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The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: Yuillegan on July 20, 2020, 02:10:13 AM

Title: Is Butcher changing the rules?
Post by: Yuillegan on July 20, 2020, 02:10:13 AM
So way back when we learn there are three types of beings:
1. The purely spiritual (demons)
2. The purely physical (Vampires)
3. The combined sort - Archangels, Loup-Garou etc.

What is interesting is that this hardly covers beings who exist in both worlds (like Faeries) or the fact that nearly every being has some sort of spiritual presence. In fact, I can't think of one being that hasn't so far.

The way Harry describes the third group is beings of significant weight, they can manifest real (not merely ectoplasmic) bodies.

So previously, Outsiders and Angels were in group three.

Yet in Peace Talks, he basically describes Outsiders as creating ectoplasmic bodies which is what makes them hard to come at. Yet that didn't seem an issue with Demons in previous books. More than that, when has any Outsider in the series turned to ectoplasm upon death?

Angels, on the other hand, seem almost purely spiritual. Only Uriel has actually seemed physical. The Denarian Fallen even only ever manifest through their hosts.

Naagloshii seem in category 3, as does beings like Ethniu. Ghosts etc seem group 1. Mab should be group 3, along with the rest of Faerie but it isn't clear why their bodies don't disappear on death. This is one of those bigger mysteries that Jim seems intent not answering (as someone asked for clarification on this and got none).

Mortals, Bigfoots, Vampires etc should be in group 2. White and Black leave corpses, but Reds I believe melt somewhat. Svartalves do leave corpses (hence Austri).

So which rules do these beings subscribe to and why suddenly do some beings seem inconsistent?
Title: Re: Is Butcher changing the rules?
Post by: vultur on July 20, 2020, 04:31:39 AM
The reference to three types of beings in FM may be from before the series' metaphysics was fully developed.

But even so, that was specifically a reference to how to make magic circles - it might not necessarily correlate perfectly to other things, like ectoplasm forms vs. physical bodies.

Quote from: Yuillegan on July 20, 2020, 02:10:13 AM
Yet in Peace Talks, he basically describes Outsiders as creating ectoplasmic bodies which is what makes them hard to come at. Yet that didn't seem an issue with Demons in previous books. More than that, when has any Outsider in the series turned to ectoplasm upon death?

Well, HWWBehind in BR possessed a human body, so no ectoplasm would be involved. In GS, the flashback to Harry's first encounter with HWWBehind, there was a huge fiery gas-station explosion, so probably the question didn't arise. HWWBefore in CD turns into this weird flying cloth ball thing; I am not sure if he was possessing a human body, or if he wasn't really killed but just weakened, or what.

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Angels, on the other hand, seem almost purely spiritual. Only Uriel has actually seemed physical. The Denarian Fallen even only ever manifest through their hosts.

Yeah, DV angels are all-soul and use Soulfire. Uriel in SG was a very unusual special case; while physical, he really wasn't an angel then (temporarily). The Fallen who empower the Denarians are trapped in Coins and work through their hosts.

*except when they "break the rules" and reach out as Lasciel did to Harry; but even that was just a brief communication.

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Mab should be group 3, along with the rest of Faerie but it isn't clear why their bodies don't disappear on death.

Well, many of the fae, maybe most, are former changelings, half-human. So IMO it's not really surprising that there is some "real material body" left behind, not just ectoplasm.

Similarly for the Red Court Vampires - they are made out of humans, and leave physical remains behind for Butters to inspect...
Title: Re: Is Butcher changing the rules?
Post by: Bad Alias on July 21, 2020, 02:44:16 AM
Quote from: vultur on July 20, 2020, 04:31:39 AM
The reference to three types of beings in FM may be from before the series' metaphysics was fully developed.
This has my vote. Harry talks about the greater circle being able to contain an angel (maybe even an archangel, I don't have my book on hand) and demon lords. I think Jim's moved away from just about everything in those statements. I don't think a wizard has a chance of binding an angel in any kind of circle.

