Wild Mass Guesses about the Dresdenverse: its history, its power-blocs, how magic works, etc:
Sounds pretty robotic, doesn't it?
Now, this could simply mean that 'Nemesis' is the machine intelligence, but remember what Harry told Thomas: "As near as we can tell, they all work together." This means that while Nemesis is likely a machine intelligence, it is apparently in synchronized communication with the rest of the Outsiders. Even if the other Outsiders are not Nemesis, they are intimately connected with Nemesis, and it to them. Further, keep in mind that for all of them to work together, there would have to be no conflicting decisions. They would all think as one, decide as one, and work as one.
This could mean that we're dealing with a solely-machine intelligence, or perhaps a Borg-style hive-mind cybornetic construct, maybe not designed from iron and silicon and using electronic pathways, but still a large-scale, single-minded intellect with machine-style thought processes.
- Sort-of: it's all but stated that low-level Outsiders are bio-magical equivalent of this. It gets more complicated with Walkers, since we know little of their actual place in Outside hierarchy and whether or not they were among the initial Old Ones or constructed later, but they certainly showed ability to be the guiding intelligence(s) of the hive-mind when need arises.
- Mostly Jossed. The Outsiders are not only from beyond Dresden's universe, but from beyond his entire multiverse. Though there are other multiverses in Reality, the Outsiders canonically come from the Outside, as in Outside Reality. Though there might be a "mortal" species that exists(and I use the term loosely) Outside that the Outsiders are based upon...
- Both are jossed: some of their comments imply that they ruled this world before their lords were banished Outside and/or imprisoned (like at Demonreach). Then said lords engineered a tool to get back what they perceive as their rightful property - rank-and-file Outsiders.
- Bonus points if this allows Harry to visit and "chat" with Hades at a later date.
- Alternately, there is no real "Oblivion War". Rather, the Venatori are being used by one faction or another to attack rival supernatural 'players', regardless of whether or not they're preserving knowledge of ancient godlings. This faction is using the notion of Oblivion to ensure that their cats-paws keep their activities completely secret.
- Or the Oblivion War is real but, partly due to security and partly because almost no one knows this, they didn't realize that the faeries are the army holding the outsiders back.
- Unless one of them somehow winds up as the Summer Knight or the new ruler of a vampire Court or something, it's unlikely they could lay a finger on Molly now that she's the Winter Lady. Also, given that Murphy got demoted and lost her influence over the Splattercon!!! investigation, it's likely that Nelson did get blamed for the rampage: he was the only suspect in the first attack, lacks an alibi for the later ones, and went batshit insane by the end of the novel. So he's most likely institutionalized and/or in prison.
- Who says that anyone ever actually let Nelson or Rosie in on the fact that their mental wounds were Molly's fault? They weren't clued in before she messed with their heads, so telling them about magic when they're trying to recover mentally isn't exactly going to help them regain their grasp of reality.
- Good idea. Aside from helping Changelings, I expect a large part of their work now may (hillariously enough) become being matchmakers: the best way to defeat the White Court is to have its younger members fall in love before they fully turn, and so let the court go peacefully extinct.
- Jossed. The Fellowship falls apart after the destruction of the Red Court, in large part because much of their leadership was comprised of half-vampires who aged to death when their vampire half was slain.
- Technically, we only know that the branch of the Fellowship which Ascher hung out with got wiped out. There may still be remnants elsewhere that she didn't know personally.
- The Paranet Papers, which are considered semi-canon in regards to references in the Dresden Files universe, confirms that while the Fellowship as a whole is extinct, more than a few of the members of the fellowship that survived the bloodline curse do still exist and try help, though it's mostly from an advisory and information standpoint now
- Technically, we only know that the branch of the Fellowship which Ascher hung out with got wiped out. There may still be remnants elsewhere that she didn't know personally.
- Only two Wizards in it (or, in fact, anywhere in the Midwest as far as we can tell) - one who probably came there precisely because it was far from the rest of the Council, and one who followed him to try and cut his head off.
- Well, don't forget, it's been stated that there are only a few hundred Wardens total. We don't know how many wizards there are in the Midwest, just how many wardens there are.
- A mansion owned by the Raith family which is seldom occupied (recall: Laura runs her operations there, but when Lord Raith called the shots, she traveled a lot, and it was a surprise reveal for him to show up in Chicago at all),
- Given that Lara is still maintaining the illusion that Lord Raith is in charge, it's likely that he is continuing to move. If Lara joined him, it'd be a pretty clear sign that something is up.
- A minor Red Court presence which has not even become an official Court yet.
- Bianca was a noble, and that was her court. It's a pretty major plot point in Changes.
- WRONG. Bianca becoming a noble (and getting her court officially recognized) is a major plot point in Grave Peril. Until then, she's just a random spawn of Ortega.
- Bianca was a noble, and that was her court. It's a pretty major plot point in Changes.
- A Knight Of The Cross, often out of town on his travels (and it cannot be that most people avoided the city out fearing Michael - he shows up all over the place, and his home and family were said to be secret to the community at large).
- Toot-Toot.
- There lots of Dew Drop Faeries, even if the early books. Toot is just the one that Harry knows.
- Most of these changes and events are related directly to three specific events. 1) Harry being in Chicago. (Second Denarian action, most of the actions by the Fae after Summer Knight) 2) Marcone being in Chicago, (the first time the Denarians showed up, chasing the Shroud, which Marone had had stolen. The Heirs of Kemmler showing up, which was because a minion of Marcone's had found his last book and hidden it in Chicago. 3) The Weakening of the Barrier between the real world and the NeverNever by the Black Council, which caused the Summer and Winter Courts to show up since they were able to move a portion of their courts to the real world.
- And the second of those factors (Marcone) is probably only a factor because of the first. Until he had his face-to-face confrontation with Harry in Storm Front, Marcone probably wasn't even sure that magic was for real: he'd heard rumors about it, and probably about Bianca's nature and SI's previous run-ins with monsters, but he had to see Dresden tossing evocations around to be entirely convinced. If Harry'd never given him that demonstration that there are hidden forces at work in his Verse, he'd probably never have expected the Shroud to be any more than an historical knickknack.
- So, without Harry and Marcone, the entire world would just totally ignore this huge ley line nexus? If anything, this is evidence that Harry and Marcone unknowingly broke the truce that kept Chicago off-limits, not that no such agreement ever existed.
- Of course, if such an agreement existed, don't you think someone would have mentioned it by now? I mean, I don't know about you, but some major, important truce that existed that affected the entire supernatural community might be well-known enough that the White Council - and thus Harry - would know about it. I mean, these kind of agreements don't exactly work if some random supernatural schmoe like Harry can accidentally break and thus invalidate them through ignorance.
- In fact, Ortega does offer to have Chicago declared "neutral territory" for the purposes of the Council/Court conflict, provided Harry defeats him during their duel from Death Masks. Harry's reaction suggests that affording the city such status is an entirely new idea to him, not something that had once applied and only needed to be re-established.
- Don't forget that the reason so much stuff happens in Chicago is that it is a major merging point of ley lines. Most such locations are apparently heavily guarded, like Edinburgh. The major stuff around the Winter and Summer Courts happens there for that exact reason, the Shroud ends up there because its a transport hub, the Darkhallow takes place there because its a ley line hub, the whole issue with the Denarians and the Archive happened there precisely because of Marcone and Harry's presence, and the White Court operates there because there's a lot of money, communication, and transportation passing through.
- Why isn't this hub guarded or claimed?
- If it really is that powerful then nobody will want to let anyone else take solo control. The minute one group tried to stake a claim, all the others would gang up on them to maintain their own shares of the pie. Trying that kind of power grab would be an invitation to war.
