Grand Unifying Cosmological Mantle Theory [Series spoilers including MM WoJs]

[Serack]

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.

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Quick and immensely dirty since I'm probably not remembering everything with perfect clarity.  The Amber universe is made up of two diametrically opposite "pole" realities.  One is "Amber" which is ordered, rather static, and pretty and stuff.  The other is Chaos which is of course chaotic.  All other reality is a collection of "shadows" of these two poles that exist due to the cosmological interaction between the two poles.  They include every permutation conceivable (including our reality).  The closer a "Shadow" exists to one pole, the more it and its people resemble it and vice versa. 

There are some nobles of each pole that can traverse between "shadows" and through lots of effort and time eventually travel from one pole to the other and stuff, with some sort cuts and such.  Or just hang out in the "shadows" and perpetrate all kinds of tomfoolery since they are essentially immortal.

If you are interested, I made a Demonreach theory based off of how the DF could parallel the Amber Chronicles

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.

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First let me say that gnosticism was a hugely spread out and diverse belief system further complicated by evolving over time.  Even in a modern religion, you would be hard pressed to get two believers who agree on the details of their beliefs.  Compound that by this being an ancient religion with lots of lost documents and stuff and my being relatively ignorant, and I am confident that the below summary is only vaguely accurate.  However, my intent isn't necessarily to be accurate, but more to discuss some aspects that I feel could illuminate what could be going on in the background cosmology of the DF.  This is derived from wikipedia for the most part

In gnosticism, there was some primal creative force that was in a perfect and holy primordial light filled stasis or some such, and ended up vibrating and pooping out emanations (Aeons) that sort of represented aspects of the original being.  These Aeons may have also pooped emanations that iterated into versions less and less pure and further from the light of the original being.  In this theory/theology, (Which I am assuredly mangling all to heck) the gods or beings of power are in some echelon of these emanations of various purity.  And then angels were on a lower level, and humans on an even lower level on the darker, physical world.  I think the belief included varying planes of existence (like heaven and earth, and the spheres between) that were also associated with these "echelons" of beings. 

Interestingly, rather "Amber like" some versions of gnosticism included the belief that there were two primordial creative beings that were diametrically opposed with the opposite one being dark/evil, and the mortal plane being between the two. 

"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. 

[Serack]

WoJs

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WoJ #1

Q:  Have you ever had the idea to have a short story of Dresden crossing over into another universe, like Star Wars?

A:  No, because I don't want to get sued. However, just so you're aware 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, and if you go far enough you'll find the parallel that's where . You'll find the parallel Earth where Star Wars stuff works, and so on. Dresden could get there if he wanted to, but stop and think about that for a minute: Would you really want to go the Star Wars universe? Because you're not going to be a jedi over there. Really jedi are a lot scarier on the ground level than they are from passenger seat view next to one. You know, "There's a bunch of heavily armed fanatics with mind control powers here; they say they want to talk to you." That's kind of spooky.

WoJ #2

Jim:  The book after "Peace Talks" is going to be titled "Mirror Mirror."  I'm writing an alternate universe story and I'm not even going to bother... Of course I'm stealing it from Star Trek.  There's going to be goatees and eye patches and everything.  Just like in the regular universe only (sounds like sluttier), it’s a Mirror Mirror story.   But that’s going to be a fun because that’s going to be… How will the world be different if Harry had made one choice differently. 
Audience:  Goateed like Harry’s subconscious?
Jim:  It’s going to be a different character because it’s going to be Dresden as he would have been if he made one choice differently, and the fallout from that effect on his life.  *unintelligible comment from audience*  Yah this guy will have a hat. 
In this case it will be the big decision from at the end of Grave Peril.  And you will get to see how his world is different because of that.  And how he is the kind of person who does things like summon copies of himself from alternate realities so he can kill himself conveniently for a while and disappear.  Except he is going to summon the wrong Harry Dresden, the trouble making Harry Dresden who /had/ made those choices and things are going to go just as well for Harry as they always do. 

WoJ #3

Dudesan: What we've seen of the cosmology of The Dresden Files seems very Earth-centric. Is that because everything really does revolve around the Earth[1] , or because we're seeing only a tiny slice of a much bigger picture? Are there other planets in real-space inhabited by extraterrestrial sentient beings? If so, do they have their own analogues of wizards, fairies, gods, etc? Are supernatural things influenced by their belief as it is by those of humans? If so, to what extent do these "spheres of influence" overlap?
Jim: 3) Everything revolves around /this/ earth, in the Dresden stories. But not necessarily around all (or even a majority of) the other earths that exist in the continuum of possibility created by free will. Other, parallel realities have other worlds playing a more central role, and some of them have earth in a nice quiet backwater, peaceful, relatively conflict free, and boring.

WoJ #4

Q:  There is a rather long discussion as to what constitutes free will as an element in the back end of this book (Ghost Story).  Is what is presented and discussed as a concept, your own philosophy?  How did that come about, the idea that free will is making your choices based upon truth.
A:  Right, and in the Dresden Files universe it's a vital component.  It's 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.  I think that is largely true in real life, but it is certainly a very fun, dramatic use of the concept of free will for writing with.  It's very important in general, and that's why Harry, as he's gotten more mature, he's striven so much harder to make sure that other people have a choice, you know, he's not trying to make choices for people any more, he's trying to make sure that they know what's going on, and can make an informed choice.

WoJ #5

One of your more weirder scenes was the journey on the Chichen Itza.  That journey through the parallel universes, but mixed in with the physical ones. Where did you get the ideas? I think there was like the upside triangles of light. Do you use like random things or how did you...?
As far as going through the parallel universes, to get somewhere else, that's largely lifted from Zelazny's Amber books. I don't know if you guys read Amber but travelling through Shadow is much the same.

"WoJ" #6 (actually more like a "Word of Iago")

As I recall it when Jim was working on Semiautomagic (eventually renamed Storm Front), he was a fan of the Anita Blake novels, was playing Amber Diceless online via AmberMUSH (along with me), and so on. The lines of influence may trace more directly to that stuff than the World of Darkness. The White Court vampires, after all, are pretty closely modeled on a house of Chaos we both played in on AmberMUSH called Thanlis. Their blood was a little more silver than pale pink, and they could shapeshift like any Chaosian could, but every time the WCVs pop up in the novels I see shades of Bassor (Jim's character) and Mitre (mine) all over 'em.

WoJ #7

Dudesan: The same story [Backup] seemed to imply that entities could gain or lose power retroactively, in a wibbley-wobbly timey-wimey sort of way. For example, The Almighty is the Creator of the Universe, but He hasn't always been the Creator of the Universe[4] . Is there anything to this assumption, and if so, might we see it explored in greater detail later?
Jim: 7) You're assigning limits where there aren't any. In the Dresden Files universe, what changes really isn't the actual beings. It's our understanding of who and what they are.

WoJ #8

[Fae] Mothers are extremely powerful beings, I mean, they’re really really huge. You can tell because they hardly ever show in the real world. In the Dresden universe, if you don’t show up on the real world, it’s because you’re too big to walk around there. For instance, I think in the third book, when the Dragon is talking about how the Earth couldn’t bear his weight, it’s not that the Earth itself would literally crack, it’s that reality would have issues trying to contain him, because every time he coughs, it would bend around like Neo in the Matrix. [/snip] So, like, an angel shows up, and it’s just sort of a whispered presence, that’s because he’s just too big to show up here, it’s a giant sandbox, and he’s got to be very very careful to not squash the sandbox. So, he just shows up for that one bit.

WoJ #9

The Blackstaff is not sentient per se it’s just really, really, really powerful and tapped into like some serious elemental powers in the universe.  But basically all it really is is insulation from using those powers. 

WoJ #10

Q:  One of my favorite parts of your novels are the divine and the demonic, and kind of how they offer (?) each other, and how they have rules, and I wanted to ask, what made you decide that Chicago wasn’t enough, that all of Creation has to be at stake?

A:  Well, it’s not all of Creation.  It’s just all of THIS Creation. We haven’t really pulled the camera back far enough yet.  There’s a lot of reality in the Dresden Files.  The Dresden Files is a universe that is driven by Free Will, and every time you make a choice, it creates a new universe.  So, there’s this vast spectrum of universe out there, and it’s not just ours, there’s causality going off in every direction.  So a philosophical war on that scale is something that is just so tremendous you can barely imagine it.  And while it dwarfs into unimportance our particular universe, at the same time, the only way to win that war is one choice at a time, one person at a time. And that’s really what’s going on at the level where the angels are operating, that’s what they’re concerned about.  On the level where Dresden’s operating, its like, “How can I survive until the next chapter?” and that’s sort of the problem that we’ve got, as people, how do we look out and try to fix the things that are wrong with our world, when we’re basically going, “How do I get to the next chapter?”  How can we have that longer view point, do we need it?  I don’t know the answers to questions like that, but I enjoy the hell out of torturing Dresden with them!  That’s really kind of the point of what I do.

WoJ #11

sapph42: Could the Summer Court bestow the Mantle of the Summer Knight (is that capitalization all correct?) on someone who held the Mantle of the Winter Knight? What would holding both Mantles do to a person? If it is possible, and is not fatal, how would such a person resolve their conflicting obligations? Would they still have obligations if they lived, but no longer held the Mantle(s)?
Jim: 2) That's a fascinating question. I think they /could/, but it would do horrible things to the head of the person who got it. Reuniting two things that were meant to be divided just cannot be good for the person standing around when it happens...

