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Messages - BrainFireBob

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DF Spoilers / Re: About Titania
« on: July 19, 2021, 08:38:59 PM »
Numbers. The Winter Fae outnumber the Summer Fae. Vastly, apparently.

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As I say, it is possible he wasn't in attendance. We will have to wait and see to find out the truth of course. We don't have any information either way at this stage (and are unlikely to get more for a while...).

I will say though, the attack on the Gates in Cold Days subsided after Harry stopped He Who Walks Before and Maeve/Nemesis. Rashid then had time to reinstate Harry as a warden and a citizen of the USA. So based similar events in the series, it would appear the attacks to quieten after the big fight is done and Rashid does appear to contact the Council (if not actually visit Edinburgh).

As for Summer Knight, Rashid was going to kill Harry not because Harry would be kicked out of the Council, but because should Harry be stripped of the protections of the White Council, the onus was on the Council to overturn a fugitive murderer to the Red Court as stipulated by the Accords. Had Harry failed the Trial that the Gatekeeper had set, he would be a dead man walking and so the Gatekeeper felt it better to kill him personally rather than have the Red Court do it. And though it wasn't stated, probably because he also didn't want the Red Court to turn a starborn to their cause - perhaps even make him a Red Court vampire.

Rashid wasn't injured then.

I took it as unanimous because Merlin had proxy votes, Rashid was occupied, and Martha Liberty flipped on seeing that Harry commands the loyalty of the previously unaligned Wyldfae Little Folk.

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DF Spoilers / Re: About Titania
« on: July 15, 2021, 03:02:35 PM »
  I think that Titania is plenty strong on her own, also capable of seeking revenge and getting it, as Harry found out after Aurora died.  Isn't there a WOJ out there or something in one of the books that Summer and Winter flip roles as far as guarding the Gates are concerned every millennia or so?  Both are forces of nature, and Summer can be every bit as cruel and indeed more violent than Winter.  While Mab is cold and calculating, Titania is emotional and volatile, not good to cross either one of them..

I think you're conflating two.

The seasons change as the Sidhe courts swap influence and dominance. That's an old WoJ.

A separate WoJ: The "every millenium or so" referred to changing the guardians of the Outer Gates- the Sidhe have always been the foot soldiers, but they weren't always the guardians. The Norse gods were once, the Greek gods, etc.

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DF Spoilers / Re: What does this mean?
« on: July 15, 2021, 02:57:35 PM »
I agree with pretty much all of this - except the separation between warlocks and wizards. Unfortunately there seems to be a direct negative effect associated with touching black magic (which is pretty much the same as Star Wars funnily enough). It's almost a form of radiation, it poisons and corrupts whatever it comes into contact with. I am not so sure a warlock can stop being a warlock after a while. They become tainted and mutated, corrupted. It's pretty directly drawn from Warhammer's concept of Chaos.
Yes and no. It's an oversimplification. Sociopaths and psychopaths experience plenty of rage, mania, sadness, even joy. They can experience pretty much the full range of human emotion. It's their processing of it that has issues. As I said, it's an extremely complicated and debated area. Unfortunately there is a lot of confusion on the terms as much of what people understand them to be is based on outdated terms and theories, or misunderstandings of the science.

But I do agree that Harry probably isn't either, yet. He could well become one.
Indeed, that's sometimes what makes diagnosis so tricky. And the diagnosis can be wrong which creates even more problems.

Harry does display some worrying psychological tendencies though, regardless. Which could be the result of his experiences affecting his psyche as well as possibly black magic warping him, or perhaps having a more-than-mortal nature (like being a starborn). We just don't know enough about it all yet. But we do know that Harry is one to worry about. He could well have killed Rudolph in that alley and he was out of control, as out of control as Ebenezar seemed too I might add (when they duelled in Peace Talks).

I'd argue he has gone Hulk more than a few times. The real question is what the ceiling is? How big and bad can Hulk-Harry get? What might he do then?

