Lara-Nemesis-Oblivion War

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Q,

I've been thinking about this and I'm having a hard time buying the effects of black magic being a form of Nemfection.

I get it that using black magic can drive someone ... off center (like the Korean kid in PG), but that could be something similar to going crazy from a syphilis infection.

We know Nemesis is an outsider with an intelligence and a purpose.  We know that Nemesis can vary the amount of control it exerts over one it has infected.  We don't know if it takes a volunteer to be an Aurora or Maeve type of infection, or if it's really more like a Cat-Sith infection, and is only masked.

We saw the Leansidhe fighting it, but we don't know how much influence it had before she realized her error and asked for help.

I'm thinking Nemesis is an infection and has a scale of control from Aurora (barely whispering in her hear), through Maeve (probably talking like Lash did), to total full on possession like Cat-sith.

I just don't see it as a general virus like Syphilis.

I dont either, I just think it is aware and watching and is ready to Pounce.  I see it as very much a targeted sort of thing and still an actual consciousness as described.  Im simply imagining a much bigger (or Deeper, per Harry in CD) sort of entity, one that is on constant watch for when a mortal practitioner abuses Reality enough to create this crack and is ready to exploit it.  There arent actually that many mortal practitioners out there on the absolute scale, too many for a council of hundreds to police world-wide, but occasionally one that has both the strength and the inclination will warp reality on it self so hard (and/or so often) that a crack forms, then gets wider and wider with use (think how ice destroys concrete) until it's enough for Nemesis to get something through and start more actively pushing (taint), and eventually enough to move from pushing to steering (Nemfection).

The big cluebat for me is the Blackstaff; If Winter's whole purpose is Anti-Outsider, its most powerful (theoretically) artifact should be similarly targeted.  Meanwhile it makes no sense to me for the true use and Power of Mother Winter's personal Artifact to be to solve a problem that s unique to mortal kind and being a moral issue is not something that would even register to a Fae. If I could find another explanation for the Blackstaff Id be all over it. 

[Rasins]

I dont either, I just think it is aware and watching and is ready to Pounce.  I see it as very much a targeted sort of thing and still an actual consciousness as described.  Im simply imagining a much bigger (or Deeper, per Harry in CD) sort of entity, one that is on constant watch for when a mortal practitioner abuses Reality enough to create this crack and is ready to exploit it.  There arent actually that many mortal practitioners out there on the absolute scale, too many for a council of hundreds to police world-wide, but occasionally one that has both the strength and the inclination will warp reality on it self so hard (and/or so often) that a crack forms, then gets wider and wider with use (think how ice destroys concrete) until it's enough for Nemesis to get something through and start more actively pushing (taint), and eventually enough to move from pushing to steering (Nemfection).

The big cluebat for me is the Blackstaff; If Winter's whole purpose is Anti-Outsider, its most powerful (theoretically) artifact should be similarly targeted.  Meanwhile it makes no sense to me for the true use and Power of Mother Winter's personal Artifact to be to solve a problem that s unique to mortal kind and being a moral issue is not something that would even register to a Fae. If I could find another explanation for the Blackstaff Id be all over it.

See, I'm seeing the Blackstaff is supposed to be in a Starborn's hands, and he's supposed to do something "black magicy" with it.  It will help him survive the spell, while at the same time eat all of the outsiders.

LIKE

Casting a Darkhallow-like spell while AT the outer gates, and using all of the lives there, including those of Winter's forces AND all the attacking outsiders, to gain the power to cut off our reality from the outside completely.  Thus sealing the gate permanently, but saving the caster.

This would balance the fairies and remove the need for defenders.

[peregrine]

Who says that's the Blackstaff's "True" use and power?

You can use a rifle to hammer in a nail, but that doesn't mean that's the true use.

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Who says that's the Blackstaff's "True" use and power?

You can use a rifle to hammer in a nail, but that doesn't mean that's the true use.

I dont think we've seen /all/ it can do persay, but the WOJ are thus far all relatively direct (if not legallese locked in) that it just does that one thing.  In light of that I expect new revelations will more be an expansion of it's current ("protective") function rather than a wholly new Power, I figure we'll find out it's an Outsider weapon that the Olympians claimed in Battle way back in the day, or that it is literally Eating Outsider Souls (per the Black Magic=Nemesis Theory), or some such that explains the insulation property but in doing so also opens more options. 

2013 Wyrdcon Q&A
The Blackstaff is not sentient per se it’s just really, really, really powerful and tapped into like some serious elemental powers in the universe.  But basically all it really is is insulation from using those powers.

