The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Who is the most evil character in the Dresdenverse?
jonas:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on December 15, 2017, 08:50:38 PM ---Arianna Ortega was around a lot longer than Bianca, she turned her husband back in the conquistador days and he turned Bianca some time later. I see no reason to think Arianna is suddenly having a change in character to step up to replace Bianca, rather than Harry having got to a point of dealing with someone senior who was like that all along.
(My personal favourite notion for what's up with Bianca is that the Red Court deliberately picked their least stable lower-level type and rushed her promotion, before sending her to Chicago and again once she was there. In order a) that she will sooner or later get into the fights they want got into with Harry, and b) that the higher a rank she is in, the bigger a bite they can legitimately take out of the Council as wergild when she dies.)
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That depends, do you consider Ramps true immortals incapable of farther change or are they still technically 'mortal' to you? Because of they can't change, then a change that goes from lower level to higher looks a lot more suspect
--- Quote ---That would be pleasingly nasty, but I am pretty sure JB is not as nasty a person as I am. If he was, Mirror Mirror would introduce Harry to a version of himself who'd done everything better, made different choices and engaged in different moral growth, saving thousands of lives, and Harry would forever after have to live with the knowledge of what a screw-up he was by comparison.
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LMAO dude... think about MM from MM Harry's perspective, yes he is that vindictive! It's just not the Harry we've been following that will have that, though if MM Harry is actually original timeline Harry then... Pleasingly Nasty indeed lol.
--- Quote ---I remain entirely unconvinced Nemesis is a personification with any wants of its own, beyond "corrode Faerie constraints so that the Faerie in question can make choices that suit their own wants but are outside the bounds of their nature". (Maeve being a cruel type wants to get rid of competition, Aurora being an idealist wanting to end the conflict between Summer and Winter forever, Cat Sith being a proud ancient who would like nothing more than to decorate with the innards of the disrespectful wizard.)
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Being that Nemesis specifically made deals with all but Cat Sith, i'd like to point out a correlation here to Nemesis as a entity. (especially as you mentioned before N basically giving free will where none should be) Morgana Le Fay, the original source in the books of the Atheme and first known Nfection vector, was in lore known as a Sea Sprite. In what i'd consider germaine connections to the mythos as given by Mab to Disney, we have Ursula the sea Hag(sister to Trident or whatever, Poseidon) known for collecting Souls and making bad deals, for having usurped the throne from her brother too.
Now we can connect all this in verse to 1) the Fomor, and the connection that the overthrowing of kingdoms was of Atlantis itself. Possibly making her the 'Merlins Sister' archetype. (which might be more germaine for the source of Merlin then we think besides Atlantis. little known Dresden fact, he likes horses, creatures from the sea gods, clue for his heritage?) 2) IF she has souls or takes souls in deals, then she has Soul to spare to give to Fairie creatures whom are supposed to have none. Which would directly account for the newly proportional freedoms. She's giving them bits of soul/choice thereby altering their alloy. 3)this implies a tiered Nemesis whose in levels just as the fae courts are, Morgana being the 'Lady or Queen' to Nemesis propers 'Mother" status.(which might be less accurate as Mavra and others are part of it too I think, though Mavra might in truth be the original Morgana le Fay) Tier's could go Lachesis, the missing Fate between the two Nemesis, the 'ruler' and Morgana the Lady to come. This of course would start to have to do with the hidden meanings behind the labeling of the court's 6 queens. Those who were directly related to the Norse version of the fates and also being a metaphor for the fact their time has already gone for instance.
So personification is a thing for N, also... she's totally been trying to create than N universe mask too. My bottomline guide for a mirror is someone whose a bit crazy, a young woman, capable of great degrees of magic and who, like Lachesis the Chooser of Fate uses it to control and decide the fate of others
1)this why they tried to corrupt the Archive 2) what Titania and Mab would appear to be together, Kali. the destroyer and crazy magic lady. 3) it's why since her birth Mouse guards Maggie.(well, since her upheaval anyway, before it was there for Harry) 4) could be why Faith is going to come back as Femme Fatal
5) also part of what Molly would have been like without the events of PG saving her.