WoJ #12

Q:  The first gruffs seem to be different from the later sets in terms of looks, smell, and fighting approach.  Were they sent by someone different?
A:  No, they’re part of the same family.  The first are just the newer gruffs, those most recent from being Changelings.  They attacked Harry simply because Mab declared that she had chosen him as her emissary.

WoJ #13

Q:  Exactly what are the Outsiders?  Are they like the fae, or are they something else entirely?
A:  They are something else entirely.  All the fae are part mortal.  There is some bit of mortal in every single one of the fae.  The Outsiders are something that comes from way beyond that.  Their more the generic Hellboy fangs and tentacles croud. 

WoJ #14

Rasins: The other question I had is *unintelligible* when a human takes on the mantle of a Fae, do they automatically become Fae? Do they lose their soul?

Jim: Ok, do they automatically become Fae, do they lose their soul? The answer to that question is “sort of”. Um, it’s automatic, but not necessarily instant. Mab herself was human once, and she eventually became the, uh, the fun-loving Mab that we all know. So, a lot of it has to do with who you are when you go into it, because most of the Fae were human once. A lot were born as half-bloods and decided to become Fae and sort of automatically got their mantle for free, but all the other fae who were there, including the Erl and several others, who were at one point humans….So, a lot of this is going to depend on who they  might end up being, a lot of it depends on who they are going into it and what kind of will they have to maintain who they are. That’s going to be a big deal. I’m really looking forward to writing the next books so I can see what happens with Molly, ‘cause I’m really not sure yet, I have a vague idea of what’s gonna happen, because basically she just got handed the largest, unruliest crowd of little brothers and sisters to deal with ever.

*Audience laughter*

Jim: But on the other hand, she’s kinda cool with that. She’s used to that role. So anyway, we’ll have to see what happens to her, but, uh, there’s a lot of choice involved *unintelligible* as far as soul goes. Everybody always talks about souls as if it’s something you can have a receipt for, that if you lose it, then it’s just gone, and I don’t think souls work that way, I think that there’s too much attached to them, I think that there are too many things that consist of what your soul is, so I don’t think this is kinda trying to figure “did you lose your soul?”, because I think you can lose your soul without bothering to stop by any kind of supernatural beings whatsoever. You know, if you watch the news, you’ll see people who do that all the time. But yeah, as far as The Dresden Files goes, as far as eternal damnation, etc., goes, no I don’t think that’s as much an issue for Molly as yet, it could sometime though. Whether Mab has some kind of spark of a soul left or not, that’s one of those questions that would be very difficult to answer, and I’m probably not smart enough to answer it. But uh, probably, when you've gone so far down the road, just pure power is madness, it’s hard to hang on to your soul. And it depends on how people who have been handed all this extra stuff deal with it, and what that’s going to do for them in the long run. And it’s one of those long run kind of things, meaning you’re going to be stuck like that for 2,000 years, you don’t really have to go bad tomorrow, you have plenty of time yet to start growing mold on your conscience and so on.

WoJ #15

If you’re (a powerful immortal being) in the real world, well, the problem is that you’re in the world, and you’re kind of mortal, and something could come along and try and whack you, if they’re fast enough, or good enough, or lucky enough. Which makes Odin a kind of special guy, because he doesn’t mind it, he thinks it’s awesome.

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Jim: Oh, yeah, so like if the Ladies become the Queen, what happens to the Mothers at that point? The thing is that the Mothers are kind of the foundation.  So, it’s not so much what happens to them because the little mantles changed. It’s what happens to the little mantles if the big mantles change. So, if someone whacks the being that is, for all intents and purposes, Baba Yaga, and then Mab succeeds, then Mab becomes the new Baba Yaga, and Molly gets drawn up to Mab, and they have to find someone else to become the new Lady. But on the other hand, the Mothers are extremely powerful beings, I mean, they’re really really well, you can tell because they hardly ever show up on the real world. In the Dresden Files universe if you don’t show up on the real world, it’s because you’re too big to walk around there. For instance,  I think in the third book, when the Dragon is talking about how the Earth couldn't bear his weight, it’s not that the Earth itself would literally crack, it’s that reality would have issues trying to contain him, because every time he coughs, it would bend around like Neo in the Matrix. So, they spend most of their time NOT on the real world, they spend it hanging around in the Nevernever, all the really heavyweight guys do that. If you’re in the real world, well, the problem is that you’re in the world, and you’re kind of mortal, and something could come along and try and whack you, if they’re fast enough, or good enough, or lucky enough. Which makes Odin a kind of special guy, because he doesn't mind it, he thinks it’s awesome. But anyway, you can always tell. If there’s folks who don’t show up in the real world, it’s because they’re super big. So, like, an angel shows up, and it’s just sort of a whispered presence that one person is aware of, that’s because he’s just too big to show up here, it’s a giant sandbox, and he’s got to be very very careful to not squash the sandbox. So, he just shows up for that one bit.

WoJ #16

Is Kringle Fae?
His mantle, yes, is part of the Winter Court. Which does not necessarily mean that he himself is Fae as much as the fact that his mantle is. While he’s there, he’s got to pay deference to Mab. If Mab gives him a command, he has to obey it.

WoJ #17

sapph42: When Dresden killed Aurora, her power flowed to the nearest vessel of Summer, which happened to be the presumably mortal Lily (the Summer Knight). If Dresden killed Maeve, would he become a Winter Lord, or are there rules in place mandating gender?
Jim: 3) There are rules in places of course. (On the other hand, Harry's the kind of guy that says, "That's what my captain keeps telling me.") But the real rule in play here would be a much simpler one: you can't fill a cup that is already full. You need an empty one. Or a really big one that isn't topped off.

WoJ #18

It seems to me that as long as the Church has some of the coins, those paerticular Denarians are neutralized.  Doing a Mt Doom with the coins might free up the spirits housed within to act freely in the world.

Well.  Not quite freely, but MORE freely, certainly.  The Fallen bound in the coins are the freaking elite of Hell--everyone the big D didn't want trying to stab him in the back, basically.  If they were suddenly freed it would do all kinds of horrible things to about a million balances of power, with repercussions that would last for centuries. 

WoJ #19[quote"2015 AMA"]Is goodman grey able to steal magic from wizards like the first naagloshi we ever saw could?
He /can/, but it's ruinously costly for him. The more you become something other than you are, the less of you is left over. He could, theoretically, get a gulp of Dresden's blood and become Dresden, power and all--but, especially with such a powerful will in question, he would /be/ Dresden at that point. There wouldn't be anything of /Grey/ left over to make decisions. It would basically be a form of suicide, only with a really hard-on-buildings corpse left over.
The Naagloshii themselves, as immortals, are immutable. Grey has free will.
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Excerpts

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Excerpt #1

He tilted his head and looked at me.  "Wizard... you have been dead and returned.  It has marked you.  It has opened doors and paths that you do not yet know exist, and attracted the attention of beings who formerly would never taken note of your insignificance."

"Meaning what?"  I asked.

There was no humor at all in his face.  "Meaning that now more than ever, you are a fulcrum.  Meaning that your life is about to become very, very interesting."

[Serack]

I'm putting the below sections into spoiler code to make it more modular and less daunting.

GUCMT Applied to the Fae Courts:

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So in SK Bob told us that the Mothers are the Queens who were.  Apparently they are immensely powerful, but are also extremely limited in how they can interact with our reality without squishing it.  Mab and Titania are the Queens that are.  They are pretty freaking powerful, they seem to have some serious ties to our realities weather, but as a whole, they seem to exist mostly on the NN plane, and in fact we now know that Mab has some serious duties on the NN side that consume her attention.  Bob described the Ladies as the Queens to be, and we were told that they are the Queens closest to our reality.  They are the least powerful, they tend to hold court practically on our plane, and we have seen them get selected from mortals when the previous Lady passes. 

GUCMT theorizes that the power/mantles of the lesser queens is derived from emanations off of the cosmic universal power from of the mothers.  This is an aspect of how that universal power ends up manifesting upon the permutations of the mortal realities.  And part of what is involved in it being able to manifest this way is that the power/mantle is actually possessed by a former mortal!

Another interesting detail of GUCMT interpretation of "Mantle Theory" is that I can apply it to how the fae split into two courts.  With this, Mother Summer is an aspect of Mother Winter.  And since she is pretty much on the same plane, their identity is a bit loosely separated.  They are pretty cozy with each other, and in her interactions with Harry in CD, Mother Summer seems to identify herself as being part of one being with Mother Winter.  In fact, looking through the GUCMT lens, Mothers Summer and Winter are two closely related aspects of the same cosmic level Mantle.  When Mother Summer says that Mother Winter talks a good game, but in her own way she cares, Mother Summer freaking IS her way of caring.  It is the aspect of Mother Winter (death) that Cares!

Then as we emanate farther from the source of the elemental cosmic power, the split between Mab and Titania becomes much more pronounced, but the two mantles, although diametrically opposed, also define each others identities rather closely.  Then when we get to the Lady echelon, in our limited interaction in the series, the enmity seems less pronounced, but the identities seem more distinct maybe... I'm stretching a little here. 

Also, once, when asked about the ramifications if the Summer Knight mantle somehow got bestowed upon the presiding Winter Knight, Jim's answer described that as "Reuniting two things that were meant to be divided."^{WoJ #11}  Which to me implies that the two courts used to be singular. 

