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Hope no one minds me shilling a moment. I liked the Twenty Palaces series a whole lot, and the author of the series is writing a traditional fantasy thing which he's doing a kickstarter for. This might not be the best thread to say something about it but I figure anyone who has read his stuff reads this thread. The Kickstarter starts in 11 hours or so, and I think his stuff is good enough that he deserves a break. There's no link yet because the kickstarter hasn't started. edit: it's up http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1179145430/the-great-way-an-epic-fantasy-trilogy-by-harry-con fermun fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Sep 19, 2013 |
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Sep 19, 2013 07:16
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 13:03 |
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I just did a full series re-read, and I have a couple of thoughts, which I will spoiler for new readers. I am not sure if I am entirely onboard with the idea that Lash is the parasite because I'm not sure it fits. Lash was a sort of recording of Lasciel in Harry's brain whose purpose was to tempt him to take up the coin. If she were the parasite, then that would explain why the Knights of the Cross were so sure that you never got rid of it, and it would mean that the persuasion was time-limited in that if the recording couldn't tempt the human to take up the coin, the human would eventually be destroyed. To me, that doesn't entirely make sense. If the parasite took over the host, there would be no need to take up the coin, right? Getting the recording in the brain would be enough, and it would seem to me that the Nickelheads would always have a few coins free in order to infect strong-willed people who might not easily be subverted, as a means of assassination. Then again, Harry took the "el" off Lasciel's name and as Uriel says, "it's kind of an important part of who I am". So it may be that all bets are off as far as what Lash is and does. The other thing that leapt to mind is in the closing of Cold Days, Kringle just about flat out tells Harry that he can put down the mantle of Winter on Halloween. This also led me to wonder if Mac is actually a former Winter Knight. That would explain why Mab healed him--he has said "I'm out" repeatedly. If he put down the mantle and made a bargain with Mab to remain neutral as a part of putting the mantle down, Mab would be obligated to undo any harm to him if he got dragged into Fae business.
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Sep 19, 2013 17:31
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The coins only leave an imprint of their original personality on their host, and they only have as much power as their host allows. They are just exceptionally good at corrupting and influencing. They have to willingly pick up the coin to be infected, you can't just force one into someone's hand. Harry was tricked into picking up the coin, but he still picked it up. Lash effectively became an entire new entity separate from Lasciel as a result of being named, and interacting with Harry. The Lash is the parasite speculation comes from: Lash burning out the parts of his brain that she lived in, headaches being attributed by Butters to be a result of his brain damage that is being repaired via wizard regeneration, and later in the series those same headaches are attributed as being caused by the parasite. The parasite also has enough control of Harry that it is able to maintain his bodily functions while he soul is off goofing around during Ghost Story, and the intelligence/self-awareness to bargain with demonreach/Mab which matches Lash capabilities pretty closely. Why Lash would not want demonreach/mab to tell them her identity and why her emerging would kill Harry we don't know, but it's not something that couldn't be explained in the next book. The next logical possibility for the parasite is the adversary itself, which seems a lot harder for him to write a way out of, and not something Mab would bargain with. Lastly and most importantly for Lash is the parasite speculation, Lash is pretty awesome and we want her to come back
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Sep 19, 2013 19:32
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THF13 posted:
I was pretty firmly in the, "This is a bad theory" camp until you made this point. This is such a good point.
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Sep 19, 2013 20:54
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THF13 posted:... headaches being attributed by Butters to be a result of his brain damage that is being repaired via wizard regeneration ... When does Butters say he thinks that? The only thing I recall Butters saying about it is that he wanted Harry to try the MRI again because it could be something serious. (End of Chapter 1 in Turncoat)
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Sep 19, 2013 20:59
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Zola posted:When does Butters say he thinks that? The only thing I recall Butters saying about it is that he wanted Harry to try the MRI again because it could be something serious. (End of Chapter 1 in Turncoat) He doesn't. It was Bob, at the end of White Night. It's the same conversation where Bob mentions that Lash was running off his soul like a battery. You know, like a parasite would.
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Sep 19, 2013 21:38
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Potooweet posted:He doesn't. It was Bob, at the end of White Night. It's the same conversation where Bob mentions that Lash was running off his soul like a battery. You know, like a parasite would.
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Sep 19, 2013 21:52
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It couldn't have been Lash and the Parasite, could it?