So to answer your question, imo, Butcher isn't changing the rules; he changed them a long time ago.
Title: Re: Is Butcher changing the rules?
Post by: Snark Knight on July 21, 2020, 04:48:30 AM
Quote from: Yuillegan on July 20, 2020, 02:10:13 AM
So way back when we learn there are three types of beings:
1. The purely spiritual (demons)
2. The purely physical (Vampires)
3. The combined sort - Archangels, Loup-Garou etc.

What is interesting is that this hardly covers beings who exist in both worlds (like Faeries) or the fact that nearly every being has some sort of spiritual presence. In fact, I can't think of one being that hasn't so far.

The way Harry describes the third group is beings of significant weight, they can manifest real (not merely ectoplasmic) bodies.

So previously, Outsiders and Angels were in group three.

Yet in Peace Talks, he basically describes Outsiders as creating ectoplasmic bodies which is what makes them hard to come at. Yet that didn't seem an issue with Demons in previous books. More than that, when has any Outsider in the series turned to ectoplasm upon death?

Angels, on the other hand, seem almost purely spiritual. Only Uriel has actually seemed physical. The Denarian Fallen even only ever manifest through their hosts.

Naagloshii seem in category 3, as does beings like Ethniu. Ghosts etc seem group 1. Mab should be group 3, along with the rest of Faerie but it isn't clear why their bodies don't disappear on death. This is one of those bigger mysteries that Jim seems intent not answering (as someone asked for clarification on this and got none).

Mortals, Bigfoots, Vampires etc should be in group 2. White and Black leave corpses, but Reds I believe melt somewhat. Svartalves do leave corpses (hence Austri).

So which rules do these beings subscribe to and why suddenly do some beings seem inconsistent?

I'm going with Harry is an unreliable narrator and was just wrong about a lot in FM.
Title: Re: Is Butcher changing the rules?
Post by: Arjan on July 21, 2020, 05:27:50 AM
Quote from: Bad Alias on July 21, 2020, 02:44:16 AM
This has my vote. Harry talks about the greater circle being able to contain an angel (maybe even an archangel, I don't have my book on hand) and demon lords. I think Jim's moved away from just about everything in those statements. I don't think a wizard has a chance of binding an angel in any kind of circle.

So to answer your question, imo, Butcher isn't changing the rules; he changed them a long time ago.
In changes Harry used a circle in his head for Uriel. Uriel was just too powerful for that especially in the state Harry was in but I see no reason why a stronger Harry could not hold a lesser angel.
Title: Re: Is Butcher changing the rules?
Post by: Yuillegan on July 21, 2020, 05:55:17 AM
I agree, and am not really questioning the stuff about Angels as much. It was more to illustrate the point.

It has been long discussed that in the earlier books Jim hadn't established the rules as clearly and did some soft retconning.

But the Outsider stuff is new. He Who Walks Before didn't change into ectoplasm on death, neither did Behind. I cannot recall one instance of an Outsider turning into ectoplasm.

I suspect Jim has lots of ideas both new and old) and has crossed some in his head. He has been writing this series for two decades now and has had a large break between this book and the last. Perhaps some things have gotten confused. I would like some explanation on why, and some rectifying of this apparent inconsistency.
Title: Re: Is Butcher changing the rules?
Post by: vultur on July 21, 2020, 06:25:36 AM
Quote from: Yuillegan on July 21, 2020, 05:55:17 AM
But the Outsider stuff is new. He Who Walks Before didn't change into ectoplasm on death, neither did Behind. I cannot recall one instance of an Outsider turning into ectoplasm.

I think they were present in a different way. HWWBehind in BR definitely possessed a human. So no ectoplasm involved. We don't see how HWWBefore is summoned in but IMO it's probably similar.

