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The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: groinkick on June 03, 2021, 07:45:27 PM
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So during the discussion about dark god Cowl vs Ethniu I got to thinking about how the Titan's came to be. How many of them came into power from worship, or sacrifices? All of them? Or only some of them? Have they always existed (time hipsters), or did they come into existence? A lot of them appear to need worship, and belief for them to exist here so does that mean they came after humans or that they only need human belief to exist in this realm, but have always existed on another plane of sorts?
What do you think?
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Titans are described by Jim, and generally speaking, as proto-gods. Proto as a prefix means "first".
So I'd say they were the temporal hipsters and it was the later gods that were their offspring/used ascension rituals. But you raise an interesting point. Some do seem to "need" worship. Vadderung/Odin fits squarely in this category.
There was an old WOJ about how beings need belief to have a tether on Earth, and this is discussed a bit more in the Thomas-perspective short story "Back Up". I don't know that having power from before the universe and needing worship to be on Earth are mutually exclusive. Perhaps it's more a matter of how much power you can bring with you. Perhaps if Vadderung went Outside he might be able to go get more power...with the obvious risk of conflict with Outsiders.
It's a really intriguing cosmic area.
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Titans are described by Jim, and generally speaking, as proto-gods. Proto as a prefix means "first".
So I'd say they were the temporal hipsters and it was the later gods that were their offspring/used ascension rituals. But you raise an interesting point. Some do seem to "need" worship. Vadderung/Odin fits squarely in this category.
There was an old WOJ about how beings need belief to have a tether on Earth, and this is discussed a bit more in the Thomas-perspective short story "Back Up". I don't know that having power from before the universe and needing worship to be on Earth are mutually exclusive. Perhaps it's more a matter of how much power you can bring with you. Perhaps if Vadderung went Outside he might be able to go get more power...with the obvious risk of conflict with Outsiders.
It's a really intriguing cosmic area.
Exactly. It's kind of like how Ivy is eliminating tethers for other Being's out there. They won't not exist, they just won't have a way of accessing reality.
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Exactly. It's kind of like how Ivy is eliminating tethers for other Being's out there. They won't not exist, they just won't have a way of accessing reality.
Yes. That's what they are trying to accomplish with the Oblivion War. Making beings be forgotten, thus destroying their tether in this world.
Huh, I wonder if this would work with fairies, too. LOL.
*I don't believe in fairies!*
Edit: Thinking about it, this is what fairytales are working against. Keeping the memory of and believe in beings so that they can continue to exist or be able to be in our reality.
Edit#2: I wonder if Loki just felt a great increase of power .... ;)
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Yes. That's what they are trying to accomplish with the Oblivion War. Making beings be forgotten, thus destroying their tether in this world.
Huh, I wonder if this would work with fairies, too. LOL.
*I don't believe in fairies!*
It's deeper than that. They Sidhe are connected to many things people do believe in. The Winter and Summer Courts are actually tied to humans belief in weather events. That being said, the Brothers Grimm were trying to come up with a way to cut ties to the NeverNever I think.
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Yes. That's what they are trying to accomplish with the Oblivion War. Making beings be forgotten, thus destroying their tether in this world.
Huh, I wonder if this would work with fairies, too. LOL.
*I don't believe in fairies!*
It does work with fairies but Mab is smart and invested in arts and literature. She was very happy with the Grimm brothers. They wrote that book that helped to keep the Sidhe connected.
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@Arjan and Groinkick:
I edited while you were posting ;)
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There was an old book on the table next to the candies, set carefully and precisely in place beside the dish. It was titled Kinder- und Hausmärchen. I leaned down and opened it. The text was in German. It was really old. The pages were made of paper of the finest quality, thin and crisp and edged in gold foil. On the title page, under the title, were the names Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and the year 1812. It was autographed, and personalized, “For Mab.”
Cold days. She was a fan.
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The Erlking probably sponsored Schubert and Goethe. https://youtu.be/C3nxyS8wf8E
"What do you want?" I asked them. I borrowed frost from the wind and put it in my voice. The larger of the pair spoke. "The book." But which book? I wondered. "Uh-huh. You're a Schubert fan boy, aren't you? You've got the look." "Goethe, actually," he said. "Give it to me." He was definitely after a copy of der Erlking, then
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Exactly. It's kind of like how Ivy is eliminating tethers for other Being's out there. They won't not exist, they just won't have a way of accessing reality.