Additionally, in all of faedom, the younger, less powerful beings are supposed to be the ones that are closest to having chosen to be fae from having been mortal changelings.^{WoJ #12}  Examining this through the GUCMT lens, Perhaps the Fae race avatars (beings like Sith, Eldest Brother Gruff, Eldest Fetch, Leanansidhe) are additional, kinda offshoot sub emanations/aspects of the higher echelons of Fae (ultimately the Mothers), and then the lesser members of the races become the echelons below that mantle level with much lesser power.  Jim even said in the past month or so that being Eldest of a Fae race is associated with power (I'd have to find this WoJ though).

 
Further theorizing on Free Will's roll in GUCMT:
Summary conclusion of the below theorizing:
Free Will is what decides how aspects of a particular universal cosmic power manifest (I.E. what form the mantles take) and what their prominence is within that reality.
Edit May, 2016:  There is a new section to the next response in this topic that further addresses Free Willed Lesser beings wielding Higher Power ^-Serack   

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To examine Free Will's roll in GUCMT, first I would like to discuss the topology (shape) of DF Cosmology.  (as an aside, Ms Duck does some of this in herself in her "Pancake Universe" theory)  In truth, we know so little about the underlying structure of the "cosmic universal powers" and their relationships to each other that anything we potificate about them and their "topology" would really be pure theory. 

In my mind, one of the most likely models can be described as a circle or sphere (or some equivalent on the nth dimension) kind of like a color wheel where the major cosmic universal powers are a collection of colors along the outside, and the center portions are where they interact and the various alternate universes are differentiated from each other by free will.  Furthering this, in a parallel to the monotheistic versions of gnosticism the major fundamental "colors" on the periphery that represent the DF "cosmic universal powers" like Death/Mother Winter are actually aspects of a single source of creation.

But that's a really freaking complicated model that is only imperfectly describing a theoretical shape to the DF multiverse.  The Amber style "dipole" model is much simpler to conceptualize, and given how little we actually know, could in fact be 100% accurate.  Because I'm an electrical engineer and a visual learner, I like drawings and diagrams so here are a few to help visualize that model.

The Amber style "dipole" model of DF topology (ASDM):
Here is a figure of two electric monopoles, and their fields interacting as a dipole (pulled from a random place on the interwebs)


So in ASDM, the (+) pole would represent "Amber" which is beautiful and static and full of light.  And the (-) pole would represent Chaos which is incredibly turbulent, ever-changing (in the Amber Chronicles it is even inhabited by shape shifters) and dark.  For the purposes of GUCMT, those poles represent two opposing "universal cosmic powers."  The thing is, even in our reality utter stasis and utter chaos even if powerful can be pretty boring.  In ASDM the field lines represent the emanating shadows or alternate realities between the two poles.  Ever splitting and morphing in a continuum running between the opposite poles of possibilities.  Thus it is in the interactions (field lines/alternate realities/shadows) between the opposite poles/extremes that the truly interesting aspects of the reality spectrum lie. 

Back to Free Will:
In GUCMT, Free Will is backbone that forms those field lines of ASDM and determines how they split and progress from one extreme pole of possibility to the other.  Free Will is what decides how aspects of a particular universal cosmic power manifest (I.E. what form the mantles take) and what their prominence is within that reality.  In this way we can meet the criteria where the universal cosmic power itself is unchanging, but how it is perceived and manifested on a particular reality does change.

In fact in GUCMT, as say, the Oblivion War progresses, and certain "aspects" are banished by free will to "Oblivion" over the course of time, that reality would progress along that particular ASDM field line towards or away from the "pole" that those "aspects" come from.  But that would be only one mechanism where Free Will could influence how "aspects/mantles" manifest in a reality.

Another aspect of Free Will in GUCMT, that can be modeled using ASDM, is that for GUCMT, free willed beings, or aspects of them (as Griff says, maybe their souls, which agrees with a lot of gnosticism theology) are distant, dim emanations that can be traced back to the original source/creative universal cosmic powers.  Using ASDM, we can model how they could be beings that are hybrid emanations of multiple sources of cosmic level powers (in true ASDM, it would only be two).  In my mind,the interaction between cosmic powers that results in the generation of free will mimics constructive interference patterns or the Mandelbrot set fractal

Free Will as a Fulcrum:
In Cold Days, Vadderung referred to Harry as a Fulcrum now even more than ever.^{Xrt #1}  WoJ#4 refers to cosmic forces balanced against one or another, and Free Will as that which can tilt the balance one way or another. 

There are lots of indications that a big shakeup is on the way, and that Harry's choices could be the thing that determines how the pieces will fall. 

Part of my application of GUCMT is that past big shakeups involved similar Free Will fulcrums.  Things like Winter taking over at the Outer Gates and the apparent shuffling of power when The White Christ was around.^{WoJ #18}

Elegast asked me for an example of something that could disprove "GUCMT" and IMO this would be the pivotal claim.   If major changes in the cosmological shape of reality could be effected without Free Will choices determining them, then the whole theory collapses.

There is also this excellent conclusion on why Free Will is so significant:

One possible component of Free Will (as the DV seems to explain it) is that it seems to require that the omnipotent beings (e.g. Lasciel) not be able to predict *exactly* what said mortal will do.  If we assume that Mab et al. are playing this vast game of meta-chess where everyone is countering each others' moves perfectly then you could argue that the only way for one side to gain a real advantage would be through the use of a non-predictable agent.

Fae in the NN and Harry's reality are neighboring realities in the GUCMT reality spectrum:

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I spent a lot of effort in this topic outlining my understanding of how in the legends, the Fae and Fae realm used to be in our realm and gradually separated from it.  In the ASDM model explained in the Free Will section above, Fae and Dresden's reality would probably be shadows of each other.  Additionally, GUCM can serve as an underlying explanation for how the original Fae were free willed beings (some say a race separate from humanity) that made choices that caused their version of reality (the Fae realm) to diverge from ours.  Interestingly enough, there is some WoJ evidence that the Fae might still posess some degree of free will judging by the 2010 WoJ that "All the fae are part mortal.  There is some bit of mortal in every single one of the fae."^{WoJ #13}  There is also a much more recent WoJ about the fae retaining their souls that isn't as pertinent but makes for good reading.^{WoJ #14}

So as part of GUCMT, maybe when the Fae made their choices that pulled Fae farther and farther from Dresden's reality, they took on aspects/mantles of some of the cosmic forces, moving up the GUCMT aspect ladder towards them and dragging their portion of reality with them.  Additionally, since they are still tied to Dresden's reality, they then serve as part of how those aspects of those cosmic forces manifest for Dresden's reality as well. 

Also, if individual mortals in the Dresden reality take on a Mantle, it appears that they may end up moving their existence towards the NN/Fae as well like apparently the Erlking did. 

Interestingly, as Vadderung, Odin appears to break this trend.^{WoJ #15}  Also as we know, he also can change hats and be a faerie who hangs out in Fae and has to follow the Fae rules.^{WoJ #16}  However, as Vadderung, Odin kind of reminds me of an immortal Prince of Amber slumming it in a shadow having fun messing with that reality's fate.

Edit:  Here is a post I made later in this topic that ends up illustrating how the fae courts differentiate :p

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@Serack
As I'm ready through your, quite frankly, beautiful and elegant theory I came upon a rather interesting parallel between human beings in the DV and quantum level interactions.  Specifically the thought experiment of Schrödinger's cat.
In this scenario mortals are the cat existing in a sort of quantum state of indecision and any direct observation from the TRULY "PCPs" would irreparably damage the "experiment". (Predestination / quantum locked reality)  Thus in order to affect change it/they must act through smaller and smaller instruments (emanations) AND in a roundabout fashion, thus why so many higher beings act in "mysterious ways" and cannot take direct action, in order to make a desired outcome.  Meanwhile we lowly humans existing in a indeterminate state afforded to us by our infinitesimally small "size" that WE perceive as "free will". Am I anywhere near the ballpark?

That is a freaking awesome analogy for this whole "GUCMT" concept from the cosmic level down.  It is limited in how it explains things from the... lowly indeterminate state human's perspective UP in how they can climb the ladder up in power, but yah from the "PCP" level down it ROCKS.

My hard core quantum physics is limited, but with my limited engineer's understanding, it is like how "Schrodinger's Equation" can mathematically model some of the same things as Heisenberg's Matrix Mechanics representation, but they both get there in such different ways that for some work one is more practical than the other. 

Hopefully, we will come up with... EUREKA I've got it!

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Edit: By the way, the file name for that image is "faerynman-diagram"

I am way too pleased with myself right now.

Now a pause for a non DF quote that I think is pretty freaking awesome, and perspective granting.

⁸Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground. ⁹When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?”
 “Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied.
 ¹⁰“You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”
 ¹¹As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. ¹²Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two.
 ¹³Elisha then picked up Elijah’s mantle that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. ¹⁴He took the mantle that had fallen from Elijah and struck the water with it. “Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over.
 ¹⁵The company of the prophets from Jericho, who were watching, said, “The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.” And they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him.

Ok, with that fun quote out of the way, there is another detail about how we have seen Mantles in the DF manifest that we can apply GUCMT to. 

How does GUCMT apply to multiple mantles possessed by a single entity:

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We've seen how GUCMT can explain the Fae court's stratified power structure, but what about characters that seem to have multiple mantles on their shoulders? 

So by my way of thinking, in a particular reality or subset of similar realities, an aspect of a cosmic power will be manifested based upon mortal choice and belief, it seems that that aspect manifests as a mantle that can be donned by a mortal of that reality or set of realities.  And it can also emanate additional, lesser aspects/mantles...  Well apparently just as all these mantles can run around splitting off aspects and such that could be related aspects flowing from the original cosmic powers, or even similar mantles from different cosmic powers, or hybrids between them, there is a reciprocal that some beings can pick up/manifest multiple aspects/mantles.  Since from a GUCMT perspective, the power these mantles represent is all emanated from and tracks back to the source cosmic powers, there isn't a conflict here.  Generally.

