The Woodsman. He's the light of civilization and human progress as compared to the Wolf's primal fear. The mortal Knight who wields the sword and the mind, the greatest weapons of Humanity, against the predations of the things that lurk in the darkness.

That's the thematic opposite at least. There's some problems with linking it to the Fae though. Namely, that the Fae are in and of themselves antithetical to civilization and human progress (mythologically speaking). They represent nature and the untamed wilds, both the beauty and the savagery, and such things do not mesh well with the advance of human reason. That's why Iron burns them; it's the most basic example of human ingenuity conquering nature, which makes it seem a little strange to me that the mortal champion of one of the Fae Courts would represent/be such a thing.

That said, the Summer Court is explicitly charged with protecting humanity, so it's definitely not outside the realm of reasonable possibility, and it fits with everything else. If we assume the Winter Knight is the Big Bad Wolf, I'd be very inclined to say that the Summer Knight is in fact the Woodsman.

 

I doubt that the Woodsman is the Summer Knight in the same way Fenrir is the Winter Knight, but it wouldn't terribly surprise me if the Woodsman was a Summer Knight. Perhaps even the first one.

What might be bound up with the Summer Knight to balance the Winter Knight, I'm not really sure. The Winter Knight on the whole seems to be the more dangerous of the two, and perhaps the more powerful of the pair, but it's also explicitly noted that in a contest where the Winter Knight in it's fullest representation conflicts with the Summer Knight, the Summer Knight has the clear advantage.

Slate didn't attack his counterpart directly. He murdered him by catching him by surprise and getting him to fall down a flight of stairs. Harry didn't fight Fix as the Winter Knight, because he understood on an instinctual level that if he did, Fix would have his guts on the floor in five seconds flat. He fought Fix like a wizard, and that's why he put a boot up Fix's ass.

So if I actually had to guess, I'd say that the Knights aren't actually equal at all, in the same way a game of rock paper scissors isn't equal. The Winter Knight is made to be a monster. The Summer Knight is made to stop the Winter Knight. Period. That's it. That's all he's got, and that's all he is.

It's not so much two differently painted equals staring at each other on a battlefield, and more like the parable of the Leviathan and the Sturgeon, where God created a creature that could not be slain, and yet created a seemingly harmless fish whose flesh was a lethal poison to the beast, solely to act as a counter to the monster should it ever rage out of control.

I don't really think the two Knights are equal at all. I think the Winter Knight is the more dangerous and destructive of the two by far, and that the Summer Knight maintains the illusion of being equally matched by simply existing solely to counter the Winter Knight.

If the Woodsman is the Mantle, then it's not because the Woodsman is equal in power to the Wolf. The Wolf is stronger. It's because the Woodsman knows how to beat the Wolf, and that's really all that matters.

 

I kinda want this on the JB forums too, just in case Jim replies.

EDIT: In other news, we have Word of Jim via Twitter that two Red Court Vampires survived the bloodline curse because they were held in a very secure part of the Nevernever. THE EEBS LIVE!

EDIT EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8ZUvrIQWuY#t=188

A fan-made trailer of Skin Game. I'd actually pay to see these people make a full web series of the Dresden Files.

 

Acting in that was... actually good. And Michael was fucking perfect.

Now watching the casting video that goes with it; double points that the guy playing Dresden is wearing a Gryffindor jersey as he talks.

 

That was pretty good.. but how did they know the plot points more than two weeks in advance?

 

My guess: Magic.

 

I don't do this often, but called it. Fucking called it. All of you shit on me for it but I fucking called it.

 

Everyone didn't. I brought it up a while ago and multiple people piled on that there wasn't possibly a way that the Eebs survived.

 

THose two RCV mentioned are not actually said to have survived, just that during the curse they were in a warded stronghold in the nevernever. THe curse was exceptionally powerful, so i am betting that it did reach them. I can see them being trapped in the nevernever, the moment the cross over into our world, they will simply crumble to dust.

 

I mean, the fact that it was stated in the books that the only way someone could survive the bloodline curse is by being extremely deep in the Nevernever...

Makes it pretty fucking obvious I thought.

Edit: Syed, that's not how it works...

 

See, now I'm wondering how a Red Court Empire led by the Eebs would work. They're pretty modern in their thinking, if their tactics are anything to go by. If their mindset is something inheritable as well, we're looking at an entire species that is predisposed towards acting in a manner unlike the traditional Red Court, but still maintaining their weaknesses.

I expect them to show up some time before the BAT.

 

If Red Court vamps started appearing again, a great many factions would immediately do their best to shit all over them.

 

Yeah, I doubt any of the powers in the world would let the Red Court set up shop again. I mean, the white council would shit all over them if they poked their heads above ground for even a moment I'd say.

I think it's far more likely that they'll now be a faction of individuals, like the dragons perhaps. Only two of them left in existence as well.

 

They'd work by staying the hell away from Harry Dresden or anyone who has anything to do with him. Assuming they're still alive at all, seeing how the last we saw of them, they lost a fight to determine who the Erlking would punish for intruding into his hall.

 

Its been suggested that Erlking might let them go. I mean the reds are predators (Erlking is a fan of those), and right now those two are members of an extremely endangered species.

Assuming they were still alive when the curse hit, then it would be plausible that Erlking would not want to wipe out the last 2 red vamps in all of existence. Not sure I buy the idea that he would actually release them though. But keep them alive in a "zoo"? I could believe that.

 

Oh, if they're alive I'm pretty sure they'll be wishing they were dead.

I haven't read Changes in a while, but I think I remember it being implied that they would be kept alive and tortured or something.

Don't quote me on it though.