Active Users:229 Time:28/03/2024 10:43:06 AM
Re: Ok, so I've read it a couple of times now *spoilers* Cannoli Send a noteboard - 23/07/2020 01:59:30 PM

View original post
No actual peace talks. Boo.

I know, right?
I was hoping for a plot where the main bad guy was Lord Raith trying to get Harry and Thomas killed by proxy, and it even looked to be going that way at first. If he can get them both ganked, then he gets his mojo back. Seems like a goal Nemesis might pursue, since he was clearly an ally to He Who Walks Behind. I'm sure the Outsiders want Lord Raith in command again.
It might be coming. Lara alluded to his still being alive, wrt his future death by starvation.
It seems pretty obvious that Ethnui's impenetrable armor will part like Butter to a certain recently-reconstituted holy sword. Nothing we know can cut it / we don't have the craft. Heavily foreshadowed.
Yeah, but I think that will only be a playing field-leveling event. Butters executing him in a coup de grace seems counter to the Swords' ethos. Especially since Harry can put any bad guy in timeout explicitly to reflect on their own evil, which is more in line with their purpose.
What was Redcap doing there? Weren't all of Mauve's retinue Nfected at the end of Cold Days? Didn't Leah take years to get cured, and only because she was willing? Oh, well, gives me hope that Mab will get Cat Sith back.

It might be a mantle. Maybe the Red Cap is one of those jobs that takes over the occupant. IIRC there's more than one, and the guy Harry met in Cold Days was the main or prime Red Cap. So that position could just be one that gets replaced like the Queens or Knights. But with a faerie instead of a mortal, where the new mantle-bearer never had free will to start with, the overwriting is faster and more complete.
So many short story characters. Ugh.
I did like that the stuff with Molly & Ramirez is still an issue, but not something you need to have read the story for.
Freydis was annoying. I'm betting she's going to die.
Yeah, bit out of left field, wasn't she? IDK why her role couldn't have been taken over by one of the other Raith girls from Turn Coat, unless it's another way to keep Vadderung in the readers' minds.
It seems to me that once Harry realized that Ethnui and the Fomor were going to war against the gathered members of the Accords and Mab, he was free to abandon his plan to lock up Thomas in Demonreach and let Lara hide him/take care of him instead. The Svartalves suddenly have bigger things to worry about.

IDK, that bit where we see what it's like for a paranormal entity to have an outstanding debt or favor suggests that even in the face of destruction, they're still going to feel the need to balance the scales, and the svartelves seem to be even more anal about that stuff than typical. I think that phenomenon is what gives mortals and free will such a degree of importance, because they can actually make choices like the one you suggest, while fae and others can't.
Harry is optimistic that the Paranetters will be safer than most because they're going to hide / gather in 'safe places' like Mac's? What makes Mac's safer than anywhere else from a nation who doesn't recognize the accords. Far more likely the Fomor would seek out places like that to destroy.

My bet is he means pooling their resources. Mac's bar being neutral ground is not the source of his influence or reputation, it is a result. There really ISN'T a such thing as a safe place, but a group holed up at Mac's or St. Mary's or wherever, will be able to cooperate and gain whatever percentage points toward survival they can, rather than getting flattened at random.

It's like the oft-derided Cold War drill of hiding under desks in a classroom. It doesn't protect you from a direct hit, but what DOES? It does make you more likely to to survive on the fringe of a blast, where you aren't close enough for the building to fall over, but if the structural integrity is weakened, or things are knocked off the walls or shelves, you've got something over your head. And it's at least something they can fall back on rather than running around cluelessly, getting in the way or stampeding. A kid face down under a desk is not looking out the window at the blast, or facing a window that might blown in when the shockwave hits.

Mac's isn't going to survive a shell-bomb or a giant Fomor lord stomping the block, but the crowd in there will at least know their fellows have a clue about whatever little bit they can do, and not panicking through sheer ignorance or freezing out of cognitive dissonance.

Cannoli
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
Reply to message
"Peace Talks" by Jim Butcher - 15/07/2020 06:40:45 AM 487 Views
Ok, so I've read it a couple of times now *spoilers* - 22/07/2020 04:12:12 AM 258 Views
Re: Ok, so I've read it a couple of times now *spoilers* - 23/07/2020 01:59:30 PM 283 Views
Regarding Mac’s bar - 24/07/2020 03:01:31 AM 221 Views
One thing about Butcher’s writing that amuses me. - 24/07/2020 04:29:25 AM 222 Views
Except his girlfriend - 24/07/2020 05:33:23 AM 289 Views
Butters as the ultimate nerd wish fulfillment character - 24/07/2020 05:45:11 PM 223 Views
Surely not just that - 24/07/2020 08:48:04 PM 233 Views
mousey brown hair is just a description of the hair color - 25/07/2020 04:51:47 PM 230 Views
Not a flattering one - 25/07/2020 06:12:37 PM 237 Views
Okay, you’ve convinced me. Most of Butcher’s female characters are gorgeous. Not all. *NM* - 26/07/2020 03:52:08 AM 155 Views
Now, now... don't get grouchy. - 26/07/2020 04:36:09 AM 265 Views
Apparently the story he wanted to tell was "too big," so they split it - 05/08/2020 02:41:28 PM 363 Views
I... have nothing to argue with here. - 06/08/2020 10:39:49 PM 220 Views
Have you read the little microfictions he's written - 14/08/2020 05:05:36 PM 466 Views

Reply to Message