Literary tropes that suck donkey balls

[Guardsman Bass]

For HP? It's pure writer's fiat given she showed some technology working, but others not. What Rowling deigned as modern doesn't, but antiques work even if the processes are similiar except compacted.

If I recall correctly, it's more that electrical and electronic technology doesn't work in heavily magical areas. It came up twice in Goblet of Fire - once when Hermione mentioned that all those devices like radar go haywire in Hogwarts, and when Harry was trying to figure out how to do the Underwater Challenge and someone suggested summoning scuba diving equipment. There's also the camera in Book Two that was apparently modified to run off of the "magical atmosphere", according to Rowling.

As for the Harry Potter thing, I always figured it was because the wizards were scared of Muggles; after all, a shotgun is more powerful then most spells, and Muggle weapons outstrip displayed magic/magical creatures by a incredible factor.

I agree. There's also supposedly a Rowling quote out there (but I haven't been able to find it) where she said that if a wizard went up against a muggle with a gun in a straight up fight, the muggle would win.

For the general "masquerade" question, undoing it would be incredibly difficult without throwing the world into chaos. You'd probably have to start by loosening up some of the protections made to hide magical creatures from muggles, in order to get them accustomed to the idea that they might be out there.

[Eulogy]

Karma Houdinis. We want the villain to get his just desserts in the end, dammit! This shouldn't be real life!

This is stupid. If the villain escaping is more entertaining, by all means let him escape.

How so? I partake in entertainment to see the villain justly punished and the heroes rewarded. Evil winning is not fun and it is not entertaining, it is DEPRESSING. Fuck, real life is horrid enough as it is and we use entertainment, in part, to forget about real world troubles for a while. If a piece of entertainment depresses us, it's not doing its job.

Karma Houdinis are horrible in real life. They should not exist but they do. That makes Houdinis in fiction all the worse. I don't find the villain winning fun.

Besides, I don't have to find Karma Houdinis entertaining. I see that trope as a moldy turd that sucks donkey balls, since that's what it is.

"Blue and Orange Morality."

If it were just animals that were considered to be amoral, that'd be fine. But when thinking, language-using beings are described as being "neither/above good and evil" it pisses me off. NO, dude, if something tortures puppies and burns kittens "as part of its nature" then it's fucking EVIL and should be killed off for being a sociopathic/psychopathic threat, rather then accepted in the same way that you accept being wet when in the rain.

Indeed, powerful entities are not above good and evil, and to say they are is bullshit. If they do horrible things for shits and giggles, they shouldn't be pardoned because they have no use for petty morality LOL. An action that is evil, is evil, period. If some being enslaves/tortures/murders for fun, we wouldn't say "Oh, it's just a force of nature, we can't help it", we'd be screaming for its blood-equalavent. We'd find it evil, and rightly so.

After all, morality transcends even the gods! Is it just because the gods deem it so, or do the gods deem it so because it is just?

"Balance of Good and Evil."

There is cause and there is effect. Action and consequence.

The idea of giant, metaphysical scales that tally up every "point" of good and evil and make sure to balance it out is... it's a disturbing concept. It pisses me off.

Saving one child from falling and scraping their knee, does not mean a different child should get their knee broken... and as a consequence miss an event, get picked up later, have it heal badly, and have events go to hell in a handbasket "for want of a nail"... and all to "balance out" the initial random act of keeping a kid from falling over and injuring him/herself.

The first action was a random act of kindness. The response was a pre-meditated act of.. practically sabotage that had to have obtained the direct blessing of Murphy himself to go that wrong.

There is no way to win in such a system. You can only try to keep up. And it's much easier to use a domino effect to wreck things than to use the domino effect to make things better.. Good is good. Good is normal.

Good is not, and should never be, in some kind of "balance" against evil, one where it has to fight defensively and barely hang on. And it shouldn't give the assumption that, if Evil were ever to be defeated, somehow there would be "too much" good and the victors would turn into some kind of oppressors that copped off heads at the slightest offense... and it would all be treated as too much GOOD, rather then what it really is: the "forces of Good" going batshit insane and turning into monsters.

Balance does not work that way. Hell, zero-sum does not work that way.

