Yeah, I reread that section last night.  Harry's subconscious first points out that Lara has many good points and that it could work between them.  Then his subconscious further points out that Thomas and Justine were happy, then further points out why Lara's kiss didn't burn him. Calls into question if it was really true love between Harry and Murphy?  Then adds the most important point, it's about balance. That's when Harry throws the glass against the wall.  Balance, that is the key, and that's what haunts Harry in his grief more than anything.  Was their relationship one of real true love?  Or more of codependency?  I think Harry is wondering too.

Why do I say this you may ask.

1] The soul gaze or lack there of, not until she was dying and nothing found out how she feels on the whole.  I think Jim did that on purpose so we'd wonder, and Harry also wonders.  Harry isn't really the most self confident guy, in some things he is, his will, power, etc. he is very confident.  However his confidence in his past romantic relationships?  A little shaky, so that hint of doubt.

2]  Have you noticed that Harry really depended on Murphy's judgement, more than his own.  In Cold Days she refused to give him back the Swords though he was appointed their Custodian, not her.  She convinced him that somehow she was morally superior or gave that impression and he wasn't especially because he felt doubt since he was Winter Knight now.  Even Michael told him this was something she took upon herself, and he went along with it.  He tried to tell her not to bring the Sword of Faith with her when they went to confront Nick.  She did anyway, relying on her judgement, not listening to Harry.  Okay, you could say it was out of love, but it also was out of arrogance that she knew better.  My point, one sided, and Harry went along with it. 

3] As Mab told him in their confrontation, when Harry blames her for the banner which enabled Murphy to enter the fray though she wasn't physically up to it.  Mab points out Murphy made that decision on her own, yet again ignoring Harry.  Yeah,yeah, Harry's fear for her, over protective, yada, yada,yada..  However his judgement in this case was correct, but he still went along with her.  No discussion as equals, no compromise as equals would do.  What I personally found annoying about Murphy since Changes was she was sounding more like Harry's mom than an equal.  Harry also became increasingly dependent on her judgement, that's why I say it had become a codependent relationship, which can be mistaken for true love.   That's what was feeding Harry's guilt during the worst of his grief, why he felt responsible because he never really spoke up when he should have and it cost Murphy her life.

Back to Lara and Harry, that kind of dependency isn't there!  Even when Mab was happy as hell because she thought Lara was completely dependent on Harry now.  That wasn't the type of relationship Harry wants, and I think his subconscious could explain it to him now very well.

There is one obvious flaw with your analysis.  Explain why Lara got burned when she touched Harry when they broke Thomas out of the castle.  A codependent relationship shouldn't produce that effect.  (Unless it would, but that seems unlikely.  I think it would undercut the very idea of true love protection.)

I suppose you might counter that the true love Harry and Karin felt for one another ended when Harry fell into codependency when he accepted Karin's judgement for his own.  But did he?  I'd have to reread that part of BG again, but I remember Harry leaving Karin behind.  She got on her Harley on her own and rejoined the battle on her own.  What was Harry going to do at that point, forbid Karin from remaining with him?  Maybe, but according to Ms. Gard, Harry would have died if he had done that. 

I don't have an issue with your analysis of Karrin Murphy herself.  I think we are largely in agreement that as a character, Murphy started to go off the rails in Cold Days.  To get to the heart of the matter, I don't think Jim did a very good job of writing her after Ghost Story.  At least in Ghost Story we could see that without Harry, Karrin Murphy was starting to become brittle and was on the verge of cracking up. 

In Cold Days and Skin Game, Murphy would have been made more sense and also would have been far more relatable if her attitude had been something like, "I know your not alright Harry, because the same look I see on your face now, I saw in the mirror everyday while you were gone."  Instead of acting in an accusatory manner, Murphy could have been the character who understood that even though Harry suffered severe emotional trauma, recovery was possible because she was recovering.  I think it would have made Murphy bringing the sword with her in Skin Game a much more excusable offense.  I huge mistake but an understandable one.  Plus, it would have seemed a far less arrogant decision.

