Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 25

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It's very tense for a minute there, and Harry and Michael get ready for a fight, until Thomas laughs, and delicately implies that it reflects badly on Bianca's hospitality for everyone to get so upset. Harry takes the cue and follows up with a remark about how "this was a masquerade ball, wasn't it?". Bianca is described here, and I had not previously noticed how much she looks like Anita Blake, titular protagonist of one of the oldest series that fits tidily into the tradition of urban fantasy that The Dresden Files helped popularize. Anita, however, probably would not wear a dress made of fire, although she's scarcely to be seen without heels that do "interesting" things to the shape of her legs. She's objectively attractive, especially with the way she's smiling, but Harry isn't interested - he's seen her true, creepy, bat face. We also get the cameo by Cowl and Kumori here, dressed as the shadows to her flame. While there's no real way to catch it on a first read, this is one of the first real pieces of the Nemesis puzzle, and it makes some of the others easier to put together if you're watching for it. It's confirmed in Dead Beat that these two were Cowl and Kumori. In Proven Guilty, we find out that Lea's obvious madness and present ice cube status were the result of the knife she was given at this very party. In White Night, we see that Madrigal and Vittorio are working with Cowl, and then Vittorio calls on an Outsider. Technically, this makes it possible to work out the origin of much of the "world is getting darker" stuff several books ahead of schedule. There are obvious similarities between what's wrong with Kumori and what's wrong with Aurora, and we know they're in the "handing out cursed magic objects" business because of the athame, making it at least plausible that they were also involved with the wolf belts in Fool Moon. Based on the evidence as of the end of White Night, these two can be linked to enough of events of the first 10 books to make their involvement with the rest plausible as a matter of consistency, and their connection with the Outsiders, while less thoroughly reinforced, has sufficient support to situate them as a link between the Outside and those events, making it possible, just barely, to extrapolate that the Outsiders are systematically stirring up trouble and making people lose their baskets. 

In any event, Bianca implies that she's going to eat Harry, and he responds, more directly, that she oughtn't try it. She gives her people tacit permission to go after him, if they can manage it without being too overt, or at least that's how Harry interprets it. This prompts Harry to remember how nice the venom to which he was exposed to yesterday was. File under: Harry is in pretty much constant emotional and physical pain, and has a corresponding vulnerability to things that make him feel better; nothing that can reasonably be described as "narcotic" tends to hold much appeal for people who aren't someways hurting. They descend into the main courtyard, where Thomas reconnects with them, and tells Harry his entrance was "marvelous". He says he couldn't let it descend into a general brawl, though, because it would reduce the opportunities for intrigue. This is probably mostly a cover for helping Harry, but it's also a very White Court way of looking at it, and places an emphasis on their not only preferring to avoid direct confrontation, but actively seeking out opportunities to engage in social and political machinations, which is certainly present in their later appearances but gets less attention. Unfortunately, their conversation is interrupted when he has to go retrieve Justine from a Red Court guy who's hitting on her. 

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No sooner has he left them, then Michael notes that they're being surrounded. The majority of the attendees are humans, dressed largely in black, with red ribbons around an arm of neck marking out those who are fair game for feeding. This is very reasonable and well organized, honestly, except for the part where Red Court venom is supernaturally addictive and our human feeder fish therefore can't reasonably be said to have given meaningful consent. But it's a good system. The actual Red Court vampires, in very literal contrast, are all dressed in red, and a few moments observation of the crowd confirms that they're forming a ring around Harry and Michael, making it impossible for them to leave without coming in reach of at least one of them. This is a relatively subtle instance of another one of our running patterns in this series: Jim Butcher plays tabletop roleplaying games, and he pays attention to spacing. They head for the refreshments table, hoping to make themselves harder to trap, and partially succeed - most of their pursuers can't maintain formation without being obvious, but Kyle and Kelly intercept them at table. Kelly has everything except the lower part of her face covered, to hide the burns she got fighting Harry earlier, and Harry makes a remark about her hitting the tanning bed a little too long. He was apparently hoping to provoke her into attacking him, presumably, although it's not explicated quite yet, because if she, and through her the Red Court, breaks the rules first, he can fight back, and move the inherent conflict of this event into a sphere with which he's more comfortable, but she smiles and hands him a glass of wine instead. Kyle expresses his regret that Susan couldn't be here, which is...interesting. I may need to take back my earlier assertion that Harry might have done better to bring Susan along in the first place. Kyle isn't terribly smooth or subtle, as vampires go, and in light of what happens later, it's hard not to read this at an indication that Susan's attendance at this party was both planned for and arranged. Which, uh...guys? I think we might have been too hard on Susan here. Bianca isn't Nicodemus. It's not her established style to go for a small win (making Harry have a really stressful, unproductive evening, or getting him into trouble with the Council for skipping the party entirely) while rolling the dice on a bigger one (starting a war between the Council and the Red Court). We know, with the benefit of the 12 or 13 books that follow this one, the power she serves, and it doesn't operate like that either. Nemesis is careful and systematic, and not given especially to opportunism. Bianca's plan doesn't work if Susan isn't here. I'm sure there was a contingency in place for if she arrived as an invited guest (they managed to kidnap Justine, although I don't remember how they made that work), but she had to be here. And some amount of hypnotism and mind control are within the established Red Court power set - they can't all do it, but if memory serves Paulo Ortega is in Chicago right now, and if Arianna can call upon the Eebs then so can he. There's also a known mind-invader running around, against whom Susan hasn't been warned and has no particular defenses. I don't think it's her fault, or even Harry's, that she made the incredibly bad decision to come to this party. I think someone made her do it. 

Kelly makes a remark about Harry being into men, which is the second time Harry's sexuality has been brought up in as many chapters, and at least the third time in this book. He takes it in stride, so she escalates, and despite Harry's warning her against it, tries to touch Michael. Naturally, she burns the shit out of her hand. Harry basically says "I told you so", and Kyle is so angry he nearly drops his flesh mask. Harry tells him to go ahead and break the peace first, if he wants, the White Council will squish this entire place, which is of course what this whole exchange was mostly here to do - remind the reader of the rules of hospitality that govern this entire event, and the consequences for breaking them. As I said last chapter, Jim Butcher is getting better at using foreshadowing effectively and giving out information at the pace he wants. The twins stalk off, but now people are staring at them, so Harry proposes a toast "to hospitality", and drains his entire glass. So of course a moment later, when he's barely had time to tell Michael that he ruled out Kyle and Kelly, as far as who's controlling the Nightmare, Thomas reappears to inform them that the wine is poisoned. 

I don't remember off the top of my head whether every chapter at this party ends with something this dire, but twice in a row certainly looks like the beginning of a pattern. I'll try not to keep you in suspense too long. Until next time, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 24

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As they pull up to Bianca's mansion, Michael asks Harry to explain in more detail why they're at this party. So Harry runs him through the chain of reasoning: Someone is stirring up the spirit world in order to create the Nightmare, Lydia is somehow connected to the Nightmare, Bianca sent Kelly and Kyle to kidnap Lydia. This makes a pretty convincing case that Bianca is somehow involved with the Nightmare, as it would be a bit of a stretch to suppose that Lydia was involved with two completely unrelated supernatural entities. Even if Bianca isn't directly involved, though, she's currently hosting a party for most of the major bad guys currently local to Chicago, so there's a reasonable chance that whoever is involved, whichever dark power was feeding the Nightmare when Harry confronted it in the previous chapter, is going to be at this thing. This reasoning holds up pretty well, and doesn't hinge on any of the dubious parts of Harry's current theory. It was also a remarkably solid decision to review it all here, not least because, if I remember correctly, we're getting close to the part where things start not making any sense, and it's good to know that we've got a firm foundation under us when the nonsense starts. Now that Harry has felt the power of whoever or whatever is controlling the Nightmare, he should be able to identify them again, and a party like this is an excellent opportunity to vibe check a lot of bad guys and monsters all at once. It's a reasonable plan. 

