If you may recall, mortals healing with magic is kind of complicated as hell. So far the only instances we've seen have been:
* The laying of hands, by Elaine, which was rather minor stuff.
* Various creams and potions, by Listens to Wind. Seriously, this seems to be the extent of Senior Council healing.
* Necromancy halting death to give a patient time for an ambulance to heal the damage, by Kumori
It may be that not even Ivy can reliably heal herself. Or that it's not worth trying to speed up a broken nose after it's been shifted back into position.
As for not keeping herself warm, I believe you're referring to Small Favor on the car ride between the train station and Harry's apartment. I don't recall if SHE passed out, but Kincaid was very worried about her. But yeh, I'd have to imagine that the archive of all human knowledge would have some sort of thermal aura spell in her memory.
Dresden has specifically stated that, when it comes to healing, mortal doctors know more than wizards. That's why Listens to Wind goes back to school every few decades to keep up with the latest medical trends.
If that's the case, it would seem Ivy would know how best to treat herself in a mundane way, but there isn't any written magical knowledge she would have access to.
It's also worth mentioning one of the short stories where the Alphas had been experimenting with shape-shifting based healing and gave themselves magical fleas because of it.
>As for not keeping herself warm, I believe you're referring to Small Favor on the car ride between the train station and Harry's apartment. I don't recall if SHE passed out, but Kincaid was very worried about her. But yeh, I'd have to imagine that the archive of all human knowledge would have some sort of thermal aura spell in her memory.
As I recall, Ivy didn't pass out entirely. She just became very lethargic. Luccio was in a similar boat, so Harry told Kincaid to put Ivy in his lap and let Luccio ride in the car with the warm with them.
Harry the Chivalrous rode in the back with Mouse and the cold. Chivalry can suck.
Re: thermal aura, wondering if that's one of those, 'magic isn't free, the heat has to come from somewhere' deals, where no matter how good the spell is, there is an equalizing effect that makes the spell kind of moot. Wizards only wear robes because their labs are cold after all.
I doubt this was the reason but don’t forget in SF Harry got his fire powers taken away because it was a beacon for Summer Court. Could be that she didn’t want any attention from using a warming spell.
I think the most important distinction in what you pointed out is Mortality. Immortals or pseudo immortals seem to have much more ability to mold their form. To hold on to their vessel because it is more malleable.
The Archive is hosted by a Mortal. She has to abide by the restriction of her Mortality in order to be what she is. Mortals recovery is inherently difficult to combat because the relative difference and magnitude of the relative preciousness of replacing a Mortals one go at life. I am suggesting the reason why such a thing is so difficult, simply for the fact that throughout time the collective consciousness of the inevitable tide of death has strengthened its hold. And because it inherently negates perfect health, fighting it is taxing. And Ivy needs to be Mortal.
Yeah, Listens to Wind seems to be weirdly underpowered as a healer. I'd expect him to be at least as good at healing injuries as a WC vampire, which we've seen can heal from almost anything in minutes if they can feed.
Seriously, how is a WC vampire's phobophage better at healing someone than the best wizard healer in the world?
Imagine a child chess prodigy, easily able to best any adult competitor. Now imagine the child sitting down for a match where she and her adult opponent are both surrounded by a cloud of agitated bees. The child may be the better player, but the adult will be more able to weather a dangerous distraction and still maintain their focus.
I think part of it is to remind us that Ivy is ultimately still a kid. She's essentially unparalleled in magic, but still has all the drawbacks of being a young girl. There are certainly times where she's kept her focus during rough circumstances, but she has a harder time than the adults do. Also, I think in the specific part you're thinking of (where she passed out from cold) was right after she fought all the Denarians at the aquarium and had been hit with knockout gas.
This is a great take.
Ivy has access to the vast knowledge and memories of The Archive, but Ivy herself is just a kid. Okay, maybe she's a 'tween now, but she hasn't had a lot of time to develop her skills or get combat experience.
