Who says they have to know? Eb could bring him back quietly if it wasn't made known Harry died.

 

Word of Jim says that an entire year will pass before the start of the next book so the chances of people not finding out about it are slim to nil, unfortunately.

 

I could of swore I read somewhere somebody saying it would take place 45 minutes after where Changes left off...?

 

The 40 minutes after changes is the short story from Murphy's perspective that will be exclusively (or so I heard) in the short story collection Side Jobs.

 

Nitpicking here but, the Mantle goes back to the Queens. It's the Queens power that goes to the nearest aligned vessel. Other than that I've gotta completely agree with this.

 

I'll look back and check but I'm pretty sure that it is explicitly stated in Summer Knight. The whole problem in that novel was that the Mantle did not appear to snap back to a queen. Or rather that it did but then she squirreled it away into Lilly which let her hide it.

LOL!

 

"Toot? Since when do you have breasts?"

 

Say, could Mab have some sort of influence in the Downbelow? The "I want a soul back" kind of influence? Because I agree with everyone who thinks she won't let go of her knight that easily... Hard to think that anyone could get away with the kind of defiance and smat-assery (?) Harry has shown her before Changes.

 

I don't think it works that way. If Mother Winter dies, wouldn't Mab just take her place and Maeve become the Queen. I don't think you can become the Mother without being the Queen and the Lady first.

 

If that were the case, than I would guess that some knights have tried to assassinate the Ladies for eons and one would have been successful at some point :/ lloyd at least would have tried.

 

Ah, but we all assume Dresden won't be like the other ghosts seen, don't we? I'm very curious at how JB will explain him not being in nevernever and not acting like the standard spirits fought in Grave Peril...

 

Been rereading as well, and the power does pass onto a queen first. It's how Harry knew it had to be summer the was the murderer and consequencly the Summer Lady, because the power had to go to the closest queen, which he found out to be Aurora (mispelt?).

So say if Mab was the ckosest queen wheen Harry dies the power would go back to her, she could just duke it out waiting for dresden to come back, as it has been shown she is willing to do before with Slayt when she originaly wanted Harry.

That is if Mab knows Harry is coming back, who knows what Jim is going to do.

 

First, proofread your posts and click on the little white button right beneath the reply area that says 'Spell Check', since that is what it is there for (Firefox also has a handy add-on here that installs a dictionary to actively check the spelling in your posts).

Secondly, the names are Aurora and Lloyd Slate for the former Summer Lady and Winter Knight, respectively.

Thirdly, yes. The power would have reverted to the nearest queen, which opens up interesting scenarios if Maeve was involved in his death in some way. As I recall we haven't seen her actively doing much since Summer Knight, besides meeting with Dresden once or twice.

 

OK so what I've gathered so far is that Harry is dead. Dead as dead can be. I'm gonna assume that this means his soul departs from his physical shell and drifts off to wherever.

I think Harry won't get to go anywhere a soul would be expected to go. I think Cassius's death curse will tie Harry's spirit to the physical plane. In essence causing him to suffer death "alone". He will drift among the living, unnoticed, and be separated from the truly dead; making him the first legitament ghost.

Butcher says he's a lazy writer, if he put that die alone part right there, maybe he didn't just mean for Harry to die on a boat by himself. Maybe he intended that to be a more significant part of the next story. He has to remain completely alone in his own plane of existence.

This could make his spirit more accesable to the living realm than the average dead spirit, allowing for a plausable revival or something.

Of course this could just be gibberish.


Also, if Harry's been dead for a year by the start of this book, and he's been conscious of his surroundings, he's gonna be pretty fucked up in the head is he not? Isolation like that does not help your people skills.

 

That's actually a pretty interesting interpretation of the death curse... and one I haven't seen before.
It's true that we don't really know what Cassius meant by it, either - we can only assume, like Harry did. He thought "Die alone" meant his life would end when he had no one, or he would never have anyone in his life. It could have been more basic and literal, as in, "when you are alone, only then can you die."

But given that it was re-iterated on the last page - yeah, I like this idea. "Experience death alone" is a much cooler idea.

 

Remember how ghosts/spirits of the Dresdenverse work, they're psychic echo's, not true ghosts. The actual 'selves' are off to heaven or hell or Valhalla or wherever else. It would fit with IBW's theory that Dresden is 'halfway' his actual soul, not the echo is hanging around Chicago.