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The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: I_hate_lotr on November 25, 2021, 04:03:53 AM
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She's the embodiment of knowledge but with as many people on the planet and the internet. How smart is she getting? Also does she know every spell the original Merlin knew?
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She's the embodiment of knowledge but with as many people on the planet and the internet. How smart is she getting? Also does she know every spell the original Merlin knew?
The Archive knows all of what has ever been written down, and now that she is growing up and
has control, she is very powerful indeed as we saw in Battle Ground.
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Ivy is probably the greatest wizard on the planet and is only held back by her physical form's limitations. She knows all the spells and has an apparently greater efficiency than even the older White Council members when it comes to powering them. She should have access to enhancement type magic like the Fagin-like villain in Ghost Story if she doesn't just atomize her opponent.
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It’s no just knowledge as an abstract, it’s the ability to comprehend and apply that knowledge.
For example she will have access to every bit of science and technical data the human race has ever developed, but does she have the native ability to apply that knowledge other than just write it out? Is she little more than a data storage device? Of can she develop new formulae and applications? She might have every bit of information about the internal combustion engine, but could she actually diagnose a problem with one and fix it?
By analogy Bob on a much smaller scale only realised some of his potential working with Butters, who Harry freely admits is a genius. Butters can’t store the information like Bob, but in some respects he can process information in ways Bob simply cannot unaided.
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By analogy Bob on a much smaller scale only realised some of his potential working with Butters, who Harry freely admits is a genius. Butters can’t store the information like Bob, but in some respects he can process information in ways Bob simply cannot unaided.
Not so much because Butters was a genius [agreed he is] but because Butters is an ordinary vanilla human, Bob had access to things and information, like computers etc that he couldn't with Harry because of wizard technology limitations
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Honestly, I feel like Ivy was a lightweight in Battle Ground. In the Shed Aquarium battle, she fought many Denarians at once, but in Bettle Ground, she had "heavy things" floating around her. It doesn't make sense to me why if she was so skillful, she would use blunt objects as her weapon of choice. Why not a fistful of Mordite or lightning or some other more elemental or powerful weapon. While Ivy has a large magical "battery" and is very talented in some aspects, I think her human side prevents her from becoming the ultimate powerhouse she could become. Maybe as she ages, she'll learn how to use her power in other ways.
Update/edit:
On the other hand, maybe my thinking is wrong. When I was writing this, I was thinking of physical power. However, that's not what the Archive is supposed to be. While the Archive can defend itself, its main purpose and power come from knowledge. So in incidences of mass casualty (such as post Battle Ground), she can direct humanity in the most efficient ways possible and can preserve knowledge.
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Not so much because Butters was a genius [agreed he is] but because Butters is an ordinary vanilla human, Bob had access to things and information, like computers etc that he couldn't with Harry because of wizard technology limitations
Thinking more along the way Bob has problems with faith and the White God’s artefacts, not his “wavelength”, it’s how he is built, the Archive I think has a similar problem, she was designed for the preservation of Human Knowledge, so when she was up against the Denarians the human hosts knowledge accumulated by the Fallen over Millenia. Against the Non-Human Fomor and the Titan they are operating from a totally alien knowledge base to the Archive, she can’t “see” what they are doing and how to counter it. She has to make it up as she goes along, and I suspect the Archive isn’t good at that type of spontaneity.
I wonder if this is why Nick recruited Blood on His Soul? To broaden out the knowledge base of the Fallen.
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I thought the Archives purpose was to win the Oblivion War. Having access to all human lore was to make sure that those things are erased from human memory. Am I mistaken?
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It’s no just knowledge as an abstract, it’s the ability to comprehend and apply that knowledge.
For example she will have access to every bit of science and technical data the human race has ever developed, but does she have the native ability to apply that knowledge other than just write it out? Is she little more than a data storage device? Of can she develop new formulae and applications? She might have every bit of information about the internal combustion engine, but could she actually diagnose a problem with one and fix it?
