Souls and Ghosts.

[Yuillegan]

  ^^ Glad someone said it!

Bad Alias, when you say "bring back life", do you mean essentially filling the body with life energy without a Soul present?

[Arjan]

^^ Glad someone said it!

Bad Alias, when you say "bring back life", do you mean essentially filling the body with life energy without a Soul present?

You need someone's essence. The word is used severaltimes in ghost story by Mab, Bob and Uriel and Harry

“Harry,” he said. “Open up. You need to restore these memories to your essence.”

“An intriguing argument,” said Evil Bob, “and potentially valid, given the penchant for independence evident in my progenitor.”
“By which you mean the original Bob?”
“Obviously,” Evil Bob sniffed. “He from whose essence I came to be. Your instincts for such matters are acute, Dresden. You have given me something to consider in the future, when my attention is not otherwise occupied by mildly effective stalling tactics.”

“You don’t,” Uriel replied. “But even if you did, I would point out to you that your spiritual essence has been all but disintegrated. You would not last long as a shade, nor would you have the strength to aid and protect your loved ones. Should you lose your sanity, you might even become a danger to them—but if that is your desire, I can facilitate it.”

“And now here you are,” Mab murmured. “Oh, the Quiet One angered us, sending your essence out unprotected. Had he been incorrect, I would have been robbed of my knight, and the old monster of his custodian.”

Corpsetaker had gone with her usual trick, forcibly trading bodies with a victim—and the manifested ghost body she’d been in had fallen back into ectoplasm the moment she wasn’t there to give it energy and form. Butters’s essence, his soul, had just been booted out of his body, and now it stood there, vulnerable and unmoving—brightly colored but fading away, even as I watched. She’d tossed a quick veil over Butters’s shade so that no one who might come upon her would see him standing there, forlorn and confused, while she drove around in his hijacked body.

And Corpstaker was back. The essence is everything fromyou that is not material and as long as it is not too far away you can theoretically bring it back into a body.

[Yuillegan]

This is very interesting Arjan!

And yet it doesn't entirely contradict anything either. I put it down to Jim's poetic writing myself. Because spirits like Bob don't have Souls, but are made of "spirit" which is sometimes a synonym for essence.

Uriel actually combines the term when talking to Dresden. Mab called the combination of his Soul and Spirit (which is what Dresden was in Ghost Story) his essence.

But do these being really understand what a Soul really is? I think not. I think Jim has a definition for his series, then he has a definition which some of his characters understand. And then he probably has a personal definition which may or may not be the foundation of all of that, but isn't really necessary to discuss.

But are you arguing that essence and soul are the same thing? Is a soul even necessary for a body to function (in the Dresden Files)? It seems that if you get shunted out of your own body then your soul isn't totally necessary for your body to function - a body might be like a car, it functions (by and large) no matter who is driving.

It gets even more curious when you consider that Jim has said you can lose your soul without any supernatural thing coming along. Yet Johnny Marcone, Nicodemus etc seem to have souls. And they would be some of the worst around surely? So what IS the criteria for losing your soul?

Perhaps Jim will never answer this.

But

[Arjan]

"Losing your soul" can have different meanings and I do not think the litteral meaning is always meant here. It is not like you litterally sell it and can get it back if your contract with the devil has some unsuspected loophole.

The other meaning is loosing who you are. Losing the core of your being. That is why Harry was afraid of the winter mantle, to end up as as somebody who was not recognizable Harry anymore, without his beliefs and values. But that is not a black and white thing because people change and not all change is bad.

I do not think Jim will ever explain clearly what a soul is and even if he does that will be only a point of view. Other characters in the dresdenverse look differently at the same stuff and they are not wrong either. I think different interpretations are possible.

I think essence is a broad term that includes everything of a living or spiritual being that is not material. Your soul is part of that but there might not be a clear line between that and your spirit which contains your memories and your life force and your magic. Your soul can not really interact with the spiritual world let alone with the material world without it and when Harry's shade was mostly depleted only Uriel could communicate with him.

There is an essence of Bob, of Mab, of Uriel, of Harry. Do they all have a soul? it partly depends on your point of view and your understanding of what a soul is. It is also connected with free will.

Not everything said even by woj is the absolute truth on that also because we are heavily influenced by the christian point of view because of Harry and that is not the only way to look at it.

But the essence of Mab is that she does not have free will, she has a purpose. If that is better or worse than free will is again a matter of perspective. Gard found her purpose and she is perfectly happy with it. Maybe purpose is a fulfilling of free will. Uriel has purpose too.

[Bad Alias]

Bad Alias, when you say "bring back life", do you mean essentially filling the body with life energy without a Soul present?

I mean whatever Kumori did in Dead Beat to the mobster with the assumption there wasn't a soul there. Souls don't linger after death. Ghosts might be created. The guy died. So if his soul had time to take the next step, either Kumori had to pull it back from where ever or give the guy life without a soul. To bring him back wrong in a way only a soulgaze (more precisely a lack thereof) would definitively reveal.

Alternatively, there's some time between death and the soul taking the next step and Kumori acted in that window, but what fun is that?

[Arjan]

I mean whatever Kumori did in Dead Beat to the mobster with the assumption there wasn't a soul there. Souls don't linger after death. Ghosts might be created. The guy died. So if his soul had time to take the next step, either Kumori had to pull it back from where ever or give the guy life without a soul. To bring him back wrong in a way only a soulgaze (more precisely a lack thereof) would definitively reveal.

