Corpsetaker was several centuries old, almost exactly the same an Luccio, if not a bit older, she was said to be in the Indian French war, the same war that Ebenezer and the Merlin fought in when they were "young punks".

Luccio didnt thrash her, Corpsetaker let herslef be run through so she could grab a new, more powerful body thats inthe white council.

Luccio LOST that fight, Dresden won it.

 

Reading it again, it could be interpreted either way. Luccio was an expert swordswoman and showed it to great effect when she fought off Corpsetaker and a few spectres at the same time. I don't think it was Corpsetaker's plan to get stabbed, but I figure that she didn't care overly much either.

She'd already figured out how to take her full power along when she swapped bodies and possibly already knew how to devour spirits like Kemmler did, so there wasn't really much she could gain from taking Luccio's body. Remember that she had her sights set much higher than being a spy in the Wardens; she was aiming for godhood, which is why Harry was able to shoot her and not get Death Cursed in return.

 

Time and again Harry mentions that White court vamps are the weakest physically and prefer using their powers and guile to manipulate cats paws.

Yet when the WC vamps draw on their hunger, they seem more than a match for standard Red Court Vamps, and the better WC vamps seem to be able to take on average Black court vamps.

Dresden seems to imply the power levels are BC>RC>WC.

Black court seem to have the top level in both physical and spiritual powers, but also huge weak points, RC seem half and half, strong and good spiritual, and only moderate weakness. White court seem to have pretty decent powers, matching the average of the other courts, but with none of their weakness. The only big downside to the WC is they cant rebuild their numbers. So the coup in the deeps would of screwed them.

All the vampire courts have been crippled or destroyed with in the last century. A fairly busy century.

Hell Thomas, a fairly young WC vamp, can take on multiple Ghouls and not sweat it.

The only big downside is, the older BC and RC vamps seem to get crazy powerful, but the WC seem to hold steady, only the white king was special, and he apparently made some deal to get his special antimagic powers.

 

I think you might be unfairly judging average Red Court mooks against Thomas. He's the son of the White King and of Margret LeFey, and like Harry, has spent a lot of time beating up things pretty far outside his weight class. None of the White Court wanted to tussle with any of the higher-ups of the Red or Black courts, so perhaps they have a more even distribution of power among the court as well.

 

Thomas was only round 40ish during the latter books. Hardly an older vamp, maybe 25 years using his powers, almost a decade of which he wasnt feeding well.

I dont think being the White Kings son would give him much power.

 

Perhaps being Margaret's son would though, magic is passed down mostly through the mother? Isn't he also one of the only WC vamps who can use magic?

And ghouls don't really seem to be more than mooks: strong, but stupid.

 

My personal theory on that has always been that Red and Black Court vampires have a higher baseline but that the White Court can red line their engines for brief periods, at the cost of using up their reserves.

 

About Luccio and Corpsetaker. Do not forget that it's not as simple as just switching minds. There's a fight first, one which Corpsetaker has to win. Just like when Molly fought her in Ghost Story.

And just because she was up for a seat as a member of the senior council does not mean she's insanely powerful, just old.

In a straight fight, I do think Luccio would've won. Fighting is what she's done her entire life, well over two hundred years. Which is why The Corpsetaker had a plan B.

 

So we see in CD that Winter has a massive army and massive power fighter the Outsiders.

It was said that Winter and Summer is balanced each other, but then we saw, winter is far more powerful, but that they have to use the vast majority of their power to hold the outter gate.

Before this revelation we assumed that Winter = Summer.

Now we know Winter = Summer x 10

Do you think their will be another reveal, or something similar for Summer?

I like the idea that they each have their job, and the fact that as it stands now, Winter just plays with Summer, takes some of the edge of these badass Fae.

The Gatekeeper was quoted as saying that the "War" or "Battle" with the outsiders dies down for years at a time. If that were the case Winter could conceivably crush Summer in this down time with little worry.

Unless Summer also had a hiddden army, doing another secret mission. Maybe they work for the "Angels" like Uriel.

 

I doubt Summer has such a force in reserve.