- Possibly it was guarded centuries ago, by Native American powers that once held sway in the region. With the suppression of indigenous cultural beliefs by European and Judeo-Christian traditions, possibly with a little help from the Oblivion War, these powers faded away and left the site open to a power-grab, which is precisely what the Red Court was attempting when Bianca was promoted to their nobility (remember her speech?). Sure, it took a few generations for one of the power-blocs to make the attempt, but that's not surprising when you consider the lifespans and/or immortality of the contenders.
- Why isn't this hub guarded or claimed?
- It might be that instead of there being a truce that was broken, it's simply a forgotten safety ban. Imagine that instead of everyone agreeing that there needed to be some place everyone could talk, everyone agreed that the area was simply too dangerous for the supernatural world to inhabit. Over the years it just so happens that the world has forgotten what a powerful place it was and the influx of vanilla mortals puts the supernaturals at ease. It could be that Demonreach once extended much farther than that one little island, but the water has since risen and cut off the source.
- Or it could be that every major nexus in the world has been subject to similar incursions by the supernatural, of late: we just don't hear about them, because those locations' resident wizards are just as proud, overworked, and/or suspicious of the Council as Harry, so don't have the time or inclination to bitch about their troubles where Harry will hear of it.
- This is why the Almighty rarely involves himself directly with Outsiders (they're the product of free will) and why they're so dead-set on destroying reality. They're people who become so bitter/self-involved/evil they give up their humanity entirely, become monsters, and try to destroy everything they feel made their life miserable before—namely, everything.
- Cold Days reiterates that the Outsiders are old - Real old. Since the beginning of time old. And definitely older then humans. That, and its quite explicit that the reason Outsiders are so terrifying is that they are not of our universe.
The Denarians are/were Outsiders, and Lashiel's Shadow, Lash, giving Harry immunity to Nemesis by being a parasite already "infecting" him would be just in line with his stupidly high dumb luck stat.
- Jossed by Skin Game: The parasite has nothing to do with Outsiders, and it's hinted that Nicodemus is just as leery of the coming Outsider/Nemesis incursion as everyone else.
The Black Council, then, may not be working for Nemesis. They may have engineered it, or simply be voluntary Outsider collaborators. The human villains in other books weren't controlled by Nemesis, they were either mind controlled, or much more believably, they made their own choices.
- So I'm guessing you missed the part where Lily told Harry that his first three major cases, all of whom were mortals, were infected by Nemesis.
- And how did Lily know this, again?
- Also, the Shadowman and the Nightmare weren't pure mortals, they were both magic-users, and Denton only became vulnerable to Nemesis when he was using the Hexenwulfen belt. It's possible that opening yourself to magic also opens you to this sort of influence.
- Who cares where Lily found out about it? Harry SAW Nemesis. Remember when he Soulgazed Denton and saw how his soul had been plastered and painted with disgusting black filth?
- That couldn't have been Nemesis. That was just the influence of black magic, pure and simple. Harry says that Rashid's reaction to remembering looking at Nemesis with his Sight was a lot like when Harry used his Sight on Shagnasty. Harry soulgazed Denton (which is a derivative of the Sight) and DIDN'T get debilitated and nauseous. It couldn't have been Nemesis.
- The Shadowman's house was likewise stained to Harry's Sight, possibly because Sells wasn't very precise at magic and his Nemesis-sullied magical energies had soaked into the premises.
- It seems there's more than one kind of "infected" by Nemesis. Cat Sith was a puppet with no personality; but Maeve still had her individuality. How Nemesis infects humans may simply be different.
- Maeve was cooperating with Nemesis willingly. She wanted it. Cat Sith was taken against his will, so Nemesis had to overpower his personality before it could control him, which was why he was turned into a puppet.
- It's not that different from conventional mind-control, for which there can be fine thralls who actually don't realize they're under the influence, rough thralls who stand around like zombies, or Renfields who are like rabid dogs. Cat Sith fought against the influence enough that making him a malkish Renfield was Nemesis's only option.
- And how did Lily know this, again?
- Near as it seems, Nemesis functions by giving free will. Immortals like Maeve don't have that, but mortals do. It stands to reason that mortals must be immune to Nemesis.
- We don't know that Nemesis granted Maeve free will, only that it granted her the ability to lie. It certainly didn't give Cat Sith free will; rather, it subjugated whatever self-determination the malk already had.
- Jossed as of Peace Talks/Battle Ground with Justine. Cat-Sith was forcibly infected by HWW Before, who most likely could overpower most of Cat's defenses. As to the source of the Nemesis - it's He Who Walks Beside.
- Rashid the Gatekeeper did seem to think the name was oddly appropriate. And Harry being able to invoke the island as a sanctum would correspond with his alluded-to ability to have authority over Outsiders. And the island does serve as the source of a very powerful and very dark ley line. And Ebenezer did write that Harry was one of the few he'd trust to oversee the place, although he also implied that a similar trust in Maggie was misplaced.
- Demonreach is revealed in Cold Days to be a prison for things more evil and powerful then anything we've seen so far. The ley lines flowing from Demonreach are just the prisoner's waste heat. Harry actually goes to the Outer Gates with Mother Summer, and it's implied that without help from a near God Like being, the trip is a long one, well outside the range of a NeverNever jump.
- Or at least that its in a part of the NeverNever that doesn't correspond to the 'real world'.
- Demonreach is revealed in Cold Days to be a prison for things more evil and powerful then anything we've seen so far. The ley lines flowing from Demonreach are just the prisoner's waste heat. Harry actually goes to the Outer Gates with Mother Summer, and it's implied that without help from a near God Like being, the trip is a long one, well outside the range of a NeverNever jump.
How she lost it then? And did Mother Summer lose stick too. Idea- since Mother Winter, and possibly, MS was known as Baba Yaga MS's walking stick could have skull with green fire at top.
- Not sure how this relates, but the Fairy Queens and possibly the whole court were once known as Hekate. Is she associated with any staffs?
- Angels themselves are made of Soul™, but don't have Free Will. Spirits are basically a mind without a body or soul, as I understand it. The key to Free Will seems to be having both a soul and a mind, which only humans apparently do. Since it's fairly common for humans to exchange pieces of their souls, what if Soulfire allows Harry to give a piece of his soul away? Could he give Bob a soul? This may or may not extend to Faeries.
- The main problem is the only instances of Harry apparently giving Free Will to Bob, or Lash, or anyone is distinctly before he ever got access to Soulfire.
- I thought Bob still doesn't have free will, his nature is a reflection of people's impression of him. Lash was a shadow of an angel. It's possible that she was/is more vulnerable to soul exchange than Lasciel would have been, and she existed in Harry's mind, which probably made her "Human" enough to gain Free Will.
- Dead Beat has Bob deciding to side with Harry at the end, despite being, at the time, property of Cowl. Lash, likewise, is gone from the picture and makes her big sacrifice before Harry gets Soulfire (and is speculated to be the reason he has Soulfire in the first place).
- It's probable that Cowl setting Bob down and preparing to ascend to demigodhood left Bob without an owner, therefore Harry was able to "reclaim" him. It's kind of ambiguous. Lash, on the other hand, wasn't a true angel, and may have been susceptible to change in a way that Lasciel would never have been. Also kind of ambiguous.
- Bob and Lash have NAMES. Names have power. It's stated in Skin Game that by calling Lasciel Lash, he gave her a distinct identity. Bob is distinct from the "random spirit of intellect that served Kemmler-same being, but also different. Which also raises an interesting question about Alfred Demonreach...
- The main problem is the only instances of Harry apparently giving Free Will to Bob, or Lash, or anyone is distinctly before he ever got access to Soulfire.
