Author Topic: List of Headaches [CD spoilers]  (Read 21541 times)

Offline Cenphx

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List of Headaches [CD spoilers]
« on: December 12, 2012, 11:46:32 PM »
This is a list compiled by Tarion, Elegast, Haru, Serack in another thread. Since the subject of the headaches seems to be coming up a lot, I thought I would pull the info out of that thread and list it here.

STORM FRONT
[context- Harry has been attacked and hit in the head by a henchman] 
  • Quote
    Maybe this had been another reminder from the mob boss. It had that kind of mafioso feel to it.
    I staggered to my kitchenette and fixed myself a tisane tea for the headache, then added in some aspirin. Herbal remedies are well and good, but I don't like to take chances.


FULL MOON
[Chapter 8:  context- Harry is working on potions and researching werewolves.]
  • Quote
    I tried to ignore the head-ache that was creeping up the back of my neck toward the crown of my head, but it did little good.

GRAVE PERIL
[context- Harry is hunting for Charity, had been drugged earlier and had been attacked by the Nightmare]
  • Quote
    Hell’s bells, all I had was a headache, an hourglass quickly running out of sand, and a case of the shakes

SUMMER KNIGHT
[context- Harry gets a headache while researching the Queens]
  • Quote
    I felt the headache start at the base of my neck and creep toward the crown of my head. "Okay, Bob. I need to know about these Queens...”

    I stared at the skull for a second, while the headache settled comfortably in.
[context- gets another headache talking to Meryl]
  • Quote
    The headache started coming back. "Look, Meryl, I've got a lot on my plate already.”

DEATH MASKS
[context- no headache specifically, but does suffer head trauma]
  • Quote
    Light exploded behind my eyes and I dropped to my hands and knees at the bottom of the stairway. Anna had slugged me with something. A second burst of light and pain drove my head far enough down to splash some cold water against my forehead....

    I tried to lift her body, but the effort brought a surge of pain to my head and I almost threw up.
[context- Harry’s head hurt while being held by Nic.]
  • Quote
    I came to my senses in complete darkness, under a stream of freezing water. My head hurt enough to make the wound on my leg feel pleasant by comparison.

BLOOD RITES
  • [context- head trauma]
    Quote
    Multiple injuries, including a vicious headache from where Inari had socked me.
  • [context-during Harry’s soulgaze with Thomas his mother gives him a gem, insight]
    Quote
    She passed me the gem. There was a flash, a tingling pain in my head, and then a lingering, dull ache. For some reason that didn’t surprise me. You don’t gain knowledge without a little pain.
DEAD BEAT
  • Quote
    I started to look around for the source of the noise.
    And then someone hit me on the back of the head.
    I remember that part, because I'd been through it before...

    Then I stood up. My head pounded with a dull, throbbing beat of pain, and I bowed my head forward for a moment, letting cold rain fall onto the lump forming on the back of my skull. The worst of it passed after a minute, and I got the pain under control. I'd taken harder shots to the head than that one had been, and I didn't have time to coddle myself.

PROVEN GUILTY
[context- after car crash]
  • Quote
    My headache started rising up again...

    My headache flared up with a vengeance, and the light of my amulet and staff both faded
[context- after using Sight]
  • Quote
    It’ll pass. Just got this damned headache...

    My headache finally began to fade away just as Murphy returned...

    I spat a few times into the trash can and stood up. My headache started to return.
[context- hit in head again]
  • Quote
    I came to with a headache, and my stomach attempted to slither out of my mouth. Its escape attempt was blocked by some kind of gag. I had the taste of metal in my mouth, and my jaws were forced uncomfortably wide. The blindfold on my face was almost a mercy, given the headache.

WHITE NIGHT
[context- after/when Molly looks at the dead girl]
  • Quote
    I muttered under my breath, rubbed at the incipient headache beginning between my eyes, and thought dark thoughts. Dammit all, every time I’d opened myself up to some kind of horrible psychic shock in the name of investigation, I’d gotten another nightmare added to my collection. Her first time up to bat, and the grasshopper got…
[Chapter 5]
  • Quote
    Something like New Mexico. Jesus. I didn’t want to think about that. I rubbed at the fresh headache sprouting between my eyebrows
[context- when Little Chicago takes an attack meant for Harry]
  • Quote
    And then there was a geyser of scarlet pain, as if someone had seized both halves of my skull and torn it into two pieces.

