Bloodlines

[Bad Alias]

A bootstrap paradox is simply broken cause and effect.

Just putting a name to that specific "breaking" of cause and effect. Aren't all time travel paradoxes breaking cause and effect in some way? I'm not coming up with any off the top of my head that don't.

@Yuillegan: No apologies necessary. I find the biggest flaw with most time travel stories is that they don't follow their own rules. Honestly, some of the best ones are the best in part because they only break their own rules once or twice.

Jim has repeatedly said all humans can do some magic. It's more the origins of the ability to sense magic or have lots of innate ability that I think is the mystery.

And Jim then tells you that he is going to explore one of those branches in Mirror Mirror.

That branch exists because of Choice, not time travel. Which really irks me because it means that every time Choice is exercised, it also isn't exercised.

The Gates could just as easily affect aging as they could time, which is just a slight tweak to your theory.

I do think Jim had a really good idea for a primary rule for time travel in his series. The Law of Conservation of Time. That rule allows for flexibility in going back in time, doing things that would drastically change things under most time travel rules, but don't in the Dresden Files because there is a fundamental rule of the universe that it's hard to change something that has already happened. A similar thing was done in Farscape where past events only had to be "close enough" to not affect the broader timeline.

[morriswalters]

A split is a split.  How would Jim explain the difference?

I do think Jim had a really good idea for a primary rule for time travel in his series. The Law of Conservation of Time. That rule allows for flexibility in going back in time, doing things that would drastically change things under most time travel rules, but don't in the Dresden Files because there is a fundamental rule of the universe that it's hard to change something that has already happened. A similar thing was done in Farscape where past events only had to be "close enough" to not affect the broader timeline.

All well and good until you consider what Harry will be trying to do by time traveling. It comes down to he going to try and save the world.  Am I missing something?  The Chronicles of St. Mary's has a pretty nifty plot point to take care of it.  Monkey with causality and the Universe kills you.

[Bad Alias]

A split is a split.  How would Jim explain the difference?

A time travel split could eventually merge back into the original time line, but, narratively, that rule would be difficult to work into a story with a satisfying payoff. Also, why not have multiple things that result in a thing? Time travel, Choice, quantum mechanics. Why only have one cause of multiple universes?

Honestly, it's just another reason for me to not like the set up to Mirror, Mirror. There are better ways to explain alternate universes. It's a little harder to do it in a universe with free will, but I'm sure Jim could pull it off.

All well and good until you consider what Harry will be trying to do by time traveling. It comes down to he going to try and save the world.  Am I missing something?

Harry can change the one thing without undoing everything because it takes focus to change that one thing. A story centered around a McGuffin, the change to the timeline, can be action packed and entertaining. It could be some simple thing that Harry realizes he will need that got burned up in his apartment. A "if we only had a wheelbarrow, that would be something" situation.

[morriswalters]

There are a limited number of story reasons to go back.  At 68 I'll never know.  So I've picked mine.  It fits the facts as we know them.  It doesn't offend my sense of physics too badly.  And I can back fill with my imagination.  It's stupid but it's a place to hang my hat.  Here's to Peace Talks.

Toodles

[Bad Alias]

Toodles

[Yuillegan]

BA - I guess all rules are made to be broken, to a point. I guess we will see how well Jim handles it. Some will hate it, some won't care, some will love it. Nature of the business.

I am aware that all humans have the potential to do magic, and I think it is a reasonable guess to assume it is to do with having a soul. But the origins of why and how are interesting to me, and I hope that Jim explores that more thoroughly. And yes, why some have greater talent/poential is also an interesting avenue.

An interesting thing is the way it has been discussed, people have always assumed that when a Choice is presented there are only two options (and therefore only two Universes created) per Choice. But what if each Choice has multiple options? That would astronomically increase the size of the prize, and indeed the problem.

Morris - I do hope you are able to see the end. For what its worth, whatever your personal circumstances, I have heard Jim say that he has given ARC's to people who are in the Armed Forces and who are sick in hospital etc. He might even tell you some extra details, if you reach out. Just my opinion though.

