Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - Serack

Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6
46
DF Reference Collection / Suggestions for when you make your Theory/Refrence topic.
« on: July 11, 2012, 02:51:50 PM »
Formatting:
I find that formatting really helps with conveighing ideas.  A block of text might contain some of the best theorizing ever, but I might have trouble slogging through it and never fully appreciate its full glory without some line brakes and maybe some bulleted supporting evidence or something of that nature. 

I understand (from lots of experience) that this takes time (both to learn, and to do), so only do what you are comfortable with.  Also, there are a few posters that have shown willingness to help reformat particularly excelent theories in ways that reverently respect the origional poster's baby, and yet greatly improve upon the readability of the theory. 

Also, I have a topic elsewhere with a few tips on formating of quotes and such over here.

Other suggestions:
If you include a quote of the text, include what chapter of the book you got it from.  Page numbers aren't always helpful since they vary between the editions of the books.

If you are quoting a forum based WoJ, I am willing to help you with getting the code that embeads the link to the WoJ within the quote.  (example below).  Just say within your topic "Serack can you get me the WoJ link code?"  I will try to get it for you from the WoJ section.  In the past I have taken brakes from the forum from time to time, but when I am active just saying "Serack" within your post is a very effective way of being sure that I will read it and respond if necessary (the advanced search function facilitates this for me)

Also, if you are the OP of a theory topic that has been transfered to the collection, and you want to do a little bit of editing to clean it up/reformat it and maybe add quotes of responses in the body to your OP so that people have an easy time seeing all the pertinant info (here's an example where I did just that), but the topic is locked, making the editing impossible, send me a PM and I will see if I can work something out.

Also important:
Many ideas around here go through a bit of evolution, and if you put a lot of effort into a new theory/reference topic that builds on other people's work and ideas, cite them by dropping their names, quoting them, and adding links to the posts they made that you are working off of. 

Quote from: Sir Isaac Newton
If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants.

47
DF Reference Collection / Let us know about new WoJ's here
« on: July 11, 2012, 01:55:13 PM »
If you know of a WoJ source that you want to suggest get put in the WoJ forum/get linked to in the link collection, please mention it in this topic.

This new topic will serve part of the purpose of the old WoJ transcription sticky.

To be more specific, Jim is known to do interviews for other people's websites and they don't always get announced on the website.  If you happen to come across one of these, let us know here.  Also, like many of us, Jim is active all over the internet.  I have come across random posts by Jim in places like youtube, Amazon, various writing websites, and of course Twitter.  If you notice something noteworthy anywhere on the internet that Jim has said, or that quotes something Jim said in an interview or something, let us know here :)

However, if it's already been announced in the announcements section, is a post on the jimbutcher forums, or is something already linked in the interview list, you can probably safely assume that it's already been referenced in the WoJ section.

Also, I don't really do twitter.  I'll quote something I've already written on the subject, but suffice to say, usually if anything cool is said on twitter, I find out from you guys rather than finding it myself.

Quote from: Serack on July 03, 2012, 09:14:43 PM
My aversion to Twitter stems from the fact that I don’t text.  Period.  Sending or receiving.  It’s disabled on my phone.  (There have been a few occasions when having that means of communication might have been convenient, but paring down my communications to the bare bones of ~ a gross of characters is something I refuse to sucumb to for now)  Also, since I am prohibited from having a camera phone at work, and by extension don’t want to bother with the cost of a data plan, I don’t have a smart phone.

But I have two specific issues with twitter.
  • Twitter pages load particularly slow on some of the computers I use.  It’s quite frustrating, considering the “I want it now” way things usually are on the internet.
  • The times I have gone to Jim’s twitter, I usually have large issues finding the tweets he is responding to so that I have context.  Someone savvy probably doesn’t have problems like that, but coupled with everything else, I figure I’ll just be a fuddy duddy and not bother.

An RSS probably wouldn’t address that last issue.  But hey what would I know.  I spend hours at a time searching for old interviews and obscure WoJ sources that I might have missed in earlier trolling expeditions (in the fishing sense of the word) of the inter-webs.  So in that context, I figure I’d rather be pleasantly surprised when some other dedicated, twitter savvy fan finds something there and posts it for me to see here on the boards.

