To those that havn't read Small Favor, you may wish to avoid this thread.


So in the end of small favor we learn some pretty interesting things about Dresden, including the fact that he's been gifted with the ability to use soulfire by a freaking archangel.

Now we've seen portions of both Hellfire, and it's counterpart Soulfire, which do you prefer and why?

 

Hellfire, because it came with Lash, a hot shadow of a Fallen Angel.

 

Hellfire. Soulfire... meh... seems stupid. Big hand.. great. Now maybe he can use it to make his cock huge and rip Murphy in half and get rid of her.


I mean, hell gives you access to extreme power, destruction capabilities not known.. and heaven gives you.. ability to make a giant hand?

 

Or anything else, depending on what he wants or needs.

Naked slave girl anyone?

 

It is only just a hand he can create? I mean he only used it once to smack that dude around.. If he can figure out how to use it to do other things that'd be pretty good right?

If he could use it to create flaming swords of death, or blasts of holy doom or something, that'd be pretty sweet.

IIRC bob said soul fire was what angels use to do their mojo..because angels are... made of... soul (wow that sounds lame), soul fire should be able to do pretty sweet things right?

I mean they go around smiting things/people with it so it should be just as good as hell fire in the blowing shit up and powering spells department, but I guess the fact you have to fuel it with your own soul makes it less useful for long term spell usage when compared to hellfire which seems limitless.

 

From what I remember of Small Favor (granted I was dead tired when I finished it) he can make whatever he needs. However it costs a portion of his soul to do it, so if he uses too much too fast he'll be gone.

 

I'd go with hellfire since it doesn't seem to come with the risk of using up your soul and dying (or worse I guess). Though granted you do lose you soul to a fallen angel but meh I'd still take hellfire.

 

I would say each one has it's value; hellfire seems to work best when it comes to inflicting raw destruction, while soulfire seems to have more in the way of flexibility.

As far as cost goes, both soulfire and hellfire have their price; soulfire uses your soul as fuel for magic (not as bad as it sounds since according to Bob it grows back pretty quickly), while hellfire seems to corrupt you and make you more prone to destruction and violence.

Personally I'd go with soulfire, since while hellfire is better at destruction it's much more narrowly focused. Of course, if I was Harry Dresden and had to constantly face horrendously powerful magical opponents then the ability to inflict raw destruction might be a lot more important...

 

Until the issue of whether the soul is permanently damaged ( Horcruxes ) or will it replenish itself ( Al in the fullmetal alchemist movie) I'd go with hellfire, it's tried and true so far, if not questionable.

Bob seems to indicate that it shouldn't really matter to Dresden, but he's not on the same wavelength as a normal human so maybe he doesn't fully understand.

 

It's been stated that it will replenish itself.

See: "Because it's good for the soul." scene.

 

Bod said quite clearly that it's not permanent, and that his soul will heal very quickly. Within a week or less.

 

I'm two for two... Ryuggi, now I owe you a brownie.

 

This part interests me. From what he's saying the giant hand was actually just a normal spell, but with the benefit of lasting longer because of the soulfire. Seems to me that soulfire doesn't just add power, it 'levels up' (for lack of a better term) the spell so that it can do more. Kind of like the difference between Fire and Fira in the Final Fantasy games.

So my thought is, what could it do for other spells, since it made the Force Projection spell manifest into an actual spiritual hand. Would Harry's fire/wind spells be improved upon? And how exactly would that be done? Then again, destructive spells like that seem to be more in hellfire's area of effect. Could faerie fire be mimicked like this? Perhaps his wind spells could be given edges to form blades, or made into localised tornadoes. (I really can't think of anything more for wind >_>)

Adding on to the force projection manifestation though, he could probably manipulate it into being pretty much anything he can think of, so things like spears and bows could be manifested instead of just parts of his body.

I think way too much on these things. Also, I prefer hellfire >_>.

Aekiel

 

Don't count Soulfire out. Remember, even Mab is afraid to cross the Archangels, and their weapon of choice seems to be soulfire.

Anything that scares the fucking queen of darkness is okay in my book.

 

What I meant was that hellfire was more inclined towards destruction than soulfire, given the boost to Harry's fire spells since he picked up Lash. So logically soulfire should be less suited to the kind of explosive spells Harry tends to favour. It's still fucking powerful, don't get me wrong, but it's not as suited to violence and combat as hellfire is.

@Jon - Soulfire + fuego = a fucking comet.

 

Hmm, I'm going with Soulfire myself. I don't have a need to destroy many things in daily life, but the ability to create? Now that could be useful.

I only just got access to the last four books in the series and read them all in three days... yummy.

Do either Hellfire or Soulfire have side effects by themselves?

I know that having a fallen with hellfire has side effects, but does using there powers change you the same way?

 

Hellfire seems to predispose you towards responding with violence when it might not be necessary, or more violence than is necessary. Of course there's also the fact that you also have to have a Fallen Angel trying to steal your soul to use it. That, and you'd probably get tired of smelling rotten eggs all the time.

Soulfire probably can manifest the raw destructive power of Hellfire. The price being that it's supply is limited by the amount of soul you have (wow, that sounds retarded). It's all in how you use it.

I'd probably have to go with Soulfire, since it's more versatile but hey, why not both? Need more Lash.

 

What's stopping Harry from using both at the same time?