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The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: Yuillegan on September 05, 2019, 07:59:16 AM
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In one of the latest DragonCon panels on Ghosts, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTq8RMv19Ek&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTq8RMv19Ek&feature=youtu.be), Jim discussed Ghosts, and obviously, Souls. around 24:50
He discussed the nature of people is by quoting C.S. Lewis "You are a soul, you have a body" (which Uriel says to Harry as well). He goes on to describe Souls as being "is something important. A soul is something vital. Something that exists beyond the bounds of Time and Space. It's here for a little while and then its gone like a flicker of sunlight. You can't really capture it; you can't catch it and you can't store it. It's beyond that - its part of the foundational energy of the universe. It's an echo of creation. And as a result it doesn't really get mired down in things like that."
So ghosts then differ as they are "some kind of remnants [of the person], some kind of memories that seem to get left over" "It's like water poured into a footprint - it's still in the shape of the original foot but its not energy" They aren't trapped but created as sort of a byproduct of a person's death. Some ghosts can change and become something else (but that would be an exceptional ghost). Most just continue in their endless cycle of being themselves.
There is a slight discrepancy in that Bob thinks Harry burns off his Soul when he uses Soulfire. But the way Jim puts it here, is that mortal concerns shouldn't really affect Souls.
But the more interesting implication is the sheer importance of a Soul. Something that comes from the beginning of Creation, that is Timeless and foundational. And vital. I would propose that it is vital to reality that Souls exists and have Choice. Perhaps why the Angels take it so seriously. Not to mention, it helps explain the incredible properties of Soulfire. Often called "the Life Fire" or "the Fires of Creation" - which makes sense considering it is fueled by the very energy of creation. Pure creative energy, I suppose. Perhaps this is why mortals have such a unique edge against the supernatural.
But then why then are Angels able to use Soulfire? They don't have Souls, that is a uniquely mortal thing... Except perhaps it isn't totally.
My WAG is then that perhaps Angels have something like a Soul, similar yet limited. The prototype version. But because they are so big and powerful, they could not have "Free" Will. They were allowed Will (in order for them to be at least somewhat autonomous) and had a degree of Choice (as Uriel displayed when he gave up his grace, or when the Fallen fell - different acts of course but required Choice). But they weren't given the full range of Choice as they had too much power or something like that. So naturally, some Angels then resented when Humans get the full range of Choice. What does that mean? I cannot be sure, but I suspect that it means Mortals have access to the Source or something like it, basically allowing them to Choose their own shape and destiny (dictated not by their wishes, but their Choices). An Angel cannot fully choose it's own shape or destiny. It may appear to alter things, but that is always in accordance with the plan. They have the illusion of Choice. Not sure I can delve into the mechanics much beyond that - but you get the idea I hope.
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I took his statement that souls don't get mired down in things like that to mean that souls don't get "stuck" here on earth as ghosts.* I do think that mortal concerns will affect souls, but that physical concerns won't. What I mean by that is that you couldn't damage someone else's soul by a physical action. What could damage (or enhance) that soul is how the person chose to respond to the physical action. In the videos just released, Jim repeatedly talks about how choice is a really big deal in the Dresden Files, and I think that links in here. If choice doesn't matter to the soul, why/how does anything matter?
Both Bob and Harry admit that Bob doesn't really understand the faith side of the supernatural. Harry specifically applies this to Bob's understanding of soulfire. I think Jim did too. We've also been told that becoming a fairy not only could destroy Molly's soul but is likely to. I think a soul can be destroyed in the DF, not just damned, or Jim is intentionally misleading us.
*This doesn't seem to work with Harry's experience in Ghost Story. Captain Murphy's task force seemed to be more than ghosts and Harry was given the opportunity to stay on. Maybe the task force were the ghosts who become something more. Maybe Harry staying on would be the exception that proves the rule. Maybe Uriel knew Harry wouldn't stay on, but that seems problematic to me.
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Q: I’ve been wondering, is a magic-users longevity/ability to repair themselves due to their use of magic, or is it because they are able to access magic at all?
A: It’s because they /use/ magic.
Q: Charity Carpenter was able to use magic at one point; will she have an extended life?
A: Not unless she takes it up again, which would be extremely difficult and which she doesn’t want to do.
Q: And is the longevity tied to strength levels, as in do stronger wizards live longer?
A: Indeed. In the Dresden Files universe, magic is the essence of creation itself. Constant exposure to it through use changes the person who uses it in a number of ways, not all of them as obvious as physical recovery and longevity. The more exposure, the more dramatic the changes.
Source: http://wordof.jim-butcher.com/index.php/word-of-jim-woj-compilation/woj-on-magic-in-the-dresden-files/
Ctrl + F Longevity. All three of these questions are right after the other.
Over in the Candidates for future Nemfection thread, Kindler posted the above WoJs. I immediately thought of this thread and the similarities to the description of the soul and magic re: the forces of creation.
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But then why then are Angels able to use Soulfire? They don't have Souls, that is a uniquely mortal thing... Except perhaps it isn't totally.
“Oh, come on, Harry. All you mortals get all hung up over your precious souls. You’ve never seen your soul, never touched it, never done anything with it. What’s all the to-do?”
“So what you’re saying is that this hand construct was made out of my soul,” I said.
“Your soul and your magic fused together, yeah,” Bob said. “Your soul converted into energy. Soulfire. In this case, the spirit energy drawn from your aura right around your right hand, because it fit the construct so well, it being a big version of your right hand and all. Your standard force-projection spell formed around the matrix of soulfire, and what had been an instantaneous exertion of force became a long-term entity capable of manipulation and exertion to the same degree. Not really more powerful than just the force spell, as much as it was more than simply the force spell.”
I wiggled my tingling fingers. “Oh. But my soul’s going to get better, right?”
“Oh, sure,” Bob said. “Few days, a week or two at most, it’ll grow back in. Go out and have a good time, enjoy yourself, do some things that uplift the human spirit or whatever, and it’ll come back even faster.”
I grunted. “So what you’re saying is that soulfire doesn’t let me do anything new. It just makes me more of what I already am.”
“A lot more,” Bob said, nodding cheerfully from his shelf. “It’s how angels do all of their stuff. Though admittedly, they’ve got a lot more in the way of soul to draw upon than you do.”
“I thought angels didn’t have souls,” I said.
“Like I said, people get all excited and twitchy when that word gets used,” Bob said. “Angels don’t have anything else.”
“Oh. What happens if I, uh, you know. Use too much of it?”
“What’s five minus five, Harry?”
“Zero.”
“Right. Think about that for a minute. I’m sure you’ll come to the right conclusion.”
Take this for what it's worth. Since Jim uses Bob as an unreliable talking head. Something I tend to tire of.
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Yeah. Angels don't have souls. Angels are souls.
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Yeah. Angels don't have souls. Angels are souls.
Yeah except as I stated in the OP, as Uriel (and C.S. Lewis) say, "You are a soul, you have a body".
Which I suppose could then beg a really interesting question - if both humans/mortals are souls, and Angels are souls, are humans/mortals and Angels one and the same? Perhaps at different ends of the spectrum? Angels are described as timeless (beyond time and space) just like mortal souls...there is clearly a strong relationship. Hmmm....
@Morriswalters: I tend to agree, I am getting sick of Bob being so unreliable. Why have a talking head otherwise? I know Jim enjoys it, but as a storytelling mechanic it becomes a bit lazy and annoying. The problem is that you begin to not really trust Bob, which then makes his scenes feel drawn out and somewhat irrelevant. I know it is a balance thing but surely there are more elegant ways to limit Bob and his impact on the story.
Curiously, we can actually tell Bob is wrong about a fair few things in that passage. Harry has in the past made it clear that some beings (such as Angels) are not just pure spirit, but are a mix of physical and spirit. Think back to the conversation with Kim Delaney in Fool Moon. Now admittedly, that might be retconned by now - but many beings actually fit that description still. Gods, immortals etc. And Harry says to Bob "So what you're saying is that soulfire doesn't let me do anything new. It just makes me more of what I already am" But in Cold Days, when Harry contests Mother Winter's will, he has the exact same revelation and says Bob didn't truly understand soulfire. Which is curious, because in this scene Bob agree with him. So which is it? Does Bob know what he is talking about or not?
Bad Alias: Thanks for bringing that to my attention. It is indeed curious that Jim often also describes magic as the forces of creation. And yet, there is a somewhat different quality to soulfire. But it is also described the same way. And Souls are described as a fundamental part of reality, an echo of Creation. So perhaps one could interpret that you need some kind of soul in order to work magic. However as we know, that isn't always the case. Many creatures of the Nevernever can work magic and don't have souls. And Necromancy seems to fly directly in the face of that (being fueled by the power of death, not life), let alone whatever fell power the Outsiders use. Perhaps Harry doesn't yet fully understand the broader nature of magic, or perhaps Jim's poetic phrasing is leading us in the wrong direction. Whatever the case, there is definitely a link and a mystery.
By the way, I wasn't saying that choice doesn't matter to the soul (in fact I said choice was vital to the soul). I was more referring to the fact that Jim had said that basically souls are largely unaffected by mortal events. Which I agree, seems contrary to their importance and relevance in the series. They seem to both be affected and affect everything around them. Perhaps this is one of those intentional discrepancies by Jim (such as the Fae being both from Mortal origins AND growing from dew drop creatures into powerful beings based on importance) and we are missing vital information that bridges the gap. As for the destruction or damning of souls...I think something Jim said sort of clarified this. He talked about how people can lose their souls everyday without any supernatural interference by being terrible humans. I think Serack had an excellent theory about the nature of souls and their components. It was similar to the Egyptian belief that a soul has many parts.
Consider this though - both Carmichael and Malcolm Dresden seem to be aware of more than the reality Harry perceives, and Malcolm seems aware of Harry's future. Perhaps they experience all time at once, like Angels do. Uriel certainly seems to.
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If angels exist outside of time, then that could explain their perceived lack of choice. Their choice(s) exist(s) in the past, present, and future simultaneously. It's not that they can't chose, they have already chosen. There is probably some wiggle room for choice when they interact with humans or handwaived as "beyond humans simple linear understanding of time." A mystery in the Catholic sense of the word. (A thing that is that cannot be fully comprehended).
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If angels exist outside of time, then that could explain their perceived lack of choice. Their choice(s) exist(s) in the past, present, and future simultaneously. It's not that they can't chose, they have already chosen. There is probably some wiggle room for choice when they interact with humans or handwaived as "beyond humans simple linear understanding of time." A mystery in the Catholic sense of the word. (A thing that is that cannot be fully comprehended).
Alternately, it's just an outgrowth of 'the more powerful, the more constrained'. IF that is a fundamental part of reality, as the books indicate but never spell out, then maybe Angels are so powerful they literally cannot go against their purpose without going against reality (or the natural order, whatever it is Lucifer did).
Of course, the case of Lasciel suggests angels CAN choose to play both sides, so maybe they're not utterly constrained as such; they're just operating on a level where they 100% KNOW that the road to hell is paved with good intentions; as soon as they swerve from their purpose a bit, they know they're going the path of the Fallen, and it scares them onto the straight and VERY narrow (and, by extension, any Angel who deviates knows he's falling anyway so why bother not Falling all the way at once?)
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Bad Alias: Oooh I like that. And it makes sense with what Uriel says when Harry asks him to fix his back (H: "Help me" U: "I've already done what I can" H: "But you haven't done anything!" U:"From your perspective, it would seem that way"). It also matches up with how Gods interact - Vadderung is more Mortal because he is involved in events, when you are outside of events you are less mortal but have less control. Like the Gods who appear to be dormant or sleeping, it is just from mortal perspective, they are just interacting with the time stream differently.
Avernite: A valid argument I think, especially in the sense of Power has Purpose, but I am not sure that Angels know everything in that way. We know that Angels have some version of Intellectus. But to what extent we don't know. I think it's all about the level of involvement. The more you participate, the less power you can use without consequence. I mean, we know that immortals are only truly vulnerable during conjunctions such as Halloween and places like Chicago-over-Chicago. If you were immortal, why would you show up if you were so vulnerable? My take is because of the "feeding, run free" thing. They can become stronger this way. But if an Angel already knew all that would happen to them...wouldn't they really just be going through the motions of their own life? Puppets dancing on the string? I don't think that is quite the case. I think they still have some level of autonomy, with heavy restrictions due to their very nature, and therefore can still FEEL (even if it is an illusion perhaps) at least like they have some measure of control over destiny.
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Alternately, it's just an outgrowth of 'the more powerful, the more constrained'. IF that is a fundamental part of reality, as the books indicate but never spell out, then maybe Angels are so powerful they literally cannot go against their purpose without going against reality (or the natural order, whatever it is Lucifer did).
Of course, the case of Lasciel suggests angels CAN choose to play both sides, so maybe they're not utterly constrained as such; they're just operating on a level where they 100% KNOW that the road to hell is paved with good intentions; as soon as they swerve from their purpose a bit, they know they're going the path of the Fallen, and it scares them onto the straight and VERY narrow (and, by extension, any Angel who deviates knows he's falling anyway so why bother not Falling all the way at once?)
I think you've hit upon a few things here. If the more power=more constraint idea is correct, and it has been strongly hinted at, then Lash, the shadow of Lasciel, has far less power than an angel, fallen or otherwise. Therefore, the shadow would have more room to maneuver.
As to the lack of choice angels have due to knowledge, this is almost explicitly stated in Ghost Story. Carmichael tells Harry he can't tell him some things because it would limit Harry's ability to choose. Knowledge limits choice. In Larry Niven's Known Space universe, the Protectors don't have choice because their advanced intelligence eliminates all options but the one best suited to their goals. Further, we have been repeatedly told that knowledge is power. As early as Fool Moon, Harry emphasizes that knowledge is what really makes wizards dangerous. If power constrains and knowledge is power, then knowledge constrains.
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I took his statement that souls don't get mired down in things like that to mean that souls don't get "stuck" here on earth as ghosts.* I do think that mortal concerns will affect souls, but that physical concerns won't. What I mean by that is that you couldn't damage someone else's soul by a physical action. What could damage (or enhance) that soul is how the person chose to respond to the physical action. In the videos just released, Jim repeatedly talks about how choice is a really big deal in the Dresden Files, and I think that links in here. If choice doesn't matter to the soul, why/how does anything matter?
Both Bob and Harry admit that Bob doesn't really understand the faith side of the supernatural. Harry specifically applies this to Bob's understanding of soulfire. I think Jim did too. We've also been told that becoming a fairy not only could destroy Molly's soul but is likely to. I think a soul can be destroyed in the DF, not just damned, or Jim is intentionally misleading us.
*This doesn't seem to work with Harry's experience in Ghost Story. Captain Murphy's task force seemed to be more than ghosts and Harry was given the opportunity to stay on. Maybe the task force were the ghosts who become something more. Maybe Harry staying on would be the exception that proves the rule. Maybe Uriel knew Harry wouldn't stay on, but that seems problematic to me.
I think all souls have the choice to stay on if their spiritual body is strong enough but if you believe in an afterlife the pull to go on to that afterlife is just very strong. It explains stuff like ancestor worship, return to life of powerful necromancers and the old idea that some people linger on because they have unfullfilled bussiness.
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Of course, the case of Lasciel suggests angels CAN choose to play both sides, so maybe they're not utterly constrained as such; they're just operating on a level where they 100% KNOW that the road to hell is paved with good intentions; as soon as they swerve from their purpose a bit, they know they're going the path of the Fallen, and it scares them onto the straight and VERY narrow (and, by extension, any Angel who deviates knows he's falling anyway so why bother not Falling all the way at once?)
Necro-ing this thread because I had a thought on this.
In Ghost Story, when talking to Harry Uriel describes humans as "two-year-olds playing with hand grenades" when talking about names. What if the same goes for choices, where angels and humans both technically have free will, it's just that angels, due to their knowledge, have far harsher consequences for exercising it?
After all, if a two-year-old lights the curtains of your house on fire because they like the pretty flames, and your house burns down, the two-year-old isn't going to be punished all that harshly, whereas if an adult does the same thing, they're going to go to jail for arson. Applying the same logic to humans and angels: humans don't know all the consequences of their actions, and even for those consequences they do know, they might not understand them. Therefore, if a human does a bad thing, they get the option to say "sorry" and try to do better in the future. An angel, on the other hand, understands all the consequences of their actions before they take them, so if they do a bad thing, they get punished for it to the full extent.
This reconciles angels claiming to not have free will with the WoJ we have that Uriel could technically have helped Harry more in Changes, he just would have Fallen if he did, since angels certainly wouldn't effectively have free will due to their knowledge, even if they technically did; and also reconciles the whole soul=free will thing.
