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The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: groinkick on April 01, 2018, 05:13:00 PM
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Where was the previous Warden? Well perhaps this Warden was killed... Perhaps SHE was killed by an entropy curse.... Harry's mom... She used her knowledge of the Island to form who own little prison to lock up Lord Wraith's demon. Because it was done remotely, from the hospital she couldn't lock him up on DemonReach but did the next best thing.
She was also the one who helped grant Gray his freedom from DemonReach.
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I am under the impression that the last Warden of Demonreach was Gatekeeper, and he quit, which is why the island holds a grudge against him.
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I am under the impression that the last Warden of Demonreach was Gatekeeper, and he quit, which is why the island holds a grudge against him.
Jim has said that is not why DR doesn't like him. Or rather, the reason he gave was something different from GK quitting, though it doesn't technically preclude that from having happened too.
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The problem I have with GK being the previous Warden is that I can't really see him being both W and GK at the same time. Maybe he could have been W before becoming GK. But since he's been GK for a thousand years or more, that would mean the Well hasn't had a W for that long. Which seems too long.
The problem I have with Margaret being the previous Warden is that the place seems to have been rundown for a while. Humans settled on the island within the last hundred years to make the cannery. Either she came to it after the cannery had failed, or she came to it early and abandoned her duty.
On the plus side, she was shacked up with Raith somewhere, and it might have been at his Chicago residence. That'd possibly put her in the area.
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Time is a perspective apparently. Remember Woj Dante Algera(?)'s father was the previous GK? Dante's inferno was written 14th century iirc? the timeline for him being a previous GK son is way off considering current GK's mortal existence. But if we're only perceiving previous realities as part of our history I could see the sliding scale mushing in such a way(oh.... and outsiders used to be demons!!!)
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I am under the impression that the last Warden of Demonreach was Gatekeeper, and he quit, which is why the island holds a grudge against him.
That has been a theory, but I'm under the impression that Jim knocked it down.... However I could be wrong about that.
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That has been a theory, but I'm under the impression that Jim knocked it down.... However I could be wrong about that.
He knocked down that being a previous Warden was the reason for the grudge (which was stated to be because "[rashid] focused the tank"). I dont know that he ever formally shot down the possibility that Rashid was not a former Warden under more general context.
I personally think it highly unlikely for two reasons: 1) we know Rashid has been around at least long enough to have known the original merlin (by best the bracket of time we've narrowed The Original Merlin's time to, anyway) and 2) we know by WOJ the last Gatekeeper was Alighiero di Bellincione (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alighiero_di_Bellincione) whose son is famous for writing Dante's Inferno. Given those two things it just seems unlikely that he would have been tapped for /both/ of those very critical roles, or that he would have set aside one for the other or anything that would explain the shft.
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My personal theory is that Kemmler was the previous WARDEN.
When the Council was taking Kemmler down, one of the times, probably the last one, is when Rashid "Focused the Tank" and pissed DR off, by distracting DR from protecting his WARDEN.
Absent any other evidence, I'm sticking with that one.
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My personal theory is that Kemmler was the previous WARDEN.
When the Council was taking Kemmler down, one of the times, probably the last one, is when Rashid "Focused the Tank" and pissed DR off, by distracting DR from protecting his WARDEN.
Absent any other evidence, I'm sticking with that one.
I like that theory except for one minor issue. If Kemmler had access to a prison fill of dangerous creatures, why didn't he release some during the attack to divide/hurt the WC? I can think up some explanations:1) since we do not know the particulars of that battle anything could have happened including the release of inmates, 2) Kemmler was somehow prevented from releasing inmates, 3) The process of releasing inmates was too involved so Kemmler couldn't do it during a battle, or 4) Kemmler actually had some standards and recognized the folly of releasing inmates (unlikely). Any of these explanations are possible, but they don't really satisfy me. I believe that if Kemmler had access to DR he would make use of it to further his own thirst for power.
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My personal theory is that Kemmler was the previous WARDEN.
When the Council was taking Kemmler down, one of the times, probably the last one, is when Rashid "Focused the Tank" and pissed DR off, by distracting DR from protecting his WARDEN.
