremendous energy, will and a measure of simple luck.

         The larger, more significant or more energy in the event, the more inertia it has to stay the same and the echoes caused by a temporal event are proportionately greater than the span of time that was bridged. If centuries are bridged, echoes begin far, far in advance. We see that the energy echoes happening in the day before the events at Demonreach allowed Harry to determine that the spell was being cast that same day or hours around that time.

         Now consider Little Chicago. If it had not been fixed, it would have exploded with tremendous energy. It would have killed Harry, so it was a significant event in his timeline. Therefore, it is a large, significant, energetic event with an equal amount of inertia working to keep it happening the same way. Therefore, if a time-traveling Harry went back into his own past to fix Little Chicago, which occurred 6 years ago in the Dresden Files timeline, at the very least we should have been seeing echoes 6 years before Proven Guilty, right? And the further in time we get from the fixing of LC to when we see TT Harry make the trip, the early the echoes should have started.

        In Cold Days, the echoes we saw from the events at Demonreach included an energy building up, like a steam boiler, that was going to explode and take out the midwest. I'm not sure what kind of echoes to look for from TT Harry stopping the explosion of LC and his own death, but I can't think of anything that would fit the bill.

       Does this sound a death knell for the idea that Time Travel Harry fixed Little Chicago? Can anyone think of potential echoes which prove that Harry did travel back in time and avert his own death??

3
DF Reference Collection / Blood contagion - Mab's rule against spilling blood (cd spoilers)
« on: February 05, 2013, 03:14:40 AM »
I am wondering if Mab’s rule against spilling blood at Arctis Tor is not simple court protocol. Here is the relevant scene - from Cold Days (hardback ed.) at 59:

Quote
A large ruby droplet fell from her lip and hung in the air, shining and perfect, and there for half of forever. Then it finally splashed down onto the icy floor.

There was a shrieking hiss as the blood hit the supernatural ice, a sound somewhere between a hot skillet and a high-pressure industrial accident. The ice beneath the drop of blood shattered, as if the droplet had been unimaginably heavy, and a web of dark cracks shot out for fifty feet in every direction.

The music stopped. The Redcap froze. So did everyone else.

Mab rose out of her chair, and somehow in that instant of action she crossed the distance from her high seat, as though the simple act of standing up were what propelled her to the space nearby. As she came, the pallid finery of her dress darkened to a raven black, as if the air had contained a fine mist of ink. Her hair darkened as well to the same color and her eyes turned entirely black, sclera and all, as did her nails. The skin seemed to cling harder to her bones, making her beautiful features gaunt and terrible.

At first I thought the rule against bloodshed just dealt with the rules of hospitality. As host, Mab likely had to extend safety to her guests, so a rule against fighting was necessary to allow enemies to attend the same gathering. I thought Mab’s reaction was anger at having her rule thwarted. Neither the rule nor her reaction would have anything to do with Mab’s personal tastes; I doubt very much that she would be squeamish about a fight to the death at her party.

But if the rule is just about rules of hospitality, why not decree “no fighting”? Why the specific rule against blood? I think the blood is important in some specific way. Note the way even the ice reacted to the touch of blood—almost like some sort of shrieking alarm. And similar to the way the doors at Artis Tor reacted to Charity’s iron ax in Proven Guilty. It seems that Arctis Tor reacted to the blood as a poison the same way it did to iron.

Likewise, I don’t think Mab’s reaction to the blood was out of anger; I think it was involuntary. As mad as she was in SmF when she was talking to Harry at the hospital and made his eyes freeze, she did not turn black and have some sort of strain on her that made her skin stretch over her bones and her features gaunt. Though to a lesser degree, this description echoes what Mab looked like in Changes after she spent months, using all her strength to keep Harry alive at a terrible cost to herself.  Therefore, in Cold Days, I think the blood falling on the floor caused some sort of involuntary physical reaction in Mab. I am imagining it as something like an immune response; she was protecting herself against the blood.

Finally, the way Mab responded, by darkening to a black color as if pulling a fine mist of black ink out of the air sounds reminiscent of a couple different scenes from the series. It sounds like the way the Black Staff pulled out of Ebeneazer black tendrils of what I assume was taint from performing black magic. It also echoes the black inky mist like tendrils of the mordite mist-fiend, an outsider.

So….is it possible that Mab’s reaction was a built-in autoimmune response to the possibility of a contagion? Is it possible that Nemesis is a blood born contagion?

4
DF Reference Collection / References to Yeats' The Second Coming and the BAT (CD spoilers)
« on: January 25, 2013, 06:26:18 PM »
         When I read the end of CD and Maeve mentions that she will not be Mab’s falcon anymore, I realized that it was at least the third similar reference I felt like I could remember reading in TDF. I knew that there was some poem out there about how the center cannot hold and things fall apart, about entropy and the end of the world. Finally I decided to figure it out. Here is the poem—it’s from William Butler Yeats and it’s titled “The Second Coming”:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

         Doesn't this sound like it could be applied to the DF apocalpyse? I’m no Yeats scholar, but in a bit of googling I came across the fact that Yeats spent years crafting an elaborate, mystical theory of the universe. This theory issued in part from Yeats’s lifelong fascination with the occult and mystical. He believed that history can be laid out as two conical spirals, one inside the other, so that the widest part of one of the spirals rings around the narrowest part of the other spiral, and vice versa. Yeats believed that this image (he called the spirals “gyres”) captured the contrary motions inherent in history. Yeats believed that the world was on the threshold of an apocalypse, as history reached the end of the outer gyre and began moving along the inner gyre. In other words, the world’s trajectory along the gyre of science and democracy was coming apart, like the frantically widening flight of the falcon that has lost contact with the falconer; the next age will take its character not from the gyre of science and democracy, but something else entirely and opposite. Of course, the poem was written around 1921 and so likely had more to do with WW1 than predicting the DF apocalypse to come  :D, but it’s kind of cool to think about the possibility that Yeats, like the DF version of Stoker and Lovecraft, may have understood more than the rest of the world.