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So the Angels are the adults in your theory, as opposed to us being the infants?
I don't mind it at all. But I cannot decide if I think humans are part of the Angel life-cycle. Not anywhere near enough evidence. But still...the idea is intriguing.
This would reconcile the whole soul - free will problem. But I am not so sure that I can rule out Bad Alias' idea that Angels are limited because they have already made their choices, to some extent. Humans are the random element in the equation though...hmm I don't know.
Arjan - well I think you are both half-right and half-wrong. I think it is likely that mortal's choices and beliefs affect their afterlife. Hades seems to give this away when he says he doesn't get as many souls as he used to. And there are MANY belief systems out there. Perhaps you can even make some choices after you die too.
But the WOJ I referred to earlier contradicts the idea that Souls linger. Souls don't linger, they move on. But the imprint created by them is a ghost or shade. Hence how he was able to interact with his own ghost to defeat the Kravos the Nightmare after he "died". Harry in Ghost Story was an anomaly. He had "died" and crossed over, but was not "gone". However, he was more like Astral Projecting. And he had the help of an Archangel to do it. So I don't believe for a second that his situation was anything like "normal".
As for what Necromancers do...well we have mostly only seen them animate corpses and bind spirits (which are more like corporeal ghosts). We only have one act of "full" resurrection so far: when Kumori brings back that Mob hitter. And she used a lot of power to do it, and the whole process seemed very unnatural. He screamed the whole time and the paramedic described it "as though he was being brought back against his will". Maybe Necromancers can bring back a Soul from the afterlife. But I can imagine quite a few Angels who would be upset by that. Perhaps they can only do the recently deceased as once a being has "fully" passed on and is "gone" there is no option.
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Maybe Necromancers can bring back a Soul from the afterlife.
Or maybe they can only bring back life (and maybe the ghost). If the soul is what makes mortals capable of understanding right and wrong, then bringing someone back without a soul would basically be creating a monster. You might not notice with a mobster.
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... bringing someone back without a soul would basically be creating a monster. You might not notice with a mobster.
n.b. the difference can be minimal (hey, somebody had to say it!)
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;D ^^ Glad someone said it!
Bad Alias, when you say "bring back life", do you mean essentially filling the body with life energy without a Soul present?
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;D ^^ Glad someone said it!
Bad Alias, when you say "bring back life", do you mean essentially filling the body with life energy without a Soul present?
You need someone's essence. The word is used severaltimes in ghost story by Mab, Bob and Uriel and Harry
“Harry,” he said. “Open up. You need to restore these memories to your essence.”
“An intriguing argument,” said Evil Bob, “and potentially valid, given the penchant for independence evident in my progenitor.”
“By which you mean the original Bob?”
“Obviously,” Evil Bob sniffed. “He from whose essence I came to be. Your instincts for such matters are acute, Dresden. You have given me something to consider in the future, when my attention is not otherwise occupied by mildly effective stalling tactics.”
“You don’t,” Uriel replied. “But even if you did, I would point out to you that your spiritual essence has been all but disintegrated. You would not last long as a shade, nor would you have the strength to aid and protect your loved ones. Should you lose your sanity, you might even become a danger to them—but if that is your desire, I can facilitate it.”
“And now here you are,” Mab murmured. “Oh, the Quiet One angered us, sending your essence out unprotected. Had he been incorrect, I would have been robbed of my knight, and the old monster of his custodian.”
Corpsetaker had gone with her usual trick, forcibly trading bodies with a victim—and the manifested ghost body she’d been in had fallen back into ectoplasm the moment she wasn’t there to give it energy and form. Butters’s essence, his soul, had just been booted out of his body, and now it stood there, vulnerable and unmoving—brightly colored but fading away, even as I watched. She’d tossed a quick veil over Butters’s shade so that no one who might come upon her would see him standing there, forlorn and confused, while she drove around in his hijacked body.
And Corpstaker was back. The essence is everything fromyou that is not material and as long as it is not too far away you can theoretically bring it back into a body.
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This is very interesting Arjan!
And yet it doesn't entirely contradict anything either. I put it down to Jim's poetic writing myself. Because spirits like Bob don't have Souls, but are made of "spirit" which is sometimes a synonym for essence.
Uriel actually combines the term when talking to Dresden. Mab called the combination of his Soul and Spirit (which is what Dresden was in Ghost Story) his essence.
But do these being really understand what a Soul really is? I think not. I think Jim has a definition for his series, then he has a definition which some of his characters understand. And then he probably has a personal definition which may or may not be the foundation of all of that, but isn't really necessary to discuss.
But are you arguing that essence and soul are the same thing? Is a soul even necessary for a body to function (in the Dresden Files)? It seems that if you get shunted out of your own body then your soul isn't totally necessary for your body to function - a body might be like a car, it functions (by and large) no matter who is driving.
It gets even more curious when you consider that Jim has said you can lose your soul without any supernatural thing coming along. Yet Johnny Marcone, Nicodemus etc seem to have souls. And they would be some of the worst around surely? So what IS the criteria for losing your soul?
Perhaps Jim will never answer this.
But
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"Losing your soul" can have different meanings and I do not think the litteral meaning is always meant here. It is not like you litterally sell it and can get it back if your contract with the devil has some unsuspected loophole.
The other meaning is loosing who you are. Losing the core of your being. That is why Harry was afraid of the winter mantle, to end up as as somebody who was not recognizable Harry anymore, without his beliefs and values. But that is not a black and white thing because people change and not all change is bad.
I do not think Jim will ever explain clearly what a soul is and even if he does that will be only a point of view. Other characters in the dresdenverse look differently at the same stuff and they are not wrong either. I think different interpretations are possible.
I think essence is a broad term that includes everything of a living or spiritual being that is not material. Your soul is part of that but there might not be a clear line between that and your spirit which contains your memories and your life force and your magic. Your soul can not really interact with the spiritual world let alone with the material world without it and when Harry's shade was mostly depleted only Uriel could communicate with him.
There is an essence of Bob, of Mab, of Uriel, of Harry. Do they all have a soul? it partly depends on your point of view and your understanding of what a soul is. It is also connected with free will.
Not everything said even by woj is the absolute truth on that also because we are heavily influenced by the christian point of view because of Harry and that is not the only way to look at it.
But the essence of Mab is that she does not have free will, she has a purpose. If that is better or worse than free will is again a matter of perspective. Gard found her purpose and she is perfectly happy with it. Maybe purpose is a fulfilling of free will. Uriel has purpose too.
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Bad Alias, when you say "bring back life", do you mean essentially filling the body with life energy without a Soul present?
I mean whatever Kumori did in Dead Beat to the mobster with the assumption there wasn't a soul there. Souls don't linger after death. Ghosts might be created. The guy died. So if his soul had time to take the next step, either Kumori had to pull it back from where ever or give the guy life without a soul. To bring him back wrong in a way only a soulgaze (more precisely a lack thereof) would definitively reveal.
Alternatively, there's some time between death and the soul taking the next step and Kumori acted in that window, but what fun is that?
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I mean whatever Kumori did in Dead Beat to the mobster with the assumption there wasn't a soul there. Souls don't linger after death. Ghosts might be created. The guy died. So if his soul had time to take the next step, either Kumori had to pull it back from where ever or give the guy life without a soul. To bring him back wrong in a way only a soulgaze (more precisely a lack thereof) would definitively reveal.
Alternatively, there's some time between death and the soul taking the next step and Kumori acted in that window, but what fun is that?
Souls do sometimes linger after death if they see the opportunity and wish to do so. Harry did, corpstaker did and I am suspicious about ser Stuart.
Bob waved a hand. “Harry. Dead isn’t . . . Look, even by terms of the nonsupernatural, dead is a really fuzzy area. Even mortal medicine regards death as a kind of process more than a state of being—a reversible process, in some circumstances.”
“What are you getting at?” I asked.
“There’s a difference between dead and . . . and gone.”
I swallowed. “So . . . what do I do?”
Bob lunged to his feet. “What do you do?” He pointed at the table of Mother Butters’s feast food. “You’ve got that to maybe get back to, and you’re asking me what to do? You find your freaking killer! We’ll both do it! I’ll totally help!”
“Dead is a grey word,” Mab hissed. “Mortals fear it, and so they wish it to be black—and they have but few words to contain its reality. It escapes from such constraints. Death is a spectrum, not a line. And you, my knight, had not yet vanished into the utter darkness.”
The important one here is the difference between dead and gone.
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I'm not so sure about Corpsetaker being a soul instead of just a ghost. Harry is an exception. Sir Stuart is a suspicious case. Jim specifically said "souls" do not "linger."
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I'm not so sure about Corpsetaker being a soul instead of just a ghost. Harry is an exception. Sir Stuart is a suspicious case. Jim specifically said "souls" do not "linger."
As a rule they don't but there are exceptions.
Corpstaker went with the southward train:
I saw her try to scream.
But all I heard was the blaring howl of the horn of a southbound train.
And then she was gone.
“You’re right,” Uriel said, his tone filled with a chill satisfaction. “Someone needed to do something.” He glanced aside at me, gave me a slight bow of his head, and said, “Well-done.”
And Uriel was quite satisfied with that. I think it is a necromancer ability to linger after dead and return. Kemmler did it a few times and corpstaker was his disciple. What corpstaker made corpstaker was utterly evil but she had not lost herself in it, it was her. Uriel would not have been that satisfied with the destruction of a mere ghost, this was bringing a soul to her destination.
And Harry is a necromancer too, thanks too Bob.
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I'm not so sure about Corpsetaker being a soul instead of just a ghost. Harry is an exception. Sir Stuart is a suspicious case. Jim specifically said "souls" do not "linger."
Corpsetaker was taken by a southbound train at the end, though. That would seem to indicate that he/she* is an exception.
*random point: do we know what gender Corpsetaker is? In Dead Beat he/she is always referred to with male pronouns by those he/she works with, even when in a female body. But in Ghost Story, Corpsetaker keeps being referred to as "Lady Shade."
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Forgot the southbound train bit.
I'm assuming Corpsetaker was a woman because the shade was, and the description didn't fit any bodies we've seen Corpsetaker inhabit. I assume everyone who referred to her as a he was first introduced to Corpsetaker in a man's body.
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Why would a spirit need or have a gender?
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Why would a spirit need or have a gender?
Same reason it has clothes?
It is about self image. Corpstaker as a shade thinks of herself as a woman so she looks like a woman and is addressed as a woman.
Gender in the dresdenverse is not strictly a material thing. Your gender is a story. even (fallen) angels have gender in that sense. Lasciel is clearly a woman and Uriel a man. That might have something to do with the stories told about them or maybe it is just how they started.
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Forgot the southbound train bit.
I'm assuming Corpsetaker was a woman because the shade was, and the description didn't fit any bodies we've seen Corpsetaker inhabit. I assume everyone who referred to her as a he was first introduced to Corpsetaker in a man's body.
Lea is even more explicit:
“With significant capability,” Lea replied, stressing the phrase. “When Corpsetaker’s spirit still dwelt upon the mortal coil, even bodies with latent talent were hospitable enough for her to exercise her full power. But thanks to you, and like you, my dear godson, she has passed beyond the threshold between life and death. Now she requires a body with a much greater inherent talent in order to use her gifts once she is inside it.”
It is her, not just some reflection. The whole story Lea tells is very illuminating especially in the light of what happens with Harry later.
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I find Lea's statements much less convincing than the fact that "Corpsetaker" in Ghost Story went to Hell. It isn't likely that ghosts in DF go anywhere after "dying." Which is what makes Sir Stuart's situation so suspicious.
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I find Lea's statements much less convincing than the fact that "Corpsetaker" in Ghost Story went to Hell. It isn't likely that ghosts in DF go anywhere after "dying." Which is what makes Sir Stuart's situation so suspicious.
What Lea is saying is that the shade of corpstaker is corpstaker, her essence just like Harry is his essence. It is what corpstaker makes corpstaker. It reflects what Mab and Uriel say about Harry. It can not be more clear.
Mark that what she tried to do with morty did not differ that much from what she used to do when she still lived, only more difficult because she had passed that threshold. That is what Lea said. She had passed that threshold.
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What Lea is saying is that the shade of corpstaker is corpstaker, her essence just like Harry is his essence. It is what corpstaker makes corpstaker. It reflects what Mab and Uriel say about Harry. It can not be more clear.
She said "like," not "just like." Like: "similar to; in the same way or manner as." Are they alike in that they are non-corporeal or are the alike in that they are soul and spirit? Lea's quote is 50/50 on that count. It can be taken either way. It's hard to come up with another interpretation of the southbound train.
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She said "like," not "just like." Like: "similar to; in the same way or manner as." Are they alike in that they are non-corporeal or are the alike in that they are soul and spirit? Lea's quote is 50/50 on that count. It can be taken either way. It's hard to come up with another interpretation of the southbound train.
They are like in:
she has passed beyond the threshold between life and death
Not she isgone and this is something else. Lady shade is corpstaker.
She is Harry's godmother and is actually trying to help Harry to understand his own situation. She is really giving as much informaton as she can within her limitations. If you read the whole passage Lea tells about Corpstaker in ghost story which is too big to quote. I do not think a normal ghost can become alive again in the sense that corpstaker tried to do.
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I think Jim has been inconsistent with his ghost/soul application. It appears Harry was a ghost that was also running around with a soul. Corpsetaker must have had a soul to go to the "southbound train" at then end of the book, despite the fact that she didn't even really believe in the soul. But she's special because she body jumped and thus may have had her mind/soul already prepped for transfer and thus have kept it in the afterlife.
But we have two data points indicating that all ghosts have souls.
1. Sir Stuart was offered a job by an angel, to work with other souls that we know are only working there until they are "ready" for the next step. The indication from the angel was that Captain Murphy and Carmical (sp) were souls that were currently just working as ghosts before they moved on. Sir Stuart had been a ghost for a very long time, and so to say he still had his soul enough to work with the Murphy gang seems to indicate most ghosts can
2. Harry was given several options at the end - even to stay as a ghost. This shouldn't have been an option if he still had his soul, since it should have had to go on to judgement no matter when his body finally failed.
Honestly, it does appear that ghosts are/have souls and that the final decision can be avoided, though it seems that doing so pretty much dooms one to be a pretty hellish fate as well eventually.
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In Ghost story Morty, sir Stuart and Harry actually have a discussion about the topic. Most are just ghosts and some are souls but the difference is nearly impossible to determine. Both have the same problem with thresholds for example.
But Harry could enter holy ground and mere ghosts could not. That is significant.
Also the southbound train is not the only afterlife available. We already have seen Hades who does not get many souls lately but stil gets a few and there are consistent stories of souls who stay here to handle unfinished bussiness.
Any soul with anough power and knowledge can probably stay behind for some time to protects descendants for example which explains ancestor worship.
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In Ghost story Morty, sir Stuart and Harry actually have a discussion about the topic. Most are just ghosts and some are souls but the difference is nearly impossible to determine. Both have the same problem with thresholds for example.
But Harry could enter holy ground and mere ghosts could not. That is significant.
Also the southbound train is not the only afterlife available. We already have seen Hades who does not get many souls lately but stil gets a few and there are consistent stories of souls who stay here to handle unfinished bussiness.
Any soul with anough power and knowledge can probably stay behind for some time to protects descendants for example which explains ancestor worship.
I also think the "choices" Uriel presented, while real, were not the choices open to Harry because he wasn't really dead. Harry chose "what comes next." He thought he was choosing Judgement, but instead he was returned to his body, lessons that Uriel wanted him to learn, learnt.. He was a soul, not a soul with a body, this knowledge later came in handy when Mother Winter had him pinned down.
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@toodeep: Jim pretty specifically stated that ghosts are what are left behind and souls move on. The link to the video is in the first post in this thread. Mort and Sir Stuart were pretty clear that Dresden seemed off for just a ghost. And Harry was given an option because that was the whole point. He was robbed of choice when he "killed" himself. His option wasn't to remain a ghost, but to stay in a pre-judgment part of the afterlife. That isn't avoiding the "final decision." It is delaying it.
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I think Jim has been inconsistent with his ghost/soul application. It appears Harry was a ghost that was also running around with a soul. Corpsetaker must have had a soul to go to the "southbound train" at then end of the book, despite the fact that she didn't even really believe in the soul. But she's special because she body jumped and thus may have had her mind/soul already prepped for transfer and thus have kept it in the afterlife.
