The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
so ... soulgaze? the Sight?
g33k:
I know it's kinda "bad form" to self-quote, but it seemed the best way to insert this info:
--- Quote from: g33k on December 14, 2024, 05:46:58 PM ---... So where's the can/cannot soulgaze division, exactly?
It's a facet of the "wizard's Sight" and so the same question applies: who exactly has the Sight, and doesn't?
--- End quote ---
In researching replies upthread, I found the following:
--- Quote ---Q: If Charity has some power when she met Michael. How did she avoid looking him in the eye and starting a soulgaze? I have to assume it never happened since he doesn’t know about her abilities. I assume it took years for her abilities to fade away and from what I read, it sounds like they were a couple fairly soon after he rescued her.
A: You got to have some serious magical chops before a soulgaze is an issue–and yes, it’s one of the markers that the Council uses to see if you make the cut, though it’s far from the only one. There are folks running around who can do it who aren’t on the Council, but not many of them.
Charity was small potatoes in the magic department, for a number of reasons. It was never an issue with her.
--- End quote ---
Which is as much WoJ as I know of on the subject (hence my asking).
Mira:
--- Quote ---early-episode-weirdness cannot be dismissed: it was only GP.
and of course Harry's an unreliable narrator.
--- End quote ---
That's the thing though isn't it. A soul gaze is a two way street, the wizard's sight isn't. In a soul gaze the gazer opens his or herself up equally to the person who's eyes he or she is gazing into. Susan fainted during her soul gaze with Harry, Marcone took his own measure of Harry, at that point in time neither Marcone nor Susan had any magical ability to be able to read Harry's soul. If either Susan or Marcone at that time looked into another vanilla human's eyes it wouldn't result in a soul gaze because they weren't wizards.. Marcone can now presumably, because he is now a wizard.
--- Quote ---Sight & Soulgaze are far more alike than they are dissimilar; the entire section of the WoJ-file I just quoted from is about "3rd sight and Soulgaze" and it's clear from the various Q&A that their same-ness was a common assumption on both sides.
--- End quote ---
Are they? I think they appear alike because both give information, but they are not alike.. Here is why, in a trial before the Council the arresting Warden or whatever Warden is in charge of the prisoner performs a soul gaze on the prisoner, and testifies as to what he or she saw,it is admissible evidence on the character and guilt or innocence of the prisoner.
However the wizard's sight isn't permissible in court because it is unreliable for the following reasons.
--- Quote ---The Third Sight is different for everyone, subjective, and inherently slanted towards ones own experiences and background. So while two wizards might look on some totally-gone, bloodthirsty warlock and see a bloodthirsty warlock, they might see it in very different ways.
... Harry looks on him and sees some Hannibal-Lectery figure crouched on the floor grinning and soaked in blood.
... Ancient Mai looks on him and sees a bare, twisted white tree in the center of an unbroken field of white snow, representative of the individual’s loss of spirit and humanity.
... Rodriguez looks at him and hears some kind of hideous music that accompanies the individual and makes the hair on the back of Carlos’ neck stand up...
... Listens-to-Wind looks on the warlock and smells something rotted and vile.
--- End quote ---
That means the evidence from the Wizard's Sight is completely prejudicial based on the gazer's own biases and experience. However this apparently isn't the case with a soul gaze. Did the Merlin insist on a collaborative soul gaze of the Korean Kid before his head was chopped off? Not in the book anyway, the Merlin simply told Harry that he had soul gazed the Korean Kid himself and he found him to be guilty of many crimes.. However if the Wizard's Sight was like a soul gaze. from the above quote Harry or Eb or some other wizard could have seen the Korean Kid in a totally different light.. Yet the kid was found guilty and killed on the strength of a single soul gaze. Where as I doubt it could be done on the strength of the above reasons, each wizard sees different things when looking at the same thing with the sight. So while they appear to be the same, they are not.
--- Quote ---I'm asking, can a sufficiently-strong and/or sufficiently-experienced Soulgazer just look into somebody's eyes and NOPE the forming soulgaze? Just... turn it off, by force of will or mental discipline?
--- End quote ---
Yes, it can, several times in the later books Harry speaks of feeling the beginnings of soul gaze with someone he doesn't want to have a soul gaze with and he breaks it off. We all know the strength of Harry's will.
Dina:
I agree the two-way street is the main difference, but I believe there is some sort of WoJ about soulgazes being also subjective and also changing according to the moment that happened. Ebenezer probably did not see the same thing that Butters would see if he soulgazed Harry after BG. I am not sure about the different senses. Pehaps Ramirez always hears music with soulgazing someone. A music he cannot forget.
Mira:
--- Quote from: Dina on December 15, 2024, 07:10:47 AM ---I agree the two-way street is the main difference, but I believe there is some sort of WoJ about soulgazes being also subjective and also changing according to the moment that happened. Ebenezer probably did not see the same thing that Butters would see if he soulgazed Harry after BG. I am not sure about the different senses. Pehaps Ramirez always hears music with soulgazing someone. A music he cannot forget.
--- End quote ---
If the soul gaze is so subjective, then it never be used as evidence when someone is being judged. The Merlin soul gazing the Korean kid is the big example, one has to ask whether or not the Merlin was sure of what he'd find before he performed it? In other words, if the Merlin was sure before hand that the kid was guilty, that is what he'd find in his soul gaze with the kid. Still while Harry advocated for not chopping the kid's head off, he neither questioned what the Merlin said he saw in his gaze with the kid, nor did Harry insist on doing and seeing for himself what was in the kid's mind. When Harry soul gazed Molly he saw a mixed bag of possible futures for her, ranging from good to evil like any of us when we are that young.
BugBear:
For what it's worth, the RPG calls soulgazes an aspect of the Sight. The most relevant paragraphs being on page 226 of Your World:
--- Quote ---When it comes right down to it, a soulgaze is a narrow, focused, specific application of the Sight—using the Sight to See one person, with the dials turned up to eleven. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to look past the outer surface and into the very heart of who a person is, what’s going on with him, and who he might become. Unfortunately, the target of a soulgaze also gains this sort of insight into the gazer—even if that target is a vanilla mortal.
Of course, it’s not as simple as all that. Because soulgazes are a facet of the Sight, metaphor jumbles up the results for each party. You’re barking up the wrong tree if you think a soulgaze is “asking a question” about another person. The “answer” is going to make as much nonsense as it makes sense.
--- End quote ---
Of course this is a secondary source, but the stuff in here was looked over to be canon-ish. I vaguely recall that Jim had to ask the authors to cut some things, because they were guessing spoilery details ahead of time. Of course, that was also the canon Jim had in mind in 2010. Still, it seems like he's had a very definite plan in mind for soulgazes (particularly Harry's) from day one.
I would call this quality of evidence one level below word of Jim/canon Jim personally wrote, but still pretty good. I also can't find any sources from the primary material, only implications.
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