You may have a point. It seems the closer they are to Earth, or if they are living on it, the more their relative power levels are affected by mortal belief (Odin, Red King) and if they are removed a level or two, it is less important (Mab, the Big Guy.)

 

Could also be that faith/knowledge of representations are as good as faith in the beings themselves. People may not believe in fairies, but they certainly believe in seasons. How dangerous extreme temperatures can be. Plenty of people hunt and have respect for the instruments and nature of it. Maybe that boosts the Erlking's power. Everyone depends on iron and its derivative products. Maybe that give Ferrovax a measure of power.

 

No, it was explicitly stated that Angels had watched humanity be born. (By Uriel near the end of GS, can't be assed to look up the page). Heaven is outside of the bounds of regular gods.

Also, its never said that faeries get power from human faith either. Their land is reflected in Earth, but just like Ferro, they aren't said to require human faith.

I really want to say that the White God is just a foreign power that is on a different level from what Earth can produce (an outsider?) but if, as the afterlife suggested, human souls do go to either Heaven or Hell then he may indeed be the one and only.

 

No, but connections and bargains in the human world increase their standing in the nevernever, Incredibly obvious example: Toot

I find it very unlikely that the old Gods would have ever had supremacy among religious beliefs as is indicated if the White God is The Oldest and Most Powerful. It seems that his Archangels would have layedeth the smackdowneth right off the bat when the Old Gods were trying to rise to power. It seems more likely that The White God is one of the old gods or just a different, probably stronger god that was perhaps more clever or sneakier than the other old gods, or just knew more about human psychology.

I'm also hesitant to admit the existence of a soul proves the White God's supremacy over other gods. All we know about a dresden soul is that it is the ground that holds the seed which is a person's spirit, and that it can be unlocked and used as a power with the help of an older and far more powerful soul being (uriel). The soul might be far more common then Dresden yet knows.

Also going to say that the fact that Odin directly participates in a fight, and that he claims to be only slightly higher than a lord of outer night gives credence to the theory that the Abrahamic religions are being given dominance over others. I, admittedly with little evidence, am willing to bet that Uriel would have had no trouble destroying the red king and his compatriots.

 

Never was it said that Toot's increase in power was because of Dresden's faith in him. I think it was more about being around magic a lot, or perhaps assuming a leadership role.

This paragraph . I see your point, but I don't think any religion had primacy over all the other religions and I also seem to remember a big deal about letting humans choose their own beliefs in there somewhere...

I agree with you, but I said that the soul appearing to go to the christian afterlife (trains, etc etc.) was suggestive. The existence of a soul proves nothing, but along with the afterlife, Soulfire seems to indicate some sort of connection with souls at the very least.

I don't see how this proves anything about the White God. Correlation doesn't imply causality, just because both of those beings are said to be similar in type doesn't mean the position of one indicates the position of another. Odin could merely by another human expression given form. That said, Odin is a special case since while he himself is not godlike in power (that we know of), but he does retain large elements of his mythology eg. Valhalla, Einharjar even though there are very few worshipers available to 'power' the place.

I think that before we can make judgements on divinity and such, we need more information on gods. So far, Odin is the only bona fide 'god' we've seen, and he is enigmatic as fuck.

TL,DR: I disagree.

 

Have to agree there. Since it is established that deities derive a lot of their power from their believers i the Dresdenverse, it's not all clear what might happen if, for example, Odin and the Nordic pantheon had more worshipers than the Abrahamic faiths.

 

Loved the book, although the errors sucked. I disagree with the bitching about the references, there were more of them in this book then the other, but I wasn't bothered by it.

Molly's mental defenses (the Star Trek bridge) actually seemed somewhat appropriate. Look closely at the character, look at everything else involved in that scene. The bridge is inside a tree house. The Molly that seems the most stable is the Ensign Molly, and she actually seems to be the 'real' Molly, since she said that she 'hasen't been able to get them under control since she killed Harry'. She's something like fourteen, it says she looks about ten years younger then the other Mollys. So the 'real' 'inner-Molly' was a fourteen year old kid. Her base of operations took the form of the bridge from Star Trek hidden inside a tree house.

 

One thing that sprang to mind recently; do Fomor servitors still count as human beings, or do the mutations the Fomor put them through change the servitors enough to make them no longer count as human?

Since Molly has killed off several Fomor servitors using magic, it is rather important to establish whether or not she's racked up several violations of the First Law.

 

Does killing indirectly count? If so, she's killed at least one 100% vanilla cop.

 

Nope, it's explicitly only if magic does the killing that the law is violated. Otherwise the wardens' magic swords would have Luccio on the chopping block.

 

I don't know... seems like saying if you push someone off a building with a wind spell, you didn't break the First Law because it was the fall and impact on the ground that actually killed them. I don't think the Wardens would make that sort of distinction for Molly, especially since she's already under a Doom of Damocles.

The Wardens being allowed to kill with their swords doesn't really sound like the same thing as what we're talking about. >_>

 

Actually, yes that would not break the first law.

The reason behind it is the way magic behaves in Dresdenverse. Essentially, you cannot cast a spell you do not believe in. What this means is that directly killing someone with magic means you believe, fully and wholeheartedly, that you were right and justified to kill them.

Casting a spell and shoving someone off the side of the building/cliff does not mean you believe you were justified in killing them, just in shoving them around.