48
DF Reference Collection / Reference Collection Index
« on: July 11, 2012, 12:27:40 PM »
This sticky is intended to serve as an organized index of references and discussions on the series.  Most of the theories that come to conclusions are indexed seperately in Elegast's Theory Index sticky.

The second post in this topic serves as a index of topics by poster.  It currently contains those by posters with half a dozen or more Theories/topics (plus knnn with is 5 links)

The Index:

External References:
the blog "Sarah's Reviews" seems to do an impressive job of keeping track of information on future books.

References

Former stickies
Priscellie's Dresden Files: Series Timeline
WoJ transcription help needed
Mention new WoJ's here
Unsolved Mysteries Version II
Jim-Butcher.com - A Dictionary


General Forum References
Forum Code advice and other Forum FAQ*

DF references
      List references
Harry's Power Ups
Dark Influences on Harry
List of Dresden Files locations (external link)
List of Harry's Head Aches
List of those likely not "infected"
What Harry's friends have endured

      Excerpt and WoJ collections
Catalogue of Harry's Nightmares (WIP)
Worst Kick in the Gut Moments in the Series
Dialogues with Portents and Parents
Soulgazes and Sights
Soulgazes with Harry (old, and inferior to the one linked immediately above)

      Info & research references
Things Jim has tweaked in the series
The importance of Names.
Santa is a Farie (collection of evidence)
Reference/research on Tam Lin
Key Words for Outsider Magic and Mordite
Making magic stick vs outsiders
The Science of Gravity Spells
Mythological figures we'd like to see
Yeats references in the DF
Origins of the Sidhe (High Fae)

      Misc. References
Harry Dresden, Most Wanted [GS Spoils]
This is why the Council is Afraid of Harry Dresden
X compared to Y = possible Discrepancy?
Series Spanning Plot Threads




Fun Stuff
Dresden Files Geek Code (long)
Dresden Files Purity Test
Penguin/ROC releases CD cover and more [Major Spoilers]
Cold Days predict-a-thon

Theory & discussions
Elegast's Theories Index is now the main index for theories.  The links listed below are more for discussions that might not come to distinct conclusions that are easily catagorized in that index -Serack
Discussion on Harry's prison for Lasciel's coin
Maggie LeFay and the Outsiders
Uriel's long game?
The Madness of Queen Mab A.K.A. the "barely over-paranoid" neurovore theory*
Why was Molly taken to Arctis Tor?
Harry's murdering non-humans!
Discussion on Demonreach and Wardens

* these topics either reside in archives outside the DFRC, or are in such archives and their transfer here is anticipated.

49
DF Reference Collection / Reference: X compared to Y = possible Discrepancy?
« on: June 22, 2012, 05:14:52 PM »
Ok, I am trying to do this reference topic carefully because even though Jim admits he is fallibly human, occasionaly when people point out instances of this, his fandom is rather enthusiastic in their defense of his work.

So since topics about individual possible Discrepancies show up around here rather cyclically, because the official FAQ version of this topic hasn't been updated in quite a while, and because I seem to enjoy making reference topics, I thought I would start working on this one.

In the spirit of respect for Jim, and his fans, if you contribute to this reference, please try to do so in a manor that does just that, and that acknoledges that Jim has been able to do a great job of finding creative, cohesive ways to get such discrepancies to work quite well within the world he has created.  (Here's an example)

Edit:  For an alternate explanation for any discrepancy you mind find, there is this video.  (Brought to my attention by groinkick)

