The Dresden Files

Makes sense. One of the inspirations for the character was Paks.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

Who?

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

Believe he's referring to the lead of The Deed of Paksenarrion, aka "How to Play a D&D Paladin Without Playing a Wanker."

Seems worth a look.

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

I'd still want to know more about this one to find out things like how he survives the WC's response and how exactly breaking the laws that much doesn't drive him nuts.

I mean, breaking the Laws doesn't (always) mean you end up in a padded room throwing yourself at the walls. From what we saw with Harry and Molly (and the kid they execute in, I wanna say Turn Coat?), it takes the shape of losing inhibitions towards further lawbreakings, and indeed looking for excuses to do so or seeing it as the more ideal option. Presumably pulling off the Darkhallow would make Harry completely and utterly lose any regard for life.

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

Jim Butcher mentioned that Harry using the Darkhallow would have involved him creating an "ecological disaster". Similar Rules Lawyer concept to the zombie T-Rex: you need to destroy a lot of living things to pull of the Darkhallow, but it isn't specifically stated that they need to be sapient. So Harry would carry it out by destroying a large uninhabited chunk of the Amazon or something.

Killing a lot of people by Climate Change is not exactly better...?

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His individual contribution to climate change, relative to what is already happening, would be negligible.

Frankly, we're well beyond the point of no return. If every country in the world completely ceased using fossil fuels as of tomorrow, we'd still be dealing with major issues on that front from the greenhouse gases that have already been produced.

On a more fantasy note, the best way to fight climate change in the Dresdenverse would be to make Mab more powerful. Harry Dresden, Winter Knight and Environmentalist.

edited 24th Sep '17 5:04:00 AM by Galadriel

Its Mab.

Her solution probably includes such terms as 'Decimation'.

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She doesn't need to do anything specific to address it. The world is getting warmer. Mab is Queen of Winter. If she gets stronger, the world gets colder.

A 10 percent reduction in population doesn't do much. Unless you meant devastation?

edited 24th Sep '17 6:17:14 AM by SCMof2814

By Harry's own admission, he'd have to kill a lot of people outright to use the Darkhallow, his ecological disaster would probably be along the lines of a bad volcanic eruption or earthquake rather than fucking over the Amazon.

No, remember, mass murder is a side effect of the Darkhallow, not a feature. The mass death happens because there's a magical void in the ritual site that pulls out the lives of those around it that aren't the person using it. Thus, if you set it off in a place without humans, it's should still work, provided there are shades to consume, since it's made to work with ne romantic energies, not living ones.

edited 24th Sep '17 6:57:17 AM by SCMof2814

You get a less effective Darkhollow though.

Would be good using it in a place without humans though that had previous settlements otherwise you may not get enough omph for it to be worth inviting the enemies its gonna get you.

I wonder if human life is worth more energy though.

So for instance would a Darkhollow in the amazon would have a larger void or would it be smaller since life is really dense there.

"But if that happened, Melia might actually be happy. We can't have that." - Handsome Rob

WOJ is that killing people is an integral part of the Darkhallow, and will not function without said deaths-the shades consumed are simply fuel for the big show, which is draining the life energy of a lot of people; not just a bunch of plants and woodland critters. One of the first 'Cons after Dead Beat had a fan ask why Harry(or someone else) did not do a bunch of Darkhallow-esque rituals out in the wilderness, and his answer was it was not possible because killing people was the point. That also tracks with the only other ascension ritual we have seen, in 'Welcome to the Jungle'.

edited 24th Sep '17 8:57:12 AM by ViperMagnum357

Good to know. That makes Harry's willingness to use it as a last resort much darker, because he's stating outright that he would kill multiple innocent people to save Maggie's life.

That was what Harry was talking himself up about but as Uriel says, Harry was fooling himself as while he could say "Damn the world" he wouldn't be able to the first time he saw someone's face.

Also, for less moral reasons, Harry couldn't do the ritual because it wasn't Halloween.

If he could do it any day of the week, he should have done the Darkhallow at the Red Court gathering.

Getting someone to grab Molly on the way out.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

I though you can do the Darkhallow whenever you want, but it needs to be Halloween if you want to become immortal otherwise you just get a powerup.

A WOJ mentioned that you could do various rituals to empower yourself, like the original Kemmler did, but you would need to do it on Halloween or a specific confluence to create a mantle to hold all that power indefinitely. Also, at a 'Con within the last year, Butcher mentioned that successfully performing the Darkhallow was one of the three directions the series could have gone, alongside Winter Knight and Harry the Denarian-not speculation, but a real possibility, with the series following being much different.

edited 24th Sep '17 1:24:12 PM by ViperMagnum357

Wow, yeah, much different. Harry has some moral struggles as the Winter Knight, but is largely the same. Denarian Harry would be something very close to villainous as a necessity, and Darkhallow Harry would be straight up irredeemable.

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

Like I said, Harry could have done the Darkhallow at the Red Court and been essentially the same ending.

Denarian Harry is basically the whole Lash thing wasn't it?

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

Yeah, but permanent.

Also, because this is the OG Lash, Harry would be unable to change her nature, so she wouldn't give up corrupting him like her shadow did.

I was always disappointed Lash and Lashiel were separate.

Harry redeeming a demon would have been awesome.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

Had a Fridge moment: when Harry became the Winter Knight, the first thing he did was save his daughter and kill a whole bunch of people on a genocidal scale (granted, they were Red Court, but still) as a side effect. The first thing Mab has him DO as the Winter Knight is to kill her daughter and save a whole lot of people as a side effect. Damned Fairy symmetry.