The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
Grand Unifying Cosmological Mantle Theory [Series spoilers including MM WoJs]
Serack:
--- Quote from: sythmaster on June 22, 2014, 08:18:42 AM ---This is a great theory / topic thread so far. I'm still parsing some of it.
However, I do have this question/thought though in relation to how the mortals spawn off new universes based on decisions (I couldn't find the exact wording, but I know it was based off of a WoJ).
However, we also know that (from Small Favor / copy-pasted from wiki) ....
--- Quote ---A mortal's Name can change over time due to how their perception of themselves can change, whereas most supernatural being's Name is static and unchanging.
--- End quote ---
Therefore, is this GUCMT have a side effect of how True Names for mortals persist, or can the True Names of mortals be used by the higher ups as a way of "routing" across the various universes (think like IP Addresses -- JB was an IT guy after all!)?
It's a bit of a side topic (/WAG-ish?) but I thought it an intriguing concept. I think it has other implications towards the plot of MM - but that's definitely a WAG.
--- End quote ---
Interesting that you should bring that up. I was dredging through my memories of the Amber Chronicles last night and remembered that one of the shortcuts the immortal princes in that series could use as a shortcut for traveling across Shadow was a deck of hand painted cards with images of their royal relatives. Through these cards, they could speak with their relatives virtually wherever they were across the potential "shadows" and if the other participant was willing, they could reach through the card and be pulled across to where the other person was circumventing the normal tedious process of traveling across shadows.
So your idea about using true names as an IP to get to where they are across the various universes has a very solid ring to it because of preexisting ideas from that story. However, judging by a lot of the info we got from Proven Guilty (which I always suspected might be erroneous, especially considering we found out by the end of the book that events were happening differently from how Harry expected anyways) for many situations like this, it would appear that the being would require someone from within that reality to send the signal that they would have to track to get there, and then the door would have to be opened for them too.
Remember when Harry sent his will out into the NN in GP searching for the Nightmare (I'm rereading it now so the details aren't fresh yet) and had a hard time finding it, and then eventually latched onto it, but another entity broke off his attempt? I always found it interesting that mortal practitioners could send out a calling across all of the NN for a being and bring it right to the spot in the Mortal Reality they want it to come to.
Bakoro:
Are you familiar with Plato's Theory of Forms? And related, The Problem of Universals? Type-Token distinction?
Your ideas/theories sort of remind me of all that, and my own observations that the DFverse and Mantles share a similarity with those related ideas.
The Theory of Forms, basically, is the idea that somewhere outside/above this realm, there is a place with the perfect Form of any given thing. Everything in our universe is like, an imperfect shadow or mime of a Form. So, say there are apples in our world, all kinds of apples, well somewhere in the realm of Forms, there is the most appley Apple that ever appled, and all the apples in our universe are just mimicking the apple Form, and while we as humans can never truly Know the true essence of the Apple, we can learn about the Apple by studying the various apples. It could, perhaps be that there is a Fruit form, that all fruits are mimics of. So the same is there the Form of a Circle, a Straight Line, Thinness, Fatness, Justice and Peace, and so on.
The Forms are perfect and immutable. It is our shadow world that is transitory and changing.
The Problem of Universals concerns how many objects and things can share properties, and whether Properties are real things, or only mental constructs.
Type-Token distinction is simply the basic concept, or idea of something, vs an actual thing, e.g the Concept of a Bicycle as compared to a red beach cruiser or a blue mountain bike.
All sort of related concepts, but Plato was pretty insistent that Forms actually, literally existed somewhere, rather than just being logical patterns that both exist outside and independent of our minds but also in a way needing our minds to give them name/purpose/meaning.
So how that can apply to the Dresdenverse, I have thought that there could be the Form of certain beings/concepts, but rather than actual thoughtful beings in and of themselves, you have the Mantles, which are the blueprints or patterns that exist in our world - the purest that can exist on this plane, and those Mantles get taken up by beings. That's would be why the Mantles exert themselves over the wearers—they're trying to mold the imperfect malleable vessel to become as close to the Ideal as possible, thus destroying what the the wearer once was, but also in the midst of that struggle allowing the Form a fully actionable presence in this plane.
