The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
Reference: X compared to Y = possible Discrepancy?
RobReece:
I've been trying to ask a question or maybe a possible discrepancy... In PG, When Harry goes to pick up Molly and then on to Michaels house, Mouse is with him. When Murphy takes him home after the phobphage attack, she lets him out early so he can walk Mouse. But where is mouse when Harry is at the convention that first day?
Serack:
Ok, it was brought up in another topic how this quote:
--- Quote from: WN Ch 39 ---Gates to the spirit world paid absolutely no attention to trivial things like geography - they obeyed laws of imagination, intention, patterned thought. Even if Cowl was back there, he wouldn't be able to open a gate to the same place as mine, because he didn't think like me, feel like me, or share my intent and purpose.
--- End quote ---
Seems to contradict several other experiences in the Dresden Files. In the spirit of trying to provide material for the X compared to Y = possible Discrepancy? reference thread in the DFRC I thought I might dedicate a topic to this to gather contrary passages, and then the reference can link to this topic as the resource for the possible "discrepancy"
Passages where a wizard expects to/manages to open a portal to the same place a different wizard did:
* Turn Coat
* The gateway that opens "a couple long steps from a way in the NN" from the back of Harry's storage rental hideout. Harry expects Morgan to be able to instruct Molly to open it without experience.
* The way from Chicago to Edenburg is used by several wizards, and Harry describes being able to find it because of the thinness there from previous use.
* Changes
* Every time Harry opens a portal using his Mother's instructions
*
--- Quote from: knnn on July 12, 2013, 01:06:32 PM ---Heck, what about Harry's basement? You've got to assume that anyone stepping into the NN from there had to run into Lea's garden, otherwise what's the point? How about Corpsetaker's NN defences? If a portal opens to a different place depending on which wizard opens it, how can you ever have a single point of defence?
--- End quote ---
It is possible that this apparent "discrepancy" could be bridged by the fact that the wizards in question did in fact share "intent and purpose"
Phaeton Seraph:
Presumably, some Ways, or parts thereof are "fixed". So certain intersections or nexuses would always be the same. Like the the portal Harry and others use to get to Edinburgh. Perhaps enough Wizards have chosen those points that a patterned consensual thought has fixed them in place. And possibly some are less fixed, but not too far off because the mortal world and the NN are too closely paired at those locations to be otherwise.
As for the less firmly fixed points, or making a portal in some random location, the two other instances you mention for Molly and Margaret and Harry:
Harry and his mother have a genetic connection, we could argue that he might have a tendency to think in a similar way. More importantly, by listening to her memories via the pendant and following her directions, imagination, intention and patterned thought have been guided to be the same.
Molly is Harry's student. As a great deal of magic is based on imagination (and will), Molly's imagination and patterns of thinking will be similar to Harry's because she has been learning to use hers from Harry so there will be similarity. Additionally, Harry said the location was near to a Way. Ways are fairly fixed. They're like NN King's road's. They're well established.
UncommonSense:
I feel like there are set doors and paths that can be used on a (semi)consistent basis. Which would explain how Harry's mother's ruby can impart that kind of knowledge. Gatekeeper alludes to something similar in CD:
--- Quote --- "Those of us who spend any amount of time walking the Ways tend to develop a certain
amount of camaraderie. We would have dinner every so often, compare notes of our walks."...
--- End quote ---
That's why when Harry pops through a specific alley wall, he gets to Edinburgh. But, like you said, if he randomly opens a way then all bets are off. Also, I thought I remember reading in one of the books some character stating that the ways change over time? Maybe I'm misremembering or thinking of a different series.
robertltux:
[invoke: Charlie Epps] The pattern of the ways is partly will and partly %hideously complex number theory%. Maggie senior figured out the Metacalculus so she could correct the 11 dimensional geometry...
Ways are created when hundreds/thousands of wizards/things have Intent close enough to Burn/Crease the Transtemporal Fabric (or one Wizard can see an existing "crease").
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