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Topics - Serack

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16
Site Suggestions & Support / Starting a topic causes errors in my browser
« on: September 23, 2015, 08:47:57 PM »
Ok, I'm pretty sure that this has been happening to me for a while now, but since I don't do start topics very often, I didn't exactly realize there was a problem.

Starting a topic causes my browser to have some kind of error where the parent forum doesn't reload afterwords.  There have been occasions where I refreshed a minute or two later and somehow this caused a double post of the topic.  At least one of these was when I used the admin power to move a topic and ended up with two move announcement topics being generated. 

One of the places I browse from generates the following error (with some additional info that I don't think applies)

Quote
Network Error   

tcp_error  

 

Exception:   A communication error occurred: ""
 
Cause:    The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time.   
HTTP Error Code:   503   
Primary Contact:     Click here for additional guidance and procedures for requesting access to blocked content.   

 
I did some tests in the curator section to see if this repeats, and to capture the above message since I had closed the tab it had happened to me on earlier.  One of the tests showed that when I generate a topic from my iPhone, I don't get the above message, I just get a blank page.

17
DF Reference Collection / Doylist analysis of the Scooby Gang at the climax of Cold Days
« on: July 24, 2015, 06:06:49 PM »
This is a Mac theory topic.

I was pretty pleased at the way my "Doylist analysis of LC fix timing" went, and came across a question about Cold Days that I think will benefit from a similar treatment.  F.Y.I. a Doylist (TVTropes warning) analysis essentially means, "theorizing from a writing perspective rather than from an in story perspective"

So here is the list of people that Harry lugged up the side of the hill (the "Scooby Gang") for the final climatic scene in Cold Days, along with my projected reasons why they were there from a perspective of what their presence accomplished for the story.
  • Molly:  Pretty easy, her sole purpose on that hill was to be the victim of the Lady Mantle transfer
  • Murphy:  She was the one to actually pull the trigger.  Because, youknow, Harry can't actually hurt a girl and all. ???
  • Thomas & Mouse:  I lump these two together because IMO they served the same purpose of general muscle and a reconnection to his old loyal backup, pre GS and all that.
  • Justine:  Her presence enabled Maeve to inform the reader that Lara is clean of Nemfection.-Second Aristh
  • Sarissa:  See Molly above.
  • Mac:  Huh... Um why WAS he there?

So why was Mac on that hill?  This is the central question of this theory topic, and it assumes that Jim wouldn't have spent the ink necessary to include him without there being a significant reason for him to be there.

So what did Mac do and or what happened to Mac during that sequence?
  • Firstly, Mac's general mode during this was "Passive" and "Victim."  Meaning he didn't appear to be an actor, but was instead acted upon.
  • Harry dragged him up there, and generally grouped him with Sarissa as someone he didn't trust to let out of his sight, but may be good, bad or benign.
  • Along with everyone else, he passed into the circle by covering himself in muck
  • He was shot in the abdomen by Maeve with that little gun.
  • Mab removed the bullet by hand.  This may be significant since she doesn't do "favors" without them being an exchange. (Although she may have been obligated to undo Maeve's damage to him-peregrine)
  • His healing from the wound probably falls under the heading, "supernatural"

Additional data that may be significant:  Both Vadderung and Mab have had verbal exchanges with him where it was demonstrated that one understood the other well enough to compliment or greatly amuse.  (Vadderung getting the extremely non-verbal Mac to laugh with his joke told off screen and seemingly proud to have done so, and Mab getting more than monosyllables that she considers high flattery.)

Potential answers to the central question:  These aren't necessarily exclusive.
  • Mac's presence and grouping with Sarissa might have just been to prop up the need to bring Sarissa to be available for eventual Lady Mantle Victimhood.  Her slightly odd inclusion is less odd if they are both dragged along.
  • Jim might have wanted a flashing neon sign pointing out to the readers that Mac ain't human, while maintaining Mac's passivity.
  • Jim might have wanted to establish that Mab is concerned for Mac's wellbeing enough to remove the bullet so he can begin healing.
  • Mac might be a token "male victim" to balance out Sarissa, Molly and Justine-knnn
  • Something we had hints about, but that I haven't been able to piece together
  • Something off screen that we don't really have much to clue us in to

Final conclusions:  Reasons 1-4 combined might be enough to explain his presence on that hill, but Justine, Molly, and Sarissa were the other passive players on that hill and their Doylist reasons for being there were so significant that Mac's enigmatic presence makes me think there is something I am missing here.

Any suggestions?  (additions to the above due to replies below will generally be cited with the name of the contributor)

Edit:  Original post missed Justine's presence, and has been edited to account for her as well.  Thanks Tami and 2πr for the outstanding contributions.

18
DF Reference Collection / Reference: Details of major ritual magic
« on: February 05, 2015, 04:54:00 PM »
In a discussion of what the items of power from SG might be used for last summer, I cobbled together a list of major ritual's Harry has done.  In it I generally listed the props he used, and any other significant circumstances.  This topic is to serve as a repository for that information for future reference, and as a place to collect information about similar ritual magic. 


Sanctum invocation with Demonreach:
  • Circle:  three foot area cleared off with short wisk broom.  Wooden-armed chalk compass to draw out a perfect circle in glow-in-the-dark chalk.
  • 5 white candles set out in a pentagram aligned properly by sighting with the north star.
  • Skyclad except for pentacle amulet
  • KA-BAR U.S. Marine combat knife.
  • Plain silver chalice
  • silver former Salvation Army bell with a black wooden handle.
  • his blood in the chalice with soulfire.