Michael is not thrilled with...any of this, really. He doesn't like the plan, he doesn't want to be at the extremely dangerous party full of monsters, and he'd really like to know why the Nightmare didn't go after Harry as soon as the sun was down. Harry suggests that the Nightmare might be afraid to go after him, since he was able to bind it, but I don't think even Harry finds this idea terribly convincing, and Michael certainly doesn't. Nor is he especially reassured by Harry's insistence that they'll be protected by the laws of hospitality, which is honestly fair given that he's not willing to abide by them himself, if he sees innocent people in danger. As much as Harry is valid for wanting armed backup, I feel like he might actually have done better to bring Susan, who isn't much less adept at navigating supernatural politics, whose presence isn't in and of itself an insult to their hosts, and who probably could be relied upon to follow the rules if Harry explained properly. Before they go in, Michael asks Harry to pray with him, or at least shut up for a minute to he can pray. Harry reflects on how he doesn't really understand God, or trust most religious people. Which is fair, at least from his position, but then he thinks that he doesn't know how God can look at the way people treat one another and not chalk the entire human race up as a bad idea. As we say on Tumblr, I mean, God did look at the way people treat one another and chalk the entire human race up as a bad idea. That was a pretty significant thing that happened. Like I understand where you're coming from here but God very much did look at the way people treat one another and chalk the entire human race up as a bad idea. And the reason He hasn't done it since, at least according to the set of beliefs under discussion here, is basically that he pinky promised not to, after that one time. I would love to know what exactly Harry's background with Christianity is. It's established in one of the middle books that he knows the Pslams pretty well, and in Proven Guilty that he's not familiar with the Parable of the Talents, but does he seriously not know the story of Noah's Arc? Dude was in foster care for like seven years, between the ages of six and thirteen and he was never forced to attend Sunday School? That...that might actually be significant. We see full Wizards of the White Council from most of the larger religions, but smalltime practitioners are, at least if the ones we meet in White Night, and the supplies stocked at Bock Ordered Books, are anything to go by, are disproportionately neopagan and Buddhist. If the Council had a hand in arranging his care, which seems at least plausible, they'd naturally want him with people over whom they held some sway, and that's not a group that trends strongly to regular church attendance. Come to think of it, this would also help account for how Justin found him so quickly after his power manifested. Justin was no longer associated with the Council himself at that point, but he certainly still had contacts, and I imagine it caused something of a stir when word got around that Maggie le Fey's youngest came into his power. This would leave open the question of why they let Justin take him, but I can see a few possibilities. 1. They considered his going to the dark side a foregone conclusion in any case so they figured they'd watch and wait until he actually broke one of the Laws and then raid the house, take down Du Morne and both his apprentices in one fell swoop. 2. Justin's lair was somehow concealed from the Council (reasonably well supported by their failing to do anything about the rogue Warden for like, years). 3 They just didn't care that much.

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They park on the street, rather than trust Michael's truck to a vampire valet, and arrive at just about the same time as Thomas and Justine, in their probably-Eros-and-Psyche couples costume, both scantily clad and unreasonably attractive, although considerably more page space is devoted to Justine's legs than to Thomas's supernatural beauty.  Thomas recognizes Harry, which weirds Harry right the hell out. He introduces himself, and we're informed that there are three vampire Courts, Red, White, and Black, which Harry claims he already knows, although I don't know that he actually did, and that the Black Court has "fallen on hard times". While I still don't think the situation with Kravos being dead is presented very smoothly, the effort has clearly improved Butcher's gradual reveal skills, because the little things, like information about the vampire Courts, and Harry's costume, are handled very well. Thomas walks them in and tries to give Harry a sense of what to expect. They'll be presented to the other guests and have time to mingle, and then they'll be formally introduced to Bianca who, as the host, will give them gifts. Harry asks why Thomas is being helpful (beginning of pattern, noted!) and Thomas pretty well dodges the question. He does, however, shake Harry's hand, and while he definitely has a magical aura, it's not the one they're looking for. 

As Harry and Michael enter the courtyard where the party is happening, they're hit with a blinding spotlight and announced as "Harry Dresden, Wizard of the White Council, and guest". Whether the spotlight was intentionally turned up and pointed into his eyes in order to embarrass and inconvenience him is left as an exercise for the reader. We finally get a description of Harry's cheesy vampire costume, with the tattered blue tuxedo and the fake blood and all. The gathered monsters get their first good look at it at the same time, and everyone goes for a weapon. 

And on that tense, cliff-hangery note, I leave you for the time being. I'm much happier with how this post, written on the computer like my previous Dresden Files post was, turned out, and it is much faster, so I think we'll be sticking with this for the time being. Until next time, be Gay, do Crimes, and read All The Things!

Writing from Emotion

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It occurred to me a couple of days ago that I wrote a post last year about how to, metaphorically speaking,  put your toys away without messing up any half-finished puzzles or Lego creations, but I never actually talked about the writing technique it goes with. If I was ever taught this as a way to write, I've long since forgotten where or when, and there's a good chance I've modified it out of recognition in any case. It draws from the meditation lesson scenes in Cold Fire by Tamora Pierce, and from a description of what was probably metta meditation that I caught on NPR when I was like 12, but that was 20 years ago and it hasn't much in common with either. I wouldn't necessarily consider this a meditation thing, at least, not any more so than any other internally oriented writing technique. Do be a little careful with this - it involves deliberately getting into a heightened emotional state, and might not interact well with everyone's mental health stuff. 

Start by setting the scene a little. Light some incense, or a scented candle, or heck, even a regular candle. Use a scent that matches the vibes of what you're working on, or just one you like. Put on some music, in line with the emotion you're using, the one you want to pervade the piece, or that prompted it, or emotionally neutral. If you already have a playlist for the story, scene, ship, or character, that should work just fine. Unless you live alone somewhere very quiet, the music is probably more important than the incense, because it's a light check against auditory disruption. Position yourself comfortably, ideally in a way that is not wholly incompatible with writing, and in which you are not unduly likely to fall asleep. Have your writing tools ready to hand. This works better if you're properly rested and not in a great deal of physical discomfort, but with practice it's doable, except maybe if you really have to pee. Go take care of that now if you need to. While you're at it, make sure you have something to drink. Room temperature is best, but warm is better than cold. The mammalian dive reflex is not conducive to what we're trying to do here. 

Now, you need to access the emotion you're writing from. Depending on your current headspace and how alexithymic you are, this might be as easy as breathing, or very, very hard. (More alexithymic is not necessarily worse here - a tendency to experience emotions as physical sensations is, up to a point, a benefit here). If you're writing fanfiction, think about the things from your source text that gave you the feels you're currently writing about. If you're writing original fiction, think about an earlier moment in your story that had similar emotionality, or something from another story or your own life that gives you those feelings. Keep trying until you feel something. 

Once you have that emotion, locate it in your body, and let it expand until it fills you to the skin. This will probably be very hard at first, especially if you're working with an uncomfortable emotion. This isn't how we're used to feeling things, even when we're reasonably well-adjusted, which most writers aren't, usually we're either doing something with an emotion (talking about it, laughing or crying, punching someone in the face), or we keep it kinda contained. It might go easier if you try to keep your hands and face still, but let your heart rate and breathing do what they're gonna do. You're trying to let the emotion build without giving it anywhere to go. 

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Once you've got that, think about what you're writing. For something you already have underway, go back over the past couple paragraphs in your head, unless you already know they aren't right. For a new story or scene, consider what's supposed to happen, whatever summary or sketchy outline exists in your head. "Blorbo and Skrungly meet at the cafe and experience Feelings" is quite sufficient here, but if you can already see the way Blorbo's hands look on the register, the color of Scrungly's turtleneck sweater, if you already know he's going to ask about the blueberry scones, by all means throw that in there, and then just... Keep doing that until something comes to you. Often, I get about 2/3 of a scene, dropped in my head like it was brought over in a truck and delivered on a pallet. Sometimes, it's the whole scene, and once, it was two. Sometimes it's the exact line of dialogue I need to get going again. Occasionally, it's a single image, or I don't "get" anything until I actually look at the document, just a sense of urgency, when the ache in my chest becomes a kind of itching. 

Importantly, do not resist. Part of why this works is that heightened emotion slows down your critical thinking. But when you get something, you can't just say "Oh, no, this isn't what I wanted". I mean, you can, but you'd better say it while you sit down to write it anyway. You don't have to keep it in the final draft. You don't have to post or publish it, but you do have to write it. You have to trust that it needs to get written. It might turn out to be something for later in the book, or a story that needed to get out of the way to make room for the thing you were trying to write. It might be the beginning of something you've been trying not to write. But you can't keep that channel open if you turn back what comes through it. And very often, it is what needs to happen next, even if it's not what you planned. 

If my experience is anything to go by, the writing will probably go faster than us otherwise usual for you, although I suspect that if you are already fast, the difference will be less pronounced, but it will not be effortless. You may still struggle for exact descriptions, what precisely is said, or how to arrange the words to convey two things that are happening at the same time. Hold on to the emotion you're writing from, use it as an energy source of you can. If you're not done when you need to stop writing, I suggest banking the fire to make it easier to resume when the time comes, and to facilitate acting like a functional member of society in the interim. 

If this all sounds a bit intricate, well, it is, at least at first, but it gets easier, at least with practice, and a lot of the ritual may eventually become unnecessary unless you are really stuck. I can do it in a couple minutes sometimes, without music or incense, even with other people in the room, while reading a book on my phone with the Google doc open in the background so it's ready when I need it. I only break out the tools when I've been unable to make real progress for a couple of weeks. 

I've been writing this post in my head for a couple of weeks now, so I'm glad to actually have it on paper. Next post will be more Dresden Files. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things. 

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 23

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Harry and Michael went on a shopping trip between chapters, gathering ritual supplies while Harry read Kravos's journal. Kravos was, apparently, a very thorough notetaker, going into disturbing detail about how he committed, and enjoyed, multiple murders. Fortunately, he recorded his search for a familiar demon, and the exact pronunciation of its name, with equal thoroughness. We get a refresher on how thaumaturgy works, including the different things a practitioner can use to create the necessary connection - you can use a physical representation of the person, any part of their body, or their Name. Human Names are difficult to use, and have an expiration date, because humans' self-concept is so flexible. If they're in a radically different headspace from where they were when you got their Name, or if enough time, or a significant enough life event, has passed that their sense of self has naturally shifted, it may not work at all - and you have to get it from them directly, no copying off a dead sorcerer's homework. Demons, on the other hand, are unchanging in their essential natures, and their Names are similarly immutable. 

