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The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: morriswalters on July 03, 2018, 11:16:27 PM
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Working on the assumption that Butcher doesn't throw out random noise, why does he point at that particular prisoner? Is he perhaps the original Merlin? Or someone else of importance?
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There are many theories on that one.
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its James Marster being punished for not being available to do the voice work for the audio Cold days.
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Working on the assumption that Butcher doesn't throw out random noise, why does he point at that particular prisoner? Is he perhaps the original Merlin? Or someone else of importance?
The original merlin spoke old welsh, why would he have a english accent?
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The original merlin spoke old welsh, why would he have a english accent?
Well, because Dresden doesn't speak old welsh. ;)
More seriously in my admittedly twisted reasoning, it places his origin, the UK. He also uses the phrase, "Go away, boy." And if my mind hasn't completely failed me, Ebenezer uses similar syntax a couple of times. As in this example from Changes. “I want you to help save millions or billions of little girls, boy,” he said, his own voice dropping into a hard, hard growl. “Not throw them away for the sake of one.”
And Ebenezer's diaries and those of the Master's in his line, begin with Merlin, don't they?
It's thin, and I'm open to other alternatives.There are many theories on that one.
Can you point me at any?its James Marster being punished for not being available to do the voice work for the audio Cold days.
I could have sworn that in my audible copy, James Marsters was reading. Who knew?
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Well, because Dresden doesn't speak old welsh. ;)
More seriously in my admittedly twisted reasoning, it places his origin, the UK. He also uses the phrase, "Go away, boy." And if my mind hasn't completely failed me, Ebenezer uses similar syntax a couple of times. As in this example from Changes. And Ebenezer's diaries and those of the Master's in his line, begin with Merlin, don't they?
It's thin, and I'm open to other alternatives.Can you point me at any?I could have sworn that in my audible copy, James Marsters was reading. Who knew?
it was recorded again with Masters when he was available again. There are two different recordings of Ghost Story in circulation.
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The original merlin spoke old welsh, why would he have a english accent?
For the same reason Rashid speaks English.
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For the same reason Rashid speaks English.
Current welsh have a different accent when they speak english. And why would he take the effort of learning the accent? The language is usefull but...
To have an english accent that must mean that he was free until pretty, recently and spent some time with english speakers. He must have been locked up pretty recently because even english from a few centuries ago would have sounded differently.
Unless there is some magic at play here. He does not speak an understandable language at all and the translation magic chose the accent because it was fitting.
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In much the same way that Harry is getting words from other monsters, threats, blandishments, etc... I'm pretty confident it's a magic translation thing.
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Current welsh have a different accent when they speak english. And why would he take the effort of learning the accent? The language is usefull but...
To have an english accent that must mean that he was free until pretty, recently and spent some time with english speakers. He must have been locked up pretty recently because even english from a few centuries ago would have sounded differently.
Unless there is some magic at play here. He does not speak an understandable language at all and the translation magic chose the accent because it was fitting.
Whoever spoke to Harry did so telepathically. Someone like that may simply have scanned Harry's mind, and just got the point across via thought, and Harry's mind decoded it into understandable words.
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In much the same way that Harry is getting words from other monsters, threats, blandishments, etc... I'm pretty confident it's a magic translation thing.
Or the same reason Toot speaks Russian. Intellect us for languages.
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Whoever spoke to Harry did so telepathically. Someone like that may simply have scanned Harry's mind, and just got the point across via thought, and Harry's mind decoded it into understandable words.
That means the accent tells us more about Harry than about the prisoner.
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That means the accent tells us more about Harry than about the prisoner.
Yeah or the person just wanted to sound different. Didn't Chauncy have an English accent? I doubt he's British.
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Before sounded British in the GS flashback.
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That means the accent tells us more about Harry than about the prisoner.
It might tell us that Harry is an anglophile.
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Maybe Jim doesn't necessarily think every little thing through all the way, and sometimes makes mistakes.
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Maybe Jim doesn't necessarily think every little thing through all the way, and sometimes makes mistakes.
Blasphemy!
Besides even if it was a mistake he will make it fit into the story.
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He might be somebody from real life/folklore from England who we haven't yet heard discussed in the Dresdenverse, somebody associated with weird cosmic horrors...
What about Dr. John Dee? In real life he was a scientist/philosopher and advisor to Elizabeth I who promoted the development of a British empire, but Lovecraft associated him with the Necronomicon -- which might suggest a reason for him to be in Demonreach. It's also interesting that (according to Wikipedia, anyway) both the record of his date of death and his gravestone are missing! Hmmm....
