Author Topic: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT  (Read 19129 times)

Offline Mira

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #15 on: March 27, 2020, 05:56:29 PM »
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Thomas never believed he was sterile. Just "all but infertile", per the text. Also, they did take precautions:

  Which means he thought his chance of making babies was slim to none..  It may seem odd to those who haven't had fertility problems, but conceiving a baby isn't all that easy.  They didn't take that many precautions, if they had Justine wouldn't be pregnant..  But when you believe you are sterile, the precautions would be half hearted because, "why bother?"

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Pure conjecture.  We don't know that.

Perhaps, but we also know that WCVs are not over running the planet, so they don't have the birthrate of humans.

Offline Bad Alias

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #16 on: March 27, 2020, 06:33:19 PM »
  Which means he thought his chance of making babies was slim to none..  It may seem odd to those who haven't had fertility problems, but conceiving a baby isn't all that easy.  They didn't take that many precautions, if they had Justine wouldn't be pregnant..  But when you believe you are sterile, the precautions would be half hearted because, "why bother?"
Unless the results of pregnancy were a 50/50 chance of dying.

Offline Regenbogen

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #17 on: March 27, 2020, 08:23:10 PM »
I am confused. I seem to remember that Thomas already told Harry of Justine's pregnancy before. Where have I read that?
And in the chapter he hears it for the first time. I thought he already knew. Weird.


Offline morriswalters

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #18 on: March 27, 2020, 08:45:16 PM »
That's been know for years, since the first Chapter was a giveaway, way back when.

If Thomas took precautions he was smarter than Harry. :)

Offline Mira

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #19 on: March 27, 2020, 08:47:40 PM »
I am confused. I seem to remember that Thomas already told Harry of Justine's pregnancy before. Where have I read that?
And in the chapter he hears it for the first time. I thought he already knew. Weird.

A year or so ago more or less he did two I believe sneak preview chapters.  He has apparently reworked them a bit so while it is basically the same, it is also different.
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Unless the results of pregnancy were a 50/50 chance of dying.

In art as in real life, that doesn't always stop it from happening.  If I remember correctly Justine has always had some emotional issues that the White Court thing actually helped.  Anyway, it could be because she loves Thomas so much she wants to give him a child no matter the risks to her own health and the baby being born with a demon/parasite inside of it..  Then again a possible tin hat theory, we know that true love can burn out the demon,  maybe that is what Jim has in mind for either Thomas or the baby, or both?

Offline Mira

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #20 on: March 27, 2020, 08:51:03 PM »
That's been know for years, since the first Chapter was a giveaway, way back when.

If Thomas took precautions he was smarter than Harry. :)

Really?  Did he wear a condom every time?  ::) Oh I see, the one time he forgot or it had a hole in it.... :o   Let's not forget he was sure he was all but sterile, so he most likely relied on Justine to do what was needed..   Since Justine ended up pregnant, obviously Thomas isn't any smarter than Harry...

Offline g33k

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #21 on: March 27, 2020, 09:15:08 PM »
Yet, their numbers are very low, so probably most are sterile, the few that are not, become dominant.

Well, any that are absolutely sterile obviously never breed.  Eventually, they die (in such long-lived creatures, that may be a VERY long eventuality).

But that's using classical evolutionary biology.  I don't think it applies, "because magic."

I think Whamps just have a very-very-low fertility rate, and their Demon is to blame:  they CAN'T evolve to a more-fertile breed.

Where humans are, perhaps, 1 in 100 (ish) (per act of intercourse between a man and a woman in her "fertility window"), with Whamps maybe it's 1 in 1000000 or some such.  And remember:  because they feed through sex, whamps have a LOT of chances to breed!

Papa Raith fathered Lara & her two sisters, Thomas and some number (do we HAVE a number?  Let's guess 2-4...) of brothers, and Inari.  Let's call it 7-10 children, all told, across the centuries.

I don't think we have enough info, though -- canon stories or WoJ -- to be sure of ANY firm conclusions...
 

Offline Bad Alias

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #22 on: March 27, 2020, 10:10:18 PM »
Quote from Chapter 1:
(click to show/hide)
They didn't take that many precautions, if they had Justine wouldn't be pregnant.
In art as in real life, that doesn't always stop it from happening.  If I remember correctly Justine has always had some emotional issues that the White Court thing actually helped.  Anyway, it could be because she loves Thomas so much she wants to give him a child no matter the risks to her own health and the baby being born with a demon/parasite inside of it.
The text says they were careful. Justine is pregnant. I'll need a little more before I entertain the conclusion that they weren't careful.

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If you use condoms perfectly every single time you have sex, they're 98% effective at preventing pregnancy. But people aren't perfect, so in real life condoms are about 85% effective — that means about 15 out of 100 people who use condoms as their only birth control method will get pregnant each year.
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But no method or combination of methods is guaranteed to be 100 percent effective. The only guaranteed way to not get pregnant is by not having vaginal intercourse.
Planned Parenthood.
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For perfect use of the male condom and pill, that’s 0.02 x 0.003 = 0.00006, or 0.006%. In other words, the combined method is over 99.99% effective when used perfectly.
https://www.mathscareers.org.uk/article/statistically-safe-sex/.
99.994‬% to be exact given their numbers. Now if they have "typical use" efficacy, the failure rate is 12%.