Actually, I think he's been fairly consistent: anyone who 1) doesn't use necromancy; and 2) doesn't have an additional factor helping them to stick around doesn't get to stick around. The only two ghosts we see that we can confirm have souls are Corpsetaker, who is a necromancer and who also body jumps a lot; and Harry, who has a gift for necromancy and who has an archangel interfering.
Sir Stuart was offered a job by an angel, to work with other souls that we know are only working there until they are "ready" for the next step. The indication from the angel was that Captain Murphy and Carmical (sp) were souls that were currently just working as ghosts before they moved on. Sir Stuart had been a ghost for a very long time, and so to say he still had his soul enough to work with the Murphy gang seems to indicate most ghosts can
A couple of points:
1) I'm pretty sure Uriel says something to the effect of "Sir Stuart was a great man; even his shade has more than enough substance to be useful," which would indicate that Sir Stuart's ghost was not Sir Stuart.
2) There's a recent (or recent-ish) WoJ about ghosts that I feel is applicable:
In the Dresden Files ghosts are not trapped anywhere; they’re something new that had been created. They’ve been created out of memories into the form of something else, so as far as they’re concerned they’re the same person who’s now a ghost, but that’s not the truth of the existence. And when they end, they just sort of end in entropy, they just sort of trail away slowly if they use too much energy. Or if they don’t use much energy, then they just sort of hang around, and they … you know, it’s not much of a life, really. But it’s possible for them to grow and change, to find other sources of energy and become something else, but that’s kind of like, the exceptional ghost that does that, a particularly driven one. Most ghosts just sort of like, wander around and hang out with other ghosts, and they complain about the kids, you know “young’ns these days,” …
I think the bolded part probably applies to Sir Stuart's ghost, seeing as he's been around for centuries, and that, as Harry showed when he was a ghost, even having a soul doesn't stop one from degrading as a ghost.
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@toodeep: Jim pretty specifically stated that ghosts are what are left behind and souls move on. The link to the video is in the first post in this thread. Mort and Sir Stuart were pretty clear that Dresden seemed off for just a ghost. And Harry was given an option because that was the whole point. He was robbed of choice when he "killed" himself. His option wasn't to remain a ghost, but to stay in a pre-judgment part of the afterlife. That isn't avoiding the "final decision." It is delaying it.
Uriel was teaching Harry a lesson, it was a great risk because it made his soul vulnerable. Harry was alive the whole time, Mab and Alfred kept his body going, he was near death, but as Mab said
he never crossed so far upon the spectrum of death that he couldn't be retrieved.
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I've read the books and am at least familiar with the basic plot points. He was dead enough that serious supernatural players will now be interested in him. I can't remember if this was told to him by the Gatekeeper in Cold Days or Kringle in Skin Game.
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Death should be a learning experience, after all, or what’s the point?
Really love all her dialogue :)
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I've read the books and am at least familiar with the basic plot points. He was dead enough that serious supernatural players will now be interested in him. I can't remember if this was told to him by the Gatekeeper in Cold Days or Kringle in Skin Game.
Yeah, but he is not all dead, he is slightly alive... Mab and Alfred kept Harry's body slightly alive, but the same time he was mostly dead, so his soul could take it's walk about.
We don't know how much information either Kringle or Rashid really have. They might not know about the full capabilities of the I.C.U at Demonreach Memorial Hospital or the excellent care he got from Nurse Mab and Nurse Alfred.. Funny, no one mentions Dr Uriel here, bet he was the main reason why Harry never passed beyond the point of no return on the spectrum of death.. All Kringle and Rashid know is Harry was dead and came back to life, they don't know about him being just mostly dead, no one ever went through his pockets to get loose change.
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Yeah, but he is not all dead, he is slightly alive... Mab and Alfred kept Harry's body slightly alive, but the same time he was mostly dead, so his soul could take it's walk about.
We don't know how much information either Kringle or Rashid really have. They might not know about the full capabilities of the I.C.U at Demonreach Memorial Hospital or the excellent care he got from Nurse Mab and Nurse Alfred.. Funny, no one mentions Dr Uriel here, bet he was the main reason why Harry never passed beyond the point of no return on the spectrum of death.. All Kringle and Rashid know is Harry was dead and came back to life, they don't know about him being just mostly dead, no one ever went through his pockets to get loose change.
Vadderung probably knows. He is generally well informed, knows about the isle and was involved in the whole changes thing with Uriel and Mab. As Harry said in Skin Game, I asume you know everything I know. Lea knew as well.
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Vadderung probably knows. He is generally well informed, knows about the isle and was involved in the whole changes thing with Uriel and Mab. As Harry said in Skin Game, I asume you know everything I know. Lea knew as well.
However, here is another question, when Vadderung or Lea say, "you came back from the dead.." Is it because they know it for a fact or are they saying as far as the general population is concerned Harry came back from the dead. Appearances is everything. Truth, Harry was only mostly dead, in fact should have been all dead save for several interventions, beginning with Harry falling into Mab's open arms in the icy water, slowed everything down to the point of suspended animation. Perhaps a few moments before, though no proof, an archangel stirring the air just enough to deflect a speeding bullet just enough, that while massive, the damage to Harry's heart not fatal because the Queen of Winter is there to almost instantaneously apply the big chill. Who knows what life saving
fluids were in those vines from the island? Harry did happen to have the "parasite" as well to act as a heart lung machine while his heart repaired itself... However what the general supernatural public gets is propaganda, Harry died and came back to life... This gives him mystic and a psychological leg up over his enemies and those who he needs to convince to be his allies.
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In a colloquial sense, coming back from the dead means being revived after your heart stops. A head shot would have made the point moot. When and where Kincaid chose to take his shot, and how it turned out, was probably as much to do with Ivy as Uriel. How Kincaid chose to act made it certain that Mab would be in a position to retrieve Harry after the shot, and that the body would go more or less into stasis until she could pick him up. However, once the brain dies, you're ded, dead. Which is how Corpsetaker got locked out.
My head canon is that neither Harry or Corpsetaker were ghosts. I only say this because both were capable of moving back into a body if one was available. We see this when Butters spirit is left outside his body after being forced out by Corpsetaker. On the other hand Sir Stuart doesn't appear to have this option. My internal canon says that Corpsetaker and Kimmler figured out how to encapsulate whatever it is that makes them human and detach it from the body, much as Uriel does to Harry. This in my canon is how they body jump. And if we assume that whoever gets dispossessed is still human, like Luccio, then they encapsulate the soul as well. So Corpsetaker could take a ride on a train.
I assume that ghosts are souls, but that they couldn't move on, and in staying here they lose their individuality. However the dead fish in that thought is that it makes Corpsetaker a soul eater.
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I assume that ghosts are souls, but that they couldn't move on, and in staying here they lose their individuality. However the dead fish in that thought is that it makes Corpsetaker a soul eater.
Nope. There's a WoJ saying specifically that ghosts are not souls.
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Now that Harry’s died, that whole “Die alone” death curse, is that over?
Was he not dead enough? Yeah, he got out from underneath that one. Sort of. It remains to be seen if he’s going to get out from underneath the rest of it. Which I’m having a very good time plotting out.
- WoJ. He died enough, metaphysically, to have triggered at least part of that death curse. I'm pretty sure there is a quote from Jim about Harry being more important because he died. There's definitely the quote about how "now we can do the fun stuff" implying that Harry's death has opened doors for him. Doors Harry would probably wish had not been opened.
@nadia: Correct. It's also the one linked to in the OP of this thread.
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Nope. There's a WoJ saying specifically that ghosts are not souls.
Yeah I saw it. But either Harry was a ghost or he wasn't. Harry acted like a ghost. He was constrained by the rules that Jim laid out for ghost. If he wasn't a ghost what was he?
And poor Sir Stuart gets a job working in Uriel's house, but by that WOJ he's a footprint full of water, not the soul of a man known as Sir Stuart. Why hire a memory? Color me confused.
And the quote about souls and bodies was first published in 1892, six years before C.S. Lewis was born. By a Quaker (https://books.google.com/books?id=vDMrAAAAYAAJ&dq=george%20macdonald%201892%20british%20friend&pg=PA157#v=onepage&q&f=false). It's amusing. I work harder talking about these books than I did when I was in College. Which probably says something about me. :o :)
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Yeah I saw it. But either Harry was a ghost or he wasn't. Harry acted like a ghost. He was constrained by the rules that Jim laid out for ghost. If he wasn't a ghost what was he?
He's a soul that an archangel created a ghost for and then allowed him to inhabit, as I understood the situation.
And poor Sir Stuart gets a job working in Uriel's house, but by that WOJ he's a footprint full of water, not the soul of a man known as Sir Stuart. Why hire a memory? Color me confused.
Probably because he can help Uriel preserve or save other souls, even if he hasn't got one himself. Or because not doing so, after Sir Stuart's ghost was so badly damaged, would eventually result in said ghost endangering other souls--it certainly wouldn't be good for Mortimer if he ended up having to destroy Sir Stuart, after all, and Mortimer has (at the end of Ghost Story) just been pushed into being more heroic and helping save people (and note that this has happened as a slow progression starting in Grave Peril, caused by Harry (whom Uriel, in The Warrior, has already pointed out tends to do this kind of thing, and that in doing so is very much a warrior for Uriel's side), and that Uriel has acknowledged that A) the ending was part of his plan; and B) that Harry was acting as his agent in the matter--so I have no trouble believing that the whole thing was a long game by Uriel).
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I will help out here.
The problem as I see it, is that this discussion has become one of trying to contain concepts that are inherently messy. Trying to define whether someone died or did not is a tricky enough proposition, let alone the mechanics of the afterlife. We are approaching a spiritual discussion, on metaphysics and abstract ideas, in a scientific way. Therein lies the problem.
If it helps, think of this a little more like quantum mechanics. Harry both WAS and WASN'T dead. He both WAS and WASN'T a ghost. It's all a matter of perspective. The answer is not quantitative, but qualitative. As Mab says, death is a spectrum not a line. Mortal's fear it and want it to be black, but death is a grey word.
The same applies to the ghost issue. Harry did become a ghost, sort of. The circumstances allowed for his soul, and the ghost, to work in sync. Which I suspect is why he was both as limited as a normal ghost, yet able to do things beyond the ability of a normal ghost. His soul is the x factor. Remember, several major heavyweight supernaturals were working together on this. Not normal circumstances at all.
So morris, I hope that answers your question. He was MORE than a ghost.
As for Sir Stuart, I think the answer is already in front of us. See the quote by nadia.skylark - ghosts that are exceptional can grow and change. Sir Stuart's ghost got a job working in Uriel's house. Sir Stuart was already beyond - wherever the afterlife took him. Uriel wasn't hiring a memory, but a shade of a great man, that had become something more. Consider the power and value of a human soul - especially the creative power. It appears in the books powerful enough to create more, and affect all of reality by creating alternate universes based on it's own choices. Not something even immortals seem to be able to do. Sir Stuart, perhaps by aiding Mort and Harry, and perhaps by attaching itself to new sources of power became greater than the original shade produced. This is why Uriel wanted him.
As for the quote, well done on digging up the original source. I merely took Jim's word for it, and he probably just took someone else's. The spread of misinformation is so easy. So thank you for finding that! But I think it doesn't really matter who said it first, in terms of this discussion. The point is that Uriel said it in the Dresden Files, to Harry. That is basically getting cosmic-level truth.
I personally think that Necromancy uses power from Outside in order to break the rules of reality. Which is why they can do all sorts of things when powered by a human. Hence the tricks of Kemmler and Capiocorpus. But they are very rare, for the most part it seems that beings when they experience irreversible physical death they don't come back. But to say it is impossible...well I think not. As one WOJ states, if you have enough magical power you could rewrite reality. So possible and impossible become somewhat irrelevant.
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Yeah I saw it. But either Harry was a ghost or he wasn't. Harry acted like a ghost. He was constrained by the rules that Jim laid out for ghost. If he wasn't a ghost what was he?
He could enter holy ground
Because that is for souls, with or without body.
And poor Sir Stuart gets a job working in Uriel's house, but by that WOJ he's a footprint full of water, not the soul of a man known as Sir Stuart. Why hire a memory? Color me confused.
Harry had memory too. They could be stolen and Bob helped him to get them back.
And the quote about souls and bodies was first published in 1892, six years before C.S. Lewis was born. By a Quaker (https://books.google.com/books?id=vDMrAAAAYAAJ&dq=george%20macdonald%201892%20british%20friend&pg=PA157#v=onepage&q&f=false). It's amusing. I work harder talking about these books than I did when I was in College. Which probably says something about me. :o :)
You have your body, your spirit and your soul. Your spirit and your soul together are everything of you that is non material, your essence. Your body protects your soul and spirit in the material world and your spirit protects your soul in the spiritual world.
A Shade (spirit + soul) is in many ways the same as a ghost (spirit without soul) but those differences are important. It is the main theme of ghost story.
Wandering around in the spiritual world as a shade after dead is dangerous but it is still an option before you go on to the next stage. You still have free will and you can still affect your future and make choices. But your soul needs spiritual power to express itself in the spirit world and at the end Harry had lost almost all of that.
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Wandering around in the spiritual world as a shade after dead is dangerous but it is still an option before you go on to the next stage. You still have free will and you can still affect your future and make choices. But your soul needs spiritual power to express itself in the spirit world and at the end Harry had lost almost all of that.
In my opinion your free will is severely limited. You might want to return to life, but in most cases that isn't going to happen. There seems to be some serious limitations as to who can chose what.
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In my opinion your free will is severely limited. You might want to return to life, but in most cases that isn't going to happen. There seems to be some serious limitations as to who can chose what.
We are all severely limited in the expression of our free will, some even more than others. But the fundamental choices are still there. You can for example choose to prey upon others or help protect others. Most of those others are ghosts and not souls but does that really matter?
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@Yuillegan
Yeah, the quote source was just a fun fact. No particular relevance.
@Arjen
But it just begs the question. The ghost isn't Sir Stuart and it doesn't have a soul. God deals with souls.
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@Yuillegan
Yeah, the quote source was just a fun fact. No particular relevance.
@Arjen
But it just begs the question. The ghost isn't Sir Stuart and it doesn't have a soul. God deals with souls.
I am not so sure about that. I would say Uriel's interest is a strong indication that Sir Stuart had a soul. He stayed to protect his family (morty). Magical talent is often inherited. He had a stronger presence than most ghosts. It is quite possible that he had the same talents as morty and a strong will to stay behind. That would be enough in my opinion.
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We are all severely limited in the expression of our free will, some even more than others. But the fundamental choices are still there. You can for example choose to prey upon others or help protect others. Most of those others are ghosts and not souls but does that really matter?
Ghosts cannot really prey upon anyone nor protect for that matter, when Molly was in trouble
all Harry could do was plea with Uriel to help her, he, himself was powerless no matter what he'd chose to do. As Uriel said, in the end souls will be judged on what they did in life. They might chose to wait for that judgement like Captain Murphy, that is pretty much the extent of his choices.
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I am not so sure about that. I would say Uriel's interest is a strong indication that Sir Stuart had a soul. He stayed to protect his family (morty). Magical talent is often inherited. He had a stronger presence than most ghosts. It is quite possible that he had the same talents as morty and a strong will to stay behind. That would be enough in my opinion.
Does anyone have a copy of Ghost Story handy? Because I remember Uriel saying something that definitively states that Sir Stuart's ghost is not Sir Stuart's soul when he hires Sir Stuart's ghost, but I don't have my book to check.
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Ghosts cannot really prey upon anyone nor protect for that matter, when Molly was in trouble
all Harry could do was plea with Uriel to help her, he, himself was powerless no matter what he'd chose to do. As Uriel said, in the end souls will be judged on what they did in life. They might chose to wait for that judgement like Captain Murphy, that is pretty much the extent of his choices.
Ghosts and ghostlike beings prey on each other as Harry discovered when he was ambushed and robbed of his memories. Corpstaker showed how a bodyless shade could still inflict a lot of damage in the material world with the right knowledge and dedication. Lea explained how she did it as well.
Bob explained that what he did in his ghost state affected what he was and that his soul was actually in danger but he also had a chance to return.
I think everything you do before you jump on hat train still counts.
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Does anyone have a copy of Ghost Story handy? Because I remember Uriel saying something that definitively states that Sir Stuart's ghost is not Sir Stuart's soul when he hires Sir Stuart's ghost, but I don't have my book to check.
He calls him a shade and a spirit, which I suppose is explicit.
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He calls him a shade and a spirit, which I suppose is explicit.
The fomor servitor calls corpstaker a shade. I take shade to mean soul + spirit but I do not think the terms all always used correctly and consistent. What is shown in the story is more important.