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I like the theory that it's Chandler/Steed. WOJ is that his specialty is time-screwery. If there is ANY time travel in the series, my bet is that Chandler will have something to do with it. I've toyed around with the idea that Steed and Harry go back in time, and for one reason or another, Steed can only send Harry back to the present, while Chandler must wait it out. That's why he only talks about "stasis" rather than imprisonment; he's waiting until he catches up with the present so he can step into current Steed's place. Living outside of stasis would present far too great a threat to the current timeline, as it's possible for Steed to change things in such a way that he never goes back in time in the first place, which would create a nasty paradox.
Either that or it's Arthur, in my opinion.
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Wonder of Rashid put him in there....
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If it is Merlin, Merlin is a known time traveler (he built demonreach across multiple timelines, right?) so he could probably speak with a modern English accent.
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Working on the assumption that Butcher doesn't throw out random noise, why does he point at that particular prisoner? Is he perhaps the original Merlin? Or someone else of importance?
Merlin was who I have always considered as the likely suspect. He could well have put himself there as the final fail-safe if the prisoners ever got released and or could know he was going to be needed to save the world in the future.
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...Unless he did as has been spoken of and changed it because it was guessed..., I'll continue to guess it was Gawaine.
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...Unless he did as has been spoken of and changed it because it was guessed..., I'll continue to guess it was Gawaine.
My cat has nothing to do with that mess. Really, I asked.
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...Unless he did as has been spoken of and changed it because it was guessed..., I'll continue to guess it was Gawaine.
Why Gawaine? Wasn't Arthur mortally wounded and taken to an Island to heal? I'd think it was Arthur brought there by Mab to be kept until a later date when needed.
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Why Gawaine? Wasn't Arthur mortally wounded and taken to an Island to heal? I'd think it was Arthur brought there by Mab to be kept until a later date when needed.
Yea, but Gawaine would make an excellent Warden of a previous era. (I'm not looking for Arthur because I'm under the assumption he's been found in one place or another, mainly, in EK and similarly deified Gods of death, or Mac, Mac could totally qualify as the original)His green-grey cloak(implying a certain in between nature and summery connection), his pentacle shield. It's based off of the resonance of the five points repeating just like DR is, same magic layering..? Plus a certain cluebat woj about if a wizard were crazy enough he could ground magic out using a shield, that 'craziness' lends to his later need to stay in DR, his ability to extend a perfect circle of will and project it forward to surround and contain a creature while you maneuver it... would, I think, lend itself quite well to a warden capturing things on DR.
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its James Marster being punished for not being available to do the voice work for the audio Cold days.
James Marster read the audiobook for Cold Days
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As far as Merlin is concerned, Jim has on multiple occasions stated that the British prisoner is not Merlin.
But, the caveat being Jim doesn't always tell the truth when relating to future plot points.
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We dont know who it is. We have two WOJ regarding Who it is not: it is not the original Merlin, who would not sound at all british he says, and it is not Loki who is suffering the very literal Norse punishment of venom dripping in his eyes.
2015 San Francisco signing (Coopersfield Books)
The original Merlin, does he sound British?
He’d probably sound so unintelligibly British that you wouldn’t be able to tell he was speaking English. No, he’s not the guy in Demonreach.
2015 DragonCon
Is Loki in demonreach?
He is not in Demonreach. There are no snakes dripping venom in there, and Norse gods are awfully literal about that sort of thing. I don't know if we will hear from him or not... Well by the end, we are going to get Wagnerian by the end. Wagnerian for you opera fans.
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We dont know who it is. We have two WOJ regarding Who it is not: it is not the original Merlin, who would not sound at all british he says, and it is not Loki who is suffering the very literal Norse punishment of venom dripping in his eyes.
Given that Jim has also said he'll lie in Q&A if necessary to prevent a spoiler - and "I'm not going to tell you" in reply to asking if the prisoner is the original Merlin would pretty much be a confirmation - I'm putting limited weight on that one.
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We dont know who it is. We have two WOJ regarding Who it is not: it is not the original Merlin, who would not sound at all british he says, and it is not Loki who is suffering the very literal Norse punishment of venom dripping in his eyes.
Jim also stated that he has dropped misinformation on purpose. Sooooo that leaves us with "who knows".
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Given that Jim has also said he'll lie in Q&A if necessary to prevent a spoiler - and "I'm not going to tell you" in reply to asking if the prisoner is the original Merlin would pretty much be a confirmation - I'm putting limited weight on that one.
