No free will ever?  Or no free will to disobey when commanded?  I don't know that it's possible to have intellect without will.  Well, then again, most of us have to make decisions about what is true, and what isn't, or what to remember and forget - but a spirit of intellect is mostly just a talking library, right?  A storehouse.  Although, Bob seems to also understand what he knows...  I'm getting over my head.


Well, I don't want to hand out too much outside the context of an actual story.  But within the context of the Dresden books, Bob isn't, like, an actual mortal person.

Mortals are the ones who have free will, the ability to choose what they're doing, to choose between right and wrong.  Without getting too thickly into the underlying philosophy, that's the thing that separates, for example, mankind from the angels--the angels didn't get the same kind of choice about their existance, and what they would do with it.  Mortals get the chance to make all kinds of decisions, and can change their minds, well, at will.  Other creatures, though they may look like people, don't get the same range of choices about who and what they will be.

Mab, for example, is Mab.  She /can't/ show up and suddenly be merciful, generous, patient and kind.  It would never so much as occur to her to do so, because it isn't a fundamental part of her nature, and she /can't/ choose to change it.  She simply isn't capable.  She doesn't have free will in the same way that people do.  It's related to the difference between having a soul and not having a soul, as well.  Without a soul, you aren't free to choose how you will shape that soul.  You just stay what you are.

But that's getting way off the subject of Bob.  I mean, don't you think that if he had totally free will, he'd be out of the skull all the time, hitching rides in people's heads on their way into strip bars or something?  There's a reason he obeys Harry, and it's not purely because Harry offers him shelter from a gruesome demise. It's a part of who and what he is.


    Another question: Does Bob know everything all the time, or just know when he is asked a question?  Can he ask himself questions? (wouldn't that involve will?)


He doesn't know everything.  He knows a LOT.  There's a difference.  He's been alive for centuries and worked with a lot of different wizards, and he remembers absolutely everything he is exposed to.  He's an enormous source of information and practical experience, not a conduit to infinite knowledge.  He's got limits.  He can ask himself questions and attempt to extrapolate answers based upon what he knows, or by asking other spirits for answers, or by venturing out and seeking the answers himself, but he doesn't just pull knowledge out of nowhere.  He just LIKES having it, and getting more of it.  That's what he is.  He's innocent (more or less) of the whole question of good and evil.  His existance is focused on questions and answers, upon simply acquiring the knowledge, and that's that.

Which is not to say that he could never become anything more.  Especially if he hangs around with mortals a lot.  Mortals, in their own possession of free will, have a tendancy to influence beings who don't have it, in one way or another.  I suppose it's entirely possible, for example, that too much association with mortals are what changed Aurora, former Summer Lady, and gave her a determination to destroy the natural order in an effort to change its very nature--for the better, true, but it would never even have occurred to any of the other Queens, Mothers or Lady that such a thing might be, until it had already happened.  It isn't in their nature.

But perhaps I've said too much.  I'll shut up now.

Jim

<snip>
Ask yourself why Mab had Molly brought in.  What chain of events did that set in motion?  What secondary effects came about because of it?  Ultimately, Mab can always go to the Wyld and draw in more muscle to replace fallen thugs.  If worst comes to worst, with just a few "seed" fae, she could rear up enough Changelings to repopulate her cadre within a human generation or two--nothing, to a being thousands of years old. 

As far as she's concerned, everyone and everything is expendable, including herself, when it comes to adhering to her (seemingly irrational and inexplicable) priorities. 

(And by the way--don't think Titania is much better.  When push came to shove, she let her own daughter be murdered rather than upset the balance of the Faerie Courts.  At least Mab is up front about it.  Usually.)

Sacrifice her best troops?  Mab would sacrifice every creature *in* Winter, every one she could bring from Summer, and every single mortal on planet Earth if that's what she thought was appropriate.  And she wouldn't even need to add extra sugar to her cup of tea afterwards, much less lose sleep over it.

