The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Souls and Ghosts.
Mira:
--- Quote from: Arjan on January 18, 2020, 05:55:59 PM ---Peabody fooled and manipulated the whole senior council. She is not more incompetent than them. Luccio is smart and inspires loyalty, that is difficult to replace.
--- End quote ---
True, but what I said is also true.
Yuillegan:
Morris - are you seriously saying that you just ignore the WOJ and just invent your own canon? Do you also write fanfic? I mean seriously where does it end? Do you also just decide which parts of the series are canon to you as well and which parts are not? Just because you don't like something doesn't make it untrue or go away. It is this very phenomenon which allows fake news to spread, religions to split and people just in general live in a bubble. Just accept what Jim writes isn't always going to be to your liking. He writes the books mostly for his own enjoyment, not ours really. We are just an added benefit these days, and that is just fine. Also, if that is your method for interpreting the series, just picking and choosing what suits, how can you expect anyone here to take what you say seriously? For what it is worth, I think you have plenty of excellent insights into Jim's writing and you seem to be a learned fellow with strong critical thinking skills. So I have no idea why you would just abandon reason like that.
Mira - I think you forget that Luccio's poor decisions whilst in her new body were all influenced heavily, and sometimes outright controlled, by Wizard Peabody. You can hardly blame her for that. Before she changed bodies she was well thought of and respected. Her main failing perhaps was that she, like most of the Council, became arrogant and had believed the White Council to be more powerful than it actually is - hence why the Red Court were able to do such damage against them, especially early on. That and the internal destruction of the Council and external manipulation of forces against them. Although one wonders if there is a time when the Council hasn't had the forces of darkness trying to destroy it.
And I agree, her new body had significant challenges. It is canon that it caused her to be unable to make any more warden swords, and that she wasn't as strong or as skilful magically as she was. Not only that, it made her kinder and more pliable and more distracted.
Morally wrong it might be to grab someone else's body, however I am not sure that is relevant to this discussion. For what it is worth, Corpsetaker didn't seem unduly hindered by the body he took, and I suspect (but I admit I don't know for sure) that the necromantic technique that he uses likely subverts the normal issues. Indeed, only once Corpsetaker had crossed far enough across the threshold between Life and Death did it mean that he needed a significantly powerful magical body. Almost like being born. Perhaps after being shot by Harry, the Corpsetaker lost a lot of magical power or essence and required a newly strong host to get it back. I suspect it is all to do with the same limits on Mortals that don't allow them to see the way Carmichael does in Ghost Story.
morriswalters:
--- Quote ---Morris - are you seriously saying that you just ignore the WOJ and just invent your own canon? Do you also write fanfic? I mean seriously where does it end? Do you also just decide which parts of the series are canon to you as well and which parts are not? Just because you don't like something doesn't make it untrue or go away. It is this very phenomenon which allows fake news to spread, religions to split and people just in general live in a bubble. Just accept what Jim writes isn't always going to be to your liking. He writes the books mostly for his own enjoyment, not ours really. We are just an added benefit these days, and that is just fine. Also, if that is your method for interpreting the series, just picking and choosing what suits, how can you expect anyone here to take what you say seriously? For what it is worth, I think you have plenty of excellent insights into Jim's writing and you seem to be a learned fellow with strong critical thinking skills. So I have no idea why you would just abandon reason like that.
--- End quote ---
Obviously we read in entirely different ways. The author gives me a foundation, and then what happens between my ears is what makes a book fun for me. This post was me finishing my part in this discussion. Our Sir Stuart is a ghost. The real Sir Stuart has moved on. That is the WOJ in a nutshell. He's a memory of the real Sir Stuart. No WOJ disputes that and it isn't in the text.
And then there is what Jim says versus what he writes. In this case he muddies the water. Sir Stuart is an interesting character. He draws sympathy. Jim resolves the character by having his arc end at Chicago in between, having been given new purpose. For a ghost this really doesn't make sense. Jim tells us in the WOJ that ghost aren't souls. So there can be no redemptive purpose. Sir Stuart the character will haunt the PD in Chicago in between for eternity. He can't go on like Captain Murphy might if the details of his death are resolved. So your sympathy is wasted on something that Jim tells us isn't real. He isn't Sir Stuart. He's water in a footprint.
And the argument as presented here makes that obviously apparent. We want Sir Stuart to be something more. In terms of how that effects my credibility I'm sorry for that, but it is how I enjoy the story. Which is the point. I don't really care why Jim wrote it. He did though, and he put it up for sale. The money for which I assume, is his primary driver. And once that happens he loses control of the narrative.
For the Dresdenverse the question becomes, where does that, which makes the footprint, reside? If it resides in the soul and if the soul is what makes Harry, Harry, then where does that lead us? In the story Jim implies Harry is wandering around in his soul. Mortimer can sense him until Uriel enters the picture, at which point Mortimer implies he has moved on. For the record Harry refers to Colin Murphy et al, as the Purgatory Crew.
Corpsetaker on the other hand is ambiguous. He/she leaps from body to body. Did his soul take a permanent vacation the first time he leaped? The implication is otherwise. Since he/she goes to hell at the end which seems wasted on a ghost. So Corpsetaker would seem to have learned how to encapsulate a soul, which the WOJ implies is not possible. This is what I mean when I say that Jim muddies the picture.
I offer this as an explanation of what I see when I read. I don't ask you to ride with me, as I said this is my internal canon. There is another possible take on this that may suit you better. That the soul is different then what your memories make you. So in the case of the Dresdenverse your soul awaits your spirit in wherever souls reside on the other side. This resolves it within canon.
Arjan:
The woj is absolutely clear about ghosts. The book is also absolutely clear that not everything that looks like a ghost actually is a ghost. There is no contradiction here.
As I see it there are three layers. Your body is your outer layer. Your spirit is your life force, your magical power. It is also your spiritual body, it is what you see in the spirit world. Your soul is wrapped in your spiritual body and makes what you are, it is the core of your identity.
A Ghost is a sliver or a big chunk of your spiritual body left behind. A shade is soul with enough of its spiritual body to manifest in the spirit world. A Shade is basically a human without body. It has free will and so on. It can go on to what is next.
The book establishes that there ar no real ways to distinguish between Shade and Ghost except for the holy ground thing and the ability to return to a body. There are things that can point in a direction though. Being taken seriously by Uriel is one of them.
Jim often starts with a simple model that is refined later. He started with a simple Sidhe have no soul model for example and then he worked it out with Molly and Mab when Harry got closer to the Sidhe. Now he is not sure whether even Mab has some sliver of her soul left. Apparently even having a soul is not a simple yes or no thing, it can erode over time in some cases.The simple model is almost never the model that describes everything in the dresdenverse. If a book contradicts an older woj go with the book.
And woj about ghosts only say something about Sir Stuart if he is one otherwise it is not applicable.
Bad Alias:
--- Quote from: Yuillegan on January 19, 2020, 02:41:35 AM ---Morris - are you seriously saying that you just ignore the WOJ and just invent your own canon? Do you also write fanfic? I mean seriously where does it end? Do you also just decide which parts of the series are canon to you as well and which parts are not?
--- End quote ---
I find this all to be perfectly acceptable behavior as long as whoever's doing doesn't say "and you have to agree this is the way it is." Stating "my head canon" is basically stating the opposite.
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