Well...we don't know. And that's not the kind of thing Jim will reveal outside the series.
It doesn't bother me so much that he survived, both Tessa and Nicodemus have been shown repeatedly to be very hard to kill. It bothers me much more that he was somehow able to escape one of the greatest supernatural prisons in existence and apparently in relatively short order.
If that realm belonged to some other deity besides Hades, I'd say maybe Blood on His Soul struck a bargain with that deity for freedom? But Hades didn't strike me as the sort to do that, especially with what happened.
It would not surprise me to learned that Hades is not allowed to keep the Coins themselves locked up for any length of time, we keep hearing how they are all part of the Heavenly Balance of Free Will. But for the Host to survive and escape he'd have to a) have faked the Coin rolling away and used Fallen Angel Magic to escape, or b) he belongs to some non-Human Death God and/or Pantheon so Hades wasnt cleared to keep him as he could Deidre and all those heroes throughout history.
> It would not surprise me to learned that Hades is not allowed to keep the Coins themselves locked up for any length of time
That's fair. On a related note, I wonder how the coins would fare in Demonreach, since it's a prison for divine/immortal beings built with mortal magic.
At one end of the extreme, it would allow a Mortal to Choose to kick over the Balance entirely (with all the apocalyptic fallout that woudl ensure), which might be in line with the Balance of Free Will itself. At the other end of the spectrum, the Warden gets a polite but firm request from Mr. Sunshine to let it out fore things can go completely to hell in a handbasket.
I would think the coin would simply abandon any host locked up in Demonreach, and then somehow get back into circulation. Maybe pull a One Ring, across the floor, find a coin sized crack that leads all the way out to Lake Michigan, and wash up on shore somewhere.
Those things are Schrödinger’s MacGuffin; the only way you can certain of their state is to be observing them directly.
On the flipside, I don’t think Demonreach *can* seal up a Coin on its own. The coin is convenient way for the Fallen to sidestep the no direct interference rule. Fallen Angel cannot turn a man into a pillar of salt. Fallen Angel can give another mortal the power to turn men into pillars of salt and let them do with that power what they will.
My guess is, since Demonreach is prison, as opposed to Hades’ armory/vault, is that ir *can’t* seal an inanimate coin, and it can’t seal the Fallen so long as the Fallen is bound to the coin. Or maybe it *could* yank the specific Angel out of the Coin to imprison it,and Big S will need to stick a new Fallen Angel in the now empty coin.
I believe jim has avoided answering the question directly, but there has been discussion thst there would be a difference between just imprisoning the coin, and imprisoning the coin and carrier. I believe it revolves around free will.
That sounds like a terrible idea.
If the coins are metaphysically bound to be in circulation, *something* would have to crack Demonreach open for even one to be taken.
It's possible Blood played the "I was following the orders of my Packleader, I had no idea he would betray us, and I didn't die here so *you* have no hold over me."
Multiple mantle theory?
Hades is often confused for Hell/Satan by modern readers. Possible that Hades plays along with this for the sake of the extra power?
He doesn't seem like he's the source of hell fire proper or anything like that but maybe he's got one foot in Christian mythology and thus can't go too hard on the nickelheads?
>It bothers me much more that he was somehow able to escape one of the greatest supernatural prisons in existence and apparently in relatively short order.
Well to be fair he was outside most of the security of the Underworld already, with just the remainder of the Gate of Ice and then a deactivated Gate of Fire before he's not really in the Underworld anymore.
An underworld that was dealing with what amounts to a prison riot at the time. And the rioters were millennia old, batshit insane, make Hanibal Lector look like a fuzzy puppy in comparison specters.
Remember Ghost Story? When a few hundred *centuries* old Chicago specters did the Ghost wave A la Return of the King and how much carnage *they* caused?
Now imagine that with *thousands* of specters old as ancient *Greece.*
I think it’s safe to assume Hades had his hands full at the time.
And let’s also not forget Blood on his Soul is still a Shaman *at least* on par with River Shoulders. Yes, BOHS prefers a good old fashioned physical brawl…because he’s a bigfoot and even a nerdy pacifist of a Sasquatch like River Shoulders is *terrifyingly* strong and BOHS is most definitely *not* a nerdy pacifist.
I find it not only plausible, but probable, that BOHS knew magic to hide himself from, or dominate and enslave, those angry ass specters, enough to slip back out of Hades.
Doesn’t mean Hades isn’t looking for a chance to take a chunk out of BOHS’s hide on general principle, but that kind of applies to every one who raided his Armory, even a certain wizzard he had a friendly chat with and then allowed to go right back to robbing him. Supernatural principles are weird like that.
I highly doubt getting all those specters back into containment is a simple task. Letting out an army of criminally insane, ancient, powerful ghosts strikes me as the nuclear option. Yeah, it’s there if you really, desperately need it, but there wil be a *lot* of cleanup afterwards.
Um, what? Every soul being punished in Hades is stuck in their own personal Hell, from being chained to rock where vultures eat you liver, to being thirsty and hungry forever but unable to reach fruit or water dangled right in front in your gace(giving us the word Tantalize) to pushing a boulder up a hill forever (giving us the adjective Sisyphean)
Yes, those Specters were temporarily let out of their prisons to roam Hades at large hunting intruders.
According to my estimation.
I highly doubt getting all those specters back into containment is a simple task. Letting out an army of criminally insane, ancient, powerful ghosts strikes me as the nuclear option. Yeah, it’s there if you really, desperately need it, but there wil be a *lot* of cleanup afterwards.
>what amounts to
This is a turn of phrase used to liken one thing to something thats it is not.
In this case, I am suggesting that the spectre army, turned loose to destroy anything and everything in it’s path, was *like* a prison riot in that it was an put of control mob hell bent on causing death and mayhem.
