Are there Shadows in DF, an Amber Question.

[raidem]

In Amber, there is an understanding that there is a Prime Reality (Amber) and that other worlds are shades cast from this reality.  This Amber, a place of order, and the Place of Chaos are two ends of a line segment with these shadow worlds between them.  My interest in this thread deals mainly though with the characters walking within these shadow worlds.  In Amber, the Prime residents can walk these shadow worlds, but in doing so they can leave traces of their shadow selves there.  This is a bit different than say Mirror Mirror alternates, as in Amber there is a Prime Individual that has an ability that the other shadowselves don't.  They can walk the Pattern and survive it while their shadowselves can't.

So, for Dresden Files I'm asking are there shadowselves of say Harry that is distinct from alternate Harry's.  Are there Mirror Mirrors in the Dresdenverse that are closer to Prime Reality than the Others.  Could Malcolm Dresden be a shadowself of some other being that has a Prime existence and is still living.  Or in a generic question, are there other beings that exist in which case we see a shadowself, but not the Prime self.  And again, this would be separate from alternate realities in which supposedly the entities would be equal as far as 'Primeness" goes.

In Ghost Story, we do see a hint that there exists a more Prime Reality with Uriel's office existing on a different plane that mortal Earth.  And, we see in Summer Knight that Mab and Titania can pull out a different 'reality' in OverChicago so that they can war against each other and settle differences there.

[groinkick]

It wouldn't surprise me.  Jim is also a comic book buff and they have something similar..  I think the first reality is called Earth Prime.

[Griffyn612]

My theorized interpretation of the Dresdenverse does not match this theorized interpretation.

I think there are plenty of different versions of individuals (the living person, their ascended/descended soul, their ghost, their mirrored existences) but not any that are more or less than each other.  No "Prime" version of individuals, even if there's a "Prime"/Planned Path of Events timeline that was the source of the first splinter.  That reality, in my interpretation, would be equal to all others.  TWG's Template/"Prime" universe might still be plodding along, but it'd have formed more and more splinters from itself as reality continued, even as splinters were created from other splinters.

The closest I could imagine to what you describe is a ghost of a terminated reality.  If an entire splinterverse were destroyed in a fashion that the souls of the living ascended/descended, but the planets and spirits and ghosts remained.  It'd be an entire splinterverse like Agatha Hagglethorn's ghostly Chicago from Grave Peril laid over the actual landscape of reality. 

I could then imagine a scenario where someone could learn to travel between realities, and visit that place.  But I don't see where they'd leave a shadow-self in their wake.

But that type of reality being allowed to continue to exist as-is, with the threat of the Outsiders not addressed by anyone or anything, seems unlikely.

[peregrine]

No.  Nothing whatsoever we've seen in the books suggests that any of the variant realms we see are a Shadow or Prime version instead of simply yet another alternate.

[Snark Knight]

No.  Nothing whatsoever we've seen in the books suggests that any of the variant realms we see are a Shadow or Prime version instead of simply yet another alternate.

And the description of Mirror Mirror being that branching is caused by choices suggests the branches are equivalent.

[raidem]

And this is why I'm asking if there will be something more and different than just Mirror Mirrors.

The other question is does a future timeline/reality hold Prime over the past.    I mean that future must happen so it's 'Past' happened at some point even if its 'past' gets changed. 

If we see a future Harry from a future reality, which Harry is 'more' important? Is there one that is considered more Prime than the other.  Does time traveling shenanigans start a relative Prime competition between branches and those within it and/or spawned it.

An extension of Amber to DF and it applied to Skin Game would have, in some reality, Uriel transubstantiation actually creating a shadowself that's history may diverge from the read account in DF.  In an infinite multiverse, Uriel may not have gotten his Grace back. Michael may have ended up with it, essentially becoming an Archangel himself.  And say Uriel having to take up shop as a barkeep or a mechanic.

Side note, actually that makes me wonder if Raphael is actually Harry's mechanic.

[Snark Knight]

If we see a future Harry from a future reality, which Harry is 'more' important? Is there one that is considered more Prime than the other.  Does time traveling shenanigans start a relative Prime competition between branches and those within it and/or spawned it.

I believe there was a WOJ that while some of the known continuity errors are just slip-ups, some of them are hints of something bigger going on. I tend to think of time travel shenanigans as changing small details of narrator Harry's reality rather than creating slightly different copies, though.

