Don´t think so.. the Fomor are more group of dropouts than anything else. They have nothing that unites them other than their hate and their longing for more.



And with the mothers.. the question is how their power is balanced. For example you could argue that Mother winter is a lot more powerful because Mab is it. And the whole trinity idea only works with similar powerlevels for all of them so I am not to sure.

 

I actually only think one of those names were right, Aekiel.

 

The folklore surrounding the Fomorians has a lot to do with the Sidhe, given that they were the ones who exiled them to the ocean. On top of that, the Fomorians are said to be the 'people of Domnu', as opposed to the Tuatha dé Danann (who became the Sidhe) who are the 'people of Danu'.

Danu and Domnu are both water goddesses (river and ocean respectively), and are said to either be sisters or enemies, depending on which records you look at. Since the two Mothers are hinted at being the same being (given the way the family tree is really strange it could work pretty easily), they could be linked with the goddess Danu, with a theoretical third being an aspect of Domnu.

So yeah, there is some evidence for it, though Jim would very likely put his own spin on things (Queen Mab, for instance, was about 6 inches tall in the folklore). Besides which, the Fomor became a threat to the Sidhe, which made them ally with each other to exile them. That's Summer & Winter fighting together at a place other than the Outer Gates. Sounds serious enough to me that I reckon there could have been some major hitters in there.

Not saying it's a certainty at all, but it is possible.

That's a good question, though really just giving all three Intellectus is enough to put them on par.

Not sure where you're getting this from. Mother Winter herself says that Harry was not wholly wrong in calling her those names (she explicitly states plural).

 

Does becoming "The Merlin" in any way enhance or increase your powers (i.e. is it a mantle?) or is it a completely ceremonial title. As we can see the original Merlin was a grade-A badass, so would it be possible (and would he do it) in order to help the wizards enforce the Seven Laws?

 

I'm as sure as I can be that the title of the Merlin is purely ceremonial.

It's possible that there's actually a mantle there, but there's been no indication of it, and mantles have been treated as a purely supernatural thing so far. The only mortals we know of with mantles are the Faerie Knights, and that's only because they're specifically meant to be mortal champions.

 

The Warden's position carries something resembling a mantle, and that only seems to go to mortal practitioners. But that was deliberately created, so.

 

From what I can tell there isn't anything particularly special about the Merlin apart from him being the most powerful Wizard in the world.

 

The Merlin's just the oldest isn't he?

I mean, the two tend to go hand-in-hand, but I always thought the Merlin was decided as the eldest among the Senior Council.

 

Nope. The Senior Council are the oldest Wizards that will accept the post, but the Merlin is chosen because he's the most powerful (or best politician) on the Senior Council.

If it was simply the oldest Wizard then Ancient Mai should be the Merlin.

 

Heres a totally random question that occurred to me, but which certainly does not deserve a thread of its own. There probably is not a true answer to this but I was wondering what people think anyway. Both on how likely it is, and whether or not it might come into play in the books in the future.

When a wizard goes into the house of someone uninvited, most of their power is lost the instant they pass through the threshold of the house. The degree of power loss depends on how strong the threshold is, but even weak thresholds severely cripple wizards and leave them with almost no magic.

However in Ghost Story, we saw that Uriel had absolutely no trouble going into the Carpenter household uninvited, and the threshold that place has is one of the strongest we have seen in the entire series according to WoJ.

Soulfire, is the basic energy source utilized by angels. Uriel uses soulfire to do his stuff then, presumably. Harry has also been given access to this energy, even if his fuel tank is much smaller.

Does that mean then, that Harry could enter a house uninvited, and use soulfire-fueled magic freely and without trouble (so long as his soul lasted anyway), basically making him partially immune to the protection from magic offered by the thresholds in Dresdenverse?

 

My personal theory on that is less that it's Angels/soulfire allowing Uriel to get in and more that Uriel is a servant of the being every single member of the household holds in highest regard and is welcomed into their hearts and home every single day.

This also ignores the very real possibility that Uriel explicitly asked Michael for permission for Dresden to see his daughter before moving on. Michael would never say no to that.

 

I guess that might make sense. Or Uriel might simply be so powerfull that it does not matter. I mean Harry atleast seemed to think the guy could blow up galaxies, so maybe the threshold stripped him of 99.999999% of his power, and that was still enough to blow up solar systems.

This seems less likely. Mostly because I would expect that we will get to see the scene where Michael learns for the first time that not only is Harry hanging with archangels (and giving them nicknames), but has actually been given access to the same power that angels use.

I would so love to see Michaels reaction if Uriel arrives on the scene where both Michael and Harry are, and Michael is all worshipfull (its an archangel!) and Harry just goes "Hi Mr. Sunshine! What do you think about the new planned for Star Wars movies?" (Uriel is a fan remember).

Regardless, I do still wonder if soulfire could be used in this way, or does it obey the laws of thresholds despite being the "fire of creation" as it has been poetically called.

 

Well, as Bob says in Small Favor, soulfire isn't actually "power". It just takes whatever was there and makes it better. The analogy Dresden uses is rebar in concrete.

And if that's the case, there's no reason it should allow anything through thresholds that wasn't already there.

 

I'm gonna support the theory that, as he's an archangel, he has no fucks to give about thresholds. I'm assuming it might be a bit like the Sidhe entering dwellings. If their intentions are benign, it's no prob.

 

WOJ from the Bitten by Books Q&A session.

Archangels seem to have special privileges.

 

I dunno if we can fully trust Bob here though. I mean Bob does not have a soul, and in the latest book we actually see Harry use soulfire in a way that does not seem to be traditional magic at all. Harry even states directly that Bob does not have full understanding of soulfire and its more complex than what Bob believes.

 

Bob sees soulfire as a type of magic, because that's what he knows best. Just as Harry sees the Alpha's werewolf transformation as just another form of water magic (when it's implied to be different), it may just be a form of bias on the part of Bob/Harry. They know magic; it's intrinsic to who and what they are. So all the new powers and abilities they see are fit into a magic-centric world view.

Soulfire, in my opinion, is more fundamental than that. If I had to use an analogy, I'd say that magic is energy while soulfire is mathematics. Energy is the fuel that keeps the universe going, as is magic. Mathematics (and soulfire) is the conceptual framework that energy/magic works within.

 

Personally I think it's simply a question of raw power, if the fluff descriptions are taken to be accurate then Archangels can annihilate galaxies with nothing but a stray thought. Now as I recall no where was it said that you just can't cross a threshold uninvited if you arent on the piddly side of the supernatural scale or that you lose all of your power if you do, you just leave the majority of it at the front door. Now for someone like Harry that's a big god damn problem but for an Archangel? If the threshold affects them at all then that just means they go down from being able to wipe out galaxies to just being able to get small solar systems.

Also the werewolf shift is water magic? I've never heard that before, could you tell me where to find it? I'd really like to read it.

 

It's through inference. Listens-To-Winds is the premier water mage on the White Council and, as we've seen, he's pretty damn badass at transformation. On top of that, it makes sense because water magic covers healing as well, which the Alphas have been experimenting with.

 

Bump

Is there any WOG or good speculation on who it was that broke into Harry's lab and fixed little Chicago so it wouldn't blow up when he used it? It was mentioned by Bob at the end if the book and never referenced again.