Discussion Literature / SkinGame

Whoops. Missed recall on my part. never mind, nothing to see, move along.

If Harry calls it the Shroud of Turn in the book, we should not change the way it's referred to in the article, but an Artistic License entry explaining the error would not be out of place.

I kind of don't see the error, at least I need more context.

Is the item in this book the real Shroud of Turin, or Jesus' real burial cloth? They may or may not be a difference.

Similarly, are you saying the item in Death Masks is a counterfeit Shroud of Turin or that the real life Shroud of Turin isn't Jesus' actual burial cloth?

Please clarify.

More context:

Death Masks: The MacGuffin is The Shroud of Turin, a real-life artifact that is probably a hoax:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin

Death Masks was not clear as to whether this MacGuffin was legitimately the burial cloth of Christ, as is claimed by some, but was clear that the fact that so many people believe it is gave it enough power to be used a mystical focus for a plague spell by the Nickleheads.

Skin Game: The vault of Hades contains 5 artifacts from the crucifixion: The Holy Grail, The Crown of Thorns, The Spear of Destiny, the Placard of Christ, and according to the text, the 'Real' Shroud of Turin, indicating that the MacGuffin of the prior book was indeed a fake. (Whether we believe the relic housed in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy in real life is a fake or not)

In the Dresden universe, the cloth from Death Masks is really the Shroud of Turin (the cloth stolen from the chapel which is a hoax that dates back to the 1300s) but that cloth is not really the burial cloth of Christ (which would be 1300 years older that that). This item found in the vaults of Hades is really the burial cloth of Christ.

Could be unreliable narrator: Harry is wrong. Other characters in the book, too.

Could be Jim Butcher made a mistake.

It could be that there was a legit Shroud of Turin. That got stolen sometime after it acquired the name and the one in Death Masks is an imitation.

There's not enough context to claim a "mistake" here, at least enough to contradict the work if it refers to both as the Shroud of Turin.

Ok, so in the Dresdenverse...

1) The legit burial shroud of Christ somehow shows up in France in 1357.

2) After changing hands/locations several times, it eventually ends up in Turin in 1578.

3) Some time after that, this legit burial shroud takes on the name 'The Shroud of Turin'.

4) Some time after that, clever thieves replace it with a replica that carbon dates to the 1300s (one assumes the true shroud would date to the 0000s.) This is the best part of your theory, in my opinion, as the thieves, having absconded with the true Shroud, have replaced it with a forgery that suggests the legit holders of the Shroud have NEVER possessed the true shroud. Presumably these thieves have anticipated the development of carbon-dating, which may not be so unlikely when you consider that the god Hades himself is the one who ends up with the actual Shroud. Given the existence of magic in the Dresdenverse and the knowledge thereof, it would be difficult to fool the church into believing they held a fake shroud, because the replacement would seem to have zero magical juice, and magically-attuned people would seem likely to recognize one of the biggest focuses of holy magic getting replaced by a fraud. I believe there are entities in the Dresdenverse who could pull of this heist. Hades for sure, if he wanted.

5) Some time after that, (Death Masks) the fake shroud is stolen by the Churchmice to deliver to Marcone, and when Harry gets it, calls it the Shroud of Turin and thinks it's probably a fake, and only has ritual magic 'juice' because so many people believe it's the real deal. One presumes that this 'juice' would have to build up over years of veneration, and the fake shroud would be detectable by the church until that happens.

6) Later (Skin Game), Harry finds the real shroud of Christ in Hades' vault, and somehow deduces the sequence of events above, and knows not only that he's holding the true Shroud, but ALSO that it was once housed in Turin and replaced by the fake shroud in step (4). That's some fair bit of detective work. Seems more likely that even if Word of Jim intended (4) is true, Harry has no way of knowing and STILL should not be referring to the true Shroud as the 'real' Shroud of Turin. He should believe, as he did in Death Masks, that the Shroud of Turin was always a fake, and that this real Shroud was never located in Turin.

All that said, if the rules around here are that if there's some convoluted way the book's statements could be true, then it is true, then so be it. I won't try to make any edits.

iso, I can't begin to describe the problems with your grammar. Please see the corrections I made to your previous edits to get an idea of what I mean. As for this line, here's a better way of writing it:

• When violent shades are approaching in the Underworld, Harry mentions that they remind him of the "Lecter Specters" from Ghost Story.

Please, please be more careful with your grammar. If you have to ask in the Get Help With English thread or a discussion page before every single edit, then so be it.

I thank you for the correction. I was a bit tired when the thought hit me, so I erred on the side of caution.