Santa is a much bigger and more powerful faery than Toot, and I don't know his true name anyway. You'd never see me trying to nab Saint Nick in a magic circle even if I did. I don't think anyone has stones that big.
The "Wyld Courts": There are a couple of powerful Sidhe on par with the Faerie Queens-the Earlking is on of them, and it's rumored-DON'T LAUGH!-that Santa Claus (a brownie Sidhe) may be another.
Priscillie asked Jim if the Erlking is Wyldfae at DragonCon and posted this reply:
Jim: He is wyldfae. He isn't a subject of Mab or Titania. That's what Wyldfae means. But his origins are in the Summer-side of the cycle of seasons, just like Titania's are.
Ditto Santa, only in Winter.
(He /is/ beholden to Mother Summer, but basically everyone in Faerie is, so.)
(I mean, that's like saying "you must obey the law of gravity." Duh.)
Dudesan: You've described Santa Claus as being the Winter King. What does that title mean? Do Winter and Summer each have a trinity of Father/King/Prince, like they do with Mother/Queen/Lady? Is the King necessarily the consort of the Queen? If so, will we be seeing Oberon at some point?
Jim: 5) The Faerie realms just aren't that structured. It's more accurate to say that he is /a/ Winter King. Or even more accurately, that he is a free Wyld Fae who is of a power level that is on par with Mab's and happens to neighbor her sphere of influence, and finds it simpler to show up to family dinners during the holidays and make polite than to start staking out boundaries and establishing treaties.
Oberon... well, the guy kind of wound up between Mab and Titania in one of those romantic triangle things, back around Shakespeare's day. He didn't make it.
Is Kringle Fae?
Is Kringle Fae? His mantle, yes, is part of the Winter Court. Which does not necessarily mean that he himself is Fae as much as the fact that his mantle is. While he’s there, he’s got to pay deference to Mab. If Mab gives him a command, he has to obey it. Mab’s too smart to throw him many commands, it’s much smarter to just let him do his thing. Because it’s this mysterious Christmas-y stuff anyway, cheer and goodwill, whatever. She supposes it’s good to have somebody like that for PR. That at times could be useful. It’s like, oh, so, Winter Court, whole season of death, evil, but then it’s like, yeah, Christmas! Oh, wow, yeah, you’re right. It’s like the schools are trying to buy the tobacco company. **unintelligible** It’s something of the same thing. And besides which, if she doesn’t give him a bunch of orders and stuff, then basically, when she does go to him and say, “I need to know something”, that really, what can you do, this is our game of give-and-take. So, in a way, it’s not really a subservient relationship, Mab’s too smart for it to be that.
She gave me a look of skepticism you can really only get from children who have recently gone through the sobering trauma of discovering that there is no Santa Claus. (Ironically, there is–but he can’t operate on the sort of scale that used to make everyone believe in him. More modern living.)
You missed this one...
Plus, there's the one from Changes about Santa playing football.
Those don't say anything about Santa being a Fae though. It's pretty clear that Santa exists in the Dresdenverse. I created this list specifically for the people on the forums who doubted that Santa was one of the Fae.
Well, I have my niggling little doubts, as Odin's entire office was made of stainless steel. And Santa's mail armor appeared to be steel, but Harry thinks it must have obviously been something else.
And I didn't pick up that he had to commit to the truth, like Mab might.
I guess it comes down to what exactly makes a member of the Fae, Fae to begin with.
well its not so much that i doubt it as this: odin at some point started out in his most original form as a sidhe. after gaining followers and acruing power through various mean, he became more, hence his ability to handle iron. odin still holds(or perhaps captured it somehow, when people first believed in santa?) the kringle mantle which is a fae mantle. idk if as kringle iron becomes his kryptonite though... so yes, odin was fae, he holds a fae mantle. but he himself is not beholden to the nature of being of fairy anymore. specifically you might be able to say its because he has his own demense :-\ but so does erlking, so thats inconclusive evidence.
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Not so much lying, but speaking plainly. Something you don't get from the lesser queens much. Heck, Cat Sith & Lea get more tricksey than Santa seemed to be.
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beg pardon, but santa has tons of connections to faeries in the myths. they just werent called faeries. they were called Vanir (friendly people is one well known translation). also of course the svartalves, and other folks. Heck one of Odin's wives was the Jotun Queen of Winter.
the Eddas are composed of a mix of germanic, celtic,scandanvain and christain mythologies. lots of fae in there.