         Also, rather than just being a sad echo of my days as an english major, I started this thread to see if anyone picked up on these or other references. IIRC, Murphy said something to Harry in SF or FM about how the center cannot hold. I think Harry mentions “falcons and falconers” at some point, but I have no idea where. And then we have Maeve in CD telling Mab she will not be her falcon anymore.

        Are there anymore potential “The Second Coming” references in the Dresden Files? Anyone care to formulate a WAG about Yeats being prophetic??


EDIT: see Reply 9 for the first reference, from Storm Front
EDIT 2: see Reply 27 for Murphy's quote to Harry in Small Favor

Links added -Serack

5
DF Reference Collection / Motive for giving out black magic? [CD spoilers]
« on: December 31, 2012, 09:56:56 PM »
          In looking at whether the evidence supported the possibility that one person was responsible for the events of SF-FM-BR-LH, I concluded that it was possible and narrowed the suspect to someone who was a powerful mortal wizard, most likely a woman. The evidence also pointed to an outsider connection. But my theory lacked a motive, unlike the theories for Mavra, Lord Raith, or the Red Court Vampires. So what would the motive be for a powerful mortal wizard connected to the Outsiders to pass out black magic?
         
Black magic is addictive.
         So passing out items which use/allow the use of black magic or teaching black magic will lead to ever increasing amounts of such magic being performed, like a feedback loop.

Black magic makes the person who wields it “mad” or “insane” or just somehow not themselves.
   
Certain kinds of magic make the barriers between worlds thin.  
         In GP, the barb wire spell was placed on ghosts drove the ghosts mad. The ghosts being crazy made the barrier between the NN and the mortal world turbulent and thinner, in other words, easier to cross.  Ghosts are beings of both the mortal world and the NN. They once lived in the mortal world and can cross back, but build their places of power in the NN and are stronger there.
         Compare this to mortals. Mortal magic is necessary to summon Outsiders. Therefore, mortal magic is connected in some way to Outsiders. Like the mad ghosts thinning the barrier between the NN and the mortal world, mortals being driven “mad” while performing black magic would make the barrier turbulent or thin the barrier between the Outsiders and the mortal. In other words, make it easier to for something to cross over from there to here.

The use of certain kinds of magic acts as a beacon for things on the other side.
          In PG, we saw how the use of black magic based on fear drew in the fetches from the NN, which feed on or were powered by or were just drawn to fear.

          The Outsiders can be drawn in the same way as the fetches. In BR, during the ritual entropy curse, Madge summoned HWWBh stating, “Let our need become the traveller’s road.” Her use of the black magic ritual became a destination point for the Outsider to travel to the mortal world.


So….the point of passing out black magic or teaching it to mortals is to get people performing it and addicted to it so that an ever increasing amount of black magic is being conducted. This will make it easier for Outsiders to cross over and each person will act as a beacon point for the Outsiders to follow.

What do you think?

6
DF Reference Collection / Connections pt. 2: Suspect for SF-FM-BR-LH (Cold Days Spoilers)
« on: December 20, 2012, 02:00:15 AM »
Suspects
Lord Raith: Teacher for Victor Sells?

Considered a likely suspect because Sells worked at SilverCo, reminiscent of the other named Raith company, SilverLight, from Blood Rites. Sells was friends with his boss at work. He obtained books about magic and Raith has an extensive, locked away library. Furthermore, Sells learned to fuel his rituals with sex; to fuel his magic from other people’s emotions, each a very-WCV modus operandus.

However, much of this evidence could suggest any WCV actively affiliated with the Raith family and businesses. Lord Raith did work with or teach “assistant” magical practitioners, see Madge in Blood Rites, but it seems that he uses females not males (Madge, Margaret LeFay, Lara).

Most importantly, Lord Raith could potentially at least be responsible for Sells and the entropy curse in BR, he is not a viable suspect for the love seatbelts or the hexenwolf belts. By the time of Love Hurts, which takes place between Turn Coat and Changes, Lord Raith is ostensibly a puppet of Lara’s. Even if he is not Lara’s puppet, the love seatbelts were being used to cut down on potential food for the WCV. Whoever was teaching LeBlanc need not share her goals, but certainly Lord Raith would not help her cull the WCV’s food supply.

We can eliminate Lord Raith.

Erlking: Distributor of the Hexenwolf belts? (see Reply #7, 29)

Considered a likely suspect because the belt creates a predator-hunter in the wearer; the FBI base connects to his place in the NN; and the FBI are hunters, the belt is a tool of hunters. The proposed motive for the Erlking to give out the belts was because the Erlking’s goal is to be left alone to hunt and he deals harshly with those who interfere. Others, like Odin, can lead the Wild Hunt, and thus interfere. Marcone is very connected to Odin. Therefore, the guess is that Erlking is messing with Marcone because Marcone is one of Odin’s descendants

However, the hexenwolves are driven to kill in a way that is not sporting and would not be condoned by the Erlking and the victims are not prey worthy of a hunt. When Harry soulgazes Denton, the agent’s soul, beyond the erosion caused by his years working as a cop, is covered in a layer of filth and slime, most likely a result of the belt. The Erlking’s magic would not be corruptive like this. Also, Odin and the Erlking do not seem to be at odds with one about who leads the hunt; they were okay with Harry taking over briefly. 

Most importantly, the Erlking has no connection at all to the love seatbelts, to Victor Sells or to the entropy ritual/curse used in Blood Rites. We should also consider the WoJ about whether we have met the people who created the belts where  he answered, “That's another "I'm not gonna tell you" question. I will say, "kind of," "not really," and "yes." But we'll get into more of that during Cold Days as well.”  [See http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,22558.msg1252323.html#msg1252323]

This WoJ could refer to three characters being involved, one of whom we’ve seen but don’t really know (e.g. Cowl; Mavra, if the body saw her in is a puppet), one of whom we’ve heard of but never met, (e.g. Margaret LeFay; Justin) and one we definitely know (e.g Lord Raith, Elaine, Erlking). It could also all be referring to the same character, who we have met, but who is infected by Nemesis, which has not yet been revealed to us, such that “yes” we’ve met the character, but we only have “kind of” met the creator of the belts, which is more Nemesis than the infected character. The second interpretation makes more sense because it incorporates the second part of Jim’s statement that we got information about the creator of the belt in Cold Days, which I take to refer to us learning about Nemesis and how it infects people.

