The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
How Murphy could return to the Dresden Files
Mira:
--- Quote ---So I say that to set up this. My opinion is that Murphy should stay dead until all hands on deck for the BAT. And when we do see Murphy, it will be her, not some powered up Valkyrie. Partly because Jim said years ago no powerups for her, if she needs one it will be a bigger gun. And partly because she had been the vanilla mortal with no help through most of the books. That was something I did like about her character. She was you and me and was the human power level in the book to get the feel of how powerful some of the characters were and how strong Harry had become.
--- End quote ---
That is my point if she does come back, the mortal human Murphy will be no more. And who knows? Jim might just do that to Harry, imagine him running into Murphy who is now a berserker? Kind of like what Lea did back in Grave Peril to Susan, even if Murphy remembers Harry, any memory of what they had meant to one another is totally gone.
Arjan:
--- Quote from: Mira on April 09, 2021, 07:21:01 PM ---That is my point if she does come back, the mortal human Murphy will be no more. And who knows? Jim might just do that to Harry, imagine him running into Murphy who is now a berserker? Kind of like what Lea did back in Grave Peril to Susan, even if Murphy remembers Harry, any memory of what they had meant to one another is totally gone.
--- End quote ---
When Harry was dead his memory became better, not worse. Murphy’s memory will be better too.
LaraBeck:
--- Quote from: Mira on April 09, 2021, 12:51:26 PM ---But she won't be her anymore. She won't be the vanilla mortal that all her fans love. Death and time in Valhalla will change her, and perhaps not in the way you want. That is why there are rules like, paraphrasing, "she won't return till all that knew and loved her have died." Or something like that, but essentially that is a kindness to those who remain, love her memory as she was. I am sure for the next couple of books at least her fans will be looking for clues whether or not it was her, returned.
--- End quote ---
Why wouldn’t she be her anymore? Maybe, it's possible. But that is if we take becoming Einherjar something that imposes some changes to the personality, like Harry's mantle for example. Maybe that berserk hunger for battle (that seemed to be there in those Einherjar fighting in BG) is something that gets added to the personality of the warrior. Yes, that could potentially change her fundamentally. But not necessarily. It could also be a thing about the passing of time since becoming Einherjar, like if time in Valhalla passes differently, and 1 year in the human world is 5 years or something like that in Valhalla, then maybe, of course with enough time perspective may change, maybe she gets knowledge she didn't have before (which would be cool tbh). Yes, that could also make her change and become someone quite different than what she was. But that would happen to any character who takes up a different job/mantle/etc and enough time passes. However, if that’s not the case and there’s no radical jump in time, why would she be not herself?
I think the physical or metaphysical experience (I dunno if we know enough about how that works in the DV universe) of becoming an Einherjar would influence her, because I imagine it's a bit like the mantle thing that Harry has, being an Einherjar maybe means you get added that thrist for battle, and that's maybe something the Murphy we know would struggle with. Also the experience itself of having died the way it happened would have psychological consequences, the whole thing is probably going to cause changes. But that doesn’t mean that it’d be a radical change or a turn completely into something that she’s not.
If she were to come back after a couple of books, without time jump, the rest of the characters in-universe could doubt it was really her, for sure, and it’d be fair to doubt. It’s pretty much what’s happening with Dresden too. We as readers don’t feel Dresden so different or that far removed from what he was maybe because we get to read the internal monologue, but for the characters in-universe, that’s exactly what happened, he changed into something else. Doesn’t mean it’s true for the character though or that that change is bad in itself for the character.
With Dresden we’re seeing the struggle within those changes that are happening. It’d be fair to think that Murphy could be facing the same type of situation, doesn’t mean she’s gonna lose the internal battle though. Or maybe there could be no internal battle at all, and becoming Einherjar is much more organic, like in Butters’ apparent experience becoming a Knight. We don’t know yet. Those Einherjar, seemed to me, a little too enthusiastic and gleeful about the battle for what I think Murphy is like, that’s why I would think it’d be more a struggle for her. But maybe those Einherjar we saw in BG were the way they were exactly because of the passing of time, maybe they’d been dead for like 100 years or something.
In any case, the change itself from human to Einherjar doesn’t mean that she won’t be her anymore, that she’ll necessarily become someone different, that her fears, courage, virtues, faults, weaknesses, etc would disappear and be replaced with something else. Being a human, IMO, is a category that she belonged to, but not WHO she is, not personality-wise. Now, it could be argued that in a meta level she'll stop being what she was, symbolically in the series, in the eyes of many fans, that part is true.
I would guess in any case, the experience is bound to cause conflicting feelings for her or other psychological effects probably, but if a change in circumstances and acceptance or loosing of mantles or sponsors mean that one stops being oneself, then Butters is no longer Butters, Michael is no longer Michael, Molly is no longer Molly, Marcone is no longer Marcone, and Harry definitely is not Harry anymore.
Personally, I don’t have an issue with any of those changes, not yet, not enough time has passed in-universe to be seeing them as someone else, they haven’t radically changed personalities or anything like that, they just sorta changed jobs (of course with accompanying consequences though). But that’s kinda bound to happen in a series that has expanded almost two decades in-universe.