[didymos]

I am aware that all humans have the potential to do magic, and I think it is a reasonable guess to assume it is to do with having a soul.

Faeries have magic and they don't have souls.

[Bad Alias]

An interesting thing is the way it has been discussed, people have always assumed that when a Choice is presented there are only two options (and therefore only two Universes created) per Choice. But what if each Choice has multiple options?

My interpretation: A Choice is acting against one's nature. Therefore the options are exercise Free Will or don't. When a Choice is made, it is a specific action. The alternative isn't all possible Choices but whatever action a (perfect) deterministic model of the universe would have predicted. While someone could Choose many different paths, they only Chose one that they did. The other timeline isn't a different Choice. It's a lack of Choice.

I'd much prefer a system in which every splinter was a different Choice and none of them were the lack of Choice.

[morriswalters]

My personal problem is age.  That and Jim's desire to write 24, or given the latest, more books.  That is the arrow of time for ya.

@Bad Alias
The is no such thing as not making a choice.  The very act of not doing anything is itself a choice.

@Yuillegan
This is the Dresdenverse, only Harry matters.  If you believe in the multiverse then the idea of an infinite number of universes shouldn't be all that strange to you.  After Heinlein wrote Methuselah's Children he wrote of a universe where everything ever thought of was real and existed somewhere.  There is a car named Gay Deceiver, which has a door which  opens in to OZ. Almost every character Heinlein created is in that book.

[Bad Alias]

@Bad Alias
The is no such thing as not making a choice.  The very act of not doing anything is itself a choice.

There's a reason I chose to capitalize Choice and Free Will. I'm not talking about a choice but a Choice. An act against one's nature. One could Choose not to act, or one could not act because that is one's nature. One is an exercise of free will and the other isn't. An act of free will is a Choice. Everything else is not.

you'd be shocked how seldom people truly choose to exercise their will within their lives.

Uriel in The Warrior responding to Dresden's statement that what Uriel was saying "smelled" a lot like predestination.

[morriswalters]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you.  So if your nature is to be a good guy then the only way to make a Choice is to make an evil choice?

[g33k]

There's a reason I chose to capitalize Choice and Free Will. I'm not talking about a choice but a Choice. An act against one's nature. One could Choose not to act, or one could not act because that is one's nature. One is an exercise of free will and the other isn't. An act of free will is a Choice. Everything else is not...

Hmm.
This is an interesting tangent!

Let's take another of Harry's choice points.  He's laying in St. Mary's with a broken back, and little Maggie is going to be sacrificed soon.

So he chooses to summon Mab, and make a deal for the WK Mantle and enough power to rescue his daughter.

He could have chosen to summon Lasciel's coin.

I don't THINK he was able to do a Darkhallow -- he didn't have enough Death on-hand, enough uneasy Spirits to consume, etc.  But maybe I'm wrong; whatever...

He certainly had at least two sources of Power he could call upon.

Was that a Choice that he made?  Mab vs. Lasciel?

Or was it simply his Nature?  His daughter needed to be rescued, and nobody else would do it, so he HAD to do it -- he had no choice (or rather, if he had chosen to let events happen to her without him, THAT would have been Free Will:  not a choice but a Choice)?

Interesting analysis...  Very thought-provoking!

[Bad Alias]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you.  So if your nature is to be a good guy then the only way to make a Choice is to make an evil choice?

That's a bit simplistic, but yes (in the Dresden Files, whether or not free will and choice actually exist in the real world is a debate I don't care to get into because I don't see any point to me doing it). I think g33k's example would be better to zero in on they dynamics as I understand them.

Let's say Harry's nature is to save his little girl no matter what the cost. That's basically how Jim describes the story, so I think that's accurate, but let's just agree to it for the sake of argument. Once Harry's back is broken, he has options for obtaining power. Therefore his nature compels him to exercise one of those options. We could further say that Harry's nature compels him to exercise the least evil option. Harry thinks that's Mab. I think he was right. Assuming all that, Harry would have to Choose to use the Dark Hallow, summon the coin, or do nothing.