--- Quote ---CD does seem to me to lock down that the Courts are meant to work together towards an overall goal despite the opposition between them along the way, which was pleasing confirmation of what I have been arguing... since DB was when I came on the forums, but I have believed it since reading SK.
Ah go on, write it up nicely, then we can ask to have it put in the Reference Collection.
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THAT'S the part I can't do lol. Organization.
--- Quote ---I've done that a few times, though I fear most of them are long over the event horizon of post deletion (and I do wish I had asked to have my Harry Dresden: the Case Against thread put in the reference collection); give me a nice long afternoon with nothing else on my plate and I may do it again.
This and what you were saying earlier sounds like your master plan is taking Faith/Hope/Love and their opposites as defining polarities in the shape of the DV, yes ?
I am inclined against, because that would make Christianity more defining in the DV than I think Jim intends to; the text so far feels like he is making really remarkable efforts to leave it open either way whether the Christian moral perspective and cosmology is more fundamental to the DV than any other (and I can sympathise with that at a meta-level, on not wanting to annoy either Christian or non-Christian readers.) The Valkyries and the einherjar and the portrayal of Odin are entirely compatible with their cosmology and morality being as fundamental if not more so.
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Those 3 primary powers actually originate In Buddhism and Taoism. Everyone gets that wrong because they know the Christian perspectives better themselves, ergo that's what they see come out. Those Nails are actually preChrist imo. They are the Fateful Nails of Nortia, the Etruscan Name for the Greek Nemesis. They are the weapons of the first 3 horsemen, the last death uses the other three. Under this, the current 'horsemen' are the 3 KotC and Uriel, death, who literally utilizes the other three to insure the order of the current decider of the order of fate TWG and his pro freedom. So Christianity is big in it right now for a reason... but it's not as big as you think.(most tend to get insulted when I imply these things that they know as Christian might not be exclusively so in a fictional work)
--- Quote ---OK, that's an interesting take on it.
I don't find that particularly compelling because we already have other dualities that serve that purpose, though. Heaven and Hell, for one, Faerie and Fomor for another, Aesir and Jotun, and the existence of the Greek gods implies Titans.
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This is were you might benefit from knowing a little Taoism. You know the yin-yang symbol, you probably don't know using the I Ching and Bagua symbol those two poles are farther broken down by them and 'alloyed' over everything in existence? been combining that with the Maori(iirc) mythos about the dividing darkness that seeks to become one again(much as I ad libbed before). Technically. MS an MW are the original division from Wuji, no poles, no definition, one form, one energy into yin and yang, which is broken down on so many different levels until it forms the 8 manifestations down into the 5 elements... which ARE actually the same metaphorical/metaphysical ones used in the Pentagram Harry wears. it even has the circle and star to represent the creation and destruction cycles between the 5.
--- Quote ---I don't think the Old Ones of the Outsiders are going to turn out to be Titans or Jotun any more than they are Fallen.
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Not anymore no.
--- Quote --- Nicodemus and his like putting so much effort into corrupting souls means that at some level they have to see souls as worth obtaining. Pretty much the only absolutely solid fact we have about the reality outside the Gates is that mordite is (a sort of) regular matter out there, and mordite is equally lethal to ordinary organic life as to soulless evil monsters like the Red Court.