(click to show/hide)

2010 Dragon*Con @ ~1:45
When Eb does his "Laying of the Cattle move" at the major battle near the end of Changes, is that a power of the blackstaff?
The Blackstaff is what keeps that kind of thing from driving him insane and turning him into a giggling villain.  Yah you don't go messing with black magic in the Dresden Files, it's very very bad for you.  At the same time, Magic is something that happens because you truly believe that when you set out to do it that you should be able to do that sort of thing.  That says a few things about Eb that really Harry hasn't run into in any other forum other than right there.  Yah Poor guy, He's got a tough job.
@4:30
Does the blackstaff have any powers that relate to the dead?
Other than making people dead?  Really, that's kind of the point [Crowd Laughs]  Really but the staff itself what it really does is it keeps Eb sane while he's doing insane things.  Lucky him, he gets to deal with a hideously guilty conscious and nightmares later, but that's better than later being like *Muahahahahahahahaha*  Which is sort of the other option if your going to go around using magic like that.

[peregrine]

Given what Mother Summer said about how Winter doesn't travel as much since she lost her walking stick, I'm thinking that it's a tool of protection/insulation, and that while it protects Eb from the consequences of murdering people, it would protect Mother Winter from the consequences of traveling to the real world.  Or the real world from the consequences.  If Mab being in Chicago for a long time drops the temperature, imagine what someone who seems to be connected to the idea of death and/or entropy would do.

[LordDresden2]

In a way that disappoints me, because it leaves all the logical holes and contradictions in place.  If Lara had been making it up, or distorting it for Thomas, some of those problems would be gone.

I don't see how. JB has thought this out and his explanation not only makes sense but is verified in the series. Lara doesn't need to create a whole mysterious ruse to control Thomas, we have seen her do it with much simpler methods, more traditional White Court methods.

The whole Oblivion War has some basic problems in the concept, at least as Thomas presents it.  For ex, all these entities the Venators are supposedly trying to remove from the world by everyone forgetting they ever existed...apparently they made contact with the world before at some point.  How did humanity find out about them in the first place?

Also, Thomas implies that all the entites in the NN are like that, he says the Venators tried to get rid of the Fae but failed because of the Brothers Grimm and the Gutenberg printing press.  I'm sorry, but that makes no sense.  I think later WoJ sort of implied that it's various Outsiders that the Venators are trying to wipe away from memory.  Well, that helps, because it narrows down the issue, and the Outsiders would be expected to follow different rules than the 'native' entities of the universe.

Meta-level, it's even worse.  Ever read The Martian Chronicles?

[ClintACK]

I can think of two ways to make the Oblivion War make sense...

1) Things have changed.

   Once upon a time, eldritch horrors could come and go and make themselves known to early man.  Something changed (perhaps the building of the Outer Gates or the rise of organized pantheons of gods who pushed out other powerful beings who might compete for worship) and now only the knowledge of free-willed humans keeps them tethered at all to our world.

or

2) First Contact is Hard.

   In Proven Guilty, Harry describes how things can cross over from the NeverNever -- either someone here calls to it (even unconsciously as it turns out) or something really, really powerful pushes it through from the other side.

   It stands to reason that something making contact from "the other side" for the first time would have to push through -- requiring a substantial amount of effort.  Perhaps it's also hard to find our world out of all of the possible worlds and the vast space of the NeverNever, so it would take an eldritch horror a long time and a lot of energy to get back here once it's been forgotten.

[LordDresden2]

I can think of two ways to make the Oblivion War make sense...

1) Things have changed.

   Once upon a time, eldritch horrors could come and go and make themselves known to early man.  Something changed (perhaps the building of the Outer Gates or the rise of organized pantheons of gods who pushed out other powerful beings who might compete for worship) and now only the knowledge of free-willed humans keeps them tethered at all to our world.

or

2) First Contact is Hard.

   In Proven Guilty, Harry describes how things can cross over from the NeverNever -- either someone here calls to it (even unconsciously as it turns out) or something really, really powerful pushes it through from the other side.

   It stands to reason that something making contact from "the other side" for the first time would have to push through -- requiring a substantial amount of effort.  Perhaps it's also hard to find our world out of all of the possible worlds and the vast space of the NeverNever, so it would take an eldritch horror a long time and a lot of energy to get back here once it's been forgotten.

