It doesn't really have to be 'succumbing' or a 'fight'.

Just using the mantle will (eventually) cost her her soul, something I doubt Mab has told her. So all Mab has to do is force a situation where Molly has the choice of using the mantle or let someone die or something and voila, one soulless Molly coming up.

 

And hopefully this mantle isn't as needy or stupid as Lasciel's shadow. Oh hey, you were nice to me, I'm just gonna forget my reason for being!

The squires are hoping to get coins. That's why they love him. If he killed them and stranded them in Greek hell why would they help him? He can't hurt them, he can't help them so they might as well be petty if they're going to spend eternity getting mindfucked by Hades. None of them are truly trustworthy.

Sure, he could maybe mindfuck someone into doing it but it would take a long time AND he would never be certain. Only his daughter was the safe choice and notice that he's even uncertain about her.

 

Butters could have caused an archangel to fall. If Hades hadn't turned out to be a cool guy those last few chapters would have been completely different.

 

It is an interesting part, ched. Who is the enemy and how would it reach her beyond death? Is it god? Lucifer? Aaand yes, butters fucked up when he should haver trusted harry, but its not like he has any idea about what his actions might have triggered. If he kills nic, though, I am going to rage.

 

Finished this yesterday. Haven't read the rest of this thread obv, so I'll just point out my observations of the book.

I liked it. It''s the best once since Turn Coat (which is maybe my 4th or 5th favorite). That's not saying much, but I honestly dislike 12, 13, and 14 quite a lot. I'm not sure why so many people think Changes is the bee's knees, but that's a discussion for a different thread.

My biggest complaint with the previous books was how much fan-service Jim was providing, to the point of being overwhelmingly obnoxious. Whatever the reason, it came back down to acceptable levels for this book. There was the expected amount of Star Wars jokes, and some quips about mpreg, but nothing that made me groan in frustration unlike the previous book. So that's good.

The plot itself was fairly generic. There was no build up at all, and very little to connect it to the actual ongoing storyline. The whole building a crew to rob a bank idea was fine, nothing to special or surprising, but the execution was done fairly well to make up for the fact that it felt like fanfiction (much like the previous stories did).

On of my gripes is how some things just don't seem to make sense within the own world that Jim built. Such as Murphy having the sword inside the rocket tube the whole time. That doesn't make sense to me, that no one would notice that at all.

Another thing is the idea that Marcone was in on the plot the whole time. Supposedly that's how 'they' got the plans, but that doesn't account for the mystery vault door that Valmont had to get through in 3 minutes, other than handwaving that away.

The most emotional scene for me was probably Nick killing his daughter. I felt it was well written, so much that I was realizing what was happening at the same exact time that Dresden was, and coming to the same conclusion that Diedre was going to die only a couple paragraphs before it happened. It wasn't really a plot twist in my mind.

That leads me to another gripe, in that do one died. Well, no one of importance. If I write fanfiction of this book, it's going to be Murphy dying by Nick's hands. Because seriously, Murphy is probably my third least favorite character, after Ellaine and the entire White court. Now it looks like the Harry/Murphy ship is finally rolling after 15 years. At the very least, he could have killed Butters, or kill Tessa (why was she there anyways? To prevent Nick from killing her daughter?).

Back to the plot twist thing, there was nothing that I really was shocked at. I wasn't really surprised at Harry's baby spirit of intellect thing - mostly, because I don't really remember the end of the last book too well, and I never really thought he was corrupted by the Nemesis parasite thing to begin with. I don't care about the Maggie stuff either, it may as bell just be blank pages.

I figured one of the character other than Diedre and Nick had to be a Fallen as well. When Nick 'surrendered' and took off his noose and dropped his coin, I honestly thought he was dropping a different coin. I didn't think that both the squatch and ascher would be (how can a squatch be a fallen anyways? doesn't make sense.) I got a mixed impression, thinking that Nick had to have just given them the coins minutes before the fight, but that doesn't really line up with Ascher's comments.

I didn't think Goodman Grey would be the plant. Him doing the whole thing for $1 is obviously supposed to mean something, but I'm not sure what. I honestly thought the plot would have more to do with Harry's Winter earring, in much the same way that Harry used Lily's butterfly thing the channel the power of Summer, perhaps using it to draw agents of the Winter Court to his side or something.

Overall, a good book. All the books involving the Denarians seem to be my favorites for some reason.

 

You get the feeling that Butcher is doing all he can to avoid writing anything substantial involving Maggie, probably because that kind of hard hitting emotional stuff (getting to know your absent father with a dangerous job) combined with a young child character is a bitch to write.

I fully anticipate Butcher continuing to gloss over their relationship, only giving brief scenes light on dialogue or real interaction. We're going to enter the next book with a certain amount of bonding already having taken place off screen.