The Laws of Thermodynamis for example, do however. (To quote irregularwebcomic, the laws are; "you can't win, you can't break even, you can't even get out of the game.")

Sorry for rambling.. It's just this view of "evil is necessary/natural" presses my Berserk button in a way nothing else does. Because I didn't even KNOW I had a "Berserk button" until I read about this concept! (Not to say I couldn't lose my patience; but losing patience takes time and effort, or taking advantage of crankiness..)


[Rant taken, mostly, from a Spacebattles.com post.]

But don't you see? If things become too good then all the goodness will somehow turn people into monsters and everything'd be evil again!

Seriously, though, YES, THANK YOU. It never fails to irk me how sequels are guaranteed to happen somebody can't help or the universe is going to be destroyed because of a bullshit karma meter. The author never cares to explain why a lack of evil is necessarily a bad thing, or how the system magically keeps everyone down. When faced with a system like this, the only logical thing to do is change it - and if that means the heavens must fall, then so be it.

[Kingmaker]

Indeed, powerful entities are not above good and evil, and to say they are is bullshit. If they do horrible things for shits and giggles, they shouldn't be pardoned because they have no use for petty morality LOL. An action that is evil, is evil, period. If some being enslaves/tortures/murders for fun, we wouldn't say "Oh, it's just a force of nature, we can't help it", we'd be screaming for its blood-equalavent. We'd find it evil, and rightly so.

I think you're missing the point of this concept. If a powerful entity is genuinely doing awful things merely for entertainment, then either it a) is probably supposed to be evil or b) is a poorly written example of an entity possessing an alien morality. The essence of blue and orange morality, as Tropingrad calls it, is a fundamental incomprehensibility/alieness of motivation that makes proper moral evaluation impossible. The Nazis, or Sauron have comprehensible motivation that makes it easy to categorize them as evil. Nylarlahotep on the other hand, might do repulsive things, but why is (supposed to be) beyond understanding. Likewise, Azathoth didn't mean to destroy the universe. It's just what he does. Like how you step on bugs unintentionally in going about your daily life. This trope, properly done, is like a hurricane rolling through and ruining the characters' lives. The trouble is that it is hard to do this properly, so most "alien" entities end up being a giant deus ex machina or else a two-dimensionally evil figure.

The author never cares to explain why a lack of evil is necessarily a bad thing, or how the system magically keeps everyone down. When faced with a system like this, the only logical thing to do is change it - and if that means the heavens must fall, then so be it.

I always find this attitude towards certain elements of fantasy metaphysics/ontology comical. The only logical thing to do is change it? How? If there really is a metaphysical basis for a "balance"-based morality (or for destiny, prophecies, gods, or any of those other elements of fantasy metaphysics that seem to get some people so riled up), one might as well try to change gravity. And if it's not metaphysically enforced, then all you're left with is a peculiar moral system espoused by a fictional culture. That said, I think the whole idea is pretty goofy, especially when cast directly as explicit good vs explicit evil.

As for things that bother me, genetic magic. I don't get nearly as annoyed at settings where genetics merely influences talent, but the idea that it is wholly genetic just strikes me as absurd. It'd be like if the ability to ambulate was genetic (if less fundamental than that). I vastly prefer settings where the ability to use magic is fundamentally an intellectual achievement. Of course, then we couldn't have our plucky illiterate peasant hero.

[Johonebesus]

As for Dresden, part of this confusion might come from our own culture. Thanks to Christianity, the word "god" brings to mind an omnipotent and transcendent being. That would exclude the vast majority of gods ever worshiped by man. An ancient pagan wouldn't understand how an angel isn't a deity of some sort. It could be that YHWH is a transcendent Creator, and other gods are a different class of beings all together. We just don't have the vocabulary in English to easily distinguish between the two.

But the problem is that there is no consistency. You have several creators- Bondye, Odin, El-Shaddai, and Trimurti can all be extrapolated from onscreen stuff, and that could probably be expanded significantly, let alone that the Earth/Universe are as old as geology and astronomy suggest or that climate is heavily influenced by fairies.