An obvious exception would be the Summer and Winter Knight mantles.  Even though these apparently used to be a united power that split, it would appear that bringing them together once again in the same being would be nigh impossible.  I would say that this is because in this case, that is because the split happened for a specific purpose where the source cosmic power saw that for that subset of reality, the two separate mantles were necessary to counterbalance each other, so when they pooped out the new aspects/mantles, they created them in a way that they /had/ to be diametrically opposed.  Now if the need for those mantles to oppose each other were negated by say some meddlesome wizard somehow negating the Outsider War or something ridiculous like that, maybe they could be reunited...

Of further note is that Jim said the true fundamental reason why Harry didn't end up with Maeve's mantle when she died wasn't his gender, but because "you can't fill a cup that is already full. You need an empty one. Or a really big one that isn't topped off."^{WoJ #17}  I wrote up a topic back then discussing just what Harry's "cup" is full with but for the purposes of this topic, I think this is significant because it shows that at least for a mortal, there are limits to how much mantle one can take on.  It also implies to me that a "cup" can expand, possibly by losing it's mortality.

Replies 36 and 40 are posts I made that examine mortal's free will exerting power of a higher being upon the mortal realm.  Edit May 2016: I really worked hard to flesh out this concept in a detailed edit to the next reply.

[Serack]

Here is a topic I made about a year ago that discusses some of the attributes of DF cosmology from the perspective I had back then
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,38493.0.html

Below are thoughts put down 1/30/2015 on this topic that kind of bring some of this together to a slightly different focal point. ^-Serack

The earlier concluding statement was:
Free Will is what decides how aspects of a particular universal cosmic power manifest (I.E. what form the mantles take) and what their prominence is within that reality.   
I would like to further this thought by saying that it seems to follow that if there are echelons of aspects of a "universal cosmic power" then the greater the echelon of a manifestation, the more realities it spans (and thus the more it could break/warp an individual reality who's course has been determined by free will).  The lesser aspects of this power would thus span a lesser portion of the "spectrum" of realities.

This is why the "Ladies" are the queens closest to our reality.  They do not have as significant a presence across a multiplicity of realities, but are a portion of the "Universal Cosmic Power's" identity upon a more singular reality.  And they have more influence at that "ground level" for a reality because their free will is more intact.

Interestingly, the levels of complexity that Demonreach had to dumb down for Bob to get, and then Bob had to dumb down further for Harry to get probably mean that Demonreach is a touchstone that spans all these realities.  I like to think that when Harry climbs down all those steps into the Well, he is truly going down the rabbit hole into a pocket dimension that spans all possible realities (Probably associated with one of the pools at the bottom of one of the roots of Yggdrasil, but that's really tying stuff together on a meta level)

Thoughts dated May 2016 developed in a separate topic and ported here ^-SerackInstances of Greater Powers being wielded by lesser, free willed beings to affect change on reality
Edit:  The purpose of this topic grew a bit to become instances of Greater Powers being wielded by lesser, free willed beings to affect change on reality.  I'd say that the Demoreach and Odin sections are the most well fleshed out and significant.

In the free will section of GUCMT topic I stated:  "Part of my application of GUCMT is that past big shakeups involved similar Free Will fulcrums.  Things like Winter taking over at the Outer Gates and the apparent shuffling of power when The White Christ was around."

The events of Skin Game, notably Hade's arsenal getting recirculated seems to re-emphasize this.  Over and over, I see Objects of Power that are tied to aspects of Greater Beings "falling" into the hands of mortals.  It is my opinion that these objects require the free will of their Wielder to affect change on the mortal plane.  I'll make a list below of "Objects" (some aren't necessarily embodied by a physical object) that seem to be tied to Greater Powers, but require a Free Willed wielder. 

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  If a Fallen has essentially overpowered their human host, then they have limited free will (they can’t use the free will of the human); a Denarian is much more powerful if they use the human as a partner.

  In Grave Peril, it was discussed between Harry and Michael how the Denarian's are exceptional among Fallen in their ability to influence things/take action on the mortal plane, and it has long been my interpretation that the above WoJ explains the mechanism for how they get to be the exception.  In GS it was shown that if they try to take even the slightest action directly, it's "breaking the rules"
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  It is apparent to me that the swords and their bearers serve as a mechanism for certain powerful beings to influence things on the mortal plane.  There are heavy rules for how they can used though.
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  From a reply I made in my original GUCMT topic:
  

  Also, I think it is likely that the PCPs are so powerful that the "Aeons" are really only representative of a disproportionately small piece of their power, and that in a way, although the original being may be effected by having that power distributed, in another way, because that power is out there effecting things, the power itself is no less significant.  I point to the Blackstaff as a poignant example of this type of thing at work.  Some aspects of Mother Winter (Who in some ways is the same being as Mother Summer, hence my saying some aspects, also I am sure that when she is wearing different hats, she gets to follow different rules much like Vadderung) are more restricted by the lack of her "walking stick" but at the same time, her power is out there ripping life out of people and stuff and doing all kinds of interesting things that we only have a limited perspective on, all because it is being wielded by a Mortal with Free Will.

  In other words, the Blackstaff represents a portion of Mother Winter's power out in our level of reality being wielded by a Mortal with free will.  This portion of her power is affecting change on our reality that wouldn't be possible if she horded it in her cottage.  Schnap, this falls right in line with another item that was taken from her cottage!
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  "It isn't tied off," I said quietly. 
  "Nor should it be," Winter said.  "It is an Unraveling."
  "A what?"
  "An unmaking, boy.  I am the unmaker, the destroyer.  It is what I am.  Bound within those threads is the power to undo any enchantment done.  Touch the cloth to that which must be undone.  Unravel the threads.  It will be so."
  I stared at the square cloth for a moment, Then asked quietly, "Any enchantment?  Any transformation?"
  "Any."
  My hands started shaking.  "You mean... I could use this to undo what the vampires did to Susan.  Just wipe it away.  Make her mortal again."
  'You could, Emissary."  Mother Winter's tone held a bone-dry amusement.
  I swallowed and rose, folding up the cloth.  I slipped it into my pocket, careful not to let any threads trail out.  "Is this a gift?"
  "No," Winter rasped.  "But a necessity."
  "What am I supposed to do with it?"
  Mother Summer shook her head.  "It is yours now, and yours to employ.  We have reached the limits of how we may act.  The rest is yours."

  
  So yah, that quote pretty much spells out that the Mothers, in all their power, couldn't be the ones to actually make the decisions to change things, but they were able to bestow upon a mortal a piece of their power.  That mortal could then make a free willed choice that could make the difference.
  
  It seems significant to me that Aurora (who possibly had her "free will" augmented by Nemesis) proved impotent in overcoming Harry's choice in how the unraveling was to be wielded.  Also, I think it is likely that when it was stolen from Harry, it was actually Elaine who took it from his pocket.
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  It is implied to me that since the Armory defensive gates seem to serve as more of an audition process to ensure only the worthy get them, these articles are supposed to be used... but since Hades himself isn't the one using them, they are supposed to be used by free willed beings.  This is a bit of supposition though.
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  I wrote a post about this recently that really delves into the whole point of this topic from the perspective of this mantle:
  

  It is my opinion that when Harry descends down all those steps and enters the chamber down at the bottom, he has gone down the rabbit hole and in most respects *is* on the NN side of Demonreach. 
  
  I say in most respects because Demonreach was created and exists on a dimensional level that Harry has a hard time experiencing, so when he's down there his experience is kinda skimming the surface of a pond of what is actually there NN wise without necessarily getting wet.
  
  I haven't followed this conversation closely, but let me share a little more of my opinion of who and what a capital "W" Warden is and why it is significant.  As with most of my theorizing over the past few years, this is heavily influenced by my concepts of overall DF cosmology, and the mortal experience's position in and influence over that cosmology.
  
  The entirety of the Demonreach construct was created on and exists on a level that spans more than just Harry's individual reality and timeline.  It is immense and powerful and enduring and ... Lithic.  What do I mean by "Lithic?"  It exists as is and is non-introspective and unchanging in its purpose, function, and resolve. 
  
  But on the Demonreach level of the big picture, the fabric of Reality has a degree of malleability, and the driver and medium of this malleability is mortals and their free will.  For Demonreach to function on this malleable level of existence, it needs a malleability engine of its own.  A Warden capital W, with free will who can make decisions that encompass aspects of its purpose that require more malleability, dynamism and introspection than it possesses on its own as a Lithic construct. 
  
  It is possible that Demonreach's existence is wide enough that it interfaces with more than one discrete "Capital W Warden" across multiple discrete realities and timelines on the level Harry experiences in such a way that from Harry's and thus our perspective, these interactions happen relatively "simultaneously" and individually.  However, I think it is more likely that from the Demonreach perspective, these malleability engines are less discrete and are more of a reality spanning singularity like itself.  Sort of.
  
  Which is a really long and arduous way of saying that in my theories there is only one capital "W" DR Warden. 
  
  
  Edit:  I'd like to add that I'm really proud of the two analogies of Harry experiences in the NN being like skimming a pond without getting wet (not getting the full depth of the experience, only an aspect of it), and Warden Harry's free will being an "malleability Engine" for the overall Demonreach construct.
  
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  First a WoJ:
  

  is it possible for the Erlking to create a Wyld Knight or some equivalent?
  Engh. He could feasibly take a part of his own power and fashion a new mantle from it. Much weaker than the WK though.