It's a particularly brutal war. What's unclear is if Oblivion and the Outsider are one and the same.
Yeah, Mab and the Faeries are not going down unless society collapses and all knowledge of them is lost...or if humans find out about the knowledge thing and decide to start eliminating knowledge themselves. I wouldn't put it past the Librarians. One is the end of the world, one is the beginning of a far harsher and less interesting one. I'd bet the former is more likely but I hope neither come to pass in the Dresden Files.
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It's a particularly brutal war. What's unclear is if Oblivion and the Outsider are one and the same.
I suspect no... The White Council is involved with fighting the Outsiders while Ivy is deliberately keeping wizards away from that information because they live a long time. I think Jim said Harry would never know about the Oblivion war (but who knows if he was just messing with us)
Yeah, Mab and the Faeries are not going down unless society collapses and all knowledge of them is lost...or if humans find out about the knowledge thing and decide to start eliminating knowledge themselves. I wouldn't put it past the Librarians. One is the end of the world, one is the beginning of a far harsher and less interesting one. I'd bet the former is more likely but I hope neither come to pass in the Dresden Files.
It depends. They are tied to those beliefs, but what if that tether is broken? The Stone Table being destroyed for example.
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Combining the unifying theory with the elephant theory, I'd say there's a good chance the dresdenverse proto-gods were fallen angels (similar to grigori) that birthed mixed offspring that became later gods. But in my use of the term angel, i don't mean to restrict them to Abrahamic interpretation, but just the idea that there were Avatars that embody universal laws. Like Serack talks about.
That's likely why Ethniu was calling the angel sponsoring Butters "traitor, coward". They might have been equals in a sense, if not identical things then similar in make and function, and Ethniu chose goddesshood and the angel choose service to the Light.
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I don't think they need worship. They existed before humans did per Ethniu so that wouldn't really work. They're elementals, beings representative of primal forces. Like Dragons, they need no direct worship. Only continued knowledge by humanity of their existence. Or to put it another way, the things they embody are part of reality, of existence to humanity, ergo they can't 'unbelieve' them. Unlike the Queen's, who have taken the power upon themselves, but do not necessarily represent it in it's entirety. Man's the winter queen, not the queen of the artic and antarctic. Per recent Woj the queen's are mostly northern hemisphere, relying on liaisons with the southern wild fae. Where as the frost Giants were probably winter in it's totality.
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Combining the unifying theory with the elephant theory, I'd say there's a good chance the dresdenverse proto-gods were fallen angels (similar to grigori) that birthed mixed offspring that became later gods. But in my use of the term angel, i don't mean to restrict them to Abrahamic interpretation, but just the idea that there were Avatars that embody universal laws. Like Serack talks about.
That's likely why Ethniu was calling the angel sponsoring Butters "traitor, coward". They might have been equals in a sense, if not identical things then similar in make and function, and Ethniu chose goddesshood and the angel choose service to the Light.
That fits with the Hecatoncheires being Titan-spawn and them being able to make armor from Mordite. They are kind of half of the Outside half of the Material, then the later Titan-Spawn (what we call Gods) became more tied down to the physical world. I think Dragons come from the middle layer. They are lesser than Angels but greater than most of the Gods.
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I don't think they need worship. They existed before humans did per Ethniu so that wouldn't really work. They're elementals, beings representative of primal forces. Like Dragons, they need no direct worship. Only continued knowledge by humanity of their existence. Or to put it another way, the things they embody are part of reality, of existence to humanity, ergo they can't 'unbelieve' them. Unlike the Queen's, who have taken the power upon themselves, but do not necessarily represent it in it's entirety. Man's the winter queen, not the queen of the artic and antarctic. Per recent Woj the queen's are mostly northern hemisphere, relying on liaisons with the southern wild fae. Where as the frost Giants were probably winter in it's totality.
I don't know. On one hand, the oldest generation (Ethniu's dad) might have been angels/Aspects/Avatars that don't require worship or humans; they just exist(ed) with their own power tied to their nature.