Dudesan: You've described Santa Claus as being the Winter King. What does that title mean? Do Winter and Summer each have a trinity of Father/King/Prince, like they do with Mother/Queen/Lady? Is the King necessarily the consort of the Queen? If so, will we be seeing Oberon at some point?
Jim: 5) The Faerie realms just aren't that structured. It's more accurate to say that he is /a/ Winter King. Or even more accurately, that he is a free Wyld Fae who is of a power level that is on par with Mab's and happens to neighbor her sphere of influence, and finds it simpler to show up to family dinners during the holidays and make polite than to start staking out boundaries and establishing treaties.
Oberon... well, the guy kind of wound up between Mab and Titania in one of those romantic triangle things, back around Shakespeare's day. He didn't make it.
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Here's a quote that might be relevant to Santa's true nature.(click to show/hide)
Here's a quote that might be relevant to Santa's true nature.
Note the operative word. He doesn't say to Harry that he is a being of Faerie, just that he made his home among them. That could suggest that while he dons a Faerie mantle, he is not necessarily of Faerie himself. A situation similar to Harry, in fact. Harry's a mortal with the Winter Knight Mantle. And Odin could be a god wearing (at least from Halloween to Christmas) the Winter King Mantle of Santa Claus.
One thing that I think is getting in the way here is the Iron weakness. Are Fae weak to Iron because they are Fae? or is there something special about Iron that disrupts Ectoplasmic energies? Has it always been so? or is that one of the rules that has changed over time (like Wizard's spoiling milk)? ((Isn't Iron the most atomically stable of elements? That might have something to do with it.)) What is also important, to my mind, is what Iron does to Harry in CD. Whenever he gets iron under his skin, he stops being the Knight until it is removed.
We also know that many notable figures in the NeverNever were once Mortals who, after having accrued enough power and maybe a few worshipers, became something else. Maybe Iron is used as a leveler to cancel out some of that power, setting the individual back at something closer to mortal. To those who are no longer anything resembling Human, it can be lethal (like mixing a Cyborg and an EMP), but to those who have maintained some semblance of self over the years, it is much more like simply switching a business suit for lounge wear. Therefore, Kringle is who he is with the power he currently has, Vadderung is who is in when he is at home and can kick off his shoes. (To this end, I wouldn't be surprised if Dresden rigged up something similar so that he wouldn't have to deal with the WK urges on his off hours. Maybe just a thumbtack on the arm.)
That was kind of how I interpreted Odin/Kringle's statements. I imagined he started out as a godhead figure (Odin) but as the world changed and his followers diminished he adopted a new role as Kringle. Even though Kringle has been referred to previously as fae, Harry's understanding of the supernatural world and it's provinces have proven to be somewhat fallible over the course of the series. Under both guises he has been an associate of Winter, not necessarily under Winter's dominion. Perhaps he, as Odin, was once charged with keeping watch of the outer gates? It certainly would fit that the association of one keeper to another could continue as well. From the wiki on Odin: All these seem to fit with the personality that we are being presented in the books.
I see no reason why it isn't possible for a Fae being to not stay with other Fae. The only other way I can imagine Santa making himself more clear is by saying something like "surely you knew I live among my own kind!".
Really though, I would ordinarily say that both interpretations are equally possible but I think the WoJ's I posted make my interpretation much more likely.
Iron hurts Fae because they are Fae.
The Fae are mercurial beings of changing temperment. They are constantly changing and shifting. Iron on the other hand is a potent symbol of industrialism. We use it in large amounts of our devices. It is one of the most stable elements and one of the elements most closely tied with humanity. The Fae are beings of chaos while iron is an element of order. It carries tremendous symbolic power (and symbolism is closely tied to magic in the DFverse).
It's true that Harry is fallible when it comes to information about the Dresdenverse but Jim isn't and I have two quotes from him, the second of which flat out states that Santa is a Faerie.
Drat! Missed the WoJ confirmations. So what about a wyldfae that rose to godhood? I wonder if the same rules (extreme iron allergy etc) would apply? We've seen Toot grow in stature physically and presumably metaphysically since interacting regularly with Harry. Suppose a wyldfae becomes a leader to a group of mortals? Surely that would have an impact on his power. Then after a couple centuries as a god, he semi-retires and puts on the Kringle guise for a few months a year. Possible?
