just finished latest book

I have been looking for a good (or any) forum to discuss the leandros books and i have hopes this will be one

Now on to question ...
I have had a question i could not answer since the end of the first book. It is even more .... frustrating now that i have finished Doubletake ...

Spoiler:

If anyone else has a clue please fill me in.

Spoiler:

Thank you for your support.

SPOILERS BELOW!

khatre wrote:I have been looking for a good (or any) forum to discuss the leandros books and i have hopes this will be one

I hope so also. It has been hard to start up a second forum, after the original shut down. One of the main issues is that not enough people know about it. Unfortunately neither this forum, nor its predecessor was very active/busy.

I'm trying to advertise this forum and consolidate the fandom. It would help if you could tell me how you managed to find your way here. (Was it through a reference? Google? A link on a different site (specify)? etc?)

Despite the slow activity, if you're willing to post/be active, then other people will generally talk.

---

Now on to question ...
I have had a question i could not answer since the end of the first book. It is even more .... frustrating now that i have finished Doubletake ...

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

---

If anyone else has a clue please fill me in.

Spoiler:

Thank you for your support.

Spoiler:

---

Your first point.
I never got any damsel vibe from her. Just before she left she used her power and saw something that made her go to that town and take up teaching so she could be there to do ... something... (i do not know what) to Grimm.
What did George know? She knew he was there. She knew that he would at least WANT to kill her (eventually) and that he did kill other teachers when he was through with them.
She used her powers (i do not know how, evidently she has some Serious Power in her that she does not regularly use) to make Grimm Think that he killed her and walked away. It was powerful enough that when he came back he did not care that the blood was gone and he could hear her crying in the background. Why did he walk away? She made him. She put the thought into his head as if it was his own.

The real thing that makes me say WTF is the "no one is more important than the greater balance" (not an exact quote) thing and the fact that she is "going to do everything in her power to change what she belives will happen".
Is she sacrificing Cal to "protect balance in the world" and bring back the Auphe? (or at least a series of half-breeds that will become full auphe eventually) Is she trying to bring back the auphe to hurt the populations of the "supernatural" creaturs on the earth? or is she sacrificing Cal to kill the potential Auphe return? (and protect the world from the auphe)

George is playing a very long term game i can't figure out.
pro Cal? anti-Cal? Cal-Neutral?
pro Cal = She MAY have helped him find a path to keep both his humanity and his auph .. ity .. at the same time. but that is some Serious space time manipulation. i do not know if its possible.
anti Cal = Cal seriously disrupted the balance of good/evil in the world when he took out the auph (with a nuke WOOTS!) and she sees it as her personal duty to restore balance (aka the auph) to the world even if she has to destroy Cal to do it.
Cal nuetral = She is either trying to restore the auphe to the world or destroy them (its hard to tell them apart just yet). She does not want to hurt Cal but unfortunately the only way to (save or destroy the auphe) restore balance is to use Cal very badly and cause him a great deal of pain.
Is she doing one of those three? or is there another option i can't see yet?

lets see ...
The Cal/George relationship. They obviously both love each other very deeply. The True Love At First Sight kind of love. Deep and abiding. When i firt read about them i was in the "she love you you duphus, go get some!" boat. Later in ther series i realised something. George will have to change drastically to make that relationship work. My thought was "If i am in a relationship with a girl I want her to put ME first (not world peace, saving the fruit fly or the drastically plummiting morals of modern america. ME FIRST. selfish i know but love can be at least a little selfish in a way). If George had to make a choice between Cal and peace in the mid-east she would pick peace in the mid-east instead of Cal. Cal could never be first in her list of priorities. If she gets to the point where she can say "screw the mid east, I want to save Cal FIRST!" she will have a starting poing for their relationship. I do not know if she changed after she did as cal asked and looked at their future but if all i can go by is what we saw her say and do in previous books then she is no where near ready to put Cal First in her life.