Which might be true.  But that leaves the other meta-problem with the concept.  If things ever change again, whatever circumstance let them make contact returns, the nature of the Oblivion War would mean that nobody would be there to recognize them for what they are, or know why they need to be blocked!

That sort of thing is one of the reasons I've always disliked, 'belief defines reality' as a concept in fiction.  It's OK in specific cases or situations (like the DV requiring that you believe in what you're doing with magic for it to work) or a specific monster taking a shape out of someone's head (though even that has problems, it lends itself to silliness like the Sta-Puf Marshmallow Man, fine in a comedy, but when you think about it, it could just as easily work that way in a serious story because it could work that way in reality, given that concept).  When a story tries to make general reality a product of collective belief, problems immediately arise.

Even if the Oblivion War is definitely real, I still think it's likely that Thomas' understanding of it is flawed, esp. since everything he thinks he knows about it comes through Lara.  That would at least open the possibility of it making sense in the bigger picture.

[nedserD C B yrraH]

What if the only things that are subject to the Oblivion war are things of the DV. Outsiders wouldn't get elimnated but any Dark Horror dreamed up by man could thus be erased, letting the focus return the real problem. These would/could have been around as far back as man feared the dark and its unknown terrors. If it happens to be an Outsider inspired eldritch that crossed into the DV plane of the MV it simply gets shunted back, not destroyed.

[jonas]

Makes one wonder if Thomas isn't a 'traitor' because of his venatori work?

[LordDresden2]

What if the only things that are subject to the Oblivion war are things of the DV. Outsiders wouldn't get elimnated but any Dark Horror dreamed up by man could thus be erased, letting the focus return the real problem. These would/could have been around as far back as man feared the dark and its unknown terrors. If it happens to be an Outsider inspired eldritch that crossed into the DV plane of the MV it simply gets shunted back, not destroyed.

All the same logical contradictions, meta-problems, etc. are still there.

[peregrine]

Makes one wonder if Thomas isn't a 'traitor' because of his venatori work?

To whom?  The White Court?  He goes after competitors to the White Court, to reduce predator pressure on their prey.

[jonas]

To whom?  The White Court?  He goes after competitors to the White Court, to reduce predator pressure on their prey.

To those things hanging on a thread from true oblivions doorstep mostly. Things whose true forms and names are lost to time itself but whom still keep a foothold in reality by reinventing themselves. Things like white court vampires and descendants of the greek gods of love and war. that sort of broad stuff.

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To those things hanging on a thread from true oblivions doorstep mostly. Things whose true forms and names are lost to time itself but whom still keep a foothold in reality by reinventing themselves. Things like white court vampires and descendants of the greek gods of love and war. that sort of broad stuff.

And why would he have any responsibility to them that he might somehow "betray"?  He has responsibilities to Family, to Love, and to his Court.  He can be their enemy without betraying them. 

Also, fwiw, the White Court as a fundamentally Mortal (IE still have Souls and Free Will) group of "half-born" wouldnt be subject to Oblivion. 

[jonas]

And why would he have any responsibility to them that he might somehow "betray"?  He has responsibilities to Family, to Love, and to his Court.  He can be their enemy without betraying them. 

Also, fwiw, the White Court as a fundamentally Mortal (IE still have Souls and Free Will) group of "half-born" wouldnt be subject to Oblivion.

The white court are probably closer to Outsiders then even the Ramps, the ramps demon comes through and finds a place here. Wamps straddle the line with their demon stuck on the other side, if how Thomas's demon looks in soul gaze is any indication. That's the part that makes them half born, yea? Of course that takes as a given that Oblivion is just the final step of Outside.
And I'm pretty sure anything that has any 'NN' blood or whatever you'd like to call is subject to also being forgotten even if unlikely because the main proponents are mortal themselves, case in point, wizards.
Heck though, lets go one level deeper.(can't remember which is which so 'Vlad' refers to daddy, Dracula to son) Vlad 'son of the dragon/son of the devil'(Lucifer=snake=dragon without wings=fallenangel.) has a son. Now we know angels have a one choice switch, either plus or minus. I think when Drac was trying to impress his father he accidently hit a switch on his 'big jumbo jet' that he didn't know either, what it was, or what it would do. He let the creature in the mirror through, became it even. Became the opposite mirage of himself, he fell.
So the black court and the white are connected by both being part divine/angelic(/outsider?) and the black court would have more reason to call Thomas a traitor because they still see themselves as part of the same stuff.
*kid screamed in my ear the whole time I wrote that, so if it seems choppy, it was.