First "attempt" at using Little Chicago (interupted by phone call)
Props needed for ritual started with "the elements first"
  • Water:  Silver cup, filled with wine
  • Earth:  Geode
  • Fire:  Faerie-made candle, formed from unused beeswax, its wick braided from the hairs of a unicorn's mane.
  • Air:  Anchored by a pair of hawk-wing feathers wrought from gold with impossibly fine detail and precision by a band of svartalves.
  • Spirit:  Pentacle amulet
Props to engage the 5 senses:
  • Scent:  Insense
  • Taste:  Fresh grapes
  • Touch:  Square with sand paper on one side and velvet on the other
  • Sight:  Opal
  • Sound:  Tuning fork.
Also accounted for:
  • Mind:  Old K-Bar military knife as a ritual athame
  • Body:  Fresh droplets of his blood on a clean white cloth
  • Heart:  Pictures of loved ones

Dead Beat summons of the Erlking
Lighting:  Chem Lights.
Physical circle:  Barbed Wire circle 7 feet across.  Tacked down with horseshoe shaped staples. 
Five points of an invisible star within the circle with airticles with an affinity for the Erlking at each point:
  • Heavy collar like for a hunting hound
  • whetstone
  • small bowie knife
  • flint and steel
  • several steel arrowheads
Five items with afinity to Harry opposite those of the Erlking's, outside the circle
  • Copy of The Hobbit
  • Splintered end of his last blasting rod
  • .44 revolver
  • unpaid parking ticket
  • Pentacle amulet
Also performed immediately after sunset, on Halloween.

Missing Rituals: (ones I need to flesh out the details on)
Summons of Mother Winter in CD
Summoning of Titania in CD.
Summons of Ulshavas
Summons in Ghoul Goblin.

19
Site Suggestions & Support / Search is much improved
« on: July 08, 2014, 11:22:21 AM »
I still get what I consider "empty" hits (search hits that don't actually have the stuff I'm searching for) but for some reason searches are responding really fast today.

20
DF Reference Collection / Grand Unifying Cosmological Mantle Theory [Series spoilers including MM WoJs]
« on: June 21, 2014, 05:38:47 AM »
Bottom Line Up Front:  (BLUF)
All "Lesser Mantles" (sub universal cosmic power level) are actually quasi discrete Aspects/Emanations of the great universal cosmic powers.  Free Will is the force that differentiates the manifestation of these sub-mantles.

So a lot of my heavy lifting theories lately have been shaped by what I consider "Mantle Theory" and "DF Cosmology."  This topic is an attempt to consolidate all the major foundational ideas I have relating to these two concepts and how they tie together.  I'm still doing some tweeking edits to the post, even to the above summary statement of the theory.

What Jim has said about DF Cosmology:
Jim has said the "Dresden Files universe exists in a big, wide, spectral multi-verse.  It's not like there's parallel Earths. There's an entire broadcast spectrum of parallel Earths."WoJ #1  He has also said that the MM alternate reality is different "because of the big decision from at the end of Grave Peril.  And you will get to see how his world is different because of that."WoJ #2 

Mortal decisions cause the splitting of alternate universes
Jim has discussed "other earths that exist in the continuum of possibility created by free will,"WoJ #3 and that "[Free will is] what divides mortals, human beings, from everybody else.  Is that we're the ones that have elements of both good and evil inside us, we're the ones who get to chose what to do.  And because that's who we are, we make the world around us through those choices.  The forces of the universe, these cosmic forces are always balanced against one another, and we're the ones who can tilt that see-saw one way or another with our actions."WoJ #4  (WoJ #10 also reiterates this stuff) 

Jim has strong influences from Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber which have a more explicit "broadcast spectrum" of realities
Jim said that the scene where Harry lead his friends through the NN to get to Chichen Itza was "largely lifted from Zelazny's Amber books."WoJ #5   He has also talked a great deal about his involvement with "AmberMUSH" around the time he first started writing, spending vast amounts of time writing shared experience "stories" with other online "adventurers."  Iago even says that he sees strong influences between some of the characters Jim used to write for that and some of the characters in the DF."WoJ" #6 

Upon reading that, I actually picked up a copy of the Chronicles of Amber and read them for the fun of reading a new series, and for any possible insights on the DF.  Here is a quick and dirty explanation of their cosmology, spoilerized in case you don't want it spoiled, and to trim down the size of the post slightly.

(click to show/hide)

Gnostic parallels:
I have never heard Jim mention gnosticism, however, the little bit I know about it reminds me a bit of some of the Amber Chronicles as though it could be some of the influences to that cosmology.  My understanding of gnosticism influences my personal attempts at trying to interpret what is going on in DF cosmology and what I call "Mantle Theory."  Because it could get bulky, and might not interest some, I'll wrap it in spoilers.

(click to show/hide)

"The forces of the universe, these cosmic forces":
Interestingly, in another answer in the same WoJ where Jim discussed "other earths that exist in the continuum of possibility created by free will,"WoJ #3 Jim discussed the effects of the Oblivion War on beings that are banished to Oblivion and said, "what changes really isn't the actual beings. It's our understanding of who and what they are"WoJ #7 which sounds rather contradictory.  But to me this seems to work out if we consider these "forces of the universe/cosmic forces" as multiverse spanning.  And thus free willed choices end up changing how they manifest/are perceived upon the various alternative realities. 

So can we come up with an ID of an actual being mentioned/encountered in the actual books that qualifies as truly being one of these universal/cosmic forces?  Welllll, we have a WoJ that seems to hint that the Fae Mothers, Dragons, and Uriel could be because they could damage our reality if they were to fully manifest in it.WoJ #8  But even better, if you are convinced like I am that the Blackstaff is Mother Winter's lost walking stick, then the WoJ that states that it is "tapped into like some serious elemental powers in the universe"WoJ #9 is a giant flashing sign stating "here be a phenomenal cosmic power!" pointed at Mother Winter.