I don't think Grimm loved her. I think she was an interesting person to him that taught him a few lessons that he eventually (at least he thought that he ) killed.

well.. i have typed a book now and vented a little bit hopefully without being too far out there.
PS: its hard to find a good forum strictly about ONE set of books where people can discuss every nuance and find all of the secret goodies hidden in the pages (forshadowing, aftershadowing conspiricies I LOVE EM!) The Jim Butcher forums about the Dresden Files is Awesome and i was hoping to find a second home with the Leandros series. I found here by random google searches and stubborn desire to find someplace to talk about Cal...
Thank you for keeping this place alive. Hopefully more people will wonder around and stick to the forums.

Finally, before i go to bed ..
Thanks for responding

ohh i forgot the power imbalance thing ...
IF George can do to Cal what she did to Grimm then she has a great deal of power.
IF Cal can manage to tap into full Auphe power and keep his sanity he will have a great deal of power.
They both have a massive amount of power BUT can they use it together? Will they ever have the same goal? or will they always have to work paralell to each other?
If i tried to mesure ther power i would say ...
Cal has a wagon load of apples of power.
George has a wagon load of oranges of power.
who has more? who has less? who would win in a fistfight? i do not know...
(by that measurement Nic has 2 wagon loads of rice or something else healthy, maby yogurt ) dont mess with Nic

khatre wrote:Your first point.
I never got any damsel vibe from her. Just before she left she used her power and saw something that made her go to that town and take up teaching so she could be there to do ... something... (i do not know what) to Grimm.
What did George know? She knew he was there. She knew that he would at least WANT to kill her (eventually) and that he did kill other teachers when he was through with them.
She used her powers (i do not know how, evidently she has some Serious Power in her that she does not regularly use) to make Grimm Think that he killed her and walked away. It was powerful enough that when he came back he did not care that the blood was gone and he could hear her crying in the background. Why did he walk away? She made him. She put the thought into his head as if it was his own.

I don't have the book on hand, and I wont for at least two more months, so forgive me if my memory is a little rusty.

But when I read through the book I got the impression that Grimm was sitting down, some memories replayed themselves to him, he tried to remember them, managed to recall them, and then they faded away - or something. When I read it, he seemed confused, and unable to remember the details of George as a teacher almost entirely. I don't know if this is because of what George did, or if it is Grimm's bad memory. If you read the book you may notice instances where he spontaneously forgets whatever tangent of thought he was thinking of. He is incredibly smart and motivated, but he has problems with his memory. As to wether they are George-induced problems or Auphe-hybrid-induced problems will yet to be seen.
It is just speculation, but I figure when the author starts to explain these memory blackouts or when George reappears directly in the story line, a few of these questions will be answered. To me that whole scene looked like set up and backstory for a whole other scene in future books. (Kind of like how the empty cage in Blackout lead up to Grimm's appearance in the story line.)

As for George's motivations, I figure the following things:

[li]1. She may not have known exactly that Grimm planned to kill her; but she probably had an inkling that his predilection for violence may have serious consequences.

[li]2. I believe she grew into her power. According to rumor on the old forum from several original members (old school members) they mentioned that in Nightlife George was meant to be a preteen/younger girl. Allegedly, Thurman bumped the age up closer to Cal's age (possibly to make it less squicky). So if you take that old model, between Nightlife and Doubletake -it has been what?- anywhere from 4 to 6 years? If you read the Cal Leandros novels and her side story you may notice that several of the supernatural creatures tend to come into power/gain abilities around puberty or as they age. IE: Cal gating, werewolves firstkill/shapeshifting. So maybe George was meant to start off with a strong but modest talent, and eventually gain some serious power.

[li]3. I figure she pushed the idea of him killing her when she figured out he was going to do it, caused him to leave, and then made him forget the incident. It was pretty fuzzy, and I've got to admit, I didn't pay much attention to that particular part. I figure a few things slipped through the cracks which is why he sees her crying and stuff.

The real thing that makes me say WTF is the "no one is more important than the greater balance" (not an exact quote) thing and the fact that she is "going to do everything in her power to change what she belives will happen".