Re: Warlocks and wizards, I've long thought all magic has a "backlash"- or more accurately, each use of magic has the effect of changing your nature to make it easier to do that same thing again.

This would explain why old wizards become immune to mind tampering- they literally become set in their ways after centuries of such backlash.

As an analogy: Most magic creatures are "hard"- their nature is fixed, but their use of magic is easy, natural, and effortless. Humans have free will- this makes them comparatively "squishy", and they gradually work-harden by using magic. If that work hardening is a re-aligning of themselves to make it easier to repeat the feats, then magic "in harmony" with nature would increase their harmony with nature, and "unnatural" magic that abuses nature/magic (dark magic) would be like a stain, as described.

This would explain ability at magic growing over time, the mental fixity of older wizards, and warlocks. Harry's strength would be indicative of most people are mud, and he started as fairly rigid clay with lots of grit- harder to reshape period.

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DF Spoilers / Re: All those other Coins...
« on: July 13, 2021, 03:11:43 PM »
Impressing people at parties. Cristos is totally that guy.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Harry's Soul
« on: July 13, 2021, 03:11:01 PM »
I doubt that he is damned, if he were, Uriel along with the Holy Knights wouldn't help him like they do.  No, I think that that is why Margaret selected Malcolm or wouldn't conceive a star born until she met Malcolm.  It is the influence of Malcolm that prevents Harry from being damned.

Mira, there's damned in your own eyes and damned objectively. There's something more terrifying in "I'll take you to hell personally, I'm going there anyway- nothing to lose I haven't lost already" than "Prepare to die."

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DF Spoilers / Re: Does ID Harry have Cassondra's tears?
« on: July 13, 2021, 03:09:35 PM »
I have two different ideas as to what Id-Harry represents.

One is that the Harry we see is a construct personality as mentioned by Bob early in the series- a fine thrall that's been left operating so long he's more than a thrall, and Id Harry is the real Harry and has the black magic taint.

The other is that Id Harry is the Harry Harry wants to be- and he recognizes him as just that bit evil as a result of the magic backlash, so he deliberately sabotages avenues of success to prevent himself from becoming Id Harry. In that occasion, Id Harry is the "real" Harry.

Either way, I have the following thoughts about Id Harry.

1) He's the actual Winter Knight (hence the badge he wore when speaking to Harry in Skin Game).
2) He's the one Lasciel fell in love with/is Bonea's father.
3) He's the one people see when soul gazing Harry

As to how he's aware of things Harry isn't- Harry is a PI because he's intelligent with excellent instincts, but he literally does not like to listen to his instincts because he has a background tendency towards megalomania- again, I think from the magic backlash from violating the first law. He recognizes the craving for power in himself. Id Harry doesn't have that hangup. To your examples, in the first case he's warning Harry about being entangled with Murphy- probably because he thought she was attractive from day one, but she was ready to take him down- and in the second, he and Lash had a baby together, recognizing her "style" of seduction isn't too much of a trick when Denarians are about. He's the suspicious, dangerous part of Harry- the part that Nic saw and wanted to recruit, the part that gives Mab a thrill down her leg, the part that makes Lea beam with pride and Aurora pity him.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Carlos in Infected
« on: July 12, 2021, 02:43:02 PM »
Harry constantly threatened Carlos with Molly/what happened.

Harry didn't know that, but Carlos clearly reacts.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Harry's Soul
« on: July 12, 2021, 02:41:19 PM »
Id Harry in the fullness of his power?

People have two responses to Harry. Fear (for the guilty) and sadness for his loneliness (for the innocent).

So something like Harry standing in a lake of fire but not burned, beckoning you to come or not.

The keeper of the hounds of hell- power and threat and ruthlessness. And in the face, something of a sad loneliness about it. So do you deserve his wrath and feel threatened, or do you feel for him with his terrible duty?

I truly think Butcher was thinking Solomon Kane when thinking of Harry's soul. He's damned, and he's coming for the damned.