- This is primarily just idle speculation, but a death curse is, effectively, a wizard gathering up what's left of the energy keeping them alive and using it for one last powerful spell. They die in the process, and most times we see one used or discussed it's generally to get back at some enemy of the dying wizard (generally whoever's put them in the position of being close enough to death for it to be a viable action). It may be possible to do any sort of magic with it, though. Perhaps power and/or knowledge could be passed on to another (in fact, a variation on this could be an explanation for beings like the Archive), or otherwise-impossible enchantments could be laid on objects or people. If a dying wizard thought the best way to get the result they wanted was to, say, dump a ton of magical power into Harry (or, on the other side, one of his enemies), it could result in a massive power-up (either giving him the strength to overcome whatever deity he's facing at the moment or turning a foe into a much bigger threat). Or it could be used - by a wizard with enough power to throw into their death curse - to free Harry from his position as Winter Knight.
- Not too likely; Winter Knights are intended to be deployed against mortals as well as others, and have presumably been used to knock off wizards before, so Mab's probably already confronted and taken precautions against that possibility. "LOSE POWER!" isn't much harder for a bitter, dying person to holler than "DIE ALONE!", after all.
- Sub-WMG; A death "spell" can be used to grant wizard powers to someone.
- Alternatively, a wizard could create a working far beyond their normal skill to do pretty much anything and then power it with their own death. Note that death curses seem to break the normal 'magic can't think' rule, which is why 'Die Alone' was possible as a curse.
- Also, since Harry has Soulfire now, he could use a working based on a soulfire 'death curse' to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: what other magic would let you channel your entire soul and magic through a spell in a controlled manner?
- Stealth Pun. As in, "writhing around in ecstasy".
- Doubt it. Lara having a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith ("In this house? What else?") kinda spoils that.
- This one is less Wild Mass Guessing and more Reasonably Plausible Conjecture...
- More likely it's form is pure Mind Screw, where things are as far away from each other as they want.
- Have we even seen a Dresdenverse elf up close in the novels yet? We've seen Sidhe, but they're not the same species of fae; for all we know, elves in this Verse might already be scaly or stone-like.
- What we've seen of the fomor actually makes them sound more like Deep Ones and fish people then anything else, though given their predilection for fleshwarping magics that may just be because they live underwater.
- Wizardry is just a talent at using magic; any mortal can use magic, its just that talented humans are naturally far better at doing so. Mortals with little magical talent and enough time and instruction (i.e. anyone with one of the denarii) can be very powerful, they just need a lot more work at it.
- Case in point, Thomas has no magical talent—but he can still do Harry's tracking spell as a ritual. He can't make one as strong as Harry, or as quickly, and it seems Thomas's version is strictly to find Harry in particular, but he can still pull it off. He looks it as a learned skillset, same as fixing a car or working a computer.
- Moreover, Butters was able to create a protective circle after having it demonstrated and explained to him once. This, from a guy who'd only recently begun to accept that magic was for real.
- Its been explained that everyone MIGHT be able to use magic but only wizards can sense magic, so a muggle trying to use magic is like a blind person trying to paint (which, incidentally, they can do rather well sometimes).
Then again, I could be going entirely the wrong way with this, and it not only has no effect on the NeverNever but could make the place a den for Radiation Gnomes and turn the thing it landed on into a half-melted, nuclear-fire-spitting version of itself that will show up later in the series, if only through hearsay. You never can tell with this series.
- It probably depends on the degree of integration to the NeverNever you're talking about. Some parts, especially in say Grave Peril, correspond closely to the real world, and thus would probably show the effects of a nuke, or at least it's devastation. At the same time though, much of the NeverNever has little-to-no correspondence with the real world, and even the parts that do correspond often seem to be out of sync with the real world time-wise.
- I think that a nuclear explosion and it's destruction (not to mention it's status in the collective consciousness as the Ultimate Weapon) would change the connection between the NeverNever and the real world. Just as the FBI headquarters and a hunting store link to the Erlking's Halls, a nuclear testing site would lead to the testing grounds of ancient magical superweapons. Or, in the case of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki sites, to the places where those weapons were employed.
- The uranium wasn't useful because it was radioactive, it was useful because it was HEAVY.
- Actually, it was useful because it was a rare earth metal. That makes it refined essence of elemental earth, useful for binding things of spirit to the physical world. Its the same way salt (as in salt of the earth) burned air furies in Codex Alera.
- Depleted Uranium works for Harry's Ghost Dust because Harry BELIEVES that it's disproportionately heavy. Another Practicioner could get the same result from lead or gold. Remember, Mort's Ghost Dust wasn't likely to have any ingredients he felt were unsafe. But a nuclear device doesn't distribute it's constituents with belief or intent, so they probably won't have any effect at all on the NeverNever.
- Actually, it was useful because it was a rare earth metal. That makes it refined essence of elemental earth, useful for binding things of spirit to the physical world. Its the same way salt (as in salt of the earth) burned air furies in Codex Alera.
- I don't believe that. Despite how it worked in Shezza's fanfiction, if that was the case then far more of the Denarians would be/have been taken as kids.
- I hadn't seen the Fanfic Recs page until checking what "Shezza's fanfiction" was about, or the work itself, so that was just coincidence. But I was really going more with the "it hasn't happened because no one's tried before" point, since it was a Desperation Attack and they had previously only given the coins to people who were old enough for a decent amount of magic to have awakened in them (regardless of whether they actually had powers).
- As Harry and multiple other characters point out several times, there was nothing desperate about it. Nicodemus is a Chess Master. He knew that there were two outcomes there. Harry picks up the coin, or Little Harry picks up the coin. Either way, he's (theoretically) gotten a powerful agent.
- Except that Lasciel was, in that book, stated to be typically opposed to Nicodemus - or at least not subservient to him. It seems more likely that his play was to corrupt and undermine an opponent who'd given him some trouble - ideally Harry Sr., but I imagine getting at Michael through Harry Jr. would have been a perfectly satisfying outcome. Or, perhaps it's simply "Now I'll be rid of her, finally", not much caring as to whether the coin was picked up by either of them - because he'd be rid of, more or less, an enemy either way. Lasciel's coin is buried by Harry Sr., Harry Jr. picks up the coin and Harry Sr. gets Sayna and the coin joins the other captured coins, or Sr. picks up Jr. and gets Sayna and the coin joins the other captured coins. And in any case he no longer has to worry about giving Cassius a coin, and thus doesn't invite Lasciel into his ranks. Not so much desperate as a good way to avoid a possible problem.
- I hadn't seen the Fanfic Recs page until checking what "Shezza's fanfiction" was about, or the work itself, so that was just coincidence. But I was really going more with the "it hasn't happened because no one's tried before" point, since it was a Desperation Attack and they had previously only given the coins to people who were old enough for a decent amount of magic to have awakened in them (regardless of whether they actually had powers).
- This doesn't seem to apply to Dierdre, who has Denarian parents. Presumably they gave her a coin when she was very young, yet aside from the usual body-morphing any blackened denarius would provide, it doesn't seem to have turned her into anything worse than an incestuous human psycho-bitch.
- Abolishing death didn't work out to well when minus. tried it, either.
- Yeah, I forgot about overpopulation.
- Harry points out a few downsides himself, actually.
- He just scratched the surface. Forget human overpopulation, what about all the animals and plants and fungi and bacteria and protists?
- Now, what if they gave everyone Resurrective Immortality instead? Or set things up so you reincarnate with all your memories.
- Regarding being screwed if Kumori and Cowl get their way: it's entirely possible that Kumori has been promised that her work for the Circle will abolish death forever, but that whoever promised her this (Nemesis?) neglected to mention how. After all, if the Outsiders annihilate every living thing in the universe, death will be ended forever, because nothing will be left that can die...
- Update: and the Dresden Files RPG hints that "truly selfless Hope and Courage" could be just as deadly, but there's a lack of experimental data to prove it. I was close. :)
- At one point during Changes, Harry fights off a Red Court vampire using his necklace, saying that the Red Court is the most vulnerable to objects of faith.