Absent any other evidence, I'm sticking with that one.
Focusing the Tank is something that is bad to your team, not the Tank's team. The tank is there to be focused upon. GK focusing the tank would not be what draws DR's ire so much as just being on the other side.
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Focusing the Tank is something that is bad to your team, not the Tank's team. The tank is there to be focused upon. GK focusing the tank would not be what draws DR's ire so much as just being on the other side.
That depends on perspective, and how much abstract "I wish you had done X" sort of grudge Alfred is even capable of. "Focusing the Tank" is a term for a tactical mistake, sure, but in the DV context it could mean that Rashid did something (ill-advised) to gain DR's specific attention/Ire during whatever mission against DR, as opposed to DR being on Rashid's team somehow and holding a long-term grudge because it disagrees with Rashid's tactical Choice. Which seems like waaay too abstract and specific a thought for him to have regarding mortals or his view on the Past and Future. He was barely able to recognize one mortal vs another or grasp time in shrter than geological scales; it seems a lot more...human for him to have that sort of What-If grudge. It just feels out of place for be Demonreach to be saying "way back that time, I reaaally wish you'd gone Left instead of Right, if you had gone Left our Party wouldn't have wiped. FOR SHAME!"
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I could totally believe that Rashid kept DR busy while the rest of the Wouncil took down Kemmler.
Another possibility is that Rashid prevented Kemmler from releasing some inmate, being the Warden, DR took umbrage at his interfering with the WARDEN's work. How exactly that fits in with "focus the tank" I don't know, but then, this is the only place I've heard the phrase (from Jim).
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So that's a no as Harry's mom being Warden I guess?
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So that's a no as Harry's mom being Warden I guess?
Nah, Id day it's just solidified into a Maybe. There was always that one line in TC that seemed to Juxtapose the two, making it reasonable (if not my own preferred theory) that she was at some point tapped to be the Warden somewhere, Id assume prior to her going on the run form the wardens, but I could be wrong. For all we know, the person she killed with magic to piss off the Wardens was the previous Warden and she managed to (briefly) Take that role on her own initiative much like Harry did.
To my mind the biggest point against basically all these theories is the strong implication in TC that Ancient Mai has NOT been read in to the full story and significance of Demonreach. Being the "Ancient" of the Council, somebody even Rashid bows to, I dont think it likely that she'd have been so uninvolved as to entirely miss out on that sort of event.
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Kemmler was a huge evil threat, said to have many truly dark allies. Some of which would be the type to be confined in the well. So it makes sense for the warden to be involved in the conflict.
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Nah, Id day it's just solidified into a Maybe. There was always that one line in TC that seemed to Juxtapose the two, making it reasonable (if not my own preferred theory) that she was at some point tapped to be the Warden somewhere,
When I read that line in Ebenezar's journal, I think it can reasonably be read in two ways. That is, Eb could have been expressing one of two thoughts in those words.
Eb, when writing this, has just learned that Harry has gone and made himself THE Warden. This is a freaking Big Deal, Harry himself doesn't yet understand how big, of course, he doesn't even know that's what he's done.
Eb writes that he can't think of anybody he'd trust more to handle that position than Harry...and then adds that he thought the same about Margaret. But what exactly did he mean? It might mean that Eb (and other high-ups in the Council) had in mind Margaret to become THE Warden eventually, had faith in her for the role, and then Margaret went and turned into Margaret and Did The Stuff She Did.
Or, it could simply mean that Eb has just expressed his great faith in Harry, but muses that he once had great faith in Margaret, too, and she proved him wrong. It could be a general sort of thought, not specific to THE Wardenship.
As I said, either interpretation is reasonable. You can make a circumstantial case for either.
For ex, there was the infamous Dinner Party that Margaret threw with Lord Raith, Aramina, Eb, etc. Eb says she suggested Something there, something that made Eb blow up, not just refuse but tell her she was off the beam for wanting it, and storm out.
Well, it might be that she suggested letting someone or something out of Demonreach once she eventually became the Warden, and Eb didn't take it well. But it's just as probable that she suggested something totally different, unrelated to Demonreach. We don't even know if she knew anything about Demonreach, back then.
