Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"

[Bad Alias]

@Mira: Marcone is a neutral party under the Accords, just like a dozen others. Regarding neutrality, not specific power sets and personal histories, how are they different? Are they all physically incapable of acting in a non-neutral way? You are completely missing the point if you are not ignoring it. How does being a neutral party under the Accords mean that the Archive is "bound by neutrality" but doesn't mean that Marcone and the dozen others are not?

Ivy lies. It doesn't matter what she says about herself because she lies about it. Jim said so. She's maintaining a pretense. It is a false pretense.

All that other stuff she says the Archive is for? Smoke and mirrors.

Kincaid, by the way, has no idea that the Oblivion War exists. It isn’t like Ivy explains this stuff.

Jim Butcher, https://wordof.jim-butcher.com/index.php/word-of-jim-woj-compilation/woj-on-harrys-mortal-allies/. Why should we trust what Ivy says about the thing Jim says Ivy is lying about?

Why hadn't Harry gone to Marcone already? Why was he going to go to the green book first? Because he hadn't figure it out on his own. Why did Harry go to Marcone? It's not because he figured it out on his own.

[1]Just for the record, Mab ended the Reds, not Ivy. You don't think it was an accident that Lea was at Harry's, at that moment of time? ... [2]But Ivy didn't tell Harry anything that he couldn't have known, given Marcone's known proclivities.

[3]The question about Ivy, is neutral with respect to what?  She is bound to her purpose, which is to win the Oblivion War, on behalf of humanity.  That isn't a neutral purpose.

1. Mab, Lea, Odin, Ebenezar, Harry, Martin, Susan, the White God, perhaps the Merlin, and Ivy. Of those Mab is the one I'm the least sure of. She had plenty of reason. They violated her Accords. Lea had her own reasons. She couldn't pay Bianca back for the Nemesis infection, but faerie debts never just go away. They are inherited. Odin had his own reasons. I've got my own ideas what they could be. They targeted Eb's family. Same with Harry and Susan. It was the entire goal of Martin's being. I assume everyone remembers "Murphy's" pronouncement. The Merlin's root and branch language has some nice symmetry to what actually happened. And I'd say the genocide of a target of the Oblivion War works just as well as obliviating them. If it doesn't, it will make it easier to erase all knowledge of them in the next few millennia.

The Oblivion War is a proxy war. She has others do all her work for her. That's the point.

2. Harry often has to be spoon fed information. This was the case as far back as Grave Peril when Lea suggested he use the water to defeat the Nightmare. The truth is that Harry hadn't figured out that Marcone could help him. He needed to be told. That's why the Archive told him. It accomplished a piece her core mission.

3. Exactly.

I think the whole point with the Archive is that it is supposed to be neutral in concept.

No. The whole point of the Archive is to kill all monsters. (Obliviating here being the functional equivalent). Hell, even in the cover story as told by Harry and Luccio, the whole point of the Archive is to safeguard all human knowledge. Neutrality is just a means of helping the Archive survive to do it. And safeguarding all human knowledge is kind of the opposite of the point. Destroying certain human knowledge is the whole point of the Archive.

[Mira]

2. Harry often has to be spoon fed information. This was the case as far back as Grave Peril when Lea suggested he use the water to defeat the Nightmare. The truth is that Harry hadn't figured out that Marcone could help him. He needed to be told. That's why the Archive told him. It accomplished a piece her core mission.

I would hardly call what she said to him being spoon fed.  Her core mission?  Are you suggesting that she is the one who "planned" little Maggie's kidnapping so Harry would destroy the Reds?

Marcone is a neutral party under the Accords, just like a dozen others. Regarding neutrality, not specific power sets and personal histories, how are they different? Are they all physically incapable of acting in a non-neutral way? You are completely missing the point if you are not ignoring it. How does being a neutral party under the Accords mean that the Archive is "bound by neutrality" but doesn't mean that Marcone and the dozen others are not?

Because they simply are not the same..  The Archive has it's own set of rules that it must abide by
so Ivy couldn't help Dresden outright..  Hence she gave him a hint.  Obviously Marcone isn't bound by the same rules because he did.

[morriswalters]

There is a contradiction.  Why would Ivy seek to end the Reds and not do so to the Whites.  Dead is dead and murder is murder.