- It was stated explicitly, I think in White Knight, that the each of the three houses of the White Court are harmed by the opposite of the emotion they feed on. Love for the Raiths, courage for the Malvora, and hope for the Skavis.
- The RPG books suggest that there are White Court vampires that feed on wrath, so a Sword of Peace might appear/be created in time for the apocalyptic trilogy. Of course, the RPG books also suggest a Blue Court of vampires and an Autumn Court of the fae, so take it with a grain of salt.
- There probably can't be a Sword of Peace, because there are only three holy Nails to go around. Possibly the Spear of Destiny would be opposed to Wrath-feeding Whites.
- The benign side of Wrath isn't Peace, it's Passion. At least, that's what Harry points out to Lash in White Night, and she doesn't dispute this argument.
- Besides, Sword of Peace? A bit conflicted of nature there...
- Si vis pacem, para bellum.
- There is a key mistake in your theory. The Archangels Michael and Uriel are never stated or implied to be Fallen. So angels can love. Lash indicated the Fallen fell because they did not like following orders or the form of morality demanded angels follow.
- Except that the theory states that Michael and Uriel (and presumably others) found a way to follow the letter of the order to love, even if not the spirit - and the supernatural world operates on Exact Words. Basically, they found a way to love their duty whilst the Fallen did not find a way (or didn't care to find one) to comply with the letter of the command. Fits the way the setting operates, at least, if we assume that the capacity to love one's duty was always in the nature of the angels of the White God - or some special circumstance made their natures more fluid.
- There is a key mistake in your theory. The Archangels Michael and Uriel are never stated or implied to be Fallen. So angels can love. Lash indicated the Fallen fell because they did not like following orders or the form of morality demanded angels follow.
- If Angels don't have free will, how on earth did a bunch of them say 'No' and then start a rebellion. That requires free will, after all. The Angels may not realize they have free will, much like Lash's Shadow didn't seem to clue into it, but they do.
- Roleplaying Game explains it. Demons do not have 'free will' either. They cannot act against their nature. While they could refuse to serve and fall, that just means they are just as enslaved, but now they can do nothing BUT rebel.
- But if they have the power to say 'No, I wont do that', then they're already acting against their nature. What's to stop a demon who now can do nothing but rebel from rebelling against that and acting neutral? I understand that as an RPG mechanic it works that way, and that from the angels/demons perspective that way, but as a Human Being with Free Will, that sounds an awful lot like a nice excuse for not using your free will, rather than not having it.
- Maybe angels have no free will, but God does. He creates them to fulfill certain roles, which they are locked into. When He changes His mind about what they should be doing, some allow Him to alter their assignments accordingly, but others are so committed to their initial tasks that they rebel rather than be changed.
- The nature of a supernatural creature seems to be bound up in their name - it's possible that their names were changed to allow for the change in nature, and that this didn't work out so well in some cases.
- It's more they have Intellectus on the effects of choices; especially their own choices. If you know immediately the result of your actions; and most of the possible reactions; then there really isn't any choice at all...unless you go full dark/crazy and forsake EVERYTHING.
- Roleplaying Game explains it. Demons do not have 'free will' either. They cannot act against their nature. While they could refuse to serve and fall, that just means they are just as enslaved, but now they can do nothing BUT rebel.
- The Black Council has tried to kill Harry indirectly in like half the books, but Cowl and Kumori try to recruit him. Possibly some dissension in the ranks or a temporary change of plans that's later reversed.
- The Red Court tries to kill him in Grave Peril, recruit (or kill) him in Death Masks, and later kill him. The level of overlap with the Black Council is unknown.
- The White Court tries to kill him for only semi-related reasons. Later, Black Council elements try to kill him.
- The Denarians try to recruit him, with killing him as plan B.
- Demons attempt to recruit him directly.
- Rashid is uncertain of his loyalty and exceptionally worried about him.
- Mab is really insistent on recruiting him instead of shopping around the halls of powerful people in need of even more power, which includes the entire senior council.
- Team Heaven and subsidiaries attempt to recruit him, but that might be just or at least partially because they're generally nice people.
- Cold Days confirms that an Outsider incursion is indeed underway and always has been since forever. but a major push has started a few years back, and one of Winter's major responsibilities is to provide defense for the Outer Gates, which means Harry's outsiderbane nature is probably part of what made him such an attractive Knight.
- Bear in mind that the Black Court are essentially reanimated corpses. To them, killing Harry is also a power play to put them on their side.
- Jossed on a technicality: more like "almost all powerful faction". Actually confirmed by Peace Talks/Battle Ground: starborn are born (sorry) every 666 years, and there's some unspecified calamity (as in "everyone is too scared to elaborate") associated with this too. Since the only known trait of the starborn is their link to Outsiders and power over, apparently they're born several decades before a major incursion, which is also confirmed o be starting.
- Jim has said that Ferro is one of the only entities that could actually take down Mab. Now, obviously he's going to have a lot of raw power at his disposal, but what if it's more than that? Jim is a big fan of Meaningful Names, and there's something in Ferrovax's that counts. Ferro, which looks like Ferrum, the Latin word for "iron". In the Dresdenverse, Dragons are "semi-divine beings who were once given authority over various portions of the mortal universe, and who were responsible for their orderly procession." What if part of Ferrovax's "portfolio," for lack of a better word, is iron? He might be the reason that iron is the Bane to Faeries.
- Take the idea more widely: Its shown that every aspect of the Universe has an 'avatar' of some sort. Fairies represent magic, Angels represent God's will (Or 'Soul'), and so on. Dragons are the avatars of the physical world all together, and Ferrovax isn't Mab's equivalent, but is on par with the Mothers.
- That part is just because they're both immortals. If they threw down under circumstances where they could be hurt, like on Halloween or on a battlefield created for the purpose, it would be different.
- Maybe Ferrovax, and other evil dragons, are like the Skinwalker: Semi-divine beings who were warped because they betrayed their purpose.
- It's explicitly mentioned that anyone who was infected, but not fully turned, was turned back into a normal human. For this to work, there'd have to have been someone who was infected after Susan fully turned and before she died (so, in the window of about 30 seconds, tops?) Going by the RPG's rules, anyone who wanted protection from the spell would have needed to create a spell of even greater power, and have it set up and executed before the ritual was finished, which is not a level of preparedness that you take to defend against an extremely remote possibility that depends on at least a dozen extremely unlikely events to happen.
So there might be one infected left, who would simultaneously be the most and least lucky creature on the face of the planet. - It's mentioned in Ghost Story that there are several of them left, either ones in magically protected areas (presumably the force of the spell is diluted a bit by being spread out over thousands of targets rather than the expected two) or the youngest of them, depending on how exactly the spell was set up. It could be that it missed all those infected in the several years after Susan's initial infection, or those who were turned by vampires who turned after Susan was infected (Who would probably not be permitted to make new ones, but maybe they did anyway). Either would leave a small number of extremely feeble Reds left. This still leaves them in even worse shape than the Black Court though, and unlikely to recover any significant influence in the foreseeable future.
- It isn't when someone was infected that's important, but when they crossed over into being a full Red Court vampire. Susan was infected several years ago, and there would definitely have been a number of vampires created since then, but she was still considered "the youngest" when she was killed, because she had only just been converted fully.
- It's mentioned in Ghost Story that there might possibly be some of them left, not that there actually were.
- Even if the survivors start breeding as fast as they can, the court as a whole will still have lost most of it's power. At some point it was mentioned that the power of the red court (mind control, freakier healing and fleshmask powers, etc) was spread throughout all the vampires from their progenitor. But now all the Lords of the Outer Night are dead, and that power has been stripped out of the pool so to speak. All the new young vampires who survived have for the court is the juice they have on their own.
