{"id":200,"date":"2017-12-28T21:18:08","date_gmt":"2017-12-28T21:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordof.jim-butcher.com\/?page_id=200"},"modified":"2022-02-08T17:36:47","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T17:36:47","slug":"woj-and-stuff-i-didnt-put-into-other-categories","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"\/index.php\/word-of-jim-woj-compilation\/woj-and-stuff-i-didnt-put-into-other-categories\/","title":{"rendered":"WoJ and stuff I didn’t put into other categories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Link back to the main Dresden Files WoJ compilation<\/a><\/p>\n

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Misc:<\/span><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0(stuff I haven’t got a different nook to shove it into… yet)<\/h1>\n
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Quote from: Islington on April 07, 2009, 08:46:15 PM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

2.) Please stop hitting us with the clue bat. In this case the “Mystery of Demonreach”. Why do we need three characters to comment on how special Harrys bonding is and how important the isle is? And all start to tease Harry (and us) with their knowledge about it, just to make lame backouts before spilling the beans. The Athame of Crazytude was introduced much better and we still go nuts about it^^<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The clue bat is a tough thing to guesstimate. \u00a0I mean, I hit y’all with at least two other major things in this book that no one seems to have picked up on at all, so far.\u00a0\":)\"<\/p>\n

And… three people commenting on the island is–feh, never mind, you’ll have to see how it plays out.\u00a0\":)\"<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Quote from: MijRai on May 13, 2009, 02:58:21 AM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Gard is with Hendricks last we saw.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well.\u00a0 \/Hendricks\/ is with \/Gard\/.<\/p>\n

A subtle but important distinction, maybe.\u00a0\":)\"<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Quote from: chadu on February 22, 2010, 04:57:13 PM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Our biggest issue: why don’t wizards just WIN (in pre-complex tech eras)? I argued for the sliding scale of “born in X, advanced tech shows up in Y” idea… but it’s not satisfying.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They kinda \/do\/ win.\u00a0 It’s one reason the White Council thinks of itself as something so ohmygodmighty important.\u00a0 But bear in mind a few things:<\/p>\n

1) The White Council \/exists\/ in order to limit the power of wizards.\u00a0 These days, it’s mostly about keeping wizards out of the black magic–but in the past, it was also to keep wizards out of politics.\u00a0 They would show up as advisers, rarely (most “court wizards” were charlatans or underpowered schmucks), but the Council itself was very much against getting involved in things.<\/p>\n

That’s mainly because if the Council threw its weight in anywhere, it was all but guaranteeing a civil war among its own members.\u00a0 (Remember, it’s very Euro-centric.)<\/p>\n

The original Merlin learned a lesson about wizards involving themselves in politics.\u00a0 They already have too much power to use wisely, from his point of view.<\/p>\n

2) Wizards were a hell of a lot more rare in centuries past.\u00a0 Their numbers have increased along with the world population, but back then a given country was lucky if it had produced a single wizard-level talent more than about one generation in three.<\/p>\n

3) Travel in general was a lot harder.\u00a0 Disease, in general, was a lot more rampant and likely to kill you.\u00a0 Yeah, wizards have the capacity to recover from things, but they don’t have any particular increased resistance to contracting a disease.\u00a0 They just come back from it in better shape than regular folks.\u00a0 For example, if you get a good case of pneumonia (like I did), you’ve got a reduced capacity to resist subsequent similar infections.\u00a0 And that’s it.\u00a0 In fact, having gotten pneumonia once gives you a pretty darn big mathematical probability that you’re going to die of pneumonia in the future.\u00a0 (Pneumonia being one of the main things that actually does the killing when you’ve got cancer or other serious medical issues.)\u00a0 Wizards don’t face that same danger.\u00a0 If they beat it, they beat it, and it isn’t of any more consequence than getting over a cold.<\/p>\n

But even so, before antibiotics, wizards were as worried about disease as everyone else was.\u00a0 And a great way to not get diseases was to STAY HOME.\u00a0 Which most of them did.\u00a0 That kinda limited how much conflict they would actually get involved in.<\/p>\n

