14 KiB
[RT][HF] A Practical Guide to Evil: Book 4: Chapter 24: Invitation (Redux)
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Author: u/Zayits *
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URL: https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/2018/06/29/chapter-24-invitation-redux/
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Score: 61
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Created: 2018-06-29T04:01:41
Post:
Comments:
u/Yes_This_Is_God [+19] (12 minutes later)
“I hear the King of the Dead’s invitation,” I said. “But seek clarification on the nature of it.”
Is Cat trying to be the Grey Pilgrim or something?
From the hints we got, it seems that Cat will most likely march against the Dead King, but I do wonder what would happen if they worked together.
u/stevedoesIP [+5] (22 hours later)
Seek truce with half your enemies
March against their greatest threat
Get backstabbed by the other half they are allied with
Turn the story into one of righteous vengeance
Enact the Bonfire plan
Kill Hassenbach and take the throne
u/stevedoesIP [+15] (9 hours later)
Dead King: Evil Crusade?
Black Queen: Evil Crusade?
Tyrant: Evil Crusade.
u/TideofKhatanga [+9] (12 hours later)
Black Knight: Fucking copycats.
u/cyberdsaiyan [+12] (36 minutes later)
Any sort of agreement with the Dead King would close off a lot of cat's planning, but they seem to be in too dire of straights to not consider the benefits of such an agreement...
I'm curious as to what the Dead king wants. We only know of second hand stories saying he's against all life and such, but what exactly is his life's goal? What has he been doing for the past half millennium that helps with that goal? Was he the Gods Belows' response to the Wandering Bard's meddling?
Exciting times ahead!
u/HallowedThoughts [+15] (an hour later)
I think the Wandering Bard was a response to the Dead King, not the other way around. That was Black's hypothesis anyways. Still very curious how this'll shake out when the Dead King has been hinted as the big bad of the series
u/Empiricist_or_not [+4] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (9 hours later)
Do you mean Bard is the big bad, Dead king is the big bad from goods perspective, or Dead king as the ultimate big bad against Cat?
u/HallowedThoughts [+10] (10 hours later)
I meant Dead King, but now that I think about it, I can totally see both of them being the big bad. Bard handling the story side of things, and Dead King handling the physical side. Bard's probably going to be Cat's nemesis tho since she's barely interacted with the Dead King
u/RiOrius [+14] (an hour later)
Yeah, it's possible I'm misreading the situation, but my first thought was that Bonfire would be a less politically toxic move than allying with the Dead King.
Like, maybe if they could do it secretly it could work, but that plan is just asking for trouble.
u/HeWhoBringsDust [+1] (3 hours later)
Quick question, was Bonfire ever actually explained? I may have forgotten, but it keeps being brought up, and I’m wondering if it’s like absolute positioning where it’ll be explained in time.
u/Weebcluse [+13] (4 hours later)
Absolute positioning is what Cat and Masego used to drop a fae lake on the crusaders. Bonfire was the plan for Cat to gate her army into Procer to pillage and gate hop and pillage until Procer stops crusading to deal with her.
u/HeWhoBringsDust [+3] (12 hours later)
Thank you! That explains so much about why Bonfire is political suicide.
u/sparkc [+7] (8 hours later)
I’m failing to understand how allying with Black, questionable motives or not, could possibly have less down side or risk than allying with The Dead King.
u/None [+3] (9 hours later)
Allying with the Dead King might not explicitly break the terms of the treaty she just signed. That's the only upside I can think of, plus his overwhelming power.
u/Zayits [+2] (15 hours later)
Well, Black isn't picking up the phone right now, and Cat won't go in blindly a second time. Not when there's even more at stake than in Diabolist's lair.
I do hope they'll at least try to track Warlock down, maybe give him an item to Imbricate/Reflect Catherine's domain, like they did with Hasenbach. They have to know he's still at the pass, waiting for the Witch to blink first.
u/Tallergeese [+1] (15 hours later)
There are probably very few excuses more plausible than "the Dead King coerced me, so I didn't really have a choice."
u/18scsc [+14] (8 hours later)
There's zero chance she's just gonna make a straight up alliance here without extracting some major leverage. From the very beginning, from that first fight with the Lone Swordsman, to her experience in Winter, her MO has been to use the strength of Named more powerful than her against them. She uses their narrative weight to gain earthly advantage.
The first thing she did after fully taking the mantle of Squire was to let William survive. Knowing that the forces of narrative would ensure a war and deciding it was worth it to get more earthly authority over the Legions. This was how she was able to survive Winter and become the Duchess of Moonless Nights. It is worth noting that being part fae gives Cat more power in narrative; in that breaking an oath will have severe narrative concequences for the offending party.
The Dead King has a LOT of narrative weight for Cat to use to her advantage. If he's calcified in his thinking or bound to the narrative, then Cat is gonna do wonderfully. If he's even nearly as canny as Black or the Pilgrim then Cat might be in big trouble.
u/ForgottenToupee [+8] (16 minutes later)
So... in the epilogue of Book 3, the red rotary dial was about Cat?
u/Zayits [+17] (an hour later)
Probably Malicia, since the Tower has a way to contact the Dead King, and the stone was hinted to be a gift from Triumphant.
Also, it may have been the means of summoning him. Remember how, in Regard, he was waiting for Ranger on the other side of the portal, and she remarked that he could change the place it led to because he owned the entire hell? Ever since one of Akua's interludes mentioned that she had to circumvent the issue of Keter's Due to stay human, I've been thinking that this was the reason Trismegistus transitioned into the Name of the Dead King - to reflect the fundamental change in his nature. Now I think that wasn't the only consequence.