Harry is trying to summon the Nightmare, and he's got everything he needs now, although he's having some twitchiness about working in the dark, even though it's daylight outside. There's some inconsistency about what time it is here. We're told at the very beginning of the chapter that it's "still full daylight" outside, which tracks with the assertion that they spent "most of the morning" gathering supplies. That should make it early afternoon right now, and while it would certainly have made sense for Harry to take a nap before starting the summoning, there's nothing to establish that he did. Sunset in autumn in Chicago is gonna be around either five or six pm, depending on whether it's before or after Daylight Savings. It's entirely possible that it's the tail end of October and the day sunset gets an hour earlier actually snuck up on Our Heroes while they were distracted, but that doesn't actually reduce the number of sunlit hours in a day, it just moves them. So I'm a little confused how it's meant to be, as Michael asserts a little later, only 45 minutes to sundown. Where did the other roughly 4 hours go? It doesn't take that long to set up a circle. In any event, he's got five white candles, and items representing all the people the Nightmare has targeted already or is likely to: his own shield bracelet, Michael and Charity's wedding rings, Murphy's office nameplate (a big deal, since she's the first director of SI who held the job long enough to get a real nameplate), and Mallone's retirement watch. He puts up a circle with incense, to contain the power of the spell, with enough room to stand inside it but outside the copper summoning circle. He doesn't use a second set of five items to represent the five senses here, which may indicate that summoning works differently from other rituals. 

As soon as he has the circle up, but mercifully before the summoning is properly underway, Michael calls down to ask whether he's done yet, and says the aforementioned about it only being 45 minutes until sundown. He's not pleased when Harry says he[s just getting started, which is understandable, given that he's not especially comfortable with magic in the first place, and he's anxious to get back to hovering over Charity. I do wish that in his decade or more of knowing Harry, his discomfort with magic hadn't prevented him from learning the first thing about it, such as "interruptions are potentially dangerous". The first step is to cut a small portal of the same type one would use to enter the Nevernever, inside the circle. This makes a lot of sense and, if I remember correctly, never comes up in any subsequent summoning, so now I have to wonder how any of the other beings he summons actually got through the veil between worlds. He makes a kind of prismatic mist by throwing water into the magical energy field of the spell, then cuts his finger and dabs blood on the edge of the circle. It hurts way more than a cut finger usually should, and the pain gets worse when he has to push the spell harder, which suggests that the pain is either part of a cost associated with the spell or a built-in signal to let the caster know if they're putting too much into it. The spell doesn't initially connect to anything, not until Harry guides it with his sense of the Nightmare. It does not seem to occur to him that this means the number he has dialed has been disconnected or no longer in service - possible, it's less surprising since this is supposed to be the demon's ghost, which might be less connected to the Name it carried while alive. 

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He's just got ahold of it when Michael interrupts him again, this time to tell him that Susan is on the phone and she has something important she needs to talk to him about. He's persistent, continuing to try to convince Harry to take the phone even after the third or fourth time Harry expresses that he's in the middle of something. I don't think we see Michael Carpenter: The Man With Zero Perspective again after this book, and thank the Light for that. Okay, sure, he knows nothing about magic (except that it's pretty well established by this point that he does), and doesn't want to know what Harry's doing, but he's capable of recognizing what it sounds like when someone is actively struggling with a supernatural being! Finally freed from distraction, Harry asks the Nightmare who sent it, but it insists that no one did, that no one compelled it to hurt the people it attacked. It also threatens to continue coming after Harry's friends, their children, et cetera... So either it's lying about not having been sent, which I'm not sure it possible under the circumstances, or it does understand about love and friendship, which would mean it's not a demon. Harry doesn't really have time to consider the implications, though, because a third party starts feeding power to the Nightmare, power that matches the barbed wire spells, and he has to act quickly if he wants to get anything productive out of this endeavor. In another reasonably cool application of previously established magical principles, he uses the chunk of his power that's still inside the Nightmare as a point of connection for a spell to bind it, compelling it to only come after him, as long as he's alive. Then he has to lie down on the floor for a few minutes.  

Michael, having apparently recovered his characterization as a fellow competent monster hunter, built up the fire while Harry was downstairs, and fetches him a sandwich and a can of coke while Harry fills him in. He's a lot more concerned than Harry is about the part where the demon is now not only coming after Harry but likely to kill him as quickly and efficiently as it can, rather than playing with him like a cat toy and thereby allowing time for a rescue. He's also not sure how much help he can be in dealing with the Nightmare, since he doesn't have his sword anymore. Harry reassures him that God isn't gonna abandon him over one mistake, and stresses that he needs Michael, and that they'll get just as dead standing around doing nothing. Michael puts his big, strong, calloused hand over Harry's, and wow, male writers in the 1990s just absolutely could not recognize homoeroticism even while actually writing it, huh? Like, we're in "There was so much he wanted to say to Mat" territory here. I'll note that this was the era in which progressive men could sincerely express the belief that all women are bisexual, apparently with zero self-awareness. Anyway, Michael asks what their next step is. Harry picks up the invitation from Kyle and Kelly, and tells Michael they're going to a party. Funny thing, though, the invitation isn't in the same place he left it. 

This was my first shot at writing one of these on the computer, rather than drafting in a notebook and then typing it up. I'm not sure I'm satisfied with the results, but I was also sick for the entire week and a half I've been working on this, so I don't know how much of that's down to the process. We'll try it again next time and see if it works better when my lungs and sinuses aren't full of goo. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things!

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 22

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Harry's severely banged up, and Charity's in labor, so they're in the emergency room. Both of them are pretty high up on the triage list, so while Charity's being wheeled into labor and delivery, Harry sits down with Dr. Simmons. She asks if he's in pain, dizzy, or nauseated, to which he answers yes, no, and a little. The conversation starts out cordial enough, but quickly degrades when Simmons recognizes his name (although we never find out what exactly her context on him is), and can't actually find the cut on his head for which he came in. She checks his eyes and asserts confidently that he doesn't have a concussion. To be absolutely clear, that's not how that works. While the pupillary light reflex is a decent way to assess whether neurological symptoms are from a concussion or something else, the differences we're talking about here are small - in 2001, it required specialized tools to assess, and these days you still need an app. A quick examination with a pen light like she did can only determine that the pupils are equal and responsive to light. If they're not, that can pretty well confirm a suspected concussion, but it can't rule one out. Given that Harry's still nauseated, I suspect Lea healed some of the damage, but not all of it. That makes the ongoing concussion count sort of complicated, but it's not zero. Simons scolds Harry for being in the emergency room when he doesn't need to, and gives him some moist towelettes with which to clean himself up in the bathroom. 

While he's doing just that, he sees the tender, pink line across his forehead that was, earlier that evening, a bleeding gash. This confirms that Lea healed him - and that's spooky as hell. Healing magic, any magic that directly affects the human body, is very difficult, requiring remarkable precision and more energy than would be intuitively obvious. Fae magic is a bit different, but that only changes the nature of the spookiness. For Lea to do such a thing here, in the physical world, indicates a greater degree of power over Harry than is at all comfortable to think about or, more to the point, than she had like, yesterday. Their new bargains has cost Harry the "home field" advantage - she can come after him any time, any place she chooses, and she healed him primarily to make that point. 

Harry's trying to dry his clothes with the hand dryer when Stallings comes in. Apparently the police "got word" that Harry was in the hospital, and assertion about which I have Questions. It's established later in this chapter that Michael's truck is here. While it is conceivable that Michael called an ambulance for Charity and then either drove to the hospital with Harry or rode with her and had Harry drive the truck, I feel like given that neither of them has a cell phone, it;s unlikely that they would have taken the time to go back to the grocery store, call an ambulance, and wait. Even if they did, Michael would have been the one to make the call, and no need to bring Harry's name into it. There's a zero percent chance of Harry opting to ride in the ambulance, given that his magic could make their tech, or engine, give out when Charity is in this bad a situation, not when he's well enough to ride in a car. So even if we assume that emergency services all share information with each other in real time, there's no reason for the EMTs or the 911 people to know Harry was there. And, y'know, the hospital can't usually just call up the cops and tell them "Hey, this person is here", medical confidentiality and all that. Harry doesn't have a gunshot wound and for once there's no warrant out for his arrest. This is extra frustrating because as a contrivance by which to justify Stallings knowing where Harry was, it's completely unnecessary. They just brought Murphy in, since she's basically in a coma, and Harry said it would be safe to move her at sunrise. He also said to take her to Mallone's house, but whatever. Michael is also here, and not a patient, so I feel like it would have made at least as much sense to have Stallings say that he was here because of Murphy, saw Michael in the waiting room, and asked if he knew where Harry was. 

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Anyway, he brought Kravos's journal, but he won't hand it over until Harry promises to make it disappear. Internal affairs is looking into Special Investigations again, because of something to do with the Kravos case, because something happened to him, but Stallings won't say just what, because apparently that's a departmental secret of the sort that cops simply don't share with outsiders. Look, I'm not unsympathetic to the need to control information in a mystery, but the justifications are getting fuckin' thin here. 