Quote from: Patrick Rothfuss interviews Jim Butcher
PR: Harry is the “get back up” guy.
JB: He is. He is. And that was a very conscious choice in the beginning, too. I wanted a guy that I could beat up a lot. And it wasn't actually until about the fourth book in that a fan pointed out, “hey, you've done this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and he's taken all these injuries here. I'm a professional therapist, and he would take this much therapy to get back from this, and he would never recover from this..” and I'm like, “wow, you really have beaten him up a lot. You know, wizards must just be better at getting better than other people, I need to write that in. Hey, we'll tie that in with how long they live, and, okay, cool. That works. That's good.”
PR: I always think of that in terms of course correction. You get some feedback, or a Beta reader gives you...
JB: Absolutely.
PR: And then you're like, “oh, that's a really good point, I guess you can't have a million people living in a pre-industrial society, you know, everyone dies of dysentery.” So, how much of that do you tend to  engage in as the series goes on, because you have a story and a story and a story, whereas I tend to do a huge block of story, and then there's a three-year gap, how much course direction would you say you do  with the overall story in between books based on feedback?
JB: Considerable. I mean, when someone has a good point they have a good point, and I'm not a perfect person, so when someone will point something like that out, I'll go, “okay, how can I take this and how can I use it as part of the story, and either keep it the way it is and have a good reason for it to be that way, or else spin it, or fix it, or have somebody realize something new about the world that hasn't been brought out before. I mean, that's kind of the creative challenge is kind of “how to make this cooler  and better?” and not, “how do I let this be a big hole in my story somewhere?” How to make it stronger, instead of less.
PR: And I think one of the great strengths of your writing is the reasonableness of it. Because sometimes you can tell somebody's patching a plot-hole, and it's just like they're putting a poster over the hole in the wall, but when you present one of these explanations, it's so smooth, and it makes such good, rational sense, that it seems like you built it in from the very beginning.
JB: Yes! Oh, I did. All of it. Word for word, I've got it all laid out. On a scroll.

As for formatting, here is what I want to do.  Within this post I will make a list of the common "Discrepancies."  Eventually as this topic gets fleshed out, I want to make individual posts within the topic that explain the details in depth with lots of refrences and stuff, and have links embedded in the "List."  Your help building up those detailed posts will be much appreciated, and cited.


* may need some references or other work

50
DF Reference Collection / Mouse's Origins
« on: June 15, 2012, 02:13:33 AM »
This is an attempt to outline a strong theory post for Mouse's Origin based off of lots of earlier discussions from about a year ago.  Also, like many of my theory posts, this one is heavily reliant on text quotes and WoJ's and rather than pepper it with blocks of quotes, I'll place them all at the bottom and reference them in the body of the theory as I go.

I like to split Mouse's origin into three ideas.  His physical origin, his temporal origin, and the source of his power. 

Mouse's Physical Origin:
Physically Mouse was probably born in a monastery somewhere on the Tibetan Plateau.  This is based off of Harry's description of them at the beginning of Blood Rites,txt#1 and the assumption that Esmerelda's "Land of Dreams"txt#4 is a reference to Edmund Candler's and other British descriptions of Tibet in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (Props to lovejoy69 for bringing Candler to my attention)

Mouse's Temporal Origin:
According to Harry in BRtxt#1 and Bob in WNtxt#2 Mouse is quite possibly from a lineage of Scions of a "celestial guard spirit."  Harry and Bob both make their descriptions with a little skepticism sprinkled in, but the reactions of several others when they see Mousetxt#3 lend pretty strong weight to this idea.

Mouse's source of power:
Text Reference #5 is the reason why this gets it's own section, and it is where I have the most fun theorizing about Mouse.  Lea seems to think that Mouse needs to be near Tibet to truly exert his strength, but Mouse implies that being near Harry is good enough for him.  This coupled with the Wikipedia description of Foo Dogs makes me think that the Foo Dog's typical source of power is tied to the purpose/calling of guarding the mystically/magically significant Buddhist temples.  No guard duty, no power.  And Mouse cheats by guarding something possibly just as metaphysically important...  Harry.  I think their mutual loyalty is heavily tied into this too.

Aforementioned WoJ's and Book Excerpts
Text Reference #1
Quote from: Blood Rites Ch. 1
Thomas glanced back at the box.  "Cute little furballs.  What's their story?"

"Guardian dogs from some monastery in the Himalayas.  Someone snatched them and came here.  A couple of monks hired me to get them back."

"What, they don't have dog pounds in Tibet?"

They believe these dogs have a foo heritage."
"Is that like epilepsy or something?"
I snorted... "The monks think their great-grandcestor was a divine spirit-animal.  Celestial guard spirit.  Foo dog.  They believe it makes the bloodline special."

Text Reference #2
Bob on Foo Dogs:
Quote from: White Night Ch. 14
Well, the're not entirely mortal," Bob said.  They're Scions of a celstial being called a Foo Dog and a mortal canine.  The're very intelligent, very loyal, tough, and can seriously kick ass if they need to do it.  But mostly, they're sentinels.  They keep an eye out for dark spirits or dark energy, guard the people or places they're supposed to guard, and alert others to the presence of danger."

