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The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: Logistics515 on August 17, 2020, 03:06:05 PM
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The TLDR version of this is that Harry Dresden is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. This is beyond a tinfoil hat theory - I'm now wearing a tinfoil suit, with my office located in a tin mine somewhere. But the evidence seems to keep piling up to me, so read on if you find the speculation interesting.
We learned in Peace Talks that a Starborn is a cycle that occurs every 666 years.
It's the first connection we've had linking Biblical lore to the Starborn status. It made me wonder if Jesus qualified as "Starborn". The Bible certainly has the whole Born under a Star / 3 Magi bit in it. If you run the math, the timeframe is off by +/- 15 years, which cratered my speculation at that point.
But...I keep running into narrative clues.
For instance this little tidbit from Storm Front:
The world is getting weirder. Darker every single day. Things are spinning around faster and faster, and threatening to go completely awry. Falcons and falconers. The center cannot hold.
But in my corner of the country, I’m trying to nail things down. I don’t want to live in Victor’s jungle, even if it did eventually devour him. I don’t want to live in a world where the strong rule and the weak cower. I’d rather make a place where things are a little quieter. Where trolls stay the hell under their bridges and where elves don’t come swooping out to snatch children from their cradles. Where vampires respect the limits, and where the faeries mind their p’sand q’s.
My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Conjure by it at your own risk. When things get strange, when what goes bump in the night flicks on the lights, when no one else can help you, give me a call. I’m in the book.
Falcons and Falconers. The Center cannot hold. Both of those are references to a poem by William Butler Yeats. The name of the poem?
The Second Coming
That little warning at the end of Storm Front? The book that he's referring to? It's not the phone book...it's the Bible. The warning about conjuring by his name....you don't conjure by a name of God idly.
Here's some more textual foreshadowing, if you interpret it in a certain light:
Fool Moon
Denton stared at me as the soul gaze broke and we were released. He wasn’t reacting well to whatever it was he had seen inside of me. His face had gone white, and his hand was trembling, the barrel of the gun wavering every which way. He lifted his other hand to mop beads of cold sweat away from his face.“No,” Denton said, white showing all around the grey irises of his eyes.“No, wizard.” He raised his gun. “I don’t believe in hell. I won’t let you.”
Summer Knight
“Harry Dresden,” he said dryly, “Meet Martha Liberty.” She shot him a look and said pointedly, “He’s arrogant, Ebenezar. Dangerous.”I snorted. “That’s every wizard ever.” Martha continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Bitter. Angry. Obsessive.” Ebenezar frowned. “Seems to me he has good reason to be. You and the rest of the Senior Council saw to that.”Martha shook her head. “You know what he was meant to be. He’s too great a risk.”
Changes
I exhaled wearily, and stopped even trying to hold the spell. “I don’t understand.” Uriel nodded. “That’s the difficult part of being mortal. Of having choice. Much is hidden from you.” He sighed. Love your child, Dresden. Everything else flows from there. A wise man said that,” Uriel said.
Cold Days
“And on a similar note, do not underestimate yourself. You haven’t been given the power and the knowledge and the allies and the resources you possess for no reason, Harry. Nothing I have to say can possibly make this task any easier for you. The only way to do it is to do it. He lifted his chin. You don’t need help, Warden. You are the help.”
Peace Talks
Their thoughts, or whatever madness it was that passed for them, began to devour mine. I felt like my mind was being chewed apart by a swarm of ants. And then for just an instant, the alien thought patterns made sense, and I saw an image from their point of view – a being made of coherent light, a column of glowing energy centers, and pure dread, standing like an obelisk before the cornerhounds, a bolt of terrible lightning gathered around its upraised fists, head, and shoulders, like a miniature storm front.
I saw what they saw when they looked at me.
And I felt their fear.
Finally, we have the titles of the last 3 books in the series, the apocalyptic trilogy; Stars and Stones, Hell's Bells, and Empty Night.
I submit that Empty Night is a reference to a famous short story by Arthur C. Clarke. In the story the stars start winking out, one by one. The name of the story? The Nine Billion Names of God.
