Author Topic: Harry's use of Black Magic  (Read 39681 times)

Offline morriswalters

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #135 on: February 21, 2020, 03:55:43 PM »
Indeed.. ::) No doubt as time goes on Molly will be a bit pissed about it also..  It also may account for Mab's sadistic application of sex when needed to her knight..  It was used to inflict pain on Slate, and to make Harry supposedly hers...
I have high hopes that Molly will escape from the trap she is currently in. Most likely by Mab having the good grace to take one for the team, thus getting a promotion for Molly. Of all the devices used in the book, this is the only one that offends me.

Offline didymos

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #136 on: February 21, 2020, 05:01:41 PM »
I have high hopes that Molly will escape from the trap she is currently in. Most likely by Mab having the good grace to take one for the team, thus getting a promotion for Molly. Of all the devices used in the book, this is the only one that offends me.

It's possible she could abdicate.  Mother Summer once did, according to WOJ.  Don't see why the other queens couldn't.

Offline noblehunter

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #137 on: February 21, 2020, 05:08:35 PM »
The problem with blowing up Demonreach isn't that the occupants would survive, it's that a large part of the continent would go with it.

Offline Arjan

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #138 on: February 21, 2020, 05:24:33 PM »
It's possible she could abdicate.  Mother Summer once did, according to WOJ.  Don't see why the other queens couldn't.
Difficult. Both Mab and Molly have one thing in common. A very strong sense of duty.
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Offline g33k

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #139 on: February 21, 2020, 05:41:19 PM »
... I have pointed it out before but the "revelation" about Soulfire that Harry has in Cold Days is almost exactly the same as Bob's explanation of it to him in Small Favor when he first gets it. I know Jim gets to read several different versions of each book so he forgets sometimes what he has written, and is often very busy both professionally and personally (he is only human after all) but nonetheless, it was almost a flat out error ...

Don't forget that Jim, as a working professional author, may add such repetition to aid the understanding of at new readers, who haven't been following his work for a decade or more, aren't busy on forums like this one, obsessively deconstructing the plot, the metaplot, the vocabulary, the universe, & the metaverse ...
 ;D

(which reminds me, I've gotta get my new WAGs posted soon...)

Offline morriswalters

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #140 on: February 21, 2020, 06:02:12 PM »
The problem with blowing up Demonreach isn't that the occupants would survive, it's that a large part of the continent would go with it.
You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. ;)

Offline Yuillegan

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #141 on: February 22, 2020, 05:23:08 AM »
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Not always. They're kind of sloppy with the term. Sometimes wizards aren't considered mortals and sometimes they are.
Perhaps, but really what is meant is the difference between the supernatural community and the natural one; muggles and magical worlds (to use JK Rowling's term). When they refer to Mortal Magic (such as when summoning Outsiders) there is a qualitative difference between it and vampire magic, yet also seems to be a difference between Faeries and their Monarchs, between Gods and their servants. Jim is rather loose with his terms, but that is probably because the terms are loose intrinsically, and so is their usage today. It would be more helpful if Jim had specific nouns for such things, but I imagine he didn't want the reader to need a glossary to read his book (rather like another famous author).

  Dead is dead,  there may be conditions, times, and places only that they can be killed.. But dead is dead.   That is why I mentioned that Jim seems to be going by Tolkien's rule for elves, they are immortal for the most part, but they can be killed in battle, lots of dead elves haunting the Dead Marshes for example. 

Titania wouldn't be so upset if she knew for a fact that Aurora would live again, she isn't. 

Actually, dead isn't dead - at least not in the Dresden Files anyway. We may not know about the Fae afterlife (or if they have one) but we have been repeatedly told that death is a squishy line, a spectrum of colors in the Dresden Files. Titania was upset that her daughter was gone beyond her reach. But even regular people who believe in an afterlife get upset when a loved one dies. Why should Titania be any different? Life has more meaning than the idea that we do or do not get an afterlife.

Except your Tolkien analogy is not strong enough. Tolkien's elves were eternally young, and immune to disease. But could be killed by conventional methods, such as in battle or by falling over and breaking their neck. They had a "mortal" biology. Immortals, at least in the Dresden Files, are not like that. If they can be damaged at all, they always eventually regenerate, with the will returning to the beings corporeal form. However, in the specific circumstances I have previously mentioned, the beings essence is changed. Perhaps they are absorbed, or the energy moves to another host (such as the Mantle of the Winter Lady to Molly), I suspect that couldn't have happened in almost any other circumstances. Consider the Mothers to Harry in Summer Knight:

Quote
"But think, wizard. How was it done? Theft is theft, whether the prize is food, or riches, or beauty or power."
Since it didn't seem to matter either way, I did my thinking out loud. "When something is stolen a couple of things can happen to it. It can be carried away where it cannot be reached."
"Hoarded," Summer put in. "Such as the dragons do."
"Yeah, okay. Uh, it can be destroyed."
"No, it can't," Mother Winter said. "Your own sage tells you that. The German fellow with the wild hair."
"Einstein," I muttered. "Okay, then, but it can be rendered valueless. Or it can be sold to someone else."
Mother Summer nodded. "Both of which are change. "
I held up a hand. "Hold it, hold it. Look, as I understand it, this power of the Summer Knight, his mantle, it can't just exist on its own. It has to be inside a vessel."
"Yes," Winter murmured. "Within one of the Queens, or within the Knight."

