The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Christmas Eve from JB's Twitter (no news, just fun)
Mr. Death:
--- Quote from: 123Chikadee on January 09, 2019, 03:22:27 PM ---Where are the people who, when they encountered the supernatural they ran towards it because they wanted to understand it?
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Dead or enslaved, mostly. Or, if they're very, very, very lucky, the supernatural thing they ran toward recruited them and brought them into the masquerade.
--- Quote ---Sure they'd get dismissed as out of hand nutters, but what if they offered proof? And not that bad lighting shaky cam, we can't see anything, let alone being in high quality stuff. Are ghost hunters not a thing in this verse and if so, they've never run into the genuine article?
--- End quote ---
What proof? The ectoplasm that evaporates to literally nothing in seconds?
--- Quote ---I just want a Bill Nye or Neil DeGrasse Tyson to break the masquerade with science. LOL, is that too much to ask?
--- End quote ---
Well, kind of yes. Supernatural creatures have thousands of years of experience and knowledge on how to stay hidden.
Tyson tries to "prove" Faeries exist? One of them gets to him, glamours him, and at best he's reduced to being on par with the "Aliens" *hand gesture* guy.
Or they kill him.
The supernatural creatures aren't just dumb animals waiting to be discovered. They're intelligent, amoral, devious, organized and deadly creatures that do not want to be discovered and take steps up to and including murder and mind-rape to keep it from happening.
123Chikadee:
Yeah, all the stuff you're saying is true. I'm just getting frustrated with how one-sided this all is in favor of the supernatural. I'm waiting for the moment in the series that's the equivalent of Chitauri opening up a wormhole in the sky and invading Manhatten and the subsequent defense of the world by the Avengers. Then humanity could actually get the show on the road in stopping baddies.
Bad Alias:
--- Quote from: KurtinStGeorge on January 09, 2019, 12:36:45 AM ---(I didn't laugh and I was very polite; because you never know how a mentally unbalanced person might react if you tell them that you doubt the CIA has satellites that can look inside their head and that can secretly control them.)
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This is my favorite part of your story. It's very true. Those people can be scary. Also, why was he checking trail cameras at night? (Because he was crazy).
--- Quote from: 123Chikadee on January 09, 2019, 03:22:27 PM ---Where are the people who, when they encountered the supernatural they ran towards it because they wanted to understand it?
--- End quote ---
They're with the Venatori or on the Paranet. Most people wouldn't try to prove they exist because if they learned enough about it, they would be scared of the consequences of saying loudly and convincingly "look at this [supernatural thing]" because some supernatural thing would likely kill them/turn them into a thrall. Dresden was concerned that the White Council, the nominal good guys, would get rid of people who learned about them. Also, that is exactly what Susan was trying to do. Basically no one believed her, and it didn't work out well for her. And if all else fails, the government will disappear whatever hard evidence, and witnesses to the hard evidence, does manage to make a big splash.
The masquerade in the Dresden Files is more convincing to me than in any other story I've come across.
123Chikadee:
I think maybe another reason that it's driving me nuts is because of how many times it's been reiterated that getting humanity involved is the equivalent of the nuclear option. I just want the narrative to put its money where it's mouth is.
To me, the masquerade for DF is at times both convincing and not in parts. I think, anyway, that a lot of my back and forth on that stance is that this is set in the 21st century and we have cameras everywhere and our level of technology and weaponry is getting farther along. We're also practically attached to our phones, which have become almost like swiss army knives in terms of function.
I know, I know, magic shorts out technology, the finer and more complex the faster. Why though-aside from being psychosomatic I can't see much reason-why wouldn't the reverse be true? We've seen from Butters that a level of magitech is possible, so yeah I wanna see more of that.
I'm probably in the minority here, but I think it wasn't a good idea writing wise to have magic short out tech if it the story was urban fantasy set in the 20/21st century. Though you can't always predict what/how things will advance in real time, I just think it could be easy to underestimate how some pieces of technology can become ubiquitous to a society. And I know this is probably unfounded at least for this series, but the idea that magic trumps technology and hardly ever in the reverse just feels like an author going, 'magic wins! Neener neener neerer take that stupid science!' but wow, this got off topic, sorry bout that.
forumghost:
I mean, why would the reverse be true?
Magic disrupts technology not because Magic is Better (the entire reason Jim invented the mechanism is because Harry having a cell phone would make life too easy) but because wizards lets of ambient mojo that messes with/disrupts stuff in the world around them, and the current iteration of that is "tech breaks easier".
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