The Dresden Files

This is going back a few pages, but:

My complaint about iron being like acid to fae isn't about respecting the original folklore, it's that a Kryptonite Factor Weaksauce Weakness is boring. I much prefer "they'll out-magic the shit out of you, so out-technology them instead" as a weakness.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

The problem is in the Dresdenverse, when you can have fancy composite materials that don't need to have any iron content on the control surfaces, the fey can out-technology you right back with submachine guns (remember Small Favor?) and STILL out-magic you.

Speaking of which, I wonder what's the magical economic situation in the Dresdenverse? Besides the whole industry of mercenaries ranging from one-man operations like Goodman Grey and Kincaid to small-time outfits like Binder and Asher to the megacorp that is Donnar Vaderung, Madrigal Raith (White Court, asshole, movie producer, Black Council/Circle wannabe), owned a set of Fey-made thorn manacles. Did he make those custom ordered? Did he just walk into a shop, pick out one that seemed to be the size of his usual prisoners and pay by credit card? Did he have to pay in kine? Was there haggling involved? Are they massed manufactured on lathes and dropforges or are they the result of one master or journeyman crafts-fey working for a week?

...

What? I wanna know these things.

edited 28th Jul '15 5:13:32 PM by SCMof2814

In order: probably, not likely, I doubt it, I'd think so (though not necessarily about money), the latter.

And while Muggles Do It Better is an interesting trope and playing for and against it is core to DF, I think that faeries' weakness being "shoot them a whole lot because they don't care about magic" would be a fair bit more boring than what we got, especially considering our protagonist is a wizard who can't use any armament more advanced than a revolver.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Cold iron translating to tech seems kinda redundant to me, since Dresden Files isn't really a setting where people need encouragement to use whatever modern technology probably won't blow up in their face.

My guess is that he'd get his more positive aspects played up, because that seems to be the trend, scary South American cults aside. Odin's not portrayed as a drunken prick who'll turn you into ropes if your daddy pisses him off. Hades isn't portrayed as a guy who got his wife by abducting and imprisoning her. Ishtar's character is only shown obliquely through her followers, but their main activities are fighting human trafficking and attracting donors with the lure of hedonism. That's a pretty positive portrayal for someone known for siccing a monster on a city because its king refused to sleep with her.

It is very easy for one so inclined to find mythological evidence to portray most gods as utter fuckers, and I'm including the White God here. Butcher doesn't seem to be into that.

edited 28th Jul '15 7:04:46 PM by rikalous

She also threatened to unleash history's first ever zombie apocalypse.

Ah, so that's how ghouls came into existence: as bioweapon against zombies.

Oh, you're right! Their language is Sumerian, after all. Then they ran out of things to eat...

Actually, at some point, there's blurbs about Ghouls (vanillla ghouls grandaddy) being direct descendant of that Gilgamesh. Apparently, instead of some Bishōnen Warrior Prince, we got something more closer to Albert Wesker. Which is still awesone, but in different way.

Man, now I wonder if Shinji Mikami actually is Ishtar priest....

Kahlil Gibran is almost certainly is.

scary South American cults aside

?

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

From Paranet Papers. The people fighting over the Red Court's former territory include the worshipers of Supay (Incan death god) and Manco Capac (god-king who founded the Incan empire). The faces of both groups are nasty customers.

edited 28th Jul '15 8:07:02 PM by rikalous

I recall something about Manco Capac, yeah. Then again, we weren't taught much of the parts of Peruvian history that didn't involve us kicking their asses.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Heh. Sounds like your educators have your historical priorities straight.

It seems like most complicated supernatural hardware comes courtesy of Svartalfheim, so that's probably the folks you need to talk to if you wanna shut down a wizard right quick. It's not like they care who they make shit for, as long as you're not Loki.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

@math: Umm.... Context?

@SCM, regarding economy: We already knows basic currency for most supernaturals: Favors. Maybe that's why Hades still lurking around: Someone had to provides currencies for guys like Binder and others who hate "unmeasurable stuff" like favors. When you do something for Supernaturals, you gain favors. Supernaturals doing something to you, you owe them favors. Even White God dealing with this: Knight of The Cross gain supernatural luck as side benefits.

