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Messages - g33k

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31
DF Spoilers / Re: Thomas
« on: June 09, 2025, 03:28:20 AM »
... I think the Hunger won but it could be reverted... 

Say rather, the Hunger is in the lead right now.
It hasn't "won."

Thomas still sees Harry as a trusted ally, still loves Harry (and Justine).

32
DF Spoilers / Re: Thomas
« on: June 08, 2025, 05:11:28 AM »
... Thomas confesses to Harry that he began to enjoy it. ...
Satiating a hunger always feels good; that's a fundamental feedback loop of survival.

We mostly don't notice our breathing.  But if you hold your breath until it's uncomfortable, that first breath feels amazing.  The nice cool drink when hot & thirsty.  The meal after building an appetite.

Of course Thomas enjoyed it!

Furthermore, the Naagloshi made sure that "enjoying it" was all he could do, that Thomas-the-man was weak and desperate and in pain, unable to muster the focus & willpower needed to stave off the Hunger; unable to feel remorse... until after the fact.  Over and over:  torment, relief, remorse, torment (note that's remarkably-similar to how Mab broke Lloyd Slate).

That's Thomas' reality, as a predator.  It feels good.  And he needs to be able to handle that.

33
DF Spoilers / Re: Turncoat
« on: June 08, 2025, 04:59:46 AM »
1. Eb was right
So far all indication are that Eb was right. Look at the kid Molly bent to help him stop doing drugs. The kid was was torn apart. He fought against the programming. The girl was ok because she had agreed to the changes her programming gave her. According to the rules of the verse you cant force someone to do something they don't want to do no matter how harmless it seems without  that harming them.
This even accounts for free will. Which is important in this verse.  ...

No, "all the indications" are that many branches of black magic -- and in particular, mind-control magic -- are less-developed among theWCouncil wizards than they are among the BCouncil wizards.

I'm suggesting that Eb -- like all the other WC folks who haven't been exploring that branch of magic -- are simply behind that particular magictech curve.  Like... the top speed for a car in 1925 is dramatically lower than  the top speed for a car in 2025.

Peabody (and other BC wizards) might very-well know formulations that exceed what Eb (and other WC wizards) believe to be possible when it comes to mind-control magic.  How far it's possible to bend somebody, etc.

Also remember the BC may be bringing Outsider magic to bear; it has subtlety to sometimes exceed even the Gatekeeper, and power to overwhelm even battle-champion Ebenezer.

34
DF Spoilers / Re: Ghost Story--two things
« on: June 08, 2025, 04:02:57 AM »
GS took me a while to come to grips with it, but I did so by about 1/3 - 1/2 way through, and enjoyed the rest (and all of each re-read) very much.

  2nd--Harry as the Winter Knight. As a spirit, should Harry have been able to draw upon Winter? I mean, he was able to capitalize on his magical memories and use them as weapons...shouldn't he have been able to do the same with Winter? (And maybe even more so and to a more dramatic effect?) 

I think Winter -- or at least the Winter Knight -- is very physical, very embodied, very animal.
Winter has very little traction with a ghost/soul.

35
DF Spoilers / Re: Turncoat
« on: June 06, 2025, 12:38:42 AM »
Thank you for all the quotes you provided here!
The body switch made Luccio more susceptible to the ink than a wizard of her age should be.
 A few quotes from the book (all are from the paperback version and all italics are my emohasis)...
 From pages 128 to 129:
from pages 518 to 519
from pages 526 to 527
 Luccio is older than Morgan and Eb said in the first quote that Morgan could not have been forced to kill against his will. Luccio was more susceptible because of the body switch and the resulting younger mind. Peabody was able to have a greater influence on her with his ink...
And yet, none of those quotes (nor anything else I recall Ebenezer ever addressing directly) actually states that the bodyswap made Luccio more susceptible to the influence of the inks, and to Peabody's magic.

We infer it, from the 1-2-punch of Morgan telling us of Luccio's guilt and from Ebenezer says.