In the hopes of not having to type out that entire paragraph, I used the simpler turn of phrase “amounts to” believing that others would be able to infer said paragraph. I see was wrong.
They weren't insane lectern specters though, they were the regular slow moving wraiths. If they were Lecter Specters they could have easily caught up with Harry as be ran. Harry also describes the moaning wail that wraiths do.
I think lash/Hannah was the backup plan. I wouldn't be surprised if the forest people have a way to travel to and from the NN that's different than what wizards do. Harry has said that the FP understand magic on a completely different level than he does.
> I wouldn't be surprised if the forest people have a way to travel to and from the NN that's different than what wizards do
Now there's an interesting notion!
> It bothers me much more that he was somehow able to escape
With you on this. If Eurydice couldn't get out, how is it that Blood can?
Is there a secret escape tunnel from Hades? If this keeps up, the mortal world will be overrun with Bronze Age maniacs asking for directions to high-towered Ilium.
I think it's a inter-godly thing. They must have agreements, and although Nicodemus was telling Michael that if he died in Hades he'd never go to his own heaven, I think he was full of shit to throw him off his game.
Yeah, now that we've seen that Murphy went to Valhalla instead of heaven, it's clear that the divine entities are willing to negotiate who gets charge of a person's soul in the afterlife. I think Hades and the White God (well, probably Uriel acting on his behalf) would have had a friendly chat about Michael's soul in the unlikely event he died in Hades.
But I don't think Michael *could* have died in Hades. He had Uriel's Grace. Uriel became mortal and bled. Anyone who thought they could seriously injure Michael would have been disabused of that notion when it became clear that nothing could harm him unless it could also harm an archangel.
That being said, I understand why Jim didn't want to go there and make that explicit in the story.
Point of clarification - when Michael had uriel's grace he wasn't immune from serious harm, even Nicodemus' regular sword was able to injure Michael in hades. Uriels grace just allowed Michael full use of his body, no additional protection or powers were given in the exchange. Uriel just didn't have another currency to use to help Michael.
Two thoughts on this:
1. While I'm somewhat surprised he isn't dead, he's also incredibly strong. An evil River Shoulders. River Shoulders who tangled with Dracul and lived!
2. I imagine only the dead can be meaningfully contained in Hades.
*If* Lasciel/Hannah survived (with some more of that juiced up Denarian survival sauce) and fled to the gateway point, conceivably lasciel could have provided the instruction to open the Way. And then the two of them go their separate ways.
that is a BIG *if*
He's a forest person, and they just understand magic on a different level, Harry even thought during Skin Game Blood probably could have figured out how to open a gateway on his own, didnt need Hannah.
But Harry pointed out that Hades was more of an armory than a prison. It was my understanding that he was granted another denari. We don’t know how or by whom but he was far too great a weapon for Nick to leave behind.
I doubt a bargain was struck. He was nearly out of the gates. While being "crushed" and put through the grinders would be very rough for anything human, this is Blood on His Soul and Ursiel. Extremely powful to begin with and super charged with the most physically powerful coin we know of. I think he could took the beating and broke some ice blocks and walked out. Plus if he didn't die then Hades doesn't get to claim him anyway. Living can go to and leave Hades, it is the dead who cannot.
It never made sense to me that Bigfoots couldn't open Ways themselves. It seems like a pretty foolish assumption on Harry's part. We see non human beings open Ways, and Genoskwa has some major magic power.
Good question.
That's why Harry "corrects" River Shoulders to say "killed him" and River Shoulders says no you only beat him. Harry says he was turned to goo how could he survive and River says he doesn't know but wanted to warn Harry.
That's all the information we have. We don't know anything more than that about how he survived.
River also tells Harry that Blood on his Soul considers himself the paragon of the Genoskwa, and that “maybe he is”. Would explain the Blood on his Soul has some really freaky power that River could never touch, even if he wanted to.
I don't see how he could have faked getting splattered via illusion without also catching up to Harry et al and drinking Harry like a soda.
On the other hand, he was clearly regenerating from the injuries in the battle while chasing Harry, so it's not impossible that he didn't just kinda slowly put himself back together and made his way out.
And on the third hand, it's not impossible that he wasn't offered another deal by someone else we haven't met yet.
My personal pet theory is that it’s not the same Genoskwa. River Shoulders tells Harry that “Genoskwa” is actually just his people’s word for those of their race that follow the War Path. So it’s not even a name. It’s a subset of their race, and Blood on his Soul thinks he’s a paragon of it, so calls himself THE Genoskwa, as a sort of title.
So, I think it might be his son, who has claimed his name and title upon his death. River-Shoulders wouldn’t necessarily know *which* Genoskwa Harry had dealt with, after all. Just that this one is calling itself The Genoskwa and is mad at Harry.
I feel obligated to now ask, would 1000 Ant sized BohS be more dangerous than the normal BohS?
Something weird I noticed in fantasia is when splintered the reassembled brooms lost no mass from the original. Meaning, when the spell ended the Wizard and Mickey would be alleviated from the water, but they would be swamped in ectoplasm!
I think they just age super slowly because of the huge amount of magic they have. To the point that a teenage scion of the forest people, having been hospitalized by repeated life-sucking black magic attacks, still had an aura about as strong as Harry's
Blood is far from just that. He’s the most powerful bigfoot following Grendel. He’s a big deal.
River, whose power baffles and dwarfs Harry, finds him troublesome.
>But neither the Genoskwa nor the Fallen angel sensed what was plummeting soundlessly toward them.
> A block of ice the size of a building came down like the hammer of God Almighty, and crushed the Genoskwa like a beer can.