  This twitter WoJ, along with the info in Cold Days implies to me that the creation of the fae Knight mantles comes at a (maybe 1 to 1) cost to the Queen's power base.  This fits within my theorizing for the Blackstaff above, except in this case, the Queens appear to get more control over how the power is used. 
  
  In Summer Knight, Bob tells us:
  

  "A Sidhe Knight is mortal," Bob said.  "A champion of one of the Sidhe Courts.  He gets poers in lin ewith his Court, and he's th eonly one who is allowed to acti n affairs not directly related to the Sidhe.

  
  He then goes on to say that the Queen's can't kill someone not already involved with the courts and that the Knight is essentially their mechanism to kill someone outside the courts. 
  
  In GUCMT, the Queens gave up a portion of their power to manifest as a Knight Mantle so that she could use said mortal Knight's free will as the mechanism to have influence on the Mortal plane in ways that require a level of mortal free will that they don't have. 
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  Possible instances of of Free Will being used in conjunction with a Higher Power:

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    The Archive itself is a hugely powerful construct, but it always resides in a mortal.  It is my supposition that the construct requires a fragile, killable, mortal, free willed vessel in order to truly be effective as the orchestrator of the Oblivion War.  That's the theme here.  The mortal free will is what actually allows power to shape the mortal plane in significant ways like the Oblivion War does.
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    In the paradigm of this topic, the Gatekeeper's free will gives him an advantage in performing his duties at the Outer Gates that wouldn't be available to one of the Fae if they were to try to be the guardian of the Gates.  Therefore, his eye represents some form of power bestowed upon him by the "Fates" (probably an aspect of the Mothers) to facilitate this duty.
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    This one kind of goes backwards, in that he's would be non free willed powerful being except that he apparently gives up/pays something to retain some level of Free Will it seems.  WoJ #19 even says that Grey isn't an immutable immortal being like his progenitor, but has free will.
    
    Forum member Jacken provided this quote recently that resonates with Goodman Grey wonderfully:
    

    The service you do for others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.

    
    I visit this again in the Odin section.
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  This is kind of tangential to the above portion of the list but it seems relevant in that it appears a free willed choice is necessary for these otherwise apparently non free willed and quazi-immortal beings to get that power. 

  • Changelings=>Fae
  • Wampires (most mortal of the "Vampires" Thomas is particularly powerful because his free will fights his Demon
  • Rampires (gotta Choose to drink a life's blood to fully manifest)
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  Odin is special, and I'm not confident he has mortal free will in the way necessary to shape reality as Jim defines it, but he is relevant to the discussion as a lot of people in the topic were pointing out, so I put a lot of effort into discussing how he is related to the above concepts of free will, mortality, and higher power melding.  Below is a quote of a post addressing him.
  
  

  Serak,
  
  Where do you think Odin fits into all of this?  He is clearly more engaged than many of the other immortals in the cause of humanity (maybe our Universe's existence).  He an agitator?  Counselor?  Connector?  As Harry has moved into the big leagues...poof...there is Odin.  He has been in Changes, CD, and GS and his fingerprints extend back into SmF at least.  He and Mab have a connection as does he and Eb.  He seems to be aligned with the group of beings/powers that are readying Harry and others for BAT.
  

  
  Hmmmm, if the aspects of "GUCMT" I wanted to discuss with this topic were a circle on a ven diagram (higher level power being utilized by a free willed being to make change on reality), and all the powerful generally non mortal beings this topic doesn't apply to were another circle, Odin somehow managed to find the sliver of commonality between the two circles.
  
  Odin sure is special, and I can only speculate on him. 
  
  I've used the term that he is "slumming" it on the mortal plane.  He is a being big enough to span more than one reality, and it is possible that when Harry visited his seat of power, he actually visited a place that was more pan dimensional than Harry can grasp (see the above section on Demonreach mentioning Harry skimming the surface of a pond of extra dimensionality)...
  
  Let me try a different tack.  The way I understand the story of the nagloshii is that they were powerful messenger beings for the deities of the Navajo religion.  They are generally too powerful a being to belong on our plane mucking about, and when it came time for the deities of the Navajo religion to leave this plane and take their powerful messengers with them, the nagloshii were like, "Nah, we like it here and we are staying."  Supposedly since they really have no business being here in all their power this decision corrupted them and made them evil. 
  
  I think Odin's persistent presence mucking around on our plane is very much like the nagloshii, but if we assume like Harry that he generally isn't an evil MFer like Shagnasty was, there must also be a major difference.  The real question then is, "What allows Odin to run around the mortal plane mucking about in all his awesomeness, without squishing things or otherwise corrupting himself like the Nagloshii." 
  
  We do have some limited experience with such powerful beings (the other circle in the ven diagram mentioned above) running around on the mortal plane, so lets examine each of them...
  
  

  • Nagloshii/Shagnasty:  Mucking about apparently cost him in that he became an evil nasty MFer who can only hang out around his place of power without gradually loosing strength/having to exert more energy to hang out elsewhere.
  • Mab:  Her power seems to be on par with or more than Odin's and she can sometimes be found on the mortal plane.  However she doesn't typically spend much time on the plane, and when she's there she follows some pretty strict rules such as...
    • Can't lie
    • Can't kill mortals herself unless they are somehow tied to her or some such
    • Anything given or received is subjected to some complex rules about having to be an exchange/trade
    • *hand waiving* something about having to follow winter law (see Harry collapsing when he said F winter law in Cold Days) that probably encompasses all the above and more
    • Also, her presence tends to make things a wee bit nipply
  • Uriel:  Appears to have some seriously important rules he has to tip toe around when manifesting, and it is entirely likely that he is only manifesting a tiny corner of his toe's worth of his true being when he's here... or something
  • Ferrovax:  Severely limits his presence both in not showing up much, and how much of himself is actually on our plane.  See Uriel
  • Mother Winter:  Only showed up in extremely specific circumstances as part of a summons, and then only a part of her hand/arm manifested and she left instantly.
  • Erlking:  Has only showed up when summoned or during the events that allow for a "Wild Hunt" so far.
  • Denarian Fallen:  Can only influence things through their host, otherwise Uriel gets to play chess shenanigans to correct the imbalance they can introduce. 
  • Goodman Grey:  Very powerful scion of a Nagloshii.  It is apparent that he retains his free will and doesn't succumb to his Evil MFer heritage by some enigmatic mechanism involving "Rent"

  
  In that list, I see two themes crop up as to how most of those powerful beings manifest on our plane.  First, they frequently limit how much of their power manifests on our plane.  Second, many of them tip toe around following some strict rules on how they behave while here.  Since it seems that Odin generally doesn't do the first (although that's not necessarily a given, Mab probably even veils some of her power when she's here compared to what Harry saw when he viewed her with his sight) I'd say: 
  
  It is my suspicion that Odin taught Goodman Grey about "Rent" and that the answer to the bolded question above is that he employs some combination of "Rent" and careful tip toeing around following "rules" to keep from squishing things. 
  
  Also, it is possible that he has set aside a portion of his power to exist on this plane in a more mortal capacity.  Jim has implied that powerful beings coming onto our plane do that to some extent just by showing up, but that may be embraced more by some than others and Odin certainly seems to have embraced this.^WoJ#15

[Serack]

Note:  I intend to add a section in reply #2 that expands the theorizing of Free Will's role in GUCMT.  I already edited in some of the ground work into the end of the main post.

[Griffyn612]

Note:  I intend to add a section in reply #2 that expands the theorizing of Free Will's role in GUCMT.  I already edited in some of the ground work into the end of the main post.

By the way, if you need more consecutive responses for the theory, let me know, and I'll remove my post and add it back when you're done.

[Serack]

By the way, if you need more consecutive responses for the theory, let me know, and I'll remove my post and add it back when you're done.

Hmmm, I hadn't been worried about that until you commented.  Considering Reply #2 is already at 7.5k/20k allowed and I am working on building two involved additions to it, maybe we should do that just in case. 

Please please please save your comments though and repost them or a new version of them.  They are quite thought invoking, and are certainly helping me work on this theory and make it more robust.

[Griffyn612]

Transplant complete!

