Author Topic: Bloodlines  (Read 12413 times)

Offline morriswalters

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Re: Bloodlines
« Reply #45 on: April 07, 2020, 10:48:26 PM »
Jim left Harry with a broken back.  That's a story choice meant to do exactly what it did.  Harry wasn't going to do the Darkhallow.  Harry wasn't going to take a leak without lots of help. And if you want to think that the coins can be summoned by just any old oddball then who am I to suggest otherwise.

Offline Mira

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Re: Bloodlines
« Reply #46 on: April 07, 2020, 10:48:59 PM »
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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).
 

Yeah, well, the series is about choices..  Harry had those choices and he chose to become Mab's Knight.   Maybe not the best choice for himself, but then again...

Offline Yuillegan

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Re: Bloodlines
« Reply #47 on: April 07, 2020, 11:35:57 PM »
It's a curious issue, between Choice and choice.

Bad Alias, you could well be right that the only real choices are between acting in accordance with one's true nature, and acting against it. A Choice.

On the other hand, the way Jim has spoken about it doesn't necessarily line up with that. What he has explicitly said is that for each mortal choice that is made, more universes inside a greater multiverse are created. 4

Philosophically you could argue that ALL Choices are choosing to act with or against one's nature, even if it is as mundane as which burger should I eat. But you could also argue that only during critical moments do we ever make real Choices, and everything else (the minor decisions) are all just ripples of the bigger Choice.

Curiously, the Many-Worlds Theory and others like it seem to agree that every option has an associated universe to go with it, based on probabilities. But of course as Stephen Hawking once remarked, all we are really calculating is the possibilities, not probabilities and we haven't actually measured any of these possible universes. He believed everyone had gotten carried away with the idea, and the truth was far more likely that there was only a very limited number of universes (maybe even only this one). The great thing about Hawking is he was smart enough to know how much he didn't know i.e. who was he to tell anyone what to believe?

From a purely logical point of view just based on WOJ, we can ascertain a few things.
1) Choice creates universes.
2) There is broadcast spectrum of universes in a greater multiverse (and their may be a greater multiverse above that - which Jim has hinted at but let's leave that out for the moment)
3) Therefore there have been enough mortal Choices (whether mundane or significant - acting with or against ones nature) to create an almost infinite number of universes.

This leaves some big questions.
1) What was the first universe? Was it Dresden's?
2) Before mortals were around to make Choices, and therefore more universes, how many universes were there?
3) Depending on how you look at history and what you believe, when did Harry's universe start creating more universes? Was this when mortals showed up? Is this what kicked the Old Ones out or locked them away? Is this what caused the War in Heaven and is the reason for Lucifer's argument with TWG?
4) If Angels and Old Ones existed before Time was a thing (as Jim puts it), before the all the universes then what were they all doing?(which is an oxymoron in itself - you can't exist "before" Time exactly...there would be motion if something existed and therefore Time would measure it. Although I suppose it could all just be happening at once and never fading as there might not be entropy, but what an awful existence that would be) 
5) When (if you can even bother to ask such a question before Time exists) did TWG decide to start the party?
6) Does it even matter? In fact, there is a reasonable physics argument to say that because the Angels etc existed "before" Creation, the already have seen its end because from their perspective it would have simultaneously occurred along with Creation and all that's in between. This is why perspective is God. If you have all perspectives, you have omniscience (which is to say the same thing). In order to have that you would need to be omnipresent, and in turn that would make you omnipotent. So in a sense (as sort of confirmed by Uriel) TWG is constant, and everywhere. Which makes TWG everything. Kinda a scary notion, because like a single atom making up a person, every person and every single thing would just be one small part of the greater being that would be a Creator/TWG.

Sorry for the massive tangent. But we are getting into serious metaphysics and philosophical questions here.