Now that Harry has the journal, he needs to get back to the lab so he can start looking through it, but he left his car at Michael's house and he doesn't have any money, so he has to go bother Michael, who's lurking around the maternity ward doing his best impression of a sad, wet cat of a man. Harry has the sense not to open with "Hey, can I have a ride?" and asks instead which baby is the newest little Carpenter. Unfortunately, the birth was complicated. If Baby Boy Carpenter makes it through the next 36 hours, he'll have a chance, but he's weakening. Charity had to have a C-section, and the doctors aren't sure she'll be able to have more kids. I want to emphasize that I do, y'know, care. Everyone deserves a body that can do the things they want. But also, little Harry is her seventh. 

The doctors think Michael beat Charity, which is a solid guess, absent other information. Charity was physically attacked, and statistically speaking the husband is the most likely culprit. Her regular OB is at this hospital, and would presumably know better, but I guess they're not in yet at 7:15 in the morning. Harry dismisses this as ridiculous, but Michael says he might as well have, since it's his fault she got hurt. That's also ridiculous, but Harry knows better than to say so. It also gets him thinking. In his initial panic. he figured the Nightmare, with access to his memories, would know to go after Michael's family, but demons don't work like that. Even with that knowledge, a demon wouldn't know what to do with it, because they don't understand things like love. Michael puts forward that the Nightmare is a catspaw. Finally, some good fucking red herring! Neither of them can figure out who it might be working for though. It's not Lea - the Fae aren't this methodical, nor do they have much sense of urgency. This prompts Michael to ask what the deal is with Harry and Lea, and Harry lays out most of it, although at this point there seems to be some uncertainty about who, exactly, made her Harry's godmother. He thinks it was his mom, but he's not sure. 

Michael wonders aloud whether Lea getting the sword means his time as a Knight might be over. That God might no longer consider him worthy, or might have decided he deserves to stop doing this and look after his family. He seems to feel about equal parts guilt and relief at the idea, which is fair. I note here, and I want to say up top that I'm not sure what to make of this, that while Michael spends something like another seven years after this as a Knight, Charity is done bearing children, although in a rather Jordanian extension of privacy we're never told whether she can't. I think there's a valid reading here that while Michael hasn't yet done enough to be allowed to rest, Charity has. No idea what that would mean though. 

Harry finally gets around to asking for a ride home. Michael doesn't want to leave the hospital, but as Harry points out, there's nothing he can actually do here, for Charity or the baby. It comes up in this conversation that her sister is watching the kids while Forthill gets some sleep, and her mother is on the way to the hospital. Given what we learn about Charity's backstory in Proven Guilty, I'd be very interested to know when and how Charity reconciled with her parents to a sufficient extent that a hospital visit from her mother would be welcome. Michael's also concerned that they might have to kill someone, and Harry points out that whoever's behind this tried to murder Michael's infant son, and may yet succeed. He feels bad and manipulative about it, but honestly, he's right, and getting him into a position to learn more about what's happening will do more to help Charity and the baby than staying here and fretting. Harry's hoping to get the demons name from the journal, and given that he wants to do it from the lab, I think he's planning to try summoning it, although he may just want Bob's input. 

There's a lot of characterization of Michael, and his relationship with Harry, in this chapter that's hard to convey in summary and doesn't have enough complexity to warrant analysis, so if you haven't looked at their conversation here in a while, I suggest you go reread it. I'm more than a full blog post behind already this year, so I'll get you the next chapter, or something, just as soon as ever I can. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things!

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 21

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Harry reflects on how very stupid this course of action is, as he walks along the graveyard wall. All cemeteries have walls. It's just a thing humans do, without knowing why, but there's still intent behind it. And while the intent of most walls is to keep things out, cemetery walls are meant to keep things in. Which may explain why the Nightmare was able to tear a hole in it and drag Charity inside. Conditions stand thus: There are hundreds of powerful ghosts in there. It's pouring down rain. Harry is still weak from having a bunch of his energy eaten. The creature he's going up against can tear holes in solid brick walls like it's not even a thing. And there's still no sign of Michael. But then Charity screams, so in Harry goes. 

Ghosts press in around him, so numerous, and so powerful with the barriers all wibbly, that they physically impede his progress. He pulls out his pentacle, wills light to it, and holds it up in front of him "like Diogenes's lamp". I had to look that up. Apparently Diogenes would carry a lamp during the day, and claimed when asked about it that he was looking for "a man". For reasons I don't fully understand, this is often rendered in English as "looking for an honest man", and considering the number of common misconceptions that are either uncritically reproduced or fictionally true in this series (e.g. "We only use 10% of our brains"), the "honest man" version seems more likely to have been intended here, though I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. There's also a statue of Diogenes in his birthplace of Sinop, Turkey, apparently well known since it's the main picture on the Wikipedia page about him, which portrays him with both the lamp and a dog, so there's a case to be made that this is foreshadowing for Harry's next visit here, in Dead Beat, when he has Mouse with him. 

The Light's dimmer than usual, and Harry wonders if that's a reflection of his weakened magic, or if the destructive, violent, sometimes chaotic use to which he's put over the past few years has weakened his faith in the principles of controlled power, used constructively, that the pentacle represents. 

He calls Charity's name, and she responds, although something cuts her off, giving him a better sense of her exact location in the giant graveyard. When he finds her, she's lying on a bier in a fake temple thing, with the Nightmare standing over her, one hand near her belly, the other near her throat. When Harry addresses it as "demon", it asks "Is that what I am?" and says it wasn't sure, another indicator that the "ghost of a demon" theory is inaccurate, although Harry's got enough distractions that it's pretty reasonable for him to miss it. As much fun as it's having tormenting Charity, the Nightmare's primary beef is with Harry, so it throws a fuego fireball at him. Harry blocks it with a shield spell, and thinks that he wouldn't have tried that kind of fire magic in torrential rain. Charity seizes the everyloving shit out of the moment and kicks the Nightmare in the chest with both feet. She sends it flying, but also knocks herself off the bier and falls badly. Harry tells her to run, and then uses his staff to pole vault? Over the bier? And kick the Nightmare in the face? Butcher is normally a very clear action writer, but I listened to this part three times and read it with my eyes twice, and I'm still only mostly sure I get what happened here. Harry lands on top of the Nightmare, and tries to scramble away, although I'm not sure if it was physically or magically, spins him around in the air, and throws him into a marble column. 

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Harry hits head first, naturally, so that's concussion number three. He makes a concerted effort to stand, and gets as far as sitting with his back against the column. That's more than anyone could reasonably have expected of him, but it's not anything like enough to save Charity and defeat the Nightmare. Lea appears out of nowhere, and observes that there's a lot of water around here, a lot of things flowing. This is actually pretty straightforward, but under the circumstances I think Harry can be forgiven for not getting the hint. She offers her help, if Harry will renew their bargain and come with her tonight, as soon as Charity's out of danger. She also tastes Harry's blood, because, y'know, Leanansidhe. Harry has basically two choices here. Take the deal, or sit there and hope Michael turns up and saves the day before the Nightmare finishes killing Harry and destroying Charity's mind. And given that Michael doesn't necessarily even know where they are, that second thing doesn't look like a good bet. So he agrees. Lea blocks most of his pain, restores his energy and clarity of thought, and tells him the answer is all around him. 

Harry confronts the Nightmare again, drawing its attention, although he's not really better equipped to fight it now than he was at the outset. It approaches at a casual walk, knowing that there's very little Harry can do about it. That is, until Michael appears behind him. Michael gives Harry a crucifix and tells him to get Charity, then engages the Nightmare, making a considerably better showing with his glowy magic sword than Harry did with his, uh, pole vaulting. 

Harry gets to Charity, and gives her the crucifix, but of course she's going into labor now, and can't walk, and even if he were in good condition, he wouldn't have been able to pick up and carry a heavily muscled, 6 foot tall pregnant woman. The Nightmare gets away from Michael and telekinetically picks up a headstone, preparing to squish Harry and Charity. Harry gets between Charity and the Big Rock, which isn't gonna do much to protect her, but it's a nice gesture. The Nightmare tells Michael to put down the sword, or it'll squish them. Harry says not to do it, that it will just kill them anyway. The Nightmare tells him to shut up. This is the real purpose of the scene where Michael threatened the grocery clerk, is to establish that Michael is thoroughly irrational where the safety of his family is concerned, so that it feels plausible when he misses this blazingly obvious indication that Harry has the right of it. He puts the sword down. Naturally, the Nightmare does carry right on trying to kill them. Charity brandishes the crucifix, hurting and startling it enough that it drops the headstone, and Harry finally makes sense of the hint about the water. 