1) Is each Mantle an individual Aspect/Aeon?
2) Clearly Vadderrung has two different Mantles, and they remain separate from each other.  They don't seem to manifest at the same time, but they're held by the same being.  Is their compatibility due to their varied nature, and the WK/SK incompatibility due to their similar, opposing nature?   
3) Are human Souls a Mantle? From a certain viewpoint, a mortal shell/being is given an immortal power source to use for a time, and when the shell dies, the power source departs, continuing to exist elsewhere.  Its almost like a Mantle, albeit not apparently reused, at least in some beliefs.
4) If a Soul is an Aeon/Aspect, then wouldn't it mean that it would remain separate from the Mantle, and not be destroyed?  There's been speculation by some that a host's Soul is slowly absorbed by the Queens Mantles, merging with them.  But the Aeon/Aspect theory combined with the dual nature of Vadderrung's Mantles would imply that Aeons coexist and remain separate.  Would that be the same for Souls, or are those Aeon's too weak to survive alone?  I think there was a WoJ talking about how Mab lost her Soul.  Did it just move on, since the Mantle Aeon pushed it out?
5) So Mister is Ferro?  j/k
6) Seriously, why hasn't Harry used Mister in a joke yet?  "Mister Dresden?" "Mister Dresden is my cat.  Call me Harry."
7) Could the inherent incompatibility of the W/S Mantles be due to the fact they were one Aeon/Aspect, which was then unnaturally divided into six/eight, rather than "pooping" out sub-Aspects?  And if re-merging the WK/SK Mantles is such a bad thing, wouldn't it have been almost as bad for the SK Mantle to go to Winter in SK?  For that matter, any of the six/eight Fae Mantles joining with any of the opposing side would be bad.
8) Souls are the perfect memories and sums of the lives they've led.  But the mortal isn't aware or familiar with that perfect knowledge, nor even sure of its existence.  Could the same be said for the Mantles/Aeons and their hosts?  Upper echelon Aeons like Uriel might be self-aware of their Aeon/Aspect power and existence, explaining their inability to act; becoming aware of the situation in some way would limit their interaction.  The Queens are partly aware, on three different levels, which allows for them to interact with events on three different levels.  Mortals, being the least aware, are free to act.
9) In that sense, the whole purpose of mortals is to be the foot soldiers and pawns of upper level Aeons.  Since they are unable to act, everything has to be fought on mortal plane.  Obviously some battles are on other planes, like the Gates in the NN, but the eternal struggle between the two Poles is not fought at the wall, but on Earth.  The wall and Gates are simply to keep the game board from being overrun.
10) How does corruption play into the Aeon/Aspect theory?  If TWG is one Pole, or so high/close to the 'Order' Pole that Its practically the same thing, then everything It created/"pooped" would be a lighter/ordered Aspect like itself.  But clearly higher level Aeon/Aspects can be corrupted, like Lucifer.  Luci should have been very high up on the Lightside, but Fell to the Darkside.  Was that corruption due to something like Nemesis, or an inherent ability of Aeons/Aspects to change?
11) In SG, Uriel gave up his Grace, which in this theory, would be the equivalent of his Aeon.  Had Michael acted poorly while wielding it, what would have happened to the Grace/Aeon?  It doesn't seem like an Aeon could be destroyed, so it would have to go somewhere.  Would it simply Fall to where Lucifer and the other Fallen Aeons are kept?  Would Uriel remain a mortal, bearing only a mortal Soul?  Would he have no Soul?  And what about Luci?  When he Fell, did he take on a mortal form, to live out his days as a human, and his Aeon/Mantle/Grace was put away in a lockbox?  Or was did his Soul remain with the Aeon/Mantle/Grace? 
12) Is it the Soul that can be corrupted, rather than a higher level Aeon/Mantle/Grace?  Do all beings, high and low, have a base ingredient Soul, which can be manipulated?  And that Soul is what causes higher beings to Fall?  In theory, to be mortal, Uriel would have to have a mortal Soul.  If he had one, then Lucifer should have too, right?  So is that Soul still tied to the Aeon/Mantle/Grace of Lucifer wherever it is?  Is that twisted Soul what is causing the Grace to act out of character?  And if it were separated, would the Aeon/Mantle/Grace appear to be corrupted/Fallen, or would it return to its normal Lightside state?
13) Or did Uriel separate himself from his Grace on purpose, knowing that if he Fell, the Aeon/Mantle/Grace would remain unblemished, while only his mortal Soul would Fall?  If so, is the issue with the Fallen that they didn't separate from their Aeon/Mantle/Grace before being corrupted?  And is that corruption in both Soul and Grace, or only the Soul?  And would both need to be redeemed, or only one?  Clearly Uriel could separate from his Grace, but maybe he couldn't have separated Lucifer from his; its a decision of Self.  That would mean that if the Soul of Lucifer decided to relinquish its hold on its higher level Aeon/Mantle/Grace, would that power be restored to the Lightside, and could it be re-assigned to a new Soul?  A new Lucifer, on the side of good?
14) Taking it the other way, are the Outsiders upper level Aeons working without Souls, which is why they can't exist or interact with the mortal plane?  They should be restricted from reality, and unable to work there, just like the other Aeons.  But their nature is Chaos, from the other Pole, and therefore not following the rules is their natural state.  So if they get through, they would be pure Aeons existing where they shouldn't?

[Serack]

[response transplant complete]

Heh, looks like you've been working on that response for a while  

I was already working on applying "GUCMT" to your #2 when you posted it.  I spent 5 hours last night cobbling these thoughts together from various lesser thoughts I have published in the past, and a collection of WoJ's I had squirreled away specifically for this Grand Theory topic. 

Now that I've gotten some sleep, I'm reexamining it and I decided to split off some of the applications into a new post, and expand that post to include some theorizing about multiple mantles on a single entity. 

By the way, since you've probably been working on your response for a while, be sure to review the major summary of the theory located at the top and bottom of the OP. (and my defining the acronym "GUCMT" to make for easier communication)

I'm still massaging this "Grand Theory" a bit.  And now to finish reading your response, and then work on the topic some more... or step away from the computer and do RL stuff

[Griffyn612]

I think I'm currently stuck on a Cosmic Great Oak analogy for the Order pole of the dipole. 

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The First Aeon is the Trunk.  It is so powerful it can't move.  So it created Branches.  Branches are smaller, so they can move somewhat.  But even they are limited in how much they can get about.  So they create Limbs.  Limbs are freer to move, but only in comparison to Branches.  For more freedom, Limbs create Twigs.  Those suckers can move even more, but not quite enough.  So Twigs create Leaves.  Those guys are crazy movable.  The downside is their lifespan, which is nothing compared to the other parts.  Sucks for us them.

One Branch may be TWG's pantheon.  Another may be the Greek/Roman pantheon.  A third could be the Hindi pantheon, and so on and so forth.   

I don't know what the Roots are.  Or what the soil, water, or light would be.  But the Pole for Chaos would most likely be a disease.

It can worm its way into the Leaves, causing them to fall.  If all the Leaves fall, the Tree will die.  Or it can worm its way into a Big Limb.  It can manage to kill off entire sections of the Tree like that. If it gets into a Branch, it could even cause it to Fall Off.

Of course, enough damage, between the roots, leaves, twigs, limbs, and branches, and the Tree dies.  Sure, if the tree dies, the disease has nothing to feed off of once its gone.  But that's the nature of Chaos, isn't it?  Madness beyond self-preservation? 

The point of that is that these Aeons/Mantles/Graces are nothing more than a part of the whole. 

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- Uriel can't act directly because he's too big to move about.
 - Hecate may have been a Limb of the G/R Branch.  But she decided she wanted more movement, so rather than being a Limb, she split where she left the Branch, becoming six Twigs.  Two of the Twigs are almost big enough to be considered Limbs, another two are middling in size, and the last two are just Twigs.  It gave her more freedom to act, but at the cost of being a Greater Power/Limb.  She might not have ever been as big as Uriel, but now she's definitely less.
 - Hades was a Greater Limb of the Greek/Roman Branch.  He's currently greater in power than Hecate/The Queens, but can't do anything because of his position on the tree.
 - Harry's a big ol' Leaf that somehow ended up with a mini-Twig core.  He gets to thrash about, causing trouble not only for things around the tree, but probably the tree itself.

How does that analogy work into multiverse theory? 

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Well, what if every "Decision" is a seed that falls from another tree.  That second tree grows up like the first, only with minor differences.  It spawns its own "Decision" seeds, until there's a great big Great Oak Forrest.

The only thing I can think of is that Uriel and other Cosmic forces are the Roots, rather than Branches.  And those Roots intertwine with those of Trees nearby in the Great Oak Forrest.  They're all interconnected. 

And the disease that is the Chaos Pole, the Outsiders/Old Ones/Nemesis/Black Magic/Corruption, is trying to kill every tree in the Forrest.

My only issue with the Dipole analogy is that it implies Balance.  I'm not sure that's the case.  Is your theory that the Outsiders are from the second Pole?  The unreality to reality?  The Chaos to Order?   Because I don't feel like they can be True Chaos.  If they were, the universes would be in really bad shape.

Chaos

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There is no "chaos" in reality.  Everything is an order, even if we don't yet understand the order it follows.  If reality is Order, than everything Outside would be Chaos.

That means there's a lot of Chaos outside the Gates.  I'm fine with that theory, but if you bring Multiverses into it, then there's almost assuredly more Chaos at the Gates than there is within. 

The nature of Chaos is to not have a nature.  If Order says that only the Higher Aeons can span the Multiverse awareness, then Chaos would say "all of us can".  If Order says a man can't exist twice in the same universe, except under extreme situations, or in a Mirror-Mirror plot, then Chaos says "no, we're totally going to do that whenever we want".

If there were 10 universes side-by-side, Order would create 10 Gates to keep out the Chaos.  And Chaos would pull numbers from several of them to overwhelm each in turn.  That would be the nature of Chaos. 

The only saving grace for reality would be that Chaos doesn't get organized; its not in its nature either.

[Serack]

My only issue with the Dipole analogy is that it implies Balance.  I'm not sure that's the case.  Is your theory that the Outsiders are from the second Pole?  The unreality to reality?  The Chaos to Order?   Because I don't feel like they can be True Chaos.  If they were, the universes would be in really bad shape.

Heh, I get around that problem by saying that the Dipole analogy is just an imperfect model that can be used to try to examine certain relationships, but does not cover the whole cosmology by itself. 

Kind of like how Newtonian physics is a model that allows us to examine how reality works in most but not all situations.  Or maybe even more accurately, kind of like how a true electric dipole doesn't exist in isolation but is in fact surrounded by the rest of the universe's charge distribution.  However we can still learn a lot about how electromagnetism works by examining a dipole model.

Edit:  I also described a different model, that IMO does a slightly better job of being inclusive of other possibilities, but is flawed in being difficult to communicate and visualize, and not necessarily being grounded in what actually exists in the DF seeing as to how we don't really know anyways.