He's never said that, only an outright no. Pretty sure it's cause he's already place OG Merlin elsewhere..
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Given that Jim has also said he'll lie in Q&A if necessary to prevent a spoiler - and "I'm not going to tell you" in reply to asking if the prisoner is the original Merlin would pretty much be a confirmation - I'm putting limited weight on that one.
I dont think he ever actually said that, but I guess I could be wrong...
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The English accent is obviously(at least to me) signaling something. But what? Could the guy have been the last warden? Is the backstory related to the Gatekeeper and the and Demonreach's limp? Maybe the Well has been attacked by the outsiders before, maybe in the same way that Winter was attacked through Lea.
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The English accent is obviously(at least to me) signaling something. But what? Could the guy have been the last warden? Is the backstory related to the Gatekeeper and the and Demonreach's limp? Maybe the Well has been attacked by the outsiders before, maybe in the same way that Winter was attacked through Lea.
Worth noting that the entire conversation, including the accent, were happening in Harry's head, so the accent could be literal, or it equally could be part of harry's mind interpreting the communication in a familiar way (though the Piss Off slang makes me think it would have to be at least a little bit two-way.
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Worth noting that the entire conversation, including the accent, were happening in Harry's head, so the accent could be literal, or it equally could be part of harry's mind interpreting the communication in a familiar way (though the Piss Off slang makes me think it would have to be at least a little bit two-way.
Ahh no, see. I actually thought about his choice of curse words and why he used it, being 'english', and i'm totally forgetting the names right now but, Piss is one of the original 'cuss words' that evolved from the Angelo Saxons being replaced as top tier society in England. It's actually a method to 'carbon date' so to speak the prisoners actual age/time in the mortal word. It's around the same time said revolution came about, so the 'youngsters' were calling out the new curse words based upon specific societal standards... and English guy is likely from the society who had the 'high bred' words instead.
*totally have to figure out the details here, but this IS a method to apply a date to the origin of the English Fellow.
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With the conquest of England in 1066 by William of Normandy, the Angelo-Saxon language of the British Isles underwent several alterations. As the French-speaking Normans established themselves as the ruling caste, they treated native Saxons and their language as inferior. Many Saxon words were regarded as Crude simply because they were spoken by Saxons. Some of these words, once inoffensive, survived and passed into English as coarse, impolite, or foul expression....
...The Mother tongue of the twelve kings and queens from William 1st(ruled 1066-1087) to Richard 2nd(1377-1399) was Norman's French, though the Angelo-Saxons' English continued to be spoken. When the two tongues blended into a new language, Middle English, which became the official language of the court in 1362 and the language for teaching in the universities at Oxford and Cambridge in 1380...
So it Dates the guy to right around Hastings too... perhaps a little later.. and iirc also puts it into the realm of Arthurian possibilities. And.. maybe the last Starborn too O.o ?
*Which reminds me, the blurb Susan said when meeting Michael, a knight put in stasis to fight in the end of days.... That's also cluebat towards the future prisoner not introduced for, what, 12 more books?
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Have you ever actually /heard/ any middle-English? It's not even close to the modern language; hell, I find /latin/ easier to decipher and that's just from having exposure to science vocabulary. My high school English teacher made us memorize some of the Canterbury tales in the original Middle English and it's almost entirely incomprehensible. There's no way at all that that accent and/or turn of phrase is from Hastings era.
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I looked it up to be sure, but JB uses the term British. Not English. That was an accidental misquote on my part. What he actually says is, "This guy just sounded...British."
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Have you ever actually /heard/ any middle-English? It's not even close to the modern language; hell, I find /latin/ easier to decipher and that's just from having exposure to science vocabulary. My high school English teacher made us memorize some of the Canterbury tales in the original Middle English and it's almost entirely incomprehensible. There's no way at all that that accent and/or turn of phrase is from Hastings era.
Piss is specifically one of the words digested from the Angelo Saxon language... Which was directly Hasting era per the above quote... It seeming a relative novelty expression while being used, as though he learned it academically, implies to me he might have been from the era after it became the collegate... putting him STILL between Hastings and iirc BCV creation... and in Arthurian centuries...
I don't care what middle English sounds like, how is ANYONE from any other century except the last couple going to sound genuinely and simply 'british' to Harry anyway? And i'd doubt the prisoner is so relatively young... Think before you speak such rudness please -.-
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Have you ever actually /heard/ any middle-English? It's not even close to the modern language; hell, I find /latin/ easier to decipher and that's just from having exposure to science vocabulary. My high school English teacher made us memorize some of the Canterbury tales in the original Middle English and it's almost entirely incomprehensible. There's no way at all that that accent and/or turn of phrase is from Hastings era.