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Sep 19, 2013 21:54
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The Parasite is obviously the so-called 'subconscious harry'.
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Sep 19, 2013 21:59
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It's a theory based on likely foreshadowing in popular fantasy novels, not a peer reviewed double-blind randomized placebo controlled trial. We can't prove the identity of The Parasite to a statistically significant p<0.05.
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Sep 19, 2013 23:40
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I should mention that if you liked 20 palaces, Harry Connolly is doing a kickstarter for a (non 20 palaces) book right now
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Sep 20, 2013 00:34
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THF13 posted:
What we know of wizardly regeneration actually works against this. When butters shows Harry his x-rays we see that the damage goes away entirely, and is made as new. But damage to the brain would totally eliminate anything contained within those cells, and anything that regenerated would come back as a blank slate. When Bob was talking to Harry about the burn-out resulting from Lash taking the mental bullet for him, he mentioned that not only was there damage to his brain, but entire chunks of his aura/soul/essence had been burned away "like swiss cheese". This to me would obviate Lash returning in quite the same way. A lot of the foreshadowing we've been running off of (as far as I can tell) is based on Butcher stating that Lasciel is coming back, and is pissed. Additionally, Butcher has stated that Lash still exists and was in the book "Ghost Story" under a different name. There has even been an uncorroborated report from some fan or another that Butcher told him that Lash was the Parasite, but that's a single uncorroborated report. Really it comes down to whether Butcher is going to ret-con Lash into being the parasite despite him writing plenty of reasons she couldn't be into the series. I personally think it doesn't fit. At least not smoothly. And my personal theory is that The parasite is not Lash, but is potentially a reforming version of Lasciel's shadow. Lash became a separate entity, and it's very possible that there are now two versions bouncing around. Maybe not both in Harry's brain, since it seems likely that Lash manifested independently during Ghost Story, but I think there is going to be a knock-down drag-out fight between the two versions of the shadow at some point. DJ_Ferret fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Sep 20, 2013 |
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Sep 20, 2013 00:41
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I'm hoping Lash is the parasite just because it would be really cool for Harry to have a Bob inside of his head. It could probably also help him manipulate Soulfire, as Lasciel once wielded it herself (presumably). Sometimes the rule of cool is the most important thing!
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Sep 20, 2013 01:22
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Silento posted:I'm hoping Lash is the parasite just because it would be really cool for Harry to have a Bob inside of his head. It could probably also help him manipulate Soulfire, as Lasciel once wielded it herself (presumably). The parasite is actively trying to kill him is it not? That would make a happy Lash becomes his internal version of Bob scenario much less likely. Though yes, that would be amazingly cool. I want Lash back as a character, I just don't see how the story has been set up to bring her back in a positive way. unrelated: I feel like the REDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTED DJ_Ferret fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Sep 20, 2013 |
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Sep 20, 2013 02:07
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DJ_Ferret posted:The parasite is actively trying to kill him is it not? That would make a happy Lash becomes his internal version of Bob scenario much less likely.
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Sep 20, 2013 03:27
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Aha, I accede the point. Adding content, I've been re-listening to the books and I just finished Changes, starting up Ghost Story again. The change in narrator was MUCH more sudden and upsetting with less than 5 minutes of gap between books rather than a year plus.
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Sep 20, 2013 03:39
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cultureulterior posted:I should mention that if you liked 20 palaces, Harry Connolly is doing a kickstarter for a (non 20 palaces) book right now His writing ability dived in to the toilet so hard after book 1 of twenty palace, has anything changed?
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Sep 20, 2013 15:43
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DJ_Ferret posted:The parasite is actively trying to kill him is it not? That would make a happy Lash becomes his internal version of Bob scenario much less likely. The parasite doesn't want to kill him though, based on Ghost Story. It kept him alive. The problem is that once it matures/heals, it'd somehow kill him in the process as a consequence.
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Sep 20, 2013 15:57
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So I'm up to the third or fourth Mercy Thompson book now, wanted to thank whoever recommended it. Not the best books, but well-read and good enough to pass time at work. That said, I really really dislike the mental domination throughout the entire loving series all the drat time but its not the worlds biggest issue.
