The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
I'm A Bit Confused... Nemesis or Outsider or Both???
Griffyn612:
--- Quote from: Mira on October 23, 2020, 03:18:48 AM ---[
But until that moment on the boat, did Harry have any clue that Outsiders were Nemesis? Or why does everyone go all Lord Voldermort when it comes to naming the enemy?
I can barely surf the net... So now I am even more confused.. ???
--- End quote ---
If you have a computer, or tablet, or smartphone, then it has a piece of hardware (these days usually a wireless component) that connects to the internet. That connection goes through a router or cell tower. But on a more granular scale, the device has logical "ports" that are like doorways dedicated to specific types of communication. Video uses one port, audio uses another, email uses another, web pages use another, bluetooth uses another, and so on, and so on.
One of those types of communication is called Remote Desktop Protocol. If it's enabled on your computer, and the right software is installed, then I can take control of your computer from wherever I am. I can look at your files, run programs on your computer, and even destroy your computer if I'm creative enough.
Other methods of connecting would allow me to remotely spy on what you're doing. Others would let me modify some files and what they do.
To prevent me from doing that, your computer has the ability to close the ports/doors that shouldn't be in use. You can also have a device on the network that you connect to (a Firewall) that can further restrict what can get in and out of the network.
In theory, Black Magic is an app on your device that if you choose to use, it opens ports. If the Hacker named Beside has gotten inside the Network, and finds the ports open, then he can try to install more software through them that will give him more and more access to your computer.
Or, if you're unlucky, someone can plug a device (usb stick, memory card, etc) that has the Hacker software on it, and that software is installed locally and gives over immediate access to all those ports that were previously closed for your safety.
In the magical sense, Beside does the same thing, but with the spirit/mind/body. Black magic opens a path into the mind, which he can see through or listen or whisper. The more he whispers, the more it opens to him, until he can fully possess and control.
Or, using a vector like the Athame, the paths are opened without the slow infection and without consent.
Dina:
Ok, that actually helps (I knew about ports and firewalls but I did not get your analogy). So, what would be the relevance of free will?
Arjan:
I think an infection in this context is just that part of nemesis spiritual essence is contaminating the hosts essence just like a denarian shadow can be seen as an denarian infection.
It was part of Lasciel in Harry. Harry managed to give that part a seperate identity and it became Lash, he severed the connection with Lasciel.
The nemesis infective essence keeps being nemesis and can be used to channel the rest of nemesis. To influence the host or to be used as an entrance for total possession. So an infection is managed by the rest of nemesis and a possessed host can speak for the whole.
Like the other multi instance beings the individual instances become weaker if they are spread too thin and stronger if they get together. That gives a limit to the infection but not a hard number.
Griffyn612:
--- Quote from: Dina on October 23, 2020, 03:51:09 AM ---Ok, that actually helps (I knew about ports and firewalls but I did not get your analogy). So, what would be the relevance of free will?
--- End quote ---
When you download an app to your smartphone or computer of your own free will, you're enabling it to do things to your device. Lots of people download apps like TikTok without knowing the things it does in the background of your device. TikTok has code to access all sorts of things it doesn't need, which is why people are so suspicious of it. And worse apps do all sorts of bad things.
The same goes (theoretically) in the Dresdenverse with magic. If you use magic, you're opening yourself up to power. If you use Black Magic, or specific types of Black Magic, then you're opening your spirit to that form of power. And just like with computer, these openings can be bidirectional.
With both apps and magic, people can warn others until they're blue in the face, and developers/wizards can try to protect people with software/laws, but at the end of the day, the user/practitioner is the one that will decide, knowingly or otherwise.
Bad Alias:
What's known:
A Walker is a powerful Outsider.
They are Outsider Knights.
There are almost certainly three. Mac has strongly implied there are three Walkers.
They are He Who Walks Behind, He Who Walks Before, and He Who Walks Beside.
Nemesis is singular. Nemesis is repeatedly referred to as "it," not they or them.
Names are important and guarded. We often know things not by their names, but by what they are called. For example, Harry has a fairy servant called Lacuna and another called Toot. We don't know either's Name. Hell, I'm called Bad Alias. That's certainly not my name.
So, HWWBeside is an Outsider Knight, which are known as Walkers, called Nemesis.
What I think on possession/infection by HWWBeside: They're the same thing. Subtle manipulation to out and out control are both forms of possession as I understand it from everything I've ever seen on possession.
@Griffyn612: How do you fit Harry's black magic corruption into your theory of black magic being an opening to infection? Was his corruption simply an opening that couldn't be used? I once thought that all black magic corruption could be nemfection, but I'm not sure that's possible anymore.
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