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He tackles the Nightmare, and rolls with it downhill, right into one of the temporary streams created by
the downpour, where it dissolves, its energy dissipated by the running water. This was perhaps not as well foreshadowed as it could have been. The last reference to the use of running water was two books ago, in the fight with the toad demon, and that wasn't a ghost. Also? I'm having a little bit of a geography issue. Graceland cemetery is a real place. There's even a real grocery store a couple blocks away, although it's currently a Jewel-Osco, not a Walsham's. (As far as I can tell, there isn't a Walsham's grocery store). That Greek temple mausoleum is also real - it's called the Palmer Mausoleum, and that picture up there is a real picture of it, although in daylight and springtime, not an autumn night. And as you may notice, it's not up very much of a hill, and what's directly downhill from it is a pond. Going by google maps, it might technically be a small artificial lake. In any event, as far as I can tell, there's nowhere downhill from the Palmer Mausoleum for a temporary stream to form, and it's frustrating because this scene is otherwise so close to geographically accurate.This also feels like a missed opportunity, because falling into an artificial pond while physically wresting a ghost and coming up with gross algae water in his mouth is exactly Harry's energy at this point in the series.

Michael picks up Charity, Harry picks up the sword, and they make to get out of there. Unfortunately, Lea hasn't forgotten about Harry that quickly, and she intends to collect her due. Harry tries to argue with her, tries to negotiate for time to finish defeating the Nightmare. She's not having it. When one of her hellhounds attacks, Harry tries to defend himself with Amoracchius. Thing is, you uh, you can't use a sword powered by faith magic to get out of your promises. It turns in his hand, falls from his grasp. And Lea picks it up. Apparently, her game here wasn't really about getting an extra handle on Harry, which she didn't really need. It was about breaking the sword's protection, getting Harry to betray its purpose so she could take it. 

33 minute chapter and it still contrives to end on a cliffhanger. Next post might be another one of these, or it might be the Season 2 review post. Until then, be Gay, do Crimes, and read All The Things!

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 20

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Displaying remarkable fortitude and a passable impression of good sense, Harry heads to Michael's house. We get our first look at his neighborhood, which Harry characterizes as "suburbanish" because Jim Butcher has apparently never heard of a residential neighborhood. Michael's house is, of course, the nicest, in good vibes if not in grandeur, ivory with burgundy trim and equipped with a literal white picket fence. 

Harry was expecting Michael to need a minute to get out of bed, but he was apparently asleep in the living room rocker, after taking on a late night feeding of one year old Hope (not named here) so Charity can get some sleep. So we know Michael is a good husband and an attentive father. He's also wearing a T-shirt that says John 3:16. For my readers who aren't up on their Bible, that's "For god so loved the world that he gave up his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have eternal life." So, y'know, pin that one to the foreshadowing board. 

Harry lays out the situation, including and especially the part where the Nightmare is running around wearing his face. Michael asks how he knows Harry isn't the Nightmare, and Harry volunteers that he should probably stay outside anyway, to avoid incurring Charity's wrath, so Michael invites him in. Continuing to use that knightly noodle, Michael refuses to wake his family, reasoning that since the Nightmare is currently in a physical body, it's not in the nevernever, and can't get at people through their dreams. This is interesting for its establishment of Michael's intelligence, and his fluency with the supernatural, that despite having learned about the nevernever like, yesterday, he can work through the implications faster than Harry does.

Harry finds a note from Charity explaining that she had a sudden pregnancy craving for pizza and ice cream, and went to the store, so they gear up to go after her. Harry's worried that they're leaving the kids alone, but Michael's total lack of concern on this point is validated when Forthill miraculously turns up, having experienced minor car trouble just a block away. This is a regular enough occurrence that when he sees Michael and Harry with their coats on, he says "You need a babysitter again, don't you?" I think this is the first time we see Michael's divine providence effect in action, and it's a good choice to establish the scale and conditions. God won't just rescue Charity, but He'll create circumstances under which Michael can do it himself. He won't prevent Michael from getting arrested when he's out helping Harry, but He'll assist with saving Charity. Now that I think about it, this has some commonalities with the way that ghosts can only interact with their particular bailiwick. And that's interesting. I don't know if Jim Butcher has read Valdemar, but he's definitely read Wheel of Time, and Robert Jordan read Valdemar. And in Valdemar, if the Gods aren't literally just really leveled up ghosts, they certainly exist on the same continuum as ghosts. "God is actually an unimgainably powerful ghost" would certainly give the series some options, especially as we approach the Big Apocalyptic Trilogy. 

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There's only one grocery store nearby that's open this late, so that's where they go, and Charity's van is
parked right out front. Neither Charity nor the Nightmare is immediately in evidence, and when the Cashier hedges about whether she's seen them, there's actually a moment where Michael seems on the point of violence. Harry intervenes, and he goes to look for her himself just, absolutely open carrying a sword in the grocery store. 

Harry gives the cashier all the cash he has on hand (fifteen dollars) to tell him what she knows. Charity did come in, bought her pizza and ice cream, and went back to her car, failed to start it, and was intercepted by a man who looks just like Harry. They argued, but she walked off with him, in what Harry recognizes as the direction of Graceland cemetery. That's...not a good place to go right now, what with the border between worlds being squoodgey and Graceland being pretty damn haunted at the best of times. Nonetheless, Harry yells for Michael and goes back outside. He checks Charity's car - everything under the hood that can be torn out or torn apart pretty much is. He also sees, in the distance, what sure looks to be the Nightmare dragging Charity towards the cemetery by her hair. There's still no sign of Michael, so Harry goes after them alone. 

Bit of a short one after all this waiting, but I like that we're getting some more Michael characterization here. If all goes well, you'll actually get the next chapter within a week this time. Until then, be Gay, do Crimes, and read All The Things! 

2023-2024 Eeveeyear Goals

I'm gonna level with you guys. This year? Did not go well. That was for reasons, and we will be discussing those reasons, but I need to start by expressing in no uncertain terms that I. Failed. I reached less than 50% on most of my goals, I failed to progress substantially on some of the most important tasks. By the end of the year, I had straight up given u on some of them, and that's genuinely unprecedented. 

There are two big things and a lot of little ones that contributed to the disaster. One of the big things was mostly my fault, the other mostly wasn't. There was some bad goal setting. That's the one that's on me. Some of what went wrong there is covered in my post from a few months ago titled Oops... in which I discuss how my goal for handwritten pages go away from me, and why my Unity goals weren't well structured in the first place (more on that below). I also set a couple of goals that either I didn't care about very much or weren't entirely under my control. Trying to build a wiki for my epic fantasy setting was a neat idea in theory, but both of the projects it serves are kind of back burnered right now, so I wasn't making any natural progress, and the whole thing was just stressful and tiring. I still want to cook more, but changes to my living and financial situation mean that trying new recipes would, at present, require spending money rather than making more innovative use of extant resources, and that there are substantially greater time constraints on when it's actually productive to cook. Astute readers will notice that goals requiring resources I may not always have, or with timing limitations not fully under my control, are not good goals. 

The other thing that happened was a grueling, miserable, socially fraught two month move. That part is not my fault. Our housemate kicked us out, and even if his reasons were coherent (they're weren't), he did it with basically no notice, expecting us to find a new place and finance and carry out the move in less than a month, and threatening us with legal action when it took longer. Like, I try not to bring up outside factors as though they're an excuse for not getting my work done, but this was a whole thing. With that out of the way, let's talk about what worked, and didn't work, about my goals for this year. 

One thing that went wrong with nearly everything was trying to learn Unity in the way I was trying to learn it. Those tutorials, while not necessarily ineffective, were pretty miserable a lot of the time, not least because of the condescending video lectures in the first unit on game controls, so I'd check my spreadsheet to see what I was working on next, see that it was an hour of Unity, and be possessed by a spirit of Don't Wanna that could stymie me for days. Since I try to work on the thing I'm most behind on first, this reduced my progress on literally everything, although it had a greater impact on other things that could only be done on the computer. I found a workaround for this over the summer, kind of, but there was no way to recover the time I'd already lost. The presence of tasks I didn't really want to do also exacerbated my existing irrational fear that I would somehow "run out" of things like "books read" and be left with only the difficult, onerous stuff.

I honestly don't remember where I got my target figure for new cars, but it was hilariously too high, and while working on it wasn't disruptively unpleasant it would have been prohibitively time consuming had I not just...stopped trying. 

Successes, Such As They Were

There are a few areas in which I did better, in relative terms, absolute terms, or both, and I think listing them may, if nothing else, illustrate how useless and soup-brained I was this year. I read 7 fewer books, but actually got a bit more than 1% closer to my goal than I did last year, thanks in no small part to the goal's having been reduced by last year's similarly catastrophic reading failure. I got more handwritten pages done, but that's largely down to catching how the way I counted it had slipped over the past few years. You can see that in how I only managed 16 blog posts this entire damn year. I uh, I sure did spend more time playing video games, and got something like commensurately more orbs. My big takeaway on this is that even though Orb of Creation is on the computer, I need to treat it like a mobile game, and not count it towards my progress on video games. I watched more television, more movies, more YouTube videos. Most telling, I think, is that I spend 88 more hours reading and 171 more hours writing, and accomplished less in every category to which these timers apply. Brain not good this year. 