That, Khatre, is foreshadowing of an event that will happen onwards in the series.

It is actually something I'm very interested in. I love that the author is changing her style from sort of stand-alone sequels to series. She has already done most of her world-building in earlier books, and is now planning ahead future events and connecting them with (past) the present books.

We saw a lot of this in Doubltake. IE: Grimm as the pseudo-antagonist. George as running a long term plan on the Supernatural world. The increasing influence and thread of the Vayash clan. Returning Cast/characters. And more broadly, the setting up of several schemes/plans from multiple characters, that we don't have a clean cut idea about.

Grimm, George, the Vayash, Delilah, possibly the vigil if they return, all have some machina that they are putting into action - and while we see the beginnings of this, we don't yet have an idea of who is on whose side. I can't wait to read some text where the enemy has actually been a friend the entire time. Or where good characters do bad things because they think it is right.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that: I'm not going WTF. I'm going YES-YES-YES-YES. Because I can finally see the Cal Leandros Novels begin to exhibit attributes that make it more of a series!

Is she sacrificing Cal to "protect balance in the world" and bring back the Auphe? (or at least a series of half-breeds that will become full auphe eventually) Is she trying to bring back the auphe to hurt the populations of the "supernatural" creaturs on the earth? or is she sacrificing Cal to kill the potential Auphe return? (and protect the world from the auphe)

George is playing a very long term game i can't figure out.
pro Cal? anti-Cal? Cal-Neutral?
pro Cal = She MAY have helped him find a path to keep both his humanity and his auph .. ity .. at the same time. but that is some Serious space time manipulation. i do not know if its possible.
anti Cal = Cal seriously disrupted the balance of good/evil in the world when he took out the auph (with a nuke WOOTS!) and she sees it as her personal duty to restore balance (aka the auph) to the world even if she has to destroy Cal to do it.
Cal nuetral = She is either trying to restore the auphe to the world or destroy them (its hard to tell them apart just yet). She does not want to hurt Cal but unfortunately the only way to (save or destroy the auphe) restore balance is to use Cal very badly and cause him a great deal of pain.
Is she doing one of those three? or is there another option i can't see yet?

Agreed. I couldn't have said it better myself. She is playing a long term game here.

Okay. I don't see this as a pro/anti/neutral Cal topic. I see this as a auphe-related topic. I see George acting as a sort of balance the scales sort of character in this passage.

• The balance of the world has been thrown off. I'm making an assumption and saying that what threw off the balance was the destruction of the Auphe. It is the only event large enough to cause trickle down events. (EX: The death of Hob's henchmen didn't really affect anything. Sawney Beane was missing for a century or two - so his absence wasn't missed. The anit-healer was locked up for a long time - which did not harm anyone) Remember the Auphe did several things:
  
  
  1. Auphe was the top predator. Kept the supernatural populations in check.
  2. They had the ability to move between dimensions. (read description of Tumulus)
  3. They'd been with the earth since essentially the beginning of life.
  
  
  You take that out of the equation and you have supernatural populations booming. Which means more people become lunch for monsters. Which brings more public attention to disappearances. Which could have -you know- bad consequences. They'd been with the earth since the beginning of life. Maybe they had a symbiotic relationship to it. Or were necessary for one reason or the other. They could travel between dimensions. What makes you think that they were the only creature that could. What if they acted as a control keeping other bad monsters out of what was essentially their hunting territory. Maybe George, who can tell the future, knows something worse is coming, and is working to bring the Auphe back to maintain the balance that was loss. In this case, the worst evil might be the least evil.
  
  
• Okay, so it doesn't have to be another trans-dimensional monster. But it is clearly hinted at that there will be a threat that will harm the future. She is working to stop that threat. And somehow her actions will prevent whatever cataclysmic event that is projected to happen.
  
