Ok lets do this.
Edit: The below has been edited to incorporate some of my thoughts from reply #98 below -SerackI'll open that I agree with Rasins:
Yet we are trying to apply a label that already has a meaning to something that may or may not be the same.
So I'll specify, the titular question is more accurately, "What is a DF Saint along the lines of a 'champion' that could swing the battle against a Blampire" as mentioned in WoJ.
This assumes that there is a subset of human beings that are related to the real world classification of Catholic "Saints" who were pretty bad ass in a fight against evil. It also generally assumes that this subset isn't the same thing as a Knight of the Cross since those were listed separately.
I like wyltok's observation on what could be used as evidence of a living Saint.
We may wish to use a "proof is in the pudding" mentality, and define Saints based on their ability to perform miracles. What separates Miracles from Magic? Magic appears to require some level of aptitude and investment from the one person doing the working. Miracles could potentially be defined as "magic coming from an external source". Of course, we know from magical theory that this would fall under thaumaturgy, that is, magic from a distance, instead of evocation.
Putting it together: a Saint is someone who can act as a thaumaturgic channel for a divine being who chooses to exert their power at a distance.
From that definition, some possible examples come to mind:
- Grave Peril: When Michael burned a Rampire who touched his paladin costume (note that he didn't have a Sword at the time)
- Grave Peril: When both Susan and Michael managed to ignite their crosses with holy fire to repel Mavra (something I'm not sure Susan could have usually managed).
- All sorts of neat stuff that happens to people wielding the swords. I suspect that's more the relics in question acting as thaumaturgic links, rather than the person, though.
Thoughts?
For the fun of it I'll quote (and spoilerize for condensation sake) the relevant passages from GP. There's also the passage in Small Favor where he lifted Mab's mind wammy from Harry, but I'm not going to go through the trouble to find and type out that one as well. The GP passages are especially significant since Michael was swordless at the time, and thus any Holy Sponsorship he had was independent of holding an Item of Power.
Kelly's hand touched Michael's steel-clad arm--and erupted into sudden, white flame, as brief and violent as a stroke of lightening
[/snip]
"I looked at Michael and blinkded, "Wow," I said. "Color me impressed."
Michael looked vaguely embarrassed. "It happens like that sometimes," he said, apologetically.
"Iesu Domine!"
Michael's voice rang out from beneath the vampires like a brass army bugle, and with a sudden explosion of pressure and unseen force, bodies flew back and up, away from him, flesh ripped and torn from them, hanging in raged, bloodless strips like cloth, showing gleaming, oily black flesh beneath.
"Domine!" Michael shouted, rising slewing gutted vamps off of him like a dog shakes off water
"Lava quod est sordium!"
Back to the concept of "Holy Sponsorship" though.
I think you are missing one component of saintliness. The belief in a power greater than yourself. In a God, or god. Yes, Harry has great faith in his magic, but he's not treating such belief as an act of faith. Where as the man (or woman) who is leading a group of people against a black court vampire has that faith. Much like Charity and Michael.
Sponsorship magic is a term from the DFRPG, holy sponsorship being just one version of it. The DFRPG "True Believer" template emphasizes that the belief is in something beyond themselves, as Rasins describes for saintliness. But there is an obscure WoJ that I haven't included in the WoJ section that is highly relevant to this discussion. It's not there because it's close to TT and at the time it came to my attention, Jim had been making more of a point of holding his personal beliefs private from his fans, and it kinda delves into those a little. He's been a little more open lately, and I really think this discussion would benefit from sharing it. However, the context is for the Laura K. Hamilton Anita Blake universe. I do think that it sheds light on Jim's reasoning behind this subject though.
So, now we come full circle to the real question. Is it a matter of a higher power or of a person's belief that they will be protected?
Doesn't hold water in the Anitaverse, and here's why. Because an atheist's faith does squat. 
Let me explain. No, zat would take too long, let me sum up.
Everyone loves to take a side in an argument. If it requires any human belief, then it /can't/ be a higher power at work at /all/. It's either this /or/ that, it's black /or/ white, and while I'm a big proponent of moral blacks and whites, when you are trying to puzzle out the answer to a more objective question, I think they tend to do a lot more blinding than illuminating. So, here's more bits, drawn from basic Judeo-Christian philosophy (not always theology).
Core to the idea is the concept of Free Will. Whassat, you ask? The ability for people to /make a choice/. In the basic philosophical postulate I'm using here, that's the purpose of existance. It's /why/ the universe was Created to begin with. Because God would rather have company that wanted to hang with him than a bunch of yes-men. So he made the earth. He made alternatives to choose from, and then he let people /pick/
which team they want to sign on.
Which is a long way from vampires and crosses, so bear with me.
The act of holding up a symbol of faith in a higher power, and of /believing/ in that power while you do it is not just a power formula. (Faith x Symbol = Protection.) It isn't physics. It's philosophy. It's a choice. It's a statement of which side you are choosing, an exercise of free will. Deeper than just spraying out spiritual bug repellent, you are making a statement, to any watching, to the powers arrayed against you that you not only oppose them, but reject the forces they represent. (Not only do I not like /you/, but I don't like your corporate sponsors, either, and you can tell them I said so.)
Do you have to /know/, 'hey, I'm taking a stand at /this/ point in the good-evil spectrum and declaring an allegience' when you do it? No, you don't. It's the act that matters.
That kind of statement, that kind of committmant, demands an answering level of committmant in response. Yes, you have to have faith in it, because if you don't /believe/ in what you're doing, you're not /making/ a choice on any level, subconscious or otherwise. You're just scrambling to save your ass.