4) The Inquisition.\u00a0 Fact of the matter is that the Inquisition, for better or worse, made everyone REALLY aware of practitioners.\u00a0 If a wizard started slinging his power around willy nilly, it would attract attention.\u00a0 Probably \/hostile\/ attention, at that.\u00a0 Which leads us to…<\/p>\n

5) Wizards have to sleep.\u00a0 Yes, an enraged wizard could probably kill just about anyone he wanted to, flatten towns, all the mighty wizard stuff.\u00a0 But… there are about a million humans to every full-blown wizard talent.\u00a0 A strong wizard can kill a mortal with about as much effort as it would take you to pick up a piece of gravel and toss it twenty feet.\u00a0 Now, go out to a gravel pile and do that a MILLION times.<\/p>\n

You aren’t going to finish that project today.\u00a0\":D\"<\/p>\n

The appearance of overwhelming power is one of the only things guaranteed to make human beings unify out of sheer fear for their survival.\u00a0 (Example: see Haiti.\u00a0 Overwhelming power of nature drew a response of overwhelming relief efforts from fellow human beings.\u00a0 Now, imagine that someone told those people that the earthquake was someone’s fault.\u00a0 Someone real, and dangerous, but someone who you could punch in the nose.\u00a0 Think about that.)<\/p>\n

Wizards were certainly a force of nature.\u00a0 One that would frighten people enough to go after them with overwhelming numbers and a vengeance.<\/p>\n

Of course, that leaves many, many other things they could do to influence events.\u00a0 The most powerful such was the gathering of information and rapid communications.\u00a0 Their ability to travel rapidly, to gather information and send it elsewhere was something that didn’t really get beat until a Mr. Ford, Mr. Marconi, and some guys named Orville and Wilbur came along.\u00a0 And they were basically in the information business, which is an excellent way to guarantee security.<\/p>\n

They were also largely responsible for the Renaissance, in the Dresden universe.\u00a0 Not directly, but by going out and finding the best and brightest minds and seeing to it that they got the education and the chances they needed to succeed in life.\u00a0 Some wizards even did direct mentoring of various brilliant figures of European history (DaVinci and Gallileo were two prime examples).<\/p>\n

But they stayed out of direct involvement in wars and politics, instead focusing on becoming involved in the intellectual progress of society.\u00a0 Wizards from France and Germany, for example, would treat each other much the same way as opposing lawyers in a big case.\u00a0 Even when their clients were tearing each other to bits, that didn’t meant that the two wizards were foes.\u00a0 They were, in fact, professional colleagues, who were likely to go off and get a beer and roll their eyes at their clients’ foolishness.<\/p>\n

(All of this is mostly focused on the White Council, which was centered in Europe.\u00a0 Wizards in other areas of the world, such as the Americas, eastern Asia, and Australia have far different histories.)<\/p>\n

But that factor–the sheer weight of numbers of mortals–dictated the role they had to assume to survive and prosper.\u00a0 They hoped that a more advanced, less warlike culture would provide a better place for wizards to live. In fact, it did.\u00a0 But it also robbed them of the extreme power they’d possessed until that time, relative to vanilla mortals.<\/p>\n

6) PEOPLE BELIEVED IN MAGIC AND IT SCARED THEM.\u00a0 I mean, there was none of this “but there’s no such thing as magic” nonsense involved.\u00a0 And not all the witch hunters were in it for the money.\u00a0 There was a class of men who knew all about the various forces of the supernatural, out there in the darkness, and who made themselves as able to contend with them as any mortal could be.\u00a0 If a wizard went all kaboomy on mortals, he knew that there was someone who was going to hunt him, striking in a moment of vulnerability.<\/p>\n

(I’ll leave it to you to deduce who they grew up into, eventually.\u00a0 It isn’t complicated or hard to see.)<\/p>\n

End of the day, even wizards bleed.\u00a0 And as the wise Governor of California says, if it bleeds, you can kill it.<\/p>\n