  
• If George (as mentioned above for whatever reason you can think of) is trying to bring the Auphe back. Maybe her telling Grimm not to mention her to Cal was so that they would work together in the future. I mean, the easiest way for Cal to NOT work with Grimm would be for him to say "Sup bro. I might have killed your girlfriend. Soo... Wanna work together." Yeah. That isn't going to fly. I figure in this situation she would rather Cal find Grimm a sadistic playmate than an actual enemy.
  
  
• Alternatively, Cal may know something or have the ability to stop her master plan. That could be detrimental.
  
  
• Another take on this scene is that George is the balance-of-nature type. And it simply must be done.
  
  
• Another take is that George = God. Like Chuck was in Supernatural. She is kind, caring, and selfless (well... to some readers). I don't like this theory. But I'm just trying to get ideas out there. Maybe it will spark something in your noggin.
  

lets see ...
The Cal/George relationship. They obviously both love each other very deeply. The True Love At First Sight kind of love. Deep and abiding. When i firt read about them i was in the "she love you you duphus, go get some!" boat. Later in ther series i realised something. George will have to change drastically to make that relationship work. My thought was "If i am in a relationship with a girl I want her to put ME first (not world peace, saving the fruit fly or the drastically plummiting morals of modern america. ME FIRST. selfish i know but love can be at least a little selfish in a way). If George had to make a choice between Cal and peace in the mid-east she would pick peace in the mid-east instead of Cal. Cal could never be first in her list of priorities. If she gets to the point where she can say "screw the mid east, I want to save Cal FIRST!" she will have a starting poing for their relationship. I do not know if she changed after she did as cal asked and looked at their future but if all i can go by is what we saw her say and do in previous books then she is no where near ready to put Cal First in her life.

Perhaps. I'm not a really good person to ask about relationships because love is not something I know very much about.

But based on answers from the old forum, other people shared your opinion with relation to the earlier parts of the series.

I agree that a relationship will not work if one person has a hero 'save the world is more important that you' vibe.

khatre wrote:
I don't think Grimm loved her. I think she was an interesting person to him that taught him a few lessons that he eventually (at least he thought that he ) killed.

Can't actually argue with you since I don't have a copy of the book in this city. But I'll look into it when I have the chance.

well.. i have typed a book now and vented a little bit hopefully without being too far out there.
PS: its hard to find a good forum strictly about ONE set of books where people can discuss every nuance and find all of the secret goodies hidden in the pages (forshadowing, aftershadowing conspiricies I LOVE EM!) The Jim Butcher forums about the Dresden Files is Awesome and i was hoping to find a second home with the Leandros series. I found here by random google searches and stubborn desire to find someplace to talk about Cal...
Thank you for keeping this place alive. Hopefully more people will wonder around and stick to the forums.

Finally, before i go to bed ..
Thanks for responding

Tell me about it. The old forum was a bit like that, with more people. And I was so sad to see it deleted.

And yes, the Jim Butcher forum is amazing. When the preview chapters come out - man- there is so much speculation. I basically just block my schedule out those days. I know where I'm going to spend it. And after a book release - oh my god. I love the conspiracy theories and easter-egg tid-bits of information. It is my crack. And Dresden Files really delivers conspiracy theories and foreshadowing like nothing I've ever read.

I'm glad Rob Thurman is starting to shape her series similarly and add foreshadowing. The lack of foreshadowing and a little bit too much ass-pull in her early books kind of irked me. It has gotten much better IMO.

ohh i forgot the power imbalance thing ...
IF George can do to Cal what she did to Grimm then she has a great deal of power.
IF Cal can manage to tap into full Auphe power and keep his sanity he will have a great deal of power.
They both have a massive amount of power BUT can they use it together? Will they ever have the same goal? or will they always have to work paralell to each other?
If i tried to mesure ther power i would say ...
Cal has a wagon load of apples of power.
George has a wagon load of oranges of power.
who has more? who has less? who would win in a fistfight? i do not know...
(by that measurement Nic has 2 wagon loads of rice or something else healthy, maby yogurt ) dont mess with Nic

Haha... I meant power imbalance with the relationship. Put simply, I don't like it if someone is a bully to their partner; and can get away with it. In Nightlife Cal seemed like he couldn't deliver protection or offer her any semblance of a stable relationship (I could be wrong. like I said -not good with relationships). And George seemed way too eager, sweet, and optimistic. Something seemed off to me.

