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?
What do you all think?
That you're awesome. ;D
The biggest problem is Lash: we have a WOJ saying Lash was in GS. Who can it be except the parasite?
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.
Why can't it be both?Perhaps the headaches are from Lash and HWWW fighting? Lash to protect, HWWW to control.
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.
What do you all think?
Lasciel squared her shoulders and straightened. "You're right," she said. "It is my choice. Listen to me." She leaned closer, her eyes intent. "Vittorio has been given power. That is how he can do this. He is possessed."
I wished I could have raised my eyebrows. Possessed by what?
"An Outsider," Lasciel said. "I have felt such a presence before. This attack is drawn directly from the mind of the Outsider."
Holy crap. That made me think about the people who tell Harry he has darkness or a stain or whatever on him. I doublechecked what the ThreeEye junkie said to Harry at the police station in SF: '...I see you wizard! I see the things that follow, those who walk before and He Who Walks Behind! They come, they come for you!' So the junkie saw BOTH walkers just by looking at Harry???That's a sobering thought. And if Jim put it up in the first book, that is simply amazing.
The specific point is important.
So If the headaches are due to the parasite, and the parasite is from Harry's encounter with HHWB, then something later must have trigered it's... rambunciousness.
Or there is another explenation that doesn't involve the HHWB encounter.
rubbed my finger at a spot between my eyebrows where a headache was coming on.
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.”
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.”
Is there somewhere a list with all the quotes about Harry's migraines?The issue with picking out headaches is that a lot of them are justifiable. Harry essentially makes a living getting beaten up by supernatural creatures.
If no could you help me found them: - I know there are two in TC, one in CD , and some SmF.
Here are some, plz give all the one you have:
Maybe this had been another reminder from the mob boss. It had that kind of mafioso feel to it.Fool Moon - He develops a headache while working on potions and researching Werewolves:
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.
I tried to ignore the headache that was creeping up the back of my neck toward the crown of my head, but it did little good.Grave Peril - He has a headache while hunting for Charity. Maybe justifiable, in that he was stressed. He'd also been drugged earlier (But that caused pleasure, not pain) and had a ghost chew out his magic.
Hell’s bells, all I had was a headache, an hourglass quickly running out of sand, and a case of the shakes.Summer Knight - He develops a headache while researching the Queens
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."
The headache started coming back. "Look, Meryl, I've got a lot on my plate already."Death Masks - No mention of headaches! Or at least, not specifically. He did get hit in the head though:
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....His head also hurt while being held by Nicodemus.
I tried to lift her body, but the effort brought a surge of pain to my head and I almost threw up.
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 - Harry gets hit in the head. At this point, who's surprised?
Multiple injuries, including a vicious headache from where Inari had socked me.Dead Beat - 3 guesses on what happens.
I started to look around for the source of the noise.Proven Guilty - Harry has a headache. He was in a car crash though
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.
My headache started rising up again...
My headache flared up with a vengeance, and the light of my amulet and staff both faded.
“It’ll pass. Just got this damned headache...Then he gets hit in the head.
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.
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 - What looks like another stress headache when Molly looks at the dead girl
I muttered under my breath, rubbed at the incipient headache beginning between my eyes, and thought dark thoughts.Then Little Chicago takes a hit for him
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.And another one
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.Then he gets hit in the head, yet again, although it's healed by Elaine
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.It pops up a little bit again
It had been a long night, and despite Elaine's incredible hands, my headache had begun to returnSmall Favor - Harry gets kicked in the nose
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.Then Mab freezes his eyes
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 muchAnd his head hurt some of the times he tried to remember his blasting rod/fire magic
—a savage pain went through my skull for a second—son of a bitch—...
“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.
They’d been a problem, the past several months—increasingly painful migraines
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.
I have never been able to come up with a satisfactory answer for where Lash was in GS. Anywhere you put her creates other problems.
Like if she was Inez in the cemetary, and I think some of the language Inez used fits a fallen angel kinda nicely, but then, who was Mab's proxy? Since there is a WoJ I believe, that DR and Mab each had a proxy there.
If Lash was the whisperer at the church, then where was Lasciel in the book? Plus, the Whisperer seems more evil and out to get Harry, and I don't peg Lash as that antagonistic.
I suppose Lash could appear as to Harry as another person, like she did in DB as Sheila. I haven't reread GS looking for a character with whom only Harry interacts while he is alone. But this feels like a stretch to me.
So I'm stuck.
I just realized something regarding the headaches. If you look at the scene at the outer gates, when Harry meets Rashid. First of all, the whole "May I call you Harry?" business is extremely odd to me. There is a lot more significance to it, than appears at first, I think.
But there is another thing that stood out to me:
Rashid touches Harry with the tip of his staff at one point. Now granted, that doesn't seem like much, but if you compare it to other instances that Harry met Rashid, the gatekeeper never touched Harry. He even went out of his way not to. In SK, Harry describes in extreme detail, how Rashid's hands are covered in thick leather gloves, and he couldn't see an inch of skin. It kind of seems like something that you would do in the presence of someone who is infested with a highly contagious disease.
OR something you would do, if you were infected by a highly contagious disease, that you wouldn't want to spread.
Or something you might do, if you wanted to keep a wizard from sensing something inside you. Though I think that is less likely or part or the OR.
So what happened between TC and CD that conclusively proved he did not have the infection or cured it?
So what happened between TC and CD that conclusively proved he did not have the infection or cured it? (since it cant just be Rashid getting a good enough look at Harry with his 'magic bug detecting eye' to determine whether he's infected-he could've done it earlier)Well, Harry died and came back, for one thing. Rashid might have decided, that however he did it, the infection would have died out or left through that process. Maybe that's exactly what happened, and the gatekeeper scanned Harry twice, and now he is clean. Maybe Rashid needs the gate plus his eye in order to see if someone is infected. So so many questions.
Oh, God.” She sighed, smiling. “Yes.”
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…
Something like New Mexico. Jesus. I didn’t want to think about that. I rubbed at the fresh headache sprouting between my eyebrows.
"Experience," he said. "Decades of it. The Sight can help, but..." Rashid hesitated. I recognized it instantly, the hiccup in one's thoughts when one stumbled over a truly hideous memory gained with the Sight, like I'd had with--
Ugh.
--the naagloshii.
No. Even Rashid can't know for certain. He just decided to trust Harry.