Maybe this is a problem that can occur when any author is attempting to write such a large number of novels in one series.  Many people think continuity errors are where a series like the Dresden Files will start to go wrong.  That can happen, but perhaps another and maybe larger problem is character logic and consistency start getting lost.  As I understand it, Jim has a one or two page outline that he started with ideas for what would happen to Harry in each novel.  According to one description of it I have heard, it is a very simple description of events that will happen in each novel.  Dead Beat might have an entry that reads, "Harry must stop three necromancers from making one of there number into an immortal demi god.  Harry will learn necromancy and raise the spirit of a 67 million year old T-Rex in order to fight the necromancers."  Nothing about how Harry and supporting characters will grow or progress through each novel.  Without such an outline some characters behavior may become illogical and, or inconsistent, just like Karrin Murphy became.

I remember an original forum poster; who went by the moniker; The Neurovore, who thought that the Merlin was manipulating Harry from the beginning.  Perhaps doing so as Harry’s secret ally or perhaps just for the good of the White Council, whether or not it helped Harry.

I posted after BG that by kicking Harry out of the Council, the Senior Council made Harry stronger, in the long-run at least.  In short-run Harry did become more vulnerable.  I’m undecided on whether Arthur Langtry manipulated this move as Harry’s secret ally.   

Now, Harry not only has far better home defenses set up that anything he could have managed before, he is enforcing his rules within his territory; and these rules are similar but not identical to those of the White Council.  Harry is also making new allies and might one day be able to become a recognized power in his own right. Harry would only need two signatures from representatives of two supernatural powers.  Lara and Mab would be the two mostly likely members of Mab’s Accords to sign such a petition.

Which she isn't, she is as upfront about it as Harry is, unless she is lying, she isn't happy about being forced into this relationship either.  It could become a reasonably healthy relationship now because all the cards are on the table as far as what Lara is and what Harry is.  If it wasn't for her being a vampire, I think Lara is the best fit for Harry on an intellectual level. 

One thing not mentioned in this thread is Harry's question as to whether Harry truly loved Murphy or she loved him?  I have to go back and reread, but that's what caused him to throw the glass against the wall.

That was a separate issue that I didn't want to address at the time, but I will do so now.

From the standpoint of logic, Harry doubting that Murphy loved him makes no sense.  Murphy loved Harry when he broke Thomas out of the castle; and Harry knows this because Lara was burned when she touched him during the rescue.  Harry would have to believe something had radically changed in the last few hours of Karin Murphy's life that made her fall out of love with him to doubt what he briefly had with her.

Of course, the counter to this argument is Harry isn't using logic and reason and he is in tremendous emotional pain.  On top of the grief and PTSD he's suffering through, Harry is doing his usual guilt and self blame routine he goes through every time something bad happens to someone around him that he even remotely cares about.  Harry really needs therapy to understand why he does this, because it is not healthy and can be self-defeating, but that is another topic.

I think the most important thing to understand is, at this point of the conversation subconscious-Harry isn't saying anything that is a revelation to regular / outside Harry.  This is not a "you are not seeing what I am seeing" moment.  Both sides of Harry's personality are in agreement here and this is what makes Harry so angry that he breaks off the conversation by throwing the glass.  Harry is so low at this point, both aspects of Harry no longer believe they deserve to be loved.

Side issue: This also means there was never any chance Harry and Lara could fall in love; at least not at this time, as some Harry / Lara shippers would have liked.  Harry's self loathing made this impossible.   

I get that Mab was manipulating Harry and Harry was so off his game he didn't fully grasp what was going on.  Harry asked for the boon that Mab was willing to give him and that she wanted to give him; even if it was forced on her by Harry, because it got Mab the results she wanted to achieve in any case.