The Archive is an immensely powerful magical being. So much that Ivy, a twelve year old, managed to defeat a bunch of Denarians without breaking a sweat. How, then couldn't her grandmother protect herself from an automobile accident? I know that magic can't solve everything, but still, Ivy's grandmother should be able to protect herself. You'd think that a being as important as the Archive would be heavily protected like Ivy, who has Kincaid as a bodyguard. Keep in mind that some of the so-called accidents are cover-ups for something supernatural. For that matter, it would be pretty easy for a warlock to use thaumaturgy to cause an accident without anyone being the wiser.
Ivy's mother committed suicide. Really? Suicide is a premeditated act, not something you do on a whim. I don't know about you, but if I were the White Council, I'd go through some preventive measures to prevent someone as important and vital such as the Archive to do harm to herself. Shouldn't they do something to prevent her from killing herself? Of course, there are ways for someone to arrange murder while making it look like suicide. In-universe example: Elaine nearly killed herself out of despair in White Night because of a Skavis White Court vampire. She had already slitted her wrists and everything. If Harry didn't use the telepathic link between them to get rid of the Skavis's influence Elaine would have died. Hell, it would be easy for someone to use mind-control on her to spotlight her despair, like what Molly explained in Turn Coat.
By killing the two previous Archives and passing the position to Ivy, it compromises her supposed neutrality. Ivy, for all her maturity and knowledge, is still a child. Children aren't exactly known for their rationality, after all. The main reason why Nicodemus and Tessa's plan in Small Favor worked was because they took advantage of her age and feelings. They threatened Kincaid, the father she never had, and Harry, the person who gave her another name other than just 'The Archive'. Both were the only people who treated her as a human being, and that's why Nick and the Nickleheads managed to capture her. It wouldn't have worked if Ivy was older, or if the Archive had already formed a personality of her own before receiving the position. It's not that far of a stretch to think that it's a part of someone's plan.
- The Council does not have access to the location of the Archive at all times, nor would the Archive appreciate people spying on her family. Also, if the Archive decided to kill herself, what exactly is the Council going to do to stop her? She is a Signatory to the Accords, a faction all her own, and at least as powerful as a lesser Faerie Queen. They do not have the authority to tell her what to do nor do they have the raw power to do so, especially if they're trying to stop someone who could just Death Curse herself to death. I do think Ivy's grandmother's accident was suspicious, but her mom was a depressed teen that got overwhelmed. If I recall correctly, Ivy actually states she knows her mom killed herself, and she knows everything that the previous Archives knew (meaning she knows the thought processes that went into her mom deciding to kill herself).
- I don't really see how being the Archive makes one immune to automobile accidents. The Archive is pretty powerful magically, but she's still human. She could defend herself from nearly anything she knew was coming, but if she's got hurt, she'd die as easily as anyone else. A random car crash is pretty much impossible to predict ahead of time, and so impossible to defend against. It would probably be easier for the Archive to see an assassination attempt coming than a freak accident.
- As for suicide, you're operating under a false premise. Suicides actually are done impulsively, "on a whim," much more often than they are the result of long-term planning. A great many survivors of suicide don't make a repeat attempt, are glad that they survived, and go on to live long, happy lives.
- Maybe the origin has something to do with Drakul?
- Cold Days shows that the Outer Gates are still standing but are under attack, and something has already slipped through...
- Though we haven't heard much of Harry's early time with Ebenezer, he didn't seem to display any of the mind-altering side effects that should come with killing a person. The one notable instance is when he talks about how he was being harassed by a group of teenagers, and instead of feeling an urge to call up a firestorm and burn them for their insolence, he considers the notion and then laughs at the thought of it.
- As for Ebenezer, to my understanding the Blackstaff itself acts as a buffer for the effects of breaking the laws.
- In Grave Peril, Harry killed a few innocent humans. Though they were either dying or were about to be Turned into vampires, he noted that some of them were still moving and he burnt them to a crisp. After this, instead of feeling high on power (as one does after using Black Magic), he was sick with guilt.
- This was probably because, IIRC, he didn't intend to burn them, he was trying to torch the vampires. He only realize what he'd done afterwards. The main reason Black Magic is so addictive is because you can't do anything with magic unless you believe it is right (so if you break, say, the First Law it means you believe that killing with magic is right and good). For that reason, accidental killing probably doesn't generate the addictive effects.
- This might be related to the protective power of the Blackstaff — that it's actually the office, and not the artifact, that's important. Because, by taking up the position, the wizard is affirming that they're exactly the kind of person who would kill with magic — under specific circumstances, with permission, and for the right cause — there isn't any backlash to doing so in the future. (There probably would be if they went on an unsanctioned murder spree.) Alternatively, it could be a sort of Legacy Character. Ebenezer doesn't kill with magic; the Blackstaff does. The fact that Ebenezer is reluctantly taking on the role of the Blackstaff doesn't necessarily mean it stains his own soul.
- This was probably because, IIRC, he didn't intend to burn them, he was trying to torch the vampires. He only realize what he'd done afterwards. The main reason Black Magic is so addictive is because you can't do anything with magic unless you believe it is right (so if you break, say, the First Law it means you believe that killing with magic is right and good). For that reason, accidental killing probably doesn't generate the addictive effects.
- Word of God says that Justin chose Harry and Elaine because they both have power over Outsiders, so Elaine would have the same immunity to Black Magic as Harry if this theory is correct. In Summer Knight, Elaine floods the Walmart with Mind Fog, which Harry says violates a law of Magic. So Elaine just used Black Magic to invade the minds of a couple dozen patrons, but afterward retains enough of her morality to risk her life to help Harry save the world.
- Molly broke a law without turning into a slavering monster. If lawbreaking were as mind-altering as you suggest, taking a warlock as apprentice wouldn't be an option, because only people with Outsider-killing abilities would be able to draw back from the abyss. Lawbreaking is a slippery slope, sure, but it doesn't automatically flip the Eeevil lever to the "on" position.
- Molly broke a Law twice, and even then in the soulgaze Harry saw the potential for her to go into full supervillain mode. Elaine broke that same law dozens of times in one sitting with the mind fog, and Word of God says that once of her foci stores up a memory of her own to force into someone's head in order to temporarily paralyze them, which means one of her main magical tools revolves around breaking a law of magic, yet she does not appear to be evil.
- A lot of mind magic is apparently a "grey area" that the Council has decided to apply a very wide ban to because it's so dangerous. Addictive black magic and things that break the Council's rules are not necessarily 100% in line with each other. In one book Harry removes someone's memory of traumatic magic and sends them to sleep, both of which do involve influencing their mind, but notes that even the Council accepts this use of magic.
- Very good point about the laws not being perfect.
- Molly broke a law without turning into a slavering monster. If lawbreaking were as mind-altering as you suggest, taking a warlock as apprentice wouldn't be an option, because only people with Outsider-killing abilities would be able to draw back from the abyss. Lawbreaking is a slippery slope, sure, but it doesn't automatically flip the Eeevil lever to the "on" position.
- The one thing that all the laws have in common is that they're all willful violations of the natural order of things. The enumeration of the laws corresponds to the magnitude of the violation. Murder, transfiguration, knowing and changing another's thoughts, mucking with life and death, violating causality and breaching the bounds of Reality itself to deal with the things on the other side. The further you go, the more damage you do to yourself and the universe. Ultimately, this probably does serve the interests of the Outsiders, as they are opposed to the very concept of our reality.
- If murder inherently weakened the Outer Gates, they'd probably have fallen long ago. You don't need magic to kill people, after all.
- They're the Laws of Magic so only magical murders count. While all of the black magic of all the warlocks of history hasn't been enough to bring the Gates down, it probably hasn't helped.