Just because there is a being named Woden doesn't mean that the myths about him are completely true. It is possible that there is a consistent cosmology in the background, but over the years humans have misunderstood the truth, been lied to, or just made stuff up. If there is a class of beings that get more powerful as they are worshiped, then they would have an incentive to make up myths to encourage worship. Until Butcher plainly states that the world was created by Atum masturbating and by Marduk butchering Tiamat and by YHWH's fiat, we shouldn't assume that the beings we see little glimpses of confirm all aspects of their respective real world mythologies.

Perhaps someone who has read Butcher's other fantasy works could comment on how consistent he is with his world building.

[Bakustra]

As for Dresden, part of this confusion might come from our own culture. Thanks to Christianity, the word "god" brings to mind an omnipotent and transcendent being. That would exclude the vast majority of gods ever worshiped by man. An ancient pagan wouldn't understand how an angel isn't a deity of some sort. It could be that YHWH is a transcendent Creator, and other gods are a different class of beings all together. We just don't have the vocabulary in English to easily distinguish between the two.

But the problem is that there is no consistency. You have several creators- Bondye, Odin, El-Shaddai, and Trimurti can all be extrapolated from onscreen stuff, and that could probably be expanded significantly, let alone that the Earth/Universe are as old as geology and astronomy suggest or that climate is heavily influenced by fairies.

Just because there is a being named Woden doesn't mean that the myths about him are completely true. It is possible that there is a consistent cosmology in the background, but over the years humans have misunderstood the truth, been lied to, or just made stuff up. If there is a class of beings that get more powerful as they are worshiped, then they would have an incentive to make up myths to encourage worship. Until Butcher plainly states that the world was created by Atum masturbating and by Marduk butchering Tiamat and by YHWH's fiat, we shouldn't assume that the beings we see little glimpses of confirm all aspects of their respective real world mythologies.

Perhaps someone who has read Butcher's other fantasy works could comment on how consistent he is with his world building.

I don't think you get what I mean by being inconsistent. It validates aspects of ecumenical Christianity, but then it shifts to a more modernistic view, and then it shifts again to a more nature-spirit thing, and then back again. It shifts from mythological origins for deities, to Aristophanic origins, to "guy accumulating power", and few of these are compatible with one another. Just as an example, if we have the Aristophanean-Gaiman model, then why is the skinwalker so tough? The Navajo are relatively tiny, but the skinwalker is hideously resilient and all that. Not to mention that it differs from the common beliefs about skinwalkers- which is a problem if we go by the A-G model. If we don't, then we run into other problems. His dragons don't work at all with A-G. They are vital to the functioning of the universe. Okay. But that's not something anybody has believed about them historically and they've been doing this since the beginning. But we also have stuff that says that Abrahamic dudes are so kickass because so many people believe in him, and then we've got stuff that says that the main differentiation between the mortal and the divine is power. That's what I mean by inconsistent- you can't find a coherent cosmology that fits things together, and making one is just a kludge.

[Samuel]

Nylarlahotep on the other hand, might do repulsive things, but why is (supposed to be) beyond understanding. Likewise, Azathoth didn't mean to destroy the universe. It's just what he does. Like how you step on bugs unintentionally in going about your daily life. This trope, properly done, is like a hurricane rolling through and ruining the characters' lives.

If you do actions that hurt other people to benefit yourself, than you are evil. I don't see how someone claiming beyond understanding is different. As for stepping on bugs, that would be an example of simply not caring and hurting people because you don't even bother to see if your actions will affect anyone is also evil.

Is that evil? Can we judge them as evil for the fact that they are seemingly OK with this, that they accept the premise that out of a litter of dozens of offspring, only a few will survive to adulthood?

No, it isn't evil. There were alot of cultures that waited for a certain age before naming children because they weren't expected to survive.

For some americans, having sex with 14 year olds is a crime. Here in Brazil it isn't. Nor is socially unacceptable to have sex with cousins.

Now imagine an Alien society - sure, to humans their actions might seem evil, but they might be acting by their society' s rules, wich might be fundamentally different from ours.

My point is - just beacuse it isn't necessarily evil by their standarts, doesn' t mean it can't be perceived as such by our own, and be considered a threat. The trope itself doesn' t suck donkey balls.