... I doubt that Peabody could force an older wizard, including the Senior Council, to accompany him to the island. That goes far beyond the nudging Eb mentioned. If a Senior Council member was present on the island, I believe they had to be there of there own will as a co-conspirator, not because they were forced to by Peabody. Both Eb and Harry believe that it was Cristos on the island with Peabody, but we know that they could be wrong.

So, here's some other thoughts; alternative hypotheses.

#1 - Ebenezer is just wrong.  We know that the Council has largely forbidden the exploration of mind-magic, but Peabody & his ilk clearly have not.  Corpsetaker had remarked on how out-of-date Harry's training was, and I think we should take it for granted that Eb gave the best mental-defense training that he could, to his grandson.  But what if Black Council researchers had found ways to bend even Senior-Council level minds, without breaking them?

#2 - Luccio is Black Council.  This is a dark theory, but -- what if Luccio killed LaFortier not because of Peabody's mind-control, but because she's a full-on BC agent?  What if "Peabody made me do it" is just her cover-story?  Consider this:  of all the people in Edinburgh who could have discovered her... who's the one person who would cover for her, take the fall, but also have the skills & power to escape the WC, and the initiative to loop-in Dresden?  How "convenient" for her, that that one person was the one who found her there with the bloody dagger.

#3 - An overt, brutal, full-control takeover may not be possible, or may be prohibitive.  But repeated nudges, year after year?  That exactly what sets habits and patterns in place, which can become self-sustaining:  "You are what you do."  Small incremental changes, that are let to sit and "naturalize" in place... which in turn can form a new baseline, from which you make further incremental changes, set new habits and patterns.

And it's not like the Council was a bastion of loving-kindness, trust, and openness; there were innumerable doubts and grudges and suspicions to exploit, bad inclinations that pre-existed, that didn't so much need a "nudge" to be go badly, as just gently suppressing the inhibitions that might have stopped that bad decision.

How many years was Peabody inking the Council?

36
DF Spoilers / Re: Thomas
« on: June 05, 2025, 11:17:33 PM »
... Or his talent was never allowed to show itself and develop ...

No, the Whamps' spellcasting &c is only Paranet-caliber magic, sub-WhiteCouncil stuff.  They can use it in conjunction with their Hunger to pull off some pretty potent tricks (presumably in the realm of mind-magic).

Now -- in addition to that -- his father may have "discouraged" Thomas from exploring his magic.  It's a reasonable theory, for sure!

37
DF Spoilers / Re: Two plus two is Starborn
« on: June 05, 2025, 10:46:54 PM »
... First, we know that Justine was Nemfected and had to be infected by someone ...

Actually, we don't know Justine "had to be infected by someone."  We have no viable nor exhaustive list of Nemvectors; person-to-person spread may not even be one of them!  IIRC, we don't know of any person-to-person transfers.  Lea got Nemfected by Morgana's Athame (not by a "person" but by a "cursed item"), and I think that's the only Nemfection whose provenance we know precisely (tho there's plenty of WAGs about others).

... Maeve being Nemfected a strong possibility given that she almost blew up Demonreach and that was the explicit goal of Nemesis in Battle Ground. She was also the very first target of the Starborn Winter Knight. 
No, we 100% know for sure that Maeve was Nemfected; that's why Mab ordered her killed.  We know it came from Lea, though not precisely how.

Maeve wanted to beat Mab, to outmaneuver her and take away what she valued.  Nemesis gave Maeve some degree of free will, and choice; much more than other Fae.  Unlike all the others, Maeve could lie (not just mislead & misdirect and slice the truth so fine it was almost invisible, but blatantly and knowingly speak an un-truth); Maeve's dying words were, "two plus two is five" (which, when you think about it, is really rather pathetic:  a trivial little nothingburger lie, petty braggadocio... but also 100% proof that she had Something Big enabling her to violate one of the fundamentals of Faerie).

Lea "spread it to Maeve" (Mab's own words) somehow... but Lea still had the Athame, so could easily have been the proximate source of Maeve's Nemfection, as well as Lea's!

= = =

How did Aurora get Nemfected?  We have WAGs, but canon is unclear on anything beyond that it happened.