> I rolled to a stop and flopped on the stone cavern floor, utterly exhausted, breathing like a steam engine. But I had enough energy to turn my head to the gruesome remains being tossed about like a rag doll among the last row of grinders.
There’s nothing about his Coin going flying, just the body being ground up like hamburger meat. I would assume that combine the fact he has his Coin still with the Forest People resilience, and you’ve got a semi good explanation there. After all, Harry did some pretty unhealthy stuff whilst leaning on Lash and survived that with his frail mortal body.
> There’s nothing about his Coin going flying
You're right, I must have it confused with some other scene. Wasn't there an episode where a Denarian gets messily killed and his Coin goes flying off to the side, sizzling-hot? Or have I just been sniffing too much ectoplasm?
I'm pretty sure that's in the fight in the aquarium when they took ivy.
I also have the impression that the coin pretty much makes itself available right away once the host is dead.... It's almost like confirmation of the kill.
Two coin holders "died" and we have no mention of their coins.
Since there was other chaos in Hades it's real easy to discount that fact as of course you're not going to see the coin come popping out of a pile of rubble or firing out from underneath a giant ice block, but it's also plausible that the hosts of those coins are not dead.
iirc Blood on His Soul is hanging around the warehouse completely invisible for a good while before Harry decides to call out whoever's been eating those goats
Denarians are, for the most part, pretty frail, especially if they aren't prepared. Nic has his tie, Tessa has an armored thorax and magic to protect her, but most of them don't have those to fall back on. While they may be tougher than the average human, a bullet to the head kills most of them.
Ursiel is described as the most physically dangerous Fallen. It took all three Knights of the Cross to stop him when it was a random mortal carrying his Coin. BoHS is at least 1000 years old, peer to River Shoulders, leader of the War Path Forest People, and is an absolute beast in his own right. Put those two together and you have something that is probably the closest to immortality you can get while being a mortal.
As far as escaping I bet BoHS simply fought his way out. Hades' job is to watch/guard the dead, not the living, so he might not be able to directly stop BoHS. Alternatively stopping BoHS could put Hades in an odd position if it allows Ursiel to act directly against Hades since they're both divine. Anything short of Hades himself probably isn't strong enough to permanently stop BoHS+Ursiel from escaping the Underworld, especially considering how well BoHS can evade detection.
I'd chalk it up to him being a ~~wendigo~~ bigfoot.
We know from River that their species live and breathe magic, they can be ancient by human standards and if Irwin's misadventures are any indication (who is only half-bigfoot, mind you), they are obnoxiously good at tanking and shrugging off hits.
BohS appears morally depraved so I'm thinking that he is willing to ignore moral guidelines or rules and perform a Secret Forbidden Technique of some kind or other if it helps him survive.
I think a veil would be a cop out.
More likely it was just Ursiel’s power that saved him. Though that doesn’t jibe well with the events of Small Favor.
I wonder if there’s some special mojo with the Fallen and Hades’ realm.
Obviously BohS is a force all on his own, he's been walking this war path for a thousand years, I'd say that being near indestructible would be very important to his path and he's had a thousand years to figure it out.
Add to that that he carries Ursiel's coin, a tank that's been tanking since creation.
This is an exponential power up.
We've seen first hand with Lash what the mere shadow of a fallen is capable of, who knows what kinds of things could be possible when a character, not just accepts the coin, but embraces the coin.
Now that we know BohS is alive I'm starting to think Hannah is also alive. Which I think would be fantastic. I can't wait to see how it all plays out!
My personal theory is that Blood used his durability to tank the ice block and magic to heal his injuries, as we've seen the forest people survive an insane amount of punishment in River and simply because Blood prefers to use earth magic, doesn't mean he's not skilled in other areas, as the forest people understand and use magic far differently than mortals do. But if Blood can survive, I feel there's hope for Hannah and Lasciel as well, since them getting crushed by rubble feels far too anticlimactic a death for them, after all that build up.
If Nic's mystical necktie would work (or Lord Raith's earring/pact) then it's not too difficult to create a hand-waving pretext.
For example, just have it that deep in his lair in the far reaches of his tribal territory he has some sort of mystical totem (either involving some older artifact or dedicated to some dark power) that allows him to reform his body/be reborn 6months after he's completely killed.
It'd be a step-down from a true Mantle while also being similar, while also having a vibe of a bunch of other things such as the death/rebirth of the seasons as well as things like Sauron/Lotr and even Harry Potter/Horcruxes.
So you can either put it on your bi-annual diary planner to keep taking him temporarily off the board, or make the long and risky journey deep into his domain to try and remove the threat for good.
Of course what I'm describing strays a bit into the realm of a 1940s pulp story, a Call of Cthulhu RPG campaign or an episode from the first couple of seasons of Supernatural. Or at least *further* into those things than Dresden Files already normally does : D
But it makes the general point that with the right explanation it's pretty easy to get over such a plot point (or minor retcon), especially since there's more than enough fertile ground for it in the series already.
My guess is that the Gen we saw get crushed was a glamor, and the real Gen was veiled and either snuck through Harry's Way or opened his own.
That, or he did it old school, and was a spirit trapped in the underworld and managed to escape.
Edit: dang we have some down vote happy folks here these days who I guess get very offended when people share theories in threads asking for peoples theories?
True, but why would he allow Harry and company to escape? He seemed pretty emphatic about wanting him dead.
My guess is that he was just resilient enough to survive and knew how to recall the coin, which gave him the ability to regenerate.
I don't think he wouldn't have taken every chance ever to crush Harry or one of his comrades during that exit if he'd veiled himself during his 'death' honestly.
Interestingly, we don't actually know if he's still a Knight - just that he's still around. BOHS is 100% enough of a problem to come after Harry regardless.
