The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Souls and Ghosts.
Mira:
--- Quote ---Cats are agents of the Devil, so they all go to hell. (The first part was actually a belief during the plague).
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Yup, and a third or more of the human population of Europe was wiped out... :o
toodeep:
--- Quote from: Bad Alias on January 15, 2020, 03:54:46 AM ---"I think only souls can go to Chicago-in-between. Uriel hires Sir Stuart. Sir Stuart must be a soul." I don't find that logic chain convincing.
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Neither would I if I incorrectly distilled 4 known factual data points summarizing lines of evidence to support my interpretation down to "I think." I'll note you didn't address any of the actual data points as being erroneous or the logic that leads from them to my conclusion. Considering you obviously thus have a desire to not support the conclusion despite the weight of the evidence, I consider your lack of actual refutation as strong support. :)
--- Quote from: Bad Alias on January 15, 2020, 03:54:46 AM ---Who says Mort isn't the first ectomancer in his family?
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No one. But it does run in family lines, and Sir Stuart is an ancestor and he has lasted a long time, which might be facilitated by there being other ectomancers in the line before Mort (i.e. if there wasn't, Sir Stuart would have had a very long quiet soul-destroying existence watching over a bunch of descendants who he couldn't actually help/interact with before getting to Morty). Therefore, there is a greater than average (though admittedly 1% would be greater than average) chance that the line might have a predilection for ectomancy, and that might have included Sir Stuart himself.
nadia.skylark:
--- Quote ---Google? Really? That will probably tell you that spirit and soul are the same. Jim uses the terminology in his own way, he is creating the world and Ghost Story is where he really thinks it through. How he uses the terms in this book is leading not how someone on the internet defines it.
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You didn't read my post, did you? Because I specifically said "Unless you can provide evidence that Jim has a different definition," and yet, rather than even attempting to do so, your argument is "standard definitions should always be assumed not to apply, because Jim defines a small subsection of words differently." Tell me, when Harry's duster is described as black leather, should I assume it's actually made of blue silk and that Jim is just defining the words "black" and "leather" differently?
--- Quote ---That is a refutation on the idea that there are no exceptions
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Please stop insulting me. The fact that you feel the need to provide evidence for this (and yet not, apparently, for your theories?) shows that not only are you not reading my posts, you don't even think I've read Ghost Story.
--- Quote ---He did say it was possible but that the ghosts who claimed so where usually wrong even if they believed it themselves. Another reason why Sir Stuart wouldn't mention it and maybe even did not believe it himself.
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Could you (or someone) please provide a quote? Because you remember one thing while I remember another. I'd provide one myself, but I don't have access to my copy of the book right now.
--- Quote ---Later on he did transfer Butters shade back to his body so he certainly knows about the possibility.
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The Butters thing was his soul being forcibly removed from his still-alive body, not his soul coming back with his ghost after he had died.
--- Quote ---No but even if I did I would take Ghost story as leading. It is the book that really fleshed out his ideas.
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And apparently now you don't understand your own argument. The claim you made was "the word 'shade' has never been used to apply to any being except ghosts that also had souls and Sir Stuart's ghost. Therefore, the word 'shade' can be defined as meaning ghost + soul. Therefore Sir Stuart's ghost must also have his soul." I responded in part by saying "You say the word 'shade' has never been used except in the way you've stated. But you only said that you've looked through Ghost Story. There are other books that have ghosts in them. If the word 'shade' is used differently in one of them, then your claim of 'never' is invalidated, invalidating your entire chain of logic around the word."
--- Quote ---People who knew.
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Too vague.
--- Quote ---The word is not thrown around as a synonym just to make sentences run more smoothly.
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You claim this, but you have no evidence. I hate to break it to you, but your unsupported opinion is not, in itself, irrefutable evidence, regardless of what you seem to think.
--- Quote ---Not in my opinion, I did not get that feeling I sometimes have when someone makes an argument that really refutes what I am saying.
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So now you're saying that it doesn't matter what I say or how right I am, if you don't agree with me then I'm automatically wrong? Do you even understand how facts work? Hint: they don't change based on your feelings about them.
--- Quote ---“Chicago-in-between” was a very serious place, and I think a place only accessible to those with a soul.
1. Harry went there and we know he still had his soul, and while there he made the deal that put his soul at risk.
2. We know from Uriel that Carmichael and Jack are both souls because he says that those that are there are there to help them feel more comfortable about moving along to their final judgement.
3. Angels are openly active there as door guards, as are, apparently, very bad things. This differs from our reality significantly.
4. Harry saw no wraiths or other indications of the more normal “ghostly” stuff that then became normal stuff in in the ghostly world showed for the rest of the book.
