The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers

is there power ranking thread on heavyweight characters? curious about Ivy

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huangjimmy108:

--- Quote from: Bad Alias on January 02, 2019, 09:24:14 PM ---I'm not sure if Ivy will grow much in strength as she ages. Probably the main reason that wizards and such grow stronger as they age is that they gain knowledge and understanding. Ivy already has both knowledge and understanding. For her to increase significantly in power due to learning, there would need to be a breakthrough in human knowledge, imo.

--- End quote ---

There are ample reasons to be sure of the fact. Compare the magic Harry do in book1 to what he can do in book 10 or 11, and you'll see a definite mark of improvement that cannot be explain away simply by better techniques and understanding. The difference in sheer amount of forces he commanded during the early series and during the mid and late stages of the series are staggering.

Stronger wizards also has longer lifespan which is confirmed by WoJ. The extended lifespan is cause by the magic changing the wizard on a fundamental level. The stronger the magic a wizard is expose to and the longer the wizard is exposed to the magic the greater the changes. Ivy may be the archive but she has a human body all the same. Wielding the Archive's mantle and wielding that much magic at such an early age must have change Ivy more than most.

The strongest wizards are known to reach 400 to 500 years old, while the average or weaker ones can reach about 200. Ivy already wield at least the energy level of a senior council wizard since her mother commited suicide and transfer the Archive mantle to her, which meant she has been expose to that level of magic since she is a baby, not to mention the magic she is expose when Ivy is still in her mother's woom.

Believe me, she'll get stronger as she age.

As for power rankings. This is my personal take:

Level 0: Vanilla mortals.
Level 1: One trick pony practicianers.
Level 2: Sorceror like Victor Sells.
Level 3: Wizardlings like book 1 Harry and book 8 or book 9 Molly. Let's put Bianca in here too.
Level 4: Wardens of the white council like Morgan and Luccio.
Level 5: Senior council members like Langtry and Gatekeeper. I would put Mavra in here as well.
Level 6: Nagloshi, Eldest gruf, Nicodemous and the likes of them. Practically well nai immortals with enhance regeneration, superb magic and cannot die due to age though still killable with normal means. I'll put Ivy in here in terms of muscle though she must be the top of the top in this group.
Level 7: Minor immortals. Fae ladies ans such. Elrking, Kringgle and so on.
Level 8: Mab, Farofax, Draccle. Sovereign of a domain in the NN. Archangels like Uriel is either level 8 or level 9.
Level 9: Mother winter and summer. Old gods Like Hades. If the likes of Mab are kings and Queens of a domain, those in level 9 are manifestation of the domain itself. There are the domain came to life or a life becoming a domain.
Level 10: TWG.

Bad Alias:

--- Quote from: huangjimmy108 on January 03, 2019, 01:25:06 AM ---There are ample reasons to be sure of the fact. Compare the magic Harry do in book1 to what he can do in book 10 or 11, and you'll see a definite mark of improvement that cannot be explain away simply by better techniques and understanding.

--- End quote ---

It might be entirely explainable by improvement in techniques and understanding. If his hits are getting stronger simply because he is wasting less energy, i.e., he is being more efficient, then his hits are getting stronger just because of an increase in skill/technique/understanding. We don't really know what is increasing the strength of his hits. His magical muscles could be the same size as day one. We know magical talents can wither and we know they can come back if not gone, but we don't know if they grow continuously with use or if they stop at some point.

There is only textual evidence about how powers wither, not grow.

Yuillegan:
To answer the OP - yes there is. Search in the Reference collection or WOJ.