Text Reference #3
Quote from: TC ch. 47
[Ancient] Mai looked as if someone had hit her between the eyes with a sledgehammer.  "That," she said, in a breathless tone, "is a Foo dog."  She stared at me.  "Where did you get such a thing?  And why were  you allowed to keep it?"
"He sort of picked me," I said.

Text Reference #4
Quote from: Changes Ch. 26
"What is it, our love?" Esteban asked quietly.

"The Ik'k'uox," she said in a distant, puzzled voice. "It is in pain. It flees. It..." She opened her eyes very wide, and suddenly they flooded in solid black, just as the creature's had been. "Oh! It cheated!" Her face turned down to mine, and she bared her fangs. "It cheated! It brought a demon of its own! A mountain ice demon fron the Land of Dreams!"

"If you don't exercise them, they're impossible," I said, philosophically.

Text Reference #5
Quote from: Changes Ch. 41
"You are far from your sources of power here, my dear demon."
"I live with a wizard.  I cheat."

Quote from: WoJ
@longshotauthor:  Oh, wow, here is almost exactly Mouse: http://bit.ly/f6Ot9M

More recent WOJs on the subject:
Quote from: WOJ
badowntown: Is mouse a Foo dog or a Temple dog? My understanding is that Foo dogs are Tibetan celestial beings, and Temple dogs are Foo dogs crossed with mortal canines (possibly multiple generations removed).
You, at one point, referred to mouse as a Temple dog, but Ancient Mai at one point in Turn Coat exclaims something like "That is a Foo Dog. Where did you get it!?". Could you clarify?
Jim: You're splitting hairs, here. They're the same thing (for every practical purpose). A Foo Dog is a celestial being which chooses to give up its divinity (and immortality) to serve and protect in the mortal world. Part of being mortal is having offspring, who share in their progenitor's power.
Quote from: WOJ
Marathonbrewer: Will Mouse continue to operate at Foo dog level now that he's guarding Maggie? When he faced down Lea in Mexico she said that he was far from his place of power, but he replied that he cheated by living with a wizard. Does that mean he needs to live with a full-fledged wizard or just someone with wizard talent? Obviously he'd still be a giant killing machine with a snarky personality, but I worry that he might try to bite off more than he can chew if he loses the Superdog status.
Jim: Here's something I'm not sure will ever make the books: Mouse draws the fundaments of his power from a house's threshold. /Weaker/ at the /Carpenter's/? Ye gods and little fishes, he went from Thing to Hulk when he moved in to protect Maggie. But, having grown up with a wizard who regards conventions as things to mourn as they are shattered into little pieces, and to speak nicely about in retrospect, he's learned to use other kinds of power, too.
-Elegast

51
Site Suggestions & Support / DF Spoilers Reference child board
« on: May 01, 2012, 11:45:41 AM »
This suggestion is a place for things like some of the DF spoilers stickies to live and otherwise be born and grow.  The FAQ section would be a good spot for stuff like this if it were allowed to be dynamic, but since others can't contribute there, the most useful things there had to be moved over to spoilers.

One of the points of making a seperate home for these, is that ones that are deemed particularly significant can be saved from oblivion via the sticky function without cluttering up the main Spoilers discussion area. 

Remember the topic built a year ago that listed every time there was a Soul Gaze?  It would have been perfect for this section, but now it is gone.  (I think I archived it on another computer though, I'll have to look later)

52
DF Reference Collection / Catalogue of Harry's Nightmares (WIP)
« on: April 17, 2012, 02:48:11 PM »
A post in the non spoilers section reminded me of how Harry once said that he started getting nightmares shortly before his father died.  This certainly seems to lend a certain significance to Harry's nightmares, and I decided that I wanted to catalogue them, along with mentionings of his father's death.  I already listed pretty much everything mentioning Harry's nightmares up through BR, and I'll be adding more in this topic as I continue to work on it.  If anyone remembers something I missed, including mentions of his father (which I still have to start on) please chime in.  And if you have any coalescing theories on their significance please share them too.