We can eliminate the Erlking.

Cowl:

Certainly would have the magical power/ability to create the belts, the ThreeEye potion and has probably been around long enough to be aware of the bloodline curse. But in DB when Cowl first meets Harry outside of Bock Ordered Books he says something like, “I want to see what has the Wardens so nervous.”  This suggests Cowl wasn't around in SF or FM.  He does not have the knowledge of Harry which would be shared by whoever was involved with the Hexenwolves or Victor Sells. 

Mavra: (see Reply #36, 43, 55; 50; plus Drakul connection at #57)

Also would have the magical power/ability to create the belts, the ThreeEye potion and has probably been around long enough to be aware of the bloodline curse. Additionally, in Grave Peril, we see her actively teaching magic to lesser practitioner, which fits with Sells.

I haven’t thought about her as much as the first few suspects. I don’t think she is a good fit for all LH=FM=SF=BR. But Mavra could use more consideration.

Nemesis:

Given the WoJ that we learned something about the makers of the hexenwolf belts in Cold Days, I concluded he was referring to Nemesis. However, knowing someone is infected with Nemesis does not help to narrow our suspect pool.

Red Court vamps (see Reply #30)

My WAG:

I am trying to operate on the principle that my theory should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. So I will not introduce an unnecessarily complicated scenario, if a more straightforward one works for all of the relevant plots in Storm Front, Fool Moon, Blood Rites and Love Hurts. I know that just because the resulting theory is simple, does not mean it is valid.

We know that there is at least one person above LeBlanc (LH) and Denton (FM). There is no reason to presume that this person is other than the person who created the belts. Therefore, we are looking for a wizard. Given the complexity of the ThreeEye potion and the belts, I believe the wizard in question must great ability, if not brute strength like Harry.  In other words, a White Council level wizard. A consistent pattern emerges from the fact that the most likely suspect for each event is *inconsistent*. In other words, a fall guy is in place, so none of the suspected groups is where we will find our suspect. Given Lord Raith’s penchant for working with female wizards, I believe he would continue with this pattern after Maggie Sr. escaped him, so we are looking for a female wizard of WC strength. Finally, given the WoJ about the wolf belts, I believe this strong female wizard is infected with Nemesis.

Here’s where I get crazy. The connections between these events are better at eliminating suspects, than positively identifying anyone, but I’ve never been afraid of lobbing a WAG.

My two suspects are Elaine and/or Luccio.

Beyond the above reasoning, one reason I consider Elaine especially is as follows: the tag word Jim uses for the magic in the belt is “delicate”. Harry says that “LeBlanc was no practitioner. She can’t be the one who was working the whammy….This is a delicate, difficult magic. There might not be three people on the entire White Council who could pull it off.” [LH (331)]. (Don’t forget that whammy is also a reference to the magic in the wolf belts.) Jim uses tags, or short phrases or specific words, to call to mind a certain character: “Tags are words you hang upon your character when you describe them. When you're putting things together, for each character, pick a word or two or three to use in describing them. Then, every so often, hit on one of those words in reference to them, and avoid using them elsewhere when possible. By doing this, you'll be creating a psychological link between those words and that strong entry image of your character.” http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/1698.html.

One tag for Elaine is that her magic is “delicate” and graceful: grace, style, elegance [SK 152]; elegant, slender, graceful, grey storm cloud eyes [SK 115]. She is responsible for the mind fog in Summer Knight, [SK 363], which was a “dangerous and delicate spell”, and which was rare [SK 295] and so strong that Harry was not sure that even a Queen could pull it off outside of faery [SK 304]. I also think this mind fog shows a precision with mind magic that is echoed in the way each of the belts gets inside the heads of the wearers. I think the belts are a form of mind magic more than just a plain spell.

As for Luccio, in order to be able to pull off the belts in LH, she would have to be faking whether she still has magic after the body swap in Dead Beat. Setting that aside, there is some evidence that Luccio was around in Storm Front.

Harry goes to the police station: “the desk sergeant wasn’t the mustached old warhorse whom I had run into before, but a graying matron with steely eyes who disapproved of me and my lifestyle in a single glance, then made me wait while she called up Murphy.” [SF 151.] Given that this is the first book and we’ve never met the usual desk sergeant, why did Harry *need* to tell us that the desk sergeant was new? Consider Luccio’s description: “solid old matriarch of a woman, as tall as most men and built like someone who did plenty of physical labor. Her hair was a solid shade of iron grey, cropped into a neat military cut.” [DB 349]. Perhaps he had to point out the new sergeant so we could later figure out that Luccio was around?

There is other evidence that magic is being done at the police station during SF. Harry specifically noted in this book that static during a phone call usually happened on his end of the phone. [SF 171-72]. Early on in the book, the telephone connection to Murphy at the station was so clear Harry could hear her drop an Alka-Seltzer into a glass. [SF 108]. Later, Harry tried to call Murphy at her desk at the police station, but Carmichael answered because Murphy had left to go arrest Harry. Carmichael acted someone was standing next to him, he pretended like he was talking to someone other than Harry. There was static on Carmichael’s end of the call, which was scratchy, noisy, and which squealed with static, [SF 281-82], which is a signal that someone is doing magic at the other end. Harry then immediately called Murphy at his office and there was no problem with static. [SF 282].

Now consider that in LH, Harry calls the WC and gets Luccio. He asks her about whether any black magic pinging in Chicago. Luccio has no info for him, but does asks what he thinks is going on. Harry also uses a few lines to explain that because of all the magic at the other end of the call he may have trouble hearing Luccio [LH 308-09], reminiscent of how he has problems only on the other end of the line in SF. What is unusual about these lines is that so much is dedicated to telling us very little. In contrast, Harry later summarizes using all his other supernatural contacts in about one line. So what purpose does the long exchange with Luccio serve? Is it a signal to remember where else similar problems happened?