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Sep 20, 2013 23:21
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DJ_Ferret posted:What we know of wizardly regeneration actually works against this. When butters shows Harry his x-rays we see that the damage goes away entirely, and is made as new. But damage to the brain would totally eliminate anything contained within those cells, and anything that regenerated would come back as a blank slate. When Bob was talking to Harry about the burn-out resulting from Lash taking the mental bullet for him, he mentioned that not only was there damage to his brain, but entire chunks of his aura/soul/essence had been burned away "like swiss cheese". This to me would obviate Lash returning in quite the same way. From a purely biological standpoint if his bones had been repaired "as new" or as a "blank slate" they would be be vastly different in tissue composition/morphological characteristics than adult bone and would be a major liability to our bumbling wizard. I could go all biological  on the subject and explain how/what would change, but I'll save us all a long post and make the point that you can't read too deeply into the precise phrasing of a one-off conversation written 4 or 5 books ago. A more straightforward interpretation of those passages is simply that he regenerates damage perfectly to it's pre-injury state.That interpretation also indirectly explains the headaches. Lash was more or less an imprint stored in Harry's brain so it makes sense that pieces of her would be restored piece by piece as the damage slowly healed. As Harry found out first hand at the end of Ghost Story, returning to life was one of the most profoundly painful things he'd ever experienced thus as pieces of Lash reconnect and "come back to life" it would make sense that with her living in Harry's head he would catch some spillover, the episodes naturally increasing in frequency/severity as the healing nears completion and more and more neurons reconnect restoring Lash. As for soul related stuff it's mostly too vague to use as evidence either way, particularly since Harry's come to the realization (circa Cold Days) that the Soul is something amorphous which can't really be quantified or measured, he also recognized that Bob's explanation at the end of White Knight while a good place to start didn't properly describe the soul or soulfire. While that has a tiny taste of ret-con to it, fine tuning the rules in the Dresdenverse on something as mysterious as souls is hardly criminal particularly considering how vague and open ended Butcher left most of the previous information regarding the subject. I don't really see any reasons why it couldn't be Lash. Remember that while Lasciel may be "coming back and pissed" Lash =/= Lasciel and stopped being her shadow when she exercised free will. Also the obvious link is that part of that free will business was herleeching parasitically off Harry's soul. Mostly I think that character is the likely parasite simply because (as mentioned above) of the "rule of cool". There would be so many interesting ways for Butcher to take that plotline and develop the character in a unique way that hasn't really been used in any mainstream works I can think of.
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Sep 20, 2013 23:35
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Now that's a chain of logic I can get behind. For some reason your argument makes more sense as written than others have. It also helps that I'm re-listening to Ghost Story and Harry just had the conversation with Inez and Eternal Silence. Thinking about the parasite's identity while listening to that made it seem much more likely. And referring to the Parasite wanting to kill Harry. The parasite did help him live, but we do have to keep in mind that if the host dies the parasite dies as well. It is possible that the Parasite did not want to kill Harry, but keep in mind is it causing him intentional harm in such a way that Demonreach has to yell at it to make it stop hurting Harry. That could be unintentional, but it seems that an entity capable of doing something as complex biologically/magically as producing freaking BLOOD would be aware of the pain it was causing. It seems to me like it is acting out of self preservation, keeping the environment that it needs to live (see definition of Parasite) functioning at a basic level until it can burst out and discard the shell it was using to leverage its way to the real world. We may be seeing a return not of our friendly neighborhood Lash, nor of Lasciel's shadow, but of a combined entity. OR Lash is just a little thoughtless. Also possible. edit: if it seems like I'm changing my opinion with nearly every post, it's because y'all make convincing arguments and I have to integrate them into my theories. DJ_Ferret fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Sep 21, 2013 |
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Sep 21, 2013 00:20
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Dresden withdrawals actually has me looking for a set of the TV show. Blackthorne is better than nothing, right?
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Sep 21, 2013 21:12
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WarLocke posted:Dresden withdrawals actually has me looking for a set of the TV show. Blackthorne is better than nothing, right? It's on Netflix, if you have access to that. It was... Interesting, as long as you're expecting something that only vaguely resembles the books.
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Sep 21, 2013 21:18
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Arcsech posted:It's on Netflix, if you have access to that. It was... Interesting, as long as you're expecting something that only vaguely resembles the books. I've actually seen it before. Actually, pretty sure I saw the show before reading any of the books. Agreed that it took a lot of liberties (the DuMorne stuff always stuck in my craw) but TV-Bob made up for a lot of it. e: And Paul Blackthorne (?), while he may not totally match the Harry from the books, was loving fantastic casting otherwise.