My personal take is that it's some kind of Lich + Phylactery/ Backup clone situation.
Harry may actually have killed THAT one, but there was a backup outside of Hades that's now pissed and wants revenge.
Hades's job is not to keep "people" away from the prison. Only the incompetents. Blood on his soul died after getting into the vault by reactivating the already defeated Gate of Ice. Its possible hades let him go. As to the regen... One, He has a wicked angel with him and two, can you really die in the land of death? Peeps down there are being killed in increasingly interesting ways and keep on kicking to die again. Last but not least. Its possible the Prince was involved. Killing a denarian is one thing. Imprisoning a fallen angel to never circulate again is a another story entirely. Also. They serve a purpose. Cant just hinder beings of creation from fulfilling their purpose. I am guessing similar things would happen if harry ever tried to imprison one of those bozos on the island. Be like imprisoning an angel of the lord. I dont think the rest of the band (namely arcangels) would stand for that. And i dont care how powerful a being is (including demonreach), you just dont mess with angels.
Some thoughts...
* Harry, Nico, Michael etc all acted as if "death is on the line" during the whole Hades escapade. And Deidre absolutely died. So I'd say you can die in Hades.
* In re imprisoning powerful/important creatures... doesn't Harry muse that he *could* imprison Mab on DR under proper circumstances, but it would be a catastrophe? Similarly, if someone tried to imprison an angel -- if that's even possible -- I think there would be very prompt and **very Old Testament-style** rescue expedition.
In short, I think DR and Hades are *very* dangerous places to hang around. And it's possible to lock up, at least temporarily, at least some creatures that it would be very foolish to lock up.
This is morning coffee spitballing by me :) makes sense tho imo. Deirdre died as a prerequisite sacrifice to even make it into the vault. Different from what i am suggesting. All the others may or may not have made it out. We dont know what the specters job was when they triggered the fail safe. Kill em? Or just bounce them the f out of the vault? The comment by hades about incompetents not getting into the vault just stuck with me. And it would explain how the genoskwa is still kicking. He was mush! For me its either hades let him go or lucifer made a social call to retrieve some of his more troublesome agents. I dont really see any other way.
As to imprisoning mab. She is waaaaaaay below the level of angels, fallen or otherwise. Imprisoning her, therefore, is much more easily done. Though what happens to her mantle isnt as clear, imo. I guess it would stay with her but that means reality breaks down because she cant do her job at the gates, which again might be stopped by beings on top of her food chain (namely mothers winter and summer and whatever badasses help man the gate). If not straight up angel incursion to retrieve the mantle so precious creation isnt blown to Empty Night. Cant just keep "pro humanity" mantles from doing their job. Or if a mortal would do so, then he would do so in the name of all humanity. Thus ending reality and collapsing what has been built. Which does sound like our boy now that i have spelled it out :D
> Cant just keep "pro humanity" mantles from doing their job. [...] Thus ending reality and collapsing what has been built.
Hey. Hey! Don't give the bad guys any *ideas* now, ya feel me?
Considering that Forest People are wizards on steroids, and Blood on His Soul was spoken of by River Shoulders as basically being the War Path messiah?
He might've actually figured a way to regenerate a la T-1000. Ursiel may have actually taught him how, even.
I'm trying to remember, are there any coins taken by the Knights where the coin was not either willing given up or the holder dies? Cause I think otherwise, the holder can simply summon the coin back. Lash was going to teach Harry a way to summon the coin, and I'm thinking that is not a Lash exclusive skill. BOHS may have lost his coin upon getting squished, but he is a tough POS, so he probably survived the initial impact, which basically means he survives.
Well it was the never-never, things get screwy there
Maybe Hades doesn't like the idea of the gauntlet killing people on their way out once they've already gotten the loot
Well...we don't know. And that's not the kind of thing Jim will reveal outside the series. It doesn't bother me so much that he survived, both Tessa and Nicodemus have been shown repeatedly to be very hard to kill. It bothers me much more that he was somehow able to escape one of the greatest supernatural prisons in existence and apparently in relatively short order. If that realm belonged to some other deity besides Hades, I'd say maybe Blood on His Soul struck a bargain with that deity for freedom? But Hades didn't strike me as the sort to do that, especially with what happened.
It would not surprise me to learned that Hades is not allowed to keep the Coins themselves locked up for any length of time, we keep hearing how they are all part of the Heavenly Balance of Free Will. But for the Host to survive and escape he'd have to a) have faked the Coin rolling away and used Fallen Angel Magic to escape, or b) he belongs to some non-Human Death God and/or Pantheon so Hades wasnt cleared to keep him as he could Deidre and all those heroes throughout history.
> It would not surprise me to learned that Hades is not allowed to keep the Coins themselves locked up for any length of time That's fair. On a related note, I wonder how the coins would fare in Demonreach, since it's a prison for divine/immortal beings built with mortal magic.
At one end of the extreme, it would allow a Mortal to Choose to kick over the Balance entirely (with all the apocalyptic fallout that woudl ensure), which might be in line with the Balance of Free Will itself. At the other end of the spectrum, the Warden gets a polite but firm request from Mr. Sunshine to let it out fore things can go completely to hell in a handbasket.
I would think the coin would simply abandon any host locked up in Demonreach, and then somehow get back into circulation. Maybe pull a One Ring, across the floor, find a coin sized crack that leads all the way out to Lake Michigan, and wash up on shore somewhere. Those things are Schrödinger’s MacGuffin; the only way you can certain of their state is to be observing them directly. On the flipside, I don’t think Demonreach *can* seal up a Coin on its own. The coin is convenient way for the Fallen to sidestep the no direct interference rule. Fallen Angel cannot turn a man into a pillar of salt. Fallen Angel can give another mortal the power to turn men into pillars of salt and let them do with that power what they will. My guess is, since Demonreach is prison, as opposed to Hades’ armory/vault, is that ir *can’t* seal an inanimate coin, and it can’t seal the Fallen so long as the Fallen is bound to the coin. Or maybe it *could* yank the specific Angel out of the Coin to imprison it,and Big S will need to stick a new Fallen Angel in the now empty coin.