By analogy Bob on a much smaller scale only realised some of his potential working with Butters, who Harry freely admits is a genius. Butters can’t store the information like Bob, but in some respects he can process information in ways Bob simply cannot unaided.
considering her ability with magic, it's not just set to read only. She Incorporated and understood it well enough to use it to great effect.Honestly, I feel like Ivy was a lightweight in Battle Ground. In the Shed Aquarium battle, she fought many Denarians at once, but in Bettle Ground, she had "heavy things" floating around her. It doesn't make sense to me why if she was so skillful, she would use blunt objects as her weapon of choice. Why not a fistful of Mordite or lightning or some other more elemental or powerful weapon
likely for the same reason harry used vanilla fire vs the corner hounds(also hwwbh), because stuff from the real world is harder for magically resistant beings to slew off them. An the titanic armor seemed to handle magic easier than physical attacks (like Lara's hamstring)
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I thought the Archives purpose was to win the Oblivion War. Having access to all human lore was to make sure that those things are erased from human memory. Am I mistaken?
I don't think you are, but that doesn't mean all human lore is erased from it's memory. It may be why the Denarians wanted the Archive so badly, they wanted access to some of the memory that was erased so they could use it. Notice they made their move when the human shell it resides in was a orphaned child and vulnerable.
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The purpose of the Archive is two-fold
(1) publicly itis solely to ensure that all human knowledge is retained against calamity such as the fire at Alexandria
(2) secretly it is to win the Oblivion War, to remove all recorded of names or rituals which might summon beings such as those in maximum security at Demonreach.
It strikes me the Archive and the Warden are working at cross purposes, Harry can use that knowledge to summon said beings and put them in maximum security. But Harry doesn’t know about the Oblivion War, and Ivy may not know of Demonreach as there doesn’t appear to be a user manual. This may have been a secret passed down orally by the Senior Council. Frankly, Harry is being extremely lax in writing it up in the Files, but he hasn’t done that in the narrative yet.
As pointed out above Ivy probably isn’t very good at spontaneity- being what she is she is probably on the autistic spectrum as well, and this will affect to some degree how she approaches problems. She is best with problems recorded in human knowledge, but the Titan may pre-date the Archive or even written language, creating a blind-spot, with only post literary myth to go on and the Fomor not being human and hiding away creates another similar blind spot. She knows everything recorded by the White Council, including their intelligence reports and may know everything recorded by the White Court if they are considered human enough.An alliance of the Titan and the Fomor must have been Ivy’s worst nightmare, she obviously had no indication the attack was going to happen and was blind sided with everyone else.
Knowing this you can work around the Archives Intellectus and exploit her lack of knowledge, as Nick obviously did to trap her.
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She's the embodiment of knowledge but with as many people on the planet and the internet.
There's something I'm wondering about here: Ivy has access to everything written or printed on paper (Not just books, for example, in I think "Small Favor", Harry writes the message along the line of "Hold on, help is coming" on a random piece of paper, and Ivy later says she got it.) - but with computers, Internet, audio- and e- books, etc... well, does she have access to all that information, too? (Magic has problems with modern technology, as evidenced by Harry's)
If not, that'd seriously limit her knowledge. Or maybe even nullify her purpose. H.P. Lovecraft's works most likely also exist in audio- and e- book form, for example, and they made humanity aware of some of the Old Ones. Other ones can also easily be on the Internet, e-books, digital audio recordings... if Ivy's power can't access that kind of stuff, that'd make it largely obsolete in a modern age, at least until magic "catches up" (I don't remember where, but Harry once said, or narrated, that magic once caused warts and the like, which made its practicioners easy-ish to identify - presumably, it will eventually adjust to modern tech, and the side effects move on to something else).
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I really don't think it is a matter of how powerful Ivy is getting, the Archive always had that power.
The issue has always been of Ivy controlling her emotions and letting the Archive doing what it needs to do. I think that is what Luccio was getting at when she warned Harry about treating Ivy like a normal little girl at the end of Small Favor.
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There's a WOJ somewhere about Ivy and computers. There isn't anything special about print per se. ASCII or it's other forms are just another way of encoding ideas and thoughts, like text.
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I really don't think it is a matter of how powerful Ivy is getting, the Archive always had that power.
The issue has always been of Ivy controlling her emotions and letting the Archive doing what it needs to do. I think that is what Luccio was getting at when she warned Harry about treating Ivy like a normal little girl at the end of Small Favor.
