That is what he thinks he is. But they were sure Harry was just a ghost as well, that ghosts often deluded themselves in thinking they were something else. Stuart does not want to delude himself that he is more than he is. What the story shows about people is more important than what they say about themselves.
I will agree that there certainly could be more to Sir Stuart than meets the eye, and that he could be a self-deluded shade in the
other way - convinced that he is a shade when he really is a free soul. I just don't see the evidence, though, myself.
Uriel is talking about rebuilding Stuarts spirirtual essence and Stuart is talking about his spiritual weakness. His spirit is still stronger than what most men have when they die. And it can be rebuild. But what Stuart needs to rebuild it is a soul.
I'm not quite following you there. What evidence do you have to state that Sir Stuart needs a soul in order to rebuild himself?
Throughout Ghost Story, we see that memories are what makes up a shade. Sir Stuart spends a memory to fire his pistol, and regains back part of himself when he absorbs that musket shot back. Dresden was attacked by lemurs who were gorging on his memories, and after Bob attacked them, Harry re-absorbed his memories and healed himself. But when Sir Stuart had his memories burned - fire is, after all, a cleansing force - there was nothing to re-absorb.
"Come on," I said. "Don't talk like that. We'll get you patched up."
Sir Stuart let out a small laugh. "Nay, wizard. Too much of me has been lost. I've only held together this long so that I could speak to you."
"What happened to our world being mutable in time with our expectations? Isn't that still true?"
"To a degree," Sir Stuart said affably, weakly. "I've been injured before. Small hurts are restored simply enough." He gestured at his broken body. "But this? I'll be like the others when I restore myself."
"The others?"
"The warriors who defended Mortimer's home," he said. "They faded over time. Forgetting, little by little, about their mortal lives."
The evidence is that Sir Stuart's
memories are what makes him who he is.
"Aye," Sir Stuart said. "'Tis a muzzle-loading pistol, boy. You have to reload them like a proper weapon." Idly, he reached out a hand toward the last remnants of a deceased wraith, and flickers of light and memory flowed across the intervening space and into his fingertips. When he had it all back, Sir Stuart sighed and shook his head, seeming to recover a measure of strength. "Very well, then, lad. Help me up."
As for your arguments...
I is the complete sir Stuart including his soul. His weakness is weakness of spirit.
That's certainly one interpretation... however, I think that when Sir Stuart says that he's not what he once was, he's still referring to the massive injury that he sustained. Sir Stuart might have remembered a little bit about himself by fighting again, but he's still far away from being whole. There's a gigantic difference between the cool, collected, professional Sir Stuart of the beginning of Ghost Story and the confused, somewhat vacant shell left at the end.
"There's more than enough left to rebuild on," Uriel said. "Trust me. The ruins of a spirit like Sir Stuart's
The difference between spirit and soul again but nowhere is said that the soul is not there as well, it is just not weakened. It is there to rebuild the spirit.
are more substantial than most men ever manage to dredge up. I'd be very pleased to have you
You is the essential Sir Stuart, the soul to be saved.
I don't see it. You're dividing up Uriel's speech and saying that he isn't saying what he's saying. You're claiming that Uriel is really talking about the soul and using as evidence that he's
not saying Sir Stuart
doesn't have a soul. That's like me stating that Andi is a great transgendered hero of the story, and using as evidence the fact that she never explicitly states that she
wasn't born a little boy named Andrew.
You need something more substantial than that. You can't use as evidence the fact that someone
doesn't mention something unless the fact that the information is missing is conspicuous. If 99.9% of creatures appearing to be ghosts
are simply created spirits, it doesn't cast sudden suspicion that Uriel doesn't call out the fact that Sir Stuart doesn't have a soul. Can you point to somewhere in the books that state that a spirit like Sir Stuarts'
must have a soul, or that Uriel would only work with deceased mortals and not with spirits? I mean, I can point to sections of the Christian Bible which suggest that there are spirits who DO serve God, but that's our world, not Dresden's.
Besides, you sort of sidestepped the fact that when Uriel speaks to Sir Stuart, he refers to the original in the third person. If Sir Stuart was the soul of the
real Sir Stuart, and not an impression created upon death, there would be no reason for Uriel to say "The remains of a spirit
like Sir Stuart's. Sir Stuart would be
right there, and Uriel wouldn't be talking of him in the third person. Instead, the phrasing would naturally be, "The remains of a spirit
like yours are more substantial than most men ever manage to dredge up."
I do not think Uriel has mere ghosts working for him and I do not think even Uriel can rebuild a spirit if there is no soul to work with. or would be interested in doing so.
What makes you disregard the one piece of evidence that Uriel
does have mere ghosts working for him as untrue?
Furthermore, what makes you believe that a being that can destroy solar systems without a second thought, and works for a being who is beyond time itself, cannot recreate the memories that Sir Stuart lost? What makes you so certain that a soul is necessary?