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fae/sidhe/ have ben worshipped as gods before. some are now. last i checked, there were about 400,000 pagans on the planet. Mab (under her various names) has real life worshippers, in the real world, right now. so does the erlking.
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EDIT: Should I just add [CD Spoilers] in the subject line. All this spoilering is IMO getting annoying...
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We don't actually know that mortal belief causes gods to grow in power. It's very ambiguous. We do know that gods are tied to the world by mortal belief though.
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Tied to the world by mortal knowledge (not necessarily belief), I think.
sure !
but is fun
Harry makes the disticintion between 'gods' (Mab, Odin) and 'GODS' (the WG, Zeus).. and i very strongly suspect there are also GODS above those.. Ferrovax served something after all, and I dont think its a human god. But in the text at least, mab is very much reffered to as a god. ;D
Odin seems to think the Lords of Outer Night count (or at least used to), and they're just super-powered Rampires. In "Welcome to the Jungle" the Hecatean hag was trying an ascension rite, which would apparently make her something like Hecate. Harry says the Darkhallow would have made a necromancer into a god -- and that's entirely unrelated to worship.
My guess is that a god (lower-case) can start out as anything (human, Rampire, hag, etc.), and then has a big power source/mantle of power/whatever slapped on top.
Tied to the world by mortal knowledge (not necessarily belief), I think.
Thanks for that. You completely missed my point, and helped it along at the same time.
From a limited mortal stand point, there isn't much difference between gods gaining power through mortal knowledge/belief and gods gaining influence over the world through mortal knowledge/belief. But I think you are largely right (or at least Bob might compliment your understanding of it).
It's fun but it also makes conversations hard to follow. I'm afraid I'll have to :(. I'll also go back and remove all the spoilers from my previous posts.
I can't remember Harry ever calling Mab a god. Could you quote an example? I also don't remember him giving any god in the series a capital G unless they were the White God. I do remember someone talking about "lesser gods" which implies greater gods...Does it say that Ferro serves something? I can't remember. I do remember that Ferro was called a VP of Creation which is the same thing Uriel was called so...that might imply that they're on the same power level. If that is true though than why was he at Biancia's ball? All the other beings on Uriels power level (the mother maybe?) are sort of above things like that.
Odin did say that the LOTON had become something "more" than regular rampires. Also recall that whatever was possesing Murphy called them "false gods" so... *shrugs*
I meant to say knowledge. Sorry :-[.
Would you mind telling me what your point was?
sure, ill tell you when the conversation had, but i dont have the book right now (its on friend loan)
PG, a conversation with Charity, outside the gates of AT. Harry only makes the disticintion between little g god and big god because in deference to charity's religous beliefs.
my point is from Harry's- or annother mortals -pov, a 'god' is any being with sufficient power to wrok miracles on a planetary scale. Mab has that. Harry doesnt distinguish between them (hes religous switzerland) because he has no way to measure them at his scale.
he does say he knows for a fact the classical gods or the hindu gods could kick mabs butt tho.
Do you know that from another mortals POV a 'god' is any being with sufficient power to work miracles on a planetary scale? There really hasn't been any discussion in the series about what a "god" exactly is in the Dresdenverse. I think it's premature to paste a definition onto them before we know more. I mean, by your definition Satan is a god!
..yup
and your point is?
heck, according to abrahamic mythology, (s)he is. as are half his/her vassals.. the princes of hell are pagan gods of darkness who were thrown down by the 'true god' when they took over as lord of the earth. Set, Ammon, Belial, Asmodeus.. they were all gods once.
youre dealing with two issues here:
in the historical sense, a god is any being that large numbers of people worship or worshipped. Even Uriel recongizes this; he refers to the rampies as 'usurpers' that is people who are pretending to be gods; but doign so implies that the archangel considers the real mayan gods to be real gods.
which has some validity , note the classic 'worship no pother god before me' is essentially the same thing. The original abrahamic religion was polytheistic after all; and the darkness (satan) was very much a god of it.
for the abstract POV If a being shows up who can literaly juggle the himmalays and says its a god, im inclined to not argue too loudly.
Mab qualifies under both catagories.
My point Ms.Duck is that we don't know what the criteria for being a god is in the Dresdenverse. Sure a being can say it's a god but is it?
