The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
The curse on MacFinn
wardenferry419:
Has anybody ever figured out what the Macfinn family did in the first place to tick off St. Patrick?
Rasins:
No, there is nothing in the books to suggest what it was.
wardenferry419:
I am guessing something of a predatory or bestial nature; where the punishment fits the crime.
Rasins:
--- Quote from: wardenferry419 on November 01, 2017, 11:42:32 PM ---I am guessing something of a predatory or bestial nature; where the punishment fits the crime.
--- End quote ---
Again, I'm not so sure it was a punishment. I know that's what it's been called, but that may not have been what it was.
If St. Patrick and MacFinn's ancestor knew that they were going to need a beasty like the Loup-Garu during the last battles, then it would have been a sacrifice, not a punishment.
Kindler:
--- Quote from: wardenferry419 on November 01, 2017, 11:42:32 PM ---I am guessing something of a predatory or bestial nature; where the punishment fits the crime.
--- End quote ---
It was definitely because MacFinn's ancestors harbored snakes.
Joking aside, I don't think that there was an atrocity or a great "crime" in the sense that we're thinking. It doesn't make an awful lot of sense to curse someone by turning them into a nearly unstoppable killing machine for three nights a month. Like, you wouldn't punish Ted Bundy by giving him body armor and a belt-fed machine gun with easy access to an orphanage, you know? Saint Patrick gave him extraordinary, uncontrollable power, and basically unleashed him on the world. If he was an awful person who needed to be punished for, say, murdering a village-ful of women and children, you wouldn't turn him into a new apex predator; you'd turn him into prey.
I think that the curse was done because the alternative was worse. And the whole "and your line will never die out" was negotiated by MacFinn as payment for services rendered. There must have been major badness going on in Ireland at the time. The Romans pulled out of Britain in the early fifth century, and there was quite a bit of chaos in the region; chaos brings supernatural predators (see my thoughts on Hastings, Starborn, and the deaths of the Winter and Summer Ladies). I think there was something going on with the Tuatha, Firbolgs, and Fomor.
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