But they sure as hell enjoyed their centuries on top of the food chain.\u00a0\":)\"<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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2009 Lexington signing<\/a>:
\nQ:\u00a0 When will we learn more about the Black Council?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 There will be a little more in the next book, but really we\u2019re not going to know it all until the very end.
\n2009 Independence signing<\/a>:
\nQ:\u00a0 If the White Council is so oblivious to things going on in the mortal world, how is it that Morgan knew exactly when the nuclear test was going to be (for when he nuked the skinwalker)?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 A couple of tests had happened, and those things are disruptive.\u00a0 They send out a giant electromagnetic pulse.\u00a0 So naturally, the wizards noticed it.\u00a0 They did some research to figure out what it was, and once they understood, they made sure to know each time it was going to happen so nobody would get freaked out.\u00a0 So Morgan just had to plan it, to lure the skinwalker onto the range at the right time.\u00a0 Then he opened up a portal to the NeverNever, and barred the door behind himself.\u00a0 Boom.<\/p>\n

Senior wizards are actually fairly aware of big things going on with mortals.\u00a0 They knew all about what was happening in the US and Russia during the Cold War.\u00a0 In fact, they were the ones who realized that Russia really wasn\u2019t a major power, and that everything they were doing was in fear of the US and in preparation for defending themselves.\u00a0 Wizards planted the idea for the US to bug Russia.\u00a0 When the US found out that Russia really was just scared of them, that\u2019s when the peace discussions began.
\n2010 Lee\u2019s Summit signing<\/a>:
\nQ:\u00a0 Is the original Merlin still alive?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 Kind of\u2026 life\u2026 death\u2026 it\u2019s kind of a squishy line in the Dresdenverse.
\n2010 Powell’s books Q&A off of Youtube<\/a>\u00a0@8:20
\nDoes Mister make it to book 13?<\/strong>
\nMister is far too cool.\u00a0 We haven’t really run into anything that could kill Mister at this point.
\n2009 Kansas City Q&A<\/a>\u00a0@44:02
\nSo the Alpha’s have been pushed to the side and their numbers decreased, and Micheal’s no longer really in play so, is Harry going to be picking up other sidekick characters and allies as he goes?<\/strong>
\nYah, were going to have a good time.\u00a0 Just trust me on this one, it’s going to be fine.
\nRPG info<\/a>\u00a0@4:24\u00a0 (sorry out of characters for post)
\nThe 25th Hour interview<\/a>\u00a0(Track 7 @5:07)
\nThoughts on Harry Potter being like Harry Dresden<\/strong>
\nThe month before the book came out was the month that they put Harry Potter on the cover of\u00a0Time<\/em>.\u00a0 It was the first time that I had ever heard of this Potter Person, and…\u00a0 Harry Potter… What?!?\u00a0 \u00a0You know, I had already written three books by then in the Dresden series and I picked it up and I read about it and I go “Oh no, everybody is going to think that I stole Harry Dresden from Harry Potter, and that’s going to be awful cause this book is huge, it’s very successful, it’s going to be much larger than Dresden books are gona be.”\u00a0 And then I stopped and thought about it and I said, “Five years from now, the 10 year olds reading Harry Potter are going to be 15 year olds wanting to read something else, and I’m going to be there.”\u00a0 So I try and look at the positive side of things wherever I can.
\n2011 Marscon<\/a>
\nUh, where did MacAnally come from?<\/strong>
\nI basically just needed a neutral barkeep character where I could have a lot of things happen.\u00a0 I wanted to have sort of a little microcosm Casablanca where I could have the Nazis and the French rubbing elbows.\u00a0 I needed a name for the barkeep, \u2018cause I was writing it fairly early in the Dresden\u2026in Storm Front, so I named him after my friend MacAnally, who was a buddy of mine all the way through junior high and high school, and who liked his drink<\/p>\n

Free Will<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n

Very old, very long WoJ about free will<\/a><\/p>\n

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From: Jim Butcher
\nDate: Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 12:25 AM
\nSubject: Re: [mcanallys] storm front question
\nTo: McAnally’s Pub <mcanallys@jim-butcher.com<\/a>><\/p>\n

No free will ever?\u00a0 Or no free will to disobey when commanded?\u00a0 I don’t know that it’s possible to have intellect without will.\u00a0 Well, then again, most of us have to make decisions about what is true, and what isn’t, or what to remember and forget – but a spirit of intellect is mostly just a talking library, right?\u00a0 A storehouse.\u00a0 Although, Bob seems to also understand what he knows…\u00a0 I’m getting over my head.<\/p>\n