To loop back to the actual thread title for the moment, there are evils that are playing on the other side of the chessboard trying to win things over from good, and there are other perpendicular struggles going on across the same chessboard between different forces, some of which occasionally make alliances with the more good/evil forces. (Think of a game of Hope Verney four-player chess, or, if you want to move beyond dualities, to Orwell chess.) And over and beyond that, we have entities that want to burn down the entire chessboard and dance in the ashes. I don't believe that when Bob in GP refers to the Old Ones being driven beyond the Outer Gates he's referring to some sort of event in the mythical past of humanity,
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Consider they weren't considered Outsiders then for a reason. I need to get back to this later cause whew, a lot to type up and respond to
--- Quote --- because any large amount of mordite being around on Earth is incompatible with humanity (and we know the DV had an evolutionary-scale history rather than a young-Earth (or young-Yggdrasil) creation because of everyone's favourite tyrannosaurus); I believe he is talking about the Big Bang, and that the Outsiders are not our shadows, but the predecessors of anything resembling rational ordered reality.
I'm the last person who needs to be assured of that, sometimes it seems I spend half my posts pointing such things out....
I remember the former, and coolness, I'd not connected the usernames.
Oh, there are loads of things I didn't figure out on my own that seemed obvious once other people pointed them out (like for example the location of the Stone Table in SK and Harry's meeting with Malcolm in DB both echoing Demonreach) so I do try to be open to people figuring out stuff I have missed.
I'd certainly like to; please do start a thread.
That seems to me barely one step up from saying that every time anyone claims things are getting bad, it must be Nemesis. One of the things that was set up about Harry very early on is that he is familiar with genre fantasy and SF, that poem is enough of a go-to quote that I am not at all sold on it correlating with Nemesis.
That's the scale of syncretism I think Jim is largely aiming to avoid, btw; I see nothing to see he'd wish to offend contemporary believers in the Norse deities either. The Fomor are Celtic and he has put them in opposition to a version of Faerie that are more in a post-Celtic tradition than anything else; DV Odin is quite distinct from Faerie, and I suspect the Jotun to be equally distinct from the Fomor as and when we do see them. (Which isn't to say they might not find goals in common. Just like Mab and Odin do, or like that centaur in SK, who given the established reality of Classical mythos in the DV, now reads to me as a Classical expatriate living in Summer.)
How many times? The athame and Maeve, and indeed, given post-CD knowledge that Summer and Winter are working together, Aurora. And it's not as if she went seeking out the athame.
I think so too.
Not giving anything to distinguish that from Namshiel being her agent she wants to protect and conceal, IMO.
I'm not seeing Mab's reasoning for hiding suspicion of Namshiel from Harry if Namshiel is an enemy, considering how much she uses him against her enemies;and if Namshiel is an enemy, that also leaves the favour Mab owes Andruiel in SG as an unexplained loose end. So without definitive evidence either way, I incline for the explanation that ties up more circumstantial evidence.
That's kind of neat; I still think that was resurgent Lash, though, and I remain to be convinced Bonnie is not Lash.
Works for me.
Pfft. When new text smashes one of my favourite theories to splinters I abandon it without looking back. (Well, except for still being sad that Morgan and Simon Pietrovich were not a couple.)
Yes, but the thing that is absolutely key to my methodology, that I seem to have the hardest time persuading other people of, is that the holes are as significant as the clues. The patterns in what people don't say, don't think, don't know, are as important as what they do.
Look at the first two-thirds or so of SK, where Elaine leads Harry around by the nose (until he gets to the Mothers' cabin) in order to get him to steal the Unravelling. Look at SmF where we can see Harry's mind shying away from thinking about his blasting rod, sometimes accompanied by headaches, in places where he would otherwise think of it, even though he has no idea himself that that is going on.
That could be it, I suppose. I had not thought of that and I like it.
Tell me, do you reckon the Unseelie Incursion of 1994 when wherever-it-was disappeared for a few hours tied in here? I suspect that is set-up for all of Chicago falling into the NN during the BAT or the immediate lead-up.
It works for me without needing Nemesis at all, because so very many of the influences on Harry's life are trying to encourage him to give in to accepting dark power for his own selfish ends rather than reasonably doing good. SF has the moment outside the Sells house, FM has him nearly being corrupted by the hexenwulf belt, and in GP he gives in when he burns down Bianca's party and again when he kills Bianca. This pattern's been there since Justin.