  • Quote
    I leaned against a wall—unless maybe, since we were on a ship, it was a bulkhead—and rubbed my finger at a spot between my eyebrows where a headache was coming on.
[context- gets hit in head again, although Elaine heals it]
  • Quote
    My head hurt, even more than it had after Cowl had finished ringing my bells the night before, if such a thing was possible. I didn't want to regain consciousness, if it meant rising into that.
  • Quote
    It had been a long night, and despite Elaine's incredible hands, my headache had begun to return.

SMALL FAVOR
[context- Harry gets kicked in the nose]
  • Quote
    I hunched my shoulders and rolled, only to be kicked in the nose by a cloven hoof, and an utterly gratuitous amount of pain came with a side order of whirling stars.
  • Quote
    “Where,” he said gently, “is your blasting rod?”
    This time I heard the words.
    Pain stabbed me in the head, ice picks plunging into both temples. I flinched and doubled over. Blasting rod. Familiar words. I fought to summon an image of what went with the words, but I couldn’t find anything. I knew I had a memory associated with those words, but try as I might, I couldn’t drag it out. It was like a shape covered by some heavy tarp. I knew an object was beneath, but I couldn’t get to it.
    “I don’t…I don’t…” I started breathing faster. The pain got worse.
    Someone had been in my head.
  • Quote
    On the opposite side of Ivy, Rosanna launched more traditional lances of flame from her open palms, much like the ones I
    —a savage pain went through my skull for a second—son of a bitch—
    —but Ivy dispersed them with delicately applied wedges of air,
[context- Mab freezing his eyeballs]
  • Quote
    Mab’s frozen-berry lips lifted in a silent snarl, and the world turned into a curtain of white agony that centered on my eyes. Nothing had ever hurt so much
TURN COAT
  • Quote
    He started cleaning up everything he’d set out during the improvised surgery. “So. How are the headaches?”
    They’d been a problem, the past several months—increasingly painful migraines. “Fine,” I told him.
    “Yeah, right,” Butters said. “I really wish you’d try the MRI again.”
    Technology and wizards don’t coexist well, and magnetic resonance imagers are right up there. “One baptism in fire-extinguishing foam per year is my limit,” I said.
    “It could be something serious,” Butters said. “Anything happens in your head or neck, you don’t take chances. There’s way too much going on there.”
    “They’re lightening up,” I lied.
    “Hogwash,” Butters said, giving me a gimlet stare. “You’ve got a headache now, don’t you?”
    I looked from Butters to Morgan’s recumbent form. “Yeah,” I said. “I sure as hell got one now.”
  • Quote
    Mouse pawed at my leg and looked up at me. I bent over to scratch his ears, and instantly regretted it as someone tightened a vise on my temples. I straightened up again in a hurry, wincing, and entertained wild fantasies about lying down on the floor and sleeping for a week
CHANGES
  • Quote
    Hell’s bells. Like I didn’t have enough on my mind. I rubbed my thumb against the spot between my eyebrows where the headache was forming. “I did not need this on top of everything else. Which is why she did it.”
COLD DAYS
  • Quote
    Demonreach growled.  In all capital letters.
    And the headache vanished.
    One second, my scalp was tightening up as two separate ice picks dug into my skull in the same places they always did, and the next the pain was utterly gone.
« Last Edit: December 25, 2012, 12:33:56 AM by Cenphx »

Offline Elegast

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Re: List of Headaches
« Reply #1 on: December 12, 2012, 11:53:48 PM »
Nice!  :D

The first in White Night seems random, but I still tend to think that all 'between the eyes' headaches are not plot-relevant (just caused but the Sight).
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Offline Ms Duck

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Re: List of Headaches
« Reply #2 on: December 13, 2012, 12:04:31 AM »
i think there are more.. its the description of 'two ice cold picks' thats important. starting with Mab and small favor.
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Offline Cenphx

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Re: List of Headaches
« Reply #3 on: December 13, 2012, 12:04:51 AM »
I agree with you that there are a couple that don't seem to be mysterious headaches or terribly important for the future, but I didn't want to make any decisions to edit the list. I thought it would be helpful to be able to see and compare every possible head "issue". You guys did a good job combing the books for the examples!!

Offline Elegast

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Re: List of Headaches
« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2012, 12:06:05 AM »
i think there are more.. its the description of 'two ice cold picks' thats important. starting with Mab and small favor.

To my knowledge, the 'ice picks' occur only in  SmF and CD. That being said there is a vise in TC.
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Offline Haru

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Re: List of Headaches
« Reply #5 on: December 13, 2012, 12:14:30 AM »
Ah, very good. That really makes it easier to compare them. Thank you. :)

Is this also to discuss the headaches again, or should we open a new thread for that and let this simply be a resource thread?
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Offline Tami Seven

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Re: List of Headaches
« Reply #6 on: December 13, 2012, 12:14:46 AM »
i think there are more.. its the description of 'two ice cold picks' thats important. starting with Mab and small favor.