I'm starting to strongly suspect that "Starborn" is something akin to Jesus, an avatar of the White God. But he's all about Choice - so Harry gets to choose to be good or evil, the same as any normal mortal human...but the consequences of that choice could be a great deal bigger then a normal life. Hence how everyone in the series who is in the know are so darned nervous about him. Why more then a few keep testing his morality. It's not on account of him being a Wizard, as he's always thought. Morgan mentions in his microfiction about something called a Destroyer....that sounds a bit like an Antichrist to me.
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Harry is the ultimate expression of free will designed to defeat any sort of predestination, he has shrugged off prophecies, entropy curses, death curses and the choosing of Valkyries. Harry dislikes and disrespects authority of most kinds. Harry is an outlier even among wizards.
This makes him the polar opposite of Uriel, who cannot do anything unless a Fallen has intervened. His boss is probably even more circumscribed. So creating an avatar who is the walking embodiment of free will, is literally the only way the White God can intervene.
The point is Harry is raw potential, but that potential can crystallise into either a Saviour, or a Destroyer depending upon the choices he makes. I suppose the vast majority of Dresdens in the multi-verse are neither, they are the meh Dresdens, but most people don’t have that range of potential.
In Mirror, Mirror, we may not see an Destroyer Harry, we may just see a meh Dresden, an ordinary Harry making some bad decisions. A Harry who is mediocre.
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I like both of these posts! Nothing to add, just really like both of them! Explains a lot of what Uriel has been doing.
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It's a plausible theory....
but from a Doylist perspective, it's a minefield of sensitive topics...
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That is true.
Though Butcher gave himself a clever out with the idea of Mantles, cosmic hats, and the Jesus angle just being a reflection of some greater truth, all religions equally valid and all that.
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It's a plausible theory....
but from a Doylist perspective, it's a minefield of sensitive topics...
I doubt Thomas will much like the theory either if Harry ever brings it up.
But that's because he's Doubting Thomas.
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I doubt Thomas will much like the theory either if Harry ever brings it up.
But that's because he's Doubting Thomas.
:o ??? :-\
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More like pouting Thomas.
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Eh, I think (beyond the out-of-story reasons Jim wouldn't do this) Starborn are primarily about the reality/Outsiders conflict, which operates on a different level from the Heaven/Hell conflict. The Heaven/Hell conflict is about individual moral choice and good vs. evil; the reality/Outsiders conflict is about the stability of reality.
I suppose the vast majority of Dresdens in the multi-verse are neither, they are the meh Dresdens, but most people don’t have that range of potential.
I do think Harry dying and coming back has "activated" his Starborn potential somehow. In WN he needed Lash's help to escape Vitto Malvora's Outsider-fueled mental attack, but in CD he can stand up to HWWBefore directly in mental combat.
Though he was able to defeat HWWBehind long before that... but I think HWWBehind wasn't really trying to kill Harry, and didn't do the mental attack thing. Harry was clearly able to affect him though...
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I am pretty sure one of the nine billion names of Harry Dresden is “idiot”.
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Though he was able to defeat HWWBehind long before that... but I think HWWBehind wasn't really trying to kill Harry, and didn't do the mental attack thing. Harry was clearly able to affect him though...
Knowing what we know now, it seems like the HWWBehind fight when he was a teenager was almost certainly a test -- to see if he really was a starborn.
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Harry blew up the fuel pumps, real fire affects Outsiders.
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Eh, I think (beyond the out-of-story reasons Jim wouldn't do this) Starborn are primarily about the reality/Outsiders conflict, which operates on a different level from the Heaven/Hell conflict. The Heaven/Hell conflict is about individual moral choice and good vs. evil; the reality/Outsiders conflict is about the stability of reality.
I do think Harry dying and coming back has "activated" his Starborn potential somehow. In WN he needed Lash's help to escape Vitto Malvora's Outsider-fueled mental attack, but in CD he can stand up to HWWBefore directly in mental combat.