Edit:  TheCuriousFan helped me find a WoJ that I suspected existed, but that I was having the dickens of a time finding.  I interpret it as explicitly stating that angels operate across all possible realities.WoJ #10

"Lesser Mantles":
Ok, so maybe Mother Winter is multiverse spanning, what about all these other mantles running about, apparently IN OUR REALITY on Halloween and such. 
Well I have two not necessarily mutually exclusive explanations for that.  This is where the "Cosmology Theory" meets the "Mantle Theory"

Limited presence
When Ferrovax showed up in GP, he basically said he was limiting his presence on our plane, and WoJ #9 backs that up.  I'm betting the other entities mentioned in that WoJ also only appear in this fashion.  And that WoJ implies that other entities that behave this way probably are on a similar plane.

Aspects
IMO, this is where the theorizing truly gets interesting.  One of the key points of the above summary on gnosticism is that a trait of the higher echelon beings is that they emanate lesser beings that are aspects of themselves.  And that this goes down all the way until eventually we get mankind.  And applying Jim's comments about Free Will causing the various alternate realities to manifest,WoJ's 3, 4 and 10 and that the cosmic powers themselves don't change, just our perceptions of them,WoJ #7 I'll go so far as to say that it is Free Will that causes the differentiation/emanation of Aspects that manifest in these spectrum alternate realities. 

So using the term aspect, here is the main summarization of this whole theory topic:

All "Lesser Mantles" (sub universal cosmic power level) are actually quasi discrete Aspects/Emanations of the great universal cosmic powers.  Free Will is the force that differentiates the manifestation of these sub-mantles.

Edit:  I decided to make a grand conclusive "theory" exclamation above, and then I split off some of the derived theorizing into reply #2, and I intend to do some further work there.

Edit2:  Henceforth in this post, I will probably start using the acronym "GUCMT" (Grand Unifying Cosmological Mantle Theory) to refer to the above bolded summation of this theory. 

21
DF Reference Collection / Serack's collection of Skin Games forum fun terms
« on: May 29, 2014, 02:56:33 AM »
Ok, it's happened twice today where I saw someone use a fun name for something introduced in SG, and I thought would start collecting them in case I saw more or better ones.

Quote from: Darkarma on May 27, 2014, 01:53:30 PM
My thoughts are, how is Harriet (for lack of a better name) different from Bob? Does she have soul given how she was made from Lash and Harry? Also how will Maggie play in this since technically they are half sisters in a non-biological sense.

Quote from: pkrmgc on May 29, 2014, 02:38:04 AM
he [Nick] was clearly surpried by the buttersaber, but i think that even mr sunshine was mildly surprised by what was going on at that point

This topic is open for discussion of new terms only.  I want to hear of the fun new terms you have come across that made you laugh, including alternate versions of the above ones.  However if you start discussing other stuff, I'll viciously cleave that outa here.

22
DF Spoilers / Skin Game Interview gathering topic
« on: May 17, 2014, 03:07:46 AM »
For an archive of links to old interviews and such, visit this topic in the WoJ section.

April 24th "Week in Geek" interview

Wyrdcon 5 (2014)
"What is Storytelling" panel
Wyrdcon Q&A session
Creation: Evolution of the Dresden Files with Jim Butcher at Wyrd Con 5
Recipes That Work: New Stories, New Characters, and Fan Expectations with Jim Butcher at Wyrd Con 5

5/15/14 Booktalk Nation interview and Q&A session, Forum Transcript

5/16/14 Pre Skin Game reddit AMA, Forum based pharsing

5/27/14 Geek & Sundry Vlog: Tigermonkey Interviews Jim (Forum Transcript)

5/28/14 Wormholes and Swords

The Speculative Craft interview

5/29/14 Powell's Books signing in Beverton, OR (raw audio file)

5/30/14 Seattle, WA Q&A

6/4/14 Chicago (Skokie), IL (warning, rather jerky video, advise just listening)

6/5/14 Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, AZ Q&A

Pheonix Comicon
Q&A session part 1
Q&A session part 2
"Magic Systems"

6/13/14 interview with Publishers weekly (starts 7:45)

Booktopia Interview Posted on June 4, 2014 by Shikha Shah

July 2016 update of all the interviews I've cached in the replies in this thread

The Gencon Files: Interview with Jim Butcher, Author of ‘The Dresden Files’ (August 2014)

2014 DragonCon

Publisher's Weekly Radio, August 2014

Once and Future Podcast (Oct 2014) (Forum Transcript)

Episode 112 of Speculate! — Interview with Jim Butcher (Aug 2014)

A pint with Jim Butcher April 2015 interview when Jim was in England

2015 Stockholm Q&A

WonkyCast 17: Jim Butcher (June 2015)

2015 DragonCon events

Slippery Words interview done at DragonCon

beyond the trope (itunes, recorded at Denver ComicCon)

short TV interview prelude to Salt Lake Comic Con

Internet video chat interview, interviewer is based in Portugal

Interview with the guys who created the Dresden Files LARP game published June 5th

Seatle Q&A Oct 2015

Coopersfield Books Q&A (San Francisco area) Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 Video 4 Video 5

Stokie IL Q&A, Video 1  Video 2  Transcript (Oct 2015)

Talks at Google interview Oct 2015
 
The Amazon Book Review's omnivoracious.com interview (October 2015)

Goodreads Q&A Oct 2015

Author Stories Podcast interview posted 10/12/15

2015 Salt Lake Comic Con interview (Forum Transcript)

Grid Daily interview (Oct 2015)

Evil League of Evil Writers April 2016 interview

2015 DF Reddit podcast Q&A

*WoJ forum interview list sticky updated to here*

23
DF Reference Collection / Origins of the Sidhe (High Fae) [CD spoilers]
« on: May 07, 2014, 03:25:46 PM »
In writing a response to a question in the topic discussing the possibility of Molly having Changeling blood, I ended up writing something pretty involved… Since it covers a lot more than issues with Molly, and I put a bit of work into it, I thought I’d start this new topic for it. 