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I found the quote. It's not as definitive as I thought it was, but here it is:
I went back over to Uriel to find him conversing with Sir Stuart.
"Don't know," Sir Stuart was saying. "I'm not . . . not as right as I used to be, sir."
"There's more than enough left to rebuild on," Uriel said. "Trust me. The ruins of a spirit like Sir Stuart's are more substantial than most men ever manage to dredge up. I'd be very pleased to have you working for me."
So Uriel definitely refers to Sir Stuart in the third person when hiring Sir Stuart's ghost.
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I found the quote. It's not as definitive as I thought it was, but here it is:So Uriel definitely refers to Sir Stuart in the third person when hiring Sir Stuart's ghost.
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I found the quote. It's not as definitive as I thought it was, but here it is:So Uriel definitely refers to Sir Stuart in the third person when hiring Sir Stuart's ghost.
Do you have some actual evidence that hasn't been refuted? Because as I understand it, your only evidence is that Uriel hired him, and I've already provided reasons for why he'd do that even if Sir Stuart's ghost is a ghost rather than a ghost + soul.
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Do you have some actual evidence that hasn't been refuted? Because as I understand it, your only evidence is that Uriel hired him, and I've already provided reasons for why he'd do that even if Sir Stuart's ghost is a ghost rather than a ghost + soul.
He is more substantial than most ghosts. He stayed behind with a special mission to protect his family. We know from Monty that is one one of the reasons Shades stay behind for a while, they have something to do. Lea has noted him as special. The way how Uriel interacts with him as an individual worth saving not as some magical appearance.
The whole tone of the book makes me think that Morty actually underestimates the number of spirits that have actually souls. But in the end it is not about one or two sentences. It is about reading ghost story as a whole and the impression you get from Sir Stuart. He is simply too substantial.
It is how the story is build up. We are shown the complexity of sir Stuart without explicitly stating it and Uriel's interest is the confirmation of our suspicions. Ghost story is a show not tell book.
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He is more substantial than most ghosts.
So he's a strong ghost.
He stayed behind with a special mission to protect his family. We know from Monty that is one one of the reasons Shades stay behind for a while, they have something to do.
We also know that ghosts can be formed because the person who died was focussing on a specific mission, and that the resultant ghost is therefore tied to that mission--it's what Harry did in Grave Peril.
Lea has noted him as special.
And Jim has noted that ghosts that evolve and gain new power sources are special.
The way how Uriel interacts with him as an individual worth saving not as some magical appearance.
Well, if Uriel didn't interact with him as an individual, Sir Stuart's ghost would hardly agree to work with him, would he?
Also, we've never seen Uriel interact with any being without a soul to my knowledge (except Sir Stuart's ghost, which, due to the current debate, is not evidence on this point) so we have no basis for comparison. For all we know, he treats everyone like that.
The whole tone of the book makes me think that Morty actually underestimates the number of spirits that have actually souls. But in the end it is not about one or two sentences.
Tone's pretty subjective. I certainly never got that impression.
It is about reading ghost story as a whole and the impression you get from Sir Stuart. He is simply too substantial.
The impression I got was that Sir Stuart was a particularly strong and substantial ghost who worked with an ectomancer, and possibly a line of ectomancers.
It is how the story is build up. We are shown the complexity of sir Stuart without explicitly stating it and Uriel's interest is the confirmation of our suspicions.
Of your suspicions, please. I never had such suspicions, and I certainly don't view them as confirmed.
Ghost story is a show not tell book.
And as I understand it, it showed Sir Stuart as a ghost that, while strong and substantial, was nevertheless a normal ghost.
If he'd done things like go through a church threshold, or disagreed with Mortimer when Mortimer told Harry that he wasn't the real Harry, saying something to the effect of "no, sometimes these ghosts we get from Karrin's dad actually have souls attached" it would be one thing, but he doesn't do any of these things.
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My head canon is that neither Harry or Corpsetaker were ghosts. I only say this because both were capable of moving back into a body if one was available. We see this when Butters spirit is left outside his body after being forced out by Corpsetaker. On the other hand Sir Stuart doesn't appear to have this option. My internal canon says that Corpsetaker and Kimmler figured out how to encapsulate whatever it is that makes them human and detach it from the body, much as Uriel does to Harry. This in my canon is how they body jump. And if we assume that whoever gets dispossessed is still human, like Luccio, then they encapsulate the soul as well. So Corpsetaker could take a ride on a train.
Ya, that is pretty much how I view it as well. I really think that getting "almost dead" got Harry's spirit/soul a little less firmly stuck to his body, and gave him a better appreciation of other levels of reality. Now I expect that he will Astrally project on purpose at some point (essentially what he accidently did in ghost story). I suspect that the time travel we will eventually see will be done by an astrally projecting Harry, because it overcomes the entire "moving mass through time" issue and instead enters into the "is time real for spirits" kind of thing, and we've heard a lot about how linear time isn't accurate from Angels and stuff...
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The way how Uriel interacts with him as an individual worth saving not as some magical appearance.
Also, we've never seen Uriel interact with any being without a soul to my knowledge (except Sir Stuart's ghost, which, due to the current debate, is not evidence on this point) so we have no basis for comparison. For all we know, he treats everyone like that.
According to all Christian theology I'm familiar with and the "mainstream view in Judaism"1 dogs don't have souls, and we see how Uriel interacts with Mouse. (Now Mouse is different, and I think Jim might give dogs, especially temple dogs, souls in the DF).
As to the "worth saving" part, are "not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered."2 There's other similar Bible quotes saying God cares about "lesser" creatures than humans. These creatures would probably also be "lesser" than ghosts, so I would imagine Uriel would care for ghosts.
1: https://www.thejc.com/judaism/rabbi-i-have-a-problem/does-our-dog-have-a-soul-1.441160 (https://www.thejc.com/judaism/rabbi-i-have-a-problem/does-our-dog-have-a-soul-1.441160)
2: Matthew 10:29-31 New International Version (NIV)
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Sir Stuart’s shade looked at Mortimer and smiled, undeniable pride in his features. Then he glanced at Uriel and said, “I still get to fight, aye?”
The word Shade is used for soul + spirit combination. I think you need very good reasons not to see Sir Stuart as a soul spirit combination and not the other way round.
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The word Shade is used for soul + spirit combination.
Since when? I know that Corpsetaker is referred to as "Lady Shade" but I'm 85% certain that it's been used for ghosts that don't have souls (and aren't Sir Stuart's ghost), and 110% certain it's never been defined in any Dresden Files book as meaning "a ghost that has a soul."
I think you need very good reasons not to see Sir Stuart as a soul spirit combination and not the other way round.
Here's a reason:
In the Dresden Files ghosts are not trapped anywhere; they’re something new that had been created. They’ve been created out of memories into the form of something else, so as far as they’re concerned they’re the same person who’s now a ghost, but that’s not the truth of the existence. And when they end, they just sort of end in entropy, they just sort of trail away slowly if they use too much energy. Or if they don’t use much energy, then they just sort of hang around, and they … you know, it’s not much of a life, really. But it’s possible for them to grow and change, to find other sources of energy and become something else, but that’s kind of like, the exceptional ghost that does that, a particularly driven one. Most ghosts just sort of like, wander around and hang out with other ghosts, and they complain about the kids, you know “young’ns these days,” …
That's the definition of a ghost, given to us by Jim himself. Thus, any ghost not specifically noted as an exception should be assumed to meet that definition.
If you like, I can dig up the link to the youtube video where Jim is talking about it. He also says explicitly that ghosts aren't souls, and that the soul moves on after death rather than getting stuck, but I don't have that bit transcribed.
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Look, is there any evidence you've provided to back up your claim that Sir Stuart's ghost is also Sir Stuart's soul that I have not refuted? Because I feel like I've gotten everything you've posted, but then you post things like this I think you need very good reasons not to see Sir Stuart as a soul spirit combination and not the other way round.
and I feel like one of us is missing something.
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Since when? I know that Corpsetaker is referred to as "Lady Shade" but I'm 85% certain that it's been used for ghosts that don't have souls (and aren't Sir Stuart's ghost), and 110% certain it's never been defined in any Dresden Files book as meaning "a ghost that has a soul."
Here's a reason:
That's the definition of a ghost, given to us by Jim himself. Thus, any ghost not specifically noted as an exception should be assumed to meet that definition.
If you like, I can dig up the link to the youtube video where Jim is talking about it. He also says explicitly that ghosts aren't souls, and that the soul moves on after death rather than getting stuck, but I don't have that bit transcribed.
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Look, is there any evidence you've provided to back up your claim that Sir Stuart's ghost is also Sir Stuart's soul that I have not refuted? Because I feel like I've gotten everything you've posted, but then you post things like this and I feel like one of us is missing something.
You did not refute it.
I know that quote from Jim but that is about ghosts, not about shades. It is about most cases and clearly the book is not just about most cases and in the book Morty states that there are exceptions but usually not. There are exeptions and this book is about the exceptions. I have stated why I think Sir Stuart is such an exception. The other two are Harry and corpstaker.
A Shade is different from a ghost. I have checked all the usages of the word in Ghost Story and they all refer to spirit + soul combinations and one suspect, Sir Stuart so that is a strong indication. Add that to Uriel's interest which is an even stronger indication.
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According to all Christian theology I'm familiar with and the "mainstream view in Judaism"1 dogs don't have souls, and we see how Uriel interacts with Mouse. (Now Mouse is different, and I think Jim might give dogs, especially temple dogs, souls in the DF).
All dogs go to Heaven.... ::)
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All dogs go to Heaven.... ::)
Only if the cats allow it. They rule the place. ;D
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Only if the cats allow it. They rule the place. ;D
Hmmm.... Is that why I have a ceramic angel cat among my Christmas decorations? Yeah, I
think there is a cat that helps St Peter at the Gates.. All my dogs will be allowed in, they have
always been best buds with their feline housemates.
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You did not refute it.
My question was what, exactly, you believe I did not refute.
I know that quote from Jim but that is about ghosts, not about shades.
According to google, the (relevant) definition of shade is "a ghost." Unless you can provide evidence that Jim has a different definition, then you are saying "the quote is about ghosts, not about ghosts."
It is about most cases and clearly the book is not just about most cases
So now your argument is "the book is about exceptions, therefore every ghost in the book must be an exception"? Yeah, no.
and in the book Morty states that there are exceptions but usually not.
You're going to need to provide a quote for this one, because as I remember it Mortimer was the one telling Harry that there was no way he was the original Harry, and that he was definitely just a ghost. It was during the car ride to Murphy's house.
A Shade is different from a ghost. I have checked all the usages of the word in Ghost Story and they all refer to spirit + soul combinations and one suspect, Sir Stuart so that is a strong indication.
Several points:
1) Did you also check Grave Peril and Dead Beat?
2) Who used the word to refer to Harry? Because if it was anyone but Mab (and proxies), Demonreach, Uriel, and/or Bob, it actually disproves your point, because everyone not those people thought that Harry was a normal ghost.
3) Even if you're entirely correct that the word "shade" was only used to apply to ghosts that have souls and Sir Stuart's ghost by people who would know that said ghosts did have souls, it is still extremely weak evidence, because Harry, Corpsetaker, and Sir Stuart's ghost were the three most prominent ghosts in the book, and thus statistically are the ones most likely to end up being referred to by a synonym for "ghost" at some point.
Add that to Uriel's interest which is an even stronger indication.
And I have definitely already refuted this point.
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My question was what, exactly, you believe I did not refute.
According to google, the (relevant) definition of shade is "a ghost." Unless you can provide evidence that Jim has a different definition, then you are saying "the quote is about ghosts, not about ghosts."
Google? Really? That will probably tell you that spirit and soul are the same. Jim uses the terminology in his own way, he is creating the world and Ghost Story is where he really thinks it through. How he uses the terms in this book is leading not how someone on the internet defines it.
So now your argument is "the book is about exceptions, therefore every ghost in the book must be an exception"? Yeah, no.
That is a refutation on the idea that there are no exceptions
You're going to need to provide a quote for this one, because as I remember it Mortimer was the one telling Harry that there was no way he was the original Harry, and that he was definitely just a ghost. It was during the car ride to Murphy's house.
He did say it was possible but that the ghosts who claimed so where usually wrong even if they believed it themselves. Another reason why Sir Stuart wouldn't mention it and maybe even did not believe it himself.
Later on he did transfer Butters shade back to his body so he certainly knows about the possibility.
Several points:
1) Did you also check Grave Peril and Dead Beat?
No but even if I did I would take Ghost story as leading. It is the book that really fleshed out his ideas.
2) Who used the word to refer to Harry? Because if it was anyone but Mab (and proxies), Demonreach, Uriel, and/or Bob, it actually disproves your point, because everyone not those people thought that Harry was a normal ghost.
People who knew.
3) Even if you're entirely correct that the word "shade" was only used to apply to ghosts that have souls and Sir Stuart's ghost by people who would know that said ghosts did have souls, it is still extremely weak evidence, because Harry, Corpsetaker, and Sir Stuart's ghost were the three most prominent ghosts in the book, and thus statistically are the ones most likely to end up being referred to by a synonym for "ghost" at some point.
The word is not thrown around as a synonym just to make sentences run more smoothly.
And I have definitely already refuted this point.
Not in my opinion, I did not get that feeling I sometimes have when someone makes an argument that really refutes what I am saying.
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This comes out of Jim trying to be cute. I doubt if he can or would be willing to clarify it. Sir Stuart calls Harry both a Shade and a Ghost, and he refers to himself as a Ghost. He also calls Capt. Murphy a Shade. So we're left with, Uriel hires Ghosts. Or Shades.
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“Chicago-in-between” was a very serious place, and I think a place only accessible to those with a soul.
1. Harry went there and we know he still had his soul, and while there he made the deal that put his soul at risk.
2. We know from Uriel that Carmichael and Jack are both souls because he says that those that are there are there to help them feel more comfortable about moving along to their final judgement.
3. Angels are openly active there as door guards, as are, apparently, very bad things. This differs from our reality significantly.
4. Harry saw no wraiths or other indications of the more normal “ghostly” stuff that then became normal stuff in in the ghostly world showed for the rest of the book.
What I infer from this:
A. Ghosts with souls come back in a not so rare situation. Remember Sir Stuart said, “Sometimes new shades show up claiming they’ve had a run-in with him and that he brought them back from the hereafter.” This would indicate that any returning having seen Jack really were Shades (ghost+soul) and not just ghosts, since anyone going to the in-between must have a soul.
B. To go there and do the job Uriel offered Sir Stuart would require a soul. Without a soul a ghost is just a worn photocopy of a person and lacks the free will that would be needed to have agency in that place.
Other thoughts:
I. Shade is not just used to describe Stuart, Harry, and Capriocorpus in the book. Sir Stuart says that many postal workers leave shades behind. You can argue that Sir Stuart lacks the knowledge/ability to differentiate between a ghost and a shade, but if that is the case then very few people have that ability and that renders the number of uses of the word that count to a too small statistical sample to use for a definitive purpose. (i.e. it could just be that those three people tend to use the term shade rather than ghost)
II. I would be most inclined to believe that Sir Stuart is a shade for two reasons. First, he is possibly the progenitor of a line of ectomancers. While nothing in his demeanor indicates he ever had any inclination toward those abilities, it is possible he had some natural talent that might have encouraged the creation of a shade compared to just a normal ghost. Secondly, he had a massive life span for a ghost. Literally hundreds of years as a fully capable active cogent ghost. This is almost certainly because of his interaction with living ectomancers which I’m sure helped provide him with additional “juice” so that is not a very strong point, but it is still a point.
III. That said, it seems like it offers an “out” to those that wish to avoid death and ultimate justice because if one just knows enough one can keep the soul from moving on, but I guess that has always been an option for people like Kemmler… until someone actually does stop them.
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In one of the latest DragonCon panels on Ghosts, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTq8RMv19Ek&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTq8RMv19Ek&feature=youtu.be), Jim discussed Ghosts, and obviously, Souls. around 24:50
Here. This is the first post in this thread. There isn't any digging required.
All dogs go to Heaven.... ::)
A strong counterpoint. :)
Cats are agents of the Devil, so they all go to hell. (The first part was actually a belief during the plague).
"I think only souls can go to Chicago-in-between. Uriel hires Sir Stuart. Sir Stuart must be a soul." I don't find that logic chain convincing.
Who says Mort isn't the first ectomancer in his family?
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Who says Mort isn't the first ectomancer in his family?
