I thought the explanation for why Harry's protection disappeared was disappointing, sort of 'the narrative necessitates Lara be able to touch him and I don't want to bother with Harry having sex with someone else so there it is.'
A better explanation than Mab's would have been: "The protection is a feedback loop between the lover and the beloved. When one of them dies it fades quicker than if mere distance separates them." That gets Jim out of the corner he painted himself into without making it seem that ones later loves don't matter as much, which is an odd position to espouse when writing about characters with multi-century lifespans.
That really doesn't work either, Harry still burned Lara's lips in White Night five years after his split with Susan. True, she was still alive, but he had had no contact with her at all in all those years. To my mind, the love you feel lingers more after one loses a loved one to death than a split up, because you are still loving the memory and there is no distraction from it.
I thought the explanation for why Harry's protection disappeared was disappointing, sort of 'the narrative necessitates Lara be able to touch him and I don't want to bother with Harry having sex with someone else so there it is.'
To a degree, the soft-retconning could be attributed to Harry learning more about how the world really works... but in this case I can't buy it. It's too different from what we saw Harry go through after Susan, or even the way we saw Lara get burned one book ago, and I really hate throwing doubt on Murphy's feelings after she died. We got books and books of build up between those two, it feels insincere to even imply "sour grapes" now. It's not just kicking someone when they're down, they're dead, and that just seems mean, in a way the saga typically hasn't been before.
As a widow of a marriage of over forty years, it's been my experience that you don't stop loving someone just because they have died. And my husband died ten years ago, for Harry it had not even been a month since Murphy died! Then there was the whole thing about Murphy's shade not able to move on because of how she felt for Harry.. So yeah, a kiss from Lara should have burned her face off! Maybe Mab was messed with that if she can? Because she would also know about the true love thing. The other thing that bothered me was I thought that Murphy went to Valhalla?
About Murphy being in Valhalla, she is. Her shade is not really her, it's just an impression of her at the time of her death. So, nothing in the book contradicts that the real Murphy is in Valhalla.
I still found it so odd that Harry gets Vadderung on the phone (is that easy to communicate with him apparently) but there's no question about Karrin, no intent to find out more, at the very least, to confirm that she's okay?
There are some weird choices in this book, IMO.
Murphy is in Valhalla but her shade isn't? What is her shade then? Her soul? What? So this might be what the rule is about, by that I mean, if Murphy's shade or soul has moved on, her body might return as a soldier for Odin, but it really isn't her. So when and if Harry meets up with Murphy as one of Odin's soldiers, it's just her body and not her? That should be interesting.
A couple of more things about the true love problem, not just the Harry/Susan love and Lara's lips burning after five years of them splitting, but the elaborate moves Thomas and Justine went through to keep from buring him. To the point where she was wearing a latex suit so Thomas could touch her, then in Changes she has lesbian sex and finally they could have sex? You mean the two of them were madly in love for all that time and they didn't have sex? Or Thomas would be okay with Justine being unfaithful with another woman but not a man? I think it was a cool idea at the time that Jim wrote it, and used it from time to time, but in the long run of the series wasn't really practical.. So now after the whole Murphy/Harry thing that so many fans were heavily invested in, not like they were with Susan/Harry, we get this weak explanation as to why Lara's face isn't burning off now.
No, the shade is not her soul, this was explained in Ghost Story and is again pointed out in Twelve Months. This is not what the "rule" (einherjar) thing is about. Her shade is not Murphy, it's an impression of her, a copy of her at the time of her death. It won't have nothing to do with her memory or who Murphy truly is or where her soul is. Her soul is effectively in Valhalla, for all we know.
If Murphy is to return, it will be her, maybe slightly changed due to the new mantle of power, but it will be her. Just like Harry is still Harry with the mantle. It makes no sense, otherwise, to collect a honored warrior for their qualities, just to null them by turning them into people that they weren't. There's no point in that, if that was the case, they'd collect anyone.
I could argue though, that these comments about Murphy "holding herself back" might be either 1. to seed doubt in their love, or 2. to seed the possibility that nothing will stop that woman from coming back for Harry, because they have unfinished business.
No, the shade is not her soul, this was explained in Ghost Story and is again pointed out in Twelve Months. This is not what the "rule" (einherjar) thing is about. Her shade is not Murphy, it's an impression of her, a copy of her at the time of her death. It won't have nothing to do with her memory or who Murphy truly is or where her soul is. Her soul is effectively in Valhalla, for all we know.
That doesn't make sense to me, sorry but it doesn't.. An impression of her, but not her? So why the need to move on? It's her soul that moves on. As an einherjar she won't have any mantle of power, non of the einherjar we've met have any power, they have their skills as warriors, this is why they were selected, but they have no power.
Also, think back to Grave Peril, where Harry purposefully flatlined to create a shade of himself, a copy at the moment of (near) death, to help him double-team Kravos' nightmare ghost.
The shade accomplished his unfinished business when they won, and just faded away. The actual Harry returned to his body thanks to the girls keeping it viable with CPR.
Again, if Murphy was holding herself back presumably out of love for Harry and his love still held true, then it shouldn't matter whether Lara had just eaten or not, her lips still should have burned off.
Yes, I imagine Murphy's shade faded away when Harry "let go" of her.
I'm not done the book quite yet, so granted I might be wrong on this if there's confirmation I've yet to get to that Karrin's shade does just dissipate.
But I'd actually be kind of surprised if that's her fate. She seems like a *prime* recruit for Uriel's Shade PD, that Harry got a brief look at in Ghost Story. Working with the ghosts of her father and her old partner, staying in (albeit a very different theater of) the fight? I'd be surprised if she's not inducted already, and Harry's summonings were just pulling her away from working cases.