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DF Spoilers / Re: The White Court is Underpowered
« on: July 08, 2021, 08:14:36 PM »
Wamps don't have Blamp weaknesses. Holy water, garlic- religious symbols are probably out, but that's it. Conflict isn't about arm wrestling matches.

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DF Spoilers / Re: The White Court is Underpowered
« on: July 08, 2021, 05:11:44 PM »
I'm thinking when Lara was reduced to a barely animate skeleton and devoured Madelaine. That's a hellacious amount of damage to take and be visibly healing from.

A strong, fully-fed White seems to have Wolverine-like healing- at first. When sufficiently injured, they go feral, and also feed indiscriminately. Don't underestimate that.

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DF Spoilers / Re: The White Court is Underpowered
« on: July 08, 2021, 03:52:50 PM »
She's the Queen, arguably the most powerful and well-fed Wamp there is. Others aren't going to have her power.

The Wamps are formidable politically and against humans, but against almost anything else, they're on even terms or below. It took publishing a book and arming the masses with knowledge to exterminate most of the Blamps. If someone paid Shagnasty enough, he'd wipe out the Wamps on his own in a month.

We don't know the relative power of the various House heads. Whites can feed most easily, though- don't underestimate their throwing down in a street and then sprinting through a dance club before coming back for round 2. And their supernatural healing isn't to be underestimated.

And we don't know the Whites couldn't handle the Blacks- the Whites used humanity as a cat's paw. Preference doesn't mean incapability.

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It fits with what Lash told about herself when she still thought about herself as Lasciel. About all the countless souls she had seduced and destroyed.

It fits with everything else we hear about the fallen except for the lies their hosts tell themselves.

You are taking a traditional simplification of Fallen=demon=traditional demon.

Take Thorned Namshiel as a potential example. He's into magic. Is he responsible for "leaking" magic to mortals? Accumulating power for himself through the use of hosts for experimentation? What does he care if a host is vaporized in a magical experiment that even he can't rebuild them from if he learns something?

The point then wouldn't be making the host sink into ever-lower depravity, but in getting the host to fulfill Namshiel's agenda.

The idea that their goal is nothing more than reducing their host elevates the hosts in importance to being the point- that's classic Lucifer-aligned demon stuff. The Fallen are rebels. Not a unilateral team with united purpose and mission.

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DF Spoilers / Re: All those other Coins...
« on: July 07, 2021, 02:07:33 PM »
There are 30 Coins but we've only seen a few of them, and they all seem to grant their host unique abilities.  Marcone had a Coin and nobody knew, not even Mab.  So it has me wondering if any on the Senior Council have a Coin.  Jim said that all of them have a secret ability that they haven't let anyone else know about.  A Coin would be a pretty good secret weapon to use.  If Marcone could keep it secret I imagine a wizard with hundreds of years of knowledge, and experience could to.

Of the Senior Council members, who do you think would be most likely to have a Coin?

What unique ability would you like to see a Coin give it's user?

Jim said they each have a powerup; that's different.

We know LtW's shapeshifting isn't just skill related
Rashid has his eye
Ebenezer has the Blackstaff
One, IIRC, is a saint/has access to faith magic. Martha Liberty is very tight with the loa; between that and her name, Santeria priestess is quite possible.

That leaves Christos, Merlin, and Ancient Mai.

Ancient Mai can identify a Foo Dog on sight; I would be surprised if she could conceal such. Plus she's ancient- she's aged, and the coins work against that.

Merlin and Christos are your two real possibilities.

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If Nicodemus see's himself as some sort of hero, Nemesis could exploit that.  Manipulate him into thinking he's saving the world when it's the opposite.

Nicodemus is aware of Nemesis, or at least its effects. He asked Harry at the very beginning of their encounters if he had noticed things defying their own nature.

Personally, I always suspected the favor Nic performed for Mab had to do with eliminating someone Nemfected. Anduriel's shadow-listening would make it easier to identify someone who violates their own nature.

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