OK, I've had a curious thought about mortal memory in the Dresdenverse. The setup behind this thought was remembering a possible book or rumored book coming up in the series. The premise behind the book is Harry goes to sleep and wakes up in an insane asylum. The world he wakes in he is not a wizard, he has no magic, he is just a normal human being. Every one around him is people he knows but are part of this new world. Like Eb is there with him but is a patient too. And Mab, Molly, and Sarrisa are nurses. Just examples of possibilities. And of course this is all in Harry's mind.

So, here is what I'm curious about and wondered what other people's thoughts are. We now have it where Murphy and Hendricks are dead. With Harry's memories being screwed with, if they were to show up in his mind to help out and fight what I would assume would be a mental attack on Harry's mind, would that be breaking the rule of no returning until mortal memory has faded. It would just be Harry's mind they would be, not the real world.

So with Harry and Lara having to get married and with the death of Murphy, people here have been discussing how that it will be good to see the marriage happen and how they will be able to consummate the marriage, seeing how Harry has protection from Wampires.

But, as people have been discussing all that, something has been forgotten. And has to do with being a starborn.

So, to start this all off with information we have, we need to go back to before the books pickup. We go back to Lord Raith. He, by what Jim has said, knows what being a starborn entails and missed out on it the last time around and wanted to get in on it this time. So with that knowledge, we can put together that he got players on his side to try and stack the board in his favor. He got a strong magic user who had relations with the Fae (Margaret), he brought in the Reds, tried to bring in the Blackstaff. He possibly tried to bring in more.

But his plans went wrong.

Something had Margaret wake up and leave him, his version of the plan, and Thomas. Why she did, I don't know if we will fully understand. We just know that she met a good man. But my theory is that she got into the library and found something that Raith didn't know about. Or she saw how he treated his sons and daughters and didn't want the same for her child. Or both.

So she somehow gets away, and either runs to the Nevernever to Lea and make a deal or finds Malcolm and then makes the deal with Lea, thus giving Lea power. And a connection of power for Harry.

Now things get blurry because we don't have a lot of information, but I'm speculating here that Raith lost track of Margaret for awhile, but finally tracked her down shortly after Harry was born. Maybe the deal with Lea was like the deal that Morgan had with Titania, keep her hidden until she was safe with her child. He used the curse to kill her and she threw her death curse to take away his ability to feed. But Margaret had a backup plan for the safe keeping of Harry... Morgan. She informed him of what was going on and ask him to keep an eye on him and guide him.

But unfortunately, after the death of Malcolm, he gets picked up by Justin. My theory here goes two ways. One is that since Justin had Bob, he had overheard about the death of Margaret and that Harry was a Starborn and asked Bob about it. And with information he got, he saw it as an opportunity to grab up power. The other thought is that Justin was approached by Raith to hunt down Harry because of him being a Starborn and train him as a wizard. But, because of Justin having Bob, Justin learns too much and goes off the reservation, betraying both Raith and the WCouncil. And with the information he gains from Bob, he finds Elaine who was born around the same time so could also have the potential to be a Starborn. Either way, we have Justin getting his hands on Harry to gain power for himself.

I think you guys see where this is going, but I'm going to keep going. I have some interesting ideas that I think differ from others.

We move on down the road now to when the Council finally learns of Harry. Harry made a deal with Lea, his godmother, for power to stand up to Justin. With that power, being actual power or a Dumbo's feather, he took on Justin and won, killing him. And bringing in the Council. Somehow they learned of it. Now we come to a group that didn't want him, they feared him for what he was and represented. A balance of power to the person, being, or group that held him and they didn't want that hold or to let anyone else hold it. Thus, they were going to kill him. How did they learn of him and his destiny? My guess is Morgan.

But who stepped up to stop them? Eb, the Blackstaff, the one man in the Council who could demand whatever he wanted and the Council would listen, the one man who didn't care about destiny, the one man who saw a scared boy instead of death and destruction.

And the one man who could protect Harry from Raith.

We move on through time and come to SK. Mab learns of Harry and aggressively negotiated the debt from Harry to Lea away from Lea. Thus giving Mab a direct control over a Starborn.

And as we go on, we find more that want a piece of the action. We have Marcone trying to get him under his employment. We have Maeve wanting a piece by trying to get a child with him. We have Nic throwing the coin in the yard and Harry picking it up, thus gaining an influence over him for a period of time. We have Cowl and Kumori making a quick proposal to him.

And then we have some from the upper pantheon that have taken an interest in Harry and given him help, Odin and Uriel.

So, now we see a lot of the players on the board wanting to either kill Harry, recruit him, or keep him a freelance player.