But the Eye of Balor ran off terror and fear. Maybe papa Balor could fuel it on his own without help, but Ethniu needed the boost of fear to charge it.
Seems likely that each generation lost a bit of their Powered by their Nature fuel and grew more dependent on Human Interaction fuel.
That fits with the Hecatoncheires being Titan-spawn and them being able to make armor from Mordite. They are kind of half of the Outside half of the Material, then the later Titan-Spawn (what we call Gods) became more tied down to the physical world. I think Dragons come from the middle layer. They are lesser than Angels but greater than most of the Gods.
It seems likely that the eldest generation predated reality, and time, and are therefore beyond the limitations of those born within both.
Uriel, the Fallen, and the Walkers might be the only ones we've seen in the series that fit the bill for that. Everybody else is a few to many generations down the line, up to and including wizards as very diluted progeny.
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Another thing to consider is how belief, and time are really weird in the Dresden files. If Mortals believe in a titan, they may have through story, and worship actually created them. Because they believed the Titans were ancient, they may have actually created them in the past. I know it sounds weird but anything with time travel is. Humans may have actually created the Titans before they themselves were born by simply believing they had existed for eons.
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It's deeper than that. They Sidhe are connected to many things people do believe in. The Winter and Summer Courts are actually tied to humans belief in weather events. That being said, the Brothers Grimm were trying to come up with a way to cut ties to the NeverNever I think.
The reverse. In Backup Thomas mentioned that the Venatori had been trying to get the Faerie pantheons forgotten, but the Grimms' work in compiling the folk stories and Gutenberg's printing press spread them beyond the Venatori's capacity to tamp down.
It's actually a fairly interesting bit of lore, because kneecapping Winter would have been a terrible idea to go through with. Either the Archive passed that order in ignorance of Faerie's cosmic importance, or her command and control over the Venatori subject to infiltration.
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The reverse. In Backup Thomas mentioned that the Venatori had been trying to get the Faerie pantheons forgotten, but the Grimms' work in compiling the folk stories and Gutenberg's printing press spread them beyond the Venatori's capacity to tamp down.
It's actually a fairly interesting bit of lore, because kneecapping Winter would have been a terrible idea to go through with. Either the Archive passed that order in ignorance of Faerie's cosmic importance, or her command and control over the Venatori subject to infiltration.
So weird I thought Jim said they had tried to cut them off.
Anyways I'm not sure that it would have been bad. It could be that if they were erased from human knowledge, their realm (including the Gates) would become permanently separated from the mortal world. Outsiders would lose one more path to reality. Maybe not but who knows.
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Vadderung is an elemental being according to Gard and might have known Uriel from the beginning. He gave up power to stay involved.
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Combining the unifying theory with the elephant theory, I'd say there's a good chance the dresdenverse proto-gods were fallen angels (similar to grigori) that birthed mixed offspring that became later gods. But in my use of the term angel, i don't mean to restrict them to Abrahamic interpretation, but just the idea that there were Avatars that embody universal laws. Like Serack talks about.
That's likely why Ethniu was calling the angel sponsoring Butters "traitor, coward". They might have been equals in a sense, if not identical things then similar in make and function, and Ethniu chose goddesshood and the angel choose service to the Light.
That certainly fits Seracks theory. It's slightly harder to work out whether the Light predates all the others as we don't have enough info. There's also a logic problem to some degree (probably beyond human comprehension) in that if all of those beings (Outsiders, Titans, Angels, TWG etc) all existed before time...there is no way to measure what/who was "first" (which becomes a meaningless concept to some degree).
I don't think they need worship. They existed before humans did per Ethniu so that wouldn't really work. They're elementals, beings representative of primal forces. Like Dragons, they need no direct worship. Only continued knowledge by humanity of their existence. Or to put it another way, the things they embody are part of reality, of existence to humanity, ergo they can't 'unbelieve' them. Unlike the Queen's, who have taken the power upon themselves, but do not necessarily represent it in it's entirety. Man's the winter queen, not the queen of the artic and antarctic. Per recent Woj the queen's are mostly northern hemisphere, relying on liaisons with the southern wild fae. Where as the frost Giants were probably winter in it's totality.