It is more understandable than some current English dialects, you probably can get used to it with some exposure.
https://youtu.be/B5QAV6lOCnQ
Old English without the French influences though is completely incomprehensible:
https://youtu.be/_K13GJkGvDw
Old Brittisch, the original merlins tongue, is a Celtic language and only distantly related.
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While this is all good clean fun, the dialog is modern English. Obviously JB is setting something up. I take it to mean that the character comes from the UK. I would assume that if any character survived to a modern age, he would speak a modern language. And if JB decides to introduce some denizen of the UK who has been around long enough to have known at least a couple of wardens from his cell in the well, he will speak in a understandable language.
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It could also be Jim stretching out into different mythology. Arthur isnt the only brittish legend(though he is the most popular)
Personally i think it would be most interesting if the prisoner was cu chulainn who may or may not have fought the armies of winter already depending on how you interpret his legend. If Jim takes the story that way he could do a lot of fun things with Mabs reaction.
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The prisoner would speak the language he spoke just before he was locked up. He told us he had to be locked up so that reeks like a Lea scenario. Infected, able to fight it but not able to keep it under control all the time. Knew about demonreach and decided to have himself locked up.
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The prisoner would speak the language he spoke just before he was locked up. He told us he had to be locked up so that reeks like a Lea scenario. Infected, able to fight it but not able to keep it under control all the time. Knew about demonreach and decided to have himself locked up.
Agreed, i too got the sense of a voluntary committal more than a traditional imprisonment. Im leaning toward it being a former Warden that used too much Black Magic but is cognizant of the fact that he is Tainted and untrustworthy.
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Can we get a linky on the WOJ about grounding out magic with a shield and the Steed time travel things pleases
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You're right in that Middle English is extraordinarily different from Modern English. Read the Canterbury Tales. You can understand it, vaguely, if you sound everything out phonetically, but even then the vernacular is markedly different. It's beyond a different dialect; it's almost a completely different language. I'd date it as no earlier than around 1500. I toyed with the idea that it might be Shakespeare, but he would be far more creative than "Piss off." Lord Nelson? That'd be kind of cool. Lots of Elder Things and Demons and whatnot come from The Sea, so he might've run into something as an Admiral. Ditto Francis Drake. Lord Byron? He DEFINITELY was a shady enough character to have run into some monsters. Maybe an occultist like Aleister Crowley.
If we're ignoring vernacular, the possibilities are limitless. Hell, with a British accent, it might be someone from India from the recent-ish past.
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A language is a dialect with an army and navy
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You're right in that Middle English is extraordinarily different from Modern English. Read the Canterbury Tales. You can understand it, vaguely, if you sound everything out phonetically, but even then the vernacular is markedly different. It's beyond a different dialect; it's almost a completely different language. I'd date it as no earlier than around 1500. I toyed with the idea that it might be Shakespeare, but he would be far more creative than "Piss off." Lord Nelson? That'd be kind of cool. Lots of Elder Things and Demons and whatnot come from The Sea, so he might've run into something as an Admiral. Ditto Francis Drake. Lord Byron? He DEFINITELY was a shady enough character to have run into some monsters. Maybe an occultist like Aleister Crowley.
If we're ignoring vernacular, the possibilities are limitless. Hell, with a British accent, it might be someone from India from the recent-ish past.
He's Eldest Gruff, also the Muse of Tragedy... Hence his ability to sway Titania through after her daughters death. He understands tragedy quite well. Ole' Billy Goat Shakespeare is mentioned at the end of SK as his cluebat, like Santa being mentioned before hand. Who else would you think Jim would make OP enough to take on multiple white council elders and collect their Stoles(?).
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Harry speaks two languages, English (US) and Latin. JB doesn't call out any accents on the other monsters in the Well who get dialog. From that I assume that the accent has a purpose.
I suggest it isn't about what Harry knows, it's about drawing a reaction from the reader. One way to see it is to consider Chauncey. The accent would draw a certain reaction from a reader. It's a trope, meant to infer a certain British, very proper and reserved demeanor. A stereotype. It put Harry and the reader at ease and drew them in. Forgetting in that case that the accent was held by a demon, not a British gentleman.
The most obvious candidate was Merlin. The accent implies place, world weariness, a soul lost to, maybe, Black Magic. JB shot Merlin as that character down. My second guess would be a former Black Staff. One where those black tendrils never let go. Which sounds pretty cool but is probably BS. Still thinking about it though.