Quote from: FM ch 20
I'm just Subconcious Harry.  I'm your inner voice, bub.  Your intuition, your inistinct, your basic, animal reactions.  I make your dreams, and decide which nightmares to pop in the old psychic VCR at night.

Quote from: GP ch 9
I dreamed.
The nightmare felt familiar, almost comfortable, though it had been a few years since I had gone through it.  [he goes on to describe his godmother torturing him]
[/snip]
The dream changed.  I dreamt of fire.  Someone I had once loved like a father tood in the middle of it, screaming in agony...

Quote from: SK ch 5
There was no way to tell which of them had been victims of the vampires and already dead when the fire got to them and which, if any, had been alive before I came along.  I still have nightmares about it.

Quote from: SK ch 10
I wasn't too tired to dream.  Evidently, my subconcious-we've met, and he's kind of a jerk-had something on his mind, because the dream was a variation on the theme that had taken up most of my sleeping hours since I'd last met Susan.
[Harry goes on to describe a nightmare where Susan seduces him then vamps out on him completing her transformation to become a full Rampire]

Quote from: DM ch 15
I had bad dreams.
They were the usual fare.  Flames devoured someone who screamed my name.  A pretty girl spread her arms, eyes closed, and fell slowly backward as dozens of fine cuts opened all over her skin.  The air became a fine pink spray.  I turned from it, into a kiss with Susan who drew me down and tore out my throat with her teeth.
A woman who seemed familiar but whom I did not recognize shook her head and drew her hand from left to right.  The dream-scenery faded to black in the wake of her motion.  She turned to me, dark eyes intent and said, "You need to rest."

Quote from: DM ch 17
The Red Court vampires don't look like most would think.  They looked like giant, hairless bats with slick, rubbery skin.  They could cover themselves with a flesh mask in order to look human, but I'd seen what was underneath the mask. 
I'd been exposed to it.  Thoroughly.  I still had nightmares.

Quote from: BR ch 41
it was just then that the swirling clouds over the empty triangle coalesced into a vague outline of an inhuman face - one that I recognized from the darkest hour of my past and the nightmares it had inhabited since.[He Who Walks Behind goes on to gloat over how he had returned]

Quote from: DB ch 12
"This is a nice change of pace from my  usual dream," I said.
"How so?"  my father asked.
"Fewer tentacles.  Fewere screams.  Less death."
[/snip]
"So," I said.  "Why haven't I dreamed about you before?"
"Because I wasn't allowed to contact you before," my father said easily.  "Not until others had crossed the line."

Also from that scene:  (I think it's significant considering the end of GS)
Quote from: DB ch 12
"You are the product of your own choices, Harry, and nothing can change that.  Don't let anyone or anything tell you otherwise."

Quote from: DB ch 35
My reaction to the fire had been sheer and naked terror, and even no wmy hand throbbed with the pain of illusory burns.  Ever since the fire I'd had nightmares of more.

Harry's inner monologue dealing with executing Corpsetaker:
Quote from: PG ch 1
I'd killed.  Deliberately, rationally ended another's life.
And it still haunted my dreams at night.

Quote from: PG ch 12
The little demonic diorama of bad vibes painted oer the white tiles of that bathroom ws going to make some appearances in my darker dreams.

Quote from: PG ch 26
I was captured by the Red Court once.  Held in the dark by a crowd of hissing, mosterous shapes.
They did things.
There was nothing I could do about it.
I still had the nightmares to remind me.  Not every nithg, maybe, but often enough.  Often enough.

Quote from: DB ch 27
I heard myself whimpering and had a flashback to any number of nightmares where I could not move swiftly enough to escape the danger.

Quote from: PG ch 47
"I murdered them.  I've never killed, man... not like that.  Cold."  I drove a while more.  "I have nightmares."

Quote from: WN ch 3
It [the morgue] was one of those places that show up a lot in my nightmares.

Quote from: WN ch 24
Elaine sat at the head of the bed with her legs crossed.  My head lay comfortably upon her calves as it had so many times before... as they had in a house I barely remembered except in dreams

Quote from: WN ch 33
After I was through scheming, I dragged my tired self to bed and slept hard but not long.  Too many dreams about all the things that could go wrong.

