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Messages - Hankthemoose

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DF Spoilers / Re: Mirror Mirror character changes ideas
« on: September 18, 2021, 09:44:40 PM »
The main problem with these alternate character traits is that Jim has said that all the changes in the Mirror Mirror world will spring from Harry having made a single different choice in Grave Peril.

My vote for the root cause is Harry does not misuse Amoracchius, so the Leanansidhe cannot take it. As a result, Michael doesn't come to Bianca's ball, and everything goes downhill from there.

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DF Spoilers / Re: What will Eb do?
« on: September 18, 2021, 08:50:05 PM »
The Accords wouldn't be broken per se, but killing a wizard of the White Council would give the WC an actionable grievance against the White Court (assuming it could be proven to a given standard blah blah).  That kind of grievance can be settled sometimes with a weregild or higher stakes including war depending on the moods of the Accorded nations.  My understanding with the WC-RC war was that both parties wronged each other, so other nations had an out to stay neutral.

Pretty sure Maggie Sr. was not a WC member when she died. She was being hunted by the wardens.

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DF Spoilers / Re: Why is Marcone such a heavy magical hitter?
« on: December 04, 2020, 03:57:56 PM »
It's because Marcone actually studies and learns how to do magic, that's why. He doesn't have any real power to work with, but that's whatever, Namshiel can provide the power for him, just like Bob did for Butters.

Harry meanwhile has the power and talent to perform magic himself, but he'd rather coast through on talent alone instead of actually training and learning.

If you have natural talent, and actually put effort in as well, you get Eb.

Harry is constantly described as a fanatical magic nerd by literally everyone except Harry himself. Saying he coasts in any way directly contradicts the books. Harry thinks of himself as a magical blunt object, but that's just his own perception of himself—and it's what Mab is trying to get him to embrace with her "training".

Especially in the earlier books, we get lots of focus on how Harry's only hobby is perfecting his magical skills, and how he's a magical expert. Whenever his relative skill level compared to other wizards comes up, it is pointed out that he's considered "too young to be taken seriously". At the same time, we see him constantly tinker with and come up with new spells, the occasional potion, better, shinier enchantments, and hellishly complicated voodoo representations of entire cities.

Thinking that Harry doesn't focus on training and learning means fundamentally misunderstanding the character. He's obsessed.

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DF Spoilers / Re: He's gonna do it.
« on: December 03, 2020, 12:26:03 PM »
I'd imagine they'd have to be animals he has a connection to, psychologically.  I can see a wolf, based on his associations. Or a hound dog, because of his profession and mindset.

I don't think he has a lot of associations with lizards or horses, puns aside.

If Harry turns into any kind of canid, the only acceptable choice of teacher would be Aunty Lea. The alphas make sense, of course, but it would be fundamentally wrong for Harry to learn something in any fashion that's less than maximally humiliating.

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DF Spoilers / Why is Marcone such a heavy magical hitter?
« on: December 03, 2020, 12:20:38 PM »
Marcone was a vanilla mortal before he picked up Namshiel. My understanding was that the amount of power someone could access was a matter of genetics. If Marcone had the kind of inborn talent that Harry had, it should have manifested on its own, before Namshiel. Marcone would have been summoning monsters, ripping holes in reality, or doing other mad sorcerer stuff on accident his entire life.

I think the easiest excuse is that Namshiel somehow "gave" Marcone a big magical talent, but there's a problem with that. All of the fallen angels are ancient and know basically everything there is to know—presumably also about magic. So then, all of the Knights of the Blackened Denarius should be slinging mad spells like pros, especially the smarter carriers. Instead, you've got guys like snake boy the one-hit wonder and Tessa's mob of oddly transformed goons.

So... what gives? Any ideas?

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Harry is going to live in a magic castle in the middle of Chicago and call himself The Wizard Of Chicago. That seems fairly flagrant. A lot like a middle finger to Scotland. And Wizards should move with caution before starting a loud fight in Chicago lest they start to find themselves targets of Hellfire missiles.  And if he gets married to Lara, the WC could find themselves in a war with two groups of monsters. Lara's accountants and the Fomor.
This is definitely where things are headed. I also fully expect Harry to go public, trying to establish formal contact with the FBI and the men in black, and selling them the idea of the WC as a serious threat to national security that would be in their interest to contain.

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DF Spoilers / Re: What's the deal with the horrible communication skills?
« on: September 30, 2020, 05:48:39 PM »
Mostly I think the thing with both Carlos and Eb are just to build tension that can be dramatically resolved in a critical reversal, ultimately resulting in Harry getting them both for his new Chicago troubleshooting organization.

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DF Spoilers / Re: What's the deal with the horrible communication skills?
« on: September 30, 2020, 05:30:36 PM »
   I think there isn't a whole lot Harry can say to Carlos at this point as long as he is Winter Knight.
I think what happened when he and Molly attempted to make love did more than cripple him physically, it left severe emotional scars as well.  I realize he is a Warden and his duty is to enforce what the Senior Council rules, but he seemed to have drunk the whole glass of kool aid as well.  Does he really think Harry is a monster?  Does he really think it is Harry's fault that his fellow Wardens were killed or worse by the Black Court?

