The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Bloodlines
Snark Knight:
--- Quote from: g33k on March 25, 2020, 09:09:37 AM ---I guess it's time for me to trot out my own personal WAG here...
Harry is a blood relative (a relatively close one) of >Heinrich Kemmler<. His bloodline is intimately linked to >necromancy<.
--- End quote ---
Is bloodline still important when you're swapping bodies on the regular?
Yuillegan:
SK - I quite agree. Dark is amazing. But I thought it probably wasn't good for Bad Alias, considering the previous comment about disliking Time Travel stories. And that's an interesting counter to the bloodline theory i.e. how does body-swapping fit?
My guess is that because blood and spirit are somehow directly related in the Dresden Files (we learn about this several times), I guess that your spirit inhabiting a new vessel might change the blood's "magical" properties to suit the invading being. Zelazny talks about this in Lord of Light where each "god" changes their new body to resemble the old one, because the true "self" (atman) is made of a chemical-electric field and doesn't change, whereas the body is more malleable.
The other possibility is that body-swappers can only pick magically significant vessels, the stronger the better. But the Corpsetakers form that we meet it in seems to be weak magically, as it limited Luccio (who doesn't appear to have Corpsetakers tricks to overcome those limitations, as Corpsetaker did not appear overly limited in that vessel).
KurtinStGeorge - I am going to have to disagree with you there. I think it is highly likely Abdul Alhazred will become more than a background mention. He wrote the book, literally, on Outsiders and Old Ones. If you see my new thread about similarities between Butcher and Lovecraft and Zelazny, you might change your mind. The other thing I think people have failed to consider is whether Rashid is OUR Rashid i.e. is he the one from this Time, even this Universe? Could also be a solution to him being a thousand years old. Odin might not be the progenitor of Harry's bloodline, but he is the spiritual one at least (considering he taught Merlin, and Merlin's line of masters and apprentices stretches all the way down to Eb and Harry). Odin is also often known as the All-father, and he sired many gods and beings. I don't think it is mad to think that he sired Harry's bloodline. Far more difficult to tell is whether he is also Harry or Merlin or both. That's why its a WAG!
Morris - some versions indeed have Merlin go to sleep, often by trickery and entombed in crystal beneath a lake. Hence why so many think he is in Demonreach. In some it is Morgan, in the earliest version I think it is Nimue (the original Lady of the Lake). But I think you should consider the line "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange Aeons even Death may die" and revisit the idea about Merlin's fate.
Fox - Perhaps you are right and this interview isn't strong evidence of Harry's ancestry. But we do know that he is starborn, so I daresay that in pure D&D terms he is more a Warlock or Sorcerer than Wizard. So I tend to think of this interview as marrying up the conflicting builds.
G33k - Great WAG - very enjoyable! I think there is definitely something weird how Harry could just raise a Tyrannosaurus Rex with no training, or use ghosts as combat magic in Grave Peril. Jim has tried to convince us that there were special circumstances around the veil, or that Harry is just extra strong. But Evil Bob gives it away - he senses the True Magic in Dresden. Whether he is related to Kemmler or whether he just has the same special background remains to be seen. But I do think Harry has a special connection to Necromancy.
Bad Alias:
--- Quote from: Yuillegan on April 03, 2020, 10:45:52 PM ---But I thought it probably wasn't good for Bad Alias, considering the previous comment about disliking Time Travel stories.
--- End quote ---
It's not that I don't like time travel stories. It's that I don't like pointless incest (or maybe incest being the point?) time travel stories. Also really poorly done time travel stories. I do think time travel stories are hard to do without accidentally breaking your own rules. I have a hard time thinking of a well known time travel centered story that doesn't have at least a few internal logic problems.
--- Quote from: Yuillegan on April 03, 2020, 10:45:52 PM ---I don't think it is mad to think that he [Odin] sired Harry's bloodline.
--- End quote ---
It's my favorite barely supported WAG. Emphasis on guess. I admit the evidence for it is exceptionally thin.
morriswalters:
You should consider that Rashid may only age when he leaves the Gates and comes to the real world, if he ages at all. This could be a property of the Gates themselves. If the Gates guard reality and time exists only in this Universe time may not pass at the gates at all.
It really doesn't matter what the mythology of Merlin is. You can make anything out of it you want, if your mind is as fertile as Jim's. He's telegraphed two possible time travel scenarios. And thrown out some pretty big clues. He's pushed the idea of cause and effect being pretty important and suggested in Cold Days that Harry had already saved the prison before the fact.
Breaking cause and effect is what creates bad time travel stories. You can't make up a rule that can make it make sense. And going back in time to bang your many greats grandmother is one of the worst. It isn't even incest. But it does break cause and effect.
Here's a silly WAG. One day Harry wakes up in Chicago and the island is no longer there. In the time after that moment Harry is attacked by all the Gods and Monsters that he thought existed in Demonreach. Hilarity ensues and Harry and his allies create the summoning circle and the prison in the past and send back the Monsters and Dark Gods. So in post BAT because they got sent back in time and Demonreach doesn't exist in that present. In future Chicago there are no Dark Gods and Monsters. There is no evil ley line in the lake. The island no longer exists. And because the prison doesn't exist in the future the creatures that exist in it are locked out of the future forever if they don't escape in the past. Which they never do, because well, they didn't. This is a reverse paradox. :o
Bad Alias:
--- Quote from: morriswalters on April 04, 2020, 04:19:59 AM ---[1]You should consider that Rashid may only age when he leaves the Gates and comes to the real world, if he ages at all. This could be a property of the Gates themselves. If the Gates guard reality and time exists only in this Universe time may not pass at the gates at all.
...
[2]Breaking cause and effect is what creates bad time travel stories. You can't make up a rule that can make it make sense. [3]And going back in time to bang your many greats grandmother is one of the worst. It isn't even incest. But it does break cause and effect.
[4]Here's a silly WAG. One day Harry wakes up in Chicago and the island is no longer there. In the time after that moment Harry is attacked by all the Gods and Monsters that he thought existed in Demonreach. Hilarity ensues and Harry and his allies create the summoning circle and the prison in the past and send back the Monsters and Dark Gods. So in post BAT because they got sent back in time and Demonreach doesn't exist in that present. In future Chicago there are no Dark Gods and Monsters. There is no evil ley line in the lake. The island no longer exists. And because the prison doesn't exist in the future the creatures that exist in it are locked out of the future forever if they don't escape in the past. Which they never do, because well, they didn't. This is a reverse paradox. :o
--- End quote ---
1. Interesting.
2. A lot of times they set up rules that make sense. Then they do a thing that violates those rules. Linear cause and effect has to be broken in time travel stories unless there is a closed loop.
3. Huh. It isn't incest, at least technically. It is a bootstrap paradox of genetic information.
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