Quote from: SmF ch 36
I didn't want to wake up.  I was having a dream where I wasn't hurt, and no one was kicking me around.  The walls were white and smooth and clean, lit only by frosty moonlight, and someone with a gentle voice was speaking quietly to me.  But my right hand had broken into a fierce tingling, all pins and needles, and sleep began to retreat.  (Context, Harry is resting after the rumble in the Shedd, not long before Michael breaks Mab's mind wammy on him)

Quote from: TC ch 1
"I spent the first several years of my adult life looking over my shoulder, worrying about this guy [Morgan].  Getting hounded and herassed by him.  I had nightmares for a while, and he was in them."  Truth be told, I still had nightmares occasionally, about being persued by an implacable killer in a grey cloak, holding a wicked cold sword.

Quote from: Changes ch 21
It had been years since I had even thought about Victor Sells or his victims.  Theyhad featured in my nightmares for quite a while until I upgraded.

Quote from: Changes ch 26
I've been abused by Red Court vampires in the past.  I still have nightmares sometimes.

53
DF Reference Collection / Doylist analysis on LC fix timing
« on: April 02, 2012, 10:16:12 PM »
Who fixed LC is a topic that typically gets a lot of mileage around here.  Especially since LC is a pet theory hot topic for some around here *looks significantly at the quacker.*  So sorry if this has already been thoroughly rehashed, and sorry that I dedicated this to it's own topic, but I spent a bit of time klobbering it together so I wanted it to stand alone.

Having read through PG a couple weeks ago, I had something jump out at me during this most recent reread since I was thinking about LC.  This is a rather Doylist analysis (TvTropes warning)

(ch. 15) Harry takes Mouse and Bob with him first thing in the day after his interrupted attempt to use LC to track black magic.  However, Harry doesn't take Bob out of his pack until he sets up the spell to tag the phage summoner in his hotel room shortly before sundown(ch. 23).  And all Bob does is offer an opinion on the spell, nothing big.  Harry has only taken Bob along on a case 3 other times.  In GP, Bob is crucial in leading Harry through the NN.  In Changes, Harry took Bob out to help guard against the will of the LotON, and significantly from a Doylist perspective, he took Bob out to Murph's in DB only to have him become vulnerable to being stolen by Cowl. 

Here's the thing though.  In chapter 15, Murph gives Harry a ride to the hospital to examine the victims of the previous night's phage attack only to bring him right back to the apartment in chapter 18.  From Harry's motivations the only thing accomplished by going back to the appt. is the chance to walk Mouse before having to call a cab to go right back out to Mac's to visit with the Summer Knight.  Really there isn't much good reason for Harry not to just skip the cab fare and get Murph to drop him off at Mac's in the first place.

So here's the Doylist conclusion: 
Either Jim removed a laundry list of potential hurdles to having someone come in and fix LC at the beginning of the day's events, and then as an afterthought had Harry come back for the sole purpose of catching Thomas on his way out, with the return having nothing to do with the timing of LC's fixing...  Or Jim had Harry pick up Bob (and Mouse) early in the day and lug him around the hospital despite him planning on coming right back to the appt because he deliberately wanted LC to get fixed while Harry was at the hospital.  The only reason why I can think of for needing it to happen during this time frame is because Thomas was in the appt while Harry was at the hospital, and thus Thomas was involved in the fix (probably by letting whoever did it in). 

[Edit:  Don't fixate on Thomas letting the perp in.  That's a /possible/ reason.  The true theory/conclusion is that Jim needed Thomas there when it happened, letting the perp in is a resonable guess as to why]

P.S.  Thanks wyltok for giving me a term for "theorizing from a writing perspective rather than from an in story perspective"

Edit:
Some extra thoughts posted in follow up posts (mostly mine unless otherwise noted):

  • Looking at Thomas's actions in Backup, my secondary conclusions are that if Thomas let the "fixer" in without explaining it to Harry, he did it for very good reasons, and with good intentions.

  • This gets me thinking... Whoever Thomas could have let in would have to be someone that doesn't care about a WCV living with Harry or flat out knows their relationship.

  • Quote from: Priscellie on April 03, 2012, 04:09:23 PM
    Still, Jim is pretty good at keeping his books lean and relevant.  If something isn't necessary for a book, why put it there?  The Doylist argument of "He just figured this [time travel] out and wanted to show it off" doesn't hold up to me.  I don't think he'd contrive to include a "this is how time travel works" treatise in PG if time travel wasn't crucial to the events of that novel.