However, I get where Lord Kinbote is coming from.  As a writer, I think Jim played a very dangerous game with how he resolved Harry's problem with Mr. Etri.  It comes close to looking like a Deus ex machina solution, except in this case the deus in question set up being asked to solve Harry's problem.  So it's not a Deus ex machina solution, but the resemblance is there.

Another comparison about how Harry's problem with Mr. Etri was solved is to think about the task Harry was given in Ghost Story, to find his murderer.  Harry didn't really do anything conscious to achieve that goal.  At some point Harry says that he hasn't done anything to find his murderer, I think it was Lea who countered, (Not the exact quote, but close) "You've been doing nothing but look for your murderer since you arrived."  Harry was frustrated with that answer and some readers; myself included, were frustrated with Ghost Story itself.  The manner in which Harry eventually did find out how he got shot was very well done, the problem was that much of Ghost Story that came before that point felt like it was just meandering on with no clear direction. 

Twelve Months did not have that problem.  The story was told in a much cleaner and crisp manner, but it failed to show us Harry even trying to think of a solution on his own.  As in Ghost Story, the readers didn't see Harry do anything to attempt a solution.  When we got the solution, it wasn't as satisfying as the one in Ghost Story because it wasn't as clever and it didn't carry the same emotional weight as Harry finding out he used Molly to set up his own murder.   

Here is what I thought was going to happen as I was reading the story.  When Harry told Mr. Etri about Nemesis, I thought Harry would use his detective skills to find Justine or find something Nemesis wanted to draw Justine out and capture her; and then with Mr. Etri on hand but probably in hiding, demonstrate that Nemesis was in control of her.  Even if Harry still needed Mab to draw up a final agreement with Etri which involved Thomas losing his child, that would have felt more like a Dresden Files story we are familiar with.  (Side note, I didn't think the solution would be as straightforward as I described.  Harry might have to look in Lord Raith's library for clues or become inspired by something Ebenezar would tell him to get a hint how to draw out Nemesis, but I thought we would see Harry being a detective, putting clues and ideas together to reach his adjective.)

Maybe Jim was trying to stretch himself as a writer by doing something different than give the readers a typical Dresden Files novel ending, but it felt as if Jim might have written himself into a corner and came up with Mab offering Harry a boon as a cheat code to get out of the writer's trap he had stepped into.

To consider the title of this thread, we should count who we know have been taken over by Nemesis and add names who could have been infested to hopefully get a better picture of who the 13 puppets are or were.

Aurora, Lea, Maeve, Cat Sith and Justine make five.  Who else should we consider adding to the list?  I think there are a fair number of people; and not people, to consider, even if we don't add all of them.

Victor Sells, Kravos the Nightmare; before he turned himself in a ghost, Mr. Ferro, the Red King, either Tessa or Rosanna, Cowl, Mavra and Elaine or someone currently on the White Council.

Someone or something corrupted Victor Sells and Kravos.  There is nothing to definitively prove they were Nemesis puppets but they still have to be considered possibilities.

Mr. Ferro received a gift at Bianca's party as did Lea.

Nicodemus told Harry that someone on Tessa's crew was taken.

Why do I include the Red King, Mavra, Cowl, Elaine and think someone on the White Council could be or have been a Nemesis puppet?  I think; I'm guessing, at least one individual from or close to every major faction has been taken.  It's good strategy.  Why go after one or two factions strong enough to oppose you when you can go after all of them?

Way back in the old forum I remember someone putting forth the idea that the Red King had been taken.  The evidence they claimed backed this idea up was part of the conversation between Harry and the Red King.  Something the Red King said about Arianna not being open to new possibilities.

Mavra?  We know the Black Court are tied up with Outsiders.  Harry guessed that in his last conversation with Lash.  But like the White Court of vampires, maybe the Black Court has a relationship with Outsiders, but Nemesis needed more than that.  Nemesis needed someone, something? on the inside to better control the Black Court.  Isn't it odd that Mavra was the weakest of the crew Drakul sent to Chicago, but she was smarter than the rest of Drakul's crew?