For a villain, undeath is a net loss. Sure, you can make phylacteries and other stuff incompatible with life, but the core purpose of it, escaping the inevitable death by old age, is already achieved by being a villain. As Warlock remarked, undeath makes one less able to change, which is damning in the long run, which makes me wonder: if subjugating a hell had him becoming nonhuman enough to suffer fae-like setbacks in his capacity to learn, just how close is he bound to it?
See, the little detail that made me remind you all that was this little passage from the end of the epilogue:
In the depths of a Hell that had long lost its name and number, a monster opened his eyes. In Keter, a stone that was an old and treasured gift shone red. It had not done this since the days of Dread Empress Triumphant.
Now, if Akua's dimension-scrying artifact and Hierarch's Receive are any indication, there's nothing fundamentally impossible for magic and Names in connecting directly to the other dimensions. But why would the lich and the stone be separated if it were a simple communication device? Surely someone as acquainted with the Hells as Triumphant could make a device that could allow direct calls? More importantly, is there any significance in the fact that both times we've seen the Dead King he was in his hell? He's undead, it's not like the poisoned air and the undead armies in Keter would hinder him.
My theory is that claiming a hell and making it lose its name and number bound Trismegistus to it. It's why he needs all those intermediaries in the varying states of decay and sentience: he can't set the foot in the Creation himself. Triumphant, on the other hand, had made her armies out of denizens of Hells; she also probably made some deal with the lich, given how fond he is of her and how nobody mentioned conquering the Kingdom of the Dead as her greatest achievement.
Perhaps they can use the Diabolist as a last-ditch way to keep him in check, or at least to inform them about him: she was planning to rule all of Calernia, after all, she must have had some plan to deal with him. Besides, he's famous for fielding devils and demons too.
u/NotACauldronAgent [+6] Probably (19 minutes later)
See, this is why you need pilgrim on hand! Given that pilgrim is in the same league as saint, saint as ranger, and ranger as dead king, taking Pilgrim to the table can only be a good thing.
I’m sure this won’t backfire at all.
u/momanie [+15] (2 hours later)
saint and pilgrim are probably not on rangers level. and Ranger is above the dead king probably. Their have been many crusades and plenty of big name heroes who have lost to the Dead king, people of power comparable to saint and pilgrim most likely, and hes defeated them all, but ranger just casually rolls up into keter with ease.
u/HeWhoBringsDust [+14] (3 hours later)
I think the Dead King is also semi-fond of Ranger. I mean, sure she’s strong as hell, but it’s telling when it seems like he leaves holes in his defenses for her to get through. Maybe since she’s a fellow immortal, he enjoys the company.
Also, considering Saint is concentrated desire to kill, and Ranger has made a name for herself murdering powerful beings, this heavily implies that Saint is beneath her notice as she would have made repeated attempts to kill her by this point. I mean, she’s done it once or twice, but if the Dead King, Drow and Larat are examples, Ranger would keep trying until they eventually found a way to keep her out for good (Drow) or gave up fighting her off (Larat).
u/sparr [+3] (13 hours later)
people of power comparable to saint and pilgrim most likely, and hes defeated them all, but ranger just casually rolls up into keter with ease.
Getting one person in, not the same challenge as conquering the city.
u/HeWhoBringsDust [+6] (3 hours later)
Really want Cat to talk to the Grey Pilgrim about this, if only so we see more of her brand of diplomacy. In this case, the knife is her allying with the Dead King and the cheap wine is Pilgrim attempting to stop Klaus’ army
u/xland44 [+5] (8 hours later)
nah, the wine is her joining the league against evil; nobody wants her to join but it's a good deal better than her fighting alongside the dead king
u/Nimelennar [+9] (11 hours later)
I had a strange idea, based on the description of the Princes' Graveyard:
“When historians try to pin down Foundling’s methods they point to the Battle of the Camps or the Princes’ Graveyard, but those came later. After she’d learned her trade. If you want to understand how she operated, look to the Battle of Four Armies and One – from the beginning to the end, she was playing an entirely different game from every other commander on the field.”
A graveyard is often metaphorically used to refer to a place where a lot of people have died, but literally, it's a place where the dead are laid to rest.
An alliance with the Dead King would be playing right into Procer's "Crusade" game, which, as noted in that chapter quote, is not how Cat plays.
But... if it were called the "Black Queen's Graveyard," we'd assume that she was the victor, not the vanquished, so...
What if the Princes are not being killed in their Graveyard, but are the ones performing the "laying to rest?" Right now, the Dead King and his forces are safe in his hell, accessible only through the heart of Procer.
What if Cat is setting it up so that she joins the forces of Good against the Dead King, petitioning to join the Alliance after drawing the King's forces into a vulnerable position?
It seems like much more in line with "playing an entirely different game" than any narrative where she ends up actually fighting the First Prince's Army.
u/signspace13 [+2] (2 days later)
I just ripped through this novel in 4 days with a Text to speech app on my phone, and I honestly have to say it was quite delightful, as always I now sit in the slump of the series know there is no more done but more to come, though honestly it will be difficult to go back to reading about the good guys after this.
This chapter was an interesting place to catch up, my opinion is that the Dead king isn't going to be an enemy, he strikes me as someone more like black than triumphant, except it has taken him eons of loneliness and crusaders to reach the same conclusion, that the heroes always win, and even if he lives as he does now it is no real life.
I feel like he is the only person currently alive that can understand the situation that Cat is now in, an immortal evil and other that doesn't fit into the ranks that the world made for her anymore, her name was basically stripped away by winter and Black's betrayal, it is distinctly likely that the Dead king could engineer a situation in which she receives a new name.
Though my unfounded hope for her rise as a white knight, a knight white with the ice of winter, on the side of evil is also still burning quietly.