This is pretty much exactly what Bob is talking about, but on a much more significant scale. The power within Immortals can't be stolen under normal circumstances, their essences cannot be hoarded, rendered valueless, given away or absorbed. If you think of the vessel of immortality being a time-lock safe, and the power within is the valuables, it can only be opened at certain times (or in the case of immortals, certain places too).

Morris is right, don't get too hung up on the standard definition of the word immortal. Jim has reinvented the term to fit his own purposes within his universe. Go off that evidence. If you go off the standard definition, then nothing (not Uriel, not the Fallen, not even the White God) would be immortal - at least according to the series. But they are a category in the series, and therefore must be examined from that base, not from our own notions. Note what Bob actually says in this passage:

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"I know how to kill an immortal."
"Like Maeve?" I asked him.
"Maeve," Bob said. "Mab. Mother Winter. Any of them"
...
If the skull knew how to subtract the im from immortal

Any of them. Any immortal is mortal on Earth on Halloween. Uriel is in that category. Although you actually have to be able to still damage them, which might be hard enough anyway. And they still will fight back probably.

Consider this as well:
Quote
“Because there’s no reason for it,” Bob said, his tone unhappy. “I mean, when Maeve dies, there will just be another Maeve.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
Bob sighed. “You keep thinking of the Faerie Queens as specific individuals, Harry,” Bob said. “But they aren’t individuals. They’re mantles of power, roles, positions. The person in them is basically an interchangeable part.”
“What, like being the Winter Knight is?”
“Exactly like that,” Bob said. “When you killed Slate, the power, the mantle, just transferred over to you. It’s the same for the Queens of Faerie. Maeve wears the mantle of the Winter Lady. Kill her, and you’ll just get a new Winter Lady.”
“Maybe that’s what Mab wants,” I said.
“Doesn’t track,” Bob said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because the mantle changes whoever wears it.”
My guts felt suddenly cold.
(I’m not Lloyd Slate.)
(Neither was he. Not at first.)

“Doesn’t matter who it is,” Bob prattled on. “Over time, it changes them. Somewhere down the line, you wouldn’t be able to find much difference between Maeve and her successor. Meet the new Maeve. Same as the old Maeve.”
I swallowed. “So . . . so Lily, who took the Summer Lady’s mantle after I killed Aurora . . .”
“It’s been what? Ten years or so? She’s gone by now, or getting there,” Bob said. “Give it another decade or two, tops, and she might as well be Aurora.”

Just because the safe is unlocked, doesn't mean that the valuables are lost. The will that drives the mantle changes, but the mantle can be left intact.

In fact there are only a few ways we know of to truly get rid of Immortals. Banishment to oblivion, by causing humanity to forget them is one way. Absorbing them into another being and creating something else would be another.

Morris - Thank you, you understand the issue. To answer your problem, it is because they wouldn't have died, they would have reformed. They would have been released on November 1st and therefore the banefire would have only put them down for a while, not in any permanent sense. Possibly that is why Maeve was angry...it is certainly implied to some degree. But it could also be that she wanted to be the favorite. At the end of the day, she eventually gave up. Also, I think it rather defeats the purpose if you kill most of the mortals - an explosion that separated a continent might well end life on Earth. Think about what one meteor did for the dinosaurs!

Arjan - Maeve may not have been unhappy with the job originally. Consider that. Molly has only just begun her career. She might feel differently in 50 years or 100 years when all her family is dead.

g33k - I quite agree that he might have done it for that reason, but it was inelegantly done. It creates conflicts!

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Offline Arjan

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #142 on: February 22, 2020, 06:27:20 AM »
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“To fulfill one’s purpose is not to be a slave, my daughter,” Mab said.

Maeve never understood that. I think she was rebelling against her job from the beginning.
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Offline Yuillegan

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #143 on: February 22, 2020, 12:02:43 PM »
Perhaps, but it is an assumption nonetheless. We don't have anything about Maeve from that time, none of her thoughts or actions and no WOJ. So it's all just speculation.
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Offline Mira

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #144 on: February 22, 2020, 12:10:11 PM »
Maeve never understood that. I think she was rebelling against her job from the beginning.

