The Dresden Files

If Fae as powerful as the Ladys can be nfected i doubt the Hunger Demon would be much of an issue.

Personally i believe that there is only a limited "amount" of Nemesis going around and it has to be careful not to spread itself too thin, with more powerful beings taking a higher "amount" to nfect. Taking out Harry would be usefull, but at the end of the day he´s mostly just an annoyance. The conflict that actually interests Nemesis is the battle at the Outer Gates to which Harry was at most a tangential player for the longest time. So it makes sense to put some manpower on Harry, but put the main bulk of power into other plots (specificly against the Fae Courts and the Council/the Gatekeeper).

It may not be a question of power but nature.

It may not even be a matter of power or nature. Note that Nemesis cannot fully control people when they actively resist, meaning its actual power is limited.

Maeve became Nemesis' puppet because Nemesis tapped into Maeve's deep-seated resentment of being the Winter Lady. Nemesis presumably did something similar with Justine to get her on board. The other known cases of Nemesis infection were able to resist it because they didn't really want what it had to offer.

Edited by M84 on Mar 3rd 2024 at 11:49:22 PM

True. We don't actually know what Justine's real personality is like.

Thomas may actually have never known a decent Justine.

She may have always been Lara's catspaw.

As noted above, Justine never really had much agency; she was a White vampire's thrall for who known how long, and given how unstable she acts in Grave Peril, it might be that she didn't have the ability to fight back.

It makes sense that the two Nemesis infectees that are being fully controlled are the ones whose lives were already awful with little true freedom. We know that in Maeve's case she found being Nemesis' pawn an acceptable price for being able to get back at Mab for being Mab's pawn for so long.

Justine might have been willing to accept Nemesis because she didn't have meaningful freedom in her life anyway. So why not accept a form of servitude that at least lets you strike back against the previous oppressors?

This might explain why even one of the Fallen Angels might be a Nemesis infectee. Being stuck in a coin working with assholes isn't exactly a great existence.

Edited by M84 on Mar 4th 2024 at 12:33:35 AM

What about the cat from Cold Case?

One thing we know about Justine is that sacrificing herself to save Thomas in Blood Rites was her decision, as it counted as an act of genuine love. So she was probably in control then, which places her infection as being between then and White Night.

I couldn't get around to reviewing White Night, so I decided to read Small Favor instead; it's become a twofer!

In my dimmest understanding, I think I had the upcoming book as one of my favorites - we'll see if that holds up.

Edited by FergardStratoavis on Mar 18th 2024 at 10:15:56 AM

I don't believe the other WC Houses were "wiped out" in White Night? A lot of their memebers were killed but they were only diminished and brought in line, not exterminated.

The only reason Eldest Fetch seemed like a chump was because Harry had been powered up by the Summer Lady at the time. I imagine the fight with Gruff would've gone differently if Harry had Maeve backing him up.

I don't think they show up in any serious capacity after White Night, and all of their leadership is wiped out in that event. I'll verify once I'm up to date, but the vast majority of WC Vamps (all of them?) that show up from that point are Raiths (including villains like Madeleine in Turn Coat).

That's true, but Fetch also had a home field advantage - and even then, Harry was able to lose it back in Chicago with some iced floor. The Gruffs take a lot more effort to shake off in comparison (though Harry was handicapped for most of it due to Mab). Plus, Fetch's victims are much less impressive compared to Gruff who not only has the Senior Council stoles as trophies, but blasts Magog apart without breaking a sweat.

Madrigal is definitely one of my boys. I love how dumb his concept is.

He deserved better. I don't know why Jim has this agenda where every White Court vampire who isn't named Lara or Thomas is depicted as an idiot. XD

Seriously, has there been a White Court vampire villain who's intellect wasn't brought into question in some way? i guess there's that other guy in White Night, but he always felt like he was being buffed by Cowl.

Edited by GNinja on Mar 18th 2024 at 2:12:38 PM

Especially funny when you consider that their Hat is clever schemes

Theoretically, I would say Ceasarina Malvora looked smart since she looked above suspicion by being behind the obvious and obnoxious idiots, if it hadn't been revealed to be all part of Lara's plan.

Turn Coat finished.

