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Cythereal posted:I think a lot of the unanswered questions about that encounter have to do with Harry's birth and the power over Outsiders he has, which has been hinted to be because of his birth in some way. I think Harry has been a pawn of the biggest powers in the supernatural world since before his conception, and he's going to find out exactly why he was born in the final trilogy that Butcher's promised. I do stick with my hypothesis that it has actually nothing to do with being born under some arcane starsign or whatever, but some sort of self fulfilling prophecy ala gatekeeper where Harry's future decisions to oppose the outsiders and evil ripple back in time to his youth.
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Jul 22, 2017 23:20
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Wheat Loaf posted:How are the Rivers of London comics? I enjoy DC Guleed and understand she's a big character in the comics. I bought a few of them a while back and I felt a bit cheated. The stories themselves were fine, but they were very short and split up into many volumes (which made it a bit annoying to buy/read them). I think I ended up paying ~$20 for as much entertainment/story as a typical short story, so relatively expensive. I don't read many comics in that format though, so maybe that's just how the format is. I remember reading some Dresden comics that were even worse in terms of splitting things up. I just looked them up on Amazon again though and apparently they've merged all the different volumes for each story into 1 item, and they've also slashed the price substantially. Instead of buying 15 items for ~$60 total, it's 3 items for ~$35 total. They're still short reads and more expensive than a regular full-length paperback, but much more reasonable to buy now. And yes, Guleed did feature a fair bit as far as I can remember.
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Jul 22, 2017 23:33
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Cythereal posted:The Unseelie Accords do provide precedent that fae rules of law and etiquette are respected by supernatural powers, so it's not an unreasonable idea. The only being we've seen so far openly defy the Accords is an Outsider - even the Knights of the Cross and the Denarians are signatories. Nitpick: I'm pretty sure the Denarians were dropped from the Accords precisely because they defied them in Small Favor. Less importantly, according to the same book, the Knights aren't signatories.
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Jul 23, 2017 04:40
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Apoffys posted:I just looked them up on Amazon again though and apparently they've merged all the different volumes for each story into 1 item, and they've also slashed the price substantially. Instead of buying 15 items for ~$60 total, it's 3 items for ~$35 total. What appears to have happened here is that you've gotten monthly comics confused with compiled graphic novels - it's always (or at least for 25+ years) been cheaper to get the collected edition months later than buy the monthly floppies - especially after the insane inflation in the cover price of comic books in the early 90s when the spectator market kicked in.
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Jul 23, 2017 16:26
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Probably. I don't normally buy comics, so I didn't know that they would eventually be released as a compilation. I bought the digital version of all 5 issues of Body Work two months after the last issue was released, so I figured that was it.
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Jul 23, 2017 17:02
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If there isn't already a men in black style anti magic task force or whatever (which there probably is, remember how that tape of murph killing the loup garou disappeared?) I bet Agent Tilly is working on one
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Jul 23, 2017 21:28
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I fully expect that to be the case in Peace Talks, since WoJ is that he's showing up. A guy who can get the magical world shoved in his face and not completely break down about it is the kind of guy an agency like that wants on board. That said, I'd love for him to be partnered with Rudolph because that would be hilarious 
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Jul 24, 2017 03:03
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I'm hoping that Penguin gets done messing around with Brief Cases soon-ish so at least we can have that to tide us over until 2019 or whatever. Wanna buy that book.
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Jul 24, 2017 03:27
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Vateke posted:Nitpick: I'm pretty sure the Denarians were dropped from the Accords precisely because they defied them in Small Favor. I think that even though the Knights haven't signed, none of the less evil signatories ( the Fae, the White Council, Marcone) see it that way. They treat them as people to be respected and not messed with, though that may just be because as long as you're not taking away someone's free will they have no power over you. I doubt any member of the White Council would deny a Knight assistance, nor would Mab or Titania gently caress with them without a drat good reason.