And these are heavyweight Outsiders, not just some minions summoned and bound into ectoplasmic bodies. It may be like the difference between Lasciel or Anduriel, and a "thug" demon like Kalshazzak (Victor Sells' demon) or Azorthragal (Kravos' demon).
Title: Re: Is Butcher changing the rules?
Post by: Yuillegan on July 21, 2020, 07:19:38 AM
Good point, they are higher tier entities. Different rules apply. Yet still not Old Ones...I wonder how that will work

But none of the lower level Outsider monsters have turned into ectoplasm upon destruction afaik.

Title: Re: Is Butcher changing the rules?
Post by: Bad Alias on July 21, 2020, 06:14:25 PM
Quote from: Yuillegan on July 21, 2020, 05:55:17 AM
But the Outsider stuff is new. He Who Walks Before didn't change into ectoplasm on death, neither did Behind. I cannot recall one instance of an Outsider turning into ectoplasm.
Excluding the Walkers, have actually seen an Outsider "die" in the novels like we have with creatures purely from the Nevernever? Because that might make the Outsiders more consistent with the description of circles in FM because of their varying weight classes or other reasons as vultur points out.

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Is Butcher changing the rules?
Post by: The_Sibelis on July 26, 2020, 12:13:18 PM
This, is a complicated topic, so excuse me for thinking out loud a bit.. outsiders likely have different varieties and levels just like fae and other supernatural creatures. The Sidhe who are basically humans subsumed by mantles seem to be those who possess physical bodies upon death, but those same Sidhe also seem perfectly effected by a good ole magic circle without the extras. EK is a perfect example of this. He has by Woj the same level of mortality/power level as Santa, whom we know is just mantle. But then we have creatures like the fetches who clearly have no underlying body left when killed... But THEN we have the spiders from TC who do have physical bodies...I actually think the fetches were a special case, being older and more raw then your typical fae.
Angels I think come in two forms, the standard, incorporeal ones. Who I surmise are basically those who've died and found a spot in the heavenly order of things, and Archangels, who died but somehow did not stay dead, being possessed of both a human and an ethereal Grace, like Uriel(this is my line of reasoning on TWG>Jesus<Uriel btw). The Fallen are not Archangels, though perhaps they used to be, Lasciels "nearest to true form" being a Greek woman, Implies that before the fall that was whom she was underneath. Exactly what changed, I'm not sure. But by the same token,(hehe) the fallen now only act through the human host, this somehow Implies to me they are not complete without them. Lucifer I feel sure has a body underneath.. note, that Uriel (or maybe confabulating it with Woj) says they have precisely one choice, and going against cosmic law would make them fall, but they could still do it, Where as Lasciel seems to think they have no choice, she cannot on her own rise, and Lash only did so by, coopting human willpower..

Random tangent, if almost all supernatural creatures, residents of the NN and beyond, are considered on the scale of ghostly beings, then like ghosts, they are not supposed to interact with the natural world without it corrupting them. An I think we've seen that those who do all manage to do so by coopting human/ or at least mortal, will somewhere along the line.

Outsiders are simply the final layer, those things that are not only dead and gone, but forgotten to the point of non existence which they have somehow embraced as a crooked form of existence. Ghosts/zombies are reanimated by filling the impression they left behind, I think, as per Leah in GS, the universe has an impression of them left over echoing through existence that they are trying to fill, this is why Sharkface is described as not bigger than Mab metaphysically speaking, but infinitely deeper. He's so much older it's like comparing Sue to a basic old zombie.(although a zombie to an older zombie may be more appropriate) The impression is still the same size, it's just much deeper and ergo able to be filled with more, eventually.
So your typical outsider has no body, but Walkers I think were on par with Archangels, they used to have it and they want it back.(also outsiders need a human to give them the ability to be here, coopting again..) old Woj someone asked if Sharkface was what was left of Vittorio's body but Jim said he'd wished he'd thought of that. But that implies more human will to exist and take action. I think Walkers are looking for a living host that can bear them, someone they can Ride like the fallen do... And I think those who can do so might happen to be starborn.. at which point, walkers become Riders... I am momentarily spent of thoughts on the subject lol
Short answer, no. we just don't actually understand the rules well enough yet.
Title: Re: Is Butcher changing the rules?
Post by: vultur on July 27, 2020, 01:30:13 AM
Quote from: The_Sibelis on July 26, 2020, 12:13:18 PM
This, is a complicated topic, so excuse me for thinking out loud a bit.. outsiders likely have different varieties and levels just like fae and other supernatural creatures.