For Winter/Summer they are actually the same thing, in that one can't be without the other in any real sense. When it's winter in the Northern Hemisphere it's summer in the Southern (think birds migrating). It's always Summer, it's always Winter, and near the equator the two are less distinguishable. In our plane the two have been partially separated for whatever reason, but logically and spiritually they can't ever be fully separated or distinct. They can't inhabit the same body because they're the same and would reunite into whatever they were before, the reaction of which would just be too much for the mutable vessel. Other Mantles don't have this problem because they aren't inherently the same thing split up.
The Forms, being timeless, unalterable, and indestructible, is also in a sense impotent. They need to express themselves in our lower, but more malleable realm, to actually do anything.
I also recall in Changes Vadderung mentions that the Lords of the Outer Night had lost much of their power, both by being less worshiped and by the power of their blood being spread thin. Maybe they started having too many Tokens and not enough juice to power them all? And it seems to me like you had the Red King, the oldest Vampire went mad with his Bloodlust, he started becoming too close to his parent Form, and started losing the ability to act outside what he was, much like what the Winter Knight Mantle is trying to do to Harry. So the real power comes in staying in an in-between state— drawing on the Mantle/power of the Form but keep one's own mind/purposes. That seems consistent with what Mab wants in her Knight and in a way she seems to exhibit it herself (alternatingly wanting absolute control and subservience, but also setting up constant rivalry and opposition for herself).
The Higher beings, they have become tightly woven into their Mantles, their Forms, they can't really act outside what they are, they can't act quite as freely in our realm. That's why they manipulate humans, because the humans can still make the choices to win whatever game the higher ups are playing. I think Odin and people like him just found a way to maintain enough of their humanity/individuality to keep an element of choice, and sort of found a way to cheat the system.
Elegast:
@Serack
Could you give an example of what would disprove your theory? I don't really understand how to concretely apply it.
Serack:
--- Quote from: Elegast on June 22, 2014, 03:17:58 PM ---@Serack
Could you give an example of what would disprove your theory? I don't really understand how to concretely apply it.
--- End quote ---
Hmmmm, that requires a very different point of view. What a really powerful way to examine the theory...
I've always assumed that this WoJ (bolding added)
--- Quote from: jimbutcher on December 01, 2006, 05:06:20 AM ---
--- Quote from: Bob on December 01, 2006, 01:31:59 AM ---It seems to me that as long as the Church has some of the coins, those paerticular Denarians are neutralized. Doing a Mt Doom with the coins might free up the spirits housed within to act freely in the world.
--- End quote ---
Well. Not quite freely, but MORE freely, certainly. The Fallen bound in the coins are the freaking elite of Hell--everyone the big D didn't want trying to stab him in the back, basically. If they were suddenly freed it would do all kinds of horrible things to about a million balances of power, with repercussions that would last for centuries.
--- End quote ---
Meant that the events surrounding The White Christ involved a major rearranging of power. If this happened without Free Will as a fulcrum, then I'd say that the theory collapses.
An alternate litmus test. When Mab took over as the keeper of the gates, if that didn't involve Free Will then the same is true. Of course, when Mab took over, she and Titania might have been mortal enough to have Free Will until the mantles really set in and they stopped speaking with each other. That's assuming that Mab is the one who was actually wearing the Mantle of Winter Queen when the deed was done of course.
You just inspired a section I need to add to the 2nd post. Or a bit of extra to put into the further theorizing about Free Will section.
Edit: Also, you've got me wanting to decide if I want to commit to pinning down whether or not the "Lesser Mantles" can change actually change in and of themselves, or if they are immutable, have always existed an always will, it is just their prominence that can change. My section about the Fae courts uses "GUCMT" that way, but it hinges on taking one word from a WoJ out of context. That and Titania and Mab no longer speaking to each other, and Summer having a purpose that I can't make sense of for before Winter guarded the gates. Which of course wouldn't be necessary if Summer and Winter courts were less diametrically opposed before then.
KC makes a really great argument for immutability of the mantles. Although IMO the argument is incomplete since it does not account for comparably young souls possessing portions of "George and Edna's" power. But it makes me a little hesitant to decide one way or the other.
Mith:
--- Quote ---Meant that the events surrounding The White Christ involved a major rearranging of power. If this happened without Free Will as a fulcrum, then I'd say that the theory collapses.
--- End quote ---
Wasn't the Sacrifice foretold in the Old Testament? If so, then that may collapse your theory, since Determination negates Free Will.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version