- Still don't buy it. Killing people might be wrong in the moral sense, but it's not necessarily against the fundamental laws of nature in the same way that, say, warping a person's body or mind into something different would be. Humans' bad habit of killing is merely one of the nastier aspects of human nature, not something that violates our inherent qualities as a species: just ask Tera West.
- Killing someone using the energies of life itself however, is against the fundamental laws of nature. It's like turning on a light bulb to make a room darker. That shouldn't be possible. It's a perversion of the way things should be. (Note that there does seem to be "dark magic" in the series that seems to come from a source other than the life energy of the cosmos, but that it comes from "Outside", so using it to kill is already breaking another law of magic.)
- As Dresden has explained several times, killing someone with magic is even worse than an ordinary murder because its a perversion of the nature of magic. Magic is the force of life and creation in the universe. Its meant to be used for healing, protection, creation, and knowledge. Using that power to kill someone, or warp their mind and body, distorts something beautiful into a grotesque weapon. I think Dresden compared it to bludgeoning someone to death with a Monet painting at one point.
- It's worth pointing out that this is how Harry himself thinks of magic; others (the ones the RPG calls "focused practitioners", for one) seem to have a more limited view of magic as a force not much more mystical than gravity. He actually mentions how he can tell Ascher views her magic as basically just a means of lighting things on fire. It makes sense that people who have learned (or decided) to see magic as a transcendental force of creation might react differently to using it than those who think of it as a glorified kind of physics.
- Given that the First Law fairly specifically only covers humans killing other humans with magic, it may simply be a codified form of Ape Shall Never Kill Ape. Or alternatively evidence that humans are indeed objectively special in the setting, what with having the whole "soul" and "free will" thing going for them...
- If murder inherently weakened the Outer Gates, they'd probably have fallen long ago. You don't need magic to kill people, after all.
- Molly is a pet name for Margaret. In Proven Guilty, Michael calls Molly by her full, given name, which is Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter.
- Hmm. As a Catholic girl, Amanda is quite possibly the name she took in her Confirmation. St. Amanda of Jerusalem is the patron saint of drawing; it's also the feminized form of Amand and St. Amand is the patron of brewers and vinters. Amanda shows up again as well, with Amanda Beckett.
- According to The Other Wiki two possible origin/meanings for the name Margaret are "pearl" or "daughter of light." Not that the latter would be significant in the Dresdenverse...
- Some versions of the Ballad of Tam Lin use the name Margaret for the woman who wins Tam Lin away from the Faerie Queen who had captured him.
- If it's just suicidal, why would the Council forbid it?
- Two ways of looking at it. 99% suicidal, odds are the 1% that manage to survive will either be batshit crazy and/or insanely strong. Now you have a crazy, strong, crazy strong psycho in the time stream. 100% suicidal, for eachh would be dark arts dablers that thinks it is possible because of the law and get themselves killed it is one less dark arts dabler messing around with the other laws that are feasible.
- Cold Days Josses this big time Merlin used time travel to create Deamonreach
- Doesn't mean the Hounds of Tindalos won't start hunting you if you screw up though.
- Nope, Elaine isn't a descendant of Ebenezar. Presumably, anyway.
- Better yet: The novels are written when he's under a form of self-hypnosis that accesses perfect recall of events, much like how his flashbacks in Ghost Story brought up details he didn't consciously remember from his youth. That's why their narration gives the impression that each book is recorded immediately after the events it describes, not umpteen years later as a senior wizard's memoirs: he's recounting his adventures as he digs through his old memories and re-lives them.
- That sounds almost exactly like the framing device for the Mists of Avalon series, where Merlin is telling his life story as he lived it using his magic.
- The narration does sometimes sound like they are written long after the events of the books. For example in Battle Ground he says that he doesn't remember everything about the chaos in Chicago, but that the image of a bloody crib gave him nightmares for years..
- It makes sense since they're from outside reality. But, just to note, its staying in reality through sunrise that's a big deal, not sunset.
- Doing magic underwater is not a big deal. Only running water grounds out magic.
- Not even all magic, either: the Fomor lord from "Even Hand" isn't impaired by Marcone's sprinkler defense-system in the slightest.
- Both sunrise and sunset interfere with magic, although it's true that a given entity/spell might only be susceptible to one of them. However, the lake definitely counts for grounding out magic; that was a serious problem in the fight with the Redcap.
- Iron is not particularly stable; if it was, it wouldn't rust so easily. The most stable elements are the noble gasses, on the far right of the periodic table. They each have a complete set of electrons in their outer shells. Iron is one of many transition metals, with gaps in the electron shell which readily bind to the electrons of other atoms.
- "Nuclear" != "chemical". "Stability" in one sense does not carry over to the other.
Now, expand on this: perhaps the earliest human casters were very inefficient in their use of magic, drawing energy from everywhere they could get it? This might have gross effects on the energy balance and physical rules of their environment, causing things like curdling milk and the differing colors of candle flames. As time continued, their improved efficiency resulted in less draw of energy from the environment, resulting in less of the classic effects over time but having more effect on the perceptions of people around them.
Suddenly, along comes the industrial revolution. Steam power, mechanical forces, and other scientific applications of physical forces change the way work gets done. Originally, technology was inefficient, requiring a lot of power to be produced in order to get the desired amount of work from machinery. Because of this inefficiency, the (by this time more efficient) casters' draw on the ambient energy of technology (heat from steam power, kinetic from clockwork, electricity from crude generators or power grids) would not have much effect, because technology needs a lot of energy before they can even have an effect.
Then, the efficiency of technology starts improving. Transistors don't need as much power as tubes, and microchips require a fraction of the power that transistors do. Miniaturization decreases the space in which energy has to play, further improving efficiency, reducing the amount of energy needed to accomplish work.
As technological efficiency improves, the effect of casters' draw from natural energy becomes more apparent once again. An electric circuit (using electrical energy) has minor blackouts or surges in various locations, causing leads to burn out. Transmission systems (using kinetic energy) suffer from too much drag or too much force at various points, causing gears to lose teeth. Credit card strips (using electromagnetic energy) becomes demagnetized because of the magical draw on them.
In the end, this might just mean that there is a link between magic and science, and that there might be a way to solve the Walking Techbane problem.
- Evidence for this includes Harry's belief that Older Is Better when it comes to reliability, especially his favouring revolvers over semi-automatic pistols. Revolvers might be largely immune to jamming, but mechanically simpler than a semi-automatic pistol they most certainly are not; with the way Harry's magic seems to screw up technology note his .38 would probably need major specialist attention from a gunsmith early and often enough that people would start asking questions and he'd be better off with something from the famously Nigh Indestructible Glock line. But Harry doesn't seem to know that much about the mechanics of firearms, and makes the common mistake of assuming that older = simpler = more reliable.
Among other things, this would account for the way wizards' side-effects have changed over the course of history. In ancient times, magic was thought of as something which fey or nature spirits had exclusive rights to, so wizardry has the same side effects (e.g. spoiled milk) that hostile fairies traditionally made happen out of mischief. Later, when monotheism had taken hold over most of the world, magic was considered the work of the Devil, and wizards developed "witch marks" because most people assumed (wrongly) that they'd be marked by evil.
The current techbane phenomenon dates back to World War II, when the advent of rocketry, jet planes, mass mechanized warfare, and especially nuclear weapons elevated physics from academic obscurity to the most awesome force known to Man. Magic, by its very nature, flagrantly violates the laws of physics, as understood (more or less) by the majority of the world's population: a violation which most people would assume have negative consequences. Hence, anything invented since WWII that's based on advanced physics - indeed, anything that someone from the 1940s would've considered "high-tech" in general - malfunctions in the presence of human-cast magic, which tampers with the very laws such devices depend on.