I could see her maybe ceasing to take Harry's calls anymore if she starts to think that contact is doing more harm than good to him, though.
I think it's souls that work with Uriel, not shades or ghosts if they are souless.. It all gets very confusing.
I'm not properly sure whether Murphy pere or Carmichael were full souls or just shades, but Uriel certainly seemed to think he could use Sir Stuart. Wasn't he a shade? Mort said his retinue were shades, and almost any entity he encountered who thought it was the real person was just in denial.
Let me just point out this interview (recent) where Jim talks about the love protection.
Watch from about min 38:40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg5GxQb_rXo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg5GxQb_rXo)
Let me know your thoughts if you figure out something from it related to this, what's your interpretation.
Though, I should say, I find JB to be somewhat inconsistent lately.
Things would have been easier if Harry had not burnt Lara in PT/BG. Not True Love. But since it happened, the easiest way to deal with it was not to have the long kiss scene in TM. Have Lara began feeding and then burn. She still would have tasted Harry and liked it and the rest of the book would be more or less the same, only the sexy scene with all its effect in Harry's mind would be shorter.
Well, my experience is different. I never believed Harry loved Murphy, at least not True Love, so I was surprised when he actually burnt Lara. I always thought their love was the love of a dear friend or sibling. More than many romantic loves, granted, but not True Love.
Watch from about min 38:40 it's a couple of minutes where he talks about this.He does say that Susan is still out there. Murphy isn't. He does say Susan is still out there and Harry still pines for her. So maybe the person has to be alive and there has to be a certain present emotional stance towards them. Jim said Harry didn't know about Maggie. That suggests that knowing about Maggie would change his emotional stance enough to break the protection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg5GxQb_rXo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg5GxQb_rXo)
Jim said Harry didn't know about Maggie. That suggests that knowing about Maggie would change his emotional stance enough to break the protection.
... though after Harry was "killed" and Thomas was grieving, Justine comes home with a lesbian girlfriend, they have sex with paves the way for Thomas and her to have relations. If it was that simple, why hadn't that been done after they realized they truly loved one another? And why a lesbian? Wouldn't a one night stand with some guy do? ...We don't know Justine's "solution" was a lesbian... she could easily have been bi! I strongly suspect House Raith selects their "Does" for a strongly-middle Kinsey-scale score.
... I will say this, too, that I found a bit hard to digest in this book: I don't have a problem with Harry grieving, I'll start with that, it was necessary, it is raw and it is painful. I wished we had seen a little less of "Karrin is dead and oh how much this hurts me" and more "Karrin is dead and that's unfair because Karrin was x, y and z" I mean, he tells us more times how wonderful Michael is in any of the books than he thinks about Murphy in this one, when it'd be the appropriate book to do it. There's a lot of things that you feel when you lose someone, yes, guilt, anger, denial, but also longing, and the memories of the best about them replay in your head making you miss them more, want them more. I felt there wasn't enough longing or enough memories. And I still can't believe we didn't learn when her birthday was in a full year of story.
I will say this, too, that I found a bit hard to digest in this book: I don't have a problem with Harry grieving, I'll start with that, it was necessary, it is raw and it is painful. I wished we had seen a little less of "Karrin is dead and oh how much this hurts me" and more "Karrin is dead and that's unfair because Karrin was x, y and z" I mean, he tells us more times how wonderful Michael is in any of the books than he thinks about Murphy in this one, when it'd be the appropriate book to do it. There's a lot of things that you feel when you lose someone, yes, guilt, anger, denial, but also longing, and the memories of the best about them replay in your head making you miss them more, want them more. I felt there wasn't enough longing or enough memories. And I still can't believe we didn't learn when her birthday was in a full year of story.
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We don't know Justine's "solution" was a lesbian... she could easily have been bi! I strongly suspect House Raith selects their "Does" for a strongly-middle Kinsey-scale score.
I think Thomas was pretty clearly established as straight, so "some guy" wouldn't much appeal to Thomas (while the "two girls" fantasy is among the very-most-popular amongst straight guys). Justine (and/or Nemesis) could just have been playing to that.
Seems to be the easiest/obvious explanation, tho: Thomas being straight (known) and Justine being bi (surmised) makes the "FMF" solution work better than the "MFM" solution.
I can't say I flat out disagree with any of your specific points about deficits in recent books except maybe about Karrin's death. I didn't really like the idea of them being together. I didn't hate it. (If I was Jim, it would be Elaine, and she'd probably end up being Kumori or a Kumori fake out). I think Karrin had it mostly right in Proven Guilty except for thinking she would grow old with someone. I didn't think she should have counted on growing old when I read Proven Guilty. Point being, I don't think they were a good fit.
I'm not going to even suggest Karrin deserved to die, but I do think either that her character arc should have ended in death or a power up. It looks like we got both. I'm sure she's coming back. Almost certainly in the BAT.
On the Lara/Harry romance, Harry likes her and is attracted to her, but that seems to be about it so far. The only thing that's changed in 12 months is he has a tighter grip on her. Previously, he always ended up with the upper hand anyway. I do see how a genuine romance could develop from here, and I do actually like the idea.
Jim was planning on Murphy dying since book 11 or so. He didn't seem sure which book.
I've been wondering if all of his self loathing makes a difference here. He doesn't think he deserves anything good, let alone love. Maybe that makes a difference.
This new idea about Harry's self-loathing interfering with the protection just seems to make that fit better, to me.