Luccio as a suspect answers several unanswered questions. A question left over from Storm Front is why did Morgan show up when he did in SF and how did he know about the murders of Tommy Tom and Jennifer Stanton?  Morgan says, “Someone killed two people with sorcery last night, I think it was you.”  Was it just a coincidence or did someone point him in the right direction at the right time? Luccio, as Morgan’s mentor, would be in a position to provide him information he would not question.

If Luccio is infected with Nemesis/is a traitor, it explains why Cowl is constantly moaning about how the WC is corrupt. It could bring LaFortier’s death into a different light. Could it explain why Mab sent the hobs to the train station in SmF-were they after Luccio, not the Archive? Could it explain where Thorned Namshiel’s coin disappeared to? She was in the helicopter as well. Could this explain that funky letter that is sent to Harry where she claims the WC has turned on the wardens, causing him to look elsewhere for help? Could it explain why her versions of Harry’s mother differ from the other accounts we get of her? Could it explain why her story about Ivy’s mother is not only wrong, per the Archive’s own account, but wrong in a way which seems calculated to make Ivy despair? Could it explain why she tries to convince Harry not to console Ivy after SmF? Could it explain why she receives a non-fatal, non-maiming wound in the first moments of the battle against Shagnasty at Chateau Raith which allows her to be left behind at Harry’s apartment, perhaps so she could be one of the two wizards we know appeared at DemonReach during TurnCoat? Could it explain how the ghouls knew where Camp Kaboom was?

There was more, but my brain is melting.

Edit:  I added a line for the Red Court vampires as a suspect and I listed the replies which contained the theories supporting each suspect so its easier to find what you are looking for in the thread.

7
DF Reference Collection / Connections-Hexenwolf belts, Love Hurt belts, Victor Sells, Blood Rites curse
« on: December 20, 2012, 12:10:27 AM »
I started pulling on the thread of my certainty that the love inducing seatbelts in Love Hurts were created by the same person as whoever made the hexenwolf belts in Fool Moon. There has been a lot of discussion about certain connections which exist in the early books of the series. So this is my attempt to lay out those connections and consider where this information leads us. I read about a million posts and threads which touched on parts of these topics and some ideas I lifted directly from others, so let me give some credit here to: Griffyn612; Wyltok; Phariah; neurovore; knnn; Elegast; KurtinStGeorge; Quantus. Considering my citations were made without rereading each book, there may be more or better cites for specific propositions than what I currently have. I’ll update with anything better as it comes along. Also, I am aware that there are other connections I am not using or other books in which a lot of these same connections occur (most specifically, Grave Peril), but the project was massive as is and so I kept it to the books with the best connections, in my judgment.

I will specifically be looking at the events of Storm Front, Fool Moon, Blood Rites and Love Hurts. This first thread will lay out the connections themselves. I am posting a separate thread wherein I consider the suspects the board has considered the most likely responsible for these events. I will also present my own suspicions in that thread, though I think my work can rule out suspects but does not provide enough evidence to conclusively determine an actual suspect. Enough stalling…here we go:

Who gave the Hexenwulf belts to the FBI agents in Fool Moon?
Absolute connection acknowledged
  • Harry and Murphy talking about the nature of the magic in the love belts [LH (331)]:
    Quote
    Murphy scrunched up her nose. “Like the wolf belts the FBI had?”
    “Yeah, just like that.” I blinked and snapped my fingers. “Just like that!” [emphasis in original
  • WoJ that the use of belts in Fool Moon and in the short story Love Hurts wasn't a coincidence [still looking for citation]

Vending machine magic – energy in, magic result out
  • Harry speaking at first in reference to the love belts, but then connects [LH (331)]:
    Quote
    “…it’s most likely a focus artifact of some kind. An item that has a routine built into it. You pour energy in one end, and you get results on the other.”
    Murphy scrunched up her nose. “Like the wolf belts the FBI had?”
    “Yeah, just like that.” I blinked and snapped my fingers. “Just like that!” [emphasis in original

Item given out which allows non magical person to cause magic to occur
  • Bob [FM (70, 71)]:
    Quote
    “You get a wolf-hide belt, put it on, say the magic words, and whammy, you”re a wolf. A Hexenwolf.”
  • Bob explains that the person does not use their own magic, they use someone else’s magic through a talisman.  [FM (71)]

Addictive nature of item (beyond the simple addictiveness of use of dark magic?)
  • Harris, talking about how using the belt feels, [FM (292)]:
    Quote
    “I tried coke once in college, and it was nothing compared to this.”
    …“You just can’t stop, man. It gets to where you’re pacing the room at night.”
  • Harry to Denton: “Those belts are like a drug.” [FM (371?)]

Clues?
  • WoJ: Jim was asked whether we have met the people who created the Hexenwolf belts yet and he answered, “That's another "I'm not gonna tell you" question. I will say, "kind of," "not really," and "yes." But we'll get into more of that during Cold Days as well.”  [See http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,22558.msg1252323.html#msg1252323]
  • The Hexenwolfen tried to recruit Harry [FM 29], before they gave up and tried to kill him
  • During his soulgaze with Denton, Harry sees Denton kneeling at someone’s feet and a wolfbelt being passed into his hands. [FM 354.]
  • How the magic in the belt felt to Harry:
    • vibrating, warm to the touch, full of the power and the strength which had been channeled into it, a dark, wild power. [FM 371.]
    • “Power. I could feel the belt’s power in me, it’s magic, it’s strength. I recognized it now. That dark surety, that heady and careless delight. I recognized why there were parts of me that loved it so much.” [FM 379].
  • How it made Harry think: “Things were simply as they should be, right in a way so fundamentally profound that I wondered why I had never noticed its lack before.” “It was perfect.” [FM 372.]
    • Like the way the magic in the love belts made Harry feel like loving Murphy was “right” and he could not see why he had not just given in to it before?
  • Whoever gave Denton the belts did not then abandon him: after the killings started, Denton was contacted and warned about the WC and that Harry worked for them. [FM 347.]

