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Site Suggestions & Support / Re: paying up for the forums
« on: May 16, 2024, 02:39:06 AM »
Probably best to start a new thread, give the age.
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Jim said it during an interview. It's on YouTube the youtuber is Jr Carrel, the video is called Exclusive interview with Jim butcher: unveiling the magic behind the dresden files. It's at the 1:22:34 markThank you! I figured someone on here would have kept a weather eye out!
Did this redditor cite their source, or provide an exact quote?Cheeky G33k! Although I would point out the onus of proof is on the claimant
Because you can make any claim you want online...
Jim says that in Twelve Months, we will learn that Harry's starborn powers tap into a deep-Nevernever realm called Equestria, and he will summon a steed named Tirek Rainbow Lord to ride into battle, who will trounce Mab's unicorn.
Prove me wrong!
Cool.... I hope it is a tall horse, with Harry's long legs we don't want to see his heels dragging on the ground!Knowing his luck (and Jim's humour) Harry would be stuck on a shetland pony.
Okay, I found the passage in Ghost Story and I don't think Uriel was warning Harry of anything except reminding him that in the end he will be judged on his choices in life. He also gives Harry a choice of working for him in the In-Between..My apologies, I was confused. I conflated the conversation Harry has with Jack Murphy with the conversation Harry has with Uriel. Captain Murphy says "with your record, son, you could just as easily find yourself on a south bound train."
page 454 Ghost Story
Then Harry asks what happens if he accepts Uriel's job offer to work for him? This is where you are perhaps a bit confused. Uriel isn't warning Harry of anything, all he is telling him is he will be judged on how he has lived his life up until on and the choices he has made. How he has lived his life up until that moment is totally up to Harry to judge, not Uriel. However if Harry opts for what comes next he will be judged as we all will when we face Judgement.
Here is what Uriel says; same page 454 Ghost Story
No warning of him being on a slippery slope.. No judgement on Uriel's part, just the truth, that if Harry chose what comes next at that moment, he'd have to answer for what he did and chose in life up until that point. It's up to Harry to chose if he wants to face it at that time or not... You will remember that Harry did choose what comes next, though since he really wasn't all dead, he never went on to what comes next.
I remember that passage from Ghost Story, and it wasn't so much that Uriel thought one way or the other, but though Uriel is an archangel, it isn't his place or job to judge Harry or anyone else.I don't think he was judging. I think he can see which way the river is flowing though, and he commented on it. A warning to Harry. Don't forget, Harry's did go "On" and low and behold went to the person he had sold himself to. A big part of the whole exercise was to warn Harry that he was on a slippery path.
I haven't seen Parks and Rec, but Harry does allow himself to be governed, as Winter Knight, he is governed by Mab.. Yes, he wiggles as much as he can with in her rules and the rules that govern the Winter Court, but he respects them and obeys most of them.I mean, he "allows" it because she he often gets reminded she has him by the throat. If he obeys the rules, it's because he has no other option. Hence why he tries to wiggle out of them every. single. time. If that's a not a disrespect for authority, I don't know what is.
It isn't a simple problem of the White Council being infiltrated by the likes of the Black Council.. Harry wants to reform, not to abolish the White Council. I don't ever remember where Harry was arguing with Eb that there should be no White Council. However there is a bit of a problem when a large percentage of future wizards lose their heads because they make mistakes when their talent awakes and the fear that they may go warlock.. And then there are those that do go warlock because there aren't enough wizards to take them under their wing.. You see the problem here, wizards live a long time, but new blood is needed, and the rules that worked great six hundred or so years ago might not work quite as well in the 21st Century.I agree Harry would prefer to reform them, but he did actually suggest at one point that it wouldn't be so bad if the White Council didn't exist and Ebenezar chewed him out over it. He even said it would be worth as much as Dresden's life to say such things, in times gone by. It was during the discussion when Ebenezar reveals himself as Blackstaff.
"Ever since the founding of the White Council, ever since the first wizards gathered to lay down the Laws of Magic, there has been someone interested in tearing it apart," he said. "The vampires, for one. The faeries have all been at odds with us at one time or another. And there have always been wizards who thought the world would be a nicer place without the Council in it."Blood Rites, pg 216.
"Gee," I said. "I just can't figure why any wizard would think that."
Ebenezar's voice lashed out, harsh and cold. "You don't know what you're talking about, boy. You don't know what you're saying. Within my own lifetime, there have been times and places where even speaking those words could have been worth your life."
Harry has never chosen to be a loner, he isn't a social butterfly, but he never was a loner.. He has always had friends, Michael for one.. There have always been those who have sacrificed themselves not just for his causes, but for him because of their love for him.Are we talking about the same guy who prefers to stay in reading books than going out? Who prefers the peacefulness of farms and homesteads to the big smoke? Who willing didn't see or tell any of his friends about his return from death? At least, until he had to. Yes, Harry has had friends. But that doesn't mean he hasn't chosen many, many times to be alone.