Cowl?  Why not.  It makes sense seeing as Cowl had been doing so many things to help Nemesis.

Elaine?  Jim has suggested she is not Kumori.  Someone had to infect Aurora.  That makes Elaine a candidate.

This makes nine candidates for a total of eight positions.  I think most of them are or were Outsiders puppets.  Aurora, Maeve and the Red King are dead and Lea is cured.  Victor Sells and Kravos are dead.  Justine has been neutralized.  It is possible that five Nemesis puppets are dead and two have or are on the way to becoming to being cured.  That would leave six left, at a minimum. 

What was wrong with Lara kissing Harry and not getting burned?

It appears to me most readers who don't like this scene go to Mab's explanation of how True Love Protection can fail and find fault with that.  I already wrote my take on Mab's explanation, so there is no point in beating that dead horse. 

In finding fault with Mab's explanation, some readers are saying it made far more sense for Lara to get burned when she kissed Harry.  I think it was Mira who said, "Lara should have gotten her face burned off."  That may be going a bit too far, but in general I don't disagree with those opinions.  But there is something else going on this scene that everyone seems to have missed, and this missing element is the real problem.  When I put this together, I realized there was an alternative scenario Jim could have written that would have made Mab's tortured explanation of true love protection unnecessary.  In fact, it's so obvious to me that maybe Jim considered taking this route but for some reason rejected it and we got what we got.  I'll get to that point last.

Ask yourself this question.  How did Lara know she wouldn't get burned when she kissed Harry?  Before you start coming up with possible explanations, think about the last time you accidentally touched a hot stove or the last time or you touched a casserole dish or any other food container that you took out of a hot over with pot holders, but a few minutes later you accidentally brushed your hand against it and it was still hot enough to raise a blister on your skin.  We have all done something like that at sometime in our lives and it is something we try our best to avoid doing and with good reason.  Even minor burns are annoyingly painful.

So either Lara would have had one hell of a good reason to accept burning herself or she would had to have known Harry's love protection was gone.  The problem is, while I can think of a couple of ways to explain how Lara could have known Harry was no longer protected, in different ways I think each of these explanations are just as unsatisfying as Mab's explanation of why Harry's true love protection broke down.

First, there is no way Lara could physically detect that Harry was no longer protected.  We can put that possibility out to pasture.  The White Court has had over two thousand years to work on this problem and Lara getting burned by Harry in Peace Talks tells us they haven't figured out a way to do so at this time.

Perhaps Lara could have bargained with someone with enough information to know if Harry was still protected.  Of course I'm talking about Mab.  There are a couple of problems with this.  While Mab appears to know the nuts and bolts of how true love protection works and why it may fail to work, would she have known that Harry was no longer protected?  She might have known, but we can't be certain.  Even if Mab could have reasoned out that Harry was no longer protected, that is the kind of information Mab doesn't hand out for free.  But there is another problem to consider.  Even if Lara could offer Mab something in return for this knowledge, even asking about it would be an open admission from Lara that she planned to enslave Mab's knight for her own ends.  It is far too obvert a move for Lara to make.  That alone should end this line of thought.

OK, perhaps Lara's understanding of how true love protection works told her that Harry was no longer protected.  I don't think this explanation works either.  First, true love protection is supposed to be rare to begin with.  Lara would not only have to know that a person who longer feels worthy of being loved can become vulnerable to the White Court, she would have to know with certainty that this applied to Harry.  Knowing that Harry was in grief and suffering from PTSD might be a clue that Harry was vulnerable, but it wouldn't give Lara certainty that she wouldn't get burned if she laid a massive kiss on Harry.

As I suggested above, Jim actually laid the groundwork for an alternative scenario that I think works much better than what we got.  It has to do with Lara's blue eyes, which in the past we have only seen described as being grey to silver and once white.  Lara told Harry she'd fed extra heavy before their first date.  Her hunger being satiated was why it wasn't trying to feed on Harry and Lara didn't get burned when she casually touched Harry with her hands.  It made Lara look less dangerous than normal.  It didn't have to be that way.