Who taught LeBlanc and created the love inducing seatbelts in Love Hurts?
Absolute connection acknowledged in book - between Love Hurt belts and hexenwulf belts
  • Harry and Murphy talking about the nature of the magic in the love belts [LH (331)]:
    Quote
    Murphy scrunched up her nose. “Like the wolf belts the FBI had?”
    “Yeah, just like that.” I blinked and snapped my fingers. “Just like that!” [emphasis in original
  • WoJ that the use of belts in Fool Moon and in the short story Love Hurts wasn't a coincidence
Vending machine magic – energy in, magic result out
  • Harry [LH (331)]:
    Quote
    “…it’s most likely a focus artifact of some kind. An item that has a routine built into it. You pour energy in one end, and you get results on the other.”

Teaching magic to lesser practitioner/nonmagic person
  • Harry [LH (331)]:
    Quote
    LeBlanc was no practitioner. She can’t be the one who was working the whammy….This is a delicate, difficult magic. There might not be three people on the entire White Council who could pull it off.”

Item given out which allows non magical person to cause magic to occur
  • By wearing the seatbelt, the wearer engaged a love spell embedded in the belt
    WoJ-introduction to Love Hurts
    Quote
    “…seemingly random love spells are running amok through the city….”
Addictive nature of item beyond the simple addictiveness of use of dark magic
  • The belts caused irrational, obsessive behavior in the users, which is not an addition to the belt itself, but an addiction to the feelings caused by the belt [LH (306)]
  • The victims covered their walls and ceilings with pictures of just the two of them together taken only in the days before their deaths while in the grip of the spell, wherein they wore matching shirts and went to the same vacation spots over and over and over. [LH 305-06]
  • The belts caused addiction—Harry explains to Murphy why they are destroying something which makes them feel good/happy/in love [LH (332)]:
    Quote
    “Junkies are happy when they are high….but they don’t need to be happy. They need to be free.”

Clues?
  • Baroness LeBlanc, a Red Court Vampire, is the suspect Harry catches
  • LeBlanc’s motive: to create more people who are in love so as to cut down on potential food for the White Court
  • Both belts described as a “whammy”
  • How the magic felt-which echoes FM:
  • Harry felt a “quiver in the air, no more noticeable than the fading hum from a gently plucked guitar string.” [LH 316]
  • While under the spell, everything felt smooth and natural, better than he had ever felt [LH 320], Murphy even wonders why they never just let go before


Who recruited and trained Victor Sells to use the heartripping/bloodline curse and to create the ThreeEye potion?
Teaching magic to lesser practitioner/nonmagic person
  • Harry speaking [Storm Front (279)]:
    Quote
    I might be giving Victor Shadowman too much credit. He was as powerful as a full-blown wizard, but he didn’t have the education.
  • Harry talks about Sells [Fool Moon (341)]:
    Quote
    I never had found out who exactly was behind the warlock who showed up the previous spring. Black wizards don’t just grow up like toadstools, you know. Someone has to teach them complicated things like summoning demons, ritual magic, and clichéd villain dialogue. Who had been his teacher?
  • ThreeEye was a potion, which worked by using energy Sells stole from other places and people [SF 323-24]
  • Potions were tricky, harder to perform than spells, which rely on intent, while potions rely on precise details and were good usually for only a few days [SF 99] which would indicate a novice wizard like Sells did not all by himself pick up the ability to make the ThreeEye potion or make it last longer than a few days
Ritual magic – energy in, magic result out
  • Same as second quote above – someone taught Sells ritual magic.

Item given out which allows non magical person to cause magic to occur
  • ThreeEye drug allowed non magical persons to be able to have/use/experience the wizard’s sight
Addictive nature of item beyond the simple addictiveness of use of dark magic
  • ThreeEye hooked people faster and harder than crack [SF 155]
Absolute connection acknowledged in book
  • SF’s heartripping curse and Changes’ bloodline curse are the same, only the latter has more fuel
    • Per Vadderung [Changes 162]: “It tears out the heart[.] Rips it to bits on the way out, too. Sound familiar?”
    • Harry ponders Sells. Vadderung again [Changes 162]:
      Quote
      “It’s all connected, Dresden. The whole game. And you’re only now beginning to learn who the players are….The sorcerer who used the spell in Chicago before didn’t have strength enough to make it spread past the initial target. The Red Court does. No one has used power on this scale in more than a millennium.”
  • Vadderung does not just say they are using the same spell, but tells Harry directly that the two are connected.


Clues?
  • ThreeEye was inert until it was inside people, then it interacted with their emotions and desires [SF 324]
  • Company where Sells worked was called SilverCo [SF (40)], similar to the Raith company in BR named Silverlight
  • Sells was friends with his boss and some people at his work before he was fired [SF (346)]
  • Sells found magic when his son was about 4--“he brought home books and books” [SF (236)]
  • Sells bought books on it at the religion section of the bookstore [SF (39)]
  • When discussing whether Lord Raith knows any magic, Thomas replies that he has a “huge library he keeps locked up most of the time.” [BR (174)]
  • Sells figured out he could touch people’s emotions to fuel his magic, then he discovered that lust worked best [SF (237)]

Blood Rites-entropy ritual/curse used by Lord Raith and pornstar sorceresses
Vending machine ritual magic – energy in, magic result out
  • Harry to Trixie [BR (237)]:
    Quote
    I snorted. “You haven’t got any powers.”
    “Yes, I do. I’ve killed with them.”
    “You’ve killed with a ritual,” I said.
    ….
    “…a ritual spell like that doesn’t have anything to do with you. It’s like a cosmic vending machine. You put two quarters in, push the right button, and the curse comes flying out, courtesy of some psychotic otherworldly force that enjoys that kind of thing. It doesn’t take skill. It doesn’t take talent….

Teaching magic to lesser practitioner/nonmagic person
  • Lord Raith speaking [Blood Rites (391)]: 
    Quote
    “Wizard, I believe you have met my assistants.” Two women rose from the shadows within the circle and faced me. The first was Madge, Arturo’s first wife, the disciplined businesswoman.
  • Harry, describing the entropy curse [BR (84)]:
    Quote
    …magic this powerful would be a dangerous business for someone new to the use of magic….Someone with a disturbing amount of ability was methodically committing murder.
  • Harry thinking [BR (393)]:
    Quote
    I shot a hard glance at Madge. She had power. Not necessarily a lot of it, but she had it.