Much is made of Belief as a parallel and/or connected form of power to general magic (it empowers Michael, possibly the Shroud of Turin, and can drive off Red Court vampires). Wizards have a level of energy around them as part of their magic-usage, and Belief shapes what it effects and/or what it does not effect. Since plenty of science fiction and fantasy in the past century made strong and clear usage of "science versus magic" effects, it became part of the popular consciousness, driving wizards' ambient energy fields to express themselves that way.
- TL:DR Wizards in the Dresden Files have a Walking Techbane effect because fiction has made people believe that wizards have that effect.
- Most of the warlocks are specifically stated to have never heard of the laws before breaking them, like Molly and the Korean kid who got the sword in Proven Guilty.
Risen victims of the Black Court, however, appear to be fully coherent, calculating, and (barring contrary orders from their masters) deliberate in their actions, even if they'd only arisen a few minutes ago. They are also, without exception, evil to the core, and aside from an occasional twinge of envy (e.g. One-Ear's taunting of Lara in Blood Rites), don't seem to care in the slightest about their own increasingly-horrific appearance. They're perfectly adjusted to being monsters, and acting as such, from the instant their cooling bodies resume moving. While it's possible that an occasional victim's psychic trauma might cause them to embrace their new condition out of madness, having every Black Court "newborn" succumb fully to an identical delusion, irregardless of the victim's previous moral code or notion of what vampires are like, seems implausible.
However, there's one way that Black Court "recruits" could all exhibit such traits, without succumbing to insanity from transformation-trauma: if they're not actually the original people, but the shades of those people taking up occupancy of the person's corpse. Because BC vampires are genuinely dead, not merely infected like the Reds, their victims create shades of themselves which possess the same memories, habits, and grudges as themselves. Like shades, they believe they're the same person — hence, Drulinda's retained vendetta against her LARPmates in "It's My Birthday, Too" — but they really aren't, and like insane shades, they retain a facade of their original personalities, even as their original selves' human morals and preferences are supplanted by the cravings and callousness that typifies the Black Court. How better to explain this similarity, and lack of transformation-induced insanity, than if they are shades, equipped with a predator's instincts and possessing their own corpses? Bound into their one-time bodies, they are created anew as monsters, not crafted from the mutilated souls of the converted.
Small wonder that Mavra, working in concert with Bianca, could concoct a plan to raise up the Nightmare as an entity more powerful and deadly and divorced from humanity than Leonid Kravos could ever have hoped to become, in life: she's a product of the same sort of process, herself. Small wonder, too, that she forced Harry to search for The Word Of Kemmler rather than look for it herself: she's necromancy-savvy enough to have realized she's a shade, and might get sucked right out of her corpse and eaten if she came anywhere near the Darkhallow. As for the original Mavra's soul, it caught the train out of the mortal plane centuries ago, and would most likely be sickened by what her shade-ridden corpse has been up to, since then.
- Actually, Harry was a unique case, being a ghost with a soul. Normally ghosts/shades are just imprints of a person left behind after they died while the soul moves on to whatever afterlife there is in the Dresdenverse. Since these shades, made entirely of spirit and ectoplasm, could also interact with electronics and cars, it is safe to assume souls have nothing to do with this whole issue.
And just how protoAthena was born from Harry and Lash, Jesus was born from God and Mary. Or something. Because in Harry's case the child is a spirit, having both parents' knowledge (maybe), but Jesus was human.. mostly. And possibly had his father's knowledge, too, which explains how he could do the miracles he is mentioned to do.Maybe having a body, just like having wizard powers, is passed down from mother to child: a human mother has a human child. a spirit mother has a spirit child. Or simply because Harry's not female, he can't be pregnant in a more literal way.And, from a certain perspective, protoAthena can be seen as a small antiCh..Reverse-Jesus.
What are interesting to me are these details Three:
- The girl had to take him on Halloween night, which is acknowledged as the night when masks are worn and taken off, and power may be given and taken.
- The procession of horses the girl had to take Tam Lin off of sounds distinctly like the Wild Hunt.
- The girl's name is Jenny and she wears a green mantle, which Tam Lin asks her to cover him with to protect him from the Queen.
My interpretation of the story is this:
- On Halloween, power may be taken forcibly and permanently from immortals or the scions of immortals without their consent and consumed and added to one's own power.
- Tam Lin tricks the girl, Jenny of the Green Mantle, is tricked into taking the Winter Knight away from Mab on the only night of the year when doing so can make him permanently human again. In doing so, she takes up the mantle of the Winter Knight for herself.
- The girl covers Tam Lin with her green mantle to hide him from the queen. Having taken his mantle and given him hers, they have now switched places, and come the morning, that switch becomes permanent. That girl is now the Winter Knight.
- The girl is pregnant with Tam Lin's child. Whoever that child is, he or she is now born into the Winter Court of Faerie, the child of two Winter Knights. They become someone significant.
- I also suspect some connection to Jenny Greenteeth (though this part of the prediction is somewhat further afield than the rest of the WMG).
- This means that there exists some loophole by which a mortal can take the mantle of a Knight without killing them, and that's how Tam Lin escaped. Harry can therefore exploit that same loophole to get out of his Knighthood.
- However, this means that Tam Lin isn't a very nice guy (like he's worn the mantle of the Winter Knight for a long time or something), to trick an innocent girl into sacrificing herself so he can skate out on a promise he made to a High Sidhe (Maybe Mab is so impressed with him because he did it so flawlessly?).
- Someone has to take Harry's place if he wants out. He's going to have to wrestle with the morality of having someone else take the job instead of him.
- One thing to note is that the Dresdenverse might operate on the theory that the legend of Tam Lin, as we know it, is actually *not* the true story. Rather Tam Lin could be a variant on the older story of 'Thomas the Rhymer' - which has a rather different ending where the protagonist ultimately chooses to return to 'elfland' and is never seen again.
- The name of the woman who rescues Tam Lin from the Faerie Queen varies from version to version. Janet is quite common, as is Margaret. The forms in which he turns vary quite a bit, too, with many modern performances using the version in which, after holding tight to a wolf, a burning fire ("she held him tight, and feared him not, til he grew iron cold"), an adder or snake, and/or a bear, they finally turn him into a naked knight, at which point Janet wraps him in her green kirtle (in some "her mantle green"), and it's at that point she knows she's won him.
- Interesting note, saying that a woman "got on a gown of green" or was “as green as any grass" was a euphemism for her being pregnant. A majority of the versions Child collected have Janet/Margaret/Katherine pregnant during the rescue, often giving birth the next morning!
- Now that Sarissa is the Summer Lady, perhaps that is the "mantle of green" that will wrap around Harry and save him from the Winter Faerie Queen?
- When they first meet in the woods, Janet, often as part of a dare or in defiance of a ban, goes to pluck flowers and is chastised by Tam Lin for doing so without his permission. When she says she doesn't need his permission, he proceeds to, ah, proceed without permission, as well. Yet, afterwards, Janet sees him as her True Love and is ready to do anything to save him. Oh, yes, and in a fair number of versions, he is referred to as Thomas. Perhaps we're applying the song to the wrong brother? Thomas/Tam Lin rides upon a white horse, he ravishes the bold young woman and she falls in love with him despite getting her pregnant outside of marriage, and it's through her love of him that he is saved from the supernatural power that had control of him.
- So we need a reason why, despite having sex with all and sundry, the Raith vampires are not popping out kids left and right. A fairly logical guess would be that if the vampire is feeding from someone while they have sex with them (which Raiths will do the vast bulk of the time), then the spiritual violence inherent in the act of feeding renders the creation of a new life all but impossible. As a bonus, this would act as an additional level of natural selection for the White Court, as those vamps who can control the Hunger would be the ones to bear children, and in turn would presumably train those children to control the Hunger.