Though he was able to defeat HWWBehind long before that... but I think HWWBehind wasn't really trying to kill Harry, and didn't do the mental attack thing. Harry was clearly able to affect him though...
Also he could actually understand Sharkface's name.
Malice slithered up my spine and danced in spiteful shivers over the back of my neck. I could sense the thing’s hostility—not the mindless anger of a fellow boy I’d needled beyond self-restraint, or Justin’s cold, logical rage. This was something different, something vaster, more timeless, and deeper than any ocean. It was a poisonous hate, something so ancient, so vile, that it could almost kill without any other action or being to support it, a hate so old and so virulent that it had curdled and congealed over its surface into a stinking, staggering contempt.
This thing wanted to destroy me. It wanted to hurt me. It wanted to enjoy the process. And nothing I said, nothing I did, would ever, ever change that. I was something to be eradicated, preferably in some amusing fashion. It had no mercy. It had no fear. And it was old, old beyond my ability to comprehend. It was patient. And if I proved too disappointing to it, I would only break through the veneer of that contempt—and what lay beneath would dissolve me like the deadliest acid. I felt . . . stained, simply by feeling its presence, stained as if it had left some hideous imprint or mark upon me, one that could not be wiped away.
And then it was behind me, so close it could almost touch, its outline towering over me, huge and horrible.
And it leaned down. A forked tongue slithered out from between its horrible shark-chain-saw teeth, and it whispered, in a perfectly low, calm, British accent, “What you have just sensed is as close as your mind can come to encompassing my name. How do you do?”
vs
And then an enormous swirling form emerged from the clouds overhead—a face, but only in the broadest, roughest terms, like something a child would make from clay. Lightning burned far back in its eyes, and it spoke in the voice of gale winds.
I AM GATEBREAKER, HARBINGER!
I AM FEARGIVER, HOPESLAYER!
I AM HE-WHO-WALKS-BEFORE!
For a second, I just stood there, staring up at the sky, shocked.
Hell’s bells.
It worked.
The thing spoke, and as it did, I knew, I knew what it was, as if I’d been given a snapshot of its core identity, its quintessential self.
For one second, no more than that, I understood it, what it was doing, what it wanted, what it planned and . . .
And then that moment was past, the knowledge vanished the way it had come—except for one thing. Somehow, I’d held on to a few crumbling fragments of insight.
As for HWWB, that was a pretty clear test, he basically went down a list of ways to goad Harry into fighting him in clinical fashion and then stood there and took the hit even when Harry warned him about it.
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Will have to go back and look, but wasn't that about the time that Harry hit back hard with a kick ass wizard vision of himself with his power rooted both in the earth and in Heaven?
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What about that girl Lydia with the prophetic vision Cassandra's Tears from Grave Peril? She gave Harry a vision that by now we know implies the kickoff to the BAT (there's even confirmation by Jim she helps kick it off. Though I'm not sure where it is...)
Chapter 4
"Fire," she whispered. "Wind. I see dark things and a dark war. I see my death coming for me, out of the spirit world. And I see you at the middle of it all. You're the beginning, the end of it. You're the one who can make the path go different ways."
"That's your vision? Iowa has less corn."
She turned her face away. "I see what I see."
How much do you guys think that plays into the theory?
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What about that girl Lydia with the prophetic vision Cassandra's Tears from Grave Peril? She gave Harry a vision that by now we know implies the kickoff to the BAT (there's even confirmation by Jim she helps kick it off. Though I'm not sure where it is...)
How much do you guys think that plays into the theory?
My personal impression was that her prophecy was limited to the Red Court vampire war in context, but thinking of it in a broader sense, I don't see how it couldn't apply to the BAT as well.
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If Harry is a fudge factor for predestination then this would have messed with her visions likely conflating the Red Court War and the BAT, but there is an argument that in starting the Red Court War Harry ALSO fired the first shot leading to BAT and the Red Court War and the Titan War are merely battles leading up to the Final Battle in the War for Reality. This looks likely as we have already seen connections between the Red Court and the Fomor, and with both and the Outsiders.