The reason for the age thing is you have to have an arbitrary cutoff and a strong distaste of going below said cut off. It is similar to speed limits- everyone agrees they need to exist, but they vary from place to place and violating them significantly is considered bad. There isn't a difference in morality.

As for cousins, the same thing applies with how broad or restricted "no incest" is applied.

[Majin Gojira]

"Time to Unlock More Hidden Potential" - The staple of Shoenen Manga. Using power and strength as a solution to an enemy instead of outsmarting them always bugs me.

Also, I kind of hate urban fantasy ghost-hunter-stlye stuff (Supernatural here) that always end up with a Christian world-view. Always and just because.

I agree with this so much--and am actively writing to create an Urban Fantasy where that doesn't happen.

Through many methods including the archeological. How did the God of the Bible become the Only God in his Pantheon to survive? The answer isn't pretty.

[Ghost Rider]

"Time to Unlock More Hidden Potential" - The staple of Shoenen Manga. Using power and strength as a solution to an enemy instead of outsmarting them always bugs me.

To be honest, add the corollary of why it is used. This is because the the enemy who is so impossibly intelligent that he simply knows everything, predicts everything, and outsmarts everyone for 99% of the series that outsmarting him would be viewed as having precognition where there was none. He is outdone by the power of heart and soul because nothing is as smart as said evil doer unless you're BATGOD via Grant Morrison.

And before someone brings up L and a host of heroes, they do not outwit time/space overlords. I'm just waiting for Batman versus the Time Lords in some IDW/DC crossover.

I hate it in any story having an opponent that intelligent makes it impossible to defeat unless you pull rabbit out of said ass. It is just as bad if not worse then Ma-Ti's screeching.

[Spekio]

How so? I partake in entertainment to see the villain justly punished and the heroes rewarded. Evil winning is not fun and it is not entertaining, it is DEPRESSING. Fuck, real life is horrid enough as it is and we use entertainment, in part, to forget about real world troubles for a while. If a piece of entertainment depresses us, it's not doing its job.

Karma Houdinis are horrible in real life. They should not exist but they do. That makes Houdinis in fiction all the worse. I don't find the villain winning fun.

Besides, I don't have to find Karma Houdinis entertaining. I see that trope as a moldy turd that sucks donkey balls, since that's what it is.

Have you seen Dexter, the TV or the book series maybe? I enjoy them. In real life, I despise both serial killers and vigilantes. The fact that Dexter being both doesn' t stop it from being a good story.

Also, The Usual Suspects, when we learn that Verbal was KS. Were he caught, the movie wouldn' t nearly be as good. Still, I despise crime lords.

Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, also a villain, and he got scott free. Great movie.

The thing is: Stories shoudn't be bound by real world morals. Would any of the examples I gave in real life, I would be depressed. But they made great stories. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it' s a bad trope.

[Johonebesus]

I don't think you get what I mean by being inconsistent. It validates aspects of ecumenical Christianity, but then it shifts to a more modernistic view, and then it shifts again to a more nature-spirit thing, and then back again. It shifts from mythological origins for deities, to Aristophanic origins, to "guy accumulating power", and few of these are compatible with one another. Just as an example, if we have the Aristophanean-Gaiman model, then why is the skinwalker so tough? The Navajo are relatively tiny, but the skinwalker is hideously resilient and all that. Not to mention that it differs from the common beliefs about skinwalkers- which is a problem if we go by the A-G model. If we don't, then we run into other problems. His dragons don't work at all with A-G. They are vital to the functioning of the universe. Okay. But that's not something anybody has believed about them historically and they've been doing this since the beginning. But we also have stuff that says that Abrahamic dudes are so kickass because so many people believe in him, and then we've got stuff that says that the main differentiation between the mortal and the divine is power. That's what I mean by inconsistent- you can't find a coherent cosmology that fits things together, and making one is just a kludge.

Or maybe there are different type of beings that have different rules, and due to our language they all fall under the word "god". Some beings grow more powerful with belief, some don't need it as much. Some might be like Star Trek's Olympians, others like the Prophets, still others like the Organians. I think your problem is wanting to have a simple definition of "god" that tidily sums up all the entities described as divine and makes for a simple, elegant cosmology. More likely there are many, many types of beings with different natures, and a very complex cosmology that has not been plainly laid down for the reader, leaving us with only glimpses and hints of the spiritual realm.