Well, I don’t want to hand out too much outside the context of an actual story.\u00a0 But within the context of the Dresden books, Bob isn’t, like, an actual mortal person.<\/p>\n

Mortals are the ones who have free will, the ability to choose what they’re doing, to choose between right and wrong.\u00a0 Without getting too thickly into the underlying philosophy, that’s the thing that separates, for example, mankind from the angels–the angels didn’t get the same kind of choice about their existance, and what they would do with it.\u00a0 Mortals get the chance to make all kinds of decisions, and can change their minds, well, at will.\u00a0 Other creatures, though they may look like people, don’t get the same range of choices about who and what they will be.<\/p>\n

Mab, for example, is Mab.\u00a0 She \/can’t\/ show up and suddenly be merciful, generous, patient and kind.\u00a0 It would never so much as occur to her to do so, because it isn’t a fundamental part of her nature, and she \/can’t\/ choose to change it.\u00a0 She simply isn’t capable.\u00a0 She doesn’t have free will in the same way that people do.\u00a0 It’s related to the difference between having a soul and not having a soul, as well.\u00a0 Without a soul, you aren’t free to choose how you will shape that soul.\u00a0 You just stay what you are.<\/p>\n

But that’s getting way off the subject of Bob.\u00a0 I mean, don’t you think that if he had totally free will, he’d be out of the skull all the time, hitching rides in people’s heads on their way into strip bars or something?\u00a0 There’s a reason he obeys Harry, and it’s not purely because Harry offers him shelter from a gruesome demise. It’s a part of who and what he is.<\/p>\n

Another question: Does Bob know everything all the time, or just know when he is asked a question?\u00a0 Can he ask himself questions? (wouldn’t that involve will?)<\/p>\n

He doesn’t know everything.\u00a0 He knows a LOT.\u00a0 There’s a difference.\u00a0 He’s been alive for centuries and worked with a lot of different wizards, and he remembers absolutely everything he is exposed to.\u00a0 He’s an enormous source of information and practical experience, not a conduit to infinite knowledge.\u00a0 He’s got limits.\u00a0 He can ask himself questions and attempt to extrapolate answers based upon what he knows, or by asking other spirits for answers, or by venturing out and seeking the answers himself, but he doesn’t just pull knowledge out of nowhere.\u00a0 He just LIKES having it, and getting more of it.\u00a0 That’s what he is.\u00a0 He’s innocent (more or less) of the whole question of good and evil.\u00a0 His existance is focused on questions and answers, upon simply acquiring the knowledge, and that’s that.<\/p>\n

Which is not to say that he could never become anything more.\u00a0 Especially if he hangs around with mortals a lot.\u00a0 Mortals, in their own possession of free will, have a tendancy to influence beings who don’t have it, in one way or another.\u00a0 I suppose it’s entirely possible, for example, that too much association with mortals are what changed Aurora, former Summer Lady, and gave her a determination to destroy the natural order in an effort to change its very nature–for the better, true, but it would never even have occurred to any of the other Queens, Mothers or Lady that such a thing might be, until it had already happened.\u00a0 It isn’t in their nature.<\/p>\n