Let's use Neil Gaimans American Gods as an example. In this book "gods" are beings that gain power from belief. A powerfull creature might claim it's a god but since it doesn't get power from belief it is by definition not a god.
I'm not saying that the same is true in the Dresdenverse but the point is that it could be. In the Dresdenverse you may have to meet a certain criteria (power coming from belief or otherwise) before you can be called a "god". The historical perspective is useful as a reference point but no more. Jim changes mythological stuff all the time (I don't remember anything about narcotic saliva or ectoplasmic skin in the Mayan mythos for example).
For an example, remember in Dead Beat when Harry said that Cowl would become a god if he preformed the Darkhallow? Harry didn't say anything about people worshipping Cowl so that's a point against the historical perspective.
If a king in europe claimed he was a lemon and executed anyone who disagreed I wouldn't be inclined to argue loudly. He's still not a lemon.
both have some validity- for example number of believers / knoweledgable has little to do with thte power of a god that has been shown, and more to do with is the god allowed to do anything ? thats what the whole oblivion war is about.
as to cowl, is suspect he would have ended up with worshippers, eventually.
and then there is the whole issue of purpose
my point is, you may be right. but if there is some sort of 'minimum requirement' its in the 'power you can use' catagory. and that makes mab a god.
We don't know though so why speculate about it? We have no idea what makes a god a god in the Dresdenverse. The best we can do is make shaky guesses.
Until we get a definition, I will only call a being in the Dresdenverse a god if it's called a god in the books.
Where is it suspected that Cowl would have eventually ended up with worshippers? i can't recall anything like that in DB. It doesn't really matter anyways since he would still have been a god even if he hadn't ended up with worshippers.
pardon, thats my dyslexia. it should read 'I suspect' .. because thats what i think; the godhood comes first from ascension then worshippers come later.
Would you mind telling me what your point was?My point is very similar to that which Ms Duck and you are arguing.
My point is very similar to that which Ms Duck and you are arguing.
Why is it what it is? What are the qualifications? What are the reasons? Granted, I was rambling a bit, I do that a lot, but still.
'Fae are weak to iron because they are Fae' is a statement that needs qualification, and you qualified it, but it does not answer whether Fae existed before they were weak to Iron; or if they did exist before then, were they still Sidhe?
Just like you too are arguing whether or not so-and-so is a god based on unknown and assumed qualifications. (Though In that case, I blame Jahovah for claiming exclusive licencing on the title of 'God'. Few Religious figures were ever that ballsy. How about use the word 'deity' so you don't get His panties in a twist, Eh?) Ms Duck is extrapolating data, and the Count is taking the conservative approach.
That is pretty much what I was doing, yes, but with the aim of speculating on the current question (I don't remember what that was at the time, something about whether Santa should have been weak to Iron, I think.). What's the fun of obsessively following something if we can't extrapolate wild theories about it?
In that case the worshippers are basically just a side effect of becoming a god then. They're not required for you to be a god.worshippers provide a power boost. you don't have to actually be a god or even be from the NN. iirc the time before the WC was said to be a time of dark god warlock wannabe's. i interpreted this to mean warlocks of the past exploited their power and demanded worship as a 'god' hence increasing their power.
I can't remember Harry ever calling Mab a god. Could you quote an example? I also don't remember him giving any god in the series a capital G unless they were the White God. I do remember someone talking about "lesser gods" which implies greater gods...Does it say that Ferro serves something? I can't remember. I do remember that Ferro was called a VP of Creation which is the same thing Uriel was called so...that might imply that they're on the same power level. If that is true though than why was he at Biancia's ball? All the other beings on Uriels power level (the mother maybe?) are sort of above things like that.
6. ferrovax - is this because he's the OLDEST dragon? (i thought it was an empty boast) or because he's a dragon?
Ferrovax feels absolutely no need to boast. It's because he /is/ a Dragon, large D, an elemental force of the cosmos. He isn't some kind of Smaug hanging around a nice apartment. He's a Dragon in a more Asian sense of the concept, a semi-divine being who was once given authority over various portions of the mortal universe, and who was responsible for their orderly procession. There /are/ Smauglike dragons (though not nearly as many now as there have been in the past, thanks George!) but they are essentially nothing but emissaries and servitors created in the image of the real thing.