[adam_grif]

With all this god talk, it's got me thinking about how in Stargateverse, all gods are "False gods" if they aren't the modern Judaeo-Christian concept of an omnipotent deity. It's usually in the form of "If the Goa'uld are gods, then why do they fear enemies?"

It strikes me as particularly dicey since they're mostly Greek or Egyptian Pantheon gods.

[mr friendly guy]

While I would like an underlying cosmology that explains things, if there is any contradiction in their creation myth its enough for me to simply assume one or both are lying / mistaken / forgotten what happened etc, the same way nations and historians dispute historical events.

For me needing to understand the underlying cosmology (with history and rules governing gods) bothers me as much as wondering why "remodulating the main deflector to emit inverse polaron particles will screw with the Borg shields." In other words, its not a biggie for me.

Now for the trope I dislike which has already been mentioned. Its this balance between good and evil, which seems predominant in D & D, notably Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms, and to a lesser extent David Eddings (they have to be balanced until both sides finally agree on the end game). I can understand why countries will want to have a balance of power, but good and evil? By their very nature they should be intolerant of each other, and it would make more sense that they are balanced because both sides are evenly matched, not because of some weird cosmic rule enforced by a shitty Overgod.

[adam_grif]

The idea that there is even an organized "good" and "evil" is kind of ridiculous to begin with. Especially when you get into the ridiculous notions that there is like a deity backing both sides, and all evil is the result of their corruption, and all good is the result of following the righteous part of the other guy. This kind of cosmic dualism is infantile in it's simplification of the world.

Yeah, I was watching Santa Clause vs Satan on MST3k last night

[Bakustra]

I don't think you get what I mean by being inconsistent. It validates aspects of ecumenical Christianity, but then it shifts to a more modernistic view, and then it shifts again to a more nature-spirit thing, and then back again. It shifts from mythological origins for deities, to Aristophanic origins, to "guy accumulating power", and few of these are compatible with one another. Just as an example, if we have the Aristophanean-Gaiman model, then why is the skinwalker so tough? The Navajo are relatively tiny, but the skinwalker is hideously resilient and all that. Not to mention that it differs from the common beliefs about skinwalkers- which is a problem if we go by the A-G model. If we don't, then we run into other problems. His dragons don't work at all with A-G. They are vital to the functioning of the universe. Okay. But that's not something anybody has believed about them historically and they've been doing this since the beginning. But we also have stuff that says that Abrahamic dudes are so kickass because so many people believe in him, and then we've got stuff that says that the main differentiation between the mortal and the divine is power. That's what I mean by inconsistent- you can't find a coherent cosmology that fits things together, and making one is just a kludge.

Or maybe there are different type of beings that have different rules, and due to our language they all fall under the word "god". Some beings grow more powerful with belief, some don't need it as much. Some might be like Star Trek's Olympians, others like the Prophets, still others like the Organians. I think your problem is wanting to have a simple definition of "god" that tidily sums up all the entities described as divine and makes for a simple, elegant cosmology. More likely there are many, many types of beings with different natures, and a very complex cosmology that has not been plainly laid down for the reader, leaving us with only glimpses and hints of the spiritual realm.

My problem is not with "god" as a term so much as it is with the problems of throwing together three different metaphysical underpinnings and failing to either construct a form that makes sense (because we could abandon gods entirely and still find significant problems) or at least acknowledge the conflict!

For example, belief is supposed to be what powers the three swords, but one of them is supposed to be Excalibur. But it isn't any more powerful than the other two, despite being the most widely-known weapon of folklore, besides maybe thunderbolts. Not to mention the problems of having a faith-powered object that is nevertheless a secret from the world at large... But there's the question of why only certain objects and certain people are empowered by faith- and that is what I mean by inconsistent. Rules fail to be universal, or even sensible.

While I would like an underlying cosmology that explains things, if there is any contradiction in their creation myth its enough for me to simply assume one or both are lying / mistaken / forgotten what happened etc, the same way nations and historians dispute historical events.

