The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
Team UMO: a theory, for reference purposes
magnusth:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on March 21, 2014, 11:06:32 AM ---Without realising he was lying at the time, certainly.
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And about my assertion that *Harry* has not been proven to be willing to kill himself because it was the shadow that manipulated him into it?
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on March 21, 2014, 11:06:32 AM ---Uriel also states, iirc, that this happens very rarely.
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I believe he also claims in the warrior that Harry does it far more often than most other people - probably at least every book. I haven't got my books with me, though. Someone check side jobs?
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on March 21, 2014, 11:06:32 AM ---I would entirely disagree with that; seeing Uriel well manipulate a particular situation of extreme significance does not make the story as a whole lose conflict, it just illustrates that the conflict will have to be at a much more sophisticated and interesting level than Harry then thinks it is.
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I can see this argument, but i'm not sure I quite agree. At least some of the conflict in the dresdenfiles comes from Harry's willingness to put himself in danger for others, and from his willingness to constantly make free-willed choices. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate higher levels of conflict, such as Harry's internal struggle with some measure of darkness, or the conflict of trying not to be manipulated. But in ghost storry, I think park of the conflict, at least, is "Will harry wear his soul/spirit/memories thin trying to protect his friends?," and i think that's a relevant conflict that looses weight if it's already been perfectly precalculated that he won't.
Quantus:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on March 21, 2014, 11:09:36 AM ---Nothing prevents Lea from snatching up Amoracchius when it is undefended, in GP; she is not required to give any balancing response to Heaven. I am positing this as a reasonable model for Mab's potential interaction with Uriel.
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Well, one could say she took it up in payment for harry trying to break his word with her yet again. He was able to make it vulnerable and she was able to take it because at that point it didnt belong to heave, it belonged to its wielder :P
But we're not talking about an oject that just happened to be lying on the ground, we're talkign about Mab's supposed ability to query Odin and/or Uriel about future events and plans, discuss possible outcomes, etc. Your model would by its nature have to be entirely one-way, and even then I think she wouldnt be capable of accepting it without giving something of equal value back, in the same way that Lea could not accept a gift from Bianca. Otherwise the other party would always be theoretically able to show up and say "remember when? You own me and Im calling it in"
vultur:
On the 'swiss army' bit, Harry has actually used Summer power once, in PG. Don't know if that's significant.
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on March 17, 2014, 03:20:12 PM --- We know from Luccio in SmF that Maggie was a political radical within the White Council, and at odds with their power structure; if she wanted allies elsewhere, the White Court seem to be the least monstrous available option.
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I'd say Faerie (with which she is known to have had dealings) would have been a much less monstrous choice (especially Summer) -- maybe not a wise one for most people, but she presumably knew what she was doing around them. (Although she doesn't seem to have made a very good bargain with Lea... but there may be something else going on there - eg Mab messing with things to keep Harry from being too protected and thus not developing his potential)
Honestly I'm kind of surprised she didn't end up a Knight...
--- Quote from: Quantus on March 17, 2014, 06:34:26 PM ---I would challenge this part, specifically (the bolded text). For one thing the "did she lie" WOJ clearly (to me) sets Uriel on a higher (Cosmic) tier, one which she apparently does not grasp very well. I think that the Mothers might on that tier and be aware enough for that sort of insight, but not the queens.
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I agree. Uriel may very well perfectly understand Mab, but given that WoJ probably not vice versa.
forumghost:
--- Quote from: vultur on March 23, 2014, 04:54:33 AM ---On the 'swiss army' bit, Harry has actually used Summer power once, in PG. Don't know if that's significant.
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Pretty sure that Harry mentions something about how the fact he used Summer Fire in PG is why the Gruffs can track him by his fire magic in SF, so there should be some impact.
huangjimmy108:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on March 13, 2014, 05:08:03 PM ---The "apparently against her wishes" there strikes me as rather clever.
Mab says she's cross with Uriel for sending Harry's soul walkabout. She also says that had Harry not made it through that he'd have been lost and gone forever. She puts those two sentences right next to each other and leaves Harry and us to infer a causal linkage. However, the grammatical form "had Harry died as a wandering soul, he'd have been gone forever" (I paraphrase from memory) is the same as "had I a billion dollars free and clear of obligation, I know exactly which good causes would receive the first $800 million of it"; it can be (and in my case is) perfectly true without requiring me to actually have a billion dollars, or for it to be a remotely plausible eventuality that I might have any time soon.
I think "She cannot change who you are" makes sense because Mab and Uriel see the universe in very very different ways. Mab cares about results. Uriel cares about choices. Mab's is an ethic of consequence, Uriel's one of free will. I'm not seeing that the ways the Winter mantle may change Harry matter a bent penny to Mab except to the extent that they make Harry more likely to do what she asks of him without qualm.
We have the evidence of SmF that Mab can seriously change the range of options Harry is aware of, and in so doing, guide the choices he makes toward a desired end. This does not seem to count as a violation of free will, at least at the scale at which Uriel cares about and is allowed/required to oppose such violations. We know from BR (and I can never remember whether this is Harry having breakfast with Kincaid and Murphy, or the screen with Harry and Bob immediately before; it's the conversation about Renfields) that it is possible for humans to be enthralled with such a fine touch that they do not even notice. Harry does not notice Mab messing with his memory in SmF; it takes Molly looking through his mind to find it, it takes Michael being suspicious that Harry has not lost Lasciel's shadow after all to motivate that search, and even when the mental block is found, Harry actively cannot resist or overcome it by will alone; that takes Michael's prayer, which looks to me like direct divine intervention.
The take-home message at the end of the day would appear to be: Mab can't change what Harry is in the sense Uriel cares about. But apart from that, she has pretty much free rein to manipulate what he does, which is what she cares about.
And what that achieves, that benefits all participants of Team UMO, is a Winter Knight who is willing to go along with being Winter Knight for the moment, rather than engaging in elaborate suicide attempts, because he is under the impression that Mab not being able to change who he is means he can meaningfully resist her wanting him to do something he finds objectionable. Harry saying "I will go along with this for the moment and make trouble if i see a need for it" is much more productive than Harry saying "I'm not doing any of this under any circumstances because it makes me a monster", and I think we have plenty of evidence for Mab's ability to convince Harry to do what she wants in any specific case where that's important (as seen in SK and SmF.)
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Complete agreement.
The "Mab cannot change who you are." might as well be translated into "You can still do all of winter's work and maintain the path of light at the same time."
Uriel only cares about the disposition of Harry's soul and free wil, while Mab only cares about getting the job done. It seem that Harry's beliefs that those two things are irreconcilable is somewhat in error.
Winter doesn't equal evil. Which is something that pre-CD Harry don't quite understand. He believes that becoming Mab's knight automatically make him a monster, because in Harry's mind Mab is a monster. Which is not nessasarily true. In a certain sense, Mab is the "Karren Murphy" of the supranatural world.
It reminds me about the scene in PG where Murphy mentioned how civilians viewed police work as brutal and uncivilize because they cannot see what is at stake. Mab and winter as a whole is somewhat like that.
In a sense, Mab have taken Murphy's role in the story.
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