Initially Jim said that Archangels and the Faerie Queens and Gods were of the same level. This was established in the early books but has essentially been retconned. TWG/Almighty is considered the top of the food chain (though what exactly it is has not been explained). Archangel are the tier below that (Jim called them VP's of Creation - these days in corporate they would more likely be SVPs and Officers, but I will get into that in a second). Archangels have been said to have the power to annihilate galaxies with their thoughts, take apart all the worlds everywhere etc. This is both WOJ and in the later novels. A particular Archangel (the Prince of Darkness) has been called an "officer" of Hell. This was met with some confusion by fans when Hades (the god) is considered the CEO of his own little company, but Lucifer is an Officer. In current corporate lingo, an officer is generally one of the highest executive positions (and includes the CEO, and sometimes Chair and/or President - the terms generally amount to the same thing). This resolves the confusion somewhat, that as a senior Archangel Lucifer is up the top, but as we don't know much about Hell or how it functions or it's purpose, we cannot understand why Lucifer might not be the Chairman. My guess is technically TWG is Chairman as Hell serves a purpose, and as constantly stated around the books, Power has Purpose.

Of note, recently we discovered that the Walker He Who Walks Behind is considered on the same level as an Archangel. This was odd as the other Walker, He Who Walks Before, was considered as "big as Mab, but unimaginably deeper". This suggests we don't fully understand how the Power levels really work yet.

The Mothers are also considered as high as Archangels, and have been described as orders of magnitude greater than the Queens.

The next level are Gods, Queens, Dragons, Angels, Fallen. Depending on how much they are involved depends where they fall but it is clear from WOJ that just because you have more brute force, doesn't mean you have more influence or are more deadly. Often the inverse is true. Compare Vadderung/Kringle and Hades. Hades might well have more muscle these days, Vadderung has seemingly sacrificed much of his former Power to retain influence in the world. On the other hand, his influence seems much more pervasive and dangerous comparatively. Drakul, Ferrovax and the council of Black Court Elders are on this level. Also to some degree, the Lords of the Outer Night. Various demons and Outsiders exist here and below.

The Leansidhe, Eldest Gruff, the Erlking and Kringle are the next level. I would say that Mouse when in the Carpenter's home and Ivy fall in somewhere around here. I put Kringle here as Vadderung's power and influence jumps around - he sits on a few levels depending on the mask he wears I suspect.

Below them is the Ladies and possible OG Merlin and perhaps Morganna Le Fay, maybe Kemmler. I would hazard that the Ladies have more brute force because of what they represent, but not necessarily more influential than the others. OG Naagloshii.

The Senior Council types and some others are probably next - maybe some of the Bigfoot types. The Cantrev Lords of the Formor are also somewhere here. Regular Skinwalkers.

Finally regular Wizards, fae etc.

Vanilla mortals - which as JB keeps stressing, should not be mistaken for harmless, especially when massed, planned, well researched and angry. We did invent nukes after all.

Side note - The Old Ones (possibly the Old Gods - there is some confusion on this) who a race of demon gods that ruled the Earth and were banished or locked away and rule the Outsiders, are not included in this list. That is because we know almost nothing about them. Bob mentioned they could cross a threshold and do all kinds of damage - which was considered pretty bad, he also compared them to a big old god. I suspect that en masse they could well challenge TWG himself. Why? Because of a little known WOJ. In it, he describes that Lucifer is nowhere near the biggest bad on the tree for the simple fact that he is FOR REALITY. Lucifer is having an existential argument with TWG that we can only vaguely grasp. But it seems his is Team Reality. The Old Ones wish for no more reality it seems. Which is why Jim considers Nicodemus more dangerous to reality than Lucifer, in some ways. Both Vadderung and the Mothers have described the twin events of the prisoners of Demonreach getting free and the Outsiders breaking through the gate as not merely catastrophic, but the end (or "everything stops. everything" as Mother Summer put it). The term Empty Night seems to be a big hint, as has been thrown around a few times in the series.

Hope that helps :)

huangjimmy108:

--- Quote from: Bad Alias on January 03, 2019, 02:25:11 AM ---It might be entirely explainable by improvement in techniques and understanding. If his hits are getting stronger simply because he is wasting less energy, i.e., he is being more efficient, then his hits are getting stronger just because of an increase in skill/technique/understanding. We don't really know what is increasing the strength of his hits. His magical muscles could be the same size as day one. We know magical talents can wither and we know they can come back if not gone, but we don't know if they grow continuously with use or if they stop at some point.

There is only textual evidence about how powers wither, not grow.