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K, but in fairness, that was Max Weinreich talking about Yiddish, which actually has multiple accepted forms (like Eastern Yiddish). Old English, for example, doesn't even use Roman letters for a while, and was heavily influenced by Old Norse (hence the Runic alphabet). Dialect vs. Language is an age old debate, but we're not talking about Creole vs. French or Roman Latin vs. Church Latin; there is an enormous rift between even Tudor/Elizabethan English and Middle English, which is only separated by a century or two (I forget when he wrote the Canterbury Tales; Chaucer lived from 134(3? 1345?) to 1400, and the Tudor period starts in 1485ish, at the end of the Wars of the Roses). The difference from Chaucer to Shakespeare (1564-1616) is night and day (mostly because Chaucer is one of the first people who bothered to write fiction in English (yes, there are other examples, but few had the staying power of the Canterbury Tales, save for Beowulf, which isn't even pure Old English, as it's heavily influenced by West Saxon dialect).
I had a similar conversation with some of my old students who were working on time travel stories. One of them was really hung up on the minute details (he wanted to be a typical hard Sci-Fi writer) surrounding how far back the characters could go while still being understood (and understanding in return). We came up with a functional limit of about five hundred years without making serious effort (or a handwave-y gadget or other such nonsense; but again, he wanted to be a hard Sci-Fi writer, so the whatsit couldn't just work, he had to be able to explain how, but he also didn't want to include any nonsense materials or energy that could do it. Needless to say, he was never quite able to get out of his own way and just write the damn story).
Anywho, this was a long tangent that could've just been summarized by me simply stating my disagreement with the spirit of Weinreich's reductionist remark.
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Actually some dialects are as understandable for me as Chaucer, they just do't have an army. :)
Our time traveler just has to learn the language and that is easier for some people than for others but it is possible even if the languages differ considerably. Human explorers in the past have proved that several times.
How difficult is that? Easier than speaking to a polynesian if you are the first european arriving there. If you go back to Shakespeare's time it is probably already easier just to write on the sand than speak to each other because the spoken language changes faster than the written one as showed by how badly the english spelling actually fits the spoken words. That might have been better in the past.
From what I have heard of middle english it should not be that difficult for a gifted human who already speaks several germanic languages to pick it up after a little immersion. Nobody says our time traveler should be the average man on the street. I have been told that the more languages you learn the easier it is to learn another one.
And people study those languages, they read the texts. The languages are related. Those europeans who went to polynesia had no textbooks and those languages were totally unrelated.
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Actually some dialects are as understandable for me as Chaucer, they just do't have an army. :)
Our time traveler just has to learn the language and that is easier for some people than for others but it is possible even if the languages differ considerably. Human explorers in the past have proved that several times.
How difficult is that? Easier than speaking to a polynesian if you are the first european arriving there. If you go back to Shakespeare's time it is probably already easier just to write on the sand than speak to each other because the spoken language changes faster than the written one as showed by how badly the english spelling actually fits the spoken words. That might have been better in the past.
From what I have heard of middle english it should not be that difficult for a gifted human who already speaks several germanic languages to pick it up after a little immersion. Nobody says our time traveler should be the average man on the street. I have been told that the more languages you learn the easier it is to learn another one.
And people study those languages, they read the texts. The languages are related. Those europeans who went to polynesia had no textbooks and those languages were totally unrelated.
The issue wasn't just the traveler understanding, it was being understood, and quickly. The exercise was based on a Man-Out-of-His-Own-Time archetypal short story; someone wakes up at some point in the past, with no preparation, and deals with the unexpected problem. They were to use characters they had already used for other stories. The idea was to get them to figure out how characters they knew would react to out-of-context problems. The focus was on characterization, which is why I was a tad frustrated with this particular student's tunnel vision in regard to (what I considered to be) minute details for the story. Attention to detail is important, and I get his attitude—in some ways, I agree, because details like this one are a big reason I love the Dresden Files so dearly—but he was missing the point. Thus, we agreed that, barring any sudden lingual proficiency or science-y gadgets or other such handwaves, most people could travel back to Elizabethan England and talk with regular people without undue problems, but going back too much further than that will pose significant difficulty without previous effort (because, come on, who spends their time learning Middle English except for English Lit/History majors like I was?)
One cool thing that came out of the exercise was one of my student's hard-boiled Noir-style detective trying to survive the Alamo. She knew my weakness for over-the-top narration, so it was exactly what I was hoping for.