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Sep 21, 2013 21:20
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DJ_Ferret posted:OR Lash is just a little thoughtless. Also possible. She has been spending too much time around Harry. It might be contagious.
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Sep 21, 2013 22:54
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WarLocke posted:TV-Bob made up for a lot of it. I met Terence Mann in July after a performance of Pippin and mentioned to him that he'd seemed familiar but when I heard him speak, I knew he was Bob the Ghost from The Dresden Files tv series. He said he was sad that the series ended and that he'd had fun playing that part. I also may or may not have mentioned Critters and Critters 2. 
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Sep 21, 2013 23:21
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veekie posted:She has been spending too much time around Harry. It might be contagious. For someone who makes a living noticing things and making connections, you'd think he would be better at it. Though I suppose his investigative methods are about as complex as his diplomatic tactics. "This is America, our idea of diplomacy is to show up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other"
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Sep 22, 2013 10:14
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DJ_Ferret posted:For someone who makes a living noticing things and making connections, you'd think he would be better at it. His idea of diplomacy is to show up with a gun in one hand and a pizza in the other. For Toot.
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Sep 22, 2013 15:27
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veekie posted:His idea of diplomacy is to show up with a gun in one hand and a pizza in the other. Who, the next time we see him, will probably be armed with some form of primitive cannon.
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Sep 22, 2013 20:58
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mirthdefect posted:Who, the next time we see him, will probably be armed with some form of primitive cannon. Toot will be a full-sized Lord of faeries by the end of this series.
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Sep 22, 2013 21:07
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mirthdefect posted:Who, the next time we see him, will probably be armed with some form of primitive cannon. Nah, Lacuna's the gunner. He'll just have a dachshund in war armor, with a battleaxe made out of an old pizza cutter
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Sep 22, 2013 21:49
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404GoonNotFound posted:Nah, Lacuna's the gunner. He'll just have a dachshund in war armor, with a battleaxe made out of an old pizza cutter ONWARD, NOBLE STEED! *loud rattling of both teeth and armor as war-dachshund does the hop-run thing*
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Sep 22, 2013 22:21
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Dachshunds are impractical and kinda dumb. A small herding breed like a corgi, on the other hand...
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Sep 22, 2013 22:39
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Toot is so fast and so mobile that basically any kind of mount at all would be awful and impractical, so I vote for the weiner dog for comedy value.
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Sep 22, 2013 23:47
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Please. With as powerful as Toot's becoming, he can probably make that sumbitch fly, much like Murphy's Wild Hunt'd Harley.
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Sep 22, 2013 23:57
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404GoonNotFound posted:Please. With as powerful as Toot's becoming, he can probably make that sumbitch fly, much like Murphy's Wild Hunt'd Harley. You're all missing the point...eventually, Toot will be able to ride Mouse!
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Sep 23, 2013 02:26
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Welsh folklore does say that corgis are the preferred mounts of fairies. That's why some have a white stripe down their side - it's obviously a fairy saddle.
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Sep 23, 2013 03:15
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r0ff13c0p73r posted:You're all missing the point...eventually, Toot will be able to ride Mouse! No, those pony rides are reserved for Maggie and Maggie alone 
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Sep 23, 2013 04:16
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404GoonNotFound posted:No, those pony rides are reserved for Maggie and Maggie alone Pretty sure Mouse is bigger than most ponies by now.
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Sep 25, 2013 22:02
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 13:03 |
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DJ_Ferret posted:Now that's a chain of logic I can get behind. For some reason your argument makes more sense as written than others have. It also helps that I'm re-listening to Ghost Story and Harry just had the conversation with Inez and Eternal Silence. Thinking about the parasite's identity while listening to that made it seem much more likely. With the whole parasite thing, I prefer this explanation someone posted here ages ago. DrFrankenStrudel posted:Here's something I picked up on that noone else has mentioned. If you remember Harry's mental depictions of Lash she was always a woman dressed in an ancient Greek style tunic/robe, which is what put me on this train of thought. Harry's situation has a lot of comparability with Greek mythology, specifically the Athena mythos. It just makes sense to me. All the pieces seem to fit.
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Sep 26, 2013 00:07
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