For fans of the Dresden Files...help?

[neotoma]

I've been reading CHANGES to get myself up to canon before tackling a cross-over big bang idea that's been rattling around in my head lately, but I got to Ch. 37 and hit a bit of a wall...

Vamps and Icks are fast, but I'd dueled their like before. Like the apocryphal Loki, my previous opponents had learned that no matter how quick you are on your feet, you aren't faster than thought.

Am I to believe that Loki doesn't exist in the Dresden'verse? Even though Harry crosses paths with a Valkyrie every other book and met Odin in this one? What? Loki's only the most mentioned character in the Eddas -- it's not like he's not integral to rather large parts of the mythology.

Or am I to think that Harry doesn't believe Loki is real... even though Harry has just had a conference with Odin -- who is stocking up weaponry and soldiers for something... like, I don't know, Ragnarok, maybe? And how does Harry know the story of Thor and Loki's journey to Utgard well enough to reference it, but poorly enough that he mixed up who did what challenge (Thjali, Thor's manservant, lost a race against a thought from their host's mind. Loki lost an eating contest against a disguised wildfire)?

Or is Jim Butcher just messing with his readers?

So, I noticed that Harry recognized some of the einherjar as men of Marcone's who were killed taking on the White Court, when Gard took Harry to Oslo. Am I the only one who thinks Gard assignment to work for Marcone's organization is in order to ensure that a certain percentage of his men die in battle (and thus are eligible to go to Valhalla and be soldiers for Odin at Ragnarok)?

I'm pretty sure that Harry hasn't realized it, and would be appalled if that's the case. Marcone probably has, and decided having Ms. Gard's services was worth the likely cost to him in men.

Comments

[neotoma]

Butcher doesn't have Harry use that much precision in his thoughts and speech, unless he's has Harry explaining the technical jargon, and then usually making a joke of it. So I'm reading the use of 'apocryphal' to mean 'not true'.

I can believe Butcher is messing with us by having Harry being naive and wrong -- Harry's probably using Marvel's The Mighty Thor as a reference, because comic books are popular media he can use without things going 'boom' due to his magic.

i'm not sure that Marcone is eligible to be an einherji... it depends on whether he dies in battle, whether he's even got the option of a Norse afterlife (vs a Christian one?), and whether his criminal activities violate enough Norse moral lines that he'd be sucked right to Niflheim.

[melannen]

Well, as someone who has read way too many books on folklore/mythology/magic/mysticism/assorted other weird stuff, the "hidden lore" meaning actually comes to me first, and I guess I can see Harry and/or Butcher having the same associations (I'm pretty much certain Butcher's read many of the same books I have, I don't know where else he'd've gotten some of his more singular bits of lore). It's not a matter of precision, just which usage you've seen more often. *shrug* I can't read the word "glamor" to mean anything other than faerie illusions anymore, either.

And if Marcone's men are eligible, it seems like he would be, too, at least within the Dresden Files cosmology; as long as he doesn't die a straw death, but I honestly don't see that as likely for him, and that's one thing Gard could actively work to prevent. The only thing would be that it's a lot more likely that other supernatural powers might try to lay a stronger claim for him first. Which is a good reason to have a Valkyrie following him around...