That feels almost the opposite of how I read it, that it is causing evil by providing free will that should not be there.
Fair enough. I tend to read that voice as the first example we have of the insight Maggie gave Harry, which Lea does a Dumbo's feather job on him with in BR (note that the other time he figures something out that is specifically referred to as insight, it is working out Lea must have bargained with his mother, in SK).
No reason why they can't. I think this again is slightly more moving parts than my notion here though.
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jonas:
So I don't run out of space...
--- Quote --- I don't believe that when Bob in GP refers to the Old Ones being driven beyond the Outer Gates he's referring to some sort of event in the mythical past of humanity
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Not sure how to explain this one. Depends on how Narrow your Outsiders are... One part of it that's coming into play for the 'used to exist here'. Fearbringer is described as 'deeper' than Mab for a reasoning. Outsiders that we're having trouble with are by and large the spirits of Gods(which might be oxymoronic, as Gods seem to be spiritual first anyway) who died but who don't want to go away. The ones who are part of reality, as the seasons or remember by human history seem to be more inside than out. But there are those killed intentionally whose masks and power were fed into the stone table that have not faded because they are not forgotten by humanity, but who have only a consciousness, no power of their own, and the memetics of them are tied up into the courts as well. The Walkers and Nemesis are on this tier of outsider.
Consider outsiders coming inside under new forms and finding true purpose. Look at Mab's throne room in CD, it's a giants castle. She is the heir to the ice giants. the beings themselves may have retreated beyond reality, but it's because someone else had gathered up the identity and power for herself(which matches the edda's i'm told and the ice queen basically stomping Laffey's nutz for power). Satan I think did this, and the current outsiders have outsider via lovecraftian appearance because that's the current belief for 'outside' in the human mind. Previously Hell was outside reality, and certainly Jotunheim was considered beyond the realms in Nordic myth.
--- Quote ---because any large amount of mordite being around on Earth is incompatible with humanity (and we know the DV had an evolutionary-scale history rather than a young-Earth (or young-Yggdrasil) creation because of everyone's favourite tyrannosaurus); I believe he is talking about the Big Bang, and that the Outsiders are not our shadows, but the predecessors of anything resembling rational ordered reality.
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Some are, but what's NOT part of reality tends to be more complex and simpler than that perhaps. Specifically we have a woj the Eldest(including Lea) are actually a parts of the human psyche. The Shadow is a very large part connected to the subconscious which I think Nemesis represents perfectly. It's why MM Harry is Harry's Id, you could say Mab is actually Titania's Id, both brought in reality so that shadow doesn't exist/can't be occupied. MW too. and she's a prime suspect for being Outsider relatable. The balance is intentional. Also my point about the Balance between TWC's ideals and Lucifers' in the DF, they are intentionally opposite.
--- Quote ---I'm the last person who needs to be assured of that, sometimes it seems I spend half my posts pointing such things out....
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Me too lol. If we have the same data, will we come to the same conclusions lol?
--- Quote ---I remember the former, and coolness, I'd not connected the usernames.
Oh, there are loads of things I didn't figure out on my own that seemed obvious once other people pointed them out (like for example the location of the Stone Table in SK and Harry's meeting with Malcolm in DB both echoing Demonreach) so I do try to be open to people figuring out stuff I have missed.
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Oh yea, me too. Here's one since you brought it up, When Harry goes to the cottage and travels to the Outer Gates, they actually stand on the opening of the Lighthouse/DR to get there. Firmly planting the idea the sleepers are projecting themselves through dreaming to the outer gates to try and get back in. and with your example and the translation of Sidhe as people of the mounds it's possible all three are firmly tied together. Though how that translates is debatable, I've not had any epiphany to align it proper.
--- Quote ---I'd certainly like to; please do start a thread.
That seems to me barely one step up from saying that every time anyone claims things are getting bad, it must be Nemesis. One of the things that was set up about Harry very early on is that he is familiar with genre fantasy and SF, that poem is enough of a go-to quote that I am not at all sold on it correlating with Nemesis.