For me needing to understand the underlying cosmology (with history and rules governing gods) bothers me as much as wondering why "remodulating the main deflector to emit inverse polaron particles will screw with the Borg shields." In other words, its not a biggie for me.

It's not contradiction in the creation myths so much as inconsistency in treating the various aspects of the universe. Saying that gods are empowered by faith but the Abrahamic god is totally different and gods can also be really powerful dudes but not fairies or dragons, that would be wrong just creates a mess of a universe, divine-wise, and the same thing reverberates down the entire universe.

[Thanas]

Neil Gaiman really did a good job blending in the various deities in his Sandman and later books.

[Zixinus]

I'm not really a fan of 'Proud Warrior Races'. I can see people having a militant tradition and warrior sub-culture, but when you decide to base your entire culture around the fine art of killing someone, then you should probably do something differently before the other peoples get sick of you.

This. This is due to the obsession our European past and the idealization of the medieval ages by the Victorians (IIRC). In reality, most "warrior classes" were often bloodthirsty and did horrible things to each other. This is just the "civilized" ones, the more "wild" ones also regularly plundered everyone and everything in their way, raped women, kidnapped children to be sold as slaves, burned entire towns with everything (including libraries) down... well, you get the idea.

[Thanas]

That was pretty much commonplace among every army in the west until the advent of professional militaries. This, btw, was one of the reasons why armies of the 17th and 18th centuries seem so small to us today - they were professionals who had to be paid highly and regulated highly. The Prussian drill served as much to protect the populace from soldiers as it did to form the line of battle, as an example. As a result, such incidenced declined steadily until the Napoleonic wars, when mass armies and conscription reversed that process. The armies of Napoleon and the British quickly gained a reputation, the Prussians less so because they still preferred professionals over mass conscriptions (those pesky citizens should not have guns).

Really, a lot of warfare is idealized and sanitarized in modern depictions. If you actually read the source documents it gets much harder. For example, I reard a letter from a mercenary applying for work in the 15th century. His list of deeds of which he freely boasted in a letter consisted of among other things raping peasant girls, killing a noblewoman who resisted and then defiling the dead body in the same way. Brutality was not considered a vice, but a virtue.

[Gaidin]

It's not contradiction in the creation myths so much as inconsistency in treating the various aspects of the universe. Saying that gods are empowered by faith but the Abrahamic god is totally different and gods can also be really powerful dudes but not fairies or dragons, that would be wrong just creates a mess of a universe, divine-wise, and the same thing reverberates down the entire universe.

The Abrahamic god is also the god in prime position to be considered different since faith is one of the primary sources of power in the Dresdenverse, and the Abrahamic god has one of the biggest, if not the biggest, constituencies. Go back to Proven Guilty where Harry is going over a list of who could've assaulted Arctis Tor. Anyone of the term 'god' in the series is capable, but he writes all of them off because they're either dormant due to lack of power derived from faith, or its not in their nature or interests.

Past that alone, the Abrahamic god gets treated differently because some of Harry's best friends are about the most faithful family you'll ever see to the Abrahamic god. That Deity is going to get a special place in his book if for no other reason than he believes that the Abrahamic god does stuff for his friend's family on some level. Don't forget that it's a first person story, and the status you see assigned to deities comes from Dresden himself. You might consider it an pithy excuse, but if it is it's a damned good one in a literary sense.

[Bakustra]

Neil Gaiman really did a good job blending in the various deities in his Sandman and later books.

Well, that's why I named the whole belief-powering-gods thing after him. He addressed this pretty well in Brief Lives with Ishtar, I thought.

It's not contradiction in the creation myths so much as inconsistency in treating the various aspects of the universe. Saying that gods are empowered by faith but the Abrahamic god is totally different and gods can also be really powerful dudes but not fairies or dragons, that would be wrong just creates a mess of a universe, divine-wise, and the same thing reverberates down the entire universe.

The Abrahamic god is also the god in prime position to be considered different since faith is one of the primary sources of power in the Dresdenverse, and the Abrahamic god has one of the biggest, if not the biggest, constituencies. Go back to Proven Guilty where Harry is going over a list of who could've assaulted Arctis Tor. Anyone of the term 'god' in the series is capable, but he writes all of them off because they're either dormant due to lack of power derived from faith, or its not in their nature or interests.