Because magical talent is often inherited so morty's talent makes it more likely that his ancestors had the same talent.
Sir Stuarts Shade having such a strong and lasting presense supports that idea as well. It points to a strong spirit in life which points to spiritual power which is what an ectomancer needs to fuel his magic.
Morty being an ectomancer just makes it more likely that Sir Stuart had the talent to stay behind as a shade just like Morty can probably do so if he wants to.
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"I think only souls can go to Chicago-in-between. Uriel hires Sir Stuart. Sir Stuart must be a soul." I don't find that logic chain convincing.
Knowing Uriel? Everytime he turns up souls are the only thing he cares about. The only thing he thinks are really important. It is all about souls with Uriel. Everything he does is about souls.
Empoying Sir Stuart is about souls as well
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A strong counterpoint. :)
Cats are agents of the Devil, so they all go to hell. (The first part was actually a belief during the plague).
That was actually a heresy and the plague was the white gods punishment for harming those beings created in his image. There are far more humans than cats in hell.
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Cats are agents of the Devil, so they all go to hell. (The first part was actually a belief during the plague).
Yup, and a third or more of the human population of Europe was wiped out... :o
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"I think only souls can go to Chicago-in-between. Uriel hires Sir Stuart. Sir Stuart must be a soul." I don't find that logic chain convincing.
Neither would I if I incorrectly distilled 4 known factual data points summarizing lines of evidence to support my interpretation down to "I think." I'll note you didn't address any of the actual data points as being erroneous or the logic that leads from them to my conclusion. Considering you obviously thus have a desire to not support the conclusion despite the weight of the evidence, I consider your lack of actual refutation as strong support. :)
Who says Mort isn't the first ectomancer in his family?
No one. But it does run in family lines, and Sir Stuart is an ancestor and he has lasted a long time, which might be facilitated by there being other ectomancers in the line before Mort (i.e. if there wasn't, Sir Stuart would have had a very long quiet soul-destroying existence watching over a bunch of descendants who he couldn't actually help/interact with before getting to Morty). Therefore, there is a greater than average (though admittedly 1% would be greater than average) chance that the line might have a predilection for ectomancy, and that might have included Sir Stuart himself.
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Google? Really? That will probably tell you that spirit and soul are the same. Jim uses the terminology in his own way, he is creating the world and Ghost Story is where he really thinks it through. How he uses the terms in this book is leading not how someone on the internet defines it.
You didn't read my post, did you? Because I specifically said "Unless you can provide evidence that Jim has a different definition," and yet, rather than even attempting to do so, your argument is "standard definitions should always be assumed not to apply, because Jim defines a small subsection of words differently." Tell me, when Harry's duster is described as black leather, should I assume it's actually made of blue silk and that Jim is just defining the words "black" and "leather" differently?
That is a refutation on the idea that there are no exceptions
Please stop insulting me. The fact that you feel the need to provide evidence for this (and yet not, apparently, for your theories?) shows that not only are you not reading my posts, you don't even think I've read Ghost Story.
He did say it was possible but that the ghosts who claimed so where usually wrong even if they believed it themselves. Another reason why Sir Stuart wouldn't mention it and maybe even did not believe it himself.
Could you (or someone) please provide a quote? Because you remember one thing while I remember another. I'd provide one myself, but I don't have access to my copy of the book right now.
Later on he did transfer Butters shade back to his body so he certainly knows about the possibility.
The Butters thing was his soul being forcibly removed from his still-alive body, not his soul coming back with his ghost after he had died.
No but even if I did I would take Ghost story as leading. It is the book that really fleshed out his ideas.
And apparently now you don't understand your own argument. The claim you made was "the word 'shade' has never been used to apply to any being except ghosts that also had souls and Sir Stuart's ghost. Therefore, the word 'shade' can be defined as meaning ghost + soul. Therefore Sir Stuart's ghost must also have his soul." I responded in part by saying "You say the word 'shade' has never been used except in the way you've stated. But you only said that you've looked through Ghost Story. There are other books that have ghosts in them. If the word 'shade' is used differently in one of them, then your claim of 'never' is invalidated, invalidating your entire chain of logic around the word."
People who knew.
Too vague.
The word is not thrown around as a synonym just to make sentences run more smoothly.
You claim this, but you have no evidence. I hate to break it to you, but your unsupported opinion is not, in itself, irrefutable evidence, regardless of what you seem to think.
Not in my opinion, I did not get that feeling I sometimes have when someone makes an argument that really refutes what I am saying.
So now you're saying that it doesn't matter what I say or how right I am, if you don't agree with me then I'm automatically wrong? Do you even understand how facts work? Hint: they don't change based on your feelings about them.
“Chicago-in-between” was a very serious place, and I think a place only accessible to those with a soul.
1. Harry went there and we know he still had his soul, and while there he made the deal that put his soul at risk.
2. We know from Uriel that Carmichael and Jack are both souls because he says that those that are there are there to help them feel more comfortable about moving along to their final judgement.
3. Angels are openly active there as door guards, as are, apparently, very bad things. This differs from our reality significantly.
4. Harry saw no wraiths or other indications of the more normal “ghostly” stuff that then became normal stuff in in the ghostly world showed for the rest of the book.
What I infer from this:
A. Ghosts with souls come back in a not so rare situation. Remember Sir Stuart said, “Sometimes new shades show up claiming they’ve had a run-in with him and that he brought them back from the hereafter.” This would indicate that any returning having seen Jack really were Shades (ghost+soul) and not just ghosts, since anyone going to the in-between must have a soul.
B. To go there and do the job Uriel offered Sir Stuart would require a soul. Without a soul a ghost is just a worn photocopy of a person and lacks the free will that would be needed to have agency in that place.
This is an interesting point. You may be right.
I. Shade is not just used to describe Stuart, Harry, and Capriocorpus in the book. Sir Stuart says that many postal workers leave shades behind. You can argue that Sir Stuart lacks the knowledge/ability to differentiate between a ghost and a shade, but if that is the case then very few people have that ability and that renders the number of uses of the word that count to a too small statistical sample to use for a definitive purpose. (i.e. it could just be that those three people tend to use the term shade rather than ghost)
Thanks! So it seems like 'shade' is just a synonym for 'ghost,' then.
II. I would be most inclined to believe that Sir Stuart is a shade for two reasons. First, he is possibly the progenitor of a line of ectomancers. While nothing in his demeanor indicates he ever had any inclination toward those abilities, it is possible he had some natural talent that might have encouraged the creation of a shade compared to just a normal ghost. Secondly, he had a massive life span for a ghost. Literally hundreds of years as a fully capable active cogent ghost. This is almost certainly because of his interaction with living ectomancers which I’m sure helped provide him with additional “juice” so that is not a very strong point, but it is still a point.
III. That said, it seems like it offers an “out” to those that wish to avoid death and ultimate justice because if one just knows enough one can keep the soul from moving on, but I guess that has always been an option for people like Kemmler… until someone actually does stop them.
Good points! Point II is in line with my suggestion that Sir Stuart's ghost is one of the exceptional ones that gains new power sources so that he can grow and change.
Knowing Uriel? Everytime he turns up souls are the only thing he cares about. The only thing he thinks are really important. It is all about souls with Uriel. Everything he does is about souls.
Empoying Sir Stuart is about souls as well
And once again, you prove that you haven't read my posts. Because I've already given at least two suggestions for how Uriel employing Sir Stuart's ghost could be about souls without requiring Sir Stuart's ghost to have one.
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Neither would I if I incorrectly distilled 4 known factual data points summarizing lines of evidence to support my interpretation down to "I think." I'll note you didn't address any of the actual data points as being erroneous or the logic that leads from them to my conclusion. Considering you obviously thus have a desire to not support the conclusion despite the weight of the evidence, I consider your lack of actual refutation as strong support. :)
No one. But it does run in family lines, and Sir Stuart is an ancestor and he has lasted a long time, which might be facilitated by there being other ectomancers in the line before Mort (i.e. if there wasn't, Sir Stuart would have had a very long quiet soul-destroying existence watching over a bunch of descendants who he couldn't actually help/interact with before getting to Morty). Therefore, there is a greater than average (though admittedly 1% would be greater than average) chance that the line might have a predilection for ectomancy, and that might have included Sir Stuart himself.
I read it I just did not find it convincing in the light of the evidence I and others showed. You are too convinced that all shades are ghosts because google said so and explain everything in that light. You can do so but I do not think that is always the most likely explanation.
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You are too convinced that all shades are ghosts because google said so and explain everything in that light. You can do so but I do not think that is always the most likely explanation.
This feels like it was addressed to me. The reason I believe that shades are ghosts is not "because google said so." My reasoning goes thusly:
The word 'shade' is defined as 'ghost' in the dictionary.
Therefore, unless it is defined, explicitly or implicitly, to mean something different in the Dresdenverse, that is what it means.
The word 'shade' is not defined explicitly in the Dresdenverse at all.
Therefore, unless it is defined implicitly to mean something different in the Dresdenverse, it still means 'ghost.'
You have claimed that it is defined implicitly to mean something different in the Dresdenverse; however, you have not provided
sufficient evidence to show that you are correct.
Therefore, at this point in my logic, whether the word 'shade' is implicitly defined as something different in the Dresdenverse is
inconclusive.
Other people have provided evidence that shows that the word 'shade' is not implicitly defined as something different in the
Dresdenverse.
Therefore, the word 'shade' is not defined implicitly as something different in the Dresdenverse.
Therefore, since the word 'shade' is not defined, explicitly or implicitly, in the Dresdenverse as meaning something different, its
meaning in the Dresdenverse is the same as its dictionary meaning.
Therefore, 'shade' means 'ghost.'
If you wish to establish that I am wrong, you must prove incorrect some piece of this logic.
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I read it I just did not find it convincing in the light of the evidence I and others showed. You are too convinced that all shades are ghosts because google said so and explain everything in that light. You can do so but I do not think that is always the most likely explanation.
Yah, nope. You didn't read very thoroughly then; because I specifically pointed out in that post that:
I. Shade is not just used to describe Stuart, Harry, and Capriocorpus in the book. Sir Stuart says that many postal workers leave shades behind....
Therefore, it is clear the term shade is not used that decisively in the book. I did use the term, and then defined, it in my post for clarity because for the purposes of conversation on the board it is useful to have a term that equals ghost plus soul, but I have no attachment to the term, nor is it critical to my argument in any way. I have had no previous discussions about the term, and this is the first presentation of these points and none of them have been refuted by previous posts of which I am aware. If you would be kind enough to provide a cogent rather than dismissive response that actually addresses what you feel the countervailing evidence is I would appreciate it.
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I think we are trying to split hairs over a very grey area. As Mab says, "death is a grey word.." There is a huge spectrum when it comes to it from slightly alive, mostly dead, to all dead.. I think the terms, soul, spirit, ghost, shade also fall on a spectrum.. According to Uriel, we are not bodies with a soul, we are souls with a body, so when the body dies, what is left is the soul.. But then it gets murky, and in my opinion a huge grey area like death.. Is Captain Murphy merely a soul that isn't ready to be judged? But is Sir Steward still a soul because he is very much a ghost?
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Because magical talent is often inherited so morty's talent makes it more likely that his ancestors had the same talent.
Sir Stuarts Shade having such a strong and lasting presense supports that idea as well. It points to a strong spirit in life which points to spiritual power which is what an ectomancer needs to fuel his magic. So Sir Stuart was maybe possibly the progenitor of a line of ectomancers. So this is good evidence that Sir Stuart has a soul?
Morty being an ectomancer just makes it more likely that Sir Stuart had the talent to stay behind as a shade just like Morty can probably do so if he wants to.
Dresden doesn't have the same affinities as his mother. He is similar to Eb in that he is a slugger. We don't really know enough about how talent is passed on to make a strong case for anything other than it is likely inherited and has to do with exposure to magic while developing.
Knowing Uriel? Everytime he turns up souls are the only thing he cares about. The only thing he thinks are really important. It is all about souls with Uriel. Everything he does is about souls.
Empoying Sir Stuart is about souls as well
But that doesn't mean Sir Stuart has a soul. Also, he says it's about "freedom" in this book, but I would argue that freedom requires a soul in the DF. In the panel discussion, Jim implies that humans are the only one making choices (exercising freedom).
@toodeep: What logic that leads from your factual data points? Harry went to Chicago Between. So? He also went to Chicago. Does that mean that everything in Chicago has to have a soul? Angels are active in the material world as well. We've see Uriel several times. We see the angel of death with Fr. Forthill. I don't see how Chicago Between being different from the material world would indicate that you have to have a soul to be there.
Your point two is your best point and why I am suspicious that Sir Stuart isn't just a ghost. If you look to the second post in this thread, you can see I said "Captain Murphy's task force seemed to be more than ghosts." I'd say Uriel's quote that you refer to proves it, except that he implies that "What Comes Next" is either Heaven or Hell (or something similar to our conceptions of such). But what comes next for Harry is Earth. So what comes next is demonstrably not limited to a place only souls can go to.
@Mira: Jim specifically says there are many different kinds of spiritual entities in the DF. I think souls, ghosts, creatures like Bob, etc. could all properly be called "spirits" but a ghost couldn't be called a soul and a soul couldn't be called a spirit. Now that doesn't mean that be a little bit of this and a little bit of that.
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Bad Alias has hit on an important point here, and Mira is also right too. We are splitting hairs here.
However. PLEASE refer the my original post where Jim explains the difference between SOULS and GHOSTS. This isn't my speculation or someone else's. This is Jim explaining his ideas about the universe he has created. Use this to inform your theories please, as this whole thread is starting to become derailed into arguments.
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@toodeep: What logic that leads from your factual data points? Harry went to Chicago Between. So? He also went to Chicago. Does that mean that everything in Chicago has to have a soul? Angels are active in the material world as well. We've see Uriel several times. We see the angel of death with Fr. Forthill. I don't see how Chicago Between being different from the material world would indicate that you have to have a soul to be there.
Your point two is your best point and why I am suspicious that Sir Stuart isn't just a ghost. If you look to the second post in this thread, you can see I said "Captain Murphy's task force seemed to be more than ghosts." I'd say Uriel's quote that you refer to proves it, except that he implies that "What Comes Next" is either Heaven or Hell (or something similar to our conceptions of such). But what comes next for Harry is Earth. So what comes next is demonstrably not limited to a place only souls can go to.
To try to address your points somewhat in order:
1. Harry went to Chicago as well as "in-between" thus indicating that "in-between" is nothing special. - My points are lines of evidence, one chair leg alone can be called a stick, but together they are chair legs. It goes with the other points in that we know Harry has a soul and he went there. Alone it is meaningless, but when combined with the other points that everything we saw there had a soul (or just flat out was a soul, which might be the difference between "in between" and the spirit world Chicago). Honestly I think the stronger point of them was that while he drove around with Carmichael he saw no wraiths or other remnants of ghosts, while he often saw those things in spirit-Chicago. The only things active there were/had souls.
2. Angels everywhere - I don't consider Uriel much of an indicator since he now comes when Harry calls. Your point about the angel of death was a good one, but I will note was explicitly there to guard Forthill's soul. Honestly it strengthens the arguments about angels only being involved where there are souls - and that guard angel "in betwee" appeared to be permanently stationed there.
3. "What comes next" may not be heaven or hell, might be applicable to ghosts - Again, not that strong an argument. We are a soul, we have a body. Ghosts can't possess people according to Stuart, that is the pervue of demons. So for Harry to go into his body, maybe for any ghost to go into any body (i.e. capriocorpus) they need to have their soul along with them.
But as I've been writing this I started thinking more about the nature of in-between and what it might mean. In between consisted of "everything that might have been." That seems to me like a mashing together of all the different realities. We know other realities exist because we've been told about Mirror mirror, and I think we've been given two glimpses of them or things connecting to them - In between, and Harry's dream in Skin Game where he contacts Molly. I can't help but assume this is going to be important in the future, but I can't quite see how it applies right now. But it did make me question what happens with souls when new realities are created. We are going to see a reality created by a Harry making a different choice than the one he made previously in the books. Before that choice there was one reality, one Harry (ignoring all the other multiverses for this), and 1 Harry soul. Afterward there was 2 of each. Copying bodies etc is no big deal, but suddenly having two souls for every ensouled creature seems like a really big deal! Did the souls split, did God make a copy, do they share a soul? Inquiring minds want to know! Considering alternate Harry is supposed to summon him to get him dead, I assume they don't share a soul and will either be saved or damned on their actions alone.