Is there a difference really between worship and knowledge of the being? Have we seen evidence for this?
I suspect, although I cannot prove, that it isn't really about power itself. It's all about how much you have access to and what restrictions are on it. Mab is the embodiment of the Queen of Winter, which in turn represents a part of the natural order that humans "worship" for want of a better word. Her name, even the being underneath the mantle, isn't important. It's the idea behind it that's important.
I am fairly certain Jim is using a similar concept to Warhammer in that mortal psychic energy (i.e. belief and knowledge) creates/shapes the supernatural. Jim likely has adjusted it to fit the universe he has created, and account for other elements he has brought in. But it's the collective power of mortals that shapes reality. What's interesting in Warhammer is that if mortals were to die out reality wouldn't end BUT the beings that rely on their psychic energy would be cut off (this is true in Warhammer Fantasy AND 40k). It's even attempted several times in both stories that a group will try and deprive those psychic entities.
That fits with the Hecatoncheires being Titan-spawn and them being able to make armor from Mordite. They are kind of half of the Outside half of the Material, then the later Titan-Spawn (what we call Gods) became more tied down to the physical world. I think Dragons come from the middle layer. They are lesser than Angels but greater than most of the Gods.
Ferro might be lesser than angels and most gods simply because he is a servitor. He isn't included in those who predate the universe. The only gods he appears to be above are those who gave up their power/new gods. He doesn't rank in at Zeus/Archangel/Mothers level. He is above Vadderung and Mab etc simply because they are more active in the world. That's the cost clearly.
I don't know. On one hand, the oldest generation (Ethniu's dad) might have been angels/Aspects/Avatars that don't require worship or humans; they just exist(ed) with their own power tied to their nature.
But the Eye of Balor ran off terror and fear. Maybe papa Balor could fuel it on his own without help, but Ethniu needed the boost of fear to charge it.
Seems likely that each generation lost a bit of their Powered by their Nature fuel and grew more dependent on Human Interaction fuel.
It seems likely that the eldest generation predated reality, and time, and are therefore beyond the limitations of those born within both.
Uriel, the Fallen, and the Walkers might be the only ones we've seen in the series that fit the bill for that. Everybody else is a few to many generations down the line, up to and including wizards as very diluted progeny.
Agreed. I can't see Balor needing more energy...but then again maybe it's all about how much you can take with you. If you want access to you're full energy you have to break reality a bit, which seems like that might attract all kinds of attention.
Don't forget that Zeus and the Mothers are ranked around the same level as the Archangels, which suggests they too likely don't have those limits. Then again, it's hard to say because we haven't seen any of them in the mortal world (as far as we know).
I have wondered about whether wizards are the decedents of gods and demigods etc. On the one hand, Jim says all mortals have the potential to wield magic and we know mortals have incredible psychic power but expressed in a totally unique way (the ability to create and shape reality with Free Will). On the other hand they seem to not be able to just dominate, and wizards seem to be apart from their less exciting kin. Maybe wizards were an attempt to combine that mortal free will and immortal power. Something in the Paranet Papers suggests the most powerful wizards basically were worshipped as gods (and I think one still was...Manco Capac or something).
Another thing to consider is how belief, and time are really weird in the Dresden files. If Mortals believe in a titan, they may have through story, and worship actually created them. Because they believed the Titans were ancient, they may have actually created them in the past. I know it sounds weird but anything with time travel is. Humans may have actually created the Titans before they themselves were born by simply believing they had existed for eons.
Jim seemed to shut this down when asked about it in an AMA years ago. His response was "you're assigning limits where there aren't any" and "It's not the beings themselves that change just our understanding of who and what they are". I am paraphrasing slightly but I would say it's not so much mortals "create" these beings, rather an energy being is already around and forms itself around a mortal concept. Dresden speculates in the Butters short story Day One that the being Butters is fighting shaped itself in such a way. I assume these beings are residing in the deep Nevernever but it's hard to tell. Which suggests to some degree that mortals make room for these beings/summon them unintentionally. Interestingly, Jim also suggests that these energy beings are very difficult for us carbon-based lifeforms to understand and we try and put them into boxes and it doesn't really work so we end up confused and the being presents itself in different ways with various limits (this was from an interview right after Battle Ground).