Clues?
  • Lord Raith is gunning for Genova’s porn studio as competition with his own studio, Silverlight [see generally, BR (289)].
  • Ritual works by using Outsider magic—sending HWWBh’s magic after the victim
  • Raith uses a woman with magic to do the actual work (like with Margaret LeFay?)

Summary of Connections

  • Absolute connection acknowledged in book
    • Between Love Hurt belts and hexenwulf belts
    • Between heart ripping curse/spell/ritual of Sells in SF and the Red Court in Changes
  • Item given out which allows non magical person to cause magic to occur
    • Belt (FM)
    • Belt ( LH)
    • ThreeEye potion (SF)
  • Vending machine ritual magic – energy in, magic result out
    • Belt (FM)
    • Belt ( LH)
    • Entropy curse ritual (BR)
  • Addictive nature of item beyond the simple addictiveness of use of dark magic
    • Belt (FM)
    • Belt (LH)
    • ThreeEye potion (SF)
  • Teaching magic to lesser practitioner/nonmagic person
    • Baroness LeBlanc (LH) (taught by ?)
    • Victor Sells (SF) (taught by ?)
    • Madge and other porn star sorceresses (BR) (taught by Lord Raith?)


    Therefore, the connection between LH and FM appears conclusive, LH = FM, as does their connection to SF, such that LH=FM=SF. While the number of connections to between BR and the others is not as many, the specific language to describe the magic is so precise and distinctive, that for purposes of theorizing, I am willing to connect BR as well.

    So we have LH=FM=SF=BR.

    I will use these connections to consider and rule out possible suspects in the next thread.


8
DF Reference Collection / List of Headaches [CD spoilers]
« on: December 12, 2012, 11:46:32 PM »
This is a list compiled by Tarion, Elegast, Haru, Serack in another thread. Since the subject of the headaches seems to be coming up a lot, I thought I would pull the info out of that thread and list it here.

STORM FRONT
[context- Harry has been attacked and hit in the head by a henchman] 
  • Quote
    Maybe this had been another reminder from the mob boss. It had that kind of mafioso feel to it.
    I staggered to my kitchenette and fixed myself a tisane tea for the headache, then added in some aspirin. Herbal remedies are well and good, but I don't like to take chances.


FULL MOON
[Chapter 8:  context- Harry is working on potions and researching werewolves.]
  • Quote
    I tried to ignore the head-ache that was creeping up the back of my neck toward the crown of my head, but it did little good.

GRAVE PERIL
[context- Harry is hunting for Charity, had been drugged earlier and had been attacked by the Nightmare]
  • Quote
    Hell’s bells, all I had was a headache, an hourglass quickly running out of sand, and a case of the shakes

SUMMER KNIGHT
[context- Harry gets a headache while researching the Queens]
  • Quote
    I felt the headache start at the base of my neck and creep toward the crown of my head. "Okay, Bob. I need to know about these Queens...”

    I stared at the skull for a second, while the headache settled comfortably in.
[context- gets another headache talking to Meryl]
  • Quote
    The headache started coming back. "Look, Meryl, I've got a lot on my plate already.”

DEATH MASKS
[context- no headache specifically, but does suffer head trauma]
  • Quote
    Light exploded behind my eyes and I dropped to my hands and knees at the bottom of the stairway. Anna had slugged me with something. A second burst of light and pain drove my head far enough down to splash some cold water against my forehead....

    I tried to lift her body, but the effort brought a surge of pain to my head and I almost threw up.
[context- Harry’s head hurt while being held by Nic.]
  • Quote
    I came to my senses in complete darkness, under a stream of freezing water. My head hurt enough to make the wound on my leg feel pleasant by comparison.

BLOOD RITES
  • [context- head trauma]
    Quote
    Multiple injuries, including a vicious headache from where Inari had socked me.
  • [context-during Harry’s soulgaze with Thomas his mother gives him a gem, insight]
    Quote
    She passed me the gem. There was a flash, a tingling pain in my head, and then a lingering, dull ache. For some reason that didn’t surprise me. You don’t gain knowledge without a little pain.
DEAD BEAT
  • Quote
    I started to look around for the source of the noise.
    And then someone hit me on the back of the head.
    I remember that part, because I'd been through it before...

    Then I stood up. My head pounded with a dull, throbbing beat of pain, and I bowed my head forward for a moment, letting cold rain fall onto the lump forming on the back of my skull. The worst of it passed after a minute, and I got the pain under control. I'd taken harder shots to the head than that one had been, and I didn't have time to coddle myself.

PROVEN GUILTY
[context- after car crash]
  • Quote
    My headache started rising up again...

    My headache flared up with a vengeance, and the light of my amulet and staff both faded
[context- after using Sight]
  • Quote
    It’ll pass. Just got this damned headache...

    My headache finally began to fade away just as Murphy returned...

    I spat a few times into the trash can and stood up. My headache started to return.
[context- hit in head again]
  • Quote
    I came to with a headache, and my stomach attempted to slither out of my mouth. Its escape attempt was blocked by some kind of gag. I had the taste of metal in my mouth, and my jaws were forced uncomfortably wide. The blindfold on my face was almost a mercy, given the headache.

WHITE NIGHT
[context- after/when Molly looks at the dead girl]
  • Quote
    I muttered under my breath, rubbed at the incipient headache beginning between my eyes, and thought dark thoughts. Dammit all, every time I’d opened myself up to some kind of horrible psychic shock in the name of investigation, I’d gotten another nightmare added to my collection. Her first time up to bat, and the grasshopper got…
[Chapter 5]
  • Quote
    Something like New Mexico. Jesus. I didn’t want to think about that. I rubbed at the fresh headache sprouting between my eyebrows
[context- when Little Chicago takes an attack meant for Harry]
  • Quote
    And then there was a geyser of scarlet pain, as if someone had seized both halves of my skull and torn it into two pieces.