Just because he doesn't attend the White Council's meetings doesn't mean he has no respect for them. Yeah, he didn't wear the proper robe to the meeting once but his good robe was covered in puke, blood, or cat poop I cannot remember which... That was also at a time when Harry was suffering clearly from severe depression his person and apartment reflected that. Learning any language takes time, Harry didn't know the White Council existed until he was arrested by them and they nearly took his head. He never finished high school though he did eventually get his GED.. He was still of high school age when he went to live with Eb.. Eb could have made him finish high school and take Latin, but he didn't. His argument with the Merlin was out of respect for the very rules of the White Council, and it was under those very rules he was able to save Molly.. If he had no faith in those rules he wouldn't have advised her to surrender to the Wardens in the first place.. Harry was under the Doom for years, and after many on the Council didn't want him, it was only out of nessesity that Luccio drafted him.He began to respect them more over time, but he eventually ended up hating them all the more when they failed him. Is it any accident, that when they failed to help him when he needed them the most, he stopped going to Council meetings? He only recently returned to warden duties, and then got kicked out of the White Council. Wearing his "formal" attire (which often was just a bathrobe rather than a proper robe) covered in dirt and grime and filth...is hardly respectful. If he were a cop or soldier, he would be reprimanded. If he did it repeatedly, he would be fired. It's disrespectful to the role that you hold. Yes, he might have been depressed. But either you deal with it and try and get better, or you quit. You can't compromise your job and expect everyone to pick up the slack indefinitely - and that's just a normal workplace. There's a lot less tolerance in things like law enforcement. Let alone a magic society.
He isn't deciding what the rules of the White Council should be, but he does question whether or not they are all that they could be. Governments of any form are not perfect, sometimes bad laws are made, ineffective laws are made, some laws that worked great a hundred years ago, no longer apply now, the smarter governments recognize this and evolve.. Actually what has happened in Harry's life and what he has seen has made him very expert in these things, he nearly was a victim.
He isn't the only one, Rashid is another who has isolated himself from the Council, but he has years of experience on how to do it without alienation of the Council. However that isolation is a two way street, the Council's own prejudice against Harry because of who his mother was has gone a long way to isolate Harry.
And should he? Really? Who was in control in Peace Talks, Eb or Harry? Who understood from the beginning that he didn't have a chance toe to toe with Eb and figured out a way around it?Oh no, I don't think Harry should hold back at all if they push him. But it will play into the hands of those who wish the Council to fall. I am not so sure he built his little decoy to defeat Eb specifically so much as have a decent chance of fooling whatever horrible fight he knew he would encounter. I don't see how he could have known he was going to duel Ebenezar.
I could say much on this topic, I have a fairly evolved tree of theory on it. But my idea for dresden isn't that he's a new being.. but a new identity for an older group of archetypes. A swirl, the easiest I think to see is the similarity of the 7 sins an seven laws. They are unbalanced. Twc's forgiveness saves from sin, but harry... isn't so nice. He'll be more weighty in his jurisdiction.You know, I had forgotten that quote. Thank you for reminding me. It's an eerie parallel, isn't it? We are all our path, in some ways. But you only have to look at what that path is made of to realise where it's going.
The above quote sparks such a parallel to Nic saying he is his path... Harry is the one who's really like that. Even with possible TT shenanigans, he's just manipulating his own circumstances to make better choices..
If Harry dies, it will be at the end I hope surrounded by his children and grandchildren. I don't want to see Harry made into some kind of immortal of any stripe. He does deserve peace, and after it is over, if he is surrounded by friends and family, he will have it.I more meant Heaven - which while we don't know for a fact exists in the Dresden Files (Uriel was exceptionally tight lipped on the subject) - I think it is heavily implied to exist. Uriel wasn't so sure Harry would end up there either, when Harry last flirted with death. I wonder where Harry is on the scale now.
It doesn't make him a libertarian, it just makes him an ordinary human who wishes to have the freedom to mostly live his life as he sees fit. That's no different from the rest of us, and most of us understand there are still laws we all have to abide by or there would be anarchy. Harry understands that also.Not all people in the world do actually hold that as a central idea. Many places do not have the luxury of the kind of freedom we enjoy. Some places and societies even believe that they prefer a lessening of one's personal freedoms for the "greater good" of their society. I am sure you can work out which places those are. But even in countries like the US, not everyone holds liberty as highly as others. Hence all the politics. But Harry does hold liberty highly, higher than most. He might not be Ron Swanson (if you have ever seen Parks and Rec) and not believe in no government etc but I would say he is less likely to allow himself to be governed than ever before. I will concede that he seems to have more respect for mortal governments than supernatural ones...which is highly interesting.
I don't think anyone disagrees with that except maybe some of the old fossilized wizards, however having said that I don't think for the most part that the White Council is corrupt so much as it needs to be reformed and updated to fit better into the 21st Century.I mean, it's hard to say. Depending on your definition of corruption - is it simply corrupted by its own political power, or has black magic corrupted their purpose etc. At one point, Harry thought that the White Council was so corrupt and infiltrated by the theoretical Black Council, that he needed to help create a Grey Council (whatever happened to them, by the way, haven't heard a peep from them in 5 books). Ebenezar constantly would chastise Harry for suggesting there should be no White Council, even suggested that it might be worth Harry's life for suggesting such a thing in days gone by. I think the question becomes does Harry think the current White Council is too corrupt to exist?