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Jul 24, 2017 03:40
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CainsDescendant posted:If there isn't already a men in black style anti magic task force or whatever (which there probably is, remember how that tape of murph killing the loup garou disappeared?) I bet Agent Tilly is working on one I figured that was Black or White Council cleaning up, but quite possible. And hey, something like Black Watch even fits the series naming convention. seaborgium posted:I think that even though the Knights haven't signed, none of the less evil signatories ( the Fae, the White Council, Marcone) see it that way. They treat them as people to be respected and not messed with, though that may just be because as long as you're not taking away someone's free will they have no power over you. I doubt any member of the White Council would deny a Knight assistance, nor would Mab or Titania gently caress with them without a drat good reason. I think it helps that there's at most three Knights around at a time.
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Jul 24, 2017 03:43
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Knights are also a totally reactive force who don't engage with the supernatural outside of the Denarians. Add to that what Nick tells us in Skin Game: that the average length of time to wield a sword is 3 days and most Knights throughout history have done a singular mission and moved on.
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Jul 24, 2017 04:07
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Zore posted:Knights are also a totally reactive force who don't engage with the supernatural outside of the Denarians. Well, there was that one time two of them took part in casting down the Red Court.
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Jul 24, 2017 04:16
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Cythereal posted:Well, there was that one time two of them took part in casting down the Red Court. Yeah and Michael fought a Dragon once. But that's always an immediately reactive 'you're harming an innocent mortal' and not long term interaction. Which is another reason they'd never sign the accords. They'd just break em anyways if someone needed help and most of the signatories are monsters who prey on humanity.
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Jul 24, 2017 04:21
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Zore posted:Yeah and Michael fought a Dragon once. But that's always an immediately reactive 'you're harming an innocent mortal' and not long term interaction. A funny thing that occurred to me, thinking about the Knights. It's an established thing that every Knight is descended from royalty (and not necessarily Western - Shiro was a descendant of Sho Tai, the last king of Ryukyu), and the Carpenters are eventually revealed by Molly to be descendants of Charlemagne, through Michael's side. Each of the three Swords has also been established to be or have been a famous sword from history - Excalibur, Durendal, and Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi. Durendal was the sword of Charlemagne, but it was not the sword Michael, descendant of Charlemagne, used.
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Jul 24, 2017 04:32
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That's because Sanya isn't a loving square.
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Jul 24, 2017 05:04
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Cythereal posted:..descendants of Charlemagne, through Michael's side. This always made me chuckle, because from a pure statistical standpoint if you are of primarily European ancestry you are also a descendant of Charlemagne. I'll have to check and see if it mentions "direct descent" since that's a whole different kettle of fish, and I'm sure that's what Butcher was going for.
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Jul 24, 2017 14:48
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Proteus Jones posted:This always made me chuckle, because from a pure statistical standpoint if you are of primarily European ancestry you are also a descendant of Charlemagne. It does make me wonder who Susan and Murphy are descended from, given that they've wielded Swords. Michael is a descendant of Charlemagne. Sanya is descended from Saladin. Butters is descended from David. Shiro from Sho Tai, the last king of Ryukyu.
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Jul 24, 2017 15:19
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Murphy is Irish, so there's loads of kings to choose from there.
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Jul 24, 2017 15:35
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Wheat Loaf posted:Murphy is Irish, so there's loads of kings to choose from there. Murphy is a descendant of king bad rear end, she rides a motorcycle for crying out loud!
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Jul 24, 2017 17:14
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Cythereal posted:It does make me wonder who Susan and Murphy are descended from, given that they've wielded Swords. Michael is a descendant of Charlemagne. Sanya is descended from Saladin. Butters is descended from David. Shiro from Sho Tai, the last king of Ryukyu. Wheat Loaf posted:Murphy is Irish, so there's loads of kings to choose from there. Exmond posted:Murphy is a descendant of king bad rear end, she rides a motorcycle for crying out loud! Well, duh. It's totally Boudica the bad-rear end queen of the Picts. http://www.historynet.com/boudica-celtic-war-queen-who-challenged-rome.htm quote:She slaughtered a Roman army. She torched Londinium, leaving a charred layer almost half a meter thick that can still be traced under modern London. According to the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus, her army killed as many as 70,000 civilians in Londinium, Verulamium and Camulodunum, rushing ‘to cut throats, hang, burn, and crucify. Who was she? Why was she so angry?