• Some technical thoughts first:
  • I keep thinking of this book as the 10th one for some reason. I guess Morgan's death is basically the last major event before literally everything explodes in Harry's life.
  • The name of the book in Polish is just "Zdrajca"; it made me realize that with the exception of Changes all other books have two-word titles, and I assume this is intentional considering what a massive status quo upender Changes are.
  • Some blunders in the Polish version; at one point the temple dogs Ancient Mai makes are referred to as made by "ancient Mayans". Also, there's one instance of Outsiders being left untranslated (the Polish version is "Intruz", which is "Intruder" instead; still fits, I think).
• This is the book about the White Council; it tells us a substantial amount about its mode of operations. In fact, it's spelled verbatim by Ancient Mai that the role of the White Council isn't "justice", but "fear and power" as motivators to keep other supernatural forces from messing with the Council and the mortal world. YMMV on how that works, especially that last one.
  • It tells about its status as an organization (Murphy explaining the basics of bureaucracy to Harry) or how politicking can take precedence over actual moral integrity (Cristos forcing his way into Senior Council or Merlin deciding to spit on Morgan's name post-mortem); most pertinently, how it is nowhere near as stable and united as it should be, especially in the face of a common enemy that is the Red Court.
  • It also shows us not one, not two, but three Senior Council members casually display the kind of power that Harry won't have even much later. We've "seen" Ebenezar's satellite show back in Death Masks, but it was just something after the fact; we've also heard of Merlin pulling a massive ward out of his sleeve during the Kongo attack in Dead Beat; now both of them as well as Listens-to-Wind demonstrate just what it is that they can do. Stopping Lara in her tracks with a force choke? Fending off a horrifying demigod? Able to coordinate with other people at the speed of thought, complete with a visual display, while in the middle of an extremely dangerous situation? Harry's right, it is like going to Disneyland.
• Speaking of demigods, Shagnasty is an excellent antagonist despite his lack of depth. While he's not the first enemy that Harry couldn't defeat, he was the first who had him completely outclassed in every fashion, even despite the home field advantage and Soulfire; plus, he's the one responsible for Thomas's regression to his old White Court ways. It is a bit annoying, since there was absolutely no way for Harry to prevent this short of not involving Thomas at all. I also vaguely remember that despite the unsettling discussion they have at the end of this book, Thomas is more or less the same person in Changes that he was before Shagnasty happened - which was kind of annoying to realize. Hopefully I'm just misremembering it.
• Binder's great; he's an example of a villain that the White Council doesn't bother with exactly because he does not violate the Laws of Magic - but does all sorts of other nasty things in the gray area. And, credit where it's due, he knows when to call quits. I'm honestly surprised Harry let him get away. Also, those frag 'nades Binder gave him ended up doing nothing at all.
• I don't care for Madeline much, but she helped reestablish how horrifying White Court vampires can actually be when pressed. (not out of her own volition though. RIP in pieces)
• The titular turn coat Peabody may not be much in terms of presence or even screentime, but their sheer scope of undermining the White Council cannot be overstated. And you would see them now and then in the background in earlier books too.
• "What the hell is Craigslist?" My guy, you almost went on e-Bay for sale a few books back.
• I'm not sure how I feel about Molly's outbursts this book. It's understandable why she'd be cross with Morgan, considering his history with Harry, but it still feels kind of forced.
• And speaking of Morgan, he's been great this book; we get a thorough insight into him, and he even briefly gets in on the action by rolling on Binder with a shotgun and later at the very end.
• Vince Graver surprised me; I found him surprisingly high on the list of introduced characters. Not sure why; he was just a guy who proved supremely skilled with a camera, but there was something affable about him at the end of it.

...right. Changes next. That one will be a doozy...

Not just two words, but two words that each contain the same number of letters (in English, at least), creating a nice symmetry. Dead Beat, Turn Coat, and Battle Ground could all be rendered as single compound words in English, but Butcher splits them up deliberately. Which, yes, Changes breaks all to heck.

He's more standoffish at first, until Harry tells him he has more family to protect; that breaks through his façade. Even then, he only commits himself once Harry makes it clear the bloodline curse will kill him too if it goes off. They more-or-less ignore their personal drama for the sake of the mission after that.

Then, Harry dies and Thomas goes into a depressed funk (so much for being an inhuman monster, eh?) until Justine does her end-run around the love protection (or maybe gets possessed, cancelling it) and snaps him out of it with sexytimes. He's pretty well back to normal after that; between Justine and the svartalves he finds himself able to keep fed without hurting people too much or starving himself at the hair salon, so his excuses about just accepting that he eats people fall flat, even to himself.

Edited by HeraldAlberich on Mar 26th 2024 at 4:05:17 AM

Eh, I agree that it feels like the Thomas thing was resolved way too quickly. Changes ignores it for the sake of its plot, and then Ghost Story has it solved offscreen. It never quite felt like something with weight as the last chapter of TC made it feel.

Speaking of, TC was a book I thought was pretty decent, but on re-reads became one of my favorite books.

Turn Coat was one of my favourites but I agree that not just Thomas but the whole status quo it seemed to set up was abandoned when Changes changed everything.

(I've said before while blowing up its status quo unnecessarily was brave, the series has never really recovered from it for me)

I can't think of a decent other example but I'm sure the Dresden Files has done it before set up that something like the Black Council was going to be dealt with in the next book, only for it to do something different or skip over it.

For Dead Beat at least, it's not actually the word deadbeat split up, it's a reference to the rhythm necromancers need to control zombies

"Personally i believe that there is only a limited "amount" of Nemesis going around and it has to be careful not to spread itself too thin,"

It's Word of Jim that Nemesis can infect only thirteen entities at any one time. And we don't know if it can drop a victim if it decides they're not worth the trouble. It may need to kill the infected in order to move on.

Lea is the only person we know to be uninfected and it required her being dunked in the wellspring of Winter for an unspecified amount of time but certainly at least two or three years

Edited by asterism on Mar 26th 2024 at 10:39:09 AM

Sure, it’s a pun. The intended reference would fall flat as a single word.

Ooh, I hadn’t heard that one.

Edited by HeraldAlberich on Mar 26th 2024 at 9:12:42 AM

Isn't it just a theory? Because I could only find these Reddit posts calling it such.

The only thing Jim really said is that it is limited in the number of people it can infect:

(Including the source of the quote here because it was a pain in the ass to track down. My personal pet peeve in this fandom is that people always mention half-remembered WO Js without citing them, leading to mixups with popular fan theories)

The "13" number appears to be based on Ebenezer telling Harry in PT that the Cornerhounds are one being inhabiting 13 bodies.

Edited by allfictions on Mar 27th 2024 at 1:12:20 PM

The Cornerhounds are Xehanort?!