The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Choices
peterwiggin94:
I think that the Darkhallow was similar to normal energy absorption but scaled up drastically and improved somehow. We've seen Harry do energy absorption a lot including the fight in the aquarium in Small Favor. Based on that fight, the typical way to do it has limits because it literally raised Harry's body temperature. The Darkhallow must have some type of containment mechanism to handle the extra energy. Maybe it's a combination of the ascension spell in "Welcome to the Jungle" along with the normal energy absorption?
Either way, I suspect that what Harry was tempted to do in Storm Front, and what Evil Harry did in Grave Peril, would be a scaled down version of the Darkhallow. It would have just been sucking the ambient emotional energy of a dark place to do destructive things. That would have in turn affected Harry in a bunch of different ways.
g33k:
--- Quote from: Mira on April 15, 2025, 12:01:26 PM --- Do we know that for sure, or assume that? ...
--- End quote ---
We don't exactly know how far Mirror!Harry has stepped over that line. WE do know he's a much darker character than Prime!Harry.
WoJ has stated he's allied with Mavra, and has taken (when cornered) to summoning Alt!Harry's to die in his place; that looks like pretty far over the line, to me.
--- Quote from: Mira on April 15, 2025, 12:01:26 PM --- ... When you consider the original Trek story which supposedly this is the inspiration for Jim's story, we see what we think is "evil Jim Kirk" verses the good Kirk of our world.. However taken in the context of his universe, "evil Kirk" really isn't at all ...
--- End quote ---
I'm not much for moral relativism.
Sure, some things are relative. But some other things are outright evil, and not relative at all. Mirror!Kirk is evil.
Now, "it's not his fault" & all that -- he's evil because he was raised in that setting, where kindness was seen as weakness (& exploited as such). But being a victim of evil doesn't mean he didn't become evil as a nearly-inevitable result of being informed by that setting. It's exactly similar to how child-abuse is always evil, even when we learn that the abuser turned out that way because they themselves were abused as a child.
--- Quote from: Mira on April 15, 2025, 12:01:26 PM --- ... because everyone with the exception of the Spock of that parallel universe is like that ...
--- End quote ---
I always suspected that Spock mirrored most Vulcans: being ruthlessly logical is the logical Vulcan consequence of being embedded in (literally) an Evil Empire. But the Mirror!Vulcan history was presumably similar to the Prime!Vulcan history (i.e. driven by tradition & logic) up until Vulcan/Terran "first contact," and they adapted (in their logical way) to ruthlessly match the the circumstances they found themselves in.
--- Quote from: Mira on April 15, 2025, 12:01:26 PM --- ... In the "evil Harry's" world, Murphy may be a corrupt cop with no morals at all and Molly might be entering a convent to become a nun! Then what? ...
--- End quote ---
Remember, though: there was no alt!universe or branching up until Harry's "choice" at the end of Grave Peril. There was only a single timeline up until that divergence. The rest of the universe isn't just up for grabs, with random alterations; the changes rippled outward, as alternative consequences resulting from Harry's alternative choice.
I don't think we have any reason to think Murphy would have become corrupt / immoral. Defeated, maybe; hopeless, and "just getting by," rather than crusading for what's right. What is Murphy (and SI) like, without having been able to rely upon Dresden? Less clued-in, less-successful; but what else?
This, I think, is going to be the core of Mirror,Mirror: exploring the consequences of Harry's choice. Even more than the ST:TOS episode Mirror,Mirror, I think Jim's going to write an alt for Harry's own life: this is going to be Dresden's It's a Wonderful Life (1946 with Jimmy Stewart). But also, of course, more of Jim's primary job: tormenting Harry.
You ask after Molly, and I think it's pertinent. In fact, I think we'll be revisiting most/all of Harry!Prime's "Scooby Gang" (Michael & Thomas & Butters & Bob & the Alphas &c), and the followups/consequences of his prior Casefiles & how Mirror!Harry handled them differently from how Prime!Harry did. We may even see the return of Little Chicago! ;D I'm unclear about the particulars of any of these, of course... it depends how Jim writes the alt!timeline. Speculating specifically about Molly (and Michael), though: Harry has become a serial murderer & Blampire-ally; I don't think Michael is his friend, or ally, or trusts him in any way. So, Molly hasn't idolized him: she hasn't seen him as a mysterious badass, fighting monsters (alongside the father she adored). Presumably, Mirror!Molly began developing powers just as Prime!Molly did; but without Harry's example perhaps she turned more towards her parents & they helped her tamp them down? But I suspect empowered Molly is too narratively-useful to Jim, so we'll see some sort of Magical Molly (unless we learn that she got executed by the Wardens -- very much a torment-for-Harry element!).
I suspect Prime!Molly was guided by Lea or Mab toward her Black Magic path, specifically to use Molly to entangle Dresden; but without the Michael/Harry alliance that entanglement wouldn't happen; so no Winter shoving Molly down the left-hand-path.