As to where Outsiders fall in the model.  I'd say we need more data.  However, when I read the scene where Hades' crown was mordite orbiting his head, I filed that away as an incredibly interesting data point.

[Serack]

Ok, now to address Griff's points directly.

Transplant complete!

1) Is each Mantle an individual Aspect/Aeon?

I liked using the term "quasi discrete" because they still have ties back to upper tier Aspect/Aeon and to their sibling (for lack of a better term) Aspect/Aeons.  Sorry that's kind of a non answer...

2) Clearly Vadderrung has two different Mantles, and they remain separate from each other.  They don't seem to manifest at the same time, but they're held by the same being.  Is their compatibility due to their varied nature, and the WK/SK incompatibility due to their similar, opposing nature?

Interesting question.  I actually have a side/related theory that the Odin/Kringle duality was needed because when Mab took over at the Outer Gates the action offended (I am a fan of the theories that the Aesir were the guardians before the Fae).  The duality ended up becoming necessary to allow a pissed off Odin to set that grudge aside when necessary by putting on a faerie hat of his own.  Thus when it comes time to take care of business that reality hinges on and stuff, he has a tool in his toolbox that makes that possible.

"You're here as Kringle, seriously?"  I asked him.
Kringle winked at me.  "The Winter Knight called for me in his official capacity as an agent of the Winter Court.  Mab has the right to summon Kringle.  If she'd called for Vadderung, I'd have told her to get in line."
[/snip]
"But you and Kringle are the same person," I said.
"Legally speaking, Kringle and Vadderung are two entirely different people who simply happen to reside in the same body," he replied.
"That's just a fiction," I said, "a little game of protocol."
"Little games of protocol are how one shows respect, especially to those with whom on does not get along famously well. It can be tedious, but generally is less trouble than a duel would be."

So either the powers that be allowed a little bit of Fae Power to get fashioned into an extra bit of mantle to placate Odin for whatever causes him to not get along famously well with Mab over, or Mortal Belief provided the framework for that odd bit of duality, or Odin sliced it off himself on Halloween or some such to please his own needs, or some combination of those... but somehow he got it, and it sure seems to suit his purposes when he wants.

I'll post this and then start editing in my responses for the rest of your comments.

3) Are human Souls a Mantle? From a certain viewpoint, a mortal shell/being is given an immortal power source to use for a time, and when the shell dies, the power source departs, continuing to exist elsewhere.  Its almost like a Mantle, albeit not apparently reused, at least in some beliefs.

Hmmm, deep.  And apparently the kind of question the gnostics loved to examine.  In fact, I believe for some of them, they believed that upon death, the soul was finally released from the imperfect and impure mortal reality and was finally allowed to reunite with the upper levels of existence. 

So I'd say this certainly seems like a valid interpretation of GUCMT, but that we can't really be sure of the true nature of the soul.

4) If a Soul is an Aeon/Aspect, then wouldn't it mean that it would remain separate from the Mantle, and not be destroyed?  There's been speculation by some that a host's Soul is slowly absorbed by the Queens Mantles, merging with them.  But the Aeon/Aspect theory combined with the dual nature of Vadderrung's Mantles would imply that Aeons coexist and remain separate.  Would that be the same for Souls, or are those Aeon's too weak to survive alone?  I think there was a WoJ talking about how Mab lost her Soul.  Did it just move on, since the Mantle Aeon pushed it out?

Hmmmm, I know you are familiar with WoJ #14 which is the best I have for answering this train of thought.  I think a better analogy for what may have happened to Mab's Soul would be that it withered and died due to maltreatment/malnourishment or something... 

Interestingly, we have a WoJ that the fundamental reason why Harry couldn't have ended up with Maeve's Lady mantle isn't just that he isn't the right gender, but because as a vessel for mantles, his is too full.  I'll have to add that to the multiple mantle section of reply #2.

5) So Mister is Ferro?  j/k
6) Seriously, why hasn't Harry used Mister in a joke yet?  "Mister Dresden?" "Mister Dresden is my cat.  Call me Harry."

How have I never heard that one before?  Hillarious.

7) Could the inherent incompatibility of the W/S Mantles be due to the fact they were one Aeon/Aspect, which was then unnaturally divided into six/eight, rather than "pooping" out sub-Aspects?  And if re-merging the WK/SK Mantles is such a bad thing, wouldn't it have been almost as bad for the SK Mantle to go to Winter in SK?  For that matter, any of the six/eight Fae Mantles joining with any of the opposing side would be bad.

I spent some time answering this in the multiple mantles section of Reply #2.  I think I came up with an excellent response.

Souls are the perfect memories and sums of the lives they've led.  But the mortal isn't aware or familiar with that perfect knowledge, nor even sure of its existence.  Could the same be said for the Mantles/Aeons and their hosts?  Upper echelon Aeons like Uriel might be self-aware of their Aeon/Aspect power and existence, explaining their inability to act; becoming aware of the situation in some way would limit their interaction.  The Queens are partly aware, on three different levels, which allows for them to interact with events on three different levels.  Mortals, being the least aware, are free to act.

I'm not sure what I am supposed to be answering here...  Generally for GUCMT, it seems that the more powerful the being, the more reality spanning, and more aware of their spanning of the reality spectrum.  I do like how this ties the non wetware storage of mortal experiences to GUCMT though.  I would say that the more powerful beings (I'll use that term for Mantles/Aeon's and their hosts together) apparently have access to this data storage.  Either by watching it play across a Ghosts being, or some other means like with Lasciel's shadow.

Interestingly enough, a freaking Soul Gaze does this.  That's right a Soul Gaze ties neatly into GUCMT.  In fact, the Molly Soul Gaze is a perfect example of how a Soul Gaze can look across possible future realities to show how her decisions could result in her becoming a different person.  And it gets etched into Harry's memory. 

9) In that sense, the whole purpose of mortals is to be the foot soldiers and pawns of upper level Aeons.  Since they are unable to act, everything has to be fought on mortal plane.  Obviously some battles are on other planes, like the Gates in the NN, but the eternal struggle between the two Poles is not fought at the wall, but on Earth.  The wall and Gates are simply to keep the game board from being overrun.
10) How does corruption play into the Aeon/Aspect theory?  If TWG is one Pole, or so high/close to the 'Order' Pole that Its practically the same thing, then everything It created/"pooped" would be a lighter/ordered Aspect like itself.  But clearly higher level Aeon/Aspects can be corrupted, like Lucifer.  Luci should have been very high up on the Lightside, but Fell to the Darkside.  Was that corruption due to something like Nemesis, or an inherent ability of Aeons/Aspects to change?

Meh, this gets kinda deep, and I'm not sure if I can address it.  In the Amber Chronicles, it becomes an issue that at one point there was only one pole, and a prince of that pole actually struck out across reality and established the other pole, and somehow that act is what instituted all other reality.  And part of the nature of the original pole is the need to destroy and subsume the opposite pole.  But wait, if that were to happen, all reality would be destroyed.  But then how could it have been established in the first place. And the egg and chicken need to be destroyed (that's me taking the conundrum and getting silly)

So maybe things weren't interesting until the "Fall" anyways.  And maybe because they weren't interesting, they were unstable and the "Fall" was an inherent characteristic of this instability. 

I'm not sure where corruption comes in in this, although in the Amber Chronicles, there was a major plot line where the Chaosians cut the crap and blazed a corrupted trail across all reality in an attempt to assault Amber directly. 

And that I am not limiting my internal model to a binary duality of the universal cosmic forces like in the Amber Dipole Model.

Time to walk the dog, I'll edit in more responses later.

11) In SG, Uriel gave up his Grace, which in this theory, would be the equivalent of his Aeon.  Had Michael acted poorly while wielding it, what would have happened to the Grace/Aeon?  It doesn't seem like an Aeon could be destroyed, so it would have to go somewhere.  Would it simply Fall to where Lucifer and the other Fallen Aeons are kept?  Would Uriel remain a mortal, bearing only a mortal Soul?  Would he have no Soul?  And what about Luci?  When he Fell, did he take on a mortal form, to live out his days as a human, and his Aeon/Mantle/Grace was put away in a lockbox?  Or was did his Soul remain with the Aeon/Mantle/Grace? 

Hmmmm, well seeing as to how it was a Mortal who would have made the critical decisions, it might only apply to the local reality or set of realities.  Or since it's involving such a heavyweight "Aeon" it might span a lot more if not all of the reality spectrum.  As to what would have happened to the mantle and Uriel, I suppose that would depend entirely on how things shook down.  Which means Jim would have to write it and see.

As for Lucifer, I think he didn't split from his mantle.  The Angelic mantles are a little odd to me...  Are Rafael's lieutenants emanations of himself, or were they created from whole cloth when Rafael was created by or emanated from the Creator?  And thus could Lucifer poop out sub mantles like seems to have happened to the Fae left and right. 

The best example we have of "lesser" fallen effecting the mortal realm are the Denarian's who apparently fell along with Lucifer, and then much later in some major turning point event (probably hinging on Free Will, like the choice to betray the White Christ) they were bound to the Denarian coins and thus were apparently cast out of Hell, but given a measure of influence over the mortal realm. 

Oh.  Hey look at that!  We have a rather recent example of one of those emanating out a hybrid aspect with a relatively significant Mortal.  And hints of something similar happening in the past (Bob).