Do you see the difference there?

It's fairly subtle, and you're right insofar as I doubt the Wardens (or at least, those Wardens in the vein of Morgan) would let someone under the Doom of Damocles get away with such a technicality, but the difference is there.

 

Wrong. The RPG, which is used as mostly-canon directly states that indirect methods of murder such as that still break the First Law, because magic was involved in the cause of death. The Wardens' swords, however, are really just big hunks of sharpened steel, and their magic has nothing to do with killing people.

You're half right here. You can't cast magic you don't believe in, but then pushing someone off a building is still a pretty murderous thing to do, whether it's by hand or by wind.

There is a difference, it's just further to the strict interpretation side of the scale than you think.

 

I would think that when it comes to the First Law a lot of it boils down to the intent to kill; the fact that you're tossing around spells intended to kill people is a lot more important than whether your magic is bringing about the deaths directly or indirectly.

Certainly, setting aside the issue of the Wardens' interpretation, I would think that the soul-corrupting effects would be tied to the intent to kill using magic.

 

This is exactly what I was trying to get at.

If you throw around a spell (ie, a gust of wind), and someone happens to be hit by it and die as a result, you're not really breaking the law.

If you mean for the spell to throw them off the side of a building or something though, then you have broken the law.

It's a very subtle difference, but it is there and it is significant.

 

One of the most interesting things in GS for me was learning about how the effects of wizards' magic can change over time. While it's highly doubtful it will change in the time the series takes place, it does offer an explanation for how wizards will be able to live in an increasingly technological world.

As to the arguments of who whispered to Harry in Changes, I don't understand how it could be Lasciel. By picking up the coin Harry let her into his mind to influence him. I took that to mean that if she had been whispering to him it wouldn't have broken the rules and allowed Uriel to act.

Some people have said that Uriel and the Archangels are way too powerful, but the story is told from Harry's point of view. Can he really be reliable in judging how powerful a god-like being is or what they can do with that power? While he is strong for a wizard, compared to them he's nothing. Perhaps the Mothers, dragons, or Outsiders are just as powerful or even more so, but Harry hasn't ever seen them exert that power.

About the servitors being killed, I don't think this really count as breaking the First Law. Harry even kills one when he possesses Molly and he doesn't worry about it at all.

 

Self defense on the sevitors though in that instance. However, Molly's been actively going out and hunting them, so self defense doesn't really fly there if they're judged to still be human.

I reread the book today and will be doing it a few more times in the near future, and something just drove me nuts. Harry has the weight of the fact that he's dead hit him.. like every few chapters. It really looses it's gravity after the first time or two Jim =P Murphy is inconsistent too, she gets upset when Mortimer passes the tests, when Mister shoulder blocks the air, when Molly confirms etc. Once or twice should've been enough.

 

According to the rpg rulebook, the power rankings run along the lines of.

1. Jehovah/The Almighty/Allah
2. The Archangels, The Faerie Mothers
3. The Fallen, Old Gods, Old Ones
4. The Faerie Queens, The Erlking, Dragons, The Archive
5. Outsiders, Angels, The Faerie Ladies
6. Ancient Demons, Faerie Knights, Denarians, Knights of the Cross

Note: The Knights of the Cross only rank there when following their Holy Pagers. Which explains Charity claiming Michael always gets into more trouble answering Harry's calls than his bosses, he's literally being downgraded a powerlevel as a price for choosing his battle of his own freewill.

It also makes clear that their ability to exercise their power is on a scale in the opposite direction. The Knights(all three kinds) have Free Will, but the higher you go up the scale the less freedom the beings have in using their power.

We saw in SK that the Mothers pretty much lie dormant half the time, likewise Uriel makes it clear every time appears that he's there to protect free will.

Capital G might be the heaviest... but when it comes down to it he's also constrained by nature from using that power to interfere even more than the Archangels.

I can understand some peoples pessimism as abrahamic mythology appears, but I really don't think we'll be seeing any author tracts/divine curbstomps.

 

Does anyone remember if Harry was worried about killing the thralls when he, Murphy, and Kincaid raided the black court hideout?

It should've been, but Murphy was trying really hard to deny it. Hell, she was still denying it until he showed up at the end of the book. Even the other characters were getting pretty annoyed with her.

 

IMO, Molly would be found guilty of violating the First Law, but her method insulates her somewhat from the mind damaging effects of murdering by magic. The examples she gives are illusions as follows: 1. an illusion of a gun in their hand, 2. green traffic light, 3. knife in hand, 4. wedding ring on finger, 5. a spot of blood on a shirt collar.

She only gives details about the first one, but it sounds like that her magic is the catalyst for their deaths, rather than the cause. All of those things merely escalate the odds of dying. In most cases, the actual death is caused by another person - like she says, her targets "tear into one another like animals." Also, if I'm remembering correctly, someone else (Butters?) says that not all the Rag Lady incidents are fatalities.

I think this is an important distinction, when it comes to predicting the damage done to the caster's psyche. In fact, maybe the majority of additional damage to Molly's head is the result of her sensitivity to people dying, instead of the usual First Law-related damage.

But as far as the Council is concerned, she's guilty. Her magic was involved in their deaths, and if they ever get confirmation of the details, it'll be off with her head unless she gets some sort of lucky break.