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Pretty sure if that was an option they'd have discovered it and stopped cinverting enemies by now.Or just straight up replacement by a phage of some sort shoved into the body instead of the person.
There's pretty much got to be a degree of mental contamination from the conversion to egomaniac super-zombie to make them always chaotic evil.
Again, we don't know that, if old Thorny was a wizard to begin with, Namshiel could exploit that by presenting the idea that they had this lovely partnership. Consider how much more effective Namshiel would be if Harry had taken him up verses Marcone.. The host is a sock puppet, that doesn't make the Denarian less powerful, anymore than it does a Holy Knight when the angel in charge of the Sword takes over.I've got to ask why you're so set on this headcanon that Namshiel's previous host was a full blown wizard in terms of raw power.
Q: Why did the Denarians in Small Favor seem less powerful than in Death Masks?
A: If a Fallen has essentially overpowered their human host, then they have limited free will (they can’t use the free will of the human); a Denarian is much more powerful if they use the human as a partner.
What is your evidence that old Thorny was merely fodder host? Harry has also come a bit far since Small Favor.. As far as Soul Fire goes, when he went up against Namshiel in that book he didn't even know what he had been gifted with or it's nature, because it had just happened.. Not until he met up with Jake at the hospital and later when Bob explained it to him, and as Harry says in Cold Days, Bob doesn't know much about it.The fact that the host was a flesh puppet when it's confirmed that denarians that override their host have a lot less power to work with.
Exactly, he made vast improvements because he had to teach Molly. We don't know how long Marcone has had the coin, but apparently he never knew of or if he did know, take advantage ofInstead of rehashing the argument with you about how it's Marcone at the wheel I'm just going to point out that Namshiel at the wheel is actually even worse for Harry because Namshiel casually oneshotted Harry twice while working with a fodder host back in Small Favour and Harry still has no answer to him completely negating force attacks (and presumably also fire) besides spam soulfire and hope Marcone and Namshiel haven't planned for that in the years of planning for a rematch.
the ancient runes in the walls of what was his castle.. All this says that Marcone isn't studying his new craft either or at all. He is merely allowing himself to be a sock puppet for Namshiel. This is where the problems will come from for him.
Why does everyone assume that Marcone has more skills than Harry? Yes. Namshiel has been giving him crash courses but so far he's only shown two skills that Harry couldn't duplicate, teleportation over short range between two points and the ability to reshape stone.Because Marcone was just casually flinging up shields that could tank Ethniu, he's suddenly got way more guns than Sigrun could previously make, he could obscure Ethniu's vision and he could veil on top of the aforementioned teleportation and disintegration tricks. Any assumption that he's a one trick pony feels unlikely at best.
Marcone has no shield bracelet, no staff and no blasting rods. He has some enchanted muskets. He has access to knowledge but not the power and aptitude to do everything. Marcone will have some new tricks when next he fights, but if Harry puts in some work, so will he. He has Winter and Soulfire to counter Marcone's Hellfire and just flat out more magical juice than Marcone can muster. Plus Harry has the Spear, Shroud and Crown of Thorns in his arsenal. If Marcone can't beat Harry with an early strike or outmaneuver him, Harry will overpower him
I mean according to Jim Harry is about a Century away from teleportation at the earliest.Or just being a case of him not learning it yet but being at the right level for him as said by another interview a day or two apart. Consistency? What's that?
Thorn boy has accelerated Marcone so far past Harry that it's kind a joke.
I wouldn't give up on Harry yet.. There are other skills besides teleportation.And Marcone has most of them.
Tbh I'm hoping that our Harry manages to loot MM!Harry's corpse for some cool Magic Items.He had the handwavey excuse of not having any actual tools for making half of his kit (because he forgot to ask Thomas) on the island, that doesn't apply now that he's back in town.
I mean it took him literally a year+ to build just his staff, he's gonna need to cheat somehow if he wants to be back up to speed by the time of the Apocalypse at this rate.
No, he doesn't need to cheat.. He has at his finger tips all that he needs to kick ass, the Spear, the Eye, and a few other toys.. Let's not forget what Hades said about the Artifacts, paraphrasing, "only those clever enough to steal them is clever and strong enough to use them.." It weren't Marcone and it weren't Nic, it was Harry.Those are horrible replacements for tools in a direct fight with the exception of the spear and that one comes with it's own problems according to Harry.
The problem being that Marcone is not only smarter then Dresden, more powerful then Dresden, more skilled then Dresden, and has more money and support then Dresden. Marcone knows Dresden- knows his allies, knows how he operates.I'll give you 20 bucks if it's not fixed by Mirror Mirror.
Harry will have a lot of growing to do if he wants to beat Denarian!Marcone.
And frankly I doubt if he'll even have replaced his melted shield bracelet by the next crisis. The man is chronically allergic to using his brain or planning ahead.
But Harry didn't go to it, the meeting happened right after, Eb and LTW were still in surgery.. I don't think on this type of thing there is a general vote, if there were, there would have been back in Summer Knight.There were two separate votes, the first was the public one of whether to kick Harry out or not where Ramirez voted in Harry's favour.
Here is the the quote from Battle Ground page 372
Carlos mentions "witnesses" that Harry killed human servants of the Fomor.. Harry argues back that Carlos knows perfectly well that they are not exactly human..
Carlos answers;
It didn't matter what Carlos thought because he doesn't get a vote in the matter.. It is about how "they" meaning the Senior Council interprets the law, and the vote was unanimous, that is, with at least three members not present. You might call it pay back from Langtry as well, with his "proxy" votes he attempted to convict Molly as well, except Harry stopped him.. In the case Carlos either wouldn't or couldn't, and had started down the road before when he put the tracker on Harry at the beginning of Peace Talks.