Do you honestly think confessing to Carlos that Thomas was his brother would help?  Or would Carlos have the same attitude as Eb?  Or more to the point if this did get around that his half brother was a vampire, the Council would be even more against him.Except Eb doesn't share them, so in the end he might make it worse not just for Carlos but Eb as well.That wouldn't get him very far, especially if Carlos already didn't trust him.Except Carlos seems perfectly willing to become Morgan, that is the problem.. Harry is back to being under the Doom.

Carlos' state of mind, and his eventual response to what Harry says isn't really that important. What isn't believable is that Harry wouldn't say anything, regardless how Ramirez deals with it. Harry isn't a calculating creature, he is supposed to wear his heart on his sleeve, saying what's on his mind and fuck the consequences. Trying to either resolve the issue, or just lash out both make sense. Saying "You're gonna feel dumb later" rings totally hollow and bad faith when following absolutely no attempt to explain anything.

The point isn't that the plot would change in any way. The point is that the dialogue is lame and breaks character.

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DF Spoilers / What's the deal with the horrible communication skills?
« on: September 30, 2020, 05:09:25 PM »
I don't get why Harry doesn't tell Ramirez anything. Specifically, I don't get why he tells him NOTHING AT ALL.

He reasons that he can't tell him about Thomas, and therefore says nothing. Well. A normal human would just leave that part out, instead of clamming up. His refusal to say anything at all breaks the suspension of disbelief, and was super bad writing imo.

As a few examples, he could have done things like...
Appeal to authority - "The Blackstaff knows my secrets, and why I can't share them. Take it up with him."
Appeal to emotion - "Information is dangerous, and I'm trying to protect you and other people I care about."
Explain a different problem - "The WC is compromised, and I don't know if the wardens are involved."
Scoff - "The WC has been trying to kill me from day 1. I didn't expect you to become Morgan the moment they wound up the pressure on me again.

A couple of those sound very much like stuff Harry would actually say, especially that last one. The way he did respond was a bit weird, but worse, it was boring and not believable.


10
I fully expect him to launch a propaganda war against the WC featuring his usual heavy handed Star Wars metaphors.

For real, though, I expect him to found a new and competing institution of organized Wizardry, incorporating the low talents of the Paranet, and working closely with both Summer and Winter, and focusing on an aspect of balance, like the fae.

This means they wouldn't kill, but rather recruit and work to redeem kids who started the slide into black magic due to lack of guidance. This would allow Harry to begin to build the larger powerbase he refers to at the end of BG.

To balance Harry, and to liaise with Summer, this would involve pulling in Elaine. She is sort of a lighter mirror of Harry, so this would fit very well with the story so far.

The WC would definitely order Eb to kill Harry at this point. He will refuse, causing a schism and breaking the WC's power in the process. Because Jim is an asshole, he would then definitly send Ramirez to kill them both.

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DF Spoilers / Does the Oblivion War create Outsiders?
« on: August 17, 2019, 08:34:12 AM »
Erasing the awareness of a supernatural entity prevents it from being able to interact with reality, right?

The Oblivion War is basically about taking gods, and other Big Bads and causing them to be forgotten, so that they disappear.

The thing is, this basically also describes the whole situation with the Old Ones, who are confirmed outsiders. So, are some/all of the current Outsiders just former Insiders, trying to get home?

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Any epic GoT style uber series had better cast James Marsters for something in it...

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I don't like it, it doesn't pass the smell test.

Having a Spire Albion at all, much less putting it front and center in the story, essentially disqualifies the Aleran connection. It would very sloppy to reference things like Aurora, Olympia, or Albion in an Aleran context, considering that there is no earlier indication that earth mythology/religion exists in any form in Alera.


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I think the actual events are different than Hankthemoose described.   Based on what was described Dead Beat, Lea challenged Mab in some way.   Mab stated that Lea thought the atheme gave her that right and she showed her the error of her ways.   

We know from later books that this is when Mab realized lea was infected.  We also learn that the challenge was related to Harry - specifically Lea was desperate to help Harry against the necromancers in Dead Beat.  That desperation was presumably what tipped Mab off about the infection as it is not typical of Fey.  But I cannot remember which books gave this info, but they were late stage books (cold days perhaps). 

I also believe that Mab was holding the Atheme during her meeting with Harry during Dead Beat, but I am a bit hazy on this.  If correct, then Mab had already taken the Atheme from Lea and cleansed it.   Certainly Lea was aware that the athemea was how she was infected and holds a grudge -- which she explained to harry to justify Mab using her to help him during Changes.   Mab was doing a favor for Lea to allow her to get her revenge on the red court - otherwise lea's services would have been much more expensive to Mab.

Lea didn't think the Athame "gave her the right". It simply made it possible for her to act against her inherent nature, and so to violate the terms of her relationship to Mab, which would be obvious to Mab regardless of exactly how she "challenged" her.

I just reread most of the series for maybe the 6th or 7th time a week ago, and there is no indication that I've ever seen that this challenge is in any way related to Harry, or that Lea is even interested in supporting Harry against the Kemmlerites in Dead Beat. Lea is encased in ice at the time, why would she even know about those events at all? Why would she be desperate? Are you just making stuff up? That's a huge reach unless you've got a source for it.

Please provide references for what you're talking about, or just a quick quote.


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DF Spoilers / Re: Non-plot moments you're most looking forward to
« on: June 01, 2019, 10:44:28 AM »
Right, but the Merlin does have authority to do that kind of thing.

I just have yet to hear anything that gives me any good reason to think the Merlin would be on the GC, and it doesn't make sense to me that he would be. I suppose Jim will let us know eventually.

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