Also - I think Jim was saying Harry had other options just in terms of the fact he wasn't sure which way he wanted Dresden to go (Hell aligned, Necromancer, Winter). Which I think is a bit unlikely, you can tell from how he writes Mab alone that he was always setting up Dresden to be on her team. It was always going to be Winter, somehow. Which isn't to say we might not see Necromancer Dresden or Lasciel-bonded Dresden, from parallel universes. In fact I wonder if we might see one of those in Mirror Mirror?
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Offline Bad Alias

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Re: Bloodlines
« Reply #48 on: April 08, 2020, 12:42:42 AM »
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?
The only thing I can think of is that Harry did have to understand the Darkhallow to stop it. I don't know how much he had to understand. Without that, I can't say whether or not he knew enough to do it. It usually requires less information to know how to wreck something than it is to do it, so ...

As to the rest, I was just using that situation to illustrate a concept. Yes, small decisions lead to large outcomes. Small decisions could just as easily be Choices as big decisions. Moving out of the boarding house probably would have been a Choice because Harry is such a creature of habit. Staying there would be a choice because it is in accord with his nature.

@g33k: I don't think we know how Lash actually worked.

Jim left Harry with a broken back.  That's a story choice meant to do exactly what it did.  Harry wasn't going to do the Darkhallow.  Harry wasn't going to take a leak without lots of help. And if you want to think that the coins can be summoned by just any old oddball then who am I to suggest otherwise.
Yeah. I don't see how he could pull anything off other than the deal with Mab, but I'm not sure I could write a good story at all, so maybe Jim could come up with convincing scenarios for either the Darkhallow or summoning the coin.

@Yuillegan: The reason that I distinguish between Choice and choice is largely because of The Warrior short story. Read the last bit of it again if you don't recall what Uriel says about free will. Uriel strongly implies free will is seldom exercised.

Offline morriswalters

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Re: Bloodlines
« Reply #49 on: April 08, 2020, 01:41:05 AM »
The more books Jim writes the more often he is going to stumble over this.  Obviously free will and choice mean a lot to his story, but he needs  to be really vague and not commit.  More hand wavium so to speak.

Offline Yuillegan

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Re: Bloodlines
« Reply #50 on: April 08, 2020, 02:11:42 AM »
Morris - I agree. Tolkien was a master of that, as was Lovecraft. Less is more.

BA - I remember the quote. And I agree with what you're saying. But Uriel isn't Jim either. I think we can each interpret it how we feel.

My general point is it doesn't really matter to the story, overmuch. There IS a multiverse in the Dresden Files, that implies that there has been enough Choices (however you define them) to create a multiverse.
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Offline Bad Alias

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Re: Bloodlines
« Reply #51 on: April 08, 2020, 02:17:57 AM »
It would be a pretty hard turn in the narrative if Uriel was wrong or lying. Even with Choice being rare, billions of people over tens of thousands of years are going to cause a lot of branches.

Offline morriswalters

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Re: Bloodlines
« Reply #52 on: April 08, 2020, 02:31:31 AM »
I'll give you something hand wavium. There are an infinite number of Universes.  Those most important to you are the easiest ones to reach.  So all the Harry Universes are clustered together.  The Universes where Harry is less important are farther away.  The same could be true for important moments.  The point is that there is infinite room to do whatever you like.  For time travel you can go back and do whatever you like.  But it always spawns a new branch.    But you can't stay in that branch and you can't change your own.  I obviously flunked creative writing which is why Jim is published and why I will never be. :'(

Offline Yuillegan

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Re: Bloodlines
« Reply #53 on: April 08, 2020, 02:35:20 AM »
Morris, I love it. Exactly what I am getting at. Maybe not perfect - but what is? Even Jim's stuff needs work (hence our debate).

Not such a hard turn if he was wrong. I don't think he could lie, if he is lying he probably isn't actually Uriel. My god that would be a twist, if Uriel was actually Satan in disguise lol.

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Offline Mira

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Re: Bloodlines
« Reply #54 on: April 08, 2020, 03:01:04 PM »
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The only thing I can think of is that Harry did have to understand the Darkhallow to stop it. I don't know how much he had to understand. Without that, I can't say whether or not he knew enough to do it. It usually requires less information to know how to wreck something than it is to do it, so ...

  He knows how it works,  this is what he told Mavra at the end of Dead Beat

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"I've read Kemmler's book.  I know how the Darkhollow works."

If he knows how it works, if he has enough power he should be able to use it.  Since he successfully foiled Cowl's attempt, he has some idea of how to stop it also.  Then again does that apply to himself if he decided to use it?