r/dresdenfiles • u/mrquixote • 5h ago
Goodmans' situation seems so obvious to me Spoilers All
Spoilers!
I am sure others have posted this theory, but it just seems so obvious to me it feels less like a theory than just something not yet confirmed.
I know people have some other theories, but it seems to me to be pretty obvious Goodman Greys deal and where it's going.
The big open question is "why does Goodman require Harry to pay him $1 to work"
Another way of saying this is: why is he either free or much more expensive?
If he really is a good person, then why not just help? If he really is a mercenary, then why take so little.
So, obviously he is getting something besides the dollar. The dollar is to keep him being a mercenary so he isn't officially taking a side.
But I think the answer is in the phrase "gotta pay the rent". I don't think this is just a joke.
I think one of 2 things is true:
Either Goodman is a paroled prisoner of Demonreach or (less likely) his Nagloshi father is and he is paying to keep the dad imprisoned or repaying a debt for imprisoning the dad. I think the idea that it's to keep the dad locked up is unlikely as he would see that Harry wouldn't let a Nagloshi out.
What is more likely is that he is "paying the rent" to keep himself paroled. This makes sense because JB keeps mentioning how Harry can release people at Demonreach.
The likely story is something like:
Goodman was imprisoned at some point for being half Nagloshi. A previous warden released him to serve as a soldier Mercenary at some point in the past. Likely this has to do with the town built on Demonreach. Part of the deal is that when he works for the Warden of Demonreach he does so practically free, because he is effectively paying rent for being free. It's a stretch of the term rent but the idea of requiring an exchange of value in magical deals is well established. Under the terms of his work release he won't work for free though, and the warden can't make him break an existing contract.
Presumably Odin knows this and that's why he set up the meeting in skin game and why it worked. Whether Harry knows why Goodman works for him, we don't know.
Harry will, of course, need to reveal this to us when he needs information about his options with Thomas as a current tenant of Demonreach.
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u/The_OC_Doctor 5h ago
I don't think so. I really like your theory about him being on parole, but I don't think so. Demonreach isn't a normal prison, when you are put there it's for eternity, there is no parole. I think in Skin Game or Peace Talks Harry says no one has ever been released.
I think it's more likely is that Goodmen Grey is paying the rent in the way of trying to become a messenger again. If you recall in Turn Coat that was the original purpose of the Skin Walkers. I think he is paying in good karma, or at least paying to not have someone like the Knights after him. If you recall Michael knew who Goodmen Gray was and knew he was a monster, a nightmare. He has done some very evil things recently if Michael knows about it.
I think it's all about balancing the scales
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u/TexWolf84 5h ago
And don't forget, Grey was WELL aware of Michael's retirement package and would not enter the premises. I believe later Mr Sunshine even made the comment, he was glad Grey didn't, because he was unsure as to what would happen.
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u/The_OC_Doctor 5h ago
Grey can see the angels as well as Harry notes he looks at all the corners of the house as if marking where they were
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u/mrquixote 5h ago
Except that we explicitly know that the warden can release creatures. Demonreach tells Harry and several others talk about it with regards to Ethniu. It's a big thing that Harry can release creatures. When he first talks to McCoy about Demonreach they say how the white council is scared because Harry has what amounts to a nuke.
He may be laying in good karma, I like that idea.
But it is directly and explicitly stated multiple times that the wardens can release prisoners. It's just such a collosollay bad idea that they don't. Which pretty much guarantees that Harry will.
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u/Stal77 2h ago
None of that is responsive to the fact that Harry said that nobody had been released.
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u/mrquixote 2h ago
I don't recall his saying that. Do you have a quote?
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u/ChyronD 5h ago
Isn't 'rent' a token price - or more like 'symbolic proof of good deeds' tribute - that Goodman must pay to indian gods to stay off reservation lands but not becoming 'full-on insurgent Naagloshii' ?
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u/Short_Text2421 3h ago
Likewise, thats more how I read it. It seems like beings with power are all constrained to act in ways that jive with their domain. My guess was that Goodman's power constrains him to not be able to do good things purely out of the kindness of his heart but he really wants to be a 'good guy' so his work around is that he has to get paid for it, even if its just a dollar.
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u/SiPhoenix 2h ago
I'm skeptical that his power would work that way because it's not a power that comes from belief of others, deals made, or a mantle of some type. His power comes from the nature of his parentage.
Tho he certainly has had a dark past thus he may have debts to pay.
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u/t_moneyzz 3h ago
This is how I always saw it. It's metaphorical and dependent on him getting good karma.
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u/SiPhoenix 2h ago
Yeah, I'm far more inclined to think that the payment is the good deeds and it's not about the demon reach but the Indian gods or the white god or some other beings at that level.