  • Also, the fact that Thomas greeted Harry with the sawed off Shot Gun at the beginning of Ch 18 when he is coming in the door made me think that maybe he was particularly jumpy at the time, and wonder how that flavors this theory.  I started going down the train of thought that maybe the perp was still in the appt at the time, but if so, Mouse would have probably keyed in on a veiled exit.

  • Super Summary:  The doylist point isn't necessarily that whoever did the fixing needed Thomas to let him in, although that was said to be a possible conclusion.  The doylist point is that Jim needed Thomas in the appt when the fixing was done

11/9/2015 edit:
In a recent reading I took note that immediately after Molly's interrupting his aborted attempt to use LC to sniff out black magic on the first evening of PG, he ended up bringing Mouse with him to "bail out" Molly.  Doylist thoughts on this:
  • The weak given reason for bringing Mouse is that Mouse gave a hopefull look and batted the leash (basically asked to come).  Jim worked in a joke around a comment immediately before that about being "a sucker for a pretty face" with respect to his damsel in distress button being pushed, and commented on Mouse's desire to come with, "You ain't pretty, furface." 
    Although funny, the joke seems a little forced, possibly in an attempt to cover the lame excuse to bring Mouse?
  • Bringing Mouse seems to have accomplished very little, but not nothing. 
    • Proxy friendliness to the cabby ("Mouse has better people skills than me.")
    • Warning growl about the white tail car (later attributed to Thomas supposedly)
    • Initial negative reaction towards Molly.
    • Up front establishment that Mouse would be along for most of the case.

Just some thoughts.  Together with the original theory, they show that Mouse getting out of the Appt. the next morning isn't as outlying, and that if the mystery fixer was actually in the Appt. while Harry was dealing with Molly that night, then Bob was there too.

54
Site Suggestions & Support / Search full of empty
« on: March 30, 2012, 04:37:14 PM »
With searches limited to 25 hits now, it has become more significant to me when search results have responses that don't actually have what I searched for in them and are therefore blank in the results page.

Today is the first time I got 25 hits that were empty when I searched for "Feynman" though.  Something is odd with the search algorythm...

P.S.  The results for that search might change with the generation of this topic and the one I am about to make in the "Other Media" section.

Edit:  Some changes for clarity

55
DF Reference Collection / Dark influences on Harry
« on: March 20, 2012, 12:08:24 AM »
So I was just thinking how there have been several instances where Harry went through something and afterwords he felt stained.  There is even one instance where he speaks with that oracle spirit in DM and the spirit says she senses dark magic on him and he says not all of it is his, probably referring to his consuming the Nightmare's "Chi"

So I thought I'd compile a list of all the times Harry went through something that stained him.  I might make two separate lists, one of definite dark influences, and one of things that are more ambiguous in how they stained him...

The thing is, there are so many instances of this stuff, that I am sure to miss lots, so help is appreciated.


Dark Influences
  • Harry is stalked by HHWB, gaining his shadow
    • "I felt... Stained, simply by feeling its presence, stained as if it had left some hideous imprint or mark up on me, one that could not be wiped away." GS ch 31
  • Harry kills Justin, breaking the First Law.
  • Harry Consumes the Nightmare
  • Harry Picks up Lasciel's coin
  • Harry redirects the Entropy Curse
    • "I felt a sudden terror that something had been torn away from me; that in simple contact with that dark energy, I had been scarred somehow, marked.
      Or changed. BR Ch 17
  • Evil Bob marks Harry with Necromantic energy.

Other possible stains.  Either not necessarily dark, of unknown quality or not necessarily permanent. 
  • Leananshea does some dark rite on young Harry
  • Harry uses the Hexenwolf belt
  • Lots and Lots of Nasty True Sight viewings

56
Site Suggestions & Support / Forum Code advice and other Forum FAQ
« on: February 22, 2012, 03:31:50 PM »
I've answered similar questions about forum coding a few times now, and I think I'll post one of those here and use it as a reference in the future rather than generating the advice anew each time.

Edit:  I'm adding non coding questions and questions answered by the mods on multiple occasions on these forums.

