Drakul/Dracula- Blood of the Dragon.

[Con]

Rereading Grave Peril, at the Masquerade ball Michael Identifies/Prayer/Threats Mavra as 'Blood of the Dragon'. Significant given that in the same party we meet Ferrofax and find out about Siriothrax.

For a long time we've assumed Drakul was an Outsider. But the fact that the Black Court was made/sponsored by his son Dracula in addition to the fact that both names mean Dragon, and both were historically members of Order of the Dragon.

Seems fairly conclusive that they themselves are Dragon or Dragon related. The specific WOJ is this.

"Drakul wasn't a scion of anything! He was something entirely unhuman that got trapped in human form. Dracula was his half-human child, who naturally had enormous paternal issues, and wound up creating himself as the first Black Court Vampire in an effort to win his father's approval.
It didn't work out so well."

So entirely unhuman could mean Dragon.

Or from what we know of Outsiders at some point a lot of them were Dark Gods exiled to the Outer Gates, given how powerful Dragons are they could outrank said gods, so are therefore applicable to be cast out.

[kbrizzle]

I had made a similar guess regarding Drakul - that he is a Dragon trapped in human form, perhaps even Nfected.

[Yuillegan]

Well I think there has been a healthy amount of debate on this subject.

There isn't much new evidence or new theories I have yet seen that cast more light on this.

I would contend that not everyone, perhaps not even most, consider Drakul to be an Outsider. At least when I suggested the idea I got a fair amount of disagreement at the notion. I would say the going theory is that he is a Dragon trapped in human form.

However as I have outlined before, I myself don't think that is the case. I do think Jim is deliberately being misleading when it comes to Drakul in book, and people are reading into somethings more than they should.

I suppose in response to your theory and kbrizzle's etc. I would ask: Why do you think that a dragon would have a son that would create a Vampire Court (or join one) in order to impress it? Why would a dragon (at least in the Ferrovax sense) even care about such small things?

Ferrovax type of Dragons were semi-divine guardians of the universe. I think they have more to do with Angels and that level of things than the mortal end.

And I challenge that the WOJ you cited is fairly conclusive evidence of them being Dragon related. It is only really conclusive that Drakul isn't really human at all - despite the original canon being that he was a scion, Jim later contradicts this.

Entirely unhuman could mean anything that isn't a carbon-based life form, or anything that shares very little DNA with us. Entirely unhuman likely means a being that is well beyond the human life-form, like an Angel or God or Demon. But we have no idea.

As I have said before, I think Jim's language in that sentence gives a bit of a hint to his origins myself.

Also just to correct you, the Outsiders have never specifically been called Dark Gods. They are almost always described as alien, something completely different from anything inside reality. They are more than mere demons, their thinking is so bizarre that it is beyond comprehension. In theory. The Old Ones, who are the rulers of the Outsiders (and may be Outsiders themselves - but this is a little unclear), were trapped. A race of demon gods who once ruled reality. Indeed it seems that while their foot soldiers (the Outsiders) were banished beyond the Outer Gates, the Old Ones were trapped here. Trapped.

Who else, indeed what else, was entirely unhuman that got trapped here? Sounds like a big nasty Outsider or Old One to me.

Besides I haven't seen anything that connects Dragons in general to Outsiders, directly or otherwise. Whereas the Black Court (and all Vampires shown so far) seem to have strong links to the Outsiders, particularly the Black Court.

I would also again like to point out that Michael's exclamation "Blood of the Dragon" was more like a curse or swearing, rather than a specific statement of origin. Indeed he never uses it again. And the old french word Dragon comes from the greek word Drakon and latin Draco, meaning sea serpent and large serpent respectively. Which is why the Devil in the Bible is often called both the Dragon and the Serpent, as the original translation was the same word. And often Christians both in the past and present call any sort of non-christian, unholy being a spawn of the Devil. And the Devil has been conflated with the Serpent in the Garden of Eden and with the Great Red Dragon of Revelation.

So my money is on him being an Outsider, or the Devil himself bound in human form.

[Snark Knight]

And the Devil has been conflated with the Serpent in the Garden of Eden and with the Great Red Dragon of Revelation.
So my money is on him being an Outsider, or the Devil himself bound in human form.

The problem with a lot of the theories is his status as a freeholding lord under the Accords. I don't see how Mab would accept an Old One / ranking Outsider who's actually aligned with the forces trying to break down the Gates having a seat at her table. Maybe a 'cousin' of their same general order of primordial being, but he'd have to be pretty clearly 'not with them'.

As for Lucifer, his whole thing is kind of not accepting authority over him, so playing by someone else' accorded rules is as out for him as Mab accepting an outsider to sign on. Plus if he was on earth, the Denarians wouldn't have needed the power for the pentagrams in Small Favour to be sponsored remotely.