In this kind of scheme, some things would require more faith than others. For example, a /demon/ showing up to eat your face (demon being an actual Fallen Angel, which in the Anitaverse they would so far appear to be) gets you more intervention faster, for less investment. ("Just wave a flag and tell me who's on the good guy's team, boys, so that we can raise the shields.") Demons aren't really creatures of free will. They got to make their one dinky choice way back when and now that's done.
Vampires though: much more ambiguous. Much closer to mortality. Much more free will. It means that their /choices/ have more weight, philosophically speaking. And it demands that a similar committmant (am I spelling this wrong over and over? how embarassing) from someone who would oppose the vampire's choices with their own--true belief, a committed choice.
As for one faith declaring that it's the Only True Faith... well. They all declare that on one level or another. Very few religious beliefs are free of the powermongering 'this is the only way!' taint of organized religion. But I think God is bigger than us. Probably bigger than anyone's set of ideas. Probably encompasses more than the human mind can comfortably wrap itself around--which, being Infinite, would make sense.
We're blind men with elephants, here, in many ways. And I have come to generally distrust anyone who authoritatively says 'THIS IS THE WAY IT IS AND YOU CAN'T TELL ME ANY DIFFERENT' about anything you learn outside of maybe kindergarten. Two and two is four (except in some weird chaos models) but I'm not at all sure that I know everything there is to know about God. I don't even know everything there is to know about my wife, and I've had a considerably broader range of exploration going on than with God.
Anyway, point is, that you could argue the particular scripture cited ('I am a jealous God') from a number of perspectives, from deeply theological theory to lawyerly word weaseling to abstract secular philosophy, but you still wouldn't really /know/, would you?
Most religions have a few things in common: You're a worthwhile person. Play nice with others. Do your chores. Here's what's coming after. You can get all huffy about what it means, but in any given set of beliefs you dig into, you find that stuff in one shape or form. Life affirming stuff. Stuff that tells you 'hey, don't be a jerk, think about other people' and 'make the world you live in better; here's how.' Belief in something greater than oneself is a positive energy all its own. It creates societies, friendships, loyalties, ties that help people get through the nastier parts of life.
(Politics moves in and stains things lots of times, but then when /hasn't/ someone been in a group that wasn't eventually corrupted by politics of one
kind or another. Politics is social entropy.)
In any case. I can reasonably believe in a Higher Power, a Creator who is awfully tolerant of human bigotry, near-sightedness, and pigheadedness. He'd just about have to be. So when one of the kids stands up and makes the right choice, even if he's being a little stiff necked or intolerant when the pressure isn't on, I can see the Creator going 'man, you're heart's in the right place,' and, to the vampire/demon, etc, 'back off.'
(Not 'instant vaporization' mind you. Apparently even vampires get a chance to make different choices. )
Don't slam the concept of a higher power being involved in repelling a vamp, simply because that higher power isn't as socially or theologically paranoid as your average human being. God's bigger than sects or national boundaries. I don't know too much about Him, but I figure I'm fairly safe in reasoning 'big'. It's one of those kindergarten things.
Man. Allow me to lend you all some /hip/ waders to get through /that/ BS.
Jim
LALA
AAA
I think the above demonstrates pretty clearly why the 3 main vampire courts are so differently affected by things like holy water and crucifixes. Less free will/more evil = more intervention from the "Higher Power" (hear after called "HiP") the faith object ends up invoking. It also demonstrates a possibility for higher degrees of faith having different degrees of efficacy. To the level of blasting with holy fire a malicious Rampire who just touches Michael's armor.
So here is my definition of what differentiates a DF Champion Saint from a potential spectrum of saintly people who may wield HiP sponsorship.
- An absolute dedication to their faith in the HiP and absolute dedication of their life towards their saintly mission for the HiP.
- Demonstrated Sponsorship from a HiP resulting in ass kicking, that is wholly attributed and attributable to the HiP's will channeled through the Champion Saint and their faith.
Soulfire, although initiated by HiP Sponsorship, derives it's fuel from the bearer's own soul, not something external, thus differentiating it from the above definition.
Interestingly, Sock Puppeted Murphy at Chicken Pizza actually embodies most of the second point, except part of the conduit for the HiP's will is the sword. However, she doesn't truly meet the first criteria. *mumbles something about Mira's Murphy opinions*
The Knights other than Michael fall short because the Swords are part of the conduit of the HiP's will, and although I believe their level of power is partially defined by their dedication to their faith in the higher power, the ambiguity of their internally defined target of their faith costs them some level of steadfastness.
Michael has demonstrated Championship Power independent of the Sword, and absolute dedication to his faith and saintly mission. Interestingly, according to him, his true mission isn't to slay evil, but to save free willed mortals doing evil from the influence of.... for lack of a better term, "the enemy." His kick ass capacity is just a facilitation of that true mission.
You are asking me to make a very large choice."
"Yes," Uriel said.
"With potentially horrible consequences."
Uriel looked at him with sympathetic eyes and nodded.
"Can you tell me what is at stake, that I should risk this?" (Uriel's Grace)
Uriel frowned, considering the question for a moment. Then he said, "A soul."
Michael raised his eyebrows. "Oh," he said. "You should have said that from the beginning."
And on a different note, here are my thoughts on the discussion of Saint Patrick's curse:
IMO, I think it's likely (but not a given) St Patrick's part was taking something that was already existing and channeling it in a way that did the least harm. I like the theories that the curse is actually the Fenrir mantle, which had to go somewhere, but is instead trapped in a particular blood line "until the end of days." Of course whatever mitigating circumstances there may or may not be would be presented in the worse way possible from an enemy of St Patrick's purported sponsor.
Poll