Regardless of big D or little d, dragons almost universally resent humanity for usurping the balance of power in the world.
2009 Independence signing
In that case the worshippers are basically just a side effect of becoming a god then. They're not required for you to be a god.
i think thats what I said. or tried to say? I list two definitions of a 'god' in the DF- historical and raw power. Never meant to say- or imply- you need both. some have one, some have another; there is a definate corelation between the two in that the amoutnof power you are allowed to use is in some way limited by the number of believers you have (according to the oblivion war).. but it has little effect on the amount of actaul power a god has, i think.
that comes from:
-purpose
- sacrifices
-feeding (some gods may be able to feed thru worship)
-number of servants (?)
I'm pretty sure this will never make it into the actual Dresden Files, since Harry has no idea the Oblivion War is happening, along with everyone else. So I'll share it here.
The Archive was constructed /for/ the Oblivion War. Specifically.
Yes, the Archive (and Ivy, the two aren't really divisible) know about these forgotten beings. The Archive is in essence the keeper of the dead, where they are concerned. Once the archive believes one of them has been consigned to oblivion, she holds on to the memory of that being briefly, for another thousand years or so, watching for any mention of that being in print in an effort to make sure that she is the /last/ person alive who remembers whichever hideous entity has been consigned.
And once the safety period has elapsed, and the Archive is confident that no one else remembers, she deletes the memory from the Archive. Bad guy, /gone/.
She also tries to keep track of the enemy players in the Oblivion War via watching for communications and so on. When she finds a trace of them, somewhere, she lets a cell of operatives (like Lara and Thomas) know what's up, through a blind drop, and sends them off to handle the problem.
The Oblivion War is a huge, /slow/ thing. Stuff happens every few decades, at most. That's why the Archive was created--to be an immortal awareness, something that could track and intelligently direct responses to the enemy in a war happening on an almost geological scale.
All that other stuff she says the Archive is for? Smoke and mirrors.
Kincaid, by the way, has no idea that the Oblivion War exists. It isn't like Ivy explains this stuff. She just gives orders.
the vast majority of the information about the oblivion was isnt in the story itself, its in the WOJ. Heck, thomas and Lara dont even know they work for the archive. The oblivion war wa something jim thought was very nea, said he planned to put in but has now decided there is no room for it.
for example:
as to Mab's godness.. enh its up to you. Im just going by the books, and woj. Harry is very ambivalent on who is or who is not a god; he's 'theological switzerland'. Odin says he used to be a god, that the loons used to be but fell; while uriel disagrees. Jim, in his own words, refers to beings at the Mab level as "semi-divine".. aka a demi god. good enough for me.
I've actually read that WoJ and unless you're referring to different WoJ, I don't see anything in that WoJ that implies that gods need believers to have power or the ability to use it ???.
Where does Jim refer to beings at mab's level as "semi-divine"? Can I get a quote?
Ferrovax feels absolutely no need to boast. It's because he /is/ a Dragon, large D, an elemental force of the cosmos. He isn't some kind of Smaug hanging around a nice apartment. He's a Dragon in a more Asian sense of the concept, a semi-divine being who was once given authority over various portions of the mortal universe, and who was responsible for their orderly procession. There /are/ Smauglike dragons (though not nearly as many now as there have been in the past, thanks George!) but they are essentially nothing but emissaries and servitors created in the image of the real thing.
Then again, "crazy" is generally considered to be a lack of connection with reality--and a lot of characters in the Dresden Files can MAKE reality. They might have a seriously skewed idea of the way reality should be, but if they can make it happen then they aren't crazy, per se.
he refers to beings at the mab level as semi divine:
he's also used that term in regards to shaggy (tho i cant find the quote). I think Bob uses it to describe shaggy at that point as well. And, well, by my definition, he says she has godlike powers:
(about Mab and sanity)
its juts IMO, but immortal semi divine being who can change reality, raise the dead, and perform just about every miracle thats not in the first page of genesis? thats at the very least a demi god.
"There's a shock," I muttered under my breath. Whew. My banter gland had not gone necrotic. "But you missed the point of the question, I think. Why would Mab need such a thing? She's an immortal, a demigod."
Relevant in the "does Mab count as a Demigod' discussion.
Relevant in the "does Mab count as a Demigod' discussion.
thanks. I rembered him syaing that, just wasnt sure which book it was in.