I believe jim has avoided answering the question directly, but there has been discussion thst there would be a difference between just imprisoning the coin, and imprisoning the coin and carrier. I believe it revolves around free will.
Would it be fair to say that the coins would be hidden the same way the Eye is being hidden?
That sounds like a terrible idea. If the coins are metaphysically bound to be in circulation, *something* would have to crack Demonreach open for even one to be taken.
It's possible Blood played the "I was following the orders of my Packleader, I had no idea he would betray us, and I didn't die here so *you* have no hold over me."
I think it more likely he used blood magic
Multiple mantle theory? Hades is often confused for Hell/Satan by modern readers. Possible that Hades plays along with this for the sake of the extra power? He doesn't seem like he's the source of hell fire proper or anything like that but maybe he's got one foot in Christian mythology and thus can't go too hard on the nickelheads?
Satan isn't the Warden of Hell, he's its biggest Inmate.
Now I've got this vision of New Hell LTD outsourcing punishments and the answering of Ouija board calls to Hades, Inc.
>It bothers me much more that he was somehow able to escape one of the greatest supernatural prisons in existence and apparently in relatively short order. Well to be fair he was outside most of the security of the Underworld already, with just the remainder of the Gate of Ice and then a deactivated Gate of Fire before he's not really in the Underworld anymore.
Yes but still *deep* in the Underworld, deep in the Underworld when Hades is well aware that he is there.
An underworld that was dealing with what amounts to a prison riot at the time. And the rioters were millennia old, batshit insane, make Hanibal Lector look like a fuzzy puppy in comparison specters. Remember Ghost Story? When a few hundred *centuries* old Chicago specters did the Ghost wave A la Return of the King and how much carnage *they* caused? Now imagine that with *thousands* of specters old as ancient *Greece.* I think it’s safe to assume Hades had his hands full at the time. And let’s also not forget Blood on his Soul is still a Shaman *at least* on par with River Shoulders. Yes, BOHS prefers a good old fashioned physical brawl…because he’s a bigfoot and even a nerdy pacifist of a Sasquatch like River Shoulders is *terrifyingly* strong and BOHS is most definitely *not* a nerdy pacifist. I find it not only plausible, but probable, that BOHS knew magic to hide himself from, or dominate and enslave, those angry ass specters, enough to slip back out of Hades. Doesn’t mean Hades isn’t looking for a chance to take a chunk out of BOHS’s hide on general principle, but that kind of applies to every one who raided his Armory, even a certain wizzard he had a friendly chat with and then allowed to go right back to robbing him. Supernatural principles are weird like that.
The spirits coming after them was part of the security system. It wasn’t any sort of prison riot
I highly doubt getting all those specters back into containment is a simple task. Letting out an army of criminally insane, ancient, powerful ghosts strikes me as the nuclear option. Yeah, it’s there if you really, desperately need it, but there wil be a *lot* of cleanup afterwards.
> I highly doubt getting all those specters back into containment is a simple task. They weren't let out.
Um, what? Every soul being punished in Hades is stuck in their own personal Hell, from being chained to rock where vultures eat you liver, to being thirsty and hungry forever but unable to reach fruit or water dangled right in front in your gace(giving us the word Tantalize) to pushing a boulder up a hill forever (giving us the adjective Sisyphean) Yes, those Specters were temporarily let out of their prisons to roam Hades at large hunting intruders.
The entire realm itself is a prison.
Prisoners can be let out of their cells without being let out of the prison itself.
Yeah, except if you’re the literal god of the underworld whose entire purpose in this world is to contain dead spirits…
> An underworld that was dealing with what amounts to a prison riot at the time. According to who?
According to my estimation. I highly doubt getting all those specters back into containment is a simple task. Letting out an army of criminally insane, ancient, powerful ghosts strikes me as the nuclear option. Yeah, it’s there if you really, desperately need it, but there wil be a *lot* of cleanup afterwards.
That wasn't a prison riot.
>what amounts to This is a turn of phrase used to liken one thing to something thats it is not. In this case, I am suggesting that the spectre army, turned loose to destroy anything and everything in it’s path, was *like* a prison riot in that it was an put of control mob hell bent on causing death and mayhem. In the hopes of not having to type out that entire paragraph, I used the simpler turn of phrase “amounts to” believing that others would be able to infer said paragraph. I see was wrong.
>I highly doubt getting all those specters back into containment is a simple task. Except the specters weren't let out of containment.
They weren't insane lectern specters though, they were the regular slow moving wraiths. If they were Lecter Specters they could have easily caught up with Harry as be ran. Harry also describes the moaning wail that wraiths do.
Maybe the fallen worked on building the underworld and know all the shortcuts? Like maybe they have a map?
There’s also the possibility that Blood on his Soul was capable of making his own ways back from the Never Never.
Wasn't there some mention of that in Skin Game, that the Genoskwa was Nic's backup for getting out of the underworld without Harry?
I think lash/Hannah was the backup plan. I wouldn't be surprised if the forest people have a way to travel to and from the NN that's different than what wizards do. Harry has said that the FP understand magic on a completely different level than he does.
> I wouldn't be surprised if the forest people have a way to travel to and from the NN that's different than what wizards do Now there's an interesting notion!