But perhaps I’ve said too much.\u00a0 I’ll shut up now.\u00a0\":)\"<\/p>\n

Jim<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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2008 ComicCon Playing God panel Q&A<\/a>\u00a0@~7:00
\nHow do you come up with the bounds between Characters free will and the Divine Hand?<\/strong>
\nFor the Dresden Files, the whole point of The Almighty positive good forces that are out there is that free will is important and they respect that and you’ve gotta have it and use it.\u00a0 That’s the entire point.\u00a0 They are a force of freedom.\u00a0 And it’s the bad guys who are going around doing whatever they can to abrogate free will.\u00a0 So for me, where you draw the line is what defines where good stops and evil starts is by how much you’re taking away free will and how much you’re enabling it.
\n2011 Marscon<\/a>
\nCould you explain free will to us from Bob\u2019s perspective?<\/strong>
\nFree will from Bob\u2019s perspective? Bob thinks free will is a complete illusion, uh, since he doesn\u2019t really have it. Um, it\u2019s a conceit that mortals have to make themselves feel like they can be in control of things. Uh, but really, it doesn\u2019t actually exist, that\u2019s Bob\u2019s take on it.\u00a0 But then again, Bob doesn\u2019t really have free will, he\u2019s sort of\u2026
\nHe said that Lash got it.<\/strong>
\nLash isn\u2019t Bob.
\nWell, no, but he [Bob] said that Lash got, obtained free will.<\/strong>
\nYeah, Bob doesn\u2019t have to tell the truth to Dresden! (Laughter) I mean, come on! Bob offered it as a possible explanation, but you know, Bob\u2019s essentially\u2026he\u2019s a theoretician. That\u2019s what he does\u2026 \u2018Explain this\u2019 , \u2018Okay, maybe it was this, I don\u2019t know.\u2019 But yeah, he tries to stay out of the whole, anything like, anything that verges on morality, Bob tries to avoid speaking with any authority on because he doesn\u2019t have any compass himself. It all depends on who actually happens to be in possession of the skull at the time.
\n2011 Fast Forward, Contemporary Science Fiction interview<\/a>
\nThere is a rather long discussion as to what constitutes free will as an element in the back end of this book (Ghost Story).\u00a0 Is what is presented and discussed as a concept, your own philosophy?\u00a0 How did that come about, the idea that free will is making your choices based upon truth.<\/strong>
\nRight, and in the Dresden Files universe it’s a vital component.\u00a0 It’s what devides mortals, human beings, from everybody else.\u00a0 Is that we’re the ones that have elements of both good and evil inside us, we’re the ones who get to chose what to do.\u00a0 And because that’s who we are, we make the world around us through those choices.\u00a0 The forces of the universe, these cosmic forces are always ballanced against one another, and we’re the ones who can tilt that see-saw one way or another with our actions.\u00a0 I think that is largely true in real life, but it is certainly a very fun, dramatic use of the concept of free will for writing with.\u00a0 It’s very important in general, and that’s why Harry, as he’s gotten more mature, he’s striven so much harder to make sure that other people have a choice, you know, he’s not trying to make choices for people any more, he’s trying to make sure that they know what’s going on, and can make an informed choice.
\n2011 Bitten by Books Q&A<\/a>
\nLash was apparently able to gain free will from harry, a mortal. Can mortals potentially grant free will to other supernaturals like vampires and faries?\u201d<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s\u2026 a spectacularly complicated question, really.\u00a0\u00a0\":)\"
\nLash didn\u2019t gain free will, per se. Lash gained individuality, became a singular entity, self-motivated and distinct from the personality of Lasciel the Fallen. That personality was strongly influenced by Dresden, who believes very strongly in individual choice and responsibility, but doesn\u2019t necessarily equate to free will in the sense of what mortals possess.
\nYou might note that Lash essentially committed suicide with her \u201cfree will.\u201d A choice which rather strongly resembles another choice a few books later in the series.
\n2012 Reddit AMA:<\/a>
\ndomino7: 4)<\/strong>\u00a0Short of rewriting reality entirely, is it possible for a supernatural creature to become human? Or, barring changelingism\/vampirism, vice versa?
\nJim: 4)<\/strong>\u00a0Case by case basis on that one. Some it might be, most definitely not.<\/p>\n

Dresden Files Cosmology and Mantle stuff that can’t be assigned elsewhere<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n

(some of the things above in Free Will blend into this, but will stay there)<\/em><\/p>\n

