The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
Making magic stick against Outsiders [series spoilers]
Serack:
So I’ve made a couple posts touching on this material in other people’s topics lately, but I thought I might try to tie it all together in a dedicated topic with my patent pending formatting. (don’t worry the license is open for all to use if you want to duplicate the formatting ;) )-Serack
This is my take on why it's hard to get magic to stick on Outsiders unless you have a couple few centuries of experience with magic, and where the story is going to allow Harry to do it (or should that be “how the story allows Harry to do it”).
Jim has made several comments about how the upper bounds of magic are about rewriting reality.WoJ#1 This combined with the frequent in text comments about a wizard not being able to work a particular piece of magic unless he truly believes that the world should be that way make me think of all wizardly magic being about the wizard wielding his will to rewrite reality to conform to his idea of what it should be.
Now one of the significant things about Outsiders, is that according to the books, they aren’t part of our reality!XRT#1 It is my opinion that the whole objective for their assault of our reality is to subsume it and invoke their own upon it. Possibly as “Empty Night.” So when a mortal wizard tries to hurl magic at an Outsider, they are hurling their own revision of reality against another being whose very existence is its own assertion of a new foreign reality into our own. To accomplish this, you must either have centuries of practice at asserting your reality through magic, or have some undefined “Starborn” property apparently.
Now I'm not quite sure how being "starborn" makes you better at asserting your reality (edit: Although I do try to examine this more closely in reply #5), but it has been my hypothesis that Harry's experiences in GS certainly do. Excerpt #2 below seems to me to be a very key part of what Harry experienced in GS that IMO will be significant in shaping how he identifies with his magic in the future. In fact, Excerpt #4 is a passage from the next book CD where he seems to utilize this very lesson to an extreme that allows him to rewrite reality to his will vs the will of a primal force on par with “Let there be light!”XRT#3
Sounds to me like Harry is getting pretty dang effective at using his will to shape reality to what he wants it to be. Which will be KEY to his fighting the outsiders. In fact in Excerpt #5 we see how Harry countered the major Outsider psychic attack near the end of CD and yet again, Harry hurls his experiences and life into a foundation for a spell of his will that asserts his reality over the one the Outsider is imposing upon him.
Word of Jim quotes (hidden in spoiler code to condense the massive block of text) (click to show/hide)WoJ#1
--- Quote from: BookLover♥ on April 17, 2009, 01:31:09 AM ---What are the upper levels of magic?
There are none, if the person has enough juice. If someone was strong enough, they could completely rewrite reality.
--- End quote ---
WoJ#2
--- Quote from: jimbutcher on March 04, 2009, 09:46:48 PM ---
--- Quote from: Joefoe on March 04, 2009, 09:03:54 PM ---about the vector of power, ot was in a thread a few weeks ago, but is most likely buried under pages of stuff, I believe it was in TC chapt 1. Prolly best way is to look up what Jim has posted. He also confirmed that Mab is injured not crazy.
--- End quote ---
Very few characters in the books are.
Then again, "crazy" is generally considered to be a lack of connection with reality--and a lot of characters in the Dresden Files can MAKE reality. They might have a seriously skewed idea of the way reality should be, but if they can make it happen then they aren't crazy, per se. :)
Jim
--- End quote ---
Book Excerpt quotes
(click to show/hide)Excerpt#1 (bolding mine)
--- Quote from: Death Masks Chapter 29 ---"...It's not from our world"
"It's extraterrestrial?"
"You do not understand, Miss Rodriguez," Ortega said quietly. "Mordite is not from this galaxy, or this universe. It is not of our reality."
...I nodded. "It's from Outside."
--- End quote ---
Excerpt #2 (bolding mine)
--- Quote from: GS chapter 47 --- I gripped the wooden grain of my staff, recalling the feelings that had surged through me when I had summoned and bound the Lecters. I called on my memories one more time. [snip]long passage detailing memories both mundane and significant[/snip], and a thousand other things -- little things, minor things, desperately important things.
You know. Life.
Then I did something fairly nutty, as I gathered the memory for what I was to attempt. I just uttered the spell in plain, old English. The energy seared through my thoughts in a way that would have been damaging to a living wizard, maybe fatal. It seemed appropriate to use here, and I released whatever power I had left, clothing it in garments of memory, as I murmured the most basic of ideas, the foundation of words and of reality.