Quote from: Rykel22 on May 07, 2014, 01:13:05 AM
This idea that Molly was part Fae prior to becoming the Winter Lady is interesting but it also begs the question, it is possible that a human, wizard or not, can become a Fae. The last few changes in the mantle have been to changelings, but that's not to say that under the right conditions a human could become a fae. And when did Cold Days take place? Halloween, a major conjecture when immortal beings can gain and lose power, die or come into being.
And perhaps other conjectures, more minor than Halloween, had been played. Molly's abduction to Artics Tor, as well as her use of fear ind magic forged a link to Winter and her training by Lea, in which one aspect was using misdirection to defeat her foes, made her able to accept such a power, on the right day.

Good question. 

I came into reading the DF series with relatively little understanding of some of the Fae and Norse legends, and over the years, being a fan of the DF has motivated me to do a bit of research on the background influences like these legends.  The things that most influence my understandings of this material are Wikipedia (and other random internet reading), the book Mists of Avalon, The Iron Druid Chronicles, and DF research / theorizing / input from people on these boards.  However, I only consider myself moderately informed when it comes to the Fae origin legends.  I have managed to cobble it together in a way that I feel is informative about the DF mythos though, so this is an attempt to try to share some of that. 

First let me hash out a term…  Jim mentions that the Sidhe hate being called fairies.  The term Sidhe has a lot of variations of spelling and meaning behind it, and the below comments will use the terms Fae, High Fae, and Sidhe to refer to essentially the same thing.  Although I’ll interchange between the terms, I'll usually stick with “Fae” because it seems to be the most common term used in the DF.  However, the term I think holds closest to what I mean to communicate for the purposes of this post is “Sidhe” meaning the Fae nobility and a lot of other things, but that's what this post is about.  Notice that Lea’s fuller name “Leanansidhe” has Sidhe in it… there’s a reason for that.

Origins of the Sidhe (High Fae)

My understanding is that the Fae were a race of beings that were long ago prominent here on earth.  With the coming of the Iron Age, Humanity won some wars (I’m not confident that they were all martial wars) against them and a treaty was signed that the Fae would have dominion of either the inside of the Barrows, or under the ground period, while the wielders of Iron would get the top side.  (Sidhe literally means Barrow/Mound, short for dwellers/people of the mounds.)

Which sounds pretty bad for the Fae, except that they used their magic to alter reality and developed the Barrows into the Fae portions of the NN (this is blending the DF terms into the legends as I understand them, some sources I’ve read describe them building their own reality within the Barrows, others describe them retreating into an existing plane they had access to, which isn’t mutually exclusive of course).  During this transition, there were still humans that were hunter/gatherers living amongst the Iron Age farmers and craftsmen.  These hunter/gatherers had traditions that incorporated these Barrow dwellers into their religion, and there were farmers/craftsmen with heritage that also incorporated some of these traditions.  Conversely there were other farmers/craftsmen that were influenced by them in other ways where they were afraid of them (it gets confusing considering these relationships changed over millennia, it’s all distant history, and I’m relatively ignorant).

Well some of the druids and priests and rulers of these traditions were said to have blood ties to the Fae/Sidhe, (Merlin himself is said in many legends to have been half incubus).  Interestingly enough, in the Author/Camelot legends their seat of power, Avalon, is said to have had a much later, parallel regression from our reality (compared to the Fae Barrows) into an alternate (Fae) plane as our reality pulled further from the Bronze age.  Also interesting is that some of those legends seem to tie Greek Atlantis legends to the Fae/druids, although the relationship is really hazy to me.

Ok, now that I’ve given a bit of an essay on my understanding of the origins of the Sidhe and their plane of existence, I’ll mention that I understand that a lot of the lesser fairies are more like minions/decedents that originate more wholly from this… newish plane of existence (there are some details that confuse me see reply #4, especially since I’m bouncing back and forth between other legends, and the DF set of rules), while the more deific Fae/Sidhe rulers seem to have originally come from our reality.  The Fae/Sidhe could have originally been powerful humans or some such whose nature was altered by their magic (and taking up of certain responsibilities/being incorporated into mortal belief systems), and some say the Gaelic portions of humanity were their decedents that stayed on this side of reality.

In Fact, Jim has pretty much stated that Erlking used to be mortal, and got his position by doing some Darkhallow style rite. 
Quote from: jimbutcher on April 08, 2009, 10:58:03 PM
Quote
5. cowl with darkhallow - really? just a bunch of spirits...
If he'd succeeded, he'd have had the collective power of all of those supernatural beings and then some.  He'd have been clearly stronger than the Ladies, and a full-on equal to Mab.  I mean, why do you think the Erlking was summoned as part of that ritual?  Because that's how the big E got so boss in the first place. :)

Now the Mothers echelon… that is a bit different in my mind.

I wandered about a bit in writing all this up.  Hopefully I managed to keep it coherent.

As one final note, I’ll quote something Jim wrote about the Fae back in 2000 between the publishing of Storm Front and Fool Moon. (source)

Quote from: 8/3/2000 WoJ from Laura K. Hamilton email list
On a related topic, any theories on why the fey hate 'cold iron'? There's an explanation in a novel I'll look up-- something about having ties only to the earth and not the other elements. Sounds muddled, but it made sense when I read it. (Definitely must go look it up.)