So weird I thought Jim said they had tried to cut them off.
Anyways I'm not sure that it would have been bad. It could be that if they were erased from human knowledge, their realm (including the Gates) would become permanently separated from the mortal world. Outsiders would lose one more path to reality. Maybe not but who knows.
I don't know it would work that way. The Outsiders seem to come in through ritual...but that doesn't mean if they broke the Outer Gates they wouldn't be able to get into the mortal world. But I suspect they can't really understand the mortal world either, as it's just as alien to them as they are to us, and it's their inevitable downfall.
Jim also suggested it's possible that we have forgotten other gods etc in the past, and we wouldn't even know. Hasn't stopped the Outsiders much.
Vadderung is an elemental being according to Gard and might have known Uriel from the beginning. He gave up power to stay involved.
Based on his interactions with Ethniu and others, I'd say that was likely. I also think he was in Summer Knight...that raven near the Mother's house seems like no accident. Time will tell though.
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Vadderung is an elemental being according to Gard and might have known Uriel from the beginning. He gave up power to stay involved.
In Norse mythology, Odin is the son of Bor, who is the son of Buri, who was the creator of all the (Norse) gods. Buri just existed but was freed from his entombment/encasement/gestation/whatever by a cosmic cow that licked enough salt. The cow, Auđumbla, may have been a primordial entity, and coexisted with a primordial jotunn named Ymir, the first of his kind.
My dresdenverse take would be that Ymir and Auđumbla would either be the first generation elemental avatars, or they predate creation. Either way, Buri would be the first or second generation EA, which would make Odin the third or fourth EA.
And then he took demotions to stay on the payroll rather than retire.
That certainly fits Seracks theory. It's slightly harder to work out whether the Light predates all the others as we don't have enough info. There's also a logic problem to some degree (probably beyond human comprehension) in that if all of those beings (Outsiders, Titans, Angels, TWG etc) all existed before time...there is no way to measure what/who was "first" (which becomes a meaningless concept to some degree).
One theory is that there were a bunch of Beings in a place without time and form, and one of them decided to make something in that space without consulting the others. The Creator made Reality, and Light, and a Wall to keep out the Others, whom became Outsiders.
Maybe some of the angels in Abrahamic religions predated that Creation, and maybe they were created after or in the process. For the dresdenverse, "in the process" seems likely, as they could be avatars of that which they're named.
But was Time created before Light, so that Light could travel? Or were they simultaneous? I doubt we'll ever get that granular, but there are ways for angels to pre-exist, or at least be twinsies with, time.
Agreed. I can't see Balor needing more energy...but then again maybe it's all about how much you can take with you. If you want access to you're full energy you have to break reality a bit, which seems like that might attract all kinds of attention.
Don't forget that Zeus and the Mothers are ranked around the same level as the Archangels, which suggests they too likely don't have those limits. Then again, it's hard to say because we haven't seen any of them in the mortal world (as far as we know).
I have wondered about whether wizards are the decedents of gods and demigods etc. On the one hand, Jim says all mortals have the potential to wield magic and we know mortals have incredible psychic power but expressed in a totally unique way (the ability to create and shape reality with Free Will). On the other hand they seem to not be able to just dominate, and wizards seem to be apart from their less exciting kin. Maybe wizards were an attempt to combine that mortal free will and immortal power. Something in the Paranet Papers suggests the most powerful wizards basically were worshipped as gods (and I think one still was...Manco Capac or something).
I think there was WoJ that the Mothers aren't on par with the archangels on a cosmic scale, but they're on par with them on an earthly scale, because both can destroy Earth with equal results. To humans directly under them, it doesn't matter if a massive boulder or an asteroid is heavier.
But I get your point. In this scenario, Balor might be an asteroid that was whittled down to a boulder on entry into the atmosphere (i e. Earthly existence). Maybe that original power isn't within his grasp anymore, but with a bit of human shaping (i.e. worship), part of his boulder can be mined and shaped into something a bit more manageable, like iron into a sword, or a geode into a crystal that shoots death star blasts.
And now Harry is in possession of said item. How reassuring. :(