The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Souls and Ghosts.
Bad Alias:
--- Quote ---Now that Harry’s died, that whole “Die alone” death curse, is that over?
Was he not dead enough? Yeah, he got out from underneath that one. Sort of. It remains to be seen if he’s going to get out from underneath the rest of it. Which I’m having a very good time plotting out.
--- End quote ---
- WoJ. He died enough, metaphysically, to have triggered at least part of that death curse. I'm pretty sure there is a quote from Jim about Harry being more important because he died. There's definitely the quote about how "now we can do the fun stuff" implying that Harry's death has opened doors for him. Doors Harry would probably wish had not been opened.
@nadia: Correct. It's also the one linked to in the OP of this thread.
morriswalters:
--- Quote from: nadia.skylark on January 12, 2020, 03:25:20 AM ---Nope. There's a WoJ saying specifically that ghosts are not souls.
--- End quote ---
Yeah I saw it. But either Harry was a ghost or he wasn't. Harry acted like a ghost. He was constrained by the rules that Jim laid out for ghost. If he wasn't a ghost what was he?
And poor Sir Stuart gets a job working in Uriel's house, but by that WOJ he's a footprint full of water, not the soul of a man known as Sir Stuart. Why hire a memory? Color me confused.
And the quote about souls and bodies was first published in 1892, six years before C.S. Lewis was born. By a Quaker. It's amusing. I work harder talking about these books than I did when I was in College. Which probably says something about me. :o :)
nadia.skylark:
--- Quote ---Yeah I saw it. But either Harry was a ghost or he wasn't. Harry acted like a ghost. He was constrained by the rules that Jim laid out for ghost. If he wasn't a ghost what was he?
--- End quote ---
He's a soul that an archangel created a ghost for and then allowed him to inhabit, as I understood the situation.
--- Quote ---And poor Sir Stuart gets a job working in Uriel's house, but by that WOJ he's a footprint full of water, not the soul of a man known as Sir Stuart. Why hire a memory? Color me confused.
--- End quote ---
Probably because he can help Uriel preserve or save other souls, even if he hasn't got one himself. Or because not doing so, after Sir Stuart's ghost was so badly damaged, would eventually result in said ghost endangering other souls--it certainly wouldn't be good for Mortimer if he ended up having to destroy Sir Stuart, after all, and Mortimer has (at the end of Ghost Story) just been pushed into being more heroic and helping save people (and note that this has happened as a slow progression starting in Grave Peril, caused by Harry (whom Uriel, in The Warrior, has already pointed out tends to do this kind of thing, and that in doing so is very much a warrior for Uriel's side), and that Uriel has acknowledged that A) the ending was part of his plan; and B) that Harry was acting as his agent in the matter--so I have no trouble believing that the whole thing was a long game by Uriel).
Yuillegan:
I will help out here.
The problem as I see it, is that this discussion has become one of trying to contain concepts that are inherently messy. Trying to define whether someone died or did not is a tricky enough proposition, let alone the mechanics of the afterlife. We are approaching a spiritual discussion, on metaphysics and abstract ideas, in a scientific way. Therein lies the problem.
If it helps, think of this a little more like quantum mechanics. Harry both WAS and WASN'T dead. He both WAS and WASN'T a ghost. It's all a matter of perspective. The answer is not quantitative, but qualitative. As Mab says, death is a spectrum not a line. Mortal's fear it and want it to be black, but death is a grey word.
The same applies to the ghost issue. Harry did become a ghost, sort of. The circumstances allowed for his soul, and the ghost, to work in sync. Which I suspect is why he was both as limited as a normal ghost, yet able to do things beyond the ability of a normal ghost. His soul is the x factor. Remember, several major heavyweight supernaturals were working together on this. Not normal circumstances at all.
So morris, I hope that answers your question. He was MORE than a ghost.
As for Sir Stuart, I think the answer is already in front of us. See the quote by nadia.skylark - ghosts that are exceptional can grow and change. Sir Stuart's ghost got a job working in Uriel's house. Sir Stuart was already beyond - wherever the afterlife took him. Uriel wasn't hiring a memory, but a shade of a great man, that had become something more. Consider the power and value of a human soul - especially the creative power. It appears in the books powerful enough to create more, and affect all of reality by creating alternate universes based on it's own choices. Not something even immortals seem to be able to do. Sir Stuart, perhaps by aiding Mort and Harry, and perhaps by attaching itself to new sources of power became greater than the original shade produced. This is why Uriel wanted him.
As for the quote, well done on digging up the original source. I merely took Jim's word for it, and he probably just took someone else's. The spread of misinformation is so easy. So thank you for finding that! But I think it doesn't really matter who said it first, in terms of this discussion. The point is that Uriel said it in the Dresden Files, to Harry. That is basically getting cosmic-level truth.
I personally think that Necromancy uses power from Outside in order to break the rules of reality. Which is why they can do all sorts of things when powered by a human. Hence the tricks of Kemmler and Capiocorpus. But they are very rare, for the most part it seems that beings when they experience irreversible physical death they don't come back. But to say it is impossible...well I think not. As one WOJ states, if you have enough magical power you could rewrite reality. So possible and impossible become somewhat irrelevant.
Arjan:
--- Quote from: morriswalters on January 12, 2020, 05:49:56 AM ---Yeah I saw it. But either Harry was a ghost or he wasn't. Harry acted like a ghost. He was constrained by the rules that Jim laid out for ghost. If he wasn't a ghost what was he?
--- End quote ---
He could enter holy ground
Because that is for souls, with or without body.
--- Quote ---And poor Sir Stuart gets a job working in Uriel's house, but by that WOJ he's a footprint full of water, not the soul of a man known as Sir Stuart. Why hire a memory? Color me confused.
--- End quote ---
Harry had memory too. They could be stolen and Bob helped him to get them back.
--- Quote ---And the quote about souls and bodies was first published in 1892, six years before C.S. Lewis was born. By a Quaker. It's amusing. I work harder talking about these books than I did when I was in College. Which probably says something about me. :o :)
--- End quote ---
You have your body, your spirit and your soul. Your spirit and your soul together are everything of you that is non material, your essence. Your body protects your soul and spirit in the material world and your spirit protects your soul in the spiritual world.
A Shade (spirit + soul) is in many ways the same as a ghost (spirit without soul) but those differences are important. It is the main theme of ghost story.
Wandering around in the spiritual world as a shade after dead is dangerous but it is still an option before you go on to the next stage. You still have free will and you can still affect your future and make choices. But your soul needs spiritual power to express itself in the spirit world and at the end Harry had lost almost all of that.
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