Well, strictly speaking, in legend the faeries did not like iron of any sort--not just cold-forged, but /any/ iron or iron compound, including steel.  Common ways to use this to your advantage included driving nails into the threshold to keep faeries from crossing it, or hanging a horseshoe above the door "for luck"--also to keep out unwelcome faeries.

The deepest reasons for Faeries disliking steel are rooted in the conflict of nature versus civilization, wilderness versus farmland. Hunter-gatherer cultures (generally speaking) did not have the same advanced metalworking capabilities of agricultural societies. Iron was used in /everything/ you needed to run a farm. You used an iron plow, iron was used in building, iron was used in harness and tack, to make tools, to make weapons--everything.

Iron is a metal uniquely symbolic of mankind (or personkind if you're the PC sort), and is used by nothing else in the same way. Many baneful creatures of folklore and legend loathed the kiss of cold iron (or cold steel) and some folklore holds that the presence of iron could keep a witch from casting baneful magic at a household or individual. Folklore from the late middle ages draws upon the image of the Crucifixion to provide substances baneful to creatures of darkness--the wood of the cross, which could be used to, among other things, stake vampires, and the nails that
pierced the Savior's hands and feet (wrists and ankles, technically) which became a bane to mischievious or malign spirits of nature.

Even in today's society, which draws further and further away from the 'natural' state at a geometric pace, iron is THE single most commonly used and available metal in the world. We use it for darn near everything, in one amount or another. Iron is the substance whose presence allowed us to develop from more primitive, dangerous cultures into larger and relatively safe ones. It's the soul of civilization, of bringing humanity's order to
the living chaos of nature.

Naturally no faerie worth the name would like it. 

Jim

Edit:  Side note that came up in comments below...
There is some conflicting information as to where some of the Sidhe came from.  There is book information that says that Mab and the Sidhe came from humans, and there are some distinct WoJ's that say that the Sidhe came from dew drop faries like Toot-Toot (Here are a few of those WoJ's quoted from my "WoJ compilation"

(click to show/hide)

As I said in reply #9 below, I have a couple other things that I desperately want to see Jim asked (things I've already seen him answer, just not in public forums), but the one thing I don't know, really want an answer to, and suspect he will actually answer is... (leme try to word this in the most concise way possible...)

Quote from: question for Jim
You've said on multiple occasions that Mab and all Sidhe got the way they are through a process like former dewdrop faerie Toot-Toot's growth.
You've also said in the books and in interviews that all Fae have mortal origins (mostly in context of changelings).
Could you please reconcile these two apparently contradictory ideas?

24
DFRPG / Jim tweets some RPG mechanics on Changeling prodgeny
« on: April 30, 2014, 03:07:28 PM »
Quote from: Zachary Ready ‏@DeusSolis
Question among my @HarriedWizard RPG group for @longshotauthor : would changelings be sterile? and if not how would the genetics work?

Quote from: Jim Butcher @longshotauthor
@DeusSolis @HarriedWizard No, not at all.  And cautiously.

@DeusSolis @HarriedWizard :D Consider it a dormant gene group that could potentially be activated by environmental exposure.

Quote from: Zachary Ready ‏@DeusSolis
@longshotauthor @HarriedWizard So a half-elf changeling could have kids that when exposed 2 faerydom, child could exhibit faery qualities?

Quote from: Jim Butcher @longshotauthor
@DeusSolis @HarriedWizard Yeah, though they'd need more exposure the wider the generation gap was. It would be impractical at some point.

25
Site Suggestions & Support / Moderation suggestion: the obligatory Murphy topics
« on: April 25, 2014, 03:30:35 PM »
In 4 and a half weeks the forum is going to... erupt with discussion.

Water is wet.  There will be discussions about Murphy's role in the DF.  There will be people with opposing opinions.  Anddddd, these opposing opinons will feel the need to "convince" each other of their opinions veracity.

My suggestion is that we implement a Murphy topic specific policy that is closer to what we have in the Bar sections than the DF sections where A) There is one topic dedicated to discussing Murphy.  New topics generated get spliced into it or locked.  B) It has a shorter (1 month) rollover/lock out time than the rest of the spoilers section. (B would require mod activity)

Furthering the suggestion, if this policy were to start Tuesday, 4 weeks later would be the release day and the fresh installment would be due to start on release day.

The OP of the topic could be something along the lines of:

Quote
Murphy's role in the Dresden Files:
This topic has historically been quite contentious.  Discussion of it is encouraged but it is required to be contained within this topic.  After 30 days, this topic will be closed and a new version will be generated.

Just as in every aspect of our forums, respect is manditory.  Do not allow frustration over differing views to allow you to neglect this rule.

This topic was generated on mm/dd/yyyy
This topic is scheduled to close on mm/dd/yyyy
Last months Murphy topic link

26
DF Reference Collection / Significance in Id Harry's first appearance timing + Possible Uriel sighting!
« on: April 23, 2014, 01:43:30 PM »
Edit:  I don't see how discussion of the SG sample chapters can add to this topic, and I'd really like Griff's input, but he won't read it unless we avoid the sample chapters.  So...no SG sample chapter spoilers in this topic please.

So I doubt I'll be able to finish my current reread before the SG release (too much Diablo 3 in my free time) but I'm currently working my way through FM, and this passage got me wondering...

Quote from: FM Ch 20
"You're unconscious, moron," my double said to me.  We can finally talk to one another."

The thing is, this is the second time that day that Harry had been unconscious due to injuries and fatigue.  The first time, the night before, he passed out after getting shot in the shoulder and using magic to cover their escape.  He ended up not waking again until the afternoon of the day Id showed up.

