The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
Proof that Time Travel Harry did not fix Little Chicago?? (CD Spoilers)
beetnemesis:
Ms Duck, those are valid arguments... that don't really have a place in this thread. The reason is, ALL time travel plots tend to have those problems.
I feel like we're getting bogged down in trying to guess what the physics of time travel in the Dresdenverse is. Here's what we know:
1- There will very likely be a book that, in some way, deals with time travel (I believe the WoJ says something like, "Well, it's a rule, so you know Dresden is going to HAVE to break it in some way, right ? *wink*")
2- There are a number of obstacles/inconsistencies to overcome in order to fix Little Chicago. To wit:
a) Harry's threshold
b) Not be noticed/or mentioned later by Bob the Skull
c) Not be noticed/mentioned by Thomas
d) knowledge and ability to fix LC
Now, I think b) is actually the key to this. Why? Because Bob is loyal only to Harry. Bob will tell Harry anything EXCEPT if he can be convinced that that knowledge will definitely bring him harm to Harry (See Thomas's short story, "Backup," where Thomas tells Bob about the Oblivion War and swears him to secrecy).
Has it ever been confirmed that Bob can see through a veil? It seems like he would be able to- he can "see" magic.
My point is that, it would be extremely difficult and unlikely for a mortal wizard to fix Little Chicago without being noticed by Bob. One, because of the threshold- maintaining a veil while working on LC seems... foolhardy. Two, because no one, including Mab, knows Harry owns Bob. If someone, somehow, snuck into Harry's basement, they would feel no need to veil themselves (and again, it seems likely Bob could pierce a veil in any case).
So. With all that said, Time-Traveling Harry seems to be the most likely candidate. It's pointless to get bogged down in stuff like "Is Harry powerful or skilled enough to do that?" because it doesn't matter- there are any number of plot devices Butcher could trot out to lend aid to Harry in those departments. Uriel, Mab, the Gatekeeper, Odin, and more.
However, there isn't much Butcher can do about the facts I listed above. Any solution will have to have some explanation for them.
So, logically, that leaves a bunch of superpowers (Mab, Odin, Etc)... or a time-traveling Harry. Of said superpowers, it'd pretty much only make sense for Mab at that point in the story.
So, as it always seems these days, we're left with Mab or Time-Travelling Harry.
(I'm assuming here that if anyone other than TTH did it, it would NOT be through time-travelling. Mostly because that would be kind of needlessly convoluted. Imagine reading the last book in the series, and suddenly Mab says, "OK, before we go fight Outsiders, I'm just going to go back in time without you and fix Little Chicago." Not gonna happen. If time-travelling to fix LC happens, Harry will be involved.)
When confronted with the choice between Mab or TTH, I side with TTH... mostly because it would make for a more interesting story. Would it really be that interesting or shocking if, in a few books, Mab says "Fool wizard, of course it was I who repaired your focal device. I deemed it... neccessary." No. We the readers would just go, "Oh, I can kinda see how that makes sense," and then we'd continue on with the book.
However, if Harry was on some kind of epic time-travelling quest that spiraled through his history, and he was in the PG-era and had to find someone RIGHT NOW... it would be much cooler if he opened his door, talked his way past Thomas, went downstairs, fooled Bob (or, more likely, talked to him and then swore him to silence), repaired LC (which he could do since he already knew what was wrong), used it, and oh, by the way, took one of his reference books and put an old "Calvin and Hobbes" anthology in the gap where it would not be discovered for another year!
tl;dr Only Mab or TTH could have done it, and TTH would make for a much cooler story.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: beetnemesis on February 13, 2013, 04:25:45 PM ---a) Harry's threshold
b) Not be noticed/or mentioned later by Bob the Skull
c) Not be noticed/mentioned by Thomas
d) knowledge and ability to fix LC
Now, I think b) is actually the key to this. Why? Because Bob is loyal only to Harry. Bob will tell Harry anything EXCEPT if he can be convinced that that knowledge will definitely bring him harm to Harry
--- End quote ---
The problem with this argument is that quite a lot of the time when Harry goes into the basement Bob is dormant and Harry has to actively wake him. (Hence the "lazybones" and "sleepyhead" snark in the earlier books.) So Bob being awake enough to be a wtchdog is not guaranteed.
--- Quote ---Two, because no one, including Mab, knows Harry owns Bob.
--- End quote ---
Harry and Bob assume this because nobody's come for Bob or tried to kill him. Nothing that I can see rules out Mab (for example) knowing perfectly well that Harry has Bob but thinking that Bob is an asset worth Harry having.
Thomas has a key to the wards. So does Murphy. Anyone who can either convince or compel Thomas or Murphy to let them in can get at LC.
Cenphx:
@Griffyn--son of a (expletive expletive expletive). You're right. About 2 seconds after I got the reasoning of your argument about the energy at DR being an interaction with its wards I forgot it when replying to Hollorr. Since I do not currently have dementia, my only excuse is that the temporal echoes thing from an altered timeline makes so much intuitive sense to me it creeps back in when it shouldnt. My bad.
Cenphx:
@ beetnemesis -- re: the problem Bob presents for whomever fixed LC. Wyltok laid out a pretty good argument in another thread that Rashid got around Bob with foresight because he knew Harry would take him out of the apt. Re: getting bogged down in classic time travel logic problems. I agree that usually this would be fruitless. But Jim has started giving us working examples of time travel-esque moments (merlin building DR, tme dilations by Maeve) and some rules (from Odin). I was hoping we might be able to apply some of what we now know about TDF version of time travel to our theories which rely on time travel, but it may be premature. We may not have enough of the picture yet
Ms Duck:
all these were solved in either CD or GS:
a) Harry's threshold
-- gets outright lampshaded by cat sith
b) Not be noticed/or mentioned later by Bob the Skull
-- also lampshaded in cold days. Mab always knew bob was there; Harry notes this in CD
c) Not be noticed/mentioned by Thomas
-- she can veil. walk thru walls. turn into air. not seeing the problem ..
-- also lampshaded in GS and CD. Mab went into his apartments, multiple times, as part of doing Lea's Job. neither Harry no Thomas ever noticed
-- note her remaking his apartment in perfect detail in CD
-- also the Calvin and Hobbes book
d) knowledge and ability to fix LC
-- It's Mab?? That's like saying Godzilla doesn't have the knowledge and ability to step on a Yugo. ;)
@Neuro- My point is that in a universe where free will does exist, every time you travel back in time it resets the clock- and now people have the options to make all new decisions. In a non deterministic universe, all new random events can occur.
I don't think a stable time loop is possible in the Dresden verse. which is ironic, as I suggested it years before anyone else here did, that I know of. But given the things Odin and Uriel have said, I now think I was very very wrong.
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