First Year Goals

We discussed in the introduction most of what really went wrong with our newly introduced goals. For some fucking reason, I added 15 of the damn things: Wiki Read (mostly SCP), Wiki Words, Wiki Planned, Foods Made, New Foods Made, TV Rewatch, Webcomics, Podcasts, Sewing Time, Repairs, TCGO Time, TCGO Matches, New Cards, Short Fiction, Programming Time, Programming Skills, and Duolingo. For reasons described above, the cooking and wiki creation goals will be dropped for the coming year. Having a goal for reading SCP stuff actually worked pretty well, and put me on the way of some short fiction, so we'll be keeping that. I'm not yet 100% sure yet whether my goals for rewatching tv or listening to podcasts are working how I want, so we're giving them another year, with the standard adjustment to the targets and we'll see how it goes. They didn't interact with my sewing goals how I was hoping they would, because it turns out I can do enough sewing to keep it from becoming the thing I'm most behind on while playing TTRPGs. Webcomics, again, I don't feel like I know yet. I got enough of them on my RSS feed that it never really become a Thing. 

My big takeaway from short fiction is that reading fanfiction does outcompete other things if I track them together, so we're adding a separate goal for that. The TCGO goals did pretty much exactly what I wanted them to, making space for them in my year where they neither strictly waste time nor have room to take over my life. New cards was set too high, as I discussed above, but standard adjustments should take care of that for the coming year. Programming (recorded in the 2022-2023 year as "Unity") is something of a sticky spot. We're keeping the thing where time spent playing romhacks counts for time, and skills encompasses completing a discrete part of any programming tutorial. I was already feeling like Unity might not be my thing, before the company so thoroughly crossed the Trust Thermocline a few weeks ago, but I don't yet know for sure what I'm doing instead. Python feels like a solid option on the actual programming side, and I'm increasingly feeling like I should learn Java, but Godot might be worth trying out if it turns out I do need a game engine for something, and I haven't settled on learning resources for any of this yet. I'll try to keep you posted. 

As first year goals, my new targets for each of these, except the ones I'm dropping entirely, will be calculated by multiplying what I accomplished last year by 1.5. 

Adjusted Goals

This past year and the year before, I set my fiction writing goal manually, so to speak, at 50,000 and then 60,000 words, rather than using the standard formula. I feel like this was a good idea, and we're making it 60,000 again this year. It's also getting some friends. Books Read, Rereads, and Blog Posts are core, mission critical goals, and letting the targets go to low because of a few bad years would be disastrous. Something I noticed this year is that words of fiction written has a hard time getting much ahead of pages read (see: trying to write without reading is like trying to only exhale), so keeping a high fiction writing goal with a too-low book target would just be silly. So I'm making the book goal 110, rather than the 87 indicated by my usual goal adjustment process, and increasing my page count goal to match. Rereading is also very important for my writing, so I'm setting that to 78 (75+1d10, if you're wondering). I should have just let it be 89 in the second year, rather than trying to get cute with it. And I'm not leaving you guys with only 42 blog posts this year. I'm never gonna get the goal for that fall below 50, so this year it's gonna be 57 and we'll see how that goes. 

New Goals

Dropping like four things means that for the first time in Mint and Brambles history, we aren't increasing how many goals I have, but we're still adding new things. I need to listen to new music and sort it into playlists, that's important for keeping my brain in good shape, so we're adding that. Probably I'll mostly do it through spotify's Release Radar and Discover Weekly playlists. I'm also adding a goal for little administrative bits like dealing with emails and organizing files on my computer because they will never get done otherwise, because it's as good a time as any to listen to podcasts etc, and as a kind of test run for adding a cleaning or organizing goal next year. For reasons previously discussed, we're adding a separate goal for fanfiction - this is important since I write fanfiction. 

I also added a goal for earning money. I'm not going to tell you what it is, and I'm not going to track it publicly, but I do want you to know about it. If this become the thing I'm most behind on, I will have to spend time trying to get more money, even if that means filling out surveys on Qmee. You don't want that. I don't want that. If you'd like to prevent it, please consider becoming a patron. 

Final Thoughts. 

That's...really what there is to say about this year. I' not gonna do last year's goal-by-goal breakdown because the same couple of things went wrong with everything, and there's no interesting discussion to have there. Except where otherwise specified, goals that were in their second or later year will be adjusted by multiplying the average of what I accomplished each year by 1.25. I'm exited to get started with something like a clean slate. Still hoping to get you a Dresden Files post by the end of this week. Until then, be Gay, do Crimes, and read All The Things!

Wheel of Time TV Series Likes and Reservations Season 2 Episodes 1-4

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Author's Note: This was meant to be completed and posted between Episodes 4 and 5, when it would have, you know, made sense. While everything here is written from notes taken within that timeframe, the post itself was not completed until tonight. Some of what I discuss here has since been complicated, addressed, disproven, or substantially expanded upon. I leave it as it stands for posterity's sake, and because an Episodes 1-7 Likes and Reservations post for an 8 episode season would be a little silly. 

Hello! It's that time of year again - the week between Episodes four and five of Wheel of Time. If you're new (in which case, Hi, hello, how did you even find me?), here at Mint and Brambles we observe this occasion with a list of what I liked, and what I have reservations about, in the show so far. I suggest you take a look at Season One's midseason and final lists, because this one is gonna be in five sections: What I liked, what I have reservations about, what from last season I feel better about, what from last season I'm more concerned about, and what from last season has so far gone completely unaddressed. 

As always, this post will contain spoilers for all episodes of the show to date (A/N: that's episodes 1-4 - this post contains no spoilers for episodes 5, 6, or 7), and potentially the entire book series. 

Stuff I Liked

• Merging Verin and Vandene. Of all the character merges I didn't see coming but fully support, this sure is one of them. We saw moves last season to cut down on the number of characters who have similar-sounding names (changing Owein to Maksim so we don't get him confused with Owen), and while I don't think I'm in much danger of getting Vandene and Verin confused, I could see it being harder for show-onlys, given that they need to be introduced at nearly the same time, and in any case I do routinely confuse Vandene with Adeleas, which for what book readers will recognize as obvious reasons I'm not gonna do with Verin Mathewin. I don't know if this means we're skipping the part where Adeleas gets murdered and Vandene gets really weird about it. I hope we're not. It does at least mean we're probably skipping one of the most pointless off-screen deaths of a named Warder. (In favor of a pointier off-screen death, admittedly, but still). 
• Nynaeve hanging out with Maksim and Ihvon. I'm a skosh ambivalent about Nynaeve learning the sword, but I am one hundred percent here for her hanging out with Warders socially, and these two especially. Last season, we were given to understand that Nynaeve kinda vibes better with Warders than with Aes Sedai, and I like that that's getting reinforcement here, and by extension confirmation that it was not just Moiraine's absence, or Lan's presence, that drew her to the Warders' fire in S1:E4. I also want to draw particular attention to "That's Alanna Sedai, to you" and Nynaeve's response. Forced to take like, a second to reflect, by someone she's currently angry at, she correctly identifies that her problem is not with Alanna, specifically, but with the Tower. I honestly can't decide if this is a departure from her characterization in the books, but I'm here for it either way. I do wonder if Maksim's joke about Nynaeve being bonded is like, foreshadowing. The bilateral bond from the books was neat, but including Androl and Pevara in the show would be, in my opinion, too much time and effort for the potential payoff. We haven't seen bilateral or unilateral bond between two women who can channel, so that could be cool, but... Nynaeve is the only person Rand completely trusts, and that's true all the way through the books. So I actually think that if Nynaeve as a Warder us a real thing we're doing, I'd like to see Rand bond her. Rand never getting a damn Warder is one of my biggest complains about the books, and while I think that in that context Min was the most natural candidate (even though it would disrupt the precise equality of including her in Elayne and Aviendha's bond), I don't think that would work with the show!Min we've seen so far, and it might work with show!Nynaeve. (To be clear, I don't think the, uh, peculiarities of the Ashaman bond are inherent to bonds created with saidin, but even if they were, it would be easy enough to change it for the show). 

• 

  Painting by John Everett Millais
  Photo provided by Birmingham Museums Trust
  on Unsplash
  

  
  