I'm assuming angels and a bunch of other beings span the multiverse, though. I expect there is only one "lasciel" for instance, though I assume she has a different coin and host in each reality. The perception of the other realities helps them with their "we know so much" routine because they know how the exact same action might have turned out in a neighboring reality.
I can't help but wonder if that helps reflect on the nature of souls and reality and that only souls can go in-between, but there is certainly nothing certain in these thoughts.
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3. "What comes next" may not be heaven or hell, might be applicable to ghosts - Again, not that strong an argument. We are a soul, we have a body. Ghosts can't possess people according to Stuart, that is the pervue of demons. So for Harry to go into his body, maybe for any ghost to go into any body (i.e. capriocorpus) they need to have their soul along with them.
Corpsetaker? I had a thought about that, maybe it is just merely wanting to cling to life/earth as long as possible? Kemmler wanted to bring people back from the dead and comeback from death himself.. The Corpsetaker didn't have that skill but by other means managed to hop from body to body. One reason I've heard for ghosts to exist is unfinished business which can take several forms so their spirit clings to earth long after their bodies are dead.
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Sir Stuart says he's a ghost, Jim says Ghosts aren't souls, thus Sir Stuart doesn't have a soul. That would seem to be pretty straight forward.
In between almost reads like purgatory, which is very Catholic. A place for souls who don't quite have what it takes to get to Heaven. But purgatory isn't for ghosts, it's for souls who haven't reached grace. This fits, in the sense that Jim uses it that way. Captain Murphy and Carmichael appear to have unresolved issues, but what would be Uriel's purpose in using a memory? It doesn't have a soul and it can't get to heaven.
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Sir Stuart says he's a ghost, Jim says Ghosts aren't souls, thus Sir Stuart doesn't have a soul. That would seem to be pretty straight forward.
In between almost reads like purgatory, which is very Catholic. A place for souls who don't quite have what it takes to get to Heaven. But purgatory isn't for ghosts, it's for souls who haven't reached grace. This fits, in the sense that Jim uses it that way. Captain Murphy and Carmichael appear to have unresolved issues, but what would be Uriel's purpose in using a memory? It doesn't have a soul and it can't get to heaven.
I seem to remember asking Uriel about staying a ghost... Uriel replied that he didn't think that
was a good option for Harry, but he didn't exactly say or say that it would cost him his soul. Harry
asks, "what if he digs the ghost routine?" Here is the answer
page454 Ghost Story
"You don't," Uriel replied. "But even if you did, I would point out to you that your spiritual essence has been all but disintegrated. You would not last long as a shade, nor would you have the strength to aid and protect your loved ones. Should you lose your sanity, you might even become a danger to them--but if that is your desire, I can facilitate it."
First of all, Uriel says nothing about Harry losing his soul if he became a ghost.. Second of all he seems to imply that spiritual essence is an important for being a ghost.. He says Harry wouldn't last long as a shade, which implies that, spirit, ghost, and shade, pretty much interchangeable... Last, but not the least, that if that is what Harry really wanted, Uriel could make it happen.. So does he mean that he'd just take Harry's soul leaving what? A few pages later the lesson that Uriel really wanted Harry to learn is learnt, he isn't a body with a soul, he is a soul with a body..
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Sir Stuart says he's a ghost, Jim says Ghosts aren't souls, thus Sir Stuart doesn't have a soul. That would seem to be pretty straight forward.
Yes, but Sir Stuart also said that Harry was just a ghost and we know that to be inaccurate. It is clear that Sir Stuart (and we assume Morty) is not someone educated in the vagaries of soul minutiae. This is a bit surprising since Mort seems to have interaction with Jack and thus maybe some degree of access to "in-between." You would think that Morty might know something about the different "realms" in the afterlife that he can interact with, unless he only interacts with Jack when he comes to our universe and doesn't realize there are others.
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Nothing said or done by anyone in the book indicates that Sir Stuart is anything more than a ghost. And Harry is a special case, his body isn't dead. This is almost a literal definition as supplied by Jim. You have a body, you are a soul.
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To try to address your points somewhat in order:
1. Harry went to Chicago as well as "in-between" thus indicating that "in-between" is nothing special. - My points are lines of evidence, one chair leg alone can be called a stick, but together they are chair legs. It goes with the other points in that we know Harry has a soul and he went there. Alone it is meaningless, but when combined with the other points that everything we saw there had a soul (or just flat out was a soul, which might be the difference between "in between" and the spirit world Chicago). Honestly I think the stronger point of them was that while he drove around with Carmichael he saw no wraiths or other remnants of ghosts, while he often saw those things in spirit-Chicago. The only things active there were/had souls.
2. Angels everywhere - I don't consider Uriel much of an indicator since he now comes when Harry calls. Your point about the angel of death was a good one, but I will note was explicitly there to guard Forthill's soul. Honestly it strengthens the arguments about angels only being involved where there are souls - and that guard angel "in betwee" appeared to be permanently stationed there.
To strain your metaphor: I can tell the difference between a stick and a chair leg even if there is only one and no other signs of a chair. I only see one chair leg. You gotta have at least three.
So all your points are really only one point, i.e., we only see souls in Chicago Between. (You also state that we don't see any soulless entities in the limited time we spend there).
Fr. Forthill is a work-a-day hero. People like him die all the time. Angel's are likely all over the place all the time. And it might strengthen an argument that I'm not arguing with. I'm not saying angels have nothing to do with souls. I'm saying angels being around doesn't mean everything around has a soul.
3. "What comes next" may not be heaven or hell, might be applicable to ghosts - Again, not that strong an argument.
The only time we've seen someone move on to what comes next it wasn't any afterlife or divine judgment and it was applicable to ghosts. It's much stronger evidence that what comes next is Earth than the evidence you've offered for pure ghosts not being able to go to Chicago Between. Not that I'm saying that what comes next is always Earth.
We are a soul, we have a body. Ghosts can't possess people according to Stuart, that is the pervue of demons. So for Harry to go into his body, maybe for any ghost to go into any body (i.e. capriocorpus) they need to have their soul along with them.
I agree that Harry has a soul? I'm not sure what your point is here.
I like your tangent about the nature of Chicago Between. I was thinking about the substance of your next point before you made it. (Your logic was easy to follow, i.e., good). I think everybody gets a new soul in a new reality based on the overarching philosophy of freedom, choice, and consequences in the DF. Kinda like your point about will Harry have to answer for the sins of Mirror Harry? Then choice doesn't really have consequences.
Archangels definitely span the universes. It's wild to think about Denarians spanning universes. Think about how much more powerful that makes them considering experience gets you knowledge/power.
In between almost reads like purgatory, which is very Catholic. A place for souls who don't quite have what it takes to get to Heaven. But purgatory isn't for ghosts, it's for souls who haven't reached grace. This fits, in the sense that Jim uses it that way. Captain Murphy and Carmichael appear to have unresolved issues, but what would be Uriel's purpose in using a memory? It doesn't have a soul and it can't get to heaven.
Uriel does say that Chicago Between is "one of them" in response to Harry saying "That office, in Chicago Between. It was yours." It could be that Chicago Between is Purgatory and just for souls and Uriel has other offices that Sir Stuart could be being placed in, though he will be contacted by Carmichael, though Captain Murphy can transport people to places besides Chicago Between.
Yes, but Sir Stuart also said that Harry was just a ghost and we know that to be inaccurate. It is clear that Sir Stuart (and we assume Morty) is not someone educated in the vagaries of soul minutiae.
Sir Stuart definitely thinks Harry isn't a normal ghost. He does say maybe it's just because he's a wizard ghost. Sir Stuart and Morty are dealing with things they haven't seen before because of Corpsetaker when Harry arrives. Sir Stuart tells Harry that they knew something strange was going on with Harry. They worried it was something Corpsetaker did.
Also, to me, it seems that Morty is doing some pretty hard denial about Harry's situation throughout the book.
Nothing said or done by anyone in the book indicates that Sir Stuart is anything more than a ghost.
I wouldn't go that far, but I would say there's nothing that makes it more likely than not, or maybe not even "probable cause" level evidence.
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Nothing said or done by anyone in the book indicates that Sir Stuart is anything more than a ghost. And Harry is a special case, his body isn't dead. This is almost a literal definition as supplied by Jim. You have a body, you are a soul.
But Uriel specifically says if Harry really wants to be a ghost he could make that happen. He also says Harry is a soul with a body not the other way around.. So if Uriel made it happen, how does that work? More to the point since souls are really important to him, why would Uriel do it?
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Nothing said or done by anyone in the book indicates that Sir Stuart is anything more than a ghost. And Harry is a special case, his body isn't dead. This is almost a literal definition as supplied by Jim. You have a body, you are a soul.
Corpstakers body was dead. Kemmler returned a few times and it is unlikely he used the same body every time. Luccio got a new one. Having your own body is important because getting someone elses body is difficult and morally wrong but that is all. Harry would have been the same Harry if his body was gone, it would just have been more difficult to return.
Jim is a great writer so he does not always spells it out. He gives clues and you are supposed to wonder and guess about Sir Stuart's status. He builds it up. He shows how difficult it is to see the difference and so suggests that there might be more shades confused with ghosts wandering around. I think Uriel's interest is a dead giveaway but if you want you can not just read the book as gospel, you can explain it like gospel. Some explanations are just more forced than others.
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Corpstakers body was dead. Kemmler returned a few times and it is unlikely he used the same body every time. Luccio got a new one. Having your own body is important because getting someone elses body is difficult and morally wrong but that is all. Harry would have been the same Harry if his body was gone, it would just have been more difficult to return.
But that is all? Morally wrong, certainly, but getting someone else's body presented lots of problems for Luccio. For example she no longer was able to make Warden Swords. She didn't forget how to make the swords, but she no longer had to the skill either to read the new warden to
match the sword or apparently to make them. Was this simply the lack of nerve pathways for the skill built up over a century or more of being a wizard or something else? In my opinion in her new body she was also more vulnerable to the manipulation of Peabody.
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The deeper you look at this the less there is to see. For my personal canon I ignore Mr Butcher and see ghost as lost souls. The body is a vessel to contain souls. So everybody hanging out in Ghost Story is a soul. It's simpler that way. Sometimes Jim should just shut up and let mystery trump explanation.
If there is a difference in Sir Stuart it's that he has purpose and can execute it. Again for personal canon I see Mortimer as one of a family line of ectomancers which Stuart has been bound to in some fashion to remain and protect.
The bodies that Luccio inhabited are like Corvettes and your daddy's Ford, they are both cars but daddy's Ford ain't gonna get you there at 200 mph. In terms of Harry having the choice to move on or not that merely a matter of choice, choosing to live or die. YMMV
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But that is all? Morally wrong, certainly, but getting someone else's body presented lots of problems for Luccio. For example she no longer was able to make Warden Swords. She didn't forget how to make the swords, but she no longer had to the skill either to read the new warden to
match the sword or apparently to make them. Was this simply the lack of nerve pathways for the skill built up over a century or more of being a wizard or something else? In my opinion in her new body she was also more vulnerable to the manipulation of Peabody.
If the body you return to has a broken leg you can not walk. Lucio returned in a young body which made her more vulnerable in some ways and the body is not trained in other ways. She will have years to train it up and to discover what she can do with it.
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If the body you return to has a broken leg you can not walk. Lucio returned in a young body which made her more vulnerable in some ways and the body is not trained in other ways. She will have years to train it up and to discover what she can do with it.
But that is the point, she wasn't the same in the new body, questionable if she is even fit to be the captain of the wardens now.
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But that is the point, she wasn't the same in the new body, questionable if she is even fit to be the captain of the wardens now.
Depends how you look at it. She still has a wealth of experience and fighting is not the most important skill of a captain. It is about leadership and in that respect she did quite well.
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Depends how you look at it. She still has a wealth of experience and fighting is not the most important skill of a captain. It is about leadership and in that respect she did quite well.
Did she? Just how good has her leadership been since her body change? It is hard to tell because for one thing she was heavily under the influence of Peabody ink.. Hard to say if the body change made it worse or not in fairness. However she got involved with a subordinate [Harry] who was under her command, not good leadership, she committed murder and her one time lover and right hand man, Morgan took the blame and ultimately died..
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Did she? Just how good has her leadership been since her body change? It is hard to tell because for one thing she was heavily under the influence of Peabody ink.. Hard to say if the body change made it worse or not in fairness. However she got involved with a subordinate [Harry] who was under her command, not good leadership, she committed murder and her one time lover and right hand man, Morgan took the blame and ultimately died..
Peabody fooled and manipulated the whole senior council. She is not more incompetent than them. Luccio is smart and inspires loyalty, that is difficult to replace.
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Peabody fooled and manipulated the whole senior council. She is not more incompetent than them. Luccio is smart and inspires loyalty, that is difficult to replace.
True, but what I said is also true.
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Morris - are you seriously saying that you just ignore the WOJ and just invent your own canon? Do you also write fanfic? I mean seriously where does it end? Do you also just decide which parts of the series are canon to you as well and which parts are not? Just because you don't like something doesn't make it untrue or go away. It is this very phenomenon which allows fake news to spread, religions to split and people just in general live in a bubble. Just accept what Jim writes isn't always going to be to your liking. He writes the books mostly for his own enjoyment, not ours really. We are just an added benefit these days, and that is just fine. Also, if that is your method for interpreting the series, just picking and choosing what suits, how can you expect anyone here to take what you say seriously? For what it is worth, I think you have plenty of excellent insights into Jim's writing and you seem to be a learned fellow with strong critical thinking skills. So I have no idea why you would just abandon reason like that.
Mira - I think you forget that Luccio's poor decisions whilst in her new body were all influenced heavily, and sometimes outright controlled, by Wizard Peabody. You can hardly blame her for that. Before she changed bodies she was well thought of and respected. Her main failing perhaps was that she, like most of the Council, became arrogant and had believed the White Council to be more powerful than it actually is - hence why the Red Court were able to do such damage against them, especially early on. That and the internal destruction of the Council and external manipulation of forces against them. Although one wonders if there is a time when the Council hasn't had the forces of darkness trying to destroy it.
And I agree, her new body had significant challenges. It is canon that it caused her to be unable to make any more warden swords, and that she wasn't as strong or as skilful magically as she was. Not only that, it made her kinder and more pliable and more distracted.
Morally wrong it might be to grab someone else's body, however I am not sure that is relevant to this discussion. For what it is worth, Corpsetaker didn't seem unduly hindered by the body he took, and I suspect (but I admit I don't know for sure) that the necromantic technique that he uses likely subverts the normal issues. Indeed, only once Corpsetaker had crossed far enough across the threshold between Life and Death did it mean that he needed a significantly powerful magical body. Almost like being born. Perhaps after being shot by Harry, the Corpsetaker lost a lot of magical power or essence and required a newly strong host to get it back. I suspect it is all to do with the same limits on Mortals that don't allow them to see the way Carmichael does in Ghost Story.
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Morris - are you seriously saying that you just ignore the WOJ and just invent your own canon? Do you also write fanfic? I mean seriously where does it end? Do you also just decide which parts of the series are canon to you as well and which parts are not? Just because you don't like something doesn't make it untrue or go away. It is this very phenomenon which allows fake news to spread, religions to split and people just in general live in a bubble. Just accept what Jim writes isn't always going to be to your liking. He writes the books mostly for his own enjoyment, not ours really. We are just an added benefit these days, and that is just fine. Also, if that is your method for interpreting the series, just picking and choosing what suits, how can you expect anyone here to take what you say seriously? For what it is worth, I think you have plenty of excellent insights into Jim's writing and you seem to be a learned fellow with strong critical thinking skills. So I have no idea why you would just abandon reason like that.
Obviously we read in entirely different ways. The author gives me a foundation, and then what happens between my ears is what makes a book fun for me. This post was me finishing my part in this discussion. Our Sir Stuart is a ghost. The real Sir Stuart has moved on. That is the WOJ in a nutshell. He's a memory of the real Sir Stuart. No WOJ disputes that and it isn't in the text.
And then there is what Jim says versus what he writes. In this case he muddies the water. Sir Stuart is an interesting character. He draws sympathy. Jim resolves the character by having his arc end at Chicago in between, having been given new purpose. For a ghost this really doesn't make sense. Jim tells us in the WOJ that ghost aren't souls. So there can be no redemptive purpose. Sir Stuart the character will haunt the PD in Chicago in between for eternity. He can't go on like Captain Murphy might if the details of his death are resolved. So your sympathy is wasted on something that Jim tells us isn't real. He isn't Sir Stuart. He's water in a footprint.