Probably.

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The Fallen are not Archangels, though perhaps they used to be,

Lucifer was an Archangel (and arguably is now a Fallen Archangel). The other Fallen were not.

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note, that Uriel (or maybe confabulating it with Woj) says they have precisely one choice, and going against cosmic law would make them fall, but they could still do it, Where as Lasciel seems to think they have no choice, she cannot on her own rise, and Lash only did so by, coopting human willpower..

That's the deal with the "one choice". Lasciel (not Lash) already made her Choice and can't really go back on it now.

But I'm not really sure how this works in the Dresdenverse. It seems pretty clear from SG that Uriel *could* still Fall. The traditional understanding in Christianity is that the angels by now (well, to the degree that we can apply the word "now" to beings that are at least somewhat eternal) have all made their final choice one way or the other.

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I think Walkers are looking for a living host that can bear them, someone they can Ride like the fallen do...

Well certainly HWWBehind manifested through a human host in BR. So they can do that. But they might have other options too.

I think the Walkers are kind of the chief agents of the Outside in attacking the mortal world -- Lash in WN refers to HWWBehind as "a powerful knight". HWWBehind seems to be a super-assassin and HWWBefore a war captain.
Title: Re: Is Butcher changing the rules?
Post by: huangjimmy108 on July 27, 2020, 03:02:36 AM
Quote from: Yuillegan on July 20, 2020, 02:10:13 AM
So way back when we learn there are three types of beings:
1. The purely spiritual (demons)
2. The purely physical (Vampires)
3. The combined sort - Archangels, Loup-Garou etc.

What is interesting is that this hardly covers beings who exist in both worlds (like Faeries) or the fact that nearly every being has some sort of spiritual presence. In fact, I can't think of one being that hasn't so far.

The way Harry describes the third group is beings of significant weight, they can manifest real (not merely ectoplasmic) bodies.

So previously, Outsiders and Angels were in group three.

Yet in Peace Talks, he basically describes Outsiders as creating ectoplasmic bodies which is what makes them hard to come at. Yet that didn't seem an issue with Demons in previous books. More than that, when has any Outsider in the series turned to ectoplasm upon death?

Angels, on the other hand, seem almost purely spiritual. Only Uriel has actually seemed physical. The Denarian Fallen even only ever manifest through their hosts.

Naagloshii seem in category 3, as does beings like Ethniu. Ghosts etc seem group 1. Mab should be group 3, along with the rest of Faerie but it isn't clear why their bodies don't disappear on death. This is one of those bigger mysteries that Jim seems intent not answering (as someone asked for clarification on this and got none).

Mortals, Bigfoots, Vampires etc should be in group 2. White and Black leave corpses, but Reds I believe melt somewhat. Svartalves do leave corpses (hence Austri).

So which rules do these beings subscribe to and why suddenly do some beings seem inconsistent?

Since book 10, it is already been shown that faeries are rather special. Those grufs leave corpses. So we can say that FM harry just gave generalize explanations and there are grey areas which Harry himself does not understand at the time or he just gloss over during the explanation. But this should not surprise us, the faerie realm, as the closest nevernever realm to the mortal world, are probably groups of supernatural being most compatible with the mortal world while still being part of the NN itself.

The spartalf and the Grendelkin aka the giant race like river shoulders seem to me to be a native of the mortal world similar to vanilla humans and wizardkind. They probably not part of the NN at all. So I do not think they fall to the 3 groups Harry explain during book 2. He was talking about spiritual being from the NN after all, not the native supernatual creatures of the material realm.