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It describes the inversion of time and the way the gyre will wobble do to natural decay.
--- Quote ---That's the scale of syncretism I think Jim is largely aiming to avoid, btw; I see nothing to see he'd wish to offend contemporary believers in the Norse deities either. The Fomor are Celtic and he has put them in opposition to a version of Faerie that are more in a post-Celtic tradition than anything else; DV Odin is quite distinct from Faerie, and I suspect the Jotun to be equally distinct from the Fomor as and when we do see them. (Which isn't to say they might not find goals in common. Just like Mab and Odin do, or like that centaur in SK, who given the established reality of Classical mythos in the DV, now reads to me as a Classical expatriate living in Summer.)
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Not sure what to say to that, think you have it a bit different than I do here. Jotun are not Fomor, Jotun are what became winter imo. consider if the last apocalypse simply set up the next one for this, and we're mushing the two together.
--- Quote ---How many times? The athame and Maeve, and indeed, given post-CD knowledge that Summer and Winter are working together, Aurora. And it's not as if she went seeking out the athame.
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I count Molly to, but that's just me lol. She was Nfected from breaking the laws and the fetch ate the Nfection. Notice after he eats her Scarecrow says he's served the queen of air and darkness since before human history? He is referring to the original. He's fearbringer using the minds eye as the mirror/beacon to find it's way in. That was the goal of the fetches, to fetch and eat her Nfection. which MW I think was allowed to release because... Mab had violated rules containing the Knight whose job killing Nfectee's is. One could say as the Falcon it's the Ladies job to find them.
--- Quote ---I think so too.
Not giving anything to distinguish that from Namshiel being her agent she wants to protect and conceal, IMO.
I'm not seeing Mab's reasoning for hiding suspicion of Namshiel from Harry if Namshiel is an enemy, considering how much she uses him against her enemies;and if Namshiel is an enemy, that also leaves the favour Mab owes Andruiel in SG as an unexplained loose end. So without definitive evidence either way, I incline for the explanation that ties up more circumstantial evidence.
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You lost me here.
--- Quote ---That's kind of neat; I still think that was resurgent Lash, though, and I remain to be convinced Bonnie is not Lash.
Works for me.
Pfft. When new text smashes one of my favourite theories to splinters I abandon it without looking back. (Well, except for still being sad that Morgan and Simon Pietrovich were not a couple.)
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No Comment, no comment...
--- Quote ---Yes, but the thing that is absolutely key to my methodology, that I seem to have the hardest time persuading other people of, is that the holes are as significant as the clues. The patterns in what people don't say, don't think, don't know, are as important as what they do.
Look at the first two-thirds or so of SK, where Elaine leads Harry around by the nose (until he gets to the Mothers' cabin) in order to get him to steal the Unravelling. Look at SmF where we can see Harry's mind shying away from thinking about his blasting rod, sometimes accompanied by headaches, in places where he would otherwise think of it, even though he has no idea himself that that is going on.
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My thing is information dumps on magical reasonings that actually describe something not mentioned. Like beacons in PG and wizards magic being able to summon Outsiders by being crazy enough in woj being why Warlocks are suspect. they create the mirror of their consciousness/beacon inside themselves through their own insanity, and it makes them more and more prone into being that thing as they use the magic. it's a slow possession/replacement.
--- Quote ---That could be it, I suppose. I had not thought of that and I like it.
Tell me, do you reckon the Unseelie Incursion of 1994 when wherever-it-was disappeared for a few hours tied in here? I suspect that is set-up for all of Chicago falling into the NN during the BAT or the immediate lead-up.
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I think it's going to be a clue for PT actually, I think Mab is going to close a circle around Chicago for the talks, effectively making it part of the NN and under her power directly.