However that isn't an isolation of choice on Harry's part.. That kind of isolation isn't the same as choosing to be a loner.Oooh, I am not sure I agree with that. One of the clearest parts of the series is about how much individual choices matter. Harry has chosen his path, no one walked it for him. The consequences of it are on him. Earlier in the series he chose to be a loner, but these days it's worse than that. He made deals with vampires and faeries and other monsters, he pushed against the White Council's restrictions and even got himself in political fights with them, he has lied and pushed away many of his former allies in order to "save" them but also to protect himself, and he has done a LOT of questionable stuff that without context doesn't look great from the outside (and even with context some of which still is pretty questionable). Most of all, he has gathered a hell of a lot of personal and political power in a very short amount of time. That's the sort of thing that scares people. It's not for nothing that Mab loves Harry's rise to power.
Again, I disagree, Harry has reason to distrust authority, but that isn't the same as having a disdain for authority. His clashes with authority in most of the books is about what the rules should be and living by those rules, not about disregarding the rules.
Well, that is a technique as old as when mankind first began to organize into groups. In this case it isn't Harry doing the isolation, the White Council is it's own worst enemy. The enemy plays upon the White Council's own fossilized view of the world, not much Harry can do about that. He has clashed with the White Council at Molly's trial, and Rashid has foretold that he will clash with them again... However that doesn't mean that it is a bad thing if he does.As above, I think Harry has done plenty to isolate himself. That's what Ebenezar was warning him about. Yes, the White Council is its own worst enemy. Yes, Harry has been pushed and manipulated and yes, their were plenty of extenuating circumstances to the things Harry has done. But. Harry's distrust and fear of the White Council and some of his own allies has kept them in the dark, and that is why they don't know why he is doing what he is doing. He might even be right to keep them in the dark - but that's the choice he made, and the consequences are on him.
Except I cannot see Harry doing that, nor does the series point to that happening in my opinion. Harry is too logical a being, that's part of his makeup as a good private detective.Well, the Black Council has made Harry look as bad as possible (not that they needed to do all that much). They certainly have managed to turn his allies against him - he is literally off the White Council due to their interference. They have been targeting his friends and family for years - they took took Susan (which ended up killing her), they took Molly (which ended up with her as Winter Queen), they took Maggie (which she survived but is traumatised by), they killed many of his friends and possibly his parents (strongly hinted at), they manipulated his brother and stole Thomas' partner and baby (which resulted in Thomas being sentenced to death and Harry having to fight the White Council for him AND having to lock Thomas up himself in the most awful prison in the world), and they killed the woman he loves, Murphy.
Not maybe as we have known him, but Harry will survive. But then again, Jim is now successful enough that if he loses some readers because he kills Harry off it won't hurt him that much. Also consider, Jim has already "killed" Harry off once and brought him back, and he isn't the same Harry he was before, nor is his world.I mean, unless Harry becomes immortal...which has been hinted at. But I think Harry might go the Vadderung model if he does, rather than the Mab one. Something a bit more flexible. That said, after everything Harry has been through I think it would almost cruel to have to live more in the mortal plane (whether he is immortal or otherwise). Harry deserves to find peace and be with his family again.
Yes, young Harry rejected authority in a lot of ways, corrupt authority especially. I disagree, Harry is no libertarian, not in the classic sense. Up until they rejected him outright, Harry had a lot of respect for the White Council from just the way he talked about it. No, he didn't follow all the rules all of the time, but more out of nessesity rather than disregard for them or belief that they didn't have merit. Go back to his debate with the Merlin in his defense of Molly in Proven Guilty, that wasn't argued by a libertarian, it was argued by a future Merlin wanting the White Council to follow it's own rules. Carlos maybe still young but he still represents the old guard, Harry is the new.Well, it's just a philosophical position. Which doesn't mean he follows every tenet of it. But he does surely hold the central tenet of liberty (the freedom from oppressive restrictions imposed by an authority on one's life) is a core value of his. So, even if he isn't a Libertarian in the sense of a political movement (and I was a bit unclear on that, I apologise) he is a follower of the philosophy.
Harry didn't leave the White Council, the White Council left him. I also disagree that Harry likes being an outsider, he cannot afford to be with the BAT coming. He has to learn to play well with others and become a leader. This is what makes the series interesting, Harry has to evolve and is evolving, he has had to learn to play nice with some and reject others, watching him grow up is what makes the series compelling.Well, they kicked him out. A small but important difference, I think. For breaking their rules too often, mind you. I mean, the very first book says Harry is on probation for breaking one of the main rules.
I like this train of thought. Harry could build a new council of wizards when all is said and done.Assuming he survives "when all is said and done".