  • Quote
    I leaned against a wall—unless maybe, since we were on a ship, it was a bulkhead—and rubbed my finger at a spot between my eyebrows where a headache was coming on.
[context- gets hit in head again, although Elaine heals it]
  • Quote
    My head hurt, even more than it had after Cowl had finished ringing my bells the night before, if such a thing was possible. I didn't want to regain consciousness, if it meant rising into that.
  • Quote
    It had been a long night, and despite Elaine's incredible hands, my headache had begun to return.

SMALL FAVOR
[context- Harry gets kicked in the nose]
  • Quote
    I hunched my shoulders and rolled, only to be kicked in the nose by a cloven hoof, and an utterly gratuitous amount of pain came with a side order of whirling stars.
  • Quote
    “Where,” he said gently, “is your blasting rod?”
    This time I heard the words.
    Pain stabbed me in the head, ice picks plunging into both temples. I flinched and doubled over. Blasting rod. Familiar words. I fought to summon an image of what went with the words, but I couldn’t find anything. I knew I had a memory associated with those words, but try as I might, I couldn’t drag it out. It was like a shape covered by some heavy tarp. I knew an object was beneath, but I couldn’t get to it.
    “I don’t…I don’t…” I started breathing faster. The pain got worse.
    Someone had been in my head.
  • Quote
    On the opposite side of Ivy, Rosanna launched more traditional lances of flame from her open palms, much like the ones I
    —a savage pain went through my skull for a second—son of a bitch—
    —but Ivy dispersed them with delicately applied wedges of air,
[context- Mab freezing his eyeballs]
  • Quote
    Mab’s frozen-berry lips lifted in a silent snarl, and the world turned into a curtain of white agony that centered on my eyes. Nothing had ever hurt so much
TURN COAT
  • Quote
    He started cleaning up everything he’d set out during the improvised surgery. “So. How are the headaches?”
    They’d been a problem, the past several months—increasingly painful migraines. “Fine,” I told him.
    “Yeah, right,” Butters said. “I really wish you’d try the MRI again.”
    Technology and wizards don’t coexist well, and magnetic resonance imagers are right up there. “One baptism in fire-extinguishing foam per year is my limit,” I said.
    “It could be something serious,” Butters said. “Anything happens in your head or neck, you don’t take chances. There’s way too much going on there.”
    “They’re lightening up,” I lied.
    “Hogwash,” Butters said, giving me a gimlet stare. “You’ve got a headache now, don’t you?”
    I looked from Butters to Morgan’s recumbent form. “Yeah,” I said. “I sure as hell got one now.”
  • Quote
    Mouse pawed at my leg and looked up at me. I bent over to scratch his ears, and instantly regretted it as someone tightened a vise on my temples. I straightened up again in a hurry, wincing, and entertained wild fantasies about lying down on the floor and sleeping for a week
CHANGES
  • Quote
    Hell’s bells. Like I didn’t have enough on my mind. I rubbed my thumb against the spot between my eyebrows where the headache was forming. “I did not need this on top of everything else. Which is why she did it.”
COLD DAYS
  • Quote
    Demonreach growled.  In all capital letters.
    And the headache vanished.
    One second, my scalp was tightening up as two separate ice picks dug into my skull in the same places they always did, and the next the pain was utterly gone.

9
DF Reference Collection / Crazy HWWB theory revisited [CD SPOILERS]
« on: November 28, 2012, 06:31:58 PM »
So given the information we got in Cold Days, I wanted to revisit my theory about the parasite being an Outsider placed in Harry by He Who Walks Behind during their initial encounter when Harry was 16 and test whether it still works. Here is the original thread:

The following link died (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,32084.msg1395852.html#msg1395852), here is the content that used to be in the OP. -Elegast

Quote from:  Cenphx
Hello, this is my first post of a question and I decided to pull out the craziest possibility that’s been kicking around my head.

I won’t bury the lede: I think there is a real possibility that the parasite is He Who Walks Behind.

Begin when Harry is recounting/reliving/remembering his encounter with HWWB to Lea (starts at about page 277 of Ghost Story (hardback edition)). Harry receives some injury to his back/neck/spine BEFORE he is struck for the first time by HWWB (p.281):

The confrontation continues and Stan is killed. Then we have these sections:

I had always read the above section to be that a rage larger than Harry had ever felt before  awakening a larger possibility within him for magic. But, what if that is not all that was coming online? What if a daughter organism from HWWB was also unfurling?

What if HWWB was not seeing the great wizard in Harry but signs of the parasite it planted? One question I have always had was after Harry struck back at HWWB, the outsider says:

What did HWWB expect? Harry to want to hold hands? OF COURSE, Harry would strike back, right? Maybe ineffectually, maybe with a lot of fear, but c’mon. Sooo…Maybe HWWB was not talking to Harry at all, but its own daughter organism. 

When Demonreach tells Harry about the parasite, it says that Mab provided breath, the island provided nourishment and the parasite “kept the blood flowing.” Guess which part of your brain controls vital functions like blood pressure, temperature and blood circulation? That’s right---the brain stem. It is the lowest part of the brain and connects to the spinal cord. Maybe where Harry felt the “fire erupt”? I know Lash makes a lot of sense as the parasite (how many times did she say “my host”?) but maybe we should consider a much more literal, physiological parasite rather than a purely spiritual one.

The theory leads to some an interesting speculation. What if Harry’s parasite is making him much more willing to confront the big bads? It’s a scientific fact that some parasites alter the behavior of their host organism, making them do things not only which are not natural, but which are downright deadly for the host. The parasite T. gondii, when in mice, makes the mice not only not afraid of cats, but makes them seek the cats out. Bad for the mouse, but good for T. gondii, because the best host for it is the intestinal tract of the cat. (first time I ever heard of this was in a book series by Daniel Abramson writing as M.L.N. Hanover—the Black Sun’s Daughter.)

All this leads to what does HWWB get out of infecting Harry? Here is complete, rank, speculation: what if “the door” the outsider’s are going to come through is not a physical, magical one. What if Harry is the door?