--- Quote ---It works for me without needing Nemesis at all, because so very many of the influences on Harry's life are trying to encourage him to give in to accepting dark power for his own selfish ends rather than reasonably doing good. SF has the moment outside the Sells house, FM has him nearly being corrupted by the hexenwulf belt, and in GP he gives in when he burns down Bianca's party and again when he kills Bianca. This pattern's been there since Justin.
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Ah, in FM I finger the loups aura for making Harry almost give up on the way out of the Precinct, and the 'old' fireman as uriel providing a balance. The loup, being both mortal and spirit simultaneously gave his aura a human effect with a demigod oomph, it effected Harry directly.
--- Quote ---That feels almost the opposite of how I read it, that it is causing evil by providing free will that should not be there.
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See my Ursula comment.
--- Quote ---Fair enough. I tend to read that voice as the first example we have of the insight Maggie gave Harry, which Lea does a Dumbo's feather job on him with in BR (note that the other time he figures something out that is specifically referred to as insight, it is working out Lea must have bargained with his mother, in SK).
No reason why they can't. I think this again is slightly more moving parts than my notion here though.
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wardenferry419:
Jonas, I am going to save this and read it later. Too much info for my poor brain to handle. Is that okay?
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: wardenferry419 on December 16, 2017, 01:07:52 PM ---And, the fomor secretly encouraged the RCV downfall.
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I think I'd sum up my argument there as, secretly from the Red Court maybe, but secret from the readers not even slightly.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: jonas on December 16, 2017, 02:38:15 PM ---That depends, do you consider Ramps true immortals incapable of farther change or are they still technically 'mortal' to you? Because of they can't change, then a change that goes from lower level to higher looks a lot more suspect
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Maybe I am not clear here, then. I do not think there is a change going from Bianca to Arianna, because I think Arianna has been like that characterwise all along, it's just that Harry does not know anything about her until a few years after Bianca dies.
--- Quote ---LMAO dude... think about MM from MM Harry's perspective, yes he is that vindictive!
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Nah, our Harry has screwed up quite spectacularly enough not to be an annoyingly too-good example to anyone.
--- Quote ---Being that Nemesis specifically made deals with all but Cat Sith,
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Remind me where that is stated ?
--- Quote ---Morgana Le Fay, the original source in the books of the Atheme and first known Nfection vector, was in lore known as a Sea Sprite.
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Which lore are you quoting there? I've seen her done as everything from human to half-devil, and most later stories conflate Morgana with Morgause.
--- Quote --- In what i'd consider germaine connections to the mythos as given by Mab to Disney, we have Ursula the sea Hag(sister to Trident or whatever, Poseidon) known for collecting Souls and making bad deals, for having usurped the throne from her brother too.
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That feels a bit of a stretch to me.
--- Quote ---This of course would start to have to do with the hidden meanings behind the labeling of the court's 6 queens. Those who were directly related to the Norse version of the fates and also being a metaphor for the fact their time has already gone for instance.
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Gosh. That's quite a set of notions and I think I need to digest them for a bit before I can say anything meaningful to them.
--- Quote ---Those 3 primary powers actually originate In Buddhism and Taoism. Everyone gets that wrong because they know the Christian perspectives better themselves, ergo that's what they see come out.
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It would certainly be interesting to see more from those cosmologies on-screen in the DV.
--- Quote ---Those Nails are actually preChrist imo. They are the Fateful Nails of Nortia, the Etruscan Name for the Greek Nemesis. They are the weapons of the first 3 horsemen, the last death uses the other three.
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Cool. And that would fit in with my ongoing expectation that the fourth nail of he cross is due to show up eventually. (Mutter grumble Triclavian Heresy mutter; nobody as Catholic as Michael should be sold on there only being three nails.)
--- Quote --- So Christianity is big in it right now for a reason... but it's not as big as you think.(most tend to get insulted when I imply these things that they know as Christian might not be exclusively so in a fictional work)
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I am an ex-Catholic agnostic raised in Ireland, so it's pretty much impossible to offend me from that direction.
This is a lot to chew on; thank you.
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