[Arjan]

There is a contradiction.  Why would Ivy seek to end the Reds and not do so to the Whites.  Dead is dead and murder is murder.

I do not think the archive was actually more involved than that little bit of information she gave Harry but in the reality there is no contradiction. The reds were becomming more and more agressive, allied with outsiders and were disturbing everything. They made themselves into a priority. The whites are pretty good in not making themselves into a priority.

And there was opportunity. Priority and opportunity. The whites are far more difficult to get rid off.

[Mira]

I do not think the archive was actually more involved than that little bit of information she gave Harry but in the reality there is no contradiction. The reds were becomming more and more agressive, allied with outsiders and were disturbing everything. They made themselves into a priority. The whites are pretty good in not making themselves into a priority.

And there was opportunity. Priority and opportunity. The whites are far more difficult to get rid off.

If you believe what is being said, the Archive does work with the Whites in the OB war, so I doubt it would want them destroyed.   The way I read the passage in Changes,  the Archive didn't want to give Harry anything and wouldn't allow Ivy to.   What Ivy did do because Harry is her friend and she owes him one, is give him the merest of hints with the Archive knowingly looking the other way..  What Harry chose to do with that hint was totally up to him.... Now while yeah, the man he'd least like to hear from is Marcone, who turned out to be of some use, it could have easily been someone like Nic, who Harry also doesn't like to hear from either, in which case wouldn't have provided what was needed.. Or maybe but not in the long run.

[Avernite]

I've always taken the Archive to be practical.

She uses the White Court as early humans used their various godlike demons - as powerful allies to beat off the even scarier things out there.

When the reds, the Drakuls, the blacks... when those are all gone and nicely obliviated, the Archive will still be there, and will start pondering how to rid humans of the White Court. But until that point, she'll happily use them.

[kbrizzle]

I agree with @Mira’s interpretation - the Archive is neutral, but Ivy is not.

The Archive would not let Ivy help her friend Harry, so she figures out a way to point Harry in the right direction while still being vague enough about it to be able to get around the Archive’s limits.

[Bad Alias]

There is a contradiction.  Why would Ivy seek to end the Reds and not do so to the Whites.  Dead is dead and murder is murder.

Where was the opportunity to end the Whites? And I would imagine she intends to. Eventually.

@Mira: The point was made that the Archive is incapable of acting outside of neutrality because of her position as a neutral party under the Accords. Marcone is a neutral party under the Accords. If the first sentence is true, then the second sentence necessitates that Marcone is incapable of acting outside of neutrality. This is my last attempt to explain this to you.

I would hardly call what she said to him being spoon fed.

Harry often has to be told things he already knows for him to realize that the knowledge is applicable to the situation at hand. That's basically what Ivy did.

Her core mission?  Are you suggesting that she is the one who "planned" little Maggie's kidnapping so Harry would destroy the Reds?

No. I'm saying she knew if she gave pointed Harry to Marcone, Harry would destroy the Red Court. As to her core mission, what is the purpose of the Archive? Answer that question and you will know what her core mission is.

@kbrizzle: I'm not sure Ivy is separate enough from the Archive to "trick" it.

the Archive (and Ivy, the two aren’t really divisible)

- Jim Butcher.

Also, how is the Archive neutral? Why is the Archive neutral?

[Mira]

@kbrizzle: I'm not sure Ivy is separate enough from the Archive to "trick" it.

  Actually there is evidence for the Host acting on her own, though the way Jim wrote the sentence it
could go either way.
  Small Favor405-406

"Her mother was a seventeen -year- old girl who was in love and pregnant.  She hated her mother for dying and cursing her to carry the Archive when she wanted to have her own life--and she hated the child for having a lifetime of freedom ahead of her.  Ivy's mother killed herself rather than carry the Archive."

It is about timing and how quickly after death that the Archive transfers to the new Host.  If it moves as fast as a Fae mantle, almost instantly,Ivy's mother did act independently, she killed herself rather than chain herself to serving the Archive.  Maybe not a whole lot of independence, but enough to take her own life.   If Ivy has the same amount of independence, while she may not have been able to help Harry as much as she'd like because of the Archive's refusal, she was still able to give him a helpful vague hint independently.   It may also be where Harry got the idea that if he was able to suicide he could free himself of Mab in Changes.   It also explains when you think of it, Ivy's emotional response to Kincaid when she fired him.  Her mother was a suicide, and here Kincaid, the human closest to her all her life, helps her best friend to kill himself. 

