Author Topic: End of the Millenium shenanigans  (Read 4726 times)

Offline g33k

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 2141
    • View Profile
Re: End of the Millenium shenanigans
« Reply #15 on: May 06, 2020, 01:29:40 AM »
Where did someone mention controlling demons and resurrection in the list of starborn powers? Also, demons are not outsiders, so starborn have no known effect on them.

Outsiders are, plausibly, "demonic" to the ancient world; Solomon's powers over demons, and Jesus' ability to "cast them out," COULD arguably be considered as having been Starborn/Outsider interaction.  Certainly the scene with Harry and Cat Sith looked like classic "demonic possession."

And of course Harry "came back from the dead" (more than once, technically!)  Maybe only most wizards can't pull off that kind of shenanigans... only Starborn.
 Odin seemed amused when Harry hinted it might be common-ish (as wizard stunts go), and Odin denied that it was.

The case can be made in the Dresdenverse... certainly WAG'ably!   :D
 

Offline exartiem

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 779
    • View Profile
Re: End of the Millenium shenanigans
« Reply #16 on: May 07, 2020, 01:14:12 AM »
Has he? Forgiveness; Jesus existed and was crucified, maybe he rose from the dead; angels; a couple of Bible quotes; and ...

That seems pretty limited to me.

Yes, he has gone into more detail about Christianity/Catholicism than any other pantheon/system.  I don't include the Fae because I'm not sure if they are a religion, but if they are, the two are close. 

As I said before, he has avoided details on beings that have scripture describing them already, only mentioning them in passing. i.e. God, Lucifer, Jesus, Gabriel, Michael, etc...

But things like the Nails, the Shroud, Uriel; he gives rather specific details.

Offline Bad Alias

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 2208
    • View Profile
Re: End of the Millenium shenanigans
« Reply #17 on: May 07, 2020, 09:10:12 PM »
The Sidhe, Tylwyth Teg, and some other Fae are, at least, the vestiges of Celtic religions.

My point is that Jim hasn't said much authoritatively about Christianity in the books. What we have authoritatively is extremely limited. Angels, their relationship to God is important, Jesus was crucified and is often referred to in a manner that implies a relationship to the "White God," choice is important, forgiveness is implied to be important. Everything else is characters opinions on Christianity. The way Jim has written the series, he has made it, or at least tried to, where someone would have to be pretty dense to get offended on a point of theology because he's stayed pretty far from any theological pronouncements.

This all makes it highly unlikely that Jim is going to announce that Jesus was a wizard.

Offline exartiem

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 779
    • View Profile
Re: End of the Millenium shenanigans
« Reply #18 on: May 09, 2020, 12:06:58 PM »
The Sidhe, Tylwyth Teg, and some other Fae are, at least, the vestiges of Celtic religions.

My point is that Jim hasn't said much authoritatively about Christianity in the books. What we have authoritatively is extremely limited. Angels[existing real-world scripture], their relationship to God is important, Jesus was crucified[TONS of scripture] and is often referred to in a manner that implies a relationship to the "White God," choice is important[scripture], forgiveness is implied to be important[again, tons of scripture]. Everything else is characters opinions on Christianity[no scripture of any kind anywhere]. The way Jim has written the series, he has made it, or at least tried to, where someone would have to be pretty dense to get offended on a point of theology because he's stayed pretty far from any theological pronouncements [other than, say, that Uriel killed the firstborn of Egypt]. 

This all makes it highly unlikely that Jim is going to announce that Jesus was a wizard.[thank you for finally understanding my point]

Offline Bad Alias

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 2208
    • View Profile
Re: End of the Millenium shenanigans
« Reply #19 on: May 10, 2020, 06:38:04 AM »
I would posit that Jesus was also a Starborn.
I don't think Jim is going to go into a whole lot of detail about Jesus.
This all makes it highly unlikely that Jim is going to announce that Jesus was a wizard.[thank you for finally understanding my point]
Now I'm sure I don't understand your point.

I don't see how saying that rumor has it that Uriel is the angel of death from Passover is some huge theological point that has been authoritatively stated because it's not even an authoritative statement that Uriel was the angel of death from Passover.

And I don't get why widely agreed upon basic tenets of Christianity being authoritatively stated in the DF being supported by "tons of scripture" counter my argument that Jim isn't going to delve too deeply into Christianity, especially to the point of discussing the origins of Jesus as a Starborn.

I'm not saying that Christianity won't be around anymore in the DF.
I don't think we're going much deeper into Christianity than we got in Skin Game or any other part of the series so far.
This doesn't mean that Knights of the Cross, angels, fallen angels, archangels, and the relics of the Crucifixion won't be in future books. It means that Jim isn't going to make pronouncements on transubstantiation vs consubstantiation. He may answer how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but I doubt that seriously. That's also what I mean by a bird's eye view of Christianity. Jim hasn't even authoritatively weighed in on some really basic Christian beliefs like whether or not fornication is a sin. Michael has. But Michael is just one of four Knights, and it's clearly been demonstrated that Knights views on dogma are not authoritative. In addition to model Catholic Michael, we have technically Baptist Shiro, atheist/agnostic Sanya, twice divorced Catholic Murphy, half-vampire Susan who we know nothing of her religious background, secular (I think) Jew Butters, and even arguably antagonistic to religion Harry. (There's also some a character from one of the Paranet Papers, but I don't recall anything about his religious affiliation).

I don't think saying some stuff about Christianity that you could get 95% or more of Christians to agree on, including Arians, is anything but a bird's eye view of Christianity.

The closest Jim comes to upsetting the applecart on this is when Shiro says God sees hearts and not flags or whatever. (Many Christians vehemently assert that if you don't go the church on 4th Street, you're going to Hell). But again, this is a character's perspective and isn't backed up authoritatively.

It's kind of like how extensively, but not at all deeply, Jim has used real world stories about fairies and monsters. The difference is that since most people don't take most of these stories seriously, Jim felt pretty free to make up a ton of stuff about them to give his story depth.

In text authoritative statements about Christianity are somewhere between a dictionary entry and an encyclopedia article in their total level of depth. Probably closer to a dictionary entry. I doubt if you included all the information you can get from character statements you'd have enough information for a encyclopedia article.

Offline exartiem

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 779
    • View Profile
Re: End of the Millenium shenanigans
« Reply #20 on: May 10, 2020, 11:32:57 AM »
Jesus being a Starborn was my theory, I didn't say I thought Jim was going to tell us that.  Although, it wouldn't surprise me if he had another character speculate so.  For instance Butters, if he started researching Starborns.

But again, I don't expect Jim to come right out and say that.  I've tried three times to explain that now.  Either you can't get or you choose not to.  I'm not wasting anymore of my time on this subject.

Offline Bad Alias

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 2208
    • View Profile
Re: End of the Millenium shenanigans
« Reply #21 on: May 10, 2020, 08:39:08 PM »
Jesus being a Starborn was my theory.
And my response was that while that could actually fit with mainline Christian thought on the nature of Jesus, I don't think it will be confirmed in the books because Jim hasn't gotten very specific about Christianity and likely won't.

The general response to my response was he has gotten specific/he will get specific.

I've never stated that we can't guess at subtext or say this implies that.