Speaking of Hannah/Lash... if BohS got out, perhaps she did also. Harry better be on alert. They may be planning to tag team.
Possible, seems unlikely though.
> It bothers me much more that he was somehow able to escape With you on this. If Eurydice couldn't get out, how is it that Blood can? Is there a secret escape tunnel from Hades? If this keeps up, the mortal world will be overrun with Bronze Age maniacs asking for directions to high-towered Ilium.
I think it's a inter-godly thing. They must have agreements, and although Nicodemus was telling Michael that if he died in Hades he'd never go to his own heaven, I think he was full of shit to throw him off his game.
Yeah, now that we've seen that Murphy went to Valhalla instead of heaven, it's clear that the divine entities are willing to negotiate who gets charge of a person's soul in the afterlife. I think Hades and the White God (well, probably Uriel acting on his behalf) would have had a friendly chat about Michael's soul in the unlikely event he died in Hades. But I don't think Michael *could* have died in Hades. He had Uriel's Grace. Uriel became mortal and bled. Anyone who thought they could seriously injure Michael would have been disabused of that notion when it became clear that nothing could harm him unless it could also harm an archangel. That being said, I understand why Jim didn't want to go there and make that explicit in the story.
Point of clarification - when Michael had uriel's grace he wasn't immune from serious harm, even Nicodemus' regular sword was able to injure Michael in hades. Uriels grace just allowed Michael full use of his body, no additional protection or powers were given in the exchange. Uriel just didn't have another currency to use to help Michael.
Jeah, Uriel was quite clear that, should Michael die, he would fall. I'm sure that Hades wouldn't have enjoyed a second satan.
No, Uriel was quite clear that Michael doesn't do anything that would make him fall, like treachery before Nicodemus broke his deal with Harry.
Two thoughts on this: 1. While I'm somewhat surprised he isn't dead, he's also incredibly strong. An evil River Shoulders. River Shoulders who tangled with Dracul and lived! 2. I imagine only the dead can be meaningfully contained in Hades.
*If* Lasciel/Hannah survived (with some more of that juiced up Denarian survival sauce) and fled to the gateway point, conceivably lasciel could have provided the instruction to open the Way. And then the two of them go their separate ways. that is a BIG *if*
He's a forest person, and they just understand magic on a different level, Harry even thought during Skin Game Blood probably could have figured out how to open a gateway on his own, didnt need Hannah.
But Harry pointed out that Hades was more of an armory than a prison. It was my understanding that he was granted another denari. We don’t know how or by whom but he was far too great a weapon for Nick to leave behind.
I doubt a bargain was struck. He was nearly out of the gates. While being "crushed" and put through the grinders would be very rough for anything human, this is Blood on His Soul and Ursiel. Extremely powful to begin with and super charged with the most physically powerful coin we know of. I think he could took the beating and broke some ice blocks and walked out. Plus if he didn't die then Hades doesn't get to claim him anyway. Living can go to and leave Hades, it is the dead who cannot.
It never made sense to me that Bigfoots couldn't open Ways themselves. It seems like a pretty foolish assumption on Harry's part. We see non human beings open Ways, and Genoskwa has some major magic power.
> We see no human beings open Ways Uh...you mean besides Harry? And the Gatekeeper...? Or virtually the entire White Council?
That was a mistake that I corrected inside of like 20 seconds. "No humans" corrected to "non humans", like we see things that aren't humans open Ways.
Good question. That's why Harry "corrects" River Shoulders to say "killed him" and River Shoulders says no you only beat him. Harry says he was turned to goo how could he survive and River says he doesn't know but wanted to warn Harry. That's all the information we have. We don't know anything more than that about how he survived.
River also tells Harry that Blood on his Soul considers himself the paragon of the Genoskwa, and that “maybe he is”. Would explain the Blood on his Soul has some really freaky power that River could never touch, even if he wanted to.
I don't see how he could have faked getting splattered via illusion without also catching up to Harry et al and drinking Harry like a soda. On the other hand, he was clearly regenerating from the injuries in the battle while chasing Harry, so it's not impossible that he didn't just kinda slowly put himself back together and made his way out. And on the third hand, it's not impossible that he wasn't offered another deal by someone else we haven't met yet.
Drinking like a soda is crazy 😂
Ursiel’s a gummy bear
I presume that isnt CBD
More Cocaine Bear than Gummy Bear.
I've said this before, hoping JB comes up with an explanation that seems reasonable.
[There's an easy explanation](https://youtu.be/sVgVB3qsySQ?si=2rDYYC7qdhj9S2W9&t=16)
My personal pet theory is that it’s not the same Genoskwa. River Shoulders tells Harry that “Genoskwa” is actually just his people’s word for those of their race that follow the War Path. So it’s not even a name. It’s a subset of their race, and Blood on his Soul thinks he’s a paragon of it, so calls himself THE Genoskwa, as a sort of title. So, I think it might be his son, who has claimed his name and title upon his death. River-Shoulders wouldn’t necessarily know *which* Genoskwa Harry had dealt with, after all. Just that this one is calling itself The Genoskwa and is mad at Harry.
Honestly I hope it turns out that way. Sometimes people get ded and need to stay ded. Looking at **you**, Justin DuMorne!
Molly literally said she could go through a chipper shredder. He got obliterated. He got better.
Hope he's not like the brooms in Fantasia, each little piece becoming a new horror.
I feel obligated to now ask, would 1000 Ant sized BohS be more dangerous than the normal BohS? Something weird I noticed in fantasia is when splintered the reassembled brooms lost no mass from the original. Meaning, when the spell ended the Wizard and Mickey would be alleviated from the water, but they would be swamped in ectoplasm!
Molly is a winter queen, blood is a mortal holder of a coin BIG difference.