[morriswalters]

Where was the opportunity to end the Whites? And I would imagine she intends to. Eventually.

It stands to reason, at least to me, that if she intended to, she would not make them a part of the conspiracy.

[forumghost]

Telling him Marcone could help is giving him information. It is helping. It led directly to the destruction of the Red Court. Or is Ivy incapable of predicting that because she is completely unrelated to the Oracles?

I'm pretty sure that was her deliberately pushing the edges of what help she could give. She couldn't tell him directly, nor could she tell him, "Marcone has the info BTW". So she went with "Maybe ask someone you hate or something" and trusted Harry to know what she was getting at.

In short, it was Ivy doing exactly what Luccio was concerned about and trying to find loopholes/workarounds in the Archives Programming.

But hey, I'm sure that's nothing to worry about and won't come back to bite Harry in the slightest.

[Avernite]

I'm pretty sure that was her deliberately pushing the edges of what help she could give. She couldn't tell him directly, nor could she tell him, "Marcone has the info BTW". So she went with "Maybe ask someone you hate or something" and trusted Harry to know what she was getting at.

In short, it was Ivy doing exactly what Luccio was concerned about and trying to find loopholes/workarounds in the Archives Programming.

But hey, I'm sure that's nothing to worry about and won't come back to bite Harry in the slightest.

Well I mean, from all things we've learned, humans are strong because of Free Will. Maybe Ivy asserting the use of Free Will over the Archive will just make the Archive more capable of wiping out the bad guys.

[Mira]

Well I mean, from all things we've learned, humans are strong because of Free Will. Maybe Ivy asserting the use of Free Will over the Archive will just make the Archive more capable of wiping out the bad guys.

 I agree, I also think that is the source of the conflict for the Host and the Archive.   It is at the heart of the "danger" Luccio was trying to explain to Harry in Small Favor.   Humans have free will to act or decide, true, but it is also true that those decisions mostly have an emotional basis for them.  This throws the Host in conflict with the Archive.   Ivy on all kinds of emotional levels wanted to help Harry in Changes, but she was prevented by the Archive because of the rules it works under.  I think the fact that she had Kincaid do most of the talking over the phone to Harry shows how it affected her emotionally.   If Ivy had talked directly to Harry it would have been impossible for her in my opinion to keep her to keep emotionally remote from the fact that the Archive would not help.

In the end, Ivy did exert what free will she has to give Harry a hint that might help, I think she also benefited because she spared herself very human guilt if she hadn't helped at all.   Which throws her in conflict with the Archive who'd rather she gave no hints at all.  When this is all taking place with in one's head one can see where it would or could lead to madness.

[Arjan]

It stands to reason, at least to me, that if she intended to, she would not make them a part of the conspiracy.

She is not going to tell them.

[Arjan]

I agree, I also think that is the source of the conflict for the Host and the Archive.   It is at the heart of the "danger" Luccio was trying to explain to Harry in Small Favor.   Humans have free will to act or decide, true, but it is also true that those decisions mostly have an emotional basis for them.  This throws the Host in conflict with the Archive.   Ivy on all kinds of emotional levels wanted to help Harry in Changes, but she was prevented by the Archive because of the rules it works under.  I think the fact that she had Kincaid do most of the talking over the phone to Harry shows how it affected her emotionally.   If Ivy had talked directly to Harry it would have been impossible for her in my opinion to keep her to keep emotionally remote from the fact that the Archive would not help.

In the end, Ivy did exert what free will she has to give Harry a hint that might help, I think she also benefited because she spared herself very human guilt if she hadn't helped at all.   Which throws her in conflict with the Archive who'd rather she gave no hints at all.  When this is all taking place with in one's head one can see where it would or could lead to madness.

We have seen this before. Lea, the mothers, ....

They all wanted to help Harry at some point and they couldn't because of their nature. Riddles and unclear conversation are the answer to that and as pythia the archive had a lot of experience in that way of giving information.

Using that loophole is what they do.