But no one does cold-blooded like the Queen of Winter.  Mab's been in the business a long time, she's got a balance sheet, and she is *not* going to come out in the red--
--unless, of course, she really *has* stripped a gear, as Lily and Maeve believe.  In which case there's a stark raving bonkers demigoddess whose powers are no longer being held in check by the Escher-esque code of Sidhe behavior.  And that's all kinds of bad.

But hey.  It's probably not that.  I mean, not *everything* that happens can be the absolute worst possible possibility, right?

Jim

Which is not to say that he could never become anything more.  Especially if he hangs around with mortals a lot.  Mortals, in their own possession of free will, have a tendancy to influence beings who don't have it, in one way or another.  I suppose it's entirely possible, for example, that too much association with mortals are what changed Aurora, former Summer Lady, and gave her a determination to destroy the natural order in an effort to change its very nature--for the better, true, but it would never even have occurred to any of the other Queens, Mothers or Lady that such a thing might be, until it had already happened.  It isn't in their nature.

She has spent too much time with mortals," Mother Winter continued, withered lips peeled back from iron teeth as the sparks from her cleaver's edge leapt higher. "Mortals in their soft, controlled world. Mortals with nothing to do but fight one another, who have forgotten why they should fear the fangs and the claws, the cold and the dark."

"And...that's bad?"

"What value has life when it is so easily kept?" Mother Winter spat the last word. "Mab's weakness is evident. Look at her Knight.

The other question I had is, **unintelligible**…when a human takes on the mantle of a Fae, do they automatically become Fae? Do they lose their soul?

Ok, do they automatically become Fae, do they lose their soul? The answer to that question is “sort of”. Um, it’s automatic, but not necessarily instant. Mab herself was human once, and she eventually became the, uh, the fun-loving Mab that we all know. So, a lot of it has to do with who you are when you go into it, because most of the Fae were human once. A lot were born as half-bloods and decided to become Fae and sort of automatically got their **unintelligible**. But a lot of the other Fae who were there, including the Erl and several others, who were at one point humans….So, a lot of this is going to depend on who they  might end up being, a lot of it depends on who they are going into it and what kind of will they have to maintain who they are. That’s going to be a big deal. I’m really looking forward to writing the next books so I can see what happens with Molly, ‘cause I’m really not sure yet, I have a vague idea of what’s gonna happen, because basically she just got handed the largest, unruliest crowd of little brothers and sisters to deal with ever.

**Audience laughter**

But on the other hand, she’s kinda cool with that. She’s used to that role. So anyway, we’ll have to see what happens to her, but, uh, there’s a lot of choice involved **unintelligible** as far as soul goes. Everybody always talks about souls as if it’s something you can have a receipt for, that if you lose it, then it’s just gone, and I don’t think souls work that way, I think that there’s too much attached to them, I think that there are too many things that consist of what your soul is, so I don’t think this is kinda trying to figure “did you lose your soul?”, because I think you can lose your soul without bothering to stop by any kind of supernatural beings whatsoever. You know, if you watch the news, you’ll see people who do that all the time. But yeah, as far as The Dresden Files goes, as far as eternal damnation, etc., goes, no I don’t think that’s as much an issue for Molly as yet, it could sometime though. Whether Mab has some kind of spark of a soul left or not, that’s one of those questions that would be very difficult to answer, and I’m probably not smart enough to answer it. Probably, when you’ve gone so far down the road, just pure power is madness, it’s hard to hang on to your soul. And it depends on how people who have been handed all this extra stuff deal with it, and what that’s going to do for them in the long run. And it’s one of those long run kind of things, meaning you’re going to be stuck like that for 2,000 years, you don’t really have to go bad tomorrow, you have plenty of time yet to start growing mold on your conscience.

Oh, man, /I/ wouldn't trust me, if I was reading me. I tell giant, complicated, long-term LIES for a living, man. People pay me to manipulate their emotions--to make them laugh and cry, to cheer for the good guys and to hate the bad guys. What kind of person /does/ that for a living? I'll tell you what kind: the shifty, devious, untrustworthy kind. Don't believe a word I say.