To figure out the chance of Thomas and Justine getting pregnant, we would need to know how much less fertile Thomas and Justine are compared with the average couple and how much more sex they have than the average couple. (Or just the yearly fertility rate compared to a human yearly fertility rate). We don't know these numbers, but I imagine they favor the propagation of an existing species. We could try to look to the scene in Blood Rites where we see the mothers of Raith's children. The paintings fill up a library in a mansion starting in the 15 or 16 hundreds "steadily" progressing through fashions. None happening within "twenty or thirty years." Though we should note that there are only about 15 years between Thomas and Inari.

Then we have to take into account whatever the opposite of plot armor is into account. Once all that's taken into account, the chances of pregnancy, with perfect use of contraception, would be approaching 100%.

It's been two years and two months since Ghost Story when Thomas started feeding again. Justine has "seven and a half months" of pregnancy left. I'm assuming Thomas is going off of a nine month pregnancy. Therefore Justine conceived two years and two weeks after feedings resumed.

All that considered, I'd say it was statistically unlikely that Justine would be pregnant, but probably not anywhere close to statistically impossible.

@g33k: I believe Raith has more than four daughters. It's just that we've only ever seen three on screen and identified as such at one time.

Offline Dina

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #23 on: March 27, 2020, 10:32:44 PM »
Mira, this time I agree with the others, the text says that Thomas took precautions, so I don't see any reason not to believe him.
But I am wondering about the chance of the baby being "cured" of the WV "parasite" due to True Love. I suspect this is probably the first time* a white vampire and a human are TRULY inlove. Besides, Jim always mentions how important it is the act of creating life, so I am sure this baby will be special.

*or one of very few times
Missing you, Md 

There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be. Someone has stolen a book (Terry Pratchett)

Offline didymos

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #24 on: March 27, 2020, 10:33:07 PM »
@g33k: I believe Raith has more than four daughters. It's just that we've only ever seen three on screen and identified as such at one time.

Yes, he does:

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How many sisters does Thomas have?

I can’t find that notebook, grr. I think it’s nine. Papa Raith’s bodyguards minus one who is utterly bonkers and kept more or less in the attic, and Inari, the one who got away.

Offline morriswalters

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #25 on: March 27, 2020, 10:34:12 PM »
I'm not making any more jokes. 

For the record Harry and his friends live in a deterministic universe.  The chances of Thomas having a baby are whatever Jim says they are. In this case the chances were 100 percent. Thomas never had a chance of not having that child. He could have worn a stainless steel chastity belt and Justine would still have got that child. It would have opened a portal and gone in through the Never Never.

Just adding perspective.

Offline g33k

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #26 on: March 27, 2020, 10:55:30 PM »
I'm not making any more jokes. 

For the record Harry and his friends live in a deterministic universe.  The chances of Thomas having a baby are whatever Jim says they are. In this case the chances were 100 percent...

Oh, well.

If you're gonna pull out the big guns.

Party-pooper!



(n.b. I never made that silly "no more jokes" promise!!!   ;D )

Offline morriswalters

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #27 on: March 27, 2020, 11:10:19 PM »
 :-[

Offline Mira

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #28 on: March 28, 2020, 12:31:43 AM »
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Papa Raith fathered Lara & her two sisters, Thomas and some number (do we HAVE a number?  Let's guess 2-4...) of brothers, and Inari.  Let's call it 7-10 children, all told, across the centuries.

Which made him "king."  Consider though, were all his wives non-vamps?
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Mira, this time I agree with the others, the text says that Thomas took precautions, so I don't see any reason not to believe him.

But he still could have meant that Justine took the birth control precautions, not him, he thought he was all but sterile..  Because of that I don't blame him, but I am not about to say he was smarter than Harry on the subject, until we know the type of birth control used.

Offline Dina

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Re: [Spoilers!] First chapter of PT
« Reply #29 on: March 28, 2020, 12:43:14 AM »
I mean, if Thomas said they took precaution we don't have any reason to believe he is lying, so it is more probable that it is true. Perhaps Justine lied to him, but in any case, he tried to take care, so at least he thought on that. Anyway, there are many differences with Harry's case. Harry was somehow until the influence of rampire spit and it was a "hot of the moment" thing, while Thomas and Justine are an stable couple that have a lot of sex on a regular basis, so of course they had time to thought about babies and making plans. But that is not all. IIRC due to the need to break the True Love thing and be able to have sex with each other they need to have sex with other partners. In that situation and due to STD it is more than probable than Thomas is effectively using condoms everytime, as it is the best shield for STD transmission.
Missing you, Md 

There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be. Someone has stolen a book (Terry Pratchett)