How did Cat Sith get Nemfected?  He was "taken" somehow (and just how TF do you "take" a critter like Cat Sith, who's competent & stealthy enough to remove elite sidhe warriors without neighboring elite sidhe warriors even noticing??!?), but we don't know the details of actually passing Nemesis to him.

etc.

Looping back to Justine, however...

My best bet is that her Nemfection happened somewhere in the White Court.  There is a LOT of Outsider influence / presence amongst the Whampires, and I'm betting it was "someone... or something" who Nemfected her there, with my first guess being something in the private "Starborn/Outsider Apocalypse" collection of Raith Père, after she began acting as Lara's personal assistant.  (On a slight tangent:  I further WAG that the substantive Outsider problems amongst the Whamps is Mab's "main" motivation in contracting a marriage between her Starborn-Wizard Winterknight, and White Princess Lara).

I don't discount @Mira's theory, though, that Justine was a deep plant:  Nemfected before we first met her, worming her way into Thomas' affections, in order to get to Harry.  This is my own 2nd-favorite theory.
 

38
DF Spoilers / Re: RNT: How Does Air Magic Interact With Physics?
« on: June 05, 2025, 09:23:54 PM »
FWIW, Langtry is an Air mage; fundamentally, that's the magic he used to simul-speak everyone in the Council chamber (when Peabody cracked containment on the mistfiend).

IIRC, Bob has been described as an "airy spirit" and a "spirit of intellect" -- thoughts are tied in the Dresdenverse to the element of Air.

39
DF Spoilers / Re: Children of the sun
« on: June 05, 2025, 06:30:41 PM »
IIRC there's some strong hints (maybe even a WoJ?) that there's an Alera / CinderSpires link, but less so for something as close to our "Modern World" as the Dresden'verse is.

But of course nothing's impossible, and WoJ says the Nevernever is virtually-limitless, and explicitly includes all sorts of fiction & fantasy places, e.g. Spiderman lives somewhere in the Nevernever, and Frodo in some NeveneverShire, &c.

40
DF Spoilers / Re: RNT: What is The Enemy's Plan in Storm Front?
« on: June 05, 2025, 06:19:46 PM »
... While reading SF, there's no real indication that anything deeper is happening.  It just seems like the Shadowman found some old books and learned some intro black magic and used it to make Three-Eye.

Yet in later books we find out that there's a bigger force moving behind all of this...

This is a recurrent theme of the DF novels: later-series Harry, with more maturity & more power, swimming in deeper waters, has more information and a more-nuanced understanding (than earlier-series Harry).  When Harry first introduces her, Mab is "queen of the Evil faeries" and the archetype of all villainous malice.  Later, we learn she is on Team GoodGuy(tm)... just, one of the more cold-blooded members of the team.

Part of the fun of WAG'ing in the fandom is trying to figure out some of that -- spot the easter-eggs, unravel the clues, beat Harry in achieving that nuance!

Specifically: What is Nemesis' Plan in Storm Front?
... learned some intro black magic and used it to make Three-Eye.
Yet in later books we find out that there's a bigger force moving behind all of this.  Assume for the moment that Harry doesn't stop Victor.  What does this accomplish for Nemesis'  What's their end goal in "helping" the Shadowman here? 

Nemesis wants the Outsiders back "inside" Creation; that's the Big-Picture plan.

As to the specifics, I agree with @Talby16... it's this, I think:
Precisely. Nemesis says in Battleground through Justine that apocalypse isn't an event, its a frame of mind. Flooding the streets with the Three Eye Drug would help lay the framework of that frame of mind in the populace. 

IIRC (I don't have the PT/BG texts on hand, to ^F thru) Ethniu voiced a similar sentiment.  She wanted the mortals aware of magic once again; and cowed by it.   Given that Three-Eye let mortals see magic, this is clearly one of the Nemesis/Outsider through-lines.

I think we should take this as part of that "apocalyptic state of mind:"  mortals who see the magic -- or at least believe it's there, even if they don't see it -- are expected to be more "apocalyptic."