Wasn't it said that Winter protects the Outer Gates, and Summer protects humanity from Winter? Just because the Outsiders ease up for a few years doesn't mean that Winter is going to withdraw their troops to slaughter the Summer Fae. Doing that would be tantamount to giving up; the Outsiders notice that their opposition has just up and departed for a bit and now they can rally to break through to our reality. Big NO from Mab/Mother Winter.

Summer has exactly as many Fae as they need to check the influence of Winter in the human world and Faerie. Beyond that it doesn't matter.

 

I agree thats the way it probably is, but it does seem a bit of a cop out.

I imagin that during the "down time" of the war, winter could pull out 1/10 of their Outter Gate force, crush Summer with a force double the size of Summer, still have more than enough to hold the gate. Then after Summer is down, they then have more troops available to them to fight the Outsiders and don't have to worry about Titania.

Now you could argue that Winter and Summer know their needs to be a balance between them so never go all out... but then that removes all Drama. We know their is no real tension between them.

I feel Summer needs something more to balance the scales.

 

They have Titania who would go personally for Mab the moment Mab tried to pull such a trick, thus causing the mutual annihilation of both courts.

 

And the question would also be what they had to gain from that. What would Mab have to gain from killing her own sister? They're pissed at one another, but they're still family. I rather doubt she'd want that.

 

Its in their nature apparently.

If there is no annomosity between them then there is no drama. The idea of balanced forces in never ending warfare is far more interesting than one strong side not attack a weakside becasue they just cant be arsed.

Taure - That wouldn't be the end of it, it just takes the queens out of play for both sides. Leaving the rest of summer and winter to have it out, and summer to be fucked. It would have long term consiquences, but its not the be all and end all.

Also I believe there is a WoJ saying that it would be a toss up who would win, sometimes they tie, sometimes one wins (Depending on season) So with back up from her court, I think Mab could maybe even take out Titania with out being taken down herself.

 

In the same paragraph Jim said that in such a fight no one wins, merely manages to survive.

I doubt that a Faerie court could survive without the Queen that Is.

 

Animosity does not mean constant warfare. Just look at the Cold War. (Okay, there was pretty much constant warfare, but not directly, which is the point I was making anyways.)

 

Summer has no hidden forces like that. Mother Summer confirms it when talking to Harry at the outer gates. The reason Winter has so many more troops is because Winter has the duty of guarding the outer gates. And yes, that does mean that in theory, Winter could overrun Summer with ease. Mother summer even admits that directly.

However, the forces that would be needed to overrun Summer are the exact same forces that are preventing a humongous army of outsiders from entering reality. If Mab pulls her forces back from the gates in order to attack Summer, then she easily crushes Summer but ultimately still loses the war. Because by the time she has crushed Summer, millions of outsiders have invaded the universe and will promptly destroy everything (including Mab and Winter).

Mother Summer even states it herself:

Mab is not willing to forfeit reality, since she lives in said reality. As such, the forces at the gate are basically there, but they cannot be used against Summer. They HAVE to remain at the outer gates all the time to keep the outsiders at bay. Mab CANNOT use them against anything else without losing the universe. And the forces which are not at the gates but rather protecting Arctis Tor and the Winter territory do equal Summer, so the balance is essentially maintained.

Titania could also do a suicide bomb on Mab, and take Mab out personally. If that happened, then the current Ladies would rise up to take the positions of the queens. So if Titania did that right now (post Cold Days) and killed Mab and herself, then Molly would become the Queen of Winter and Sarissa would become the Queen of Summer, and they would then have to find/choose new ladies.

This is presumably a safety measure, so that if Mab did go insane and tried to remove the protections from the outer gates (if she were infected by Nemesis for example), Titania would sacrifice herself in the hopes that the Lady that would then take Mabs place would realise the need to keep the outsiders out and keep the forces right where they are now, and preserve the universe in the process.

 

Does anyone know how much time passes between Death Masks and Blood Rites? I always assumed one year, like almost all other books, but I never saw any proof.

 

A year since according to Harry when talking to Thomas in chapter 20 he was last with Susan a year ago.

 

Thanks, missed that part in the book.