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Jul 24, 2017 17:16
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And here I thought she was just the descendant of someone's aunt
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Jul 24, 2017 17:26
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jivjov posted:And here I thought she was just the descendant of someone's aunt You've never heard of Queen Auntie Goodpeople?
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Jul 24, 2017 18:24
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Just finished the Last Policeman trilogy and god drat that was depressing. Anybody got any recommendations for something not-so-depressing to read?
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Jul 24, 2017 20:02
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Just finished the Last Policeman trilogy and god drat that was depressing. Southern Reach trilogy.
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Jul 24, 2017 20:29
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Number Ten Cocks posted:Southern Reach trilogy. Not available for purchase on Kindle in my country (US). 
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Jul 24, 2017 20:36
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Not available for purchase on Kindle in my country (US). It's showing up for me. It's thirty bucks for all three books, but it's showing up. Edit: I suspect you went right for the omnibus edition, which then links to newer paperback editions. It's weird. Here's the link for the US Kindle books.
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Jul 24, 2017 20:44
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Not available for purchase on Kindle in my country (US). He's being somewhat facetious. Try Goblin Emperor and Mother of Learning. Both are very low-stress reads.
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Jul 24, 2017 21:22
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Cythereal posted:Harry was a scared kid fighting for his life against a man who turned his girlfriend into a mindless puppet and was trying to kill him. He and the Council generally are more or less okay with using magic to kill in self-defense against someone trying to kill you. Harry has a very bad temper and is quite comfortable with violence, and in the early books especially was quite tempted to kill various mortals with magic, death sentence or not. There's a lot of evidence killing with magic DID affect him, even if not to the point of re-offending. And the Council (by its own rules) doesn't have any knowledge of what's going on in his head. "I have the right to kill in self defense" is a tolerable enough belief for Harry to have, but what if the motivation was more like "I have the right to kill because the person angered/scared me so much"? Given that even a morally excusable reason to break the Laws seems to create temptation to break them later on in a wizard (assuming it WAS a moral reason the first time), and the tremendous damage a warlock can do in a short time when they slip the leash, it makes a hell of a lot of sense that the Council's normal response, absent a VERY strong argument and someone effectively volunteering to heavily monitor the Law-breaker practically 24/7, is "we can't take the chance, kill 'em". CainsDescendant posted:If there isn't already a men in black style anti magic task force or whatever (which there probably is, remember how that tape of murph killing the loup garou disappeared?) I bet Agent Tilly is working on one I swear I seem to recall the author saying somewhere the Library of Congress has a very scary "Special Collections" division, but I can't track it down so don't take my word for it. It's possible though most of the government supernatural investigation stuff follows the pattern of SI instead of a true Men in Black style agency; certain groups in various normal agencies who have a reputation for handling "weird stuff" and a list of contacts they can go to. Considering the White Council seems to do at least some politics mixed with occasional violence to curb the worst offenders, and every supernatural group has both competitors and a healthy respect for the risk of full mortal response, you probably wouldn't need a dedicated agency to handle the situation. If some monster runs wild bleeding city streets they're likely to get taken down by clued-in locals/wizards/enemies/their own people long before it could become a blip on the radar of some major super-secret agency.
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Jul 24, 2017 21:29
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MadDogMike posted:I swear I seem to recall the author saying somewhere the Library of Congress has a very scary "Special Collections" division, but I can't track it down so don't take my word for it. It's possible though most of the government supernatural investigation stuff follows the pattern of SI instead of a true Men in Black style agency; certain groups in various normal agencies who have a reputation for handling "weird stuff" and a list of contacts they can go to. Considering the White Council seems to do at least some politics mixed with occasional violence to curb the worst offenders, and every supernatural group has both competitors and a healthy respect for the risk of full mortal response, you probably wouldn't need a dedicated agency to handle the situation. If some monster runs wild bleeding city streets they're likely to get taken down by clued-in locals/wizards/enemies/their own people long before it could become a blip on the radar of some major super-secret agency. I'm thinking of something in the vein of VASCU or VALKYRIE from the World of Darkness, though: a mortal government agency intent on enforcing the law on supernaturals. Putting arrest warrants on ghouls, charging White Court with human trafficking, stuff like that. Feels like something that would fit into the Dresden Files pretty well while still being a completely out of left field problem in the supernatural world, mortal governments asserting their agency and sovereignty against even the magical world.