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Lydia's prophecy had Harry as the only one who could make things go another way -- perhaps there was a concrete and immediate meaning for that.
A "What If?" scenario: What if Harry had just stood there in Grave Peril and watched Mavra use Amoracchius to sacrifice Lydia while Kravos lurked in the background and the veil between life and death had been systematically weakened? What was Mavra's big plan? We know Harry wrecked it, but he never figured out what the point was.
Aside from one of the Swords being taken out of commission (perhaps permanently), what was she hoping to gain? Tons of work went into it -- training Kravos, getting him to suicide, weeks of attacks on the Veil. Was Mavra getting ready to perform an ascension ritual? Was Kravos going to gather all the ghosts of the Red Court's victims (the ones Harry calls on in the finale) and come back to life in Lydia's body (somewhat like Corpsetaker's plot in Ghost Story), only to have Mavra consume his power and become a new Black Court Elder?
(If so, it's ironic that Mavra didn't just let Harry and friends leave...)
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My personal impression was that her prophecy was limited to the Red Court vampire war in context, but thinking of it in a broader sense, I don't see how it couldn't apply to the BAT as well.
Oh I do, I think her vision had more of a "Armageddon" vibe to it. It becomes a matter of scale I guess, but first there was Bianca's party, that could fit Lydia's vision, but small in scale big on ramifications.. Then there was C.I. Harry was instrumental in wiping out the Red Court true, but that really doesn't have the fire reference and since the Red Court was merely a cat's paw for a larger group, still isn't big enough. Now what is about to happen in Chicago with the Fomor and the fact that Harry is armed with the kind of weaponry for it could very well for-fill her vision, depends. The BAT we are talking the possible end to existence as we know it, so that more than likely fits the bill.
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How much do you guys think that plays into the theory?
"beginning and end?" Like... The alpha and the omega, perhaps? 8)
Yes, it's a butt pull... but I kinda like this theory. So, have some more "evidence" as support, free of charge.
And, hey. If Dresden can be Kemmler and Merlin(both theories I've seen in various places), why not Jesus, too?
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:o ??? :-\
You know...regarding the Doubting Thomas angle. I think we might have actually had this scene already.
Cold Days, Chapter 14:
"Thomas," I said. "It's me."
"Sure it is," Thomas snarled, the pressure against me surging for a second. "Harry Dresden is dead."
I thought my eyeballs were trying to squeeze their way out of their sockets. "Glurk!"
"Now," he growled, "I'm going to give you exactly three seconds to start telling me the truth, or I swear to God they will never find enough pieces of you to identify the body."
I particularly enjoy the "I swear to God" part...
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What was Mavra's big plan? We know Harry wrecked it, but he never figured out what the point was.
Huh. I had sort of figured it was building up to DB, but thinking about it again, there's no way she could have known the Word of Kemmler was going to be found.
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Knowing what we know now, it seems like the HWWBehind fight when he was a teenager was almost certainly a test -- to see if he really was a starborn.
Oh, I agree. But the fact that it worked means that his "starborn potential" had to be active to some degree.
But not fully active, apparently, given how differently things went in CD against HWWBefore.
So I guess there's a "latent" starborn stage and an "active" one?
(Kind of like the Red and White Court completing the "full change" after killing, except in this case Harry unlocked the full potential after dying...)
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Again you have to squint and turn your head sideways a little. But, another possible piece of support for the "Harry is Christ" theory:
Didn't Harry and Mab have a talk at the end of Small Favor(?) where Harry said something along the lines of "I'm only human/I'm mortal," and Mab replied with "For now." ? I don't remember the exact quote and don't have the book close at hand to check. But, I swear I remember this exchange being part of a larger discussion at some point.
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Again you have to squint and turn your head sideways a little. But, another possible piece of support for the "Harry is Christ" theory:
Didn't Harry and Mab have a talk at the end of Small Favor(?) where Harry said something along the lines of "I'm only human/I'm mortal," and Mab replied with "For now." ? I don't remember the exact quote and don't have the book close at hand to check. But, I swear I remember this exchange being part of a larger discussion at some point.