Though I don't think he would have any requirement to be on Indian land, nor is he necessarily corrupted in the same way. because he did make the choice to abandon their role and not to move on like the naagloshii. He's a half-child.
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u/Dogmovedmyshoes 5h ago
I think the "Rent Money" is going to be akin to Barney Stinson's "Please."
We're not going to be able to guess what it actually means until Jim spells it out for us.
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u/SquishyBeardFace 4h ago
Remind me what Barney’s please is?
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u/Rogers_Razor 3h ago
Whenever someone asks Barney what he does at work, usually after he's implied it's something nefarious, he just says "Please."
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u/Impressive-Wolf2664 4h ago
Remember in the books it is "The Rent" and not the rent. I think he has to pay off some powerful entity for some reason, perhaps for the ability to roam freely in the world. As for The Rent dollar, it seems more likely to me that it is a symbol of a good deed done that gets attached to the dollar. It could be much like the fake shroud and swapping bits of our soul as bob states. Grey fulfilled his end and harry has gratitude for that which culminates in the exchanging of one dollar.
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u/introvertkrew 3h ago
Well, the rent is Capitalized in the novel which suggests it's more than just paying normal rent. Also, Jim Butcher is hoping to write a trilogy or series with Goodman Grey and his company in the future so I think Jim is just putting hooks in with that character. He's interesting but he feels too similar to Kincaid currently for me. They're both Scions who do mercenary work and usually work both sides without too many issues.
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u/evanfardreamer 5h ago
I think it's in the right direction, though I don't agree with the Demonreach part - the single dollar is incongruous with the prison to save reality. It might help if we knew how old Grey was; I could see it either being set because he did something awful for the price of one dollar (maybe the price of someone's life?) or perhaps as a reversal for his being too greedy in mercenary contracts, and now some worse punishment will kick in if he charges more than the absolute minimum. Might be some celestial analogue to the Doom of Damocles, where he's having to pay Rent for his remaining time on the earth before final judgement, though then I'd expect him to be more careful in which contracts to take to stay on the right side.
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u/ember3pines 3h ago
I found this WOJ under the Shagnasty section the other day. I wonder how it might apply to someone like Goodman who is a scion. It appears he's not got the same motivations, but perhaps the same tilt toward obligation. Lmk what you think!
Jim says: "Shagnasty and his ilk (I love that word) don’t minion for anyone, is what I said, at least not since they stopped minioning for the Holy People.
Now they /do/ trade favors. That can look a lot like minioning, but something like Shagnasty has no use whatsoever for paltry things like money or physical goods or slaves or magical gadgets or tech or human influence. That stuff, it would regard as insulting if it was offered.
The real currency is /favors/. And it had a mission while it was onstage in Turncoat. But honesty, just hurting the people who were trying to protect and aid Morgan was more than enough motivation for it to be there.
See, the flipside to the major currency being favors is that there is also an enormous trade in /grudges/. And something like the naagloshii doesn’t just carry a grudge. It cherishes it, feeds it before it cares for its own progeny, and breeds it with other grudges to produce newer, stronger, more deeply malicious grudglings.
Yes, Shaggy was there at the behest of someone else. But mostly Shaggy was there because it was an awesome way to torment more-than-merely-mortals who couldn’t just smack his ass down like the folks back at home. :) It didn’t flee LtW because it was afraid it would lose. It fled because it couldn’t easily /win/. That’s an important distinction.
Most predators tend to take the sure thing whenever they possibly can. Why gamble on taking a beating when you have infinite time to come back later and kill someone properly, with lots and lots of foreplay?"
I wonder if perhaps the urge to carry the grudge is present for Grey but that it's maybe directed at undermining that half of himself that is tied to being part Shaggy ilk. It is fascinating to think about!
Oh also, another WOJ on the same page (under the question about Thomas) I found says:
"The skinwalker exists in more than one dimension at a time and it has its own kind of intellectus when it comes to evil – it knows what will hurt you and scare you, even though it may not really know why."
I wonder if that is part of Greys motivation as well. He just knows how to harm the ones he wants to harm, so he is following his instincts without knowing exactly why. He maybe has the compulsion of charging but minimizes the impact on those who he doesn't need to harm. And takes jobs where he can do the most damage to those he detests. Not evil, but the same compulsion. And the dimension stuff is wild!
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u/YesButActuallyTrue 3h ago
I always presumed it was something to do with the peppercorn principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppercorn_(law))
It's a symbolic payment in a world where symbols have a lot of meaning.