--- End quote ---

When it's come to Harry, the wizard thug, the claim that his increase prowess throughout the series is attributed completely to the improvement in his knowledge and techniques is absurd. This is Harry, not Elaine.

Harry's talent, if he has any, is the ability to throw lots of power around. For example: Harry notice Luccio's fire laser trick in book 7. This is probably the only real "arcane battle art" shown in the series. The rest are only rumors, insinuations and theoretical possibilities.

And how long did Harry take to learn to use it?

It ook Harry until book 12 to actual apply the technique in battle. 5 freaking years and he is not even proficient at it. He still need a blasting rod to use the art. This tell us that actually applying knowledge to directly amplify arcane strength is not so easily done, at least not for Harryand not in the heat of battle.

When we want to measure actual arcane muscle, the best way is to look at battles and especially evocation magic. Able to cast 2 spells in a single battle is stronger than only able to cast 1 spell in a single battle. It is as simple as that, no trick involve. Because in the DV, even magic has to follow the law of conservation of energy.

Things like enchantment to the coat, Little Chicago ans such are useful and indeed indicate Harry's improvement in lore and knowledge, but that fail to explain how Harry can go around throwing more and bigger spells by the day.

Bad Alias:
I think you're missing my point entirely. Let's say it takes 10 points of magic energy for Harry to do a 2 points of damage when he is 25 with a fire spell and he can use 100 points of energy before he passes out. Through refinement of his technique when he is 35, it only takes him 5 points of energy to do the same spell because he is only wasting 3 points instead of 8. He could double the energy he puts into the spell or do twice as many spells. But he could still only have access to 100 points of energy. Now the point system is just something I made up to use as an example.

What I'm saying is I think the vast majority of Dresden's regular increase in power is an increase in efficiency, not his being able to move more power. I think the amount of energy he can channel (without augmentation like ley lines, being on Demonreach, mantles, etc.) is probably pretty inelastic. Dresden repeatedly points out that he is more efficient with the power he has, that he will be more efficient with years of experience, and that those older wizards aren't really any more powerful than him, maybe even less powerful, but that they know how to use that power more efficiently.

A good example of what I'm talking about is the wards we see in Turn Coat on the lighthouse stones. In Cold Days, Bob says they aren't possible. That Harry couldn't fuel them with his power. Then Demonreach explains them to Bob. Then Bob explains it to Harry. Harry thinks:
--- Quote ---The spells powering the actual construction of it hadn't been, alone, too much stronger than some of the work I had done-but when they'd been interconnected with their counterparts across time, they'd fed upon one another, created a perfect resonance of energy that had become something infinitely greater than the sum of its parts.
--- End quote ---

Now Dresden is getting stronger in that he is getting access to power he did not have before, like hellfire, soulfire, and the Winter Knight mantle. Those types of enhancements are very unlikely for Ivy.


--- Quote ---the claim that his increase prowess throughout the series is attributed completely to the improvement in his knowledge and techniques is absurd.
--- End quote ---

First off, that's not my claim. I'm not saying a practitioner can't increase their magical muscles by using them. I'm saying I don't think that explains most of Harry's growth as a wizard. Second, it's absurd to say that you, or any reader, knows the mechanics of how a wizard grows in power. We can only guess based on what the books and Jim actually say.

The books say that that the Council doesn't take wizards seriously until they are about 100 years old. That's because it does take a long time to learn how to use magic efficiently. There is a ton of evidence from the books that wizards become more powerful as they age because they become better able to channel energy. There isn't a lot of evidence that it's from simply growing stronger.

Furthermore, Harry doesn't have a lot of training compared to other wizards. Justin didn't finish his training because Harry killed him. Ebenezar didn't teach Harry much magic because he focused on teaching him why to use magic. Harry achieved the status of wizard at 16 by defeating Justin, but since he was a minor, he had to go live with Eb until he was 18. That is a much shorter apprenticeship than most. As Mai points out, Eb wasn't really Harry's master; he was more of Harry's guardian. The point here is that Harry has a lot more to learn than most wizards because they would have learned more as apprentices.

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