Jim could have given Lara a second reason for giving her demon an extra heavy feeding.  Extra feeding for her demon should also give Lara more vampire mojo if she got into a serious fight and needed to heal quickly, without having to immediately feed again.  In this scenario Lara's blues eyes don't make her less dangerous, they make her more dangerous.

So when Lara gets annoyed with Harry at her party, when she gives Harry the kiss, he has the same reaction we saw in the book, but this time Lara pulls back in sudden pain as blisters break out on her lips and the skin closest to her lips.  Then Lara gets a determined look on her face, the blisters disappear, her eyes are still blue, but a lighter shade of blue than before and Lara kisses Harry a second time and he's powerless to stop her.  When Lara again pulls back in pain; maybe she curses, but again she heals herself and her eyes are now dark grey.  Harry is all but on his knees at this point.  Then Lara tells Harry pretty much the same thing she said in the book, but somewhat modified.  Lara tells Harry that she understands he is in pain, that he isn't at the top of his game, but she needs him to focus on the task at hand.  Both of them are in danger, and if she needs to do so, Lara can enslave Harry without taking him to bed in order to get him to do his job.  Lara gets more energy with sex included, but it isn't necessary when her main goal is just to gain control of someone.  Lara tells Harry that just a couple more kisses will do the trick and she could do that right now, but she doesn't want that.  Lara tells Harry she doesn't want to offend Winter and she thinks Harry will be more effective "if you can think for yourself." 

This way we could have had a more dangerous Lara and avoided Mab's clunky explanation of how true love protection can fail.  We know it was going to fail if or when Lara and Harry get married. I don't think much was achieved by having it fail in this book.  Plus, the reversal of fortune when Harry unknowingly addicted Lara to Winter would have hit that much harder.

I probably need to do a complete reread of Twelve Months.  I was very busy last week.  My reading was both rushed but also limited by various duties I had to attend to.  On top of that, I had a family event to attend in Southern California this past weekend, so I stopped about 3/4 of the way through and finished Monday night when I returned home.

I really enjoyed the first half to perhaps two thirds of this novel.  At the moment I can’t pinpoint where the story started to lose momentum for me.  It was only after I finished did I start to wonder what went wrong, why did my enjoyment of Twelve Months take such a sudden dip?

I don’t know if any of you are familiar with the YouTube channel, Red Letter Media.  They do humorous reviews of really bad science fiction, fantasy, horror and action movies and TV shows.  Sometimes they also do reviews of more serious fare and they often do retrospective reviews of older movies and TV shows.  About a week or two ago they did a couple of fun videos about the first season of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. 

This channel has been around since near the beginning of YouTube but they really gained traction about ten years ago with a fictional dirty old man character named Mr. Plinket, who did a series of videos that dissected and thoroughly eviscerated; with a lot of dark humor, the George Lucas’ Star Wars sequels.  The Disney sequel reviews were even more savage.  Mr. Plinket has a line that he uses whenever a character does something that runs counter to clearly established character traits or does something that violates accepted cannon, but something that might happen so quickly that you do not immediately realize it.  Mr. Plinket will say when pointing out these writing errors, “you didn’t notice it, but your brain did.”  Consciously you didn’t pay attention to it, but deep down you pick up on these contradictions and they create a kind of cognitive dissonance.  For me, the cognitive dissonance was really enjoying Twelve Months and then feeling something is really off here.

First off, I don’t think this is a terrible novel and it has some really good elements.  It just has more flaws than I expect from a Dresden Files novel.

I’m not going to go into why I think Mab’s explanation of how love protection from the White Court can break down was problematic and how I think it could have been done better.  I did that in the thread about True Love Protection yesterday. (And I am fully aware of how arrogant that might sound coming from someone who isn’t a published author or an author of any fiction at all.)