With the exception of the black court: Vampires, changelings and halflings are in the same group, which again not part of the 3 groups in my opinion. They are transformed humans or offspring of human and NN beings. Whampires can cross a circle for example, even though they have a demon inside. Rampires probably can't cross a circle if they go full vamp, but a rampire who has not killed before, like Susan for example, can cross a circle. BC vamps are practically zombies, so they fall into the 2nd group mentioned in FM.

The Denarians are another special case. The fact that 3 holy swords are specifically there to counter them show that the Denarians does not fall into the normal group. They are rule violators aka cheaters, and thus they have extra advantages. Skinwalkers like the Nagloshi and Goodman grey are most likely rule violators as well. They are being who due to some reason find a way to cheat the rules of the world. Even so they have to pay a price. Denarians are balanced by the KoTC. The Nagloshi cannot leave his natural habitat for long and Goodman grey has to pay rent. Also rule enforcers like Angels don't like them.

And then we have mantle holders like Mab, Molly, Vadderung and Harry for example. They also operate under different rules and has their own kind of restrictions.
Outsiders probably works under another set of rules. The fact that they can only be summon by a mortal wizard is already a restriction in itself. A restriction not suffered by your average demon from the NN. Book 8 show us that fobofages can be sent from the NN to the material plain and I believe that normal demons from the NN can be sent as well. Outsiders can't do this. They have to be summoned, by a wizard, which meant that non wizard but native magic users for example the spartalfs and the grendelkind cannot summon outsiders but they can summon demons.

So in conclusion, the rules does not change. It is just Harry is an unreliable narator. However JB did leave clues here and there throughout the series.
Title: Re: Is Butcher changing the rules?
Post by: vultur on July 27, 2020, 04:17:47 AM
I think the actual categories are:
- Beings with mortal free will, with or without magical powers or the presence of another sort of spirit (normal mortals; wizards and other mortal magic practitioners; Knights of the Cross, Faerie Knights, Denarians [at least those not totally taken over like Ursiel/Magog], etc.;  White Court Vampires; and before Changes, "half-turned" Red Court like Susan).

Magic circles of the usual sort don't work; thresholds can suppress the supernatural powers of these beings (e.g. Harry's magic or Thomas' wizard powers) but not stop the being from entering.

- Beings without mortal free will (most faeries, non-Fallen demons like Kalshazzak and Azorthragal, spirits like Bob, Red and Black Court Vampires, zombies and specters, etc.).

Magic circles block these beings; so do thresholds, unless they are strong enough to break through by force directly (like Kalshazzak against Harry's weak threshold in SF).

- Beings that don't fit neatly into either of those categories. Loup-garou have mortal free will, but not when they're actually wolfed-out. Angels/Archangels/Fallen don't have mortal free will, but they have some kind of Choice. Molly is a normal mortal wizard (not a changeling) with a Fae Mantle -- in PT she says she could technically go through a circle but it would fundamentally affect her so she won't try.

Quote from: huangjimmy108 on July 27, 2020, 03:02:36 AM
Since book 10, it is already been shown that faeries are rather special. Those grufs leave corpses.

I think most faeries do - at least the ones that are basically human-like that started out as changelings (trolls, nixies, gruffs, redcaps etc.) The Red Court Vampires also left corpses (that Butters autopsied), and they started out as humans. I think everything that starts as human or basically human (most faeries, the Vampire Courts, Denarians, loup-garou and hexenwolves, etc.) leaves a corpse.

The fetches are probably something special - my WAG is that they are halfway between regular faeries and full-on spirits like Bob (who used to hang out with the Winter Court, after all).

Not sure about the totally nonhumanoid fae which seem unlikely to derive from changelings - the giant bees in SK, shellycobbs in "Something Borrowed", giant spiders in TC, etc.

There might also be a separate path of development/promotion to Sidhe from Little Folk, with no changelings or humans involved.