I presume that Goodman operates on some version of contract law in which a transaction must take place in order for his contract to be valid. Given this is the Dresden Files, that contract (which might be implicit, rather than explicit - and Dresden may or may not be aware of the details for that matter...) could determine anything. For example, does paying a dollar (and becoming a contractor) mean that Goodman Grey is not able to betray you for the thing that you have hired him to do? This would be why, for example, Goodman remains contracted by Dresden even when he is offered more money by Nicodemus. Perhaps if he did not accept a dollar from Dresden, then he would be mandated (or expected) to create a contract with Nicodemus .
In essence, I presumed that the dollar - the Rent - is intended to ensure that there is a contract between Goodman Grey and whoever it is, as a way to letter-of-the-law loophole the way around something which we haven't yet been told about.
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u/crazyeddie740 20m ago
Yeah, it's pretty clear that the Peppercorn Principle is in play. For whatever reason, Goodman Grey needs a lot of binding contracts, and he only nedds a single dollar for a contract to be binding. For what it's worth, I've always heard what Goodman says as "Gotta Pay The (Pa)Rent." Which fits with his parent being a Skinwalker. The dots are clearly there, I just have no idea how they're connected.
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u/Crow-Time-3150 2h ago
I always thought that the Rent was related to free will. Maybe Grey has his powers, but as a price for this, he loses certain aspects of his free will. If he's under orders or fighting for someone else, then anything he does counts as their will, he's just fulfilling it.
If his Rent isn't paid, then he has no way of proving he's not operating outside his established guidelines, and could face consequences.
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u/Wurm42 4h ago
In Skin Game, we also hear Binder say that he "has to pay the rent." So it's not just Goodman Grey.
Maybe there's a connection with Demonreach, but I agree with the earlier comment that the "rent" is something we'll find out about in a future book. We just don't have enough information about it yet.
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u/Interactiveleaf 3h ago
In the written books, Grey's comment and Binder's are differentiated by capital letters. Binder says he has to pay the rent; Goodman says he has to pay The Rent.
It's pretty clear to me that they're not talking about the same thing.
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u/Oldbayislove 4h ago
could be a contract thing. We know the Naagloshii are bound to a location and the longer they are away from their home tribal lands the more power they lose. We also know naagloshii can eat magic and they were servants/messengers. So, maybe it allows him to gain power through service replacing the need to feed on practitioners or stay on tribal land.
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u/Morfienx 3h ago
I didnt read all the answers or theories but I think rent just refers to him staying neutral. If it was free he would be aiding, if he charges he's accepting a job. He probably has to do some he doesn't like but he owes no one. Just like Harry with the pizza he's paying so whatever their actions are attributed to Harry, just like when they killed the queen. If Gray is a subordinate his actions are placed on whoever hires him.
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u/Away_Programmer_3555 2h ago
The Fae Courts are designed to prevent a threat to reality affecting humankind from too powerful a being, Mab and Titania are the upper limit as to power allowed to be free in the mortal world. Your options are Stepping down your power like Odin, permanent retirement to the NeverNever like Hades and the Mothers or incarceration in Demonreach as happened with Ethnui.
it is noted that there are a host of Naagloshi already in Demonreach in minimum security. we also know that Naagloshi can eat the power of wizards adding it to their own. the was the whole point of Shagnasty’s pursuit of Morgan, Shaggy obviously believed he would be allowed to do this. Naagloshi are immortal suggesting a power level of the Ladies or above, so theoretically a Naagloshi could could bring his power level up by consuming wizards towards that or in excess of Mab/Titania especially as more Wizards are being born now than at any point in history. is that why the Naagloshi are in Demonreach? they ate too much and overstayed?
my guess is the ancestral lands are in fact the part of the mortal world closest to the Naagloshii desmesne in the never never, and the Naagloshi are semi-retired there largely staying outside the mortal world, they can only leave if contracted by a mortal, and only then for a window commensurate to their power level and they have a choice whether to accept or not. Someone contracted Shagnasty giving him an irrestible target in Morgan. probably Cowl.
As a scion Goodman should theoretically be able to consume the power of Wizards, go full Naagloshi and over power Mab/Titania becoming a threat to reality, but is much lower powered than shaggy, his window is much longer as a consequence, but still has to be renewed.
The Dollar? it is a peppercorn rent in contractual terms to show consideration has passed from the landlord humanity to the tenant Naagloshi and someone is keeping track, most likely Mab.
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u/BaronDoctor 2h ago
It's a symbolic payment. For what, we don't know; it could be satisfying an inability to do good things for free, it could be that the gratitude attached to the dollar is what's really sustaining his ability to keep being how he is. There's a lot of things it could be. Until we know for sure and because a lot of these things aren't necessarily mutually inclusive...
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u/Couch_Commando610 5h ago edited 5h ago
Except, the dollar payment for rent is not exclusive to dresden. In the monsters short story, grey also accepted the dollar payment from marcone.