And indeed, "magical foes, beyond mortal soldiers' ability to kill" looks very much like something that could prompt the battlefield use (for example) of nuclear weapons / WMD, which is another "apocalyptic" sort of mindset.  For those without Maximum Overkill weapons to hand, hopelessness and despair -- and desperate longing to have such weapons -- seem like common reactions to things like the Superghouls in the Raith Deeps, or Ethniu's personal combat prowess, or the realization that Winter comes to anywhere that Mab comes (potentially destroying a year's crops) &c.

"Apocalypse: the Mindset" would seem to follow naturally.

41
DF Spoilers / Re: Thomas
« on: June 05, 2025, 05:37:16 PM »
Lara understands that, and loves what she is, accepts what she is.. Thomas hadn't fully until the Skinwalker got a hold of him.
Thomas changed and seemingly made a choice, interesting scene at the zoo at the end of Turncoat.  Harry appalled because Thomas told him he enjoyed what he was doing after a while.  Actually Lara was delighted with that outcome and didn't want Harry messing with Thomas on that score..

We never got to see that struggle for the heart and mind of Thomas between Lara and Harry.  Or Harry having to come to grips that his brother was now no different from other vampires now.  I was disappointed that we didn't. 

I don't think the Skinwalker did "convert" Thomas; not really.
It tortured Thomas until he gave up hope in his gentler and more-loving aspirations.

But even then, he wasn't the merciless predator it had tried to create:  he was angry & hurt that Harry still wanted that from him & for him, expected it of him.  He wouldn't have been hurting/angry if some part of him didn't still see that as better!  The Skinwalker had convinced him that he was a broken thing, unworthy of having nice emotions & nice relationships.

42
DF Spoilers / Re: Two plus two is Starborn
« on: May 23, 2025, 05:38:34 AM »
The "Bottle caps" remark in particular is one I'm pretty sure I've seen a bunch.
If anyone has the whole text of the DF series in searchable document form, I'd be interested to see how many times that occurs, and who says it

I have an alternative theory to suggest:  what if it's early-stage foretelling?  A turn of phrase  that Harry subconsciously foresees being spoken, and "sticks in his mind" before it even happens...

43
DF Spoilers / Re: Turncoat
« on: May 13, 2025, 10:39:05 PM »
... so that leaves Cristos (technically not on the Senior Council at this time) and Martha Liberty.

I think we have a large number of named/identified (but minimally-seen) characters who potentially might be that "unindicted co-conspirator" on the WC... Klaus the Toymaker, the whole list (Montjoy, Lucciozi, Gomez, etc) recited before Ebenezer got named to the Senior Council, and maybe some others I'm not recalling.

Offhand, I don't see any good reason to suppose it's any one of them over another.

Cristos -- specifically -- strikes me as particularly narratively-useful in his very vagueness:  "is he evil... or just stupid?" but also that just-trying-to-get-by everyman.  Despite being a skillful wizard, he's busy with politicking and reputational advancement, trying to "business-as-usual" the problems away.

44
DF Spoilers / Re: Turncoat
« on: May 13, 2025, 03:59:07 PM »
... Near the end of Turncoat, Dresden and McCoy are talking about the fact that Peabody wasn't by himself on the island. Who was the 2nd person? Did we find out and I missed it along the way? Do we think this was Cowl joining him in Chicago? Some other Black Council wizard/entity? ...

The "most sensible" answer, IMO -- and almost certainly, the wrong one -- is one of the Wardens, as a bodyguard.  It'd make excellent tactico-strategic sense to bring one along; and he has ample mental controls in place to do so (he had Luccio commit murder against a senior council member!), so bringing along a "fine thrall" combat-wizard looks like a very good tactical move.

But, of course, that's just a narrative dead end; there's fundamentally no mystery in that, no "payoff" in dropping the hint, little to no interesting "reveal" later as to who it was.

How about it being Cristos, or some other White Council member (maybe one who's also Black Council)?

45
DF Spoilers / Re: Twelve Months Timeline Comparisons
« on: May 13, 2025, 06:05:45 AM »
... I know that it is listed on the Publishers website for 1/20/26, but that seems a little off since we have not had an official announcement from the author or his website ...

I would expect the author to have minimal insight and zero control, at this point; the publisher has the authoritative info.

Jim learns the release date when they tell him.

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