- Be very careful here. If "spiritual violence" were enough to prevent pregnancy, then rape victims would never get pregnant from their rapes, and we (should) all know that that isn't true. But it's a myth that was used by rapists to avoid justice —"See, it wasn't rape, she's pregnant so it must have been consensual!" The energy drain, yes, that would be more than enough to prevent a new life from taking hold, so let's focus on that, and not get into Unfortunate Implications territory!
- Thomas does say that the spiritual energy of sex is extremely powerful, because it's what's needed to generate a new soul. If one of the participants is a feeding White, that necessary energy is getting consumed rather than applied to the soul-creating purpose. As Dresdenverse humans are souls that happen to have a corporeal housing, any offspring conceived in such a fashion would be an inert brain-dead body at best, or more likely a miscarriage.
- Or maybe Li Xian used to play wargames to keep his mind off his stomach between missions for Corpsetaker, and name-dropped his boss's old boss where somebody from Games Workshop could hear him.
Note: Originally, Proven Guilty was supposed to go before Dead Beat, but the author was requested by the publishers that the seventh book of the series, the first hardbound release, to feature something truly awesome (You know what◊) and Butcher decided to swap these two books around.
- The Fool: Storm Front. The Fool represent beginnings and infinity possibilities. The start of the The Hero's Journey.
- The Magician: Fool Moon. The Magician represents action and initiative, but also immaturity. Like a mage who has just awakened to his/her power and lacks the wisdom to use it properly. Like the Alphas, Agent Denton and his people and especially Murphy.
- The High Priestess: Grave Peril. The High Priestess represents inner knowledge, contemplation and intuition. Figuring out yourself and doing things for your own reasons. Of course, this can backfire spectacularly. Like Susan deciding to attend to the Bianca's masquerade and Harry taking up the vampires' challenge and starting the war.
- The Empress: Summer Knight. Mab appears. 'Nuff said.
- The Emperor: Death Masks. Nicodemus appears. Ortega makes his move. Confrontation of wills all-around. Made even literal during the duel.
- The Hierophant: Blood Rites. The Hierophant is a tricky card to interpret. Etymologically, the hierophant a religious guide, very much like a priest, but more generically it represents the knowledge of one's place in the world and the responsibilities that go with it. In this book Harry discovers that Thomas is his brother and learns more about their mother. Together they confront the consequences of the past, finishing the work left by Margaret LeFay and defeating Lord Raith. Harry also gets a sneak peek of the Walkers, who will become a key focus of his duties in later on.
- The Lovers: Proven Guilty. Besides the obvious meaning, The Lovers represent choice. The conscious exercise of free will, the individual's consciousness finally surfaced. This is best exemplified with Molly, who leaves her parents' home to stand on her own and whose good and bad decisions move most of the book's plot. Probably the most important representation of this is the scene where Molly has to decide whether to go before the White Council to be judged by them with Harry stressing the importance of making her own choice. Nevertheless, Molly's crush on Harry does play a big part in her decisions, so there's that too.
- The Chariot: Dead Beat. The Chariot is the victory of the individual, but only a momentary one. Also, you can't get more literal about this than riding the Zombie T. rex into battle.
- Justice: White Night. Pretty self-explanatory. Harry and Ramirez seeking to balance the scales by facing the White Court vampires that attacked small-time partitioners in peacetime. It also applies to Lash (not Lasciel), who forever redeemed herself in Harry's eyes by doing the right thing and paying the ultimate price.
- The Hermit: Small Favor. The Hermit represents self-discovery in a sense more profound than the High Priestess does, but also represents the isolation required to achieve it. In this book Harry discovers Soulfire, the power of creation born from his own soul, but suffers great distrust by his allies (not totally unwarranted, but still). Ivy and Marcone also found themselves isolated in a more literal sense, an experience that will surely shape their actions in the future, as Skin Game proved in Marcone's case.
- Wheel of Fortune: Turn Coat. The Wheel of Fortune represents fate and the opportunities that comes with it. Especially chances outside of anyone's control. Here Harry gambles big and wins big. Not totally because of his own skill, but not entirely because of luck either.
- Strength: Changes. Strength symbolizes power with reason, power with a purpose other than itself. In this book Harry pulls out all the stops to save his daughter. The card's reversed meaning (misapplied power or lack of self-control) also plays a part here, with Harry failing to consider the long-term consequences his actions would have in his single-mindedness to save Maggie.
- The Hanged Man: Ghost Story. The Hanged Man represents self-sacrifice in the face of disaster. It symbolizes altruism and the chance of renewal, but it can also means the uncertainty that comes with dark times. After Harry's death, most of his allies step into his shoes to protect Chicago at a huge personal cost but feeling they're losing more battles than they win. In the end, Harry's ghost sacrifices himself to help them.
- Death: Cold Days. Death is a transitional card. The old ends, the new begins. "The Queens are dead. Long live the Queens". Also, most of the series-encompassing reveals happen here, resetting the board for new possibilities.
- Temperance: Skin Game. Temperance is the balancing of opposites, like Harry working with Nicodemus for a good cause, but it especially applies to Harry coming to terms with his actions from previous books.
- The Devil: Peace Talks. (Unpublished as of this writing) The Devil is another tricky one. This card represent temptations and the enslavement to worldly affairs, but also symbolizes access to what is hidden, the secret and occult. My guess is that Harry's problems with his Mantle with come to a head in this book and another big reveal will occur. The Devil can also represent a scapegoat, so it's likely that Harry will have to account for things that aren't entirely his fault.
- The Tower: Mirror, Mirror. (Unpublished as of this writing) Total and utter clusterf*ck. I mean, way more then the usual. The status quo goes down the drain or somehow becomes irrelevant. Time Travel or Alternate Universe may or may not explain this.
- The Star
- The Moon
- The Sun
- Judgment
- The World
- Jossed in that Mirror Mirror will not be the book immediately after Peace Talks, but Battle Ground (2020) will probably end up being just as much of a clusterf*ck anyway. The status quo has already started to go down the drain as of the end of Peace Talks.
- This would explain why human magic is usually but not always passed down along maternal lines. We know that human talents radiate trace levels of magic at all times, and that this magic can cause minor effects on the surroundings (the Murphyonic field, witch's marks, etc). So spending enough time in close enough proximity to a magical human, especially when you are very young and your mind and body are still developing, might be enough to alter your nature ever so slightly and make you sensitive to magic. Now, the mother is the one who literally carries the baby in her body for nine months, generally the one who nurses and otherwise cares for it after it's born, and even beyond that the mother tends to do most of the caring for young children. So the mother is the one who is far more likely to spend enough time in close proximity for this background radiation to affect the child. But there will be some cases where the father also spends enough time in close proximity to his children, so if he has magic it will bestow it on them.
- Take for example the case of Charity. She still had traces of her magic when she got pregnant with Molly, so Molly was exposed to magic and developed the talent (possibly with a little judicious divine aid). But by the time the rest of the kids came along, Charity had fully set aside her power, and no longer radiated magic.
- Harry comments practically once a book that wizards can live for three or four centuries if they are not killed first. Butters also finds out that wizards have a very low-level healing factor - one that works at the same speed as mortals, but keeps working until all traces of the injury fade away. Harry also often describes magic as the "force of creation/life itself", and has described the process of casting a spell as taking in magical energy from one's surroundings and channeling it to cast the spell. It is possible, even likely, that the very process of absorbing magic from the world bolsters their healing in this way, which in turn extends their lifespans.
- We know that the lust-eating Raiths have control over the porn industry, and there's implication that the phobophagic Malvora have some control over horror movies (with Madrigal, a phobophage despite being in House Raith, posing as horror film director Darby Crane), the despair-eating Skavis have some control over the travel industry. After all, what's a better way to make someone miserable than setting up what seems to be the perfect vacation, only to have a billion different things go wrong, from delayed flights, bad weather, food poisoning, horrible hotel rooms... the list goes on.