The first possible explanation I can give for “why then?” is the Doylist reason that that’s when Jim needed him to advance certain things in the plot.  However, if we want to ascribe more significance to Id, then we should have better reasons than that, so we have to ask what happened when he fell unconscious this time that is somehow different.

I’ll try to bust out the following excerpts in chronological order, and discuss their relevance before coming to the next one.

Quote from: FM Ch. 18
“A stuffed animal, man!”  I roared at him.  “Don’t mess with a wizard when he’s wizarding!”  I let out a cackle that threatened to bring the wild hysteria that still lurked inside me back in full force, and banished it with a ferocious scowl.  Poor Rudolph bore the brunt of both expressions,”

This is a passage illustrating how Harry is demonstrably a little unhinged in the sequence of events before passing out and spending time with Id.  This particular quote is significant to me because it reminds me a lot of some of his behavior in SmF during the Hobbs fight when he was dealing with the mental whammy Mab laid on him to wipe his memory of fire magic.  It’s also significant because during the Id sequence, Id straight up said, “If you weren’t getting pretty close to crazy, would you be talking to yourself right now?”

Next passage:
Quote from: FM Ch. 18
Something nagged me about this entire deal, something that was missing, but I’d be damned if I could figure out what it was

I think Harry might have thought something similar a couple times running up to falling unconscious, but this one is practically on the same page as the excerpt above.  It implies that Id his “subconscious” is trying to get something through to him right then.

Quote from: FM Ch. 19
I gripped my blasting rod and started sucking in all the power I could reach, scooping up my recent terror, reaching down into the giggling madness, scraping up all the courage I had left and pouring it into the kettle with everything else.  The power came rushing into me, purity of emotion, complex energies of will, and raw hardheadedness, all combining into a field, an aura of tingling, invisible energy that I could feel enveloping my skin.
[snip]at least a page of intervening stuff[/snip]
Red anger flooded me, rage that I realized with some dim part of my mind was as much a part of the beast and its blood-maddened frenzy as it was of me.

I included these two excerpts together even though a page of action intervenes because I wonder if when grabbing for energy, he pulled in some kind of taint from the curse’s aura.  The timing and the “realized with some dim part of my mind” quip make me wonder if it’s tied to Id’s showing up.  Just a thought.

This also ties a bit into the next passage, considering some of what he did with that energy.  First a summary though.  Harry pulls off a moment of awesome blasting the Loup Garou through multiple buildings in a blast of rage and fire.  Then after debating using thaumaturgy to burn the Loup Garou from existence, he instead goes the protection rout and cripples him using the snoopy doll intending to save both MacFinn, and any of his potential victims.  Immediately after casting these two spells he thinks:

Quote from: FM Ch. 19
“It seemed so empty to me, at that moment.  Meaningless to be a hero.  I felt burned on the inside, as though the fire I had hurled at the creature had scoured away all the gentle feelings that had been there and left a fallow ground behind where only red emotions could flourish.

So not only did Harry apparently expose himself to the Loup Garou’s aura while wielding magic, but we know that how you use magic affects who you are.  Interestingly, though, Harry cast two spells with natures almost diametrically opposed immediately before these haunted thoughts.  One was a massive, destructive evocation that wreaked havoc, and the other was a working of thaumaturgy designed to protect both the target and anyone who could have ended up in the target’s path.

What an amazing snapshot of Harry’s inner struggle in using his strength to wreak havoc and protect at the same time.

Quote from: FM Ch. 19
The stairs were tough, and for a minute I thought I might just lie down and die on the first landing, but a helpful old fire-man lent me a hand down to the first floor, asking me several times if I needed a doctor.  I assured him that I was fine and prayed that he didn’t notice the handcuffs dangling from either wrist.  He didn’t.  He was as wide around the eyes as everyone else, stunned.

Woahboy.  SmF makes “helpful old man” cameo set off flags in my head.  Could be nothing, but it happens practically the same page as Harry passed out.  Maybe Uriel was on the scene during these events, and maybe he has some influence on the Id front…


Soooo, in conclusion, if being unconscious due to fatigue and trauma earlier that day wasn’t enough to elicit a visit from Id, then three possible influences that enabled the Id sequence would be (interesting enough, this order is both sequential, and IMO, of probability)
  • Harry was getting unhinged by what was going on.
  • Harry exposed himself to some bad Loup Garou mojo, and possibly exacerbated it when using his magic to wreak havoc.
  • Vague possibility of angelic influence

Edit:  Some great posts below about the possibility that Uriel made a cameo in this sequence.  To sum up, including the above point, there are 3 flags that indicate a possible Uriel Cameo here is reasonable.
  • Like the fireman in this scene, "helpful, nigh anonymous old man" seems to be how Uriel would appear when he wanted to be subtle in SmF.
  • Griff points out that Uriel's "advice" to Harry in GS, the line from Buckaroo Banzai, "No matter where you go, there you are" was also said by Id Harry in this scene.
  • ballplayer72 points out that Carmichael died in this scene and ended up recruited to serve in Uriel's shadow Chicago police corps.  Uriel might have been on the scene to do the recruiting and took a slight detour to help Harry down the stairs.

27
Author Craft / "The Report" (imperical data on self publishing $)
« on: February 26, 2014, 04:08:20 PM »
Published 2/12/14, this seems to be making pretty big waves among publishing and author circles:

http://authorearnings.com/the-report/

28
Site Suggestions & Support / Topic/post upvote
« on: December 13, 2013, 03:48:54 PM »
Given: I know the administration is buisy and thus suggestions like this might not be doable.

I would love to have a button or some such to show how much I like a particular post or topic.