Also, sorry for replying so late. Real Life happens. And I wanted to think up a really good response for your arguments instead of replying quickly. Sorry for the wait.

Not a problem.
Thanks for the thoughtfull reply
one post at a time is how you rebuild a community.

The Leandros books are definitely good. I just wish i had found out about them years ago. The only reason i found out about them was a quote i saw on goodreads. The one about a maid not being able to kill you with a tube sock
A cool highly detailed world with interesting characters = Awesomeness
Compare the Cal of now to the cal in the first book ... He went from calling himself an abomination to fully accepting himself as a (monster)-person. Will he ever be an angel? oh heck no. Will he become a shadow/border walking badass? (nuff said)
on the non-cal front im really looking forward to seeing how Nic and Promise develope their relationship. Can a vamp and a human have children? I do not know. BUT they should Try Harder!

Okay. I don't see this as a pro/anti/neutral Cal topic. I see this as a auphe-related topic. I see George acting as a sort of balance the scales sort of character in this passage.

I am a Cal and Nic centered person. IMHO the story revolves around them in one way or another.
George is either hurting Cal intentionally or accidently. Whatever she is doing and for whatever reason she is doing it one of the consequences is that Cal and friends get some hurting put on them. She has consistently Refused to help them. With Anything. Ever.

My WTF moments come from the fact that she seems to be doing her best to hurt Cal (or at least put him in danger).
I can not figure out her game.

Is George crying because she can not save Cal?
or
Is George crying because she must sacrifice Cal?

When i finished Doubletake all i could do for an hour was walk around the house muttering "whats going through her mind?"

I have only read through the books once but i will need to read through them again to see if i can get any more clues to what her end goal may be....

khatre wrote:
I am a Cal and Nic centered person. IMHO the story revolves around them in one way or another.
George is either hurting Cal intentionally or accidently. Whatever she is doing and for whatever reason she is doing it one of the consequences is that Cal and friends get some hurting put on them. She has consistently Refused to help them. With Anything. Ever.

Hmmmm... You have an interesting perspective. I never thought of it in those terms.

Also, I do find it odd that she refuses to help them on things that seem like okay things to do.

My WTF moments come from the fact that she seems to be doing her best to hurt Cal (or at least put him in danger).
I can not figure out her game.

I don't know about actively trying to hurt Cal. Those scenes seemed like they could be interpreted either way. I think it might be the author trying to mislead us into thinking that... I don't know... I just find it odd that none of the text flat out declares her in opposition to Cal. Maybe it is just me.

However you are right that she is playing some game. I just don't think it is a deliberately malicious game.

Is George crying because she can not save Cal?
or
Is George crying because she must sacrifice Cal?

Your guess is as good as mine.

When i finished Doubletake all i could do for an hour was walk around the house muttering "whats going through her mind?"

I have only read through the books once but i will need to read through them again to see if i can get any more clues to what her end goal may be....

Same.

Unfortunately, moving around for school means I can't bring my text library with me. And I don't like downloading books because it impacts the author's profits negatively. I can't bring myself to do it.

Nowadays i get almost everything on Kindle. That way i can take my entire library with me everywhere i go and it makes it easier to share books with my mom and brother.
AFAIK the author still gets the same royalties but i know pretty much nothing about IP laws

khatre wrote:Nowadays i get almost everything on Kindle. That way i can take my entire library with me everywhere i go and it makes it easier to share books with my mom and brother.
AFAIK the author still gets the same royalties but i know pretty much nothing about IP laws

Allow me to clarify,
I don't like downloading the bad way.
I'm okay with downloading the good way.
Unfortunately, I'm a bit of a penny pincher, and I refuse to buy (a second time) something that I already own. I also am not comfortable with paying $9 for a digital book. My tiny caveman brain hasn't shifted into modern times yet.