"Be."
My universe shook.
--- End quote ---
Excerpt #3 (bolding mine)
--- Quote from: Cold Days Chapter 31 ---Mother Winter was holding me down with pure, stark will. The leaders of the Red Court had been ancient creatures with a smilar power, but that had been a vague, smothering blanket that had made it impossible to move or act, a purely mental effort.
This felt like something similar, but far more focused more developed, as if thought had somehow crystallized into tangibility. My wrists and ankles wouldn't move because Mother Winter's will said that was how reality worked. It was like magic -- but magic took a seed, a kernel of will and built up a framework of other energies around that seed. It took intense pratice and focus to make that happen, but at the end of the day anyone's will was only part of the spell, alloyed with other energy into something else.
What held me down now as pure, undiluted will -- the same kind of will that I suspected had backed up events presaged by phrases like "Let there be light."
--- End quote ---
Excerpt #4 (bolding mine)
--- Quote from: CD chapter 32 ---I stopped pressing at my bindings with my limbs and started to use my mind instead. I didn't try to push them away, or break them, or slip free of them. I simply willed them not to be. I envisioned that my limbs would feel like coming free, and focused on that reality, summoning up my total concentration on that goal, that ideal, that fact.
And then I crossed my fingers and reached into me, into the place where a covert archangel had granted me access to one of the primal forces of the universe, an energy called soulfire. [/snip] I gathered up soulfire, used it to infuse my raw will, and cast the resulting compound against my bonds.
[/snip]
And in this case, in this moment, I somehow knew exactly what soulfire did. It converted me, my core, everything that made me who I was, into energy, into light. When I turned my joined will and the blazing core of my being together, I wasn't supercharging a magical spell. I wasn't cleverly finding a weak point in an enchantment. I wasn't using my knowledge of magic to exploit what my enemy was doing.
I was casting everything I had done, everything I believed, everything I had chosen -- everything I was -- against the will of an ancient being of darkness, terror, and malice, a fundamental power of the world.
And the bonds and the will of Mother Winter could not constrain me.
--- End quote ---
Excerpt #5 (Bolding mine)
--- Quote from: CD Ch 43 ---And I then drew a deep breath. This was not how my life would end. This was not reality. I was Harry Dresden, Wizard of the White Council, Knight of winter. [snip] lots of stuff about all the things Harry had accomplished and pissed off and such [/snip]
And I would be damned if I was going to roll over for some punk Outsider and his psychic haymaker.
The words first. Damned near everything begins with the words.
"I am," I breathed, and suddenly the ice was clear of my mouth.
"I am Harry..." I panted, and the pain redoubled.
And I laughed. As if some freak who had never loved enough to know loss could tell me about pain.
" I AM HARRY BLACKSTONE COPPERFIELD DRESDEN!" I roared.
[snip]a couple pages till the end of the mental battle, some of it about how insignificant he was compared to the power of the Walker[/snip]
So I looked up at that face and I laughed. I laughed scorn and defiance at the vast, swirling power, and it didn't just feel good. It felt right.
[snip]Harry hurls his defiance and the psychic attack is overcome, and Erlking says:[/snip]
"Well-done, starborn!"
--- End quote ---
Edit: OH NOES, I accidentaly deleted this post attempting to edit one of the replies. I managed to save the text, but not much of the formatting. I'll have to fix it later You rock TCF and Elegast!-Serack
Phariah:
ya it seems like Harry's time as a ghost was a major learning experience for him. he learned some of exerting his control over his surroundings like what was pointed out in the excerpt. so ya not only his starborn but his training in GS helps.
Serack:
I'm going to work on tying in the other 2 or 3 times Harry has countered an Outsider later
Elegast:
Interesting.
But how does it fit with the date of birth criteria?
Tami Seven:
--- Quote from: Elegast on September 10, 2013, 06:03:42 PM ---Interesting.
But how does it fit with the date of birth criteria?
--- End quote ---
Lash said Circumstances of his birth, more so than just the date IIRC. We can't consider the year as significant, not yet anyway, since even JB is having a hard time deciding on his year of birth. We do know his date of birth, who his parents were, possibly even approximate time of birth if my own theory holds based on events in BR and how Maggie died either while giving birth or just after.
We don't yet know for certain what other Circumstances may have played into this, but I believe that there must have been others.
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