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Jul 24, 2017 21:42
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Just finished the Last Policeman trilogy and god drat that was depressing. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. It's just kinda light and fun.
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Jul 24, 2017 22:34
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Just finished the Last Policeman trilogy and god drat that was depressing. Kim Newman's Angels of Music.
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Jul 24, 2017 23:37
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Cythereal posted:I'm thinking of something in the vein of VASCU or VALKYRIE from the World of Darkness, though: a mortal government agency intent on enforcing the law on supernaturals. Putting arrest warrants on ghouls, charging White Court with human trafficking, stuff like that. Feels like something that would fit into the Dresden Files pretty well while still being a completely out of left field problem in the supernatural world, mortal governments asserting their agency and sovereignty against even the magical world. This sounds awful
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Jul 24, 2017 23:50
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Up Circle posted:This sounds awful Yeah, but I could easily see someone like the Army or the CIA having a few guys around who know about some weird poo poo, and are allowed leeway to deal with it. Kimmler had a hand in WWI and ran around during WWII, there's no way some army unit didn't have to deal with it. Someone somewhere knows about it, it's just they don't talk to Harry or the White Council officially or at all.
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Jul 25, 2017 00:25
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Zore posted:Yeah and Michael fought a Dragon once. But that's always an immediately reactive 'you're harming an innocent mortal' and not long term interaction. IIRC from Grave Peril the swords can nullify any supernatural deals anyway so its pointless for any of the supernatural great powers to try to get the Knights to sign anyway.
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Jul 25, 2017 00:37
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http://biblehub.com/kjv/matthew/5-34.htm
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Jul 25, 2017 00:46
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Up Circle posted:This sounds awful I dunno. I'm always partial to the mundane world kicking the supernatural world's rear end. Coincidentally Murphy is my favorite character in the Dresden Files.
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Jul 25, 2017 01:21
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Cythereal posted:I dunno. I'm always partial to the mundane world kicking the supernatural world's rear end. Coincidentally Murphy is my favorite character in the Dresden Files. Isn't that one of the rules of the Accords? "Don't get the mortals involved cause they'll kill us all."
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Jul 25, 2017 03:54
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Magic and the supernatural are actually too common in the Dresdenverse for mortal agencies that police them to work, because that makes it explicit that governments know about the supernatural, and that would lead to a supernatural cold war that would make the actual Cold War look quaint in comparison, and there's been absolutely zero indication that this is the case. A bunch of random SI-like agencies and individuals that are tolerated is far more likely.
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Jul 25, 2017 04:04
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Plus most magical organizations have been operating for a long rear end time, and most of them have no problem infiltrating or subverting human society. Any given Red/White court Vampire could pretty easily dismantle a clandestine organization before it really got going, and we know they regularly become/take control of influential politicians. You'd also probably run into issues with the White Council if you try to set up an MIB style agency and start using magic to do things like read minds or kill people, which is immediately what those organizations would try to do. Even the mortal organizations that have supernatural arms (the Catholic church etc) have massive issues with being subverted. Let's not forget how quickly Lasciel's coin went back into circulation.
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Jul 25, 2017 04:10
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Zore posted:Plus most magical organizations have been operating for a long rear end time, and most of them have no problem infiltrating or subverting human society. Any given Red/White court Vampire could pretty easily dismantle a clandestine organization before it really got going, and we know they regularly become/take control of influential politicians. And all of that bothers me a little. Mortals feel like they have virtually no agency or legitimacy in the Dresden Files, Murphy can't walk down a block these days without some supernatural power offering her a job. Granted, that's not the kind of story Butcher seems interested in telling, but I kind of wish it was. I really like the idea of mortals taking back their world.
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Jul 25, 2017 04:40
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