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Kemmler was a huge evil threat, said to have many truly dark allies. Some of which would be the type to be confined in the well. So it makes sense for the warden to be involved in the conflict.
But unless it went down on the island, the Warden probably wouldn't be all that relevant (unless he was involved in some other capacity). Remember, JB has told us that the power of Alfred depends on your GPS coordinates. If you're on the island, THE Warden has serious power, the kind of power even Mab or Titania can't take lightly. Off the island, Alfred is powerless and the Warden is just this Wizard.
(One of the ironic things about the showdown in Turn Coat, where Harry dropping a bluff challenge to the Senior Council, is that he picked probably the one place in the world where he might just be able to back it up, and had no idea that's what he had done.)
So unless the final throwdown with Kemmler happened on the island, I'm not sure the Warden would be directly involved.
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LordDresden2,
I'm of the opinion that the dinner party was to get the Vampires and the Wouncil to become allies and take over the Outer Gates. We know she traveled the Ways extensively. That would suggest that she knew about the Outer Gates, and who was defending it. I think she saw the need for shock troops (that the Vampires could produce fairly quickly) and the need for Magic (which the Wouncil would bring to the table.)
I think Eb KNEW that the Vampires couldn't be trusted, and didn't want to be part of the scheme.
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But unless it went down on the island, the Warden probably wouldn't be all that relevant (unless he was involved in some other capacity). Remember, JB has told us that the power of Alfred depends on your GPS coordinates. If you're on the island, THE Warden has serious power, the kind of power even Mab or Titania can't take lightly. Off the island, Alfred is powerless and the Warden is just this Wizard.
(One of the ironic things about the showdown in Turn Coat, where Harry dropping a bluff challenge to the Senior Council, is that he picked probably the one place in the world where he might just be able to back it up, and had no idea that's what he had done.)
So unless the final throwdown with Kemmler happened on the island, I'm not sure the Warden would be directly involved.
Just a devil's advocate statement here but The Warden is likely the only thing in existence that Alfred cares about off his own island. So even if Demonreach and/or the office of the Warden arent directly involved, Id call it possible that he might still hold a grudge against those responsible for it (though noticing things like Mab would still be easier than your more short-lived things).
LordDresden2,
I'm of the opinion that the dinner party was to get the Vampires and the Wouncil to become allies and take over the Outer Gates. We know she traveled the Ways extensively. That would suggest that she knew about the Outer Gates, and who was defending it. I think she saw the need for shock troops (that the Vampires could produce fairly quickly) and the need for Magic (which the Wouncil would bring to the table.)
I think Eb KNEW that the Vampires couldn't be trusted, and didn't want to be part of the scheme.
Its certainly possible. One hitch in that particular version of the plan is that Vampires arent all that great at mass-reproduction unless you already have a viable supply of living mortal food to convert. I suspect one reason the Fae do it currently is that they have evolved heightened breeding drives and mechanisms to make them more viable.
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My personal theory is that Kemmler was the previous WARDEN.
When the Council was taking Kemmler down, one of the times, probably the last one, is when Rashid "Focused the Tank" and pissed DR off, by distracting DR from protecting his WARDEN.
Absent any other evidence, I'm sticking with that one.
Don't think it could be the last time, per this WoJ: http://wordof.jim-butcher.com/index.php/word-of-jim-woj-compilation/woj-on-other-bad-guys-beyond-the-outer-gates-demonreach/
We were told in Dead Beat that Kemmler was finally killed in 1961. Looking online, I found that the Tsar Bomb (largest man-made explosion ever) was detonated on Halloween eve, 1961. Is this a coincidence, a coverup by the various authorities of the showdown that took place, or the direct result of Kemmler’s Death Curse?
You read too much. :)
This suggests that Kemmler's last stand was nowhere near Demonreach.
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That's not how I read that.
Differing takes.
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That's not how I read that.
Differing takes.
Same, I took that as the opposite of confirmation.
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I could see it being completely coincidental, except that it happened on Halloween, the one day of the year Kemmler's Darkhallow is supposed to be performed.