What I infer from this:
A. Ghosts with souls come back in a not so rare situation. Remember Sir Stuart said, “Sometimes new shades show up claiming they’ve had a run-in with him and that he brought them back from the hereafter.” This would indicate that any returning having seen Jack really were Shades (ghost+soul) and not just ghosts, since anyone going to the in-between must have a soul.
B. To go there and do the job Uriel offered Sir Stuart would require a soul. Without a soul a ghost is just a worn photocopy of a person and lacks the free will that would be needed to have agency in that place.
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This is an interesting point. You may be right.
--- Quote ---I. Shade is not just used to describe Stuart, Harry, and Capriocorpus in the book. Sir Stuart says that many postal workers leave shades behind. You can argue that Sir Stuart lacks the knowledge/ability to differentiate between a ghost and a shade, but if that is the case then very few people have that ability and that renders the number of uses of the word that count to a too small statistical sample to use for a definitive purpose. (i.e. it could just be that those three people tend to use the term shade rather than ghost)
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Thanks! So it seems like 'shade' is just a synonym for 'ghost,' then.
--- Quote ---II. I would be most inclined to believe that Sir Stuart is a shade for two reasons. First, he is possibly the progenitor of a line of ectomancers. While nothing in his demeanor indicates he ever had any inclination toward those abilities, it is possible he had some natural talent that might have encouraged the creation of a shade compared to just a normal ghost. Secondly, he had a massive life span for a ghost. Literally hundreds of years as a fully capable active cogent ghost. This is almost certainly because of his interaction with living ectomancers which I’m sure helped provide him with additional “juice” so that is not a very strong point, but it is still a point.
III. That said, it seems like it offers an “out” to those that wish to avoid death and ultimate justice because if one just knows enough one can keep the soul from moving on, but I guess that has always been an option for people like Kemmler… until someone actually does stop them.
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Good points! Point II is in line with my suggestion that Sir Stuart's ghost is one of the exceptional ones that gains new power sources so that he can grow and change.
--- Quote ---Knowing Uriel? Everytime he turns up souls are the only thing he cares about. The only thing he thinks are really important. It is all about souls with Uriel. Everything he does is about souls.
Empoying Sir Stuart is about souls as well
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And once again, you prove that you haven't read my posts. Because I've already given at least two suggestions for how Uriel employing Sir Stuart's ghost could be about souls without requiring Sir Stuart's ghost to have one.
Arjan:
--- Quote from: toodeep on January 15, 2020, 09:05:07 PM ---Neither would I if I incorrectly distilled 4 known factual data points summarizing lines of evidence to support my interpretation down to "I think." I'll note you didn't address any of the actual data points as being erroneous or the logic that leads from them to my conclusion. Considering you obviously thus have a desire to not support the conclusion despite the weight of the evidence, I consider your lack of actual refutation as strong support. :)
No one. But it does run in family lines, and Sir Stuart is an ancestor and he has lasted a long time, which might be facilitated by there being other ectomancers in the line before Mort (i.e. if there wasn't, Sir Stuart would have had a very long quiet soul-destroying existence watching over a bunch of descendants who he couldn't actually help/interact with before getting to Morty). Therefore, there is a greater than average (though admittedly 1% would be greater than average) chance that the line might have a predilection for ectomancy, and that might have included Sir Stuart himself.
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I read it I just did not find it convincing in the light of the evidence I and others showed. You are too convinced that all shades are ghosts because google said so and explain everything in that light. You can do so but I do not think that is always the most likely explanation.
nadia.skylark:
--- Quote ---You are too convinced that all shades are ghosts because google said so and explain everything in that light. You can do so but I do not think that is always the most likely explanation.
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This feels like it was addressed to me. The reason I believe that shades are ghosts is not "because google said so." My reasoning goes thusly:
The word 'shade' is defined as 'ghost' in the dictionary.
Therefore, unless it is defined, explicitly or implicitly, to mean something different in the Dresdenverse, that is what it means.
The word 'shade' is not defined explicitly in the Dresdenverse at all.
Therefore, unless it is defined implicitly to mean something different in the Dresdenverse, it still means 'ghost.'
You have claimed that it is defined implicitly to mean something different in the Dresdenverse; however, you have not provided
sufficient evidence to show that you are correct.
Therefore, at this point in my logic, whether the word 'shade' is implicitly defined as something different in the Dresdenverse is
inconclusive.
Other people have provided evidence that shows that the word 'shade' is not implicitly defined as something different in the
Dresdenverse.
Therefore, the word 'shade' is not defined implicitly as something different in the Dresdenverse.
Therefore, since the word 'shade' is not defined, explicitly or implicitly, in the Dresdenverse as meaning something different, its
meaning in the Dresdenverse is the same as its dictionary meaning.
Therefore, 'shade' means 'ghost.'
If you wish to establish that I am wrong, you must prove incorrect some piece of this logic.
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