That was one of the inspirations for this strange idea. With the whole 'not lying' angle, it seemed an rather definitive statement.
Considering the whole Starborn angle and it being a recurring cycle of 666 years, she was probably a prominent element in the last one, and knows the ending.
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Perhaps there is a whole conspiracy about not telling Starborn about being Starborn, like Wizards Foresight as it tempts the Starborn to play into the role rather than develop naturally.
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Didn't Harry and Mab have a talk at the end of Small Favor(?) where Harry said something along the lines of "I'm only human/I'm mortal," and Mab replied with "For now." ? I don't remember the exact quote and don't have the book close at hand to check. But, I swear I remember this exchange being part of a larger discussion at some point.
It's in Skin Game, chapter 3, when Harry covers Marcone's goons with frost and Mab thinks Harry is being squeamish because he didn't kill them. In context, I think Mab is talking about making Harry more "Winter-y".
Sure, the Winter Knight is still mortal, but I think the key is "I'm only human". Mab probably thinks her champion needs to be more than human (even if still mortal).
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It's in Skin Game, chapter 3, when Harry covers Marcone's goons with frost and Mab thinks Harry is being squeamish because he didn't kill them. In context, I think Mab is talking about making Harry more "Winter-y".
Sure, the Winter Knight is still mortal, but I think the key is "I'm only human". Mab probably thinks her champion needs to be more than human (even if still mortal).
It is a problem of communication and preconceived perceptions of the other. From the get go Harry has had a negative idea of who Mab is, I doubt he still has digested the importance of the role Winter plays. So he is constantly on the defensive and suspects and questions any and almost all of her orders. Mab on the other hand has been saddled with incompetent/thuggish Knights for quite some time. All she cares about is getting the job done, she has lost her human compassion over the last thousand years, so she sees little purpose in the use of mercy. "Human" doesn't get the job done, she expects more, that is why her human Knights have the mantle they have.
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It is a problem of communication and preconceived perceptions of the other.
Yeah, exactly. None of the things Mab has had Harry do were actually things he would object to if he knew the real purpose of them:
- stopping the Faerie Court war instigated by Nemesis in SK
- stopping the Denarians in SmF
- killing Maeve the primary Nemesis agent in Winter & thus one of the primary threats to reality in CD
- messing up Nicodemus' plans and cutting him off from support in SG
- and in PT, the favors actually were used to rescue Thomas, which Harry would have tried to do anyway
Now in CD he thought Mab might be the one compromised, since he thought Maeve couldn't lie and she'd planted doubt about Mab's sanity as far back as PG. But afterwards, looking back... especially now that he knows Mab's real purpose...
I'm not really sure why Mab needed to isolate Harry between CD and SG. If she'd explained what Bonea really was, Harry would have waited until she was ready to be born rather than have Molly remove her immediately. And if Mab had started out explaining that the real plan in SG was to cut Nicodemus off from all his support, she probably wouldn't have needed to compel him to participate.
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Yeah, exactly. None of the things Mab has had Harry do were actually things he would object to if he knew the real purpose of them:
- stopping the Faerie Court war instigated by Nemesis in SK
- stopping the Denarians in SmF
- killing Maeve the primary Nemesis agent in Winter & thus one of the primary threats to reality in CD
- messing up Nicodemus' plans and cutting him off from support in SG
- and in PT, the favors actually were used to rescue Thomas, which Harry would have tried to do anyway
Now in CD he thought Mab might be the one compromised, since he thought Maeve couldn't lie and she'd planted doubt about Mab's sanity as far back as PG. But afterwards, looking back... especially now that he knows Mab's real purpose...
I'm not really sure why Mab needed to isolate Harry between CD and SG. If she'd explained what Bonea really was, Harry would have waited until she was ready to be born rather than have Molly remove her immediately. And if Mab had started out explaining that the real plan in SG was to cut Nicodemus off from all his support, she probably wouldn't have needed to compel him to participate.
Giving a straight answer even when you want to seems to get harder the further up the faerie ladder you are.