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Kemmler was a huge evil threat, said to have many truly dark allies. Some of which would be the type to be confined in the well. So it makes sense for the warden to be involved in the conflict.
Only if he was trying to break dark allies out of the jail or release powerful beings to consume in a darkhallow. That would lead to The Warden's involvement to prevent the occurrence either on or off the island. However, as others have alluded to Alfred is pretty powerless off the island. The Warden may have been involved in the take down of Kemmler as a white council wizard or in his official capacity, but Alfred would only be involved if the incident happened on DR.
I'm of the opinion that the dinner party was to get the Vampires and the Wouncil to become allies and take over the Outer Gates. We know she traveled the Ways extensively. That would suggest that she knew about the Outer Gates, and who was defending it. I think she saw the need for shock troops (that the Vampires could produce fairly quickly) and the need for Magic (which the Wouncil would bring to the table.)
I think Eb KNEW that the Vampires couldn't be trusted, and didn't want to be part of the scheme.
I'm not sold on the idea of a proposed plan for the WC and vampires to join forces to take the outer gates. So far we have not seen any benefit to protecting the Outer Gates other than having a Purpose, greater prestige, and the ability to drag the world into oblivion. Doesn't seem to be much gain for protecting the Outer Gates (unless you argue Nemesis was working a scheme here). There is also the issue of reproduction of troops as that Quantus brought up.
I do agree however that whatever the plan was it involved joining forces with the vampires and was enough to royally piss off Eb.
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Sure the warden would be most powerful on the island, but I could see him having skills and abilities off the island. The gatekeeper mans the outer gates, but he is an epic wizard away from them.
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I could see it being completely coincidental, except that it happened on Halloween, the one day of the year Kemmler's Darkhallow is supposed to be performed.
Halloween Eve, ie. October 30th, so one day too early for that to be a factor.
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Halloween Eve, ie. October 30th, so one day too early for that to be a factor.
I mean, they were stopping him from completing a Hallow according to Luccio in WW1, and I imagine he kept trying to accend.
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I mean, they were stopping him from completing a Hallow according to Luccio in WW1, and I imagine he kept trying to accend.
Excellent Point
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What makes you think the Vampires can't reproduce quickly. For Blampires, it only takes one vamp to turn a whole bunch of people. For Rampires, it takes two people (the new Rampire and their victum). The Whites are the only ones we've seen that reproduce slowly. And we don't know about the other courts, though I'll admit that I doubt they reproduce very quickly.
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What makes you think the Vampires can't reproduce quickly. For Blampires, it only takes one vamp to turn a whole bunch of people. For Rampires, it takes two people (the new Rampire and their victum). The Whites are the only ones we've seen that reproduce slowly. And we don't know about the other courts, though I'll admit that I doubt they reproduce very quickly.
They all still need People. Which means they are all still limited by the overall rate of Human Reproduction (slower than Fae by design), with the added inefficiency of also needing to hold that resource back to provide food and/or Power. Im thinking of this in terms of the long-term logistics of fighting a never-ending battle with the Outsiders.
Separately (because this is an interesting line of thought) int he specific case of Blampires we have it by WOJ that they gain power via straight-up kill count. The the question becomes "Which is a better weapon: 100 level 1 Blampires or 1 blampire powered up by killing the other 99?
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They all still need People. Which means they are all still limited by the overall rate of Human Reproduction (slower than Fae by design), with the added inefficiency of also needing to hold that resource back to provide food and/or Power. Im thinking of this in terms of the long-term logistics of fighting a never-ending battle with the Outsiders.
Separately (because this is an interesting line of thought) int he specific case of Blampires we have it by WOJ that they gain power via straight-up kill count. The the question becomes "Which is a better weapon: 100 level 1 Blampires or 1 blampire powered up by killing the other 99?
Where do you get this? I wasn't aware of any real difference when they are breeding with humans. When they are not, we really don't have any evidence (unless there's something in Cold Case.
In fact, with the Fae being long-lived beings, I would guess that the opposite is true. Otherwise they'd have over populated the planet already.
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Where do you get this? I wasn't aware of any real difference when they are breeding with humans. When they are not, we really don't have any evidence (unless there's something in Cold Case.