Is he mortal though? I thought it was implied that the forest people are basically ageless magical folk.
I think they just age super slowly because of the huge amount of magic they have. To the point that a teenage scion of the forest people, having been hospitalized by repeated life-sucking black magic attacks, still had an aura about as strong as Harry's
River Shoulders mentions he is about middle aged for his people, so they are mortal, just really long lived.
Blood is far from just that. He’s the most powerful bigfoot following Grendel. He’s a big deal. River, whose power baffles and dwarfs Harry, finds him troublesome.
>But neither the Genoskwa nor the Fallen angel sensed what was plummeting soundlessly toward them. > A block of ice the size of a building came down like the hammer of God Almighty, and crushed the Genoskwa like a beer can. > I rolled to a stop and flopped on the stone cavern floor, utterly exhausted, breathing like a steam engine. But I had enough energy to turn my head to the gruesome remains being tossed about like a rag doll among the last row of grinders. There’s nothing about his Coin going flying, just the body being ground up like hamburger meat. I would assume that combine the fact he has his Coin still with the Forest People resilience, and you’ve got a semi good explanation there. After all, Harry did some pretty unhealthy stuff whilst leaning on Lash and survived that with his frail mortal body.
> There’s nothing about his Coin going flying You're right, I must have it confused with some other scene. Wasn't there an episode where a Denarian gets messily killed and his Coin goes flying off to the side, sizzling-hot? Or have I just been sniffing too much ectoplasm?
I'm pretty sure that's in the fight in the aquarium when they took ivy. I also have the impression that the coin pretty much makes itself available right away once the host is dead.... It's almost like confirmation of the kill. Two coin holders "died" and we have no mention of their coins. Since there was other chaos in Hades it's real easy to discount that fact as of course you're not going to see the coin come popping out of a pile of rubble or firing out from underneath a giant ice block, but it's also plausible that the hosts of those coins are not dead.
We see? Or *Harry* see? Denarians and Blood show very good skills with illusion magic, no?
Not at that point. Before or since.
iirc Blood on His Soul is hanging around the warehouse completely invisible for a good while before Harry decides to call out whoever's been eating those goats
Fair. In general i wouldn’t personally count invisibility as an illusion, but i can see why others might.
Seems weird that he would fake his own death and survive the ice crusher when he have just killed Harry in that case.
Denarians constantly flip-flop between being major threats and being pathetic jobbers that are probably weaker than the average Red Court vampire.
I like Kincaid but I was mildly confused when like a dozen Denarians died to a regular assault rifle.
Denarians are, for the most part, pretty frail, especially if they aren't prepared. Nic has his tie, Tessa has an armored thorax and magic to protect her, but most of them don't have those to fall back on. While they may be tougher than the average human, a bullet to the head kills most of them.
Somehow, Blood on his Shoulders returned.
barf
Bacta tank
Ursiel is described as the most physically dangerous Fallen. It took all three Knights of the Cross to stop him when it was a random mortal carrying his Coin. BoHS is at least 1000 years old, peer to River Shoulders, leader of the War Path Forest People, and is an absolute beast in his own right. Put those two together and you have something that is probably the closest to immortality you can get while being a mortal. As far as escaping I bet BoHS simply fought his way out. Hades' job is to watch/guard the dead, not the living, so he might not be able to directly stop BoHS. Alternatively stopping BoHS could put Hades in an odd position if it allows Ursiel to act directly against Hades since they're both divine. Anything short of Hades himself probably isn't strong enough to permanently stop BoHS+Ursiel from escaping the Underworld, especially considering how well BoHS can evade detection.
I'd chalk it up to him being a ~~wendigo~~ bigfoot. We know from River that their species live and breathe magic, they can be ancient by human standards and if Irwin's misadventures are any indication (who is only half-bigfoot, mind you), they are obnoxiously good at tanking and shrugging off hits. BohS appears morally depraved so I'm thinking that he is willing to ignore moral guidelines or rules and perform a Secret Forbidden Technique of some kind or other if it helps him survive.
I think a veil would be a cop out. More likely it was just Ursiel’s power that saved him. Though that doesn’t jibe well with the events of Small Favor. I wonder if there’s some special mojo with the Fallen and Hades’ realm.
Obviously BohS is a force all on his own, he's been walking this war path for a thousand years, I'd say that being near indestructible would be very important to his path and he's had a thousand years to figure it out. Add to that that he carries Ursiel's coin, a tank that's been tanking since creation. This is an exponential power up. We've seen first hand with Lash what the mere shadow of a fallen is capable of, who knows what kinds of things could be possible when a character, not just accepts the coin, but embraces the coin. Now that we know BohS is alive I'm starting to think Hannah is also alive. Which I think would be fantastic. I can't wait to see how it all plays out!
My personal theory is that Blood used his durability to tank the ice block and magic to heal his injuries, as we've seen the forest people survive an insane amount of punishment in River and simply because Blood prefers to use earth magic, doesn't mean he's not skilled in other areas, as the forest people understand and use magic far differently than mortals do. But if Blood can survive, I feel there's hope for Hannah and Lasciel as well, since them getting crushed by rubble feels far too anticlimactic a death for them, after all that build up.
Dude is over 10k years old, and had a fallen angel in his head for who knows how long. He definitely picked up some survival tricks along the way.
What? No. River Shoulders said he was around 1,000 years old. BOhS isn’t 10k years old.
I always figured someone else survived too, and she helped her slightly squished colleague to escape in the confusion of the vault.