It's understandable, but still amateurish. If he didn't feel capable of writing their relationship, he shouldn't have given Harry a daughter.

 

The Enemy is everywhere.

The Enemy is everywhere.

The Enemy is everywhere.

The Enemy is everywhere.

But nobody seems to be worried or care,

That the Enemy is everywhere.

If Nick's a fan of Titus Anronicus, then I may have to call him one of my favourites now.

 

If true, why did Nicodemus go all "You will be safe from the Enemy here." when he killed Deirdre. Enemy being Nemesis does not fit in this particular case. Nemesis infects people in order to manipulate/control them. We saw it happen with Maeve, Lea and Cat Sith just like you say. Nemesis does this in order to try and weaken the defenses at the outer gates.

So heres the problem. If Nicodemus was referring to Nemesis when he said Deirdre would be safe from the Enemy then:

Why would Nemesis care one bit about a human soul thats already dead? Nemesis obviously has limits on the amount of beings it can infect, or Lea&Maeve would have spread the infection to half the sidhe in Winter. Given that there is obviously a limit, how would infecting a dead soul trapped in the underworld advance its agenda, when Nemesis could instead infect someone living and still active in the world instead?

Nemesis might have been interested in infecting a living Deirdre with power and influence, but a dead human soul thats not linked to a fallen angel anymore? Why would Nemesis care? Killing Deirdre anywhere would surely make Nemesis ignore her.

If Deirdre had died anywhere else, she would presumably have gone to the Christian hell, but since she died at the Gate of Blood, her soul belongs to Hades now. However, to assume she is protected because her soul is trapped in the underworld implies that Hades has the power to shield her from Nemesis.

But if Hades is strong enough to do that, then surely archangels and the Christian God would also be strong enough to protect her from Nemesis. There is nothing that the underworld of Hades offers that normal hell would not, when it comes to shielding someone from Nemesis.

It simply does not fit for "Enemy" to be Nemesis here. Its far more likely that Nicodemus was referring to the Christian God and/or Lucifer, and the "safe from the Enemy" line referred to the fact that Deirdres soul was spared the Christian Hell. Harry certainly thinks so, and I suspect he is right.

 

I think the Archangels/Angels/God can't or cbf'd to interfere with the Outsiders directly. Mab was able to cure Lea, so it is entirely possible that Angels can do something similar. Will they is the real question.

 

It's probably a free will thing. The universe, as currently set up, seems to be in balance such that the Outsiders never gain a foothold. Should that balance be disrupted, I imagine it will be the result of an act of free will. So it's not the role of Heaven in the cosmic order to resist the Outsiders.

And if Outsiders do invade, I guess it would be part of the plan for the apocalypse. Assuming that God is above the Outsiders in power too.

 

They have the power but it isn't their task. Unless nemesis went for a mortal. Which I assume is why it does not. Ched has a good point. But why is hades preferable to lucifer... Unless nic has some plan lucifer must not know of. Some plan that might involve the spear of destiny?

 

Who knows? Maybe Nic wants to collapse heaven and hell, or throw open the gates to both and let everyone back out. That would cause quite the mess, and leave all them suddenly returned folks vulnerable.

 

What is the argument that prevents god/his angels from interacting with the outsiders? They are an existence that has no place in the Dresden-Verse and thus operate outside of any of the rules and boundaries of it. So in my opinion they are the one thing that should have absolutely no "protection" from angels etc.

I would argue that since they are coming from outside the Universe they can hide from god/he is incapable of seeing them and so his options of fighting them are limited.

 

We don't know if there is a power similar to god on the outside and another balance in regards to it.

 

Well it depends on what, precisely, 'Outside' means in DF. Many, many stories use things like that and one of the things I have seen explaining the contradiction of things existing outside existence is that there isn't really things there. Rather it means in the boundary between what is and what is not things come to exist and are heavily twisted by the latter rendering them alien to both places. So the reason they seek the end of everything is that it is the only way for them to cease to be and, technically, they do belong in reality and thus can act within it.

The Outer Gates would then have to be built with some leeway from the boundary to prevent Outsiders from coming into being on the wrong side. Mortals being able to give Outsiders loopholes could mean the Gates were built by mortals or perhaps that the Outsiders do have something of an analogue to a soul, as twisted as it may be, which is enough to allow them freedom to act given a little push from a mortal.

Or something like that, thought most of this up just now. I mean you could even argue something on the lines of the Outsiders merely being the previous group of immortals and mortals that were overthrown by the current ones and the subsequent change to reality made them alien to it without much more assuming than I did above.

 

I meant them being similar to humans(or even humans themselves) and the other beings in Earth now who were either twisted by being sent there or reality changed so that to us they look twisted.

Though I might have misunderstood things. I always took that to mean the Outsiders were always things not from our reality that the Old Ones used as servants.