It does rather... unmeasurable by human standards, but that's how supernatural works. Staarvalt also works like that, but in this case, the willingness for humans to pay large sum of his wealth already count as favors for them. Naturally, other supernaturals chip in, if only because it's easier.

Maybe that's why Molly regarded as good Winter Lady, and Mab willing to pay her a large sum: Maeve doesn't strike me as someone who willing to do accounting and filing.

Also, Mahou Shoujo Lovely Ishtar-chama, with ultimate attack: Love Love Corpse Party. Megatokyo sounds a little less ridiculous now.

edited 28th Jul '15 11:03:40 PM by RBomber

I was talking about the people who probably crafted those thorn manacles.

I mean, they made all the other cool shit.

Also, considering we're about to see a Jotun (at least according to a recent interview) me suspects Odin is about to have his hands full.

edited 28th Jul '15 11:06:56 PM by math792d

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

Fae vs. Iron is a discussion that's as old as, well, the Trope, honestly. Were they merely repelled by iron? Were they physically harmed by it? And if the latter, why the horseshoe over the door?

Iron represents more than technology; it represents progress. The smelting of iron ore is hard, requiring a specific type of furnace compared to tin or copper; to this day we still don't quite know how our ancestors figured it out. And given that fire extends into the first layer of the Nevernever due to its purifying connotations, it's not that hard to imagine that iron's "progress" aspect is what's anathema to the ever-static Fae.

If you meet me have some courtesy, have some sympathy, have some taste. Use all your well-learned politesse or I'll lay your soul to waste.

SO, titanium is antimatter bomb?

But come to think of it, there's a very rare folklore/ myth about iron smelting. Usually more discussed is meteorite, or thunderbolt iron. Could it be that Adam (pbuh) himself is the one who has the original knowledge about how to smelt iron, then passing it to his descendant....

Iron smelting (at least tool smelting) only goes back a little over three millennia. Makes the myth of Adam too inconsistent.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

Titanium's also too new and it never got its own Age named after it.

The transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age in a culture signifies that culture's increasing mastery over the natural world and development into a culture that's just not gonna stop moving forward. That's "death to nature" and "ever-changing" going up against "nature spirit" and "forever static."

Thunderbolt Iron was definitely used in the earliest attempts at iron smelting, but ultimately that source was too rare to transition a culture from Bronze to Iron.

If you meet me have some courtesy, have some sympathy, have some taste. Use all your well-learned politesse or I'll lay your soul to waste.

If you want to go WMD on Faerie use Uranium or any of Transuraniums. Harry mentioned that the denser a metal the more havoc it wreacks on Faerie because its more "real".

Which makes me wonder about some asshole maybe being responsible for Tchernobyl in an aborted terror attack on the Sidhe.

"You can reply to this Message!"

Or it was just shoddy craftsmanship.

Every major crisis being rooted in the supernatural gets old. Especially the part about climate change being a result of imbalance in the Faerie Courts.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

In that one, it may be backwards; climate change might be what's causing the imbalance between Faerie Courts. It would make sense thematically, since Faerie and the Nevernever are reflections of our own world and the downfall of Winter and subsequent death of all the universe as the Outer Gates fall would at that point be humanity's fault.

Uranium works well against ghosts on the first layer of the Nevernever due to its density, but there's no research on the effects of uranium to a being of Faerie (yet).

If you meet me have some courtesy, have some sympathy, have some taste. Use all your well-learned politesse or I'll lay your soul to waste.

Yeah, the "More real" aspect is against ghosts. The reason it burned Lea so badly was it also had Iron mixed into it.

Was it? I vaguely remember Harry saying that leaving ghost dust in faerie was also pretty bad.

edited 30th Jul '15 1:31:34 PM by 3of4

"You can reply to this Message!"

Yes, but that's because Harry's mix got iron mixed on them. Iron is just like your basic all-purpose anti-supernatural stuff, especially in Western folklore, if only because Fae makes the majority of threats, at least in Dresdenverse. When in doubt, goes with iron and/or salt first.