The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers

Gifts -SPOILERS

<< < (2/3) > >>

Conspiracy Theorist:
Simple it needs a living entity to power it, making Ethnui the best match. It’s not like Medusa’s Head, otherwise it would be carried around in a box.

ClintACK:
Are we sure that Cowl and Kumori aren't Nemfected?

Remember that the main sign of Nemfection is people acting against their basic natures -- Kumori is a necromancer who is trying to use it for good. That's pretty much the opposite of the standard nature of a necromancer. (And there could be a very good reason not to use necromancy to help people the way she does -- remember that Aurora was certain that she was doing the right thing, too. The DV is a world with a real, empirically-verifiable afterlife, so "ending death" might not be a pure good. And using necromancy to directly stop people from dying might have all kinds of horrific consequences for the person so "helped".)

Conspiracy Theorist:
It’s not people acting against their natures, it people who don’t have full free will being able to act without restrictions. It’s not worthwhile infecting mortals because we can act without restriction in any event.

vultur:

--- Quote from: ClintACK on August 14, 2020, 08:16:30 PM ---Are we sure that Cowl and Kumori aren't Nemfected?
--- End quote ---

No, I am just skeptical of attributing everything weird that is happening to Nemesis.

From various hints in the books and WOJs there seems to be some kind of big cosmic thing coming up that is known to most of the major powers (now, with PT, presumably this has something to do with the Starborn cycle of 666 years).

So there is reason to expect a lot of unusual activity, even without Nemesis.


--- Quote ---Remember that the main sign of Nemfection is people acting against their basic natures -- Kumori is a necromancer who is trying to use it for good. That's pretty much the opposite of the standard nature of a necromancer.
--- End quote ---

Do we know that? All the necromancers we've seen have been connected to Kemmler in some way, and he was super-evil. So arguably these aren't "independent" instances of necromancers going evil, they are all derived from one source.

And the Laws of Magic mean that any necromancer is going to be hunted by the Council, which will drive them to more desperate measures.

Harry doesn't seem corrupted by using necromancy to animate Sue in DB; we don't see him tempted to use necromancy again, the way we see him tempted to use magic to kill a few times in the early books.

Sure, maybe that didn't *technically* violate the Laws since Sue isn't human, but Harry also says that necromancy uses a fundamentally different kind of energy than regular "life" magic. So if that energy was inherently corrupting, we should have seen that, IMO.

So I think there is some (though fairly weak) evidence that necromantic energy isn't inherently, per-se evil.


--- Quote --- (And there could be a very good reason not to use necromancy to help people the way she does -- remember that Aurora was certain that she was doing the right thing, too. The DV is a world with a real, empirically-verifiable afterlife, so "ending death" might not be a pure good.
--- End quote ---

Oh, absolutely. I think that it's definitely misguided and they are willing to do evil things to that end, so they are villains. But people can be evil without being corrupted by black magic or Nemesis.

My view is that only the 1st-4th Laws are directly corrupting in the usual sense, the 5th-7th Laws are more "don't mess with reality" sort of things.

Though Harry's experience redirecting the entropy curse in BR does kind of suggest that Outsider-powered magic might be inherently corrupting... but then that might just be him reacting against its "anti-reality" nature.

Yuillegan:
Dina - Thank you for the clarification. Good to have a veteran of the boards around!

What do you mean by 'real explanation'? Are we talking about the allegory or something else?

Mira - You are quite correct, I forgot Mab confirmed it.

Vultur - I meant the Black Council/Circle. They may have nemfected team members, maybe not. I do see your point about them being separate groups but I don't think that necessarily the case. Nemesis is clearly it's own being, but the Circle may have nemfected team members themselves. Perhaps it is a requirement. In any case, it fits the Circle's MO to 'help' all these disparate groups in order to create more chaos amongst other goals.

Almost certainly Cowl is connected to the Fomor and I will eat the next book if he doesn't appear.

I think Conspiracy Theorist's idea is plausible about it needing a living being (although there is nothing to actually suggest this from the text)...and in myths often the various body parts of supernatural beings continue to function even after separation from the whole. Odin's eye was supposedly still working in the well, Medusa's head still turned beings to stone even after being removed from the body, Ganesh survived the removal of his own head and the replacement with an elephant's head etc. So I think once the Eye was removed it is just as likely that it continued to function and was immediately covered. Who can say? Just another mystery.

I agree that you probably can't attribute all the weird and bad to Nemesis. Even Jim has hinted at this before. Lucifer and his team have their own agenda. The Denarians having competing agendas often within their organisation. So I'd say that their are many competing games being run.

You are dead on about the cosmic competition. You other thread has a plausible explanation for what it is and it's mechanism.

I think all the Laws are about not messing with reality...even if that's not always clear how. The whole conversation with the Angel of Death hints at just how many pieces go into creating any given reality. But I would agree that perhaps it's a factor of scale. Messing with Time is clearly going to have larger repercussions. Perhaps beyond just the one reality...

The Outside is inherently corrupting. The bit in chapter 12 about rubbing minds with things from the Outside explains this mostly. Only starborns are immune. But while related, I think this is a different sort of corruption to the full scale control of Nemesis. But I do suspect it is related somehow to black magic...but perhaps that is a filtered down version. And I also suspect that Nemesis isn't the most corrupting being out there.

Conspiracy Theorist - Just to be clear we have in-text confirmation from Eb that mortals CAN be nemfected. This is part of what makes starborn so special. Eb reveals that the minds of starborns cannot be tainted, and Harry deduces this is why Nemesis had made no attempt to do so thus far: because it can't. I can't seem to copy the passage from my ebook right now but the relevant area is chapter 12 pg 140.

This whole section implies that Nemesis can and indeed does infect mortals. And it's obvious why it would. Mortals have a lot of power in terms of their ability to Choose. If you could direct those Choices....you could control reality. No small thing really.

ClintAck - No, no one is sure who is or isn't nemfected. That's why it's so effective. So Cowl and Kumori could be. In theory almost anyone is a possible candidate. However we must think in terms of who is a probable candidate. Considering we don't know much about Cowl and Kumori's "reguar" behaviours it is very difficult to ascertain whether or not they have been tainted. But their proximity to both Dark Magic and their connection to other Outsider and Black Council related events, particularly Nemesis related ones, is certainly cause for suspicion.

I don't know that one good act is really acting against one's true self. I always read it as acting in accordance with her true self. Certainly it seems like she is the hopeful and naive apprentice who blindly believes the lies or delusions of her master. Regardless though, she still does plenty of bad stuff in Dead Beat. She was prepared to kill Harry several times and aided a madman in attempting to become a god, the process of which would have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people.  Maybe tens of thousands. True, she held back and she never committed an out and out murder or cruel act of violence. But she was conspiring to help someone who did, and any court in the world would say she was a party to his crimes. Can't just use the old "I was only following orders" or "I was trying to do the right thing" defence. Even if it's true, it hardly excuses her.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page