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The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: Smaug with OCD on July 04, 2017, 04:17:52 PM
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This is a strange question that occurred to me while I was
planning out part of my own original work procrastinating:
1) Harry has said that magic comes from the energy of life.
2) There are exponentially more people than there were on earth a few hundred years ago(more life on earth?).
3) Conservation of energy has also been mentioned in regards to how magic works.
So, does the fact that there are more people mean that more magic energy is generated, or is this a major factor in why the powers that be have become diluted, their mojo spread out like Hades(?) and Santa Odin mentioned?
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There's probably some kind of a trade-off, whereby there's more humans, but our spread has also driven many animal species to extinction, so the net amount of life hasn't changed as much as you'd think just from our numbers.
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Depends. Magic may come from the energy of life, but is it necessarily human life? There's probably about the same amount of "life" all over the place, it's just that there's more human life than the past centuries/decades.
Or perhaps it's the energy is from life, but the magic is from the will to manipulate it.
Also, we probably have fewer of the supernatural beings on the planet now than we did. So while there's more humans, we used to have the fae and whatnot doing magic things, but have since been supplanted.
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It's an interesting line of thought. Personally, I'd guess that the two aren't directly related, but that's because of my theories on what power is in the Dresdenverse.
On the whole, I think the deities have elemental power, and receive worship power. I attribute the wane in overall power and influence to a loss of worship power, which has transferred to Abrahamic pantheons.
As for the population, that blew up after penicillin was discovered, which is a fairly recent event. I imagine the old pantheons had waned long before 1928.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Population_curve.svg/350px-Population_curve.svg.png)
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c4/Extrapolated_world_population_history.png)
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This is a strange question that occurred to me while I was planning out part of my own original work procrastinating:
1) Harry has said that magic comes from the energy of life.
2) There are exponentially more people than there were on earth a few hundred years ago(more life on earth?).
3) Conservation of energy has also been mentioned in regards to how magic works.
So, does the fact that there are more people mean that more magic energy is generated, or is this a major factor in why the powers that be have become diluted, their mojo spread out like Hades(?) and Santa Odin mentioned?
I think the possibility is what it ever was, only problem fewer teachers to take on apprentices these days... So with more people, more chances of children born with talent, and along with it more warlocks..
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Interesting question. Isn't mortal magic (at least) partially powered by human emotions? Harry frequently discusses that certain areas have residual energy left over from emotional events, though this could be his Third Eye interpreting the past in his peculiar way—I recall that most, if not all, of the times Harry's mentioned this effect were ones where he was using it. Though black magic is outright stated to be affected by negative emotions—it's the reason the Kemmler disciples or Cowl blacked out Chicago in Dead Beat.
If it's true that human emotions provide energy, then the simple increase in numbers indicates that there is more energy. Whether or not this energy is actually useful is another question. I think of it as ambient radio waves; there are plenty that are naturally occurring, but since we started sticking up towers, there are a lot more that do specific things if you tap into them.
In terms of power dilution, I think that's more a side effect of changing beliefs. Hades still has power where he is because they still tell stories about him; ditto Odin. They're not what they once were, but they're still leagues ahead of Harry. Mab apparently sponsored the Brothers Grimm to keep her in the public eye, and Harry speculates that she hooked up Walt Disney later on. But, if power can't be created or destroyed, only changed, that might explain why Odin has an extra mask (in his terms, from the end of Cold Days) in Kringle; he's transferred some of his power into something new.
Here's a tangential, but related question: Bob is a spirit of intellect, right? He grows in power when he knows more. Did he get a power boost when Butters hooked him up to the internet and connected him to what amounts to the collected sum of human knowledge? Is that why he was able to do all of those other things Harry never considered when Butters used him to fight Binder's mooks? Or is that just an expression of Butters thinking outside the box?
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My opinion is the more humans around, the more potential for magic. Potential doesn't mean it will be there, only it can be there.
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Here's a thought (well, a WAG): as human numbers increase, human-centric religious figures gain power, while religious figures related to non-human concepts (thunder, the ocean, alcohol) retain the same amount of power. It may explain both why TWG is so apparently high in the totem pole (most of his/her/its commandments are really about how people should treat other people) and why the Fae reproduce with mortals.
Worship may give a religious figure access to human-generated power, but at the side effect that the religious figure now has to conform to human expectations of them. Kringle mentions that he is not what he once was, as the image of Santa has evolved.
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It might be possible that all the upcoming magical combat and deaths, could release a lot of magic into the world, filling the ley lines with energy.
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My opinion is the more humans around, the more potential for magic. Potential doesn't mean it will be there, only it can be there.
I think the question is ... has the pool of magic been increasing with the population increase.
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Im with Snark Knight on this one, I think there is a balance somewhere between the increase in Human Population and the overall Decrease in Natural Life (Extinct species, deforestation, mass coral die-off, etc) along the same Timeline.
As far as how to quantify that, Id look to the Necromancy rules, in that all life has Some but Human Life is simply a more dense source (ie you can pour more power into Humans vs animal minions, separate from the Age-based capacity increase).
My opinion is the more humans around, the more potential for magic. Potential doesn't mean it will be there, only it can be there.
I dont have the book atm, but thought it was stated in SmF that the presense of the Life actually generates radiates Magic, that is was one of the reasons there was as much magic available as there was in the Shedd, once the Circle went up?