  On the subject of Nynaeve and Warders, her fanboy from Episode 4. I don't have a lot of like, thoughts here. I like Warders, regular Warders who aren't also main characters, having agency. I like people being duly impressed by Nynaeve. "I hope you don't choose Red!" A+, no notes. 
• Last season, when it vaguely looked like they might be combining Alanna with Myrelle, I was in a very wait-and-see place about it, 'cause show!Alanna is likeable, and book!Alanna and book!Myrelle... aren't. I have (extremely grudging) respect for Myrelle, but gah. However, they seem to be making Alanna the Warder rehab specialist and adding none of Murelles other traits. They also improved on her techniques by having her Warders involved. They've clearly done this before - they have a routine. And since Alanna only has the two Warders right now, it looks as though they've actually been passing recovered Warders along to other sisters, which is something Myrelle did not seem to have done before and clearly struggled with in the books. I'm nontrivially obsessed with the Warder rehabilitation process, so I'm very excited to see it expanded upon in the show. 
• I think this is my last one about Warders, but they actually talk to each other now?! We got some of that last season, but Stepin's arc was so isolated from the rest of the plot that it was hard to know what to expect going forward. But here we've got Lan talking to Tomas (also Tomas talking, didn't see that in the books), Maksim and Ihvon talking to each other, talking to Lan, the Warder trainees apparently talking amongst themselves. I hope Alric and Arinvar can eventually join this party as well. 
• Min and Mat hanging out. This is so good and important. Mat doesn't care about Min's visions. Min doesn't immediately write Mat off as an irresponsible fuckup. They're both in desperate need of a fucking break. This does great things for Mat's early characterization, letting him have a friend who's a woman, letting him have a friend who hasn't been stuck with him since early childhood. Giving Min an important relationship of any kind of someone other than Rand does a lot for her early characterization as well. It also opens up some possibilities for when they're both dragged into late-books Seanchan plot, since they'll already know and like each other. 
• The show's less...oblique relationship with alcoholism. This is another one from the "I mean, it came up in episode 5..." list. We've go Stepin's backstory there, but also Kerene's reaction upon their first meeting including buying him a drink, despite his already having been "piss drunk before [he] even got to the bar" does not indicate that that she had a particularly healthy relationship with alcohol either. Now, we've got Min making offhand reference to "a Red who loves a drink". If we're doing the character combining it looks like we're doing, this was very probably Liandrin, and if not, it was likely Elaida, since she develops something of a drinking problem in the later books. We've got Adeleas, whose introduction in the show is her being hung over ad Verin being casually exasperated, like this is inconvenient but pretty much to be expected, and who I don't think we see entirely sober at any point. We've got Elayne setting up her under-the-bed-still practically the second she moves in, confirming, as the books only hint at, that she did, in fact, get the Trakand alcoholism genes. I also have a whole complicated theory about Gitara Moroso, but I think that's gonna have to wait for the wrap up post. 

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  Competent Selene. Lanfear apparently succeeded in playing it cool, or cool enough anyway, for months between seasons. It does very much appear that she's using compulsion to get around Rand saying "no" when it would interfere with her plans, but my impression is that for the most part she's been patient and provided a passable facsimile of actual emotional support. The veneer doesn't even really start to crack until she's at the party with Rand, able to dress him up how she wants and reminded acutely of what actually worked, and didn't work, in her relationship with Lews Therin. And then we get to episode four and oh my fucking God the artistry of how she set up that scenario with the Myrddral. The way she managers to "accept" Rand's being able to channel while leaving him with just the tiniest sliver of guilt that he might be taking advantage of her insecurities. I'd love to know where she was going with that "I'm a monster too" business, before she was interrupted. 
• Elayne. She's perfect. I like that they're emphasizing the elegance and noblesse oblige over the petulance here, because it means they can keep her young, sheltered, even naive, without running a serious risk of making her annoying. Which he was, sometimes, in the books. And it's the prerogative of 16 year olds to be annoying sometimes, but the show has a lot less space, so I think it was a good call, giving her a smoother path from smishy daughter heir to Aes Sedai queen. She's a different kind of perfect from Nynaeve. The show's Nynaeve is like, the entirety of book Nynaeve, just leveled up a little from her EotW counterpart. This Elayne is...one specific version of her, but I think they chose the right version. 
• Rand's job. And Errol. I love Rand just having like, a job. I love how many different purposes this is serving for him simultaneously. Like, he needs a job 'cause he's living in a city, renting a room. He's spending time around mentally ill people, trying to learn more about more about madness, about what's going to happen to him, about how to tell when it's starting. He's trying to get access to Logain, but he seems to have been waiting for like, adequate justification to beat up that other orderly. I don't know if that's an internal thing or if he wanted anyone who looked into it to find a clear motive that had nothing to do with the false Dragon. Or both. It could very much be both, that's kind of the thing here. It's so good and important that we see Rand taking care of people here. It's important that he's good at it. He's also very much taking the opportunity to learn sword forms from Errol, and he obviously feels super weird about it, but he's doing it anyway, and this is such a soft, smooth entry point to the whole "I'll use everyone, I have to" thing. Also though, Errol (for as long as Rand has this job, since he seems to lose track of things day to day), is basically in a version of reality where there are just Aiel living and working in Cairhien now, and one of them is learning the sword from him. Like, cultural exchange is happening here. And that's a big of an adjustment for him, sure, but he seems to be basically here for it, and I just, I have so many feelings about this. 
• Hopper is great. Hopper is friend shaped. He jump. Also I'm pretty into the combination of actually showing us the images wolves used for mind-to-mind communication and rendering a lot of what Perrin would have picked up by scent in the books as visions instead. It forms a cohesive, comprehensible whole and it's not like they could really have Perrin stop and describe scents all the time. 

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  On that note, Elyas is here. Elyas is great. I'm glad the show didn't get dazzled by the mysterious werewolf thing and forget to make him weird and off-putting. He's kind of an asshole - it's perfect. I am looking forward to seeing more of him, and seeing what they did with his backstory in this version. 
• They're introducing Ingtar's Sympathetic Darkfriend status a little differently here. Instead of starting with geography lessons and working inward to "Better the Shadow, I thought", we're starting with "Perhaps Fain had a reason". This is a reasonable choice for a show, since it doesn't require multiple exposition deliveries to set up. But also, he's no longer the only darkfriend before The Gathering Storm who's sympathetic. Liandrin's got her son, and while there are a lot of ways the show could mishandle that, I'm basically hopeful. Dana, in season one, was clearly having a bad time. We don't know yet if Barthanes is a darkfriend in this version, but he is Just Smol. The Forsaken, the ones we've seen, aren't sympathetic, exactly, but they are nuanced. They're people. Suroth is awful, obviously, and the show hasn't done much to make me like Sheriam yet, but there's gotta be balance there - some people do just suck. 
• Alanna's family. The thing where she has one and sees them when she can and there's no weirdness about the age thing. (Contrast Anvaere's extreme weirdness about Moiraine's age). This is actually a detail borrowed from Kerene's implicit characterization in New Spring, and I'm so glad Rafe is paying that kind of attention. Kerene has a row of miniature paintings of her parents and siblings. Moiraine, with the world-weary sophistication of a twenty-one year old, thinks about how they, and their children, and their children's children, "and more" must all be long since gone to the grave. Kerene is 185 in New Spring. Certainly her parents and siblings are all long dead, unless one or both of her sisters could channel. Likely, their children are as well, although it's possible that if one of her siblings was considerably younger, and had a child late in life, she could have a living niece or nephew. Their kids? Could be alive or not, and while most of them are probably pretty old, they needn't all be old, and the ones that are dead likely haven't been so for very long. Their kids, meanwhile, are not only almost certainly still alive but could conceivably still be children. Most Aes Sedai, even older Aes Sedai, have living relatives, they're just not in touch with them because the Tower discourages it, because coming back about 20 years of nothing but letters (if you found the time to send letters) is a bit awkward, and because the age thing gets weird after a while. I also can't think of any Aes Sedai except Egwene Al'Vere, who was raised under exceptional circumstances and in such conditions as to prevent her going home any time in the foreseeable future, who was raised to the shawl while her parents were known to still be alive. Even if that doesn't cause interpersonal issues around visiting, it would create logistical issues in a lot of families. So it does make some sense that most Aes Sedai don't really see their relatives, but it also makes sense that there would be exceptions. And a Green from the borderlands, whose family are unlikely to have a problem with Aes Sedai, and can kinda get their heads around what a Green does, and and Aes Sedai with multiple Warders, who is thus a little less separated from ordinary humanity, and to whom the realities of how people age are less likely to become uncomfortable through unfamiliarity, who spends much of her time in the world, out of the Tower, who spent nearer ten years than twenty as a Novice and Accepted, like Kerene, like Alanna, makes perfect sense as our example of that.
  Also, Alanna's family itself is great. They're so chill about her, and seem to have settled on treating her as the age she looks, rather than navigating treating her like she's 80 when she still looks like she's in her 30s and will probably continue doing so for another hundred years. But they know her. They know her Warders. I think I'm still processing the part where one of her family members asked, at the dinner table, where the third Warder goes. 
• This is a small thing, but while I'm appropriately upset about Uno dying, I am so glad he got to say "fuck" on his way out. 

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  Rand isn't good with a sword yet. In the books, he was something of a natural. Not implausibly so- he still had to practice before he was like, actually good at it, but he was able to use it comfortably almost from the first, as Lan said in TGH, and he defeats a blademaster later that same book, like nine months after getting his sword. Here, he straight up drops his weapon, fighting the Myrddral. He's not just not good yet, he's not confident. He doesn't feel like he should be good yet. The book version was super valid too, but I'm looking forward to seeing how this changes his relationship to both swordwork and channeling. 
• Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of Moiraine's own actions. Seriously. Close examination of the early books will reveal that Moiraine Damodred is...kind of an asshole. That's magnified in the show, with one of the most glaring examples being in Season 1 Episode 7, when she threatens Min even though it literally would have been faster to accomplish the same thing by asking nicely. We now know that in Episode 6 of last season, she threatened Liandrin's son. Here in Season 2, she's continuing that pattern with Lan, with Anvaere, with the random stable keeper in Episode 4, and people are, understandably, pissed. They don't want to help her, they're willing to work with people who oppose her, or at least take small steps to inconvenience her. Min is working with Liandrin over this. Obviously, "Moiraine is kind of a jerk" was gonna need to be either dropped or scaled up some for a shorter format where we can't see in people's heads, and I think either would have been valid, but they chose the latter and I appreciate that the practical and interpersonal consequences have been scaled up to match. 
• The visual design of the arches for the Accepted test and, according to my partner, a lot of the design details inside the Tower, were taken from the 1999 Wheel of Time computer game. I think that's neat. It lets Rafe show off for all six of the people who both notice and care, and saves creative time and energy, which is likely to be particularly important in light of the show's largely physical sets. 