I'd agree with that, not only that but resentment towards her sister,  while she had all the glory of her title and job, Sarissa got all the joy of living like a normal mortal woman.  What was worse, it sounds like Sarissa had a loving mother/daughter thing going with their mother..  Now the last person you'd think capable of that would be Mab, but apparently that was true as well.  So it isn't rocket science that Maeve would feel resentment, anger, then rebellion towards her mother, sister, her job, the whole Winter Court.   Like one is suseptable to illness if one's immunity is low, this long standing emotional state made Maeve very suseptable to Nemesis infection.   Once infected, she never had a chance.  If Mab feels grief and guilt over her daughter, it isn't because she didn't recognize the Knife was the source of the infection in time, it was her own actions made her daughter fatally vulnerable to it.
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Perhaps, but it is an assumption nonetheless. We don't have anything about Maeve from that time, none of her thoughts or actions and no WOJ. So it's all just speculation.

However we do have the tale that Sarissa tells of her life, her relationship with their mother and how it affected Maeve.  Maeve's story is pretty clear from that, and if we heard it from Maeve I bet it would be a lot worse.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2020, 12:14:27 PM by Mira »

Offline Yuillegan

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #145 on: February 22, 2020, 12:17:21 PM »
I think that's a fair analysis. Although I don't know it was a "loving" mother/daughter thing in a way that makes sense to us. They certainly displayed their affection differently. But they were definitely closer than Mab and Maeve were.

From the beginning is just speculation though.

Didn't Maeve also have a congenital defect, that manifested differently than Sarissa's yet was just as much a burden? I seem to remember the implication was that it contributed to her state of mind.
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Offline Mira

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #146 on: February 22, 2020, 02:31:37 PM »
I think that's a fair analysis. Although I don't know it was a "loving" mother/daughter thing in a way that makes sense to us. They certainly displayed their affection differently. But they were definitely closer than Mab and Maeve were.

From the beginning is just speculation though.

Didn't Maeve also have a congenital defect, that manifested differently than Sarissa's yet was just as much a burden? I seem to remember the implication was that it contributed to her state of mind.

I need to go back and read, but I seem to remember that bit about the defect also.  Though weren't Maeve and Sarissa twins?  However I don't remember whether or not they were identical or not.   While it may not be loving as we understand it, it doesn't mean it wasn't either.  We know the Fae are different from humans, but Mab was human once, and if the father of Maeve and Sarissa was a mortal man, they would be half human, so human emotion cannot be totally excluded either.  It is interesting that Mab would even have that kind of contact with Sarissa if she was devoid of feeling.  Actually when you think about it, we know that Mab feels and can express great anger, that is an emotion, a very human one, so why not love?   

Offline Arjan

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #147 on: February 22, 2020, 05:11:41 PM »
I need to go back and read, but I seem to remember that bit about the defect also.  Though weren't Maeve and Sarissa twins?  However I don't remember whether or not they were identical or not.   While it may not be loving as we understand it, it doesn't mean it wasn't either.  We know the Fae are different from humans, but Mab was human once, and if the father of Maeve and Sarissa was a mortal man, they would be half human, so human emotion cannot be totally excluded either.  It is interesting that Mab would even have that kind of contact with Sarissa if she was devoid of feeling.  Actually when you think about it, we know that Mab feels and can express great anger, that is an emotion, a very human one, so why not love?
All basic emotions are there, Lea describes in Changes how she felt shame that drove her to seek Mab's aid for example and Titania was very explicit about the emotions she felt when Harry summoned her.

The one emotion mortals seem to monopolize is true love. One might think that is just a nice story created so humans can feel superior in having the sole right on this superior emotion but Mab seems to agree when she thought Thomas mortal enough for knighthood because he was in love.
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Offline morriswalters

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #148 on: February 22, 2020, 06:26:44 PM »
The whole point of the show on the mountain was about Mab's love of Maeve.  She discovers she's been taken by the Adversary in PG and Becomes so angry that she can't speak without driving people mad. And in the end Mab still can't make herself do what must be done.  So she frees Murphy to kill her.  This is some of Jim's best writing.
I thought that was obvious.

But here you see the difference between Maeve and Molly.
Maeve thinks I am screwed, I get everything else screwed even more.
Molly thinks I have a duty, it is really important, get over it.
We'll see.  Molly has impulse control issues as well and has shown an unnerving tendency to value her own opinion pretty highly. In Turn Coat the only thing that kept her from running afoul of the Council was Morgan's decision not to share what he knew. That Molly had invaded Luccio's mind.

Offline Arjan

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Re: Harry's use of Black Magic
« Reply #149 on: February 22, 2020, 06:35:52 PM »
The whole point of the show on the mountain was about Mab's love of Maeve.  She discovers she's been taken by the Adversary in PG and Becomes so angry that she can't speak without driving people mad. And in the end Mab still can't make herself do what must be done.  So she frees Murphy to kill her.  This is some of Jim's best writing.We'll see.  Molly has impulse control issues as well and has shown an unnerving tendency to value her own opinion pretty highly. In Turn Coat the only thing that kept her from running afoul of the Council was Morgan's decision not to share what he knew. That Molly had invaded Luccio's mind.
Molly was quite young at that time and showed continuous improvement over time in sometimes difficult circumstances.
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