Past that alone, the Abrahamic god gets treated differently because some of Harry's best friends are about the most faithful family you'll ever see to the Abrahamic god. That Deity is going to get a special place in his book if for no other reason than he believes that the Abrahamic god does stuff for his friend's family on some level. Don't forget that it's a first person story, and the status you see assigned to deities comes from Dresden himself. You might consider it an pithy excuse, but if it is it's a damned good one in a literary sense.

Well, you've got stuff like Kali being an "old god" that would have to be awoken back in book 3. That's a prime example; there are almost certainly more Hindus who believe in Kali than Asatruar who believe in Odin, but Odin is active and Kali, presumably, is not. That flies in the face of belief power, because surely Kali would be more active then. Then there's the problem that the Fairy Queens are on the level of gods but are not considered one, but Cowl would be considered a god for completing the Darkhallow. Then there's the continuous hints that there is something more to the Judeo-Christian God, like the nail in the sword. That also doesn't work well with A-G models, but there's also stuff that supports gods operating under A-G, and then there's the question of whether gods are a different order of being, or any being with sufficient power. I have no problem with the Abrahamic god getting special treatment per se, though it is overused in urban fantasy, insamuch as I do with the lack of any consistency in the approach.

[The Dark]

For example, belief is supposed to be what powers the three swords, but one of them is supposed to be Excalibur. But it isn't any more powerful than the other two, despite being the most widely-known weapon of folklore, besides maybe thunderbolts. Not to mention the problems of having a faith-powered object that is nevertheless a secret from the world at large... But there's the question of why only certain objects and certain people are empowered by faith- and that is what I mean by inconsistent. Rules fail to be universal, or even sensible.

1. You're reading too much into Michael's speculation. If you re-read it, he says that the original Merlin was a custodian for the sword, and that he thinks it may have been Excalibur.
2. Expecting magic to follow consistent, rational rules is forcing a scientific mindset onto it. Science is a means of describing the rules of the universe. Magic is a way to persuade the universe to change its rules. Perhaps in some universes magic is a science; it does not necessarily have to be so.

[Gaidin]

Well, you've got stuff like Kali being an "old god" that would have to be awoken back in book 3. That's a prime example; there are almost certainly more Hindus who believe in Kali than Asatruar who believe in Odin, but Odin is active and Kali, presumably, is not. That flies in the face of belief power, because surely Kali would be more active then. Then there's the problem that the Fairy Queens are on the level of gods but are not considered one, but Cowl would be considered a god for completing the Darkhallow. Then there's the continuous hints that there is something more to the Judeo-Christian God, like the nail in the sword. That also doesn't work well with A-G models, but there's also stuff that supports gods operating under A-G, and then there's the question of whether gods are a different order of being, or any being with sufficient power. I have no problem with the Abrahamic god getting special treatment per se, though it is overused in urban fantasy, insamuch as I do with the lack of any consistency in the approach.

It's usually a pretty big prerequisite to have your own power before people consider you a being worth worshiping. You just get more power from it. I may be mistaken, but didn't Dresden distract Cowl in the darkhallow leaving him to be torn up by the undirected magical power? Last I checked, Bob covered Harry with Sue's zombie precisely so he didn't die along with Cowl.

[Bakustra]

For example, belief is supposed to be what powers the three swords, but one of them is supposed to be Excalibur. But it isn't any more powerful than the other two, despite being the most widely-known weapon of folklore, besides maybe thunderbolts. Not to mention the problems of having a faith-powered object that is nevertheless a secret from the world at large... But there's the question of why only certain objects and certain people are empowered by faith- and that is what I mean by inconsistent. Rules fail to be universal, or even sensible.

1. You're reading too much into Michael's speculation. If you re-read it, he says that the original Merlin was a custodian for the sword, and that he thinks it may have been Excalibur.
2. Expecting magic to follow consistent, rational rules is forcing a scientific mindset onto it. Science is a means of describing the rules of the universe. Magic is a way to persuade the universe to change its rules. Perhaps in some universes magic is a science; it does not necessarily have to be so.