The two ice picks might imply to separate yet equal forces at work, like having two simultaneous brain aneurisms. In Harry's case, it could imply to 'forces' fighting within his head for control or escape. Only one parasite is mentioned, but maybe the other isn't a parasite but something else entirely.
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Offline Cenphx

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Re: List of Headaches [CD spoilers]
« Reply #7 on: December 13, 2012, 03:07:03 AM »
@Haru--im cool with this being a freewheeling discussion. Im not sure what the difference is between a reference thread and a regular one, but theorize away as far as Im concerned.          @MsDuck--if you can find or point me somewhere close to headachy stuff you think is missing, it should definitely be added to the list. I'd put your references in with the others

Offline HateEgo

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Re: List of Headaches [CD spoilers]
« Reply #8 on: December 13, 2012, 04:40:23 AM »
Great job on the headache list, I was having trouble tracking them down.  Here are my theories: With these references and the context in which they occur, the odd or random headaches don't start until after Dead Beat.  Which leads me to believe they are linked to Liverspots' death curse since it is still unclear what effect it had on Harry.  Although, Liverspots wasn't a wizard, so how would he manage to work up a death curse at all without a ritual or with borrowed power?  Or, Liverspots released a shade of his own to whisper to him during Changes? 

  Harry gets headaches from trauma and memory manipulation. And after some brief research into brain mapping, headaches moving from the neck to the crown sound like stress and trauma pains because that is where motor controls are in the brain.  During Small Favor Mab played around in his head and Harry got the ice picks to the temples when he tried to remember because that's where recognition and long term memory are stored.  That leaves the eyebrow or "third eye" headache which is where decision making functions are located. I think that is a big clue. 


If not Liverspots' "curse" then when did Harry acquire the parasite?  Bianca's party during GP when Lea (and very likely Ferrovax) were infected by Outsider influence?  Harry was taken and unconscious for a while.  Or maybe before the series' began.  Two things have always felt odd about Dumourne's death and Elaine's enthrallment.  From my point of view Harry just assumed Dumourne enthralled Elaine and went off on him.  I can't remember the exact book or page but Harry mentions the event to Bob and he said "yeah, right." Bob will omit information if Harry doesn't compel him to answer.  Also, we still haven't read about Harry's deal with Lea.  Lea could have performed a memory altering on Harry at his request, he's done it once already.  Was Harry infected by the Outsiders then and Lea locked that part of his mind to contain it and after the incident at the caves weakened that barrier?   

Sorry if it seems my theories run away with themselves.  But how does that sound to you?

Offline Vairelome

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Re: List of Headaches [CD spoilers]
« Reply #9 on: December 13, 2012, 04:47:24 AM »
The "parasite" is almost certainly Lash.

Offline Cenphx

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Re: List of Headaches [CD spoilers]
« Reply #10 on: December 13, 2012, 05:11:21 AM »
Oh, I completely disagree that the parasite is certainly Lash...

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Re: List of Headaches [CD spoilers]
« Reply #11 on: December 13, 2012, 05:42:31 AM »
the ice picks in smf and cd seems odd... maybe this parasite is something wintery?

Offline Vairelome

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Re: List of Headaches [CD spoilers]
« Reply #12 on: December 13, 2012, 07:06:00 AM »
Oh, I completely disagree that the parasite is certainly Lash...

Well, I find the report of JB saying "the parasite was Lash" referenced in the WoJ section to be persuasive, but I suppose the source could have been lying about that, if you insist.  On the other hand, you are left with having to establish exactly where else Lash showed up in GS, and I've heard no particularly plausible alternatives.

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Re: List of Headaches [CD spoilers]
« Reply #13 on: December 13, 2012, 07:08:26 AM »
true. that she showed up at all considering she existed only in now burnt out parts of harry's mind does make it hard for her to exist elsewhere.

Offline Elegast

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Re: List of Headaches [CD spoilers]
« Reply #14 on: December 13, 2012, 01:31:25 PM »
Im not sure what the difference is between a reference thread and a regular one

None.  :)

But we call 'reference threads' threads trying to gather all the information on a defined subject and then organizing this info in  the first post.

Typically, they come in two flavors: a list of some events (as this one), or a wrap-up of all the threads concerning a theory (like my Cowl=Simon thread).
My "Maeve came to Splattercon!!! disguised as a vampire" theory : Maeve did it

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