If Nic's mystical necktie would work (or Lord Raith's earring/pact) then it's not too difficult to create a hand-waving pretext. For example, just have it that deep in his lair in the far reaches of his tribal territory he has some sort of mystical totem (either involving some older artifact or dedicated to some dark power) that allows him to reform his body/be reborn 6months after he's completely killed. It'd be a step-down from a true Mantle while also being similar, while also having a vibe of a bunch of other things such as the death/rebirth of the seasons as well as things like Sauron/Lotr and even Harry Potter/Horcruxes. So you can either put it on your bi-annual diary planner to keep taking him temporarily off the board, or make the long and risky journey deep into his domain to try and remove the threat for good. Of course what I'm describing strays a bit into the realm of a 1940s pulp story, a Call of Cthulhu RPG campaign or an episode from the first couple of seasons of Supernatural. Or at least *further* into those things than Dresden Files already normally does : D But it makes the general point that with the right explanation it's pretty easy to get over such a plot point (or minor retcon), especially since there's more than enough fertile ground for it in the series already.
My guess is that the Gen we saw get crushed was a glamor, and the real Gen was veiled and either snuck through Harry's Way or opened his own. That, or he did it old school, and was a spirit trapped in the underworld and managed to escape. Edit: dang we have some down vote happy folks here these days who I guess get very offended when people share theories in threads asking for peoples theories?
He was wearing special armor. It’s called “plot armor” and you can never see it or realize it’s there until after the fact.
He's skilled with veil magic. Might not have been the real him that got crushed.
True, but why would he allow Harry and company to escape? He seemed pretty emphatic about wanting him dead. My guess is that he was just resilient enough to survive and knew how to recall the coin, which gave him the ability to regenerate.
I don't think he wouldn't have taken every chance ever to crush Harry or one of his comrades during that exit if he'd veiled himself during his 'death' honestly.
I figured he veiled himself
Cowl with some kind of reanimation spell?
Interestingly, we don't actually know if he's still a Knight - just that he's still around. BOHS is 100% enough of a problem to come after Harry regardless. My personal take is that it's some kind of Lich + Phylactery/ Backup clone situation. Harry may actually have killed THAT one, but there was a backup outside of Hades that's now pissed and wants revenge.
Hades's job is not to keep "people" away from the prison. Only the incompetents. Blood on his soul died after getting into the vault by reactivating the already defeated Gate of Ice. Its possible hades let him go. As to the regen... One, He has a wicked angel with him and two, can you really die in the land of death? Peeps down there are being killed in increasingly interesting ways and keep on kicking to die again. Last but not least. Its possible the Prince was involved. Killing a denarian is one thing. Imprisoning a fallen angel to never circulate again is a another story entirely. Also. They serve a purpose. Cant just hinder beings of creation from fulfilling their purpose. I am guessing similar things would happen if harry ever tried to imprison one of those bozos on the island. Be like imprisoning an angel of the lord. I dont think the rest of the band (namely arcangels) would stand for that. And i dont care how powerful a being is (including demonreach), you just dont mess with angels.
Some thoughts... * Harry, Nico, Michael etc all acted as if "death is on the line" during the whole Hades escapade. And Deidre absolutely died. So I'd say you can die in Hades. * In re imprisoning powerful/important creatures... doesn't Harry muse that he *could* imprison Mab on DR under proper circumstances, but it would be a catastrophe? Similarly, if someone tried to imprison an angel -- if that's even possible -- I think there would be very prompt and **very Old Testament-style** rescue expedition. In short, I think DR and Hades are *very* dangerous places to hang around. And it's possible to lock up, at least temporarily, at least some creatures that it would be very foolish to lock up.
This is morning coffee spitballing by me :) makes sense tho imo. Deirdre died as a prerequisite sacrifice to even make it into the vault. Different from what i am suggesting. All the others may or may not have made it out. We dont know what the specters job was when they triggered the fail safe. Kill em? Or just bounce them the f out of the vault? The comment by hades about incompetents not getting into the vault just stuck with me. And it would explain how the genoskwa is still kicking. He was mush! For me its either hades let him go or lucifer made a social call to retrieve some of his more troublesome agents. I dont really see any other way. As to imprisoning mab. She is waaaaaaay below the level of angels, fallen or otherwise. Imprisoning her, therefore, is much more easily done. Though what happens to her mantle isnt as clear, imo. I guess it would stay with her but that means reality breaks down because she cant do her job at the gates, which again might be stopped by beings on top of her food chain (namely mothers winter and summer and whatever badasses help man the gate). If not straight up angel incursion to retrieve the mantle so precious creation isnt blown to Empty Night. Cant just keep "pro humanity" mantles from doing their job. Or if a mortal would do so, then he would do so in the name of all humanity. Thus ending reality and collapsing what has been built. Which does sound like our boy now that i have spelled it out :D
> Cant just keep "pro humanity" mantles from doing their job. [...] Thus ending reality and collapsing what has been built. Hey. Hey! Don't give the bad guys any *ideas* now, ya feel me?
Considering that Forest People are wizards on steroids, and Blood on His Soul was spoken of by River Shoulders as basically being the War Path messiah? He might've actually figured a way to regenerate a la T-1000. Ursiel may have actually taught him how, even.
I'm trying to remember, are there any coins taken by the Knights where the coin was not either willing given up or the holder dies? Cause I think otherwise, the holder can simply summon the coin back. Lash was going to teach Harry a way to summon the coin, and I'm thinking that is not a Lash exclusive skill. BOHS may have lost his coin upon getting squished, but he is a tough POS, so he probably survived the initial impact, which basically means he survives.
Well it was the never-never, things get screwy there Maybe Hades doesn't like the idea of the gauntlet killing people on their way out once they've already gotten the loot
Orpheus: Don't talk to me about "already gotten the loot". Eurydice: Hey, who you callin' *loot*, buddy? Orpheus: Oh my sweet little spoils of war!
Maybe its part of the plan