He could have chosen to summon Lasciel's coin.

I don't THINK he was able to do a Darkhallow -- he didn't have enough Death on-hand, enough uneasy Spirits to consume, etc.  But maybe I'm wrong; whatever...

I'm not sure about either of those. Lash never showed Harry how to summon the coin. IIRC, Harry thought it would have been impossible. Maybe simply knowing it wasn't was enough for him to figure it out. I don't know. I'm skeptical as to whether or not Harry knows how to do the Dark Hallow at all. When talking about Harry's options in Changes Jim said he knew how because he looked flipped through the Word of Kemmler with his Sight open. I think it was in response to a question about whether or not he was bluffing Mab on having other options. But we know Jim is wrong. Harry used Lash.

But if Harry does know how to do a Dark Hallow, then he probably wouldn't have needed the same amount of power to assault the Red Court as the Kemmlerites would have needed to become a god. Basically, I'm suggesting he could have performed a mini-Dark Hallow.

[morriswalters]

To begin with Lash knew the ritual for the Darkhallow, not Harry.  Sans Lash, why would you assume that Harry could do it, not withstanding the broken back, which would seem to be a major impediment? In a similar vein, the coin could be summoned because the Shadow knew how to do it, lacking the Shadow why do you think that Harry could summon it?  At that moment Harry had one choice, the Knight's mantle.  There is no other effective choice. 

The choices that led to his breaking his back would have been the salient ones.  Uriel told him as much.  The tendency is to believe we come to a point when a great choice stands before us.  Which is wish fulfillment, nothing more. That final choice is the sum of many other choices that it took to get to that moment.  Trying to save the other people in the boarding house would be the choice in line with his personality. He could have chose to watch them burn.  Or long before that he could have chose to not to live so close to people that he would have to make the choice to save them or not. Remember the Wizard's Tower?

[g33k]

To begin with Lash knew the ritual for the Darkhallow, not Harry.  Sans Lash, why would you assume that Harry could do it, not withstanding the broken back, which would seem to be a major impediment? In a similar vein, the coin could be summoned because the Shadow knew how to do it, lacking the Shadow why do you think that Harry could summon it?
...

In the final analysis -- because Jim could write it that way, if he had wanted to.  For Doylist reasons, this is sufficient unto itself!  ;-)

But there are solid Watsonian lines of argument, too...

Grevane, IIRC, just skimmed the Word, and reported the Darkhallow as remarkably simple.  Harry (not Lash) summoned Sue, so Harry may not even have needed Lash's memories to reconstruct such a "remarkably simple" process -- particularly since Harry seems to be "a natural" with Necromancy!

The canonical truth is:  Lasciel, the Fallen Angel, made a great big STOMP onto Harry's mind.  She filled it with her Shadow, and imbued that Shadow with a bunch of knowledge (Etruscan/Whamp & Sumerian/Ghoul languages (and likely others, at a guess), various kinds of magic, the fact (and implications) of Harry's Starborn-ness, etc etc etc), and at least a couple of mental quirks:  a "photographic memory," and some musical techniques.  Potentially, a bunch of other stuff Jim may have considered (but decided not to whip out of that particular diabolus ex machina).

It is equally canonical that -- once enSTOMPed -- this was all IN HARRY'S MIND, not any separate outside source.  Lasciel seemed to have put up some barriers, so the Shadow would be Harry's "gatekeeper" to dole out goodies, to tempt with Easy Solutions, etc etc etc.  But the Shadow itself got tempted, instead... Lash seems to have abandoned all that barrier-to-knowlege.

We know Lash left Harry some music.

We know she did NOT leave him with the exotic languages.

We know Lash left Harry with a Li'l Surprise (or maybe became that Surprise?)

In principle, Lash could have left Harry with some/all of the Word of Kemmler, or just the Darkhallow.  She could also have left Harry with instructions on Coin-summoning (it's ALSO apparently pretty easy (I guess Jim thinks "Cheap Cosmic Power" is typically made pretty easy by the Bad Guys).