[Con]

I mean the Red Court and the Lords of the Outer Night, which by their vary name are Outsider related, as well as the fact that they regularly used Outsiders in battle, yet they were still in the Accords. A major nation within the Accords at that

[Bad Alias]

That the forces of Winter had a major part in exterminating.

[Con]

True. Four thousand years of existing later. Hell even the Fomor a signatories of the accords.

[Bad Alias]

Four thousand years after having a name that has the same root word as Winter's primary enemy. A few years after being explicitly in league with Outsiders.

[noblehunter]

It doesn't necessarily have the same root word in Maya or Olmec or whatever. Lords of Distant Night could be as good a translation as Outer Night.

Nor does "outer" and "outside" mean the same thing, even without the added Dresdenverse meanings.

[Yuillegan]

SK - I suppose that's true, why would Mab accept such a being on her accords? But there are a few things to consider.

1. Drakul is one of the beings who could take Mab out - in terms of pure horsepower.
2. He isn't necessarily an Outsider, he could be the Devil. Or perhaps his trapped form is something else.
3. Consider Demonreach - strong enough to trap Mab, but only within his GPS coordinates. Outside of that he knows next to nothing and can do almost nothing. Maybe Drakul too is limited in such a way.
4. Jim says the reason many beings signed the accords is that she has millions of nightmarish creatures, is most powerful in Faerie and would hardly ever battle any of her real foes alone. But consider that some of those who have signed may have not been cowed into it, but wanted in. Or perhaps it is something of a stalemate. After all - the point of the accords was to balance power in the supernatural world (or that is the current stated reason anyway)
5. Mab was much more respectful of Anduriel than Nic. Which says to me that the Accords bind the Knights of the Blackened Denarius more than their Angelic doubles partners. She quite clearly wouldn't have a chance against an Archangel unleashed, however perhaps Drakul (if he is the Devil) would be much more limited. Consider two nuclear nations capable of wiping each other out, you can't go head on unless you are crazy. You have to try much more unconventional forms of warfare.
6. There was an old theory about TWG being a rebel or even the first Outsider, and there is also an old theory about Drakul being an Outsider that rebelled. Perhaps that is why Mab accepts Drakul.

As I have said above, Lucifer might need an ally if he were limited or vulnerable. At least in the Dresdenverse, his "whole thing" is more to do with an argument with god than not accepting divine authority. And why would he not sponsor the signs remotely if on earth? Why would he show up to a literal kidnapping? Perhaps he can't even leave his domain. There are many reasons why he could be Lucifer.

Noblehunter - true enough in the real world, but in literary terms it seems like something of a hint. But time will tell on that one.

[Bad Alias]

It's hinted at in Changes and claimed in one of the Paranet Papers manuals that the Red Court vampires are only masquerading as the Lords of the Outer Night.

[g33k]

It's hinted at in Changes and claimed in one of the Paranet Papers manuals that the Red Court vampires are only masquerading as the Lords of the Outer Night ...

We don't actually know the origin of Red Court vamps (we know, in contrast, the Black Court came from a Drakul-scion's efforts to impress Daddy).

But I'm pretty sure it's confirmed that some ancient Ramp's in mesoamerica found weakened "gods" there, and managed to kill them and absorb some of their powers.  So the Ramp king and the Ramp LotON were kinda-sorta "Ramps on 'Roids."

Whether the beings whose powers they stole (and then had inside themselves) were using Outsider-Powers isn't something we know:  AFAIK, the only hints so are in the "Out" bits of the names.

Which isn't nothing!  But isn't definitive.
 

[Bad Alias]

We do know the origin of every Red Court vampire save one, and that is the Red King (both the one we don't know the origin of and the origin of all the others). We have substantial evidence of the origin of the Lords of the Outer Night title for the Red Court elite.

It's never said that they killed the old gods. It's even hinted that those old gods were freed when the Dresden killed all the RCV.

I would say the "Outer" part of it is pretty scant evidence that the original LotON are/were Outsiders/Outsider affiliates.

[Yuillegan]

^^Yep. The paranet papers imply (while leaving wiggle room for Jim) that the Lord of the Outer Night were feeding on some old dark gods, but kept them alive and weakened, and by feeding on them boosted their powers considerably. However when the Red Court was destroyed it appears they may be rising again.

No, it is true we don't really know the origins of any but the Black Court. But they all appear linked by something - despite very different physiological, magical and social characteristics. There is an implied shared origin or link, something that links them closer than to other demons or other supernatural types. Hence why they are all part of the Vampire Courts. The current leading WAG is that they all are related to Outsiders or perhaps Drakul in some way, as he is the only known being to be linked to the creation of a Vampire Court.

[Bad Alias]

And there is enough contradictory material to argue that we don't know the origin of the Black Court. What's said in the books conflicts with some of the WoJ about it. See generally https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WordOfGod. I generally take WoJ at face value, though.