Alternatively, there's some time between death and the soul taking the next step and Kumori acted in that window, but what fun is that?

Souls do sometimes linger after death if they see the opportunity and wish to do so. Harry did, corpstaker did and I am suspicious about ser Stuart.

Bob waved a hand. “Harry. Dead isn’t . . . Look, even by terms of the nonsupernatural, dead is a really fuzzy area. Even mortal medicine regards death as a kind of process more than a state of being—a reversible process, in some circumstances.”
“What are you getting at?” I asked.
“There’s a difference between dead and . . . and gone.”
I swallowed. “So . . . what do I do?”
Bob lunged to his feet. “What do you do?” He pointed at the table of Mother Butters’s feast food. “You’ve got that to maybe get back to, and you’re asking me what to do? You find your freaking killer! We’ll both do it! I’ll totally help!”

“Dead is a grey word,” Mab hissed. “Mortals fear it, and so they wish it to be black—and they have but few words to contain its reality. It escapes from such constraints. Death is a spectrum, not a line. And you, my knight, had not yet vanished into the utter darkness.”

The important one here is the difference between dead and gone.

[Bad Alias]

I'm not so sure about Corpsetaker being a soul instead of just a ghost. Harry is an exception. Sir Stuart is a suspicious case. Jim specifically said "souls" do not "linger."

[Arjan]

I'm not so sure about Corpsetaker being a soul instead of just a ghost. Harry is an exception. Sir Stuart is a suspicious case. Jim specifically said "souls" do not "linger."

As a rule they don't but there are exceptions.

Corpstaker went with the southward train:

I saw her try to scream.
But all I heard was the blaring howl of the horn of a southbound train.
And then she was gone.
“You’re right,” Uriel said, his tone filled with a chill satisfaction. “Someone needed to do something.” He glanced aside at me, gave me a slight bow of his head, and said, “Well-done.”

And Uriel was quite satisfied with that. I think it is a necromancer ability to linger after dead and return. Kemmler did it a few times and corpstaker was his disciple. What corpstaker made corpstaker was utterly evil but she had not lost herself in it, it was her. Uriel would not have been that satisfied with the destruction of a mere ghost, this was bringing a soul to her destination.

And Harry is a necromancer too, thanks too Bob.

[nadia.skylark]

I'm not so sure about Corpsetaker being a soul instead of just a ghost. Harry is an exception. Sir Stuart is a suspicious case. Jim specifically said "souls" do not "linger."

Corpsetaker was taken by a southbound train at the end, though. That would seem to indicate that he/she* is an exception.

*random point: do we know what gender Corpsetaker is? In Dead Beat he/she is always referred to with male pronouns by those he/she works with, even when in a female body. But in Ghost Story, Corpsetaker keeps being referred to as "Lady Shade."

[Bad Alias]

Forgot the southbound train bit.

I'm assuming Corpsetaker was a woman because the shade was, and the description didn't fit any bodies we've seen Corpsetaker inhabit. I assume everyone who referred to her as a he was first introduced to Corpsetaker in a man's body.

[morriswalters]

Why would a spirit need or have a gender?

[Arjan]

Why would a spirit need or have a gender?

Same reason it has clothes?

It is about self image. Corpstaker as a shade thinks of herself as a woman so she looks like a woman and is addressed as a woman.

Gender in the dresdenverse is not strictly a material thing. Your gender is a story. even (fallen) angels have gender in that sense. Lasciel is clearly a woman and Uriel a man. That might have something to do with the stories told about them or maybe it is just how they started.

[Arjan]

Forgot the southbound train bit.

I'm assuming Corpsetaker was a woman because the shade was, and the description didn't fit any bodies we've seen Corpsetaker inhabit. I assume everyone who referred to her as a he was first introduced to Corpsetaker in a man's body.

Lea is even more explicit:

“With significant capability,” Lea replied, stressing the phrase. “When Corpsetaker’s spirit still dwelt upon the mortal coil, even bodies with latent talent were hospitable enough for her to exercise her full power. But thanks to you, and like you, my dear godson, she has passed beyond the threshold between life and death. Now she requires a body with a much greater inherent talent in order to use her gifts once she is inside it.”

It is her, not just some reflection. The whole story Lea tells is very illuminating especially in the light of what happens with Harry later.

[Bad Alias]

I find Lea's statements much less convincing than the fact that "Corpsetaker" in Ghost Story went to Hell. It isn't likely that ghosts in DF go anywhere after "dying." Which is what makes Sir Stuart's situation so suspicious.

[Arjan]

I find Lea's statements much less convincing than the fact that "Corpsetaker" in Ghost Story went to Hell. It isn't likely that ghosts in DF go anywhere after "dying." Which is what makes Sir Stuart's situation so suspicious.

What Lea is saying is that the shade of corpstaker is corpstaker, her essence just like Harry is his essence. It is what corpstaker makes corpstaker. It reflects what Mab and Uriel say about Harry. It can not be more clear.

Mark that what she tried to do with morty did not differ that much from what she used to do when she still lived, only more difficult because she had passed that threshold. That is what Lea said. She had passed that threshold.