A quick and ignorant search for something like this that might work with our forums revealed...

like button mod
5 stars based post rating system

29
DF Reference Collection / Law Breaking Vs Black Magic [Spoilers for everything]
« on: November 24, 2013, 11:36:19 AM »
So I have seen plenty of topics discussing Black Magic, breaking the Laws of Magic, and the ramifications of Harry's killing beings other than humans (both on a large scale like when he wiped out the Rampires, and in instances like when he shattered those Sidhe near the beginning of Cold Days) and decided to hammer together a topic discussing my thoughts on the subject.

First lets try to define some things:

The Laws of Magic:
  • The White Council's 7 Laws of magic
    • Bah, if you need them listed out, look them up here
  • The universal principles of how magic works... things like:
    • Mortal magic has gradually shifting side effects (currently murpheonic field)
    • Running water dissipates magic
    • Sunrise dissipates magic
    • "Black Magic" corrupts the mind

Black Magic:
I look at black magic as having various (not necessarily exclusive or redundant) definitions depending on the perspective of the definer.

Definition 1:
Black Magic is any (mortal?) magic that breaks the White Council's 7 Laws of Magic.

Definition 2:
Black Magic is any magic that warps (corrupts) the mind of the magic wielder.WoJ#2

Why do I go through the trouble of pointing out two separate definitions?  Because Jim has explicitly said "The Laws of Magic don't necessarily match up to the actual universal guidelines to how the universal power known as "magic" behaves."WoJ#3  However, the first definition is important because it is concrete and has concrete well defined consequences.  Break em and you get your head lopped off with few extenuating exceptions.

Grey Magic
Grey magic would be any magic that skirts around the [crumbling] edges of the White Council's 7 Laws and might or might not have some mind warping consequences.

Now for the Theorizing

Some thoughts on Magic:
Jim has made several comments about how the upper bounds of magic are about rewriting reality.WoJ#6&#7 This combined with the frequent in text comments about a wizard not being able to work a particular piece of magic unless he truly believes that the world should be that way make me think that all [wizardly?] magic is about the wizard wielding his will to rewrite reality to conform to his idea of what it should be.  (This is something I have used as a foundation for other theorizing.)

Reality Pushes Back
In other words, if you use your will/mind as an applied force to change reality, reality will exert an equal and opposite force upon your will/mind that could be changing it as well.

My thoughts on this idea of reality pushing back come from multiple inspirations.  One of the most poignant is how Harry insists to Lash that if she has been changing him, she pretty much has to have changed in return.xrt#X 

Even more fundamental is the nature of the "murpheonic field."  Or at least why it exists from my theorizing PoV.  As a wizard develops his ability to shape reality according to his will, he is coming into direct conflict with the fact that humanity has been doing a pretty dang good job of defining just exactly how reality is supposed to work, and as a result is accomplishing all these really cool technological things.  But because the wizard is a member of humanity, and is breaking these hard and fast "rules" that this cool technology is based off of, his magic interferes with it and makes it likely to fail. 

You could even say that the wizard's mind has been warped by his continued use of magic to reshape reality, until the parts of reality that utilize highly specialized physical laws that his magic flies in the face of [I.E. technology] become highly unreliable to him. 

So taking this paradigm and applying it to "dark magic" we can see there can certainly be other ways that using your will to do something particularly nasty like overwriting the will of another human being could warp your own will too.  Maybe next time you come across a situation, you won't even think of other possible solutions that don't involve overwriting the will of someone because your own will has become too twisted.  You might even be unable to chose otherwise due to having lost what gives a "mortal" free will in the first place.  Reality has pushed back.

By the way I am a HUGE fan of LCDarkwood's (A DFRPG Dev, and mod of the associated section of the boards) DFRPG oriented post "The First Law of Magic In-Play: Semi-Official Advice."  Here's a particularly juicy morsel.  (spoilerized to collapse it so it takes up less real estate.) 

(click to show/hide)

The White Council's 7 Laws had a focused goal.
Ok, so now I've gone through a whole lot of trouble to discuss the mind warping influence of magic without focusing on the Council's "Laws" much.  Jim has discussed how the White Council /exists/ to limit the power of wizards, and that the Laws are intended to restrain wizards from doing too much harm.WoJ's #4 & #5  Considering all the times Harry has pointed out that some bit of magic that is shadowed by the laws skirts them by his magic not being applied to a mortal, I'd like to specify/posit that the Laws are focused on restraining wizards from doing too much harm to humanity.

The Council likely did a pretty good job of distilling down to 7 Laws, the things a wizards shalt not do at risk of becoming a monster bent on harming humanity (or reality itself, and thus humanity).  But the writers were fallible, and if you are going to limit yourself to 7 Laws, then what you are going to be accomplishing with those 7 Laws is going to be rather narrow.  There will be things that fall outside them that can have significant effects on a wizard's psyche.  And there probably could be individual actions that fall within them that wouldn't eventually result in the wizard bringing humanity to its knees in agony.  The things that fall outside of the 7 Laws are almost surely not going to put humanity at risk the way the things that are covered by them would though. 

Vs a Mortal Matters

Ok so basically 5 of the 7 Laws of Magic seem to be:  Don't do X to a mortal.  Up to this point I've mostly just examined how magic as a whole has repercussions, and that the Council's laws try to keep wizards from performing magic that has repercussions that are bad for humanity.  This is examining something more specific.  Is it possible that performing these acts against a human might actually have more significant affects on a wizard beyond just the paradigm of, "well it doesn't hurt humanity"?

Assuming the answer is yes, then I can think of two reasons why, the 2nd reinforcing the first. 