Shorter: HWWB was not trying to kill Harry but instead infected him with a parasite during the fight. Ever since, Harry has been fighting its dark influence. Previously I posited that the parasite was HWWB himself (I’m modifying that slightly now-see below. But still an outside and still a walker) Finally, Harry, through this parasite, will be the door the Outsider uses to get into our world.

Since some people won’t read all this, let me make my favorite point now. Here’s the poetic part of this theory, to me:  Harry’s greatest fear is becoming a monster. We see this in his fears about what the Winter Knight mantle is doing to him and whether he will be able to resist it. Throughout the series, we often are made to consider what it means to be monster (Thomas, Marcone), and think about actions and choices that lead that way, as well as having “monsterhood” thrust upon you involuntarily (Susan, Lily (depending on how one defines monster—for instance, if the Winter Lady mantle could turn Molly into a soulless psycho sex monster Maeve, is that monsterhood? Did the Summer Lady mantle change Lily?) ANYHOW, the point I am getting at is that through all these books of angst about monsterhood, Harry had a monster in his head the whole time. We, from the very first moment we met him, have experienced Harry-as-possible-monster. His greatest fear was something he was already experiencing, dealing with, learning to live with. The character we all like or love or respect or all three, has had the worst bad guy right in his head the whole time.

Questions/points from information we got in CD:

Why would Mab or Demonreach, having knowledge of the parasite, allow Harry to live/give him such important powers/duties considering Mab was willing to kill her own daughter who was infected?

Harry, unlike Maeve or Lea, has been infected for 30ish (how old is he?) years and has not went darkside, the parasite does not seem to be controlling him, he is managing the infection.

Moreover, we have heard multiple times that Harry is a/the fulcrum for the events leading to the BAT and/or the BAT itself. A fulcrum is the thing upon which everything else balances and turns. As such, he may be too important to kill. But I think this is less the reason than my next reason for why Mab/Demonreach would not kill him. Beyond the strict definition of a fulcrum, in literary contexts or movies, I always think of the fulcrum character not just defined by the way the struggle between good and evil turns on the character, but also the way the character, internally, is teetering between good and evil. (My personal reference for this is Darth Vader—all through the early stories he could go either way, then he goes way dark, which puts him at the critical moment with the choice between good and evil, kill his mentor, the emperor, or his son. He is the fulcrum, to me.) If you accept this concept of what it means to be a fulcrum, then by definition, the fact that Harry has potential for great evil within him would be accepted as part of the nature of who and what he is. Since he also has the potential for great good, killing him would be counterproductive. Plus, would another person then become the fulcrum? One who Mab/Demonreach would be less able to push the direction they wanted or needed? You know that saying, keep your friends close but your enemies closer? Well, by keeping Harry at hand and monitored, Mab has her enemy and her friend close. But mostly, I think you just have to accept that fulcrum characters are dangerous, otherwise they wouldn’t be important, you just have to hope and plan for them tipping your way at the right time.

Also, if Harry’s parasite is the third walker, as I suggest below, then killing him and it, would just free the walker to be placed into someone else who might not be able to control it like Harry is. As it stands, Harry’s head is its prison. Just another way in which Harry is THE WARDEN.

Why does the parasite in Harry seem different than the Nemesis infections in other people, like Lea or Maeve?

Some parasites actually infect multiple people/organisms, but are still part of a collective, like a hive. Perhaps Harry is infected with the most important parasite, like a queen bee. It was this idea that made me think that maybe the parasite in Harry is He Who Walks Within (HWWW), the third walker, which I just made up. It would explain why He Who Walks Before (HWWBf ?? versus HWWBh?? I need better abbreviations) seemed to want to take custody of Harry and/or talk to him at Mac’s bar; it didn’t seem like he was trying to kill him. The walkers are trying to recruit him.

What about the fact that Harry’s headaches only started relatively recently, potentially around the time Lash was obliterated-doesn’t  that make Lash more likely to be the parasite?

I think there are some compelling arguments to be made that Lash is the parasite (not the least of which is the time Jim answered a question that Lash was the parasite, plus I have no idea who Lash was in GS if she was not the parasite).  I am not great on the timeline of exactly when Lash died versus when the headaches began, but from what I remember reading here, the two seem to match up nicely.
That being said, in support of the parasite being HWWW, parasites can be dormant for long periods of time, years and years. The biology of parasites is pretty remarkable. The can “wake up” or even if already awake, they can accelerate their behavior or change it. So HWWW could be trying to take control of Harry in preparation for ….whatever the Outsiders’ plan is. I find it completely plausible that only now the parasite is causing serious physical problems for Harry.

Why does Rashid not notice that Harry is infected since he has the ability to see Outsider infection?

Who said he hasn’t? Could be why he has been watching him so very closely, but not killing him for the same reasons as Mab and Demonreach.

But Harry is Outsiderbane. Wouldn’t that mean he/his body would repel an outsider?

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what “Outsiderbane” means. Maybe the term means the one who bring the downfall of the Outsiders or kills them. On the flip, say Harry does have some natural bad reaction to Outsiders, maybe that is why he is having the headaches now. Maybe like a build-up of inflammation or an allergic reaction, maybe now Harry’s body is finally manifesting outsider problems.

What about how DR said the parasite was going to burst forth from his head and he should ask Molly to help?

I don’t know whether to take DR literally about the bursting forth or figuratively, like emerge from stasis and take over. But if DR meant it literally, like the equivalent of an alien bursting out of someone’s chest, why the heck would Molly be the go-to person for such a physical problem? Wouldn’t Butters or a neurologist who operates on tumors be a better candidate? Why Molly? Maybe because Molly, with her powerful ability to understand the inside of someone else’s mind, would be able to tell Harry that he has been living with and controlling the parasite for 30 years, he just did not know it, so he just needs to chill out and remember he is in control, not the parasite.

Speaking of which , why is Harry’s parasite “bursting out” when Lea’s was able to be killed through popsicling?
 
Age of the infection. Older parasites are harder to remove, more fully integrated into their host.



What do you all think?

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