In fact... I suspect Harry's "choice" in GP was basically one made from being scared, hopeless. From giving up, instead of fighting-against-all-odds. I'm not at all sure Mirror!Mab would even want this weaker Mirror!Harry as WK.
g33k:
--- Quote from: peterwiggin94 on April 15, 2025, 03:22:34 PM ---I think that the Darkhallow was similar to normal energy absorption but scaled up drastically and improved somehow. We've seen Harry do energy absorption a lot including the fight in the aquarium in Small Favor. Based on that fight, the typical way to do it has limits because it literally raised Harry's body temperature. The Darkhallow must have some type of containment mechanism to handle the extra energy. Maybe it's a combination of the ascension spell in "Welcome to the Jungle" along with the normal energy absorption? ...
--- End quote ---
I'm almost certain I recall a WoJ saying that the hag's rite in "WttJ" was a smaller and/or more-primitive spell, but largely along the same lines as Kemmler's "Darkhallow" rite.
The Darkhallow was specifically ghost-eating. It used necromantic methods unknown to (pre-Word of Kemmler) Harry: if Harry could just siphon ghosts to power-up whenever he wanted, those foes (such as Agatha Hagglethorn & the Nightmare) would have been trivially handled.
The other examples are stuff Harry already knows about, drawing upon raw "magical energy" from the environment, as he often does for magic.
In Storm Front, he had found a huge supply of magic summoned by Victor Sells, but realized it was "tainted" -- dark, violent, corrupt -- because of how it was raised. This ambient magic was influencing him to act in dark, violent, corrupt ways; but he was able to resist.
Mira:
--- Quote ---Sure, some things are relative. But some other things are outright evil, and not relative at all. Mirror!Kirk is evil.
--- End quote ---
But so was EVERYONE else in that universe, by our standards! By their standards our universe is populated by weak fools. As for the two Spocks, they had Vulcan logic in common, it was logical to restore what was natural for for universes.. And for the record, deciding what is evil and what isn't is a moral judgement.
--- Quote ---I don't think we have any reason to think Murphy would have become corrupt / immoral. Defeated, maybe; hopeless, and "just getting by," rather than crusading for what's right. What is Murphy (and SI) like, without having been able to rely upon Dresden? Less clued-in, less-successful; but what else?
--- End quote ---
And why would you think that? Unless Murphy is the Spock of the story, hell yeah she could be corrupt simply because she will be a product of and reflect the values of the universe she is living in. Heck she still could be the Spock of the story and be totally corrupt.. That also might be acceptable in the universe she is living in. Actually might make for a much better story that evil Harry, many already feel that Harry dances on that tightrope anyway.. However many cannot conceive of a corrupt Murphy, but a Chicago cop? Especially in a certain era? Not a stretch at all, and think of the shock that would be to Harry, first to see her alive again, second to realize she is a corrupt cop on the take..
g33k:
--- Quote from: Mira on April 16, 2025, 12:33:12 PM ---... And for the record, deciding what is evil and what isn't is a moral judgement.
--- End quote ---
For the record... I'm OK with that!
There's some things that are merely "cultural values" and (despite being dearly-held beliefs about what's right & wrong) amount to "opinions." But other things (murder, child abuse, etc) I hold to be "evils" -- yes, evils in an absolute sense -- and reject "moral relativism" in such cases.
If such evils are "OK" in some other culture, I hold that entire culture to be evil (at least in those regards).
I am entirely comfortable making that moral judgement.
Blampires are evil, in that absolute sense. Unless Mirror!Harry is allying with Mavra specifically to best fight off some even-greater evil, then Mirror!Harry is being evil, too. Mirror!Harry summoning other-universe Alt!Harry's to die in his place absolutely is evil: even if he says he's doing it to "fight evil better," he cannot know what evils those other Harry's were facing, that he thereby allows to run amok in those other universes. That's evil.
--- Quote from: Mira on April 16, 2025, 12:33:12 PM --- ... And why would you think that? Unless Murphy is the Spock of the story, hell yeah she could be corrupt simply because she will be a product of and reflect the values of the universe she is living in ...
--- End quote ---
I think that because it's more or less the same universe.
It had been a single timeline, up until the GP "choice;" that was where they diverged, where the alternative timelines branched apart; Mirror!Murphy didn't grow up any differently from our Murphy. For Murphy to be "corrupt" in Mirror Mirror, she'd have to have turned that way since the time of GP. I don't think that's possible for her (unless some mindbender broke her mind).
( The ST mirrorverse, in contrast, is taken to have diverged centuries -- even millenia -- beforehand (before humans first reached space):
--- Quote ---Philippa Georgiou also claimed that Terrans had abolished compassionate ideologies "millennia ago" as of the 2250s.
--- End quote ---
-- https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Mirror_universe#History
So, "compassion" was "abolished" at least back as far back as the high medieval era (and the histories had certainly differed longer than that, for competing ideologies to have been warring for (presumably) a long time before that). )
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