1) Wizards are card carrying members of Humanity
In short, if a practitioner is human, and is using his magic to rewrite reality to break a law that protects other humans, reality revokes his member of humanity card and he becomes a monster.*  Do it against a non mortal?  Well he might become a monster to that race (see Harry's attitude vs Gouls in White Knight and Backup), but he's still a human monster.  This is sort of a reality enforced version of the Golden Rule where "others" is "mortals like you," but the consequences aren't necessarily that it is "done unto you" but that you lose what makes you a free willed mortal.

Note that the revoking of the humanity card concept only goes so far, because it doesn't necessarily make this black magic wielding monster fair game for wardens to blast away with magic. (Jim says the council still used mundane methods to off Kemmler.  Lots of them.WoJ #2)

2) Mortal Will has Metaphysical Mass
I like how this term fits well with the whole "Reality Pushes Back" concept.  There have been lots of WoJ's about the significance of free will.  So many that I have a rather large subsection of the "WoJ compilation" dedicated to it.  WoJ#8 is particularly poignant and discusses how mortal free will is what makes the world around them through their choices (sounds a bit like my ideas on how mortal magic works dunnit?). 

So it probably isn't a coincidence that most of the Laws of Magic that condemn certain acts against mortals are against using magic to somehow abrogate the mortal's free will (in the first law's case, by snuffing the mortal's life out).  Breaking them against a non mortal probably doesn't have the same level of "push back from reality," because the wizard isn't pushing up against the metaphysical mass of a mortal's free will.

*WoJ makes a big deal that magic in the Dresden Verse is not mystic or sentient, but rather something "which obeyed certain universal laws that governed its interaction with reality."  I don't want to imply with the asterisked sentence that "reality" is behaving like something sentient here.

30
DF Reference Collection / Soulgazes with Harry *Reference Topic* [Series Spoilers]
« on: November 13, 2013, 02:35:44 AM »
This is an old topic that I thought I had lost but I found a copy of it on my hard drive.  I still need to redo all the forum code formatting, but I'll post it in raw form to start.  I thought I remembered that someone else actually generated it, but my backup didn't include that information.
P.S.  Other curators are welcome to edit this to their heart's content.-Serack

Here, I'm going to try and post all quotes regarding what people see in a soulgaze with harry, and a list of people who have soulgazed with Harry.

People that have soulgazed with Harry:

  • Denton
  • Ebenezar
  • Elaine
  • Evelyn Derek
  • Helen Beckitt
  • Marcone
  • Martin
  • Michael
  • Molly
  • Monica Sells
  • Morgan
  • Parker
  • Rasmussen
  • Susan
  • Thomas


Soulgazing Harry quotes:

Storm Front page 35 & 56 &144 & 242:
Quote from: SF Ch. ?
(explanation of soulgaze, after having soulgazed John Marcone)
Most people who did that got really pale, at least. One woman had passed out entirely. I didn't know what they saw when they looked in there -- it wasn't a place I poked around much, myself
John Marcone wasn't like the other people who had seen my soul. He didn't even blink an eye. He just looked and assessed, and after the moment had passed, he nodded at me as though he understood something
.

Quote from: SF Ch. ?
She[Susan] was the one who had fainted after we'd soulgazed.

Quote from: SF Ch. ?
"Wizard!" he trumpeted. "Wizard! I see you! I see you, wizard! I see the things that follow, those who walk before and He Who Walks Behind! They come, they come for you!"
(...)
He whispered in a mad little voice, all the way down the hall. "See you, see you, wizard. See He Who Walks Behind."

Quote from: SF Ch. ?
She was staring at my face her eyes wide with shock from the meeting of our gazes"

Fool moon page 84 & 304
Quote from: FM Ch. ?
And then the moment was past, the soulgaze over.
Parker's face was stunned. He had seen me in much the same way I had seen him.

Quote from: FM Ch. ?
Denton stared at me as the soulgaze broke and we were released. He wasn't reacting well to whatever it was he had seen inside of me. His face had gone white, and his hand was trembling, the barrel of the gun wavering every which way. He lifted his other hand to mop beads of cold sweat away from his face.
 "No," Denton said, white showing all around the grey irises of his eyes. "No, wizard." HHe raised his gun. "I don't believe in hell. I won't let you." He screamed then, at the top of his lungs. "I won't let you!"

Grave Peril page 17 & 342:
Quote from: GP Ch. ?
"And neither will you, Harry Dresden, There is too much good in your heart to let these children die."
I returned his stare, uncertain. Michael had insisted that I look him in the eyes on our first meeting.

Quote from: GP Ch. ?
Susan and I had soulgazed more than two years before. She'd tricked me into it. It was just after that she began pursuing me for stories more closely.
   Lea couldn't have taken memories around a soulgaze. But she could have covered them up, somehow, misted them over. No practical difference, for the average person.

Blood Rites page 171-173
Thomas and Harry, Thomas see their mother telling him to tell Harry she loved him

Proven Guilty page 408 & 465
Quote from: PG Ch. ?
The gaze ended, and the various images in the windows behind Molly vanished. The girl herself trembled like a frightened doe, staring up at me with her eyes wide and huge.
 "My God," she whispered. "I never knew ..."

Quote from: PG Ch. ?
She shivered. "I saw what kind of man you are. Kind. Gentle." She looked up and met my eyes. "Lonely. And.."
She flushed a shade pinker. "And hungry, No one has touched you in a very long time."

Turn Coat page 162 hardback:
Quote from: TC Ch. ?
Her eyes were wide, her expression a mixture of terror and awe as she stared up at me.
(...)
I've never had anyone soulgaze me who didn't seem ... disconcerted by the experience.
(..)
She blinked slowly and said, her voice dazed, "She ran from you."

Martin soulgaze needed

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