Questions covered so far in this topic:
Code Advice

Other Advice

Other FAQ
What's going on with the next Dresden Files Novel?

57
Display Case / I bet you can't ____________
« on: February 22, 2012, 12:05:33 PM »
Some of Jim's coolest inspirations came from internet bets that he couldn't do something...

Examples would be the entire Alera series came from a bet that he couldn't write a good story based off of Lost Roman Legion and Pokémon.  Also the plot twist at the start of...

(click to show/hide)

So what thing do you see in books frequently that annoys you and you wish you would never come across in a book again, yet like picking at a scab, you wonder if Jim could put some of his creative genious into it and come up with another masterpiece?

I bet you can't _________

58
Site Suggestions & Support / Poll not coming out right
« on: February 01, 2012, 01:20:48 PM »
I'm considering doing a redux of this poll, but on my browser the votes do not line up with the options.  In fact, in wide screen, the votes form 2 columns independent of the categories

I believe this is the first time I have looked at it since we changed to the new BB code. 

59
Site Suggestions & Support / The Spoilers forum Transcription sticky =~ Mega-topic?
« on: January 25, 2012, 08:49:36 PM »
When I generated the transcription request sticky, I put a lot of thought into suggesting that contributers use a standard format that would give them credit if their work was copied and pasted into the WoJ archive. 

When I archive these contributions I always edit the ones that don't give themselves credit so that credit is there, and part of the motivation for that is that I always feared that the project could increase the forum server workload with the sheer volume of text in these posts in a way not unlike the Mega-topics we are asked to avoid. 

Part of any extra load would be due most of this volume duplicative, being in both the request sticky, and in the archive.  So if my fears are founded, and the sheer volume of all these transcripts is a less than negligible load on the servers, deleting a portion of the now archived transcripts might be worth doing by the administration.  Also, if this is the case I'll also go back and clean out some of my old WoJ compilation updates that duplicated the text I put into the compilation proper.

I could be worrying about nothing, but I don't want my WoJ zeal to have a negative impact on the server :)

60
DF Reference Collection / Black Council "Recruitment" [GS Spoilers]
« on: January 24, 2012, 05:08:01 PM »
So in thinking about topics like Lea, Christos, and Nic, I think I might have put a few things together...  The main inspiration for my conclusions is how during the conversation between Nic and Harry before the Rumble at the Shedd, Nic/Andariel seemed genuinely concerned about Harry's account of Hellfire being used at Arctis Tor, and considers such a thing a "contamination" if it's a member of the "Order."

Contamination is the key word here.   I am thinking that most of the “Black Council” operatives that Harry has a chance to interact with aren’t actually card carrying “members” but rather are contaminated somehow into doing things along the lines of what they want.  Contaminated by what?  Some kind of Outsider influence.  Vittorio Malvora was flat out possessed by an outsider, but maybe the same is true for pretty much every operative we have come across…  Others that are somehow contaminated, and possibly by outsiders (to some degree) would be… Aurora, Lea, Vittorio, and some more that deserve more elaboration… 

Thorned Namshiel might have been contaminated, but I’m thinking that Tessa is actually the major vector there, and he was working on her orders. 

Lord Raith might be contaminated, since he is so magically slippery, and when he became Neutralized, the “Black Council” had to act to reassert their sway over the White Court, hence the events of White Night.  He might actually be a “Card Carrying Member” considering Eb thought something “big” was protecting him.

I think the Red King was “contaminated.”  2 pieces of evidence towards this are that Harry thought he might have been going mad, and his hand reattaching was a “super vampire” move that seemed to closely parallel the “super ghoul” stuff we saw in White Night…

Justin is suspect since he was looking for candidate minions that might have power over Outsiders and he was obviously doing some pretty nasty black magic. 

Finally, and this is the big controversial one, Harry might be contaminated to some degree.  He is still tainted with the Shadow of HHWB, and something about the reveal in GS makes me suspect that HHWB let Harry win that fight, and that maybe he actually got some kind of influence over Harry out of the encounter.

ETA:  Elaine was forced to drink that blood by Justin, and she ran to Aurora for help, so she might be the Vector for her...  helps the Elaine=Kumori theories.

ETA2:  I ment to mention that Christos may be contaminated, and thus be mucking things up without being a conspirator.

Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6