His lips pressed into a line. “Yeah.” He gave his head a little shake, as if dislodging an insect. “I heard about the vote in the Council, man. It’s bullshit. However inconvenient you might be for them, whether any of them like it or not, you’re a wizard, Harry.”
“Yer a wizard, Harry,” I growled.
He didn’t smile, but an amused glint came to his eyes. “Point is, I’ve already cast my vote on your behalf. So have most of the other Wardens.”
I was quiet for a second, with my throat a little tight. “Oh. Thanks.”
“Yeah, well. We’re just the guys who have to do the fighting and the dirty work,” he said bitterly. “All the wizards who sit on their fat asses all day, who knows? To them, you’re scary.”
I think Marcone was that good because there was all that free magic in the air. Otherwise, he wouldn't have the juice to throw around big magic.Titania had dispelled that juice about half a dozen chapters before he started slinging spells.
That is my point, it is the Senior Council that votes. In Battle Ground Harry doesn't go to any meetings.Because he was at Chicago, but that doesn't change that there was a meeting for Battle Ground. Harry got smashed in the general vote and then in the senior council vote.
I don't think it is as open as you think, I think Eb meant with other Senior Members. The reason I think that is back in Summer Knight when they tried to demote Harry back to apprentice, only the Senior Members actually voted.. The rest of the members just witnessed it.. Molly's trial, again only the Senior Members got to vote, remember Langtry claimed to have a proxy for all of them. Also if everyone got a vote, don't you think Harry would have asked Carlos how he voted?The SK vote had to be forced to be a senior council vote by Eb to save Harry's bacon. As for the PT vote, Carlos did get a vote, he tells Harry that he voted to keep Harry in the White Council as they head into one of the meetings.
Dresden is a fallible narrator. While I don't think that Jim set up the Dresdenverse to be a huge exploration of this artistic device (not like the movie Barry Lyndon or something like that), Jim has mentioned the problem of the fallible narrator in streams, interviews and WoJs.Yes, Cristos the sincere idealist at cross-purposes with Harry and trying to watch out for his own flock feels more appropriate than Cristos the one note bad guy who keeps getting shown to be a fool.
In the aftermath of Battleground and Peace Talks, I've been questioning my assumptions about Christos. We are very much led to assume the worst of Christos by Harry:
*Christos strong-armed his way onto the Senior Council in the wake of LaFortier's murder. Threatening the Merlin with succession of his non-Western faction.
*Christos is disliked by McCoy for being "unpleasant," and the circumstances make McCoy and Dresden suspect that Christos is Black Council.
*In his first "action" as a Senior Council member that we see, he flips out on Dresden as he is treating with Arianna in an attempt to end the Red War. This, of course, reinforces our perception of Christos.
But, is this really fair?
First, with Peabody in his position, why would the Black Council actually need anyone on the Senior Council? Peabody was controlling the Council fairly effectively without actually needing a vote. He already had access to all the information that the Black Council could have needed.
The Black Council goal appears to have been broadly to set factions of the Council against each other. Would it be better to put a Black Council traitor on the Senior Council or a powerful and effective member of a disgruntled faction on the Senior Council?
Second, the fact that McCoy doesn't like Christos is hardly evidence of anything. McCoy doesn't like anyone much IMHO and "unpleasant" is quite the stone for McCoy's glass house. McCoy and Dresden are brawlers. Neither are going to be inclined to like politicos, even though to be fair Christos is legit as a combatant.
Third, he is an arrogant and pompous blowhard over impressed with his own diplomatic skills. See Wizard, Senior. The incident with Arianna ... well, Dresden was half-insane and out of line as everyone but Dresden saw. Lucio, Molly, Ramirez and even the Merlin tried to calm him down.
Fourth, as detailed in another thread. I find it suspicious that Christos was sent to Chicago while neither Merlin nor Mai attended the talks. Sure, Mai is not handy in a fight. But Liberty doesn't seem to be either. While Christos and LTW and McCoy are good in a scrap, so is Merlin. In short, Merlin sent everyone who might support Dresden into the fire (except Rashid who had other things to do) and kept his supporters and Dresden's sure opponents safe in Scotland behind the wards.
I mean I'm not sure everyone else was surprised by the Fomor being backstabbing assholes so much as they were surprised that they showed up with a God wielding a Nuke in their roster.They were expecting gas not gods basically.
As Lea said, being traitorous assholes is what they are.
I doubt that Hannah had that kind of outside help to begin with, also I have the feeling that she willingly took up the coin as a power play. Yes, Harry picked up the coin willingly, but in order to save little Harry [yeah, I know he could have done it differently,] not to gain power.More likely she took up the coin to have a home again after Harry took out her old one.
Maybe she could have, or maybe she was lying to Harry. He admits picking up the Coin because of the power, she may have been playing to that.She's be a poor temptress if her first lure blatantly had a hook sticking out of it, Harry lays out that she's trying to get him dependent which means getting him hooked on the no strings attached bits first.
Jim said that Hannah wasn't a wizard because all she could use was fire, but she was very good at it. Lasiel improved on what she was good at, but Hannah didn't display much else. Marcone on the other hand had absolutely no magical talent and Thorned turned him into someone who could use advanced magic that Harry hasn't displayed (teleportation, molecular manipulation)I should note that Lasciel only had a few weeks to work and get Hannah into Harry-fighting shape (and into the mindset to fry a potentially innocent man, though Harry's abysmal charisma carried the day on that front) while Namshiel had years to make Marcone into an all-rounder.