Stuff I Have Reservations About

• I cannot make the math work on this time skip. Like, it's been six months since the end of Season 1. Okay, sure, can't argue with that, but it's somehow Bel Tine again? Unless the timelines were wildly out of sync, the first four episodes take place over the course of about six days. Then we have a one month time skip. Episode 5 is a single day and night, and the next morning. Technically there's room for time to have passed unremarked between episodes five and six, but since Siuan is "coming back from Caemlyn" the night of S1:E5, that doesn't realistically add more than a week, and that's pushing it. Episode 6 is a day. They sleep twice in Episode 7 so let's call that two days. Episode 8 is like, 16 hours. That's 40 days. If we really stretch, we can maybe make the 6 days before the time skip, the week between Episodes 5 and 6, and the 5 days after that somehow each be a Wheel of Time week - 10 days. That puts our total at 58 days. 70, if we assume they got confused with a Wheel of Time month being four of our weeks and made it 40 days instead of 28. That's it. I cannot find anywhere to put extra days and believe me I have looked. I cannot account for the other three or four months necessary to make a six month time skip put us back at Bel Tine, and if they weren't going to take the trouble to make sure it made sense, why spend so much time establishing how long it's been for everyone?
• Aging up the Aes Sedai. Obligatory reminder that this is the Reservations section, not the Stuff I Think Is Bad section. So far, nothing they've done with this is a problem for me. Barthanes being Moiraine's nephew, rather than her unspecified cousin is kinda neat. I'd love to know where this puts Taringail, and by extension whether and how Moiraine and Elayne are related, but I'm not really worried about that. My thing is, this changes how nearly all of the central Aes Sedai relate to...every major historical event of the past 50 years, including the Whitecloak War and the Aiel War, and I don't know how that's gonna be handled. For an easy example, during and in the immediate aftermath of the Blood Snow, almost every sister was out of the Tower, which raises one of the following two questions: why was Moiraine at the Tower if not waiting on the Amyrlin as an Accepted, or Where were Siuan, Moiraine, and Gitara when it happened, if not in the Amyrlin's study? Also, the Aes Sedai who were Novices and Accepted during the Aiel War consistently display a greater sense of urgency, a greater willingness to take action, than older or younger Aes Sedai do, and I'm uncertain whether that will still be the case under these circumstances. 

  

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• What is actually going in with Moiraine? Is she stilled or just under a tied off shield? More to the point, can she lie? Stuff is getting weird and everyone's being weird and I'm finding the caginess around it the bad kind of stressful. Like, when she told Lan "You failed me", did she mean that? I'm aware that she could have, within the bounds of the Three Oaths, been talking about how he didn't bring her dinner that night, or any other random little thing, but if that's how we're meant to be using the Three Oaths, they may as well not be in play, and that wouldn't be great either. 
• On that note, the hell is going on with Lan's bond? Alanna seems to think Moiraine actually released him, but we have nothing to corroborate that. We've been largely taking Lan's failure to display a bond-break reaction as evidence that Moiraine isn't stilled, but we don't know if it works like that in the show. Given Season 1 Episode 8, in which Lan couldn't even tell what direction Moiraine was in with the bond masked, I don't know if he could tell the difference between continued masking and the bond actually being released. It's entirely possible that Moiraine can't unmask while shielded, but there's no good reason for her not to tell Lan if that's the case. Again, the... coyness is getting to be the bad kind of stressful. 
• Min's aunts. Look, I'm not the right person to make this call, but did that feel kinda racist to anyone else? When we heard about them being cast, I was expecting the beginnings of Min's backstory in terms of growing up in a lesbian household as a girl, or possibly a nonbinary person, who's attracted to men, and the specific weirdnesses of that and how it plays out differently in a setting with a very different relationship to gender. Instead we got 15 rather uncomfortable seconds of...whatever that was. 
• In Season 1 Episode 6, Siuan told Logain that he would live out his days watched and studied, never free, until he lost himself entirely to the madness. I'm...not sure how his current situation qualifies as "studied". Moiraine indicates that the Brown and Yellow Ajahs wanted to study him, which tracks with Siuan's initial declaration, but if this was the plan, when and, more importantly, how was it changed? It doesn't seem like Moiraine's been in contact with anyone at the Tower, least of all Siuan, so how the hell was this orchestrated?
• So we, the audience, know that what happened at the Eye of the World was not the Last Battle, that the Dark One wasn't defeated and Rand is still alive. Perrin and the Sheinarens? They don't know any of that. As far as they know, the Last Battle already happened, and Rand died defeating the Dark One, so what is the hurry about getting the Horn back?

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  Elayne talking about getting expelled from the Tower. I mean, it would explain a few things, but what the fucking fuck? As far as we know, there is one certain way to get put out of the Tower, and maybe two ways that you can be. Refusing the test for Accepted three times, or refusing to continue once you've started, is the only certain way. Flirting with men, or more than flirting, can get you sent away, but the only confirmed instance of this in the books was a girl who didn't have the spark inborn and had not yet touched the source. At least one other Novice who was farther along notably isn't kicked out for doing the same thing a few books later. Presumably, doing something that would be a stilling offense in a full sister could get a Novice or Accepted thrown out, but given the number of girls who arrive knowing some kind of off-brand compulsion, there's clearly some flexibility there as well. If the Aes Sedai are expelling girls for harmless rules violations (taking too much interest in min is not, from their perspective, harmless - in addition to its being an immense distraction and a possible strain on their loyalty to the Tower, a pregnancy would stop their training for six months, and carries an unacceptably high risk that the child would be a man who can channel), that would account for their being even more underpopulated in the show than in the books, but it's....stupid. It's very bad policy, and I can't see any reason for it. 
• What does Ihvon think a god is? The word "god" does not appear in the Wheel of Time series except in a single dedication (incidentally, the only instance of the word "heather" in the series is in the same dedication). Even the Forsaken, who use several words not known to the other characters (including "addictive") do not appear to have the concept. That it exists in the show raises Questions about the worldbuilding to which I'm sure there are interesting and satisfactory answers, but which I'm very concerned will never be addressed. 

Stuff From Last Season That I Feel Better About

• The handing of black characters whose names are not Nynaeve Al'Meara. They're letting Ihvon talk, we've got three more likeable black background characters, Nynaeve's parents are great, even if we only got to see them the once, and we've got Elyas now. Still holding out hope for a black Aes Sedai besides Siuan who both gets a name and doesn't die, though. 
• Where the hell is Elyas? There he is. He's here. 
• The man Liandrin meets in Northharbor. Apparently it's her son. That does kind of imply that the Reds have a strong enough policy against having children that they'll kill the child, or something, even if he's a grown adult, and that's fucked up, but it's considerably less draconian, less unhinged than if they do that do every man a Red has a relationship with. It's not even a wholly unreasonable policy. Any sister having a child has a too-high chance of producing a man who can channel, to whose gentling she might naturally be resistant, but this would be much more of a problem for a Red, who would have to be personally involved in the process. 

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  Apparently they only sent eight Aes Sedai to deal with Logain because that's how many you need to cut someone off from the True Source. I'm still not sure why they weren't using circles to maintain the shield, but this at least establishes that the mission wasn't mishandled, or sabotaged, from the start. 
• Where is everyone? There they are. I said I was prepared to overlook the bizarre emptiness of the White Tower if they fixed it in Season 2, and they did, so we're good. 
• Nynaeve, at least, apparently remembers that Stepin existed. 'cause she quotes him during her test when she's talking to Egwene. This makes me feel a bit less concerned about the recreation of the troubling Warder disposability from the books. 

 Stuff I Feel Worse About 

• The Seanchan being more unambiguously evil. They sure are still doing that. I think it's partly the nature of the medium. It's harder to get their point of view here. But also from the first four episodes it looks like they're way ore willing to, for example, take people captive even when they aren't marath'damane and aren't any particular threat. At least one of the characters from this culture is gonna need to be at least humanized later, and as of Season 2 Episode 4 they have not set the groundwork for that. 
• Aes Sedai classism. Mostly no further news here, but what under the Light made Elayne think she wouldn't be put in with the other Novices? Liandrin says she's from a small village, like Nynaeve, but she could be lying. I don't even know, this feels screwy as hell, although it matches up with the expulsion policy as far as expanding upon the Tower's...rigidity. 

 Things I Had Reservations About On Which We Have No New Information

• Whitecloaks - we haven't seen them. 
• How do circles work in the show? No one has used them so far this season. 

Holy fuck this got long. Like, I'm on the 15th handwritten page of this post right ow. That's why it's so late. I've been working on it steadily, but there's a lot to talk about. Honestly, you should expect a similar delay between Episode 8 and the wrap up post. To my Dresden Files reread readers, it looks like there probably won't be a new post for you before the end of the month after all, but expect one within a week. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things!