2011 KC signing<\/a>
\nHave you ever had the idea to have a short story of Dresden crossing over into another universe, like Star Wars?<\/strong>
\nNo, because I don’t want to get sued. However, just so you’re aware the Dresden Files universe exists in a big, wide, spectral multi-verse. It’s not like there’s parallel Earths. There’s an entire broadcast spectrum of parallel Earths, and if you go far enough you’ll find the parallel that’s where\u00a0\"???\". You’ll find the parallel Earth where Star Wars stuff works, and so on. Dresden could get there if he wanted to, but stop and think about that for a minute: Would you really want to go the Star Wars universe? Because you’re not going to be a jedi over there. Really jedi are a lot scarier on the ground level than they are from passenger seat view next to one. You know, “There’s a bunch of heavily armed fanatics with mind control powers here; they say they want to talk to you.” That’s kind of spooky.
\n2012 Reddit AMA:<\/a>
\nDudesan:<\/strong>\u00a0What we’ve seen of the cosmology of The Dresden Files seems very Earth-centric. Is that because everything really does revolve around the Earth[1] , or because we’re seeing only a tiny slice of a much bigger picture? Are there other planets in real-space inhabited by extraterrestrial sentient beings? If so, do they have their own analogues of wizards, fairies, gods, etc? Are supernatural things influenced by their belief as it is by those of humans? If so, to what extent do these “spheres of influence” overlap?
\nJim: 3)<\/strong>\u00a0Everything revolves around \/this\/ earth, in the Dresden stories. But not necessarily around all (or even a majority of) the other earths that exist in the continuum of possibility created by free will. Other, parallel realities have other worlds playing a more central role, and some of them have earth in a nice quiet backwater, peaceful, relatively conflict free, and boring.
\nDudesan:<\/strong>\u00a0The same story [Backup] seemed to imply that entities could gain or lose power retroactively, in a wibbley-wobbly timey-wimey sort of way. For example, The Almighty is the Creator of the Universe, but He hasn’t always been the Creator of the Universe[4] . Is there anything to this assumption, and if so, might we see it explored in greater detail later?
\nJim:<\/strong>\u00a07) You’re assigning limits where there aren’t any. In the Dresden Files universe, what changes really isn’t the actual beings. It’s our understanding of who and what they are.
\n2013 KC signing Q&A<\/a>
\nAre you going to explore where the mantles come from?<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019ll have to as we go on, in terms of, to a certain degree, some of them have always been there. If we’re talking about mantles in There\u2019s all kinds of them. It\u2019s not just Faerie, they\u2019re all over the place. There are still mantles hanging around from Greek times. Greco-Roman mythology, **unintelligible** mythology. The gods are also around, in one form or another, most of them are around. Some of them got themselves killed. Because lets face it, some of those guys were idiots.
\nAnd I mean, you go back there and read, and it\u2019s like, how could you possibly have survived that? The answer in the Dresden Files is that they didn’t. They *unintelligible* up til they died. Sorry, Hercules, you can only go slamming your head into walls for so long. And if your mantle passed on to The Hulk, it sort of exists in people\u2019s minds and imaginations now.
\nInfo about really powerful beings<\/strong>
\nThe Mothers are extremely powerful beings, I mean, they\u2019re really really well, you can tell because they hardly ever show up on the real world. In the Dresden Files universe if you don\u2019t show up on the real world, it\u2019s because you\u2019re too big to walk around there. For instance,\u00a0 I think in the third book, when the Dragon is talking about how the Earth couldn’t bear his weight, it\u2019s not that the Earth itself would literally crack, it\u2019s that reality would have issues trying to contain him, because every time he coughs, it would bend around like Neo in the Matrix. So, they spend most of their time NOT on the real world, they spend it hanging around in the Nevernever, all the really heavyweight guys do that. If you\u2019re in the real world, well, the problem is that you\u2019re in the world, and you\u2019re kind of mortal, and something could come along and try and whack you, if they\u2019re fast enough, or good enough, or lucky enough. Which makes Odin a kind of special guy, because he doesn’t mind it, he thinks it\u2019s awesome. But anyway, you can always tell. If there\u2019s folks who don\u2019t show up in the real world, it\u2019s because they\u2019re super big. So, like, an angel shows up, and it\u2019s just sort of a whispered presence that one person is aware of, that\u2019s because he\u2019s just too big to show up here, it\u2019s a giant sandbox, and he\u2019s got to be very very careful to not squash the sandbox. So, he just shows up for that one bit.
\nKiama Austrailia Q&A<\/a>
\nOne of your more weirder scenes was the journey on the Chichen Itza.\u00a0 That journey through the parallel universes, but mixed in with the physical ones. Where did you get the ideas? I think there was like the upside triangles of light. Do you use like random things or how did you…?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nAs far as going through the parallel universes, to get somewhere else, that’s largely lifted from Zelazny’s Amber books. I don’t know if you guys read Amber but travelling through Shadow is much the same.
\nMysterious Galaxy Signing Q and A<\/a>
\nOne of my favorite parts of your novels are the divine and the demonic, and kind of how they offer (?) each other, and how they have rules, and I wanted to ask, what made you decide that Chicago wasn\u2019t enough, that all of Creation has to be at stake?<\/strong>
\nWell, it\u2019s not all of Creation.\u00a0 It\u2019s just all of THIS Creation. We haven\u2019t really pulled the camera back far enough yet.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of reality in the Dresden Files.\u00a0 The Dresden Files is a universe that is driven by Free Will, and every time you make a choice, it creates a new universe.\u00a0 So, there\u2019s this vast spectrum of universe out there, and it\u2019s not just ours, there\u2019s causality going off in every direction.\u00a0 So a philosophical war on that scale is something that is just so tremendous you can barely imagine it.\u00a0 And while it dwarfs into unimportance our particular universe, at the same time, the only way to win that war is one choice at a time, one person at a time. And that\u2019s really what\u2019s going on at the level where the angels are operating, that\u2019s what they\u2019re concerned about.\u00a0 On the level where Dresden\u2019s operating, its like, \u201cHow can I survive until the next chapter?\u201d and that\u2019s sort of the problem that we\u2019ve got, as people, how do we look out and try to fix the things that are wrong with our world, when we\u2019re basically going, \u201cHow do I get to the next chapter?\u201d\u00a0 How can we have that longer view point, do we need it?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know the answers to questions like that, but I enjoy the hell out of torturing Dresden with them!\u00a0 That\u2019s really kind of the point of what I do.
\n2014 Dragoncon WoJ time stamped youtube link of a rambling WoJ about pandimensionality, extradimensionality (Outsiders) and aliens<\/a><\/p>\n