And the argument as presented here makes that obviously apparent. We want Sir Stuart to be something more. In terms of how that effects my credibility I'm sorry for that, but it is how I enjoy the story. Which is the point. I don't really care why Jim wrote it. He did though, and he put it up for sale. The money for which I assume, is his primary driver. And once that happens he loses control of the narrative.
For the Dresdenverse the question becomes, where does that, which makes the footprint, reside? If it resides in the soul and if the soul is what makes Harry, Harry, then where does that lead us? In the story Jim implies Harry is wandering around in his soul. Mortimer can sense him until Uriel enters the picture, at which point Mortimer implies he has moved on. For the record Harry refers to Colin Murphy et al, as the Purgatory Crew.
Corpsetaker on the other hand is ambiguous. He/she leaps from body to body. Did his soul take a permanent vacation the first time he leaped? The implication is otherwise. Since he/she goes to hell at the end which seems wasted on a ghost. So Corpsetaker would seem to have learned how to encapsulate a soul, which the WOJ implies is not possible. This is what I mean when I say that Jim muddies the picture.
I offer this as an explanation of what I see when I read. I don't ask you to ride with me, as I said this is my internal canon. There is another possible take on this that may suit you better. That the soul is different then what your memories make you. So in the case of the Dresdenverse your soul awaits your spirit in wherever souls reside on the other side. This resolves it within canon.
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The woj is absolutely clear about ghosts. The book is also absolutely clear that not everything that looks like a ghost actually is a ghost. There is no contradiction here.
As I see it there are three layers. Your body is your outer layer. Your spirit is your life force, your magical power. It is also your spiritual body, it is what you see in the spirit world. Your soul is wrapped in your spiritual body and makes what you are, it is the core of your identity.
A Ghost is a sliver or a big chunk of your spiritual body left behind. A shade is soul with enough of its spiritual body to manifest in the spirit world. A Shade is basically a human without body. It has free will and so on. It can go on to what is next.
The book establishes that there ar no real ways to distinguish between Shade and Ghost except for the holy ground thing and the ability to return to a body. There are things that can point in a direction though. Being taken seriously by Uriel is one of them.
Jim often starts with a simple model that is refined later. He started with a simple Sidhe have no soul model for example and then he worked it out with Molly and Mab when Harry got closer to the Sidhe. Now he is not sure whether even Mab has some sliver of her soul left. Apparently even having a soul is not a simple yes or no thing, it can erode over time in some cases.The simple model is almost never the model that describes everything in the dresdenverse. If a book contradicts an older woj go with the book.
And woj about ghosts only say something about Sir Stuart if he is one otherwise it is not applicable.
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Morris - are you seriously saying that you just ignore the WOJ and just invent your own canon? Do you also write fanfic? I mean seriously where does it end? Do you also just decide which parts of the series are canon to you as well and which parts are not?
I find this all to be perfectly acceptable behavior as long as whoever's doing doesn't say "and you have to agree this is the way it is." Stating "my head canon" is basically stating the opposite.
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For example she no longer was able to make Warden Swords. She didn't forget how to make the swords, but she no longer had to the skill either to read the new warden to match the sword or apparently to make them. Was this simply the lack of nerve pathways for the skill built up over a century or more of being a wizard or something else? In my opinion in her new body she was also more vulnerable to the manipulation of Peabody.
Just as a very, very fine nitpick- it is not canon that she can't make the swords. It is canon that she has told Harry she cannot, and that we can infer that the council accepts that. I believe she told Harry she was not as strong (magically) in her new body and that is why she cannot. I only make this point because when she told Harry this she was under the influences of Peabody. A man who may have very much wanted to stop having the council wardens wander around with cool magic swords. If he dropped a belief in her head that she couldn't, and you can't do magic you can't believe in, then voila' no more magic swords being made.
So we know the effect, but we have only claims as to cause.
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Just as a very, very fine nitpick- it is not canon that she can't make the swords. It is canon that she has told Harry she cannot, and that we can infer that the council accepts that. I believe she told Harry she was not as strong (magically) in her new body and that is why she cannot. I only make this point because when she told Harry this she was under the influences of Peabody. A man who may have very much wanted to stop having the council wardens wander around with cool magic swords. If he dropped a belief in her head that she couldn't, and you can't do magic you can't believe in, then voila' no more magic swords being made.
So we know the effect, but we have only claims as to cause.
Very true, also goes to how effective Peabody's ink was in numbing the mind to infiltration. However the ink seems to be limited to Peabody because either or both Morgan and Luccio seemed
to be aware when Molly attempted to have an unauthorized peek into their minds.
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Very true, also goes to how effective Peabody's ink was in numbing the mind to infiltration. However the ink seems to be limited to Peabody because either or both Morgan and Luccio seemed
to be aware when Molly attempted to have an unauthorized peek into their minds.
They both knew her by reputation so they were probably more on guard. Molly simply did not know about the ink but Ebenezar was aware, they recognised several chemical and alchemical stuff when searching peabodies rooms.
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They both knew her by reputation so they were probably more on guard. Molly simply did not know about the ink but Ebenezar was aware, they recognised several chemical and alchemical stuff when searching peabodies rooms.
Huh? I agree that both Luccio and Morgan would know why Molly was under the Doom... They might look for her to try and get into their heads, but the point is, they knew when she did, which has nothing to do with her reputation. No, Molly didn't know about Peabody's ink, but that isn't the point or important.. Peabody used his special ink, no one knew he was playing in their heads. Molly had no such ink, both Morgan and Luccio knew instantly when she had her little peek..
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Huh? I agree that both Luccio and Morgan would know why Molly was under the Doom... They might look for her to try and get into their heads, but the point is, they knew when she did, which has nothing to do with her reputation. No, Molly didn't know about Peabody's ink, but that isn't the point or important.. Peabody used his special ink, no one knew he was playing in their heads. Molly had no such ink, both Morgan and Luccio knew instantly when she had her little peek..
The point is they might only have known because they were watching for it. Nobody suspected Peabody.
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I don't think she did anything to Morgan. He just woke up with her near him and freaked out at one point. Then, later, Morgan walked in on her peaking in Luccio's mind. No special detection required.
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Indeed we do read differently Morris. You enjoy it how you like, far be it from me to stifle that. But if you are going to make WAGs, stick to the established canon. Anything else is a waste of time.
Should we not care about the after-image of a person? I don't think our sympathy (assuming the reader is sympathetic) is wasted on a ghost. That is merely an assumption. As Jim points out, while ghosts start of as merely a shadow of the real thing, they can become something in their own right. That is quite powerful, I think. Indeed often the idea of a person is far stronger than the real thing, and exists long after they die in some cases. Do we care as much about the person, as the idea of the person? I never knew Martin Luther King, but the idea of him is what inspires me and many others. Do I need to care about him personally, rather than what he represents and has become? I'll leave that up to you.
You don't have to care why Jim writes anything, he himself has said he doesn't care if people don't agree or like what he write (although I imagine there are limits to this). His primary purpose may be money, but that is a big assumption about someone we don't know (I assume you don't know him personally, like most of us). But I have known a few authors, both successful and otherwise, and it isn't really ever about the money. It is about the love of craft, the joy of the job, the strength of doing what you love most and feel best at. I think Jim has even used Harry to express this often enough when he writes about how much Harry likes actually doing magic. Yes it is hard and frustrating and terrible too. But it is often also very rewarding. I would not be so quick to just assume Jim is mostly in it for the money. He wrote Dresden because no one else was writing the story he wanted to read - that's worth thinking about.
He hasn't merely put it up for sale - he has put it out for consumption, true enough. But he wrote it also for himself too. So it does matter what he writes. Now we as a fan base, as an audience, may interpret it how we choose. But it is not up to us to decide what is written and canon, and what is not. You don't get to repaint the Mona Lisa just because it doesn't suit you. You can think your own thoughts about it, have your own opinions, but the paint is dry now and should stay that way. We can always write our own novels if we like.
To answer your question, the ghost is a by product of the soul. That is quite clearly established. On occasion they can work in concert, but it is rare. Think of a cup of tea. The cup is the body, the water is the spirit, the tea bag is the mind etc. The soul is both the sum of those elements, and the idea of those elements. The cup of tea. The dregs at the bottom when the tea is finished is the ghost - a remnant of something much more real but contains the memory of what was. The soul moves on to What Comes Next, the body decomposes, and the ghost is created in that moment of death. Gasoline, for instance, was once a byproduct of oil refining which later became a valuable commodity - but wouldn't have existed without the refining in the first place. A ghost goes on and has use in it's own way, but did not come into existence without the presence of a soul. I hope that answers your question.
As for Mortimer being unable to sense him when Uriel shows up, well I think if Uriel had wanted him to look like a ghost and act like a ghost he gave him the option, but he never really was just that. When Uriel shows up he is finishing the job (the whole point of which was to help Harry understand that he killed himself, and the effect of his choices, and perhaps also hint at the greater struggle going on around him). If Uriel had wanted Mort to sense him, then Mort would have been able to sense him. It's almost Deus Ex Machina.
The Corpsetaker is different because he/she is a necromancer. I imagine using the powers of death magic might have some bearing on how your soul travels through the spectrum of death, not that it made much difference to him/her in the end. How this was possible is not yet known, and it likely won't be until Harry is forced to know more about necromancy I imagine, if we ever learn it at all. Although I don't see how the WOJ ever says it isn't possible to encapsulate a soul. A phylactery is a tool that does exactly that, which JK Rowling called a Horcrux.
Whilst one can be two, two can not be one. The ghost is a byproduct of a soul, which can work in concert in certain circumstances. Whether Sir Stuart is or isn't is a little ambiguous, but at this stage not very relevant to the story. Corpsetaker almost certainly was a soul, but may also have been in concert with his/her ghost, just like Harry.
On another note entirely - in Grave Peril Harry had this to say about ghosts. I saw the ghosts the dead had left
behind settle the score.
Ch38, p229.
The ghosts the dead had left behind... The dead leave behind ghosts, but they themselves go on. A subtle but important difference. Which lines up perfectly with the WOJ and established canon...and this was 10 books before ghosts were significant and we learnt more about that world.
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If I were a ghost in the Dresden files I would shoot myself with a memory bullet. They have no future. Absolutely none. Jim's a good writer. He makes us like the character of Sir Stuart, and then moves him out of the hood and into Purgatory Precinct, with unresolved souls, or whatever Captain Murphy is suppose to represent. Which makes us feel good about it.
It reads well if you don't think about it. Having said that, I understand the premise and if I made a WAG about it forgive me. Should we not care about the after-image of a person?
I like movies with Cary Grant, but those movies aren't Cary Grant.Indeed we do read differently Morris.
Perhaps. Reading is a solitary business. It's only in recent years that I have looked at books as something more than a momentary pleasure. I absorb them without thinking. I gave you a look at how I would perceive the text as I read it. Before Jim rewrites the story in a promotional visit to a bookshop.
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The idea that everything that looks like a ghost actually is a ghost is not true according to monty:
“. . . came back to help,” Mort said. “It happens sometimes
. Some people die feeling that something was incomplete. I guess Dresden thought that he hadn’t done enough to make a difference around here.” Mort shook his head. “As if the big goon didn’t turn everything upside down whenever he showed up.”
Karrin smiled faintly and shook her head. “He always said you knew ghosts. You’re sure it was really him?”
Mort eyed her. “Me and everyone else, yeah.”
The soul can choose to stay behind if there is a strong enough will to do something. This can be as simple as pulling a lever as Deirdre showed in skin game or he can be basically tricked into it as Harry was.
Morty knew it was really Harry at the end not because Uriel told him but because he knew it was possible and his experience with Harry told him so. It is not that it was impossible, it just does not happen that often.
The soul does not automatically go to what is next, it has to go there and sometimes a special escort is needed and arranged as in Forthils case.
Also what is next is not always the same. Some people go to Hades domain for example. Again faith of the shade probably plays a role.
The idea that a person can stay behind if there is unfinished business is an old one. Mark that Uriel specifically convinced sir stuart that the bussiness of protecting his line was finished:
Uriel watched Mort shielding Karrin’s sorrow and said, “You’ve watched over him faithfully, Stuart. And he’s grown a great deal in the past few years. I think he’s going to be fine.”
Sir Stuart had a reason to stay behind. He had the will to do so. He also might have been an ectomancer in life but I do not think that is necessary, it only makes it more likely.
But the spirit world is dangerous and most shades wouldn't last long. It takes a strong shade to stay sane and whole for a long time. That is why father forthil got his guard. That is probably why the gods created afterlives like Hades, to protect their followers (and for the spirital power the shades represent). But the oldest forms of worship include ancestor worship. Maybe originally people just stayed with their descendants.
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Yuillegan: "The ghost is a byproduct of a soul." If this is correct, then animals such as Sue have souls.
Ignoring, or at least discounting, WoJ is a perfectly acceptable analytical framework.
The idea that everything that looks like a ghost actually is a ghost is not true according to monty:
. Some people die feeling that something was incomplete. I guess Dresden thought that he hadn’t done enough to make a difference around here.” Mort shook his head. “As if the big goon didn’t turn everything upside down whenever he showed up.”
Karrin smiled faintly and shook her head. “He always said you knew ghosts. You’re sure it was really him?”
Mort eyed her. “Me and everyone else, yeah.”
The soul can choose to stay behind if there is a strong enough will to do something. This can be as simple as pulling a lever as Deirdre showed in skin game or he can be basically tricked into it as Harry was.
I think there is an alternative more plausible interpretation of these events. Morty was assuring Murphy that it actually was Harry's ghost as opposed to some impostor spirit. Murphy was insistent that Dresden wasn't dead (turns out she was right). She reasoned that if Dresden's spirit was running around, he was dead and gone (turns out she was wrong). I read that quote as confirmation that Dresden wasn't some spirit impersonating him.
Deirdre didn't choose to stay behind. She was in an afterlife. That's a native habitat for discorporate souls. (Or at least that's my take).
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Necroing this thread because it has become pertinent again:
BA - Why would that mean Sue has a soul? Sue wasn't a ghost in the first place. Ghosts are beings purely made of spirit. It was an animated skeleton with spirit flesh (that Harry created from his own power). The spirit of the old hunter was 65 million years old (according to Harry). He basically gave the beast it's mind back. It might have had a soul...but that seems unlikely considering Harry had no idea how to bring back a soul. Not to mention most Christian texts (and Judaism) as you point out don't consider beasts to have souls.
Except ignoring WOJ isn't a "perfectly acceptable analytical framework" as you put it. We're not dealing with science here. This is fiction. Jim sets the rules. He can change them as many times as he likes. We don't have to like it, but that's the way it is. He would probably lose his readership if he did it too often and overtly, but that's his choice. It is not the right of the reader to choose what elements are true and what are not. We can have opinions, but it's Jim's ideas. We didn't create it. We might ascertain meaning that Jim didn't intend, we might see things that are only created by reading from our perspective (which are not invalid), but we cannot change the facts of the books just because it doesn't suit us. That is arrogant in the supreme.
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What's the difference between a spirit of a once living creature and a ghost? Sue is a being of spirit, fossil, and flesh from the Nevernever. If a ghost is a being of pure spirit, then Sue is more than a ghost. And if we ignore Sue altogether, in the battle between Corpsetaker and Grevane, weren't horses used? Were they an extension of the dead soldiers' ghosts or were they their own ghosts?
I don't think that it is established, much less clearly, that a ghost is the byproduct of the soul.
It's literally a literary framework."The Death of the Author" (French: La mort de l'auteur) is a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes (1915–1980). Barthes' essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of incorporating the intentions and biographical context of an author in an interpretation of a text, and instead argues that writing and creator are unrelated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author).
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Except ignoring WOJ isn't a "perfectly acceptable analytical framework" as you put it. We're not dealing with science here. This is fiction. Jim sets the rules. He can change them as many times as he likes. We don't have to like it, but that's the way it is. He would probably lose his readership if he did it too often and overtly, but that's his choice. It is not the right of the reader to choose what elements are true and what are not. We can have opinions, but it's Jim's ideas. We didn't create it. We might ascertain meaning that Jim didn't intend, we might see things that are only created by reading from our perspective (which are not invalid), but we cannot change the facts of the books just because it doesn't suit us. That is arrogant in the supreme.
I suppose this is where we fall out and decide not to be friends. ;) On this board and in this context, when arguing we have to agree on shared reality. Please don't confuse this with facts. Fact are unchanging and they never have to be retconned. The books are not a unified whole. And they aren't a unified whole in the mind of the author. If we limited ourselves to the text, there wouldn't be anything to discuss. We analyze emotions, intentions and things never revealed in the text. You may read that as I/we make shit up.