12) Is it the Soul that can be corrupted, rather than a higher level Aeon/Mantle/Grace?  Do all beings, high and low, have a base ingredient Soul, which can be manipulated?  And that Soul is what causes higher beings to Fall?  In theory, to be mortal, Uriel would have to have a mortal Soul.  If he had one, then Lucifer should have too, right?  So is that Soul still tied to the Aeon/Mantle/Grace of Lucifer wherever it is?  Is that twisted Soul what is causing the Grace to act out of character?  And if it were separated, would the Aeon/Mantle/Grace appear to be corrupted/Fallen, or would it return to its normal Lightside state?

Hmmmmm...  I'm not sure what to say about the Soul/Mantle comments other than your pointing out that Uriel seemed to be able to differentiate between his Grace and his personhood(soul?) which is good evidence that they were separate. 

I will say that nobody seemed worried that the nemfection would pass from Maeve to Molly with that mantle though...  Heck... ok with that perspective we might be able to make some applications of GUCMT... We know the cosmic powers can't change... Although how they manifest or are understood can change.  And Per GUCMT, part of how they manifest is the emanation of Aspects.  Mostly it would seem that those Aspects/Mantles only change in how much influence they end up having due to Free Will choices, and they probably can't change much without getting reabsorbed back into the upper echelon Aspect first, although that isn't a sure thing... Still if we assume that, and we assume that Archangels have personhoods that can be held distinct from their power/Aeon/Grace/Mantle, then a Fallen Angel's internal change and corruption is probably only only associated with that distinct personhood, and not the actual Mantle itself.

Which isn't to say that the power of the mantle isn't now being used by that corrupted being for some gawd awful stuff.  A hammer can be used to build a house or bash heads in.

13) Or did Uriel separate himself from his Grace on purpose, knowing that if he Fell, the Aeon/Mantle/Grace would remain unblemished, while only his mortal Soul would Fall?  If so, is the issue with the Fallen that they didn't separate from their Aeon/Mantle/Grace before being corrupted?  And is that corruption in both Soul and Grace, or only the Soul?  And would both need to be redeemed, or only one?  Clearly Uriel could separate from his Grace, but maybe he couldn't have separated Lucifer from his; its a decision of Self.  That would mean that if the Soul of Lucifer decided to relinquish its hold on its higher level Aeon/Mantle/Grace, would that power be restored to the Lightside, and could it be re-assigned to a new Soul?  A new Lucifer, on the side of good?

Sorry, I've spent enough brain power on the angelic grace angle today... *fzut* *sputter* *kaput* overload, no more no more.

14) Taking it the other way, are the Outsiders upper level Aeons working without Souls, which is why they can't exist or interact with the mortal plane?  They should be restricted from reality, and unable to work there, just like the other Aeons.  But their nature is Chaos, from the other Pole, and therefore not following the rules is their natural state.  So if they get through, they would be pure Aeons existing where they shouldn't?

No clue sorry...  My best attempt at interpreting the Outsider role, is that they could be from a separate reality spectrum subject to a totally different form of splitting regulated by something only mildly related to our concept of Free Will.

I am just now reminded of a WoJ I think I heard in the past month or so that I need to hunt down...

[KG]

Serack, this is an interesting theory that you have clearly thought about a lot and worked hard to develop.  It's spawned some thoughts I wanted to share, but I haven't spent a lot of time ordering them in a way that I can specifically apply them in parallel to the work you've done, so I'll just drop them as discrete points that might help further the conversation, for now.

George is George, no matter what name you call him.

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Jim has stated that the beings of immense power (Gods, or whatever you want to call them) are pretty cool, and it's all of us who are stupid.  I take that comment to mean that there is basically one being in any given role, but there are tons of names and variations on what the role is which have been generated over time and associated with the being in such a way that the being has essentially absorbed those names and associations.  The being itself has not changed, but mortal perception and understanding of the being has, over time.  As an example, the Creator is one being, let's call him George.  George has always been around and always will be around and will forever do what he does.  Over time, different mortal civilizations have seen small bits of George and theorized different reasons for George's existence.  Some people called him God.  Some people called him Allah.  Others referred to Yahweh, or Jehovah, or Jesus, or The Light, or Elohim.  It doesn't matter, George is who he is and does what he does, and he forgives all the ignorant mortals that waste their time arguing and fighting wars over who is correct.

The point of this is, George is George is George.  Different groups of people, in different times, shaped by different geographic locations and languages and cultures have all described the same being in different ways.  This is significant, and George notices, but it doesn't change who he is or what he does.  The mortals just perceive him differently based on all these names and descriptions. 

George might, were he so inclined and able to appear to some civilization, utilize their particular perception of him in order to make the experience less shocking and more understandable.  George is George, but an American Roman Catholic doesn't know George.  So, if George was going to appear to this person he might appear as "God," because this person has a set of concepts associated with that theorized being that he would understand.  "God" is a very biased and incomplete picture of George, but at least it's a framework this person would understand, so George doesn't have to work from scratch to explain who he is to this person.

Now, take another being and do the same thing.  I'll call her Edna.  Greek & Roman culture in Harry Dresden's universe described Edna as Hecate.  Harry Dresden knows 6 Queens of Faerie.  Perhaps in his reality, mortal choices have been made throughout time that have resulted in a world where Edna is now perceived as 6 different, individual beings.  Edna is still who she's always been, doing what she's always done, but mortal perception and understanding of her has changed over time such that she interacts with mortals in this reality as 6 different beings, rather than as 3 or as just 1.  Edna doesn't really care HOW she gets her job done, just THAT she gets her job done.  It makes no difference to her if Harry and other mortals think there are 6 people doing 6 different jobs, at the end of the day it all adds up to Edna just doing her thing. 

You can think of it like a type of interface, really.  George and Edna are who they are and they've got Jobs to do.  They need mortal help to do these Jobs, to one degree or another.  George and Edna would destroy our reality by coming into it as themselves, so they use an interface to interact with us, rather than direct, face-to-face conversation.  They have a variety of different options to choose from, and they choose the appropriate interface for the particular mortals they are interacting with at the time.  Harry wouldn't understand many of the different perceptions of Edna that other civilizations throughout time or in different realities have described, so using those interfaces would make Edna's job more difficult.  It's simplest for her to use one (or all) of the Faerie Queens to interface with Harry, because he has the best understanding of Edna through those constructs, and Edna has less background work to do in order to get Harry's help.

This also explains, when the Mothers were talking about Harry's use of various Names to describe Mother Winter, why both Mothers were worried about him knowing one /particular/ Name.  Just as there are names and Names, I believe there are also NAMES!  Edna is the NAME of a particular being, and there might be many Names, each associated with small parts of that being.  Invoking one of those Names might get the attention of part of that being, but invoking the entire, full being's NAME is something orders of magnitude greater.

George isn't a flakey kind of guy.

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I don't know if I buy into the idea of beings on higher planes of existence flaking off bits of themselves every time mortal decisions are made and creating lower-tier beings.  It seems clear there are mechanisms that beings can move up or down these tiers, but I think it's more mechanical and less mystical.  I can buy that there was one Creator being that created many of the other powerful beings, but I think that's where it stopped, I don't think it's an ever-continuing process.  I think George created a lieutenant, Frank, to do a particular Job, and Frank's been doing that ever since, as different beings in different realities.  Frank didn't suddenly flake off of George as a mini-me because some mortal made a particular choice in a particular reality.  If that were the case, Frank wouldn't span all realities,  because the choice that spawned him in one reality would not have happened in every other reality.

Now, sometimes these other powerful beings that were created might go away for one reason or another (they Fell, retired, or are simply "Out"), but that's why there are mechanisms in place for other beings to gain power and ascend to higher planes of existence.  If they are worthy enough, and make the correct choices, they will figure it out and become what they need to become to take over some particular role that needs filled.  Remember, Mab wasn't created to guard the Outer Gates, and it wasn't always a Winter Queen that was in charge of that Job.  She started out as a mortal and eventually rose to her current position, and then took over that Job from some other being or group.  This wouldn't really be necessary if it were as simple and convenient as George flaking off a new guard of the Outer Gates when the right choice was made by some mortal.

Pruning the Cosmic Forest

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Griff's construction is simpler to grasp, just because it skips a lot of the higher-level conceptualization and goes right into simple, real-world analogies.  I don't think these two ways of describing the cosmology are mutually exclusive, mind you, although they could be.  It depends on how you characterize each, but I think they could simply be two different ways of describing the same situation.

Under this model, Griff, I think it might be more accurate to describe reality-spanning beings as the soil, rather than the roots.  The tree roots might not all interconnect, but they do all grow in the same soil.  The Lieutenants like Frank are the soil that spans the entirety of the forest, but even they don't have the highest vantage point.  George, the Creator, is responsible for the light and rainfall that allow the trees to grow.  George gives Frank what he needs and Frank does his Job, as the soil.

This is all very fascinating.  I have to admit, it made me do a lot of thinking about DF concepts I haven't really considered before. 

[Serack]

Ok, I didn't get to read all of Griff's spoilerized alternate Oak Tree model/analogy earlier.  I like it. 

KG's George concepts are especially thought provoking.  The main place where they break down for me is that one of "Edna's" 6 faces she uses to interface with Harry happens to be his apprentice of several years.  However, I must say that it holds together pretty much as well as my vaunted "GUCMT"

For me, it works best because I feel as though the Mothers are indeed putting on a face when they interact with Harry in order for him to best understand with his limited perceptions what they are.

[Brightbane]

This is kind of how Brandon Sanderson's books work. He has the gods that can be fragmented that can then splinter, and are the source of souls in entire worlds. And then he has characters that can travel between the worlds.