Was Harry Keogh cursed. ***SPOILERS***

[megadeth]

Reading through the Necroscope books again, it got me thinking what a raw deal Harry got in his life, and undeath.

To start off, his father dies when he is an infant. Then his mother is murdered by his stepfather. He is then sent to his relatives in England, where he is bullied for a time at school.

When he grows up and is recruited by E-branch, he is killed by Dragosani on his first assignment. He then gets his powers leeched by Harry Jnr before escaping into Alec Kyles body. This body is years older than the one he had.

Next off he has his mind screwed by BJ Mirlu and E-Branch where he loses more years.
When he finally finds his son, Jnr screws with his head and sends him home.
Trusting Faethor to cure him, he is then infected and becomes Wamphyrii.

Nearly everyone he has trusted then turn against him and he escapes back to the Vampire world.

Taken prisoner by the Wamphyri, he then gets blown to smithereens by a bomb sent by this world.

All in all, a pretty bad deal for someone who has tried to rid the world of vampirism.
I'm sure there are people out there who could come up with even more unlucky things that poor Harry went through.

[joeann2005]

isn't that what harry was all about? to triumph over adversity?

[John & Paul]

I think you have to balance everything out to put it into context. If you were given the chance to travel great distances immediately and see places you wouldn't be able to see normally, to talk to dead relatives and friends but were told it would knock 20 years off your life would you take it? I damn well would !!! For all the bad things he had happen to him he had a lot of great things happen to him...just like normal life. I don't feel too sorry for him because he lived his life to the full..perhaps even beyond that

[megadeth]

Yeah! I do see your point. But I still think he was kinda unlucky though.

[Trimmer]

Alongside the suffering that Harry experienced - he held more power than any other human being could ever imagine in his head - so I think it was the emotions that his suffering brought out that was required for his his powers to be realised.

[Turgosheim]

I think Harry was unlucky, a lot of the time. Ok, so he lived life to the max and his unlife, too, I suppose. But there IS a curse in the Keogh bloodline. Lets not talk about Nestor (although he did receive his father's dart), but poor Nathan and how he ended up in Avengers. That to me suggests a plot thread left WAY open. Nathan, it seems, has inherited his father's bad run of lick. Both were great men at what they did - but they were cut short by quite trivial things (well, if you can call Faethor's seeping essence trivial).

[VampingMom]

poor Nathan and how he ended up in Avengers. That to me suggests a plot thread left WAY open. Nathan, it seems, has inherited his father's bad run of lick. Both were great men at what they did - but they were cut short by quite trivial things (well, if you can call Faethor's seeping essence trivial).

I just ordered that book last night on Amazon. Now i'm really intrigued!

[Bite me]

Actually, as far as leaving Nathan's end open, plus Shania's Khiff's realization that within the equations of the Continuum there are numerous types of doors, (and take a look at what Harry Jr. did with them), I'd have to say that there's ALOT of room to expand sideways into Sunside/Starside. In addition, in The Touch, Harry tells Scott that there needs to be someone who knows how to deal with alien beings around when Earth is contacted by other beings...I think that leaves it open for the future. It'd be a nice way to twist things back to the Wamphyri by finding out that there was a lieutenant or thrall who'd been INSIDE the original (lower) Starside gate when the Perchorsk gate was created, and was uncerimoniously dumped somewhere on an advanced world when spacetime screwed up with the coming of the second gate.

After all, Shania DOES have one hell of a long life span, but it's only hinted at in The Touch....and, Jake Cutter's decendants are around in Ian Goodly's vision of the future at the end of Avengers.

Anyway, back on the original topic: Harry was given the abilities, and subsequently tested throughout his life. As the entity in the Continuum at the end of "Deadspawn" (pg 600, paperback U.S.) says: You've made your point, chosen your course and stuck to it. You are a sucess story." If he'd given up, and used his abilities for his own gain, most likely something would have happened to him, stripping him of his powers, or killing him outright. After all, Shaitan was once in a similar position as Harry, as evinced by having once known the equations, and being 'used' by the denizens of the continuum.

Nathan, on the other hand, hasn't had nearly the bad luck and loss that Harry had.

[Maliris]

If nothing bad happened to Harry we would fail to see the depth of his character, plus there would be no story to tell.