Also not all Murphy fans are fans because she’s “the human” in the series, though that’s the case for many. Personally, that’s not my reason. I relate to some aspects of her personality and history, not because we belong in the same category of beings. I know enough fans that feel that same way, many of them just aren’t around here (the public forums or places like reddit).
Besides, Murphy was human, yes, but how ordinary human was she really, how vanilla? Dresden likes to call all people without magic vanilla humans, but the people he’s associated with and who have fought beside him are not really that ordinary, they’re kind of exceptional in the sense that they show extremes of traits that human could have but not all achieve.
Murphy is supposed to be extremely good at martial arts, detective skills or marksmanship, but not any person can achieve that, not every human can withstand or recover from the mental attack she received, face the supernatural and not lose it, see Rudolph. Michael has the type of faith that is so unwavering that he would rarely doubt or stray from his path, also not something every regular human achieves (granted it can be argued that was the White God’s influence through his Knighthood, or maybe it was that extraordinary faith the reason he was chosen in the first place). And Butters has had the ability to face the awful truth and under enormous pressure remain sane (even through a stay in a mental hospital) and was so resilient that he survived things he maybe should not have been able to survive, he overcame his own limitations in a way that got him selected as a Holy Knight. They don’t seem to have ever been “regular” humans. The idea that Murphy was some sort of barometer to measure how much stronger Harry was or has become, might have been the original idea, but I think that hasn’t been the case for a while now, instead she’s been like representative of a different kind of power than Harry’s. But she’s not, IMO anyway, the sole representative of the category (humans) that it’d be a disservice if she changed a bit. The alphas are still around, and we even have Maggie now (since she still hasn't manifested anything special about her yet). For me anyway, her being human is not what draws me to her.
Now I do want to present the actual quote from the book, just for clarification and having the actual words here:
--- Quote ---“She’s gone. She isn’t coming back” …
“It’s the same,” Gard slurred. “Where Nathan died.” Her red eyes welled. “The damned knot. It’s part of our inventory system. A check mark. One Einherjar, picked up and in transit.”
… Then after a while, I said, “If she’s an Einherjar, now . . .”
Gard shook her head. “Not until the memory of her has faded from the minds of those who knew her. That is the limit not even the Allfather may cross.”
“She, uh,” I said. I blinked several times. “She wasn’t real forgettable.”
“She was not,” agreed the Valkyrie. “And she has earned her rest.”
--- End quote ---
That’s what’s actually said, nothing about her loved ones or those who loved her, and certainly not about them having to be dead or the reason for the rule. And though it’s a reasonable interpretation, it's not explicitly said or even the only possible interpretation of the rule. I mean, it could be that Einherjar change so fundamentally after they get picked that it would hurt the people that loved them to see that (though I dunno why the gods would care much about that side of things).
Or it could be something more practical, like having dead people's bodies disappearing and then having them popping up all alive in the same timeframe as the people that knew then and had knowledge of their death, could get a bit confusing since the introduction in the mortal world of the White God. He said only one guy was supposed to do that trick, and that's what his whole following is based upon, so it's a big deal. And Odin and the WG are in some sort of collaboration, maybe showing the mortal world evidence of people living after death is a big NoNo for the WG and they have reached some agreement on it, and that's why Odin can't break the rule.
It’s a made-up Butcher rule anyway and we’re yet to see how exactly or why it works in-universe, IMO.
That all being said, it’s true that for many fans it won’t feel the same if she comes back as a Einherjar, but for other people it would depend on all the circumstance surrounding said possible return, because we don’t all like the character just for belonging to the human category, but there’s other stuff about her.
She could come back as a demi-goddess or part demon and depending on how well the explanation is made and how much the series changes over the course of the next books, and I personally wouldn't mind if it's well written. Maybe I won't like it, true. But I'm willing to wait until Butcher shows me what he's got. There's 8 or so books left to tell the story, a lot could happen yet. I don't hold anything as definitive until I read "The End".
groinkick:
--- Quote from: Mira on April 09, 2021, 07:21:01 PM ---That is my point if she does come back, the mortal human Murphy will be no more. And who knows? Jim might just do that to Harry, imagine him running into Murphy who is now a berserker? Kind of like what Lea did back in Grave Peril to Susan, even if Murphy remembers Harry, any memory of what they had meant to one another is totally gone.
--- End quote ---
Murphy was a warrior from the beginning. Martial arts champion, and police officer, KoTC, and charged into battle whenever it came. I think that Murphy would just be acting as she truly is, without the limitations of her mortal body, and constraints of mortal law. The woman working with Lara isn't a total crazy warrior. She acted pretty normal for a "warrior" type in the Dresden Files. She wasn't totally out of control.
TrueMonk:
"I nodded. Then after a while, I said, “If she’s an Einherjar, now …” Gard shook her head. “Not until the memory of her has faded from the minds of those who knew her. That is the limit not even the All-father may cross.”"
To be fair I have not read all of the posts above, but this is sooooooooo lose. Like it is hard to imagine it being any looser and still be a coherent statement. What does it even mean? No-one khows except Jim.
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