In fact, with the Fae being long-lived beings, I would guess that the opposite is true. Otherwise they'd have over populated the planet already.
Cold Case confirms that a Drive to Reproduce is common throughout the Courts (or at least Winter?) as a necessity for supplying troops. Combine that with the simple fact that not all Fae (ex. the Rawhead or the Animal-types) cant actually all be birthed by normal mortals, and it seems sound to think that other modes of reproduction would also be leveraged where possible. So I figure Human-types are going to be hyper-horny (and maybe hyper-fertile? Can Winter BE Hyper-fertile?), Cat types are going to likely have huge litters (max of normal if not supernaturally advanced), and I tend to picture dewdrop fairies like Toot being born more in a swarm.
Regardless there is a Court Drive to Reproduce, which by definition means that fae are going to reproduce faster than than their pure-mortal counterparts by some increment (could be tiny, I admit).
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Separately (because this is an interesting line of thought) int he specific case of Blampires we have it by WOJ that they gain power via straight-up kill count. The the question becomes "Which is a better weapon: 100 level 1 Blampires or 1 blampire powered up by killing the other 99?
I'd mix it up. 1 Blamp buffed from offing 49 civilians, plus 50 low-rank freshly turned.
For fun, Google "One quintillion electric eels vs. one magma." 4Chan can be a hilarious place on occasion.
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Q - I don't know how many people (humans) you know, but ALL of them are super horny by my estimate. LOL
As to the "liters" of the Non-humanoid fae, I can agree.
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Q - I don't know how many people (humans) you know, but ALL of them are super horny by my estimate. LOL
Exactly. Now take whatever that human level is,and add to it. Fae nature is an increase to the baseline human drive and so will always and by definition be higher.
But looking back Im getting us sidetracked. The original idea was that somebody might have planned a super-army of Vampires to actually end/wint he war at the gates, so they wouldnt have been planning for the same sort of eternal stalemate engagement that Winter has
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Sure the warden would be most powerful on the island, but I could see him having skills and abilities off the island. The gatekeeper mans the outer gates, but he is an epic wizard away from them.
But he's not an epic Wizard away from the Gates because he's the Gatekeeper. It so happens that the Gatekeeper is also an epic Wizard the rest of the time too. Which could apply to the Warden as well, but doesn't have to apply.
(Maybe 100 years from now, Harry will be an epic-level Wizard away from the Island, too. Right now he is not.)
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Don't think it could be the last time, per this WoJ: http://wordof.jim-butcher.com/index.php/word-of-jim-woj-compilation/woj-on-other-bad-guys-beyond-the-outer-gates-demonreach/
This suggests that Kemmler's last stand was nowhere near Demonreach.
Like Rasins, I don't read that as confirmation...but at the same time it isn't denial, and the 30 October date is interesting. I could imagine that the Tsar Bomb going off was somehow involved in the sequence of events. Maybe the Council used a Russian nuke as part of the ongoing battle, or tricked Kemmler onto the test site, like a grander-scale version of Morgan and Shagnasty.
To borrow a line from Jaime and Adam, I consider this one "Unconfirmed, but plausible."
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A theory I have no evidence whatsoever to support, but could possibly fit,
Perhaps Kemmler managed to pull off the Darkhallow. But perhaps it was diverted to a mostly deserted part of Russia so there wouldn't be the death toll needed to fuel his ascension. A failed Darkhallow could weaken Kemmler enough to make it possible to kill him off for good. Especially if whatever he did to keep himself from getting killed had to be turned off so he could fundamentally change himself to ascend.
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A theory I have no evidence whatsoever to support, but could possibly fit,
Perhaps Kemmler managed to pull off the Darkhallow. But perhaps it was diverted to a mostly deserted part of Russia so there wouldn't be the death toll needed to fuel his ascension. A failed Darkhallow could weaken Kemmler enough to make it possible to kill him off for good. Especially if whatever he did to keep himself from getting killed had to be turned off so he could fundamentally change himself to ascend.
I could see that. Or they struck when he was vulnerable the same way Harry cracked Cowl in the jaw with his staff.