WoJ on the mods:<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n

Jim describes how he met Iago in detail in this time stamped video link<\/a>
\n2009 Bitten by Books<\/a>
\n\u201cAre you amazed at how many fans visit your website on a regular and addictive time frame?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not \u201camazed,\u201d really. STARTLED, yes. But it\u2019s natural for people to form communities. It\u2019s what we do. What we build the community around is often almost incidental to the community itself. I mean, I was once loosely connected to a Rocky Horror Picture Show community. If you can build a community around that, you can build one around anything.\u00a0\":)\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I want to know is, how did you meet the goddess Priscellie and Fred\/Iago and others? And thank her again for doing the butcher block pod casts.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fred and I played a text-based internet RPG together called AmberMUSH, back in the early 90s when the internet was just beginning to hit. We did not get along well.\u00a0\":)\"\u00a0I was at odds with a friend of Fred\u2019s, and Fred is the kind of guy who is fiercely loyal to his friends. We eventually worked things out, and when he came to grad school in the same general part of the country, he joined up with my semi-regular D&D or Warhammer games which I ran out of my teeny tiny little 20\u00d720 rental house in Norman, Oklahoma. As I kept trying to write and get published, Fred gave me his unwavering support and plenty of encouragement, for which I have probably never adequately expressed my gratitude. Part of that was him volunteering to set up a basic bulletin-board style forum for fans of the books\u2013which he did long before the books even SOLD, much less got published.<\/p>\n

I thought he was insane. Enthusiastically and supportability insane, but INSANE.<\/p>\n

Turns out he was just a lot more farsighted than me, I guess.\u00a0\":)\"<\/p>\n

Priscilla hopped onto the forum at some point several years ago, and through her unflagging enthusiasm, willingness to volunteer her time, and general all-around niftiness became kinda indispensable. Several other folks have made similar, enormous contributions in terms of time they\u2019ve given to the site, including Mickey Finn and ashton, and probably more people whom I am not remembering but should be.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t go out looking for any of them. I didn\u2019t put out an ad in a paper asking for their help. These people have just \/given\/ it. Like Fred, they\u2019re kind of insane, grotesquely supportive, and very, very encouraging to me in both a professional and personal sense. I\u2019m grateful to them. I don\u2019t quite understand why they do what they do, but I\u2019m willing to take it on faith. I doubt I\u2019d be where I am today without their participation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Link back to the main Dresden Files WoJ compilation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Link back to the main Dresden Files WoJ compilation   Misc:\u00a0(stuff I haven’t got a different nook to shove it … More WoJ and stuff I didn’t put into other categories<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":144,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-200","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/200\/revisions\/230"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}