In the case of souls and spirits it makes absolutely no difference in how you parse them. They are interchangeable in effect, if not in fact. They are different only because Jim says they are, even though, when he writes, there are no markers that would let you analyze what each is. So for instance, if Harry is a soul wandering in the world without a body, is there any difference between him and Sir Stuart as a pure spirit? You might also ask if Harry's spirit is wandering and not his soul, where is his soul, and what's it doing while his spirit is out on the town? And in terms of spirits he has created at least four who can manifest, the Archive, Bob, Bonea, and evil Bob. Not to mention Lash who is a !!!Shadow!!!.
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A soul can enter a church and a ghost can not. That was in Ghost story.
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Also, a sliver of soul is what powers soulfire, whereas spirit gets consumed regularly when in ghost form. Apparently spirit can regenerate or something when you are actually in a body. It might be interesting to compare how much power Harry has to throw in terms of magic when in his body to when in spirit form. It may be that the limit he hits is literally the limit of his spirit energy.
What I also wonder about from a story perspective, is that Harry never called upon winter or on soulfire in Ghost Story. It leaves a lot to wonder about. But then, he didn't seem to have to fight winter urges while out of body, so it does make one wonder if his connection to winter is more to his body then his spirit/soul (which seems odd, personally).
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A soul can enter a church and a ghost can not. That was in Ghost story.
Specifically the Nightmare. Okay, can Sir Stuart not enter a church? He gets a job with Uriel. That appears to be a logical contradiction. Was it his ghostiness that kept the Nightmare out or something else. In the same passage Jim calls it an anomaly. And just because the Nightmare came up, Ghost Story is the second time Harry has been dead and produced a ghost.
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A soul can enter a church and a ghost can not. That was in Ghost story.
Specifically the Nightmare. Okay, can Sir Stuart not enter a church? He gets a job with Uriel. That appears to be a logical contradiction. Was it his ghostiness that kept the Nightmare out or something else. In the same passage Jim calls it an anomaly. And just because the Nightmare came up, Ghost Story is the second time Harry has been dead and produced a ghost.
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A soul can enter a church and a ghost can not. That was in Ghost story.
Specifically the Nightmare. Okay, can Sir Stuart not enter a church? He gets a job with Uriel. That appears to be a logical contradiction. Was it his ghostiness that kept the Nightmare out or something else. In the same passage Jim calls it an anomaly. And just because the Nightmare came up, Ghost Story is the second time Harry has been dead and produced a ghost.
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A soul can enter a church and a ghost can not. That was in Ghost story.
Specifically the Nightmare. Okay, can Sir Stuart not enter a church? He gets a job with Uriel. That appears to be a logical contradiction. Was it his ghostiness that kept the Nightmare out or something else. In the same passage Jim calls it an anomaly. And just because the Nightmare came up, Ghost Story is the second time Harry has been dead and produced a ghost.
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A soul can enter a church and a ghost can not. That was in Ghost story.
The was the Nightmare. Could Sir Stuart have entered? Seems silly to hire Sir Stuart and tell him he isn't welcome in his house. And in the text Harry notes this as an anomaly. And since we are on the wayback machine this is Harry's second round as a ghost. Makes Vadderung look a little foolish.
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The was the Nightmare. Could Sir Stuart have entered? Seems silly to hire Sir Stuart and tell him he isn't welcome in his house. And in the text Harry notes this as an anomaly. And since we are on the wayback machine this is Harry's second round as a ghost. Makes Vadderung look a little foolish.
But maybe sir Stuart was not a ghost. I have argued that ser Stuart was a soul just like Harry and Corpstaker on this forum before. there are several reasons to believe so and Uriel’s interest is one of them. Uriel is all about souls. As Morty’s ancestor he could have had the talent for it.
And Harry was not just a ghost, that was what the book was all about. It was just that most rules were similar but not the holy ground thing. Holy ground is for souls, dead or alive.
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... In the case of souls and spirits it makes absolutely no difference in how you parse them. They are interchangeable in effect, if not in fact. They are different only because Jim says they are, even though, when he writes, there are no markers that would let you analyze what each is ...
The distinction remains unclear, and it's obviously unclear even to many in the setting; even Morty seemed to think Harry was a more-or-less ordinary ghost. But, as you say -- Jim says they are different. So for the Dresdenverse, they... are. That's just a fact.
And it isn't clear how and why that's important, but... evidently, it is important.
Presumably, we'll learn more in future books.
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The distinction remains unclear, and it's obviously unclear even to many in the setting; even Morty seemed to think Harry was a more-or-less ordinary ghost. But, as you say -- Jim says they are different. So for the Dresdenverse, they... are. That's just a fact.
And it isn't clear how and why that's important, but... evidently, it is important.
Presumably, we'll learn more in future books.
Harry wasn't, because he was only mostly dead, as in slightly alive the whole time, Bob could tell the difference. Sir Steward as far as we know is all dead, I doubt there is any loose change in his pockets.
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And it isn't clear how and why that's important, but... evidently, it is important.
It's important because it's the the central conceit of Ghost Story, is he or isn't he dead? Jim appears to be very flexible about ghosthood. In Grave Peril Harry dies so he can come back as a ghost and then get revived to save the day. He has Harry and Harry's ghost attack Kravos at the same time. All while in a dream no less.“That’s the only bad thing about this gig as a ghost. Once you accomplish whatever it was that caused you to get created, you’re done. Kravos—the real Kravos—is already gone. Just his shell stayed behind. And this would have happened to him, too, if he’d killed you.”
So there are facts and there are facts.
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The distinction remains unclear, and it's obviously unclear even to many in the setting; even Morty seemed to think Harry was a more-or-less ordinary ghost. But, as you say -- Jim says they are different. So for the Dresdenverse, they... are. That's just a fact.
And it isn't clear how and why that's important, but... evidently, it is important.
Presumably, we'll learn more in future books.
Monty knows the distinction. He only assumes that most who think they are souls are self deluding ghosts.
But the most important difference is stated more than once. The soul is really you, it is the essence of you and not a mere reflection. It can go on to what comes next or sometimes even return to life. It is what Uriel tries to save and it has free will, it can make meaningful choices.
It is late antiquity Greek magic thinking. It is the essence of what makes you you.
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There is a bit for me to unpack, but I will do my best.
BA - Quite right, it isn't established that Ghosts are a byproduct of the soul. At least, not stated explicitly. But it is stated that ghosts are the footprint and the water that fills it (on the hypothetical beach), not the foot. So I think that Jim has at least inferred it. What isn't clear is whether souless beings can have "ghosts" like mortals. I don't believe so based on the fact the mortals are a soul, but have a body. We haven't yet seen the ghost of an immortal, although it is theorized a Demon could leave a ghost. Perhaps the Dinosaurs did have souls. Who knows? I would say when it comes to animals though, it is merely the magical part of the being that all physical beings seem to have. I have yet to see a being in the Dresden Files that has no "shadow" in the spiritual world (that is to say, entirely untouched by magic).
As for the "Death of the Author"...it was a literary essay, and one that didn't escape critiscm. Whilst it is perhaps used as a lens it isn't an objective truth. It might contain elements of truth, but that isn't the same thing. You can use it if you wish, I won't stop you. But as far as I am concerned if we are discussing theory we all have to share a basic set of rules. If we all just get to decide which rules apply and which don't because we are all special snowflakes it rather defeats the purpose of these discussions. How can any argument be presented if we can't even agree on what the facts are? How can we develop a strong theory, too? Alternative facts, are in my opinion, a lazy mind's excuse for not using critical thinking. Why even read the books if you don't accept what is in them? Might as well write your own and make another forum to go with it.
Morris - I should hope not, I rather enjoy our chats. As I do with just about everyone on here. You are of course, correct. Subtext, intention, inference and implication are the stuff that get people going. It would make for a dull series without it. And how our experiences as people meld with the story is what allow us to connect with it, hence the payoff. I would never argue to get rid of that. And I agree, we do have to agree on a shared reality. But we aren't agreeing, this whole forum often doesn't. And nor should it. But in order to have a coherent discussion that isn't derailed all the time, we have to agree on basic tenets. One of which is that if it is written in the novels, or said in a WOJ etc, that's the gospel. If it is disagreed with, or thought to be false, appropriate evidence must be applied to support that position. We cannot simply argue that for example, "Harry is actually a god in Storm Front because I believe it to be so, and that works for me". Obviously, that assertion is ridiculous and has no text or statement outside the series to support it. So I would have to gather evidence to support the argument - subtext, inference, literary devices, examples etc. Without the evidence to debate there is nothing for anyone to work with. We could flood the forums with crack theories with absolutely no basis in reality for the sole purpose of our own peverse pleasure. The boards are a community, a shared space, and so should be treated with the respect that deserves. No one here stands above the rest (although Griffyn does run the place) but even his theories don't carry more weight because of that. Not having a go at you in particular either. Just giving my two bob.
Jim doesn't have to provide all the markers. We can deduce much ourselves. And he may have further reveals that he is saving up. Whilst I agree on much of the soul/spirit thing being interchangeable...there are some inconsitencies. And yes, there are differences. Were the Sir Stuart we met merely a ghost or spectre, he is but the shadow of the real deal. The real Sir Stuart is in the Here After and both are experiencing reality differently. If this were a sci-fi novel, and you replace ghost with "clone", let's say the clone has all the memories of the original being but once it is created does it's own thing, has it's own experiences. It stops being the first being just by having different experiences. It becomes something else. However, if Sir Stuart is actually more than a mere ghost - he is also a soul that is called Sir Stuart AND his ghost self then he isn't so different from Harry. Depends which theory you believe.
The Archive doesn't manifest, it has a vessel. No more than a computer program has relevance or manifests outside the paradigm of cyber. As for the others...Bob and Evil Bob have yet to create physical bodies, they have so far either possessed physical beings or interacted on different level of reality. Bonnie is something different again but I won't get into that now.
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Arjan, couldn't agree more.
G33k, I agree.
Morris, I get what you're saying. But Harry is an unreliable narrator at the best of times. So be careful with that. Which is tiring but that's all we have to work with most of the time.
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Arjan, couldn't agree more.
G33k, I agree.
Morris, I get what you're saying. But Harry is an unreliable narrator at the best of times. So be careful with that. Which is tiring but that's all we have to work with most of the time.
They are all unreliable narrators so understanding their point of view is essential to understanding what they are saying. I would not expect Lea and Mab to talk about souls the way Uriel does for example, they have a complete different understanding of the same reality. They use even different words.
Gard has a completely different view on free will and fate. I do not think it is necessarily wrong, it is a different point of view.
But Jim has a bigger world in his mind than he explicitly explains in his writing by all those unreliable narrators. Sometimes facts he shows are more reliable than the statements of all those narrators anyway.
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@Yuillegan
Although it will probably never arise as a problem, in the future I will write my posts about ghosts using soul and then use search and replace to change all those instances to spirit before I actually post. I can then serve my inner reader and my obligations to other posters with almost zero effort. ;)
We could flood the forums with crack theories with absolutely no basis in reality for the sole purpose of our own peverse pleasure.
Don't take this the wrong way, but don't we do just that? Jim for instance says Justin is ded dead. The internet seems to believe that Jim lies. So Justin is alive and living as Cowl. Or Simon didn't die and he didn't really throw his death curse at archangel. And He's Cowl. The point being, people seem to think that Jim himself is an unreliable narrator. Which is sloppy technique. Or maybe brilliant, depending on what you think about it.
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It's important because it's the the central conceit of Ghost Story, is he or isn't he dead? Jim appears to be very flexible about ghosthood. In Grave Peril Harry dies so he can come back as a ghost and then get revived to save the day. He has Harry and Harry's ghost attack Kravos at the same time. All while in a dream no less.
I think the difference is in Grave Peril, Harry's heart is stopped, so technically he is dead, does what he has to do as a ghost and then his heart is restarted. Time frame is important, I'd have to go back but I think this took place over a couple of minutes time, longer and there is brain damage etc.
In Ghost Story, while he was in a deep coma, blood circulated by Bonnie, Alfred and the lsland nourishing him through an i.v. and Mab keeping things going instantly in ice cold water when he hit
it, Harry never was dead.. In fact it is implied at the very end of Ghost Story that Mab would have
revived him there and then, but Uriel had other plans, wanting to teach Harry a lesson.
page 474 Ghost Story Mab tells him he fell into "cold and darkness, that is my domain."
"And now here you are." Mab murmured. "Oh the Quiet One angered us, sending your essence out unprotected. Had he been incorrect, I would have been robbed of my knight, and the old monster his costodian."
His soul was sent on it's walk about, vulnerable because Harry wasn't dead. If he were dead and a ghost, different rules would apply. My question is did Uriel lie to Harry at the end of Ghost Story? At the end just before he regained conscience Uriel said it was Harry's choice, yet when he chose to move on, he merely woke up from his coma.. So evidently he didn't have a choice.
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On the subject of shades versus spirits versus ghosts, I recommend rereading the conversations between Harry/Morty/Stuart up to Stuart's gun being handed to Harry. To me it seems like they (especially Stuart and Morty) are basically using the terms interchangeably.
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In the case of souls and spirits it makes absolutely no difference in how you parse them. They are interchangeable in effect, if not in fact. They are different only because Jim says they are, even though, when he writes, there are no markers that would let you analyze what each is. So for instance, if Harry is a soul wandering in the world without a body, is there any difference between him and Sir Stuart as a pure spirit? You might also ask if Harry's spirit is wandering and not his soul, where is his soul, and what's it doing while his spirit is out on the town? And in terms of spirits he has created at least four who can manifest, the Archive, Bob, Bonea, and evil Bob. Not to mention Lash who is a !!!Shadow!!!.
We need a Venn Diagram to really illustrate this. My take is that all ghosts are spirits, not all spirits are ghosts, shades and ghosts are just two words that have the exact same meaning, and souls have many of the properties of spirits, but are somehow different in a few particular ways. I'm not sure where to put them on the diagram.
Harry did a lot of things a ghost wasn't supposed to be able to do. He possessed Mort and Molly without permission. Ghosts can't do that. (Except the Nightmare did to what'shername with Cassandra's Tears).
BA - Quite right, it isn't established that Ghosts are a byproduct of the soul. At least, not stated explicitly. But it is stated that ghosts are the footprint and the water that fills it (on the hypothetical beach), not the foot. So I think that Jim has at least inferred it. What isn't clear is whether souless beings can have "ghosts" like mortals. I don't believe so based on the fact the mortals are a soul, but have a body. We haven't yet seen the ghost of an immortal, although it is theorized a Demon could leave a ghost. Perhaps the Dinosaurs did have souls. Who knows? I would say when it comes to animals though, it is merely the magical part of the being that all physical beings seem to have. I have yet to see a being in the Dresden Files that has no "shadow" in the spiritual world (that is to say, entirely untouched by magic).
As for the "Death of the Author"...it was a literary essay, and one that didn't escape critiscm. Whilst it is perhaps used as a lens it isn't an objective truth. It might contain elements of truth, but that isn't the same thing. You can use it if you wish, I won't stop you. But as far as I am concerned if we are discussing theory we all have to share a basic set of rules. If we all just get to decide which rules apply and which don't because we are all special snowflakes it rather defeats the purpose of these discussions. How can any argument be presented if we can't even agree on what the facts are? How can we develop a strong theory, too? Alternative facts, are in my opinion, a lazy mind's excuse for not using critical thinking. Why even read the books if you don't accept what is in them? Might as well write your own and make another forum to go with it.
I simply acknowledge that the "dead author" framework is an existing framework. I don't subscribe to it (especially when the author's not done writing books), but I don't demand everyone reject it either. I'd also note it is very much not rejecting or not accepting what's in the books. It's explicitly rejecting what's not in the books. As to shared facts, I'm not so sure we as a community share facts, even the ever so obvious facts from agreed sources, :-[.
[A basic tenet that we have to agree on] is that if it is written in the novels, or said in a WOJ etc, that's the gospel.
I disagree. I think it's fine to say that WoJ isn't gospel. I think it's fine for everyone to ascribe different levels of authority however they like to different sources. For example, I find evidence from the earlier books, especially the first three, less persuasive than most other sources, I don't put too much faith in anything from the comic books, I put a bit more faith in the Paranet Papers, I value (as canon) the short stories basically the same as I do the books, and I find WoJ to be mostly reliable. And none of that is taking the reliableness of the narrator into question. Taking the reliavleness of the narrator into question, I think the closest thing to gospel we have is whatever angels have said in the books, premised on angels being unable to lie without falling and having intellectus. I'm positive others disagree and some don't even understand why I value things as I do.