Going back to my original point now is that Lord Raith started all this, but now Lara is stepping into the spotlight in place of her father. She wants the deal with Mab to get in the big game with a controlling stake in Harry.

So that is where we stand so far. The marriage is definitely not a good thing for Harry. For who ever controls Harry, controls the tipping point in favor of who controls the gates after the BAT. That's why the power parties want a Starborn. That's why the outsiders want to kill him or recruit him, to get power to open the gates. And that's why Odin and Uriel are moving Harry's allies to different places on the board, to give him an influencing force with many powers on the table, such as Molly with Winter and Sarrisa with Summer, Marcone with the Nickelheads, the KotC are his friends, and with Murphy's death, he has an ally that's a part of the Army of Ragnarock.

So while listening absentmindedly to BR at work, I got to the part where Eb showed up with his pickup truck to pick up Harry and take him to pick up Murphy. Harry made mention of Eb's rings on his index fingers. That made me think of all the times we have had references to rings of power in the stories. We have Molly making Harry one in PT, Harry's force rings, Elaine's shield ring, Mab's present to Maggie, and Eb's rings which I like to believe he holds his fingers like a gun, index finger pointing, and mimics pulling the trigger to get  pinpoint accuracy with a force blast. But alas, we don't have any idea what his rings actually do, just ideas because of being Harry's mentor and grandfather.

So the fun idea comes in here.

Say Harry is going to get married for real. To someone who has magic (Molly, Elaine, Luccio). And say that he makes the ring himself. What do you think he does to the ring? Locator beacon, force ring, shield ring, something else entirely?

Thoughts?

I kinda think it would have a beacon to it so Harry would always know where the person is and it would stay active while the person was alive or had been taken off, being powered by the persons energy.

All this talk on another thread about TM has got me thinking on how it may go down. As stated in the title, this is just speculation going off of what Jim has told us.

Because of what Jim has personally gone through and what he has put Harry through, he is going to write about Harry finally coming to terms and grieving about what has happened in his life. What I hope to see is basically a book of shorts with an overarching story through the hole book. Each short would be a day or weekend in a month, some just a chapter, some a few. In each we would see some advancement or regression in his progress. We would get to see the how the wedding planning would progress with Molly reluctantly doing it. With action in the book, Jim has already set that up by saying at the end of BG that beings are hunting for Harry and the eye. Plus, we need to have the hunt for Justine. I really hope that if the pregnancy is real, she gets caught before the baby is born. Doesn't sit right with me if she isn't. And, my fear is, by the end of the book we will have one more funeral, just to finally tell Harry he can't save every one, that some battles are not won. I think we will see LtW die of old age, before he gets to tell Harry about being a Starborn.

And then to just throw it in, the wedding is taking place and while Harry is getting ready, that is when he is pulled into the alt reality and starts the book MM.

Just after Murphy died, Harry commented on the fact that he was too scared to soul gaze her because everyone had a bad reaction to it. That's not true. We have had multiple encounters and some have proved otherwise.

Check my list here.

Elaine- don't know her reaction, Harry only said that they soul gaze.

EB- same as Elaine.

Susan- she fainted.

Marcone- unsure, he sized up Harry, but has always been planning to kill Harry since then.

FBI agent from FM (sorry name escapes me)- he panics and says he doesn't believe in Hell.

Michael Carpenter- knew he was a good man from it.

The Nickel head- man was crazy already, unsure what to take from it.

Thomas- hard to tell because of emotions brought up by their mother. But seems unfazed.

Molly Carpenter- had no problem with the soul gaze.

Helen Beckett- what she saw didn't bother her. But she seems to be dead inside anyway.

Lawyer lady- looked at Harry in hesident wonder since he made Madelyn retreat from her mind.

Martin- died before we got a response.

Kraken- scared of him.

Bradley- scared of him

Did I miss someone?

By this list, we have people ok with Harry after the soul gaze. Michae, and Molly confirmed. Thomas a probable.

Side note: funny that Molly is the only confirmed woman that didn't have a problem with Harry or the soul gaze.

With all the deaths over the books, it will be nice to see the return of some of the characters. What really would be nice is if Harry could bring back one or two with him when he returns to his own world. So I bring to you these questions, who do you want to see in MM and who do you want to come back. And I know a lot of you will say Murphy, but remember, she most likely won't be your Murphy. Just figured I would throw that out there to maybe cut down on the idea of bringing Murphy back.

People I would like to see and bring back would be Morgan and Maeve. Condition on Maeve would be that she wasn't the WL and Nemfected.

I really liked Morgan in the end and want to see more interaction between Harry and him now that we know what we know about him. And I would like to see Maeve for who she really was and hit Mab in the gut seeing her again.