I am also not going to address Lara’s kiss with Harry and what I think was wrong with that.  I think everyone’s missed something and I’m going to write about that later and probably in the True Love Protection thread.

I had a slight problem with Ebenezar deciding that he would no longer contest Harry’s decision to keep Maggie close to him and mellowing out rather quickly.  I get that Ebenezar was shocked and ashamed that he lost control and tried to kill Harry so I can accept Ebenezar wanting to make amends, but that change seemed a bit fast to me.

There was some something else that bothered me about that conversation.  Maybe I misread the conversation Harry and Eb had in Peace Talks about the White Court, but I got the impression that Ebenezar’s hatred of the White Court began long before his daughter became entangled with Lord Raith.  I had the impression there was someone else the White Court corrupted who had been close to Eb.  In their latest conversation Ebenezar only talked about Margaret and how angry he became because his only child had come under White Court influence.  Maybe that is also another indication Twelve Months takes place in a different part of the Dresden Multiverse; I’m not certain, but even if that is the case it feels like lazy writing rather than a clue we are in a multiverse.

Carlos Ramirez is now what; a secret agent working with Harry while pretending to be an ordinary, paranoid White Council Warden?  Where did that come from?  Again, it could be a multiverse thing, but I don’t think so.  For Ramirez to suddenly begin to trust Harry I think we needed another or extended scene to tie it together.  Carlos meets Harry as a Warden, but  when they are alone he tells Harry, “I’m going to extend you some trust, because I know you were setup by the Merlin and and someone else; someone whose voice I couldn’t identify, to be kicked off the Council.  I overheard part of a conversation…”  I’ll leave it you to figure what Carlos might have overheard, but you get the idea.  Give us a reason why Warden Ramirez suddenly accepts that Harry might still be one of the good guys.

There were things I was expecting to happen that did not occur that I found a little disappointing.  Now this is on me.  Just because I expect something to happen doesn’t mean Jim has to write it that way. 

First and most obvious, we didn’t get twelve months, we got about ten months “and then I had two more dates with Lara.”  (Not a direct quote.)  Really?  I get that this might have been the best place to end the story, but it felt to me like Jim decided to save LTW coming to see Harry for the next book and also to save Harry from being summoned; probably just before the marriage ceremony, to the Mirror Mirror world until the beginning of that book as well.  The second one is more understandable.

I thought we would see people from The Library show up.  We will probably find out that those boring ordinary inspectors were with The Library, but they didn’t really do anything of interest.  Maybe in the next book we will find out they planted magically immune listening devices in the castle.  When Harry first noticed something kept passing overhead, I thought it was a drone that was sent up to watch Harry by someone from The Library.

Speaking about that, I don’t know how anyone else felt about the gargoyles, but I found them to be rather boring.  I don’t have anything really good or bad to say about them.  Maybe in a future book we will get a more full backstory and perhaps this will give them more depth.
 
Someone else said they thought this would have been a good time for Lea to make an appearance and they were disappointed that it did not occur.  I can see their point of view on that.  I thought this might have been a very good time for Elaine to reappear.  We haven’t seen her since White Night and I think Twelve Months would have provided a good opportunity for her to show up and tell Harry, “I told you so” in regards to her distrust of the White Council and Harry getting kicked off of it.

Finally, I think that Lara Raith needed to show her teeth a bit more. (Figuratively speaking).  Some readers have said she was retconned into a kinder and gentler Lara.  I didn’t think of it as a full retcon, but those criticisms aren’t wrong either.  I think Lara Raith is at her most fun for readers when her sexiness and intelligence are balanced by us seeing how dangerous she is, not by Harry telling us how dangerous she is.

Now I’m going to start writing why the scene where Lara kissed Harry was messed up.  I hope you will enjoy it.  It will be posted in the True Love Protection Thread.  I will probably post it Sunday.