The Archive must inherently be conservative - after all it's fighting a war that takes centuries / millennia. What Harry was doing is push it/her to be active NOW, which is a risk, but comes with way more power expenditure.
So if Ivy gets out of the way and only the Archive acts, it will be careful to extricate itself from situations where she can show her power. But when Ivy acts, she stands up and shows what the Archive can really unleash in terms of direct power, as she did at the aquarium.
(the more subtle power of information, that probably works better in Archive-mode)
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So if Ivy gets out of the way and only the Archive acts, it will be careful to extricate itself from situations where she can show her power. But when Ivy acts, she stands up and shows what the Archive can really unleash in terms of direct power, as she did at the aquarium.
That was Luccio's point, how dangerous an emotional vessel can be. It isn't that Ivy should get out of the way, but more like she is "Spock like" when she uses and wields the Archive.
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That was Luccio's point, how dangerous an emotional vessel can be. It isn't that Ivy should get out of the way, but more like she is "Spock like" when she uses and wields the Archive.
Ah I missed we had sidestepped the power discussion there. In that case I don't agree with Luccio, but I see the point. 'The Warrior' told me being a hamfisted person trying to do good is better than detachment, at least in this world.
Though I still suspect the sheer amount of data being pumped into the Archive is bound to have an effect. Sure most of it is just noise or repetition, but the flow of information is increasing too.
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Ah I missed we had sidestepped the power discussion there. In that case I don't agree with Luccio, but I see the point. 'The Warrior' told me being a hamfisted person trying to do good is better than detachment, at least in this world.
True, but conversely an emotional child can do unthinkable damage in the name of payback or revenge if she controls the Archive.. She's got access to mordite for goodness sake.
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True, but conversely an emotional child can do unthinkable damage in the name of payback or revenge if she controls the Archive.. She's got access to mordite for goodness sake.
Off to the cornfield with you!
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All the talk of computers - all Ivy's knowledge is just a huge disk array. Is her CPU strong enough to access/address it? To process it? She stands to become more powerful as her mind grows stronger, and much of magic is will power. Her mind was always somewhat disciplined, but she will get better.
Bear in mind her crude force steel satellites are also defensive - no Fishhead is going to try to grab her without having to dodge a 200mph fire hydrant. Even Blood on His Soul would think twice about grabbing for her and getting hit by an engine block. He may be able to drain magical fire off - what about all that kinetic energy? Didn't work on the big ice cube!
Also - the Denarians may not want to get her to use her knowledge - they may want her to keep her from DISCLOSING knowledge about THEM. We know the Denarians raided and destroy church records - what if some medieval Knight of the Cross discovered Nik can be choked out by the Noose ? He writes it down, Ivy knows it. Even if Nik got the Knights' hard copy, he didn't get Ivy.... i am sure there is more.
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Assuming her brief is to carry out the Oblivion War to a conclusion, then her active involvement in the battle of Chicago seems to put that at risk. Ivy is mortal and can die. If the reader draws no other conclusion from Murphy's death they should realize that random chance and the fog of war can do what directed action might not accomplish. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time could put Ivy at risk of death.
Laying that aside, Ivy isn't all seeing. She can be blocked. This is demonstrated by the fact that she was taken by surprise at the Shedd Aquarium. She never saw it coming.
Harry's put her at even greater risk by driving a wedge between her and Kincaid. Without his protection she at a greater risk then at any point in the series.
Ivy's strength is having at her beck and call everything that practitioners have learned about magic. Her magic should be perfect, she knows when to use it and what to do with it when she does. She should be able to draw the last erg of power that she has available. Her power is limited by the human vessel that is Ivy, but in a fight she won't make mistakes and to beat her her opponents will have to be at least that good.
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Ivy's strength is having at her beck and call everything that practitioners have learned about magic. Her magic should be perfect, she knows when to use it and what to do with it when she does. She should be able to draw the last erg of power that she has available. Her power is limited by the human vessel that is Ivy, but in a fight she won't make mistakes and to beat her her opponents will have to be at least that good.
Yes, and it stands to reason that as she matures her use and manipulation of the Archive will get
better and thus she will become stronger.