I do expect the universe to follow a simple rule, though. The problem is that there is no clear distinction between gods and other beings- it appears to be a matter of degree rather than of order. So there is no readily apparent reason why (and in fiction, we want reasons for things happening) only gods are affected by belief power. More importantly, if it's speculated at least somewhat widely to be Excalibur, (since it was held by the original Merlin and all) it should pick up some of that belief from people taking stances one way or the other. But it doesn't, and there's still the problem of how a secret artifact can be empowered by belief.

Well, you've got stuff like Kali being an "old god" that would have to be awoken back in book 3. That's a prime example; there are almost certainly more Hindus who believe in Kali than Asatruar who believe in Odin, but Odin is active and Kali, presumably, is not. That flies in the face of belief power, because surely Kali would be more active then. Then there's the problem that the Fairy Queens are on the level of gods but are not considered one, but Cowl would be considered a god for completing the Darkhallow. Then there's the continuous hints that there is something more to the Judeo-Christian God, like the nail in the sword. That also doesn't work well with A-G models, but there's also stuff that supports gods operating under A-G, and then there's the question of whether gods are a different order of being, or any being with sufficient power. I have no problem with the Abrahamic god getting special treatment per se, though it is overused in urban fantasy, insamuch as I do with the lack of any consistency in the approach.

It's usually a pretty big prerequisite to have your own power before people consider you a being worth worshiping. You just get more power from it. I may be mistaken, but didn't Dresden distract Cowl in the darkhallow leaving him to be torn up by the undirected magical power? Last I checked, Bob covered Harry with Sue's zombie precisely so he didn't die along with Cowl.

Cowl failed to complete it, yes. The problem is that we have "mortals can become a god by the accumulation of power", "the fairy queens are distinct from gods", and "the fairy queens are powerful enough that it would take a god to assault their fortresses", as syllogisms. We also have "gods are empowered by belief", "Odin is not very active because he has few followers", "Odin is an Old God", "Kali is completely inactive and an Old God", and "Kali has tens of millions of followers" as premise. These create two self-contradictory syllogism which also intersect with the addition of another premise "if somebody forgets about a god, they die", but that is something I am willing to dismiss. But the two models contradict themselves. One can become a god by accumulation of power, Fairy Queens are of divine levels of power, Fairy Queens are not gods. That is the first model. The second is similar. Gods are dependent on how many followers for their level of activity, Odin is more active than Kali, Kali has more followers than Odin. The models themselves are distinct but not incompatible, though adding the premise that can be derived from Backup does make them so, or at least produces unusual results.

[LaCroix]

Really, a lot of warfare is idealized and sanitarized in modern depictions. If you actually read the source documents it gets much harder. For example, I reard a letter from a mercenary applying for work in the 15th century. His list of deeds of which he freely boasted in a letter consisted of among other things raping peasant girls, killing a noblewoman who resisted and then defiling the dead body in the same way. Brutality was not considered a vice, but a virtue.

Do you have the source for this at hand?

I will SO bring this letter as my own (fake)application to a group at the next Renfair, just to see them wince at it.

[Thanas]

Really, a lot of warfare is idealized and sanitarized in modern depictions. If you actually read the source documents it gets much harder. For example, I reard a letter from a mercenary applying for work in the 15th century. His list of deeds of which he freely boasted in a letter consisted of among other things raping peasant girls, killing a noblewoman who resisted and then defiling the dead body in the same way. Brutality was not considered a vice, but a virtue.

Do you have the source for this at hand?

No and I am not sure if I was allowed to share it anyway at it is part of unpuiblished research from an acquintance.

Besides, it is not as if they or you could read it anyway, given the handwriting and language used.

[LaCroix]

No and I am not sure if I was allowed to share it anyway at it is part of unpublished research from an acquittance.

Besides, it is not as if they or you could read it anyway, given the handwriting and language used.

Too bad, but understandable. Please notify when he publishes, this sounds interesting.
And I would have used it as a template for a translation, and to proof them that my advertised skills fit the job description. I'll probably still write up something alike, just to see them try to explain that away...