[groinkick]

No.  Nothing whatsoever we've seen in the books suggests that any of the variant realms we see are a Shadow or Prime version instead of simply yet another alternate.

Alternate realities are confirmed.  There has to be a prime (first reality).  It may not be important to the story, but it has to be the case.  There was a first reality.

[peregrine]

Alternate realities are confirmed.  There has to be a prime (first reality).  It may not be important to the story, but it has to be the case.  There was a first reality.

Only if the split is a divergence rather than a fork.  If a Choice can and does go each of two ways, said timelines may be equal in "realness."

[groinkick]

Only if the split is a divergence rather than a fork.  If a Choice can and does go each of two ways, said timelines may be equal in "realness."

I think they are equal realness.  I wonder how Jim's going to deal with the time travel, Choice deal.  If someone goes back in time, and makes changes wouldn't that just put them into an alternate universe?  Or does the time travel actually destroy that reality, and put in place an alternate one?

[Griffyn612]

Only if the split is a divergence rather than a fork.  If a Choice can and does go each of two ways, said timelines may be equal in "realness."

I think they are equal realness.  I wonder how Jim's going to deal with the time travel, Choice deal.  If someone goes back in time, and makes changes wouldn't that just put them into an alternate universe?  Or does the time travel actually destroy that reality, and put in place an alternate one?

I thought the implication from the WoJ was that Free Willed Decisions cause splinterverses, and the comments in the Warrior implied that Free Will is rarely applied.

If so, then it could be that there was one original reality, and a future that was expected, but a Free Willed decision caused it to splinter.  That would leave the original timeline, and add the free will result running parallel to it.

Even after a billion splinters, the original timeline should still exist.  It's probably not any more special than any of the others, save for it potentially being a happier world where better decisions led to better results.  Assuming they would.

[peregrine]

Yeah, if we assume that a Choice causes a divergence and going with the flow of Human Nature is the default solution then yeah, we can call one timeline the original and one the divergence.  But if we start talking All the Myriad Ways, then every time there is a Choice that can be made, then it both is and is not made, so it's then only a matter of perspective on which is the Prime Reality, or if there is one at all.

I also would be highly skeptical of the idea that the "Original" timeline is going to be the happier one.  What's the point of having Free Will if it will only lead to things being worse rather than better?

[raidem]

I thought the implication from the WoJ was that Free Willed Decisions cause splinterverses, and the comments in the Warrior implied that Free Will is rarely applied.

In addition to the above, Time Travel and its related paradoxes can stem from 'free willed choices' like killing ones own grandfather per Vadderung.  So in my estimation, the future timeline from which Harry came from to go into the past is primal relative to the ones you go back to in the past to participate in, as that past is in some sense Harry's future (not past).  Harry did go back into the past to kill his grandfather (fact).  So in that example I kinda see that what was once a single line between past to future, becomes a line back to the past with Harry traveling into the past but then with a single event splitting off as a fork but with even the grandfather surviving line being somewhat different than the original past to future line as in that line Harry never fought his grandfather.

This however is deviating from the OP except perhaps these time traveling 'shadows' and relative Primes may exist and are bouncing about.  I mean we could have Maggie Sr. in some alternate realities still walking about where she had made different choices than what led her to Malcolm.  It isn't just restricted to her.  Any of the time traveling agents may be creating effective 'shadows' of themselves due to them making such choices at different points in time.  And if they aren't just hopping in time, but hopping realities who knows what characters with what histories we are going to be seeing.

[Griffyn612]

Yeah, if we assume that a Choice causes a divergence and going with the flow of Human Nature is the default solution then yeah, we can call one timeline the original and one the divergence.  But if we start talking All the Myriad Ways, then every time there is a Choice that can be made, then it both is and is not made, so it's then only a matter of perspective on which is the Prime Reality, or if there is one at all.

I also would be highly skeptical of the idea that the "Original" timeline is going to be the happier one.  What's the point of having Free Will if it will only lead to things being worse rather than better?

Yeah, the original would only be "better" if it were following a Divine plan that mortals screwed up.  There might also be some that are better in some ways.  But they'd all be equal.

[raidem]

Well, I agree that we haven't seen the Shadow vs Prime dynamic play out yet.  So, it is an open question if Jim is going to adopt something similar.
Although I will say OtherChicago in GS is likely a more Prime reality than the mortal realm, but you don't exactly see mortals existing in it casting shadows of themselves onto other proximate realities as would happen in Amber.