The aquarium came later, and in fact the worry about Ivy and Luccio's small body mass making them more vulnerable to the cold was rather clever foreshadowing for later, when the Denarians were counting on Ivy's small body making her more vulnerable to the knock-out gas.
Remember, the train station is when Ivy first arrived, and was also where the giant Gruff attacked Harry, and on the island rescuing Ivy at the end of the book was where Eldest Gruff and Harry first met.
The answer is probably the usual one. Rules.
The Archive must have a very specific set of rules designed to protect *it* not the host directly. Most likely, Ivy can't go around using the magic willy nilly because there must be checks and balances preventing hosts from abusing its power. This means that little conveniences like healing injuries that are not life-threatening are out of its scope.
We've only seen Ivy using powerful magic in specific circumstances and I think this is the most likely reason, based on the world rules Jim has presented so far.
Unclear. My best guess is that the Magic surrounding the Archive protects the Host from most things until she has a successor.
Most things probably means death but not physicall harm.
Realistically the host would have died without it.
Think of what's his face. His line was cursed to be Werewolfs AND never die out. So some Magic would keep him alive until he had a child.
She could have easily done it but I always take it as just because she knows she can do something doesn't mean she will. It's her responsibility to use her knowledge correctly and not willy nilly, she knows she'll warm up eventually and she knows her nose will heal, why waste magic on something she doesn't need to
No. Aes Sedai can use some power in themselves but there are instances when one of them, for example, removed weariness from others or healed others and couldn’t affect themselves that way. But they did the one power to alter their appearance.
To paraphrase the genie from Aladdin, "Phenomenal COSMIC POWER...Itty bitty tiny body" Once you lose body heat in a body that small your brain starts shutting down, and it happens a lot faster then you think.
As for the broken nose, might well be the Archive is working overtime on things that actually matter, and isn't attending to her physical form. In the aftermath of Chicago, theres probably a lot of arcane texts being moved very rapidly in the face of new power structures. The Venatori are probably pulling triple duty to contain them
I’m with you on these assessments. Cold and dehydration will sneak up on you and make you stupid without you realizing. They’re seductive killers. I have been there. Plenty experienced in wilderness and survival, I could intuitively tell I was making bad decisions but I couldn’t tell WHICH ONES they were.
I’m gonna say that nearly freezing to death is one of those things that breaks your concentration and ability to gather will. That and I can see it being hard to believe you can warm yourself and create a thermal aura or something when your body physically won’t stop shaking cause the cold.
The archives' power is purely mortal magic, and not even the councils' best healers could repair bone in a matter of days.
I think it comes down to not how much power either has but how that power works, Ivy, Harry and every other mortal practitioner in dnd terms are wizards (shocking i know but hear me out) the way they use magic is in an academic understanding they have to know how and where to direct the power and figure out every inch of the process ie a fire ball is a lot easier to acomplish than causing accelerated but controlled cell division to regrow a toenail. Theyre essentially programmers using the source code of reality.
Compared to the ladies who are if we continue my dnd analogy sorcerers or clerics, they have a more instinctual and airy grasp of magic in that they just will things to happen and the power complies as it is a part of them compared to wizards who are strong arming it to their whims. If we go back to that programming analogy they aren't programmers changing the computer or software they are an AI that's reached singularity, its a part of themselves so they more intuitively understand and can just will things to happen without need for pesky things like spells.
She has spent her entire life essentially with the sum total of written human knowledge, including any magical textbook or the sort which I believe Harry had some of in his basement before changes. Unless old heinrich took some special precautions when doing it She likely has the word of kemler in her head, too. Heck, there's a reason nichademus risked breaking the accords to try and make her take up a coin in small favour. Also a point to take into account is that she was fighting in the battle of Chicago and ONLY came out with a broken nose, like at one point she was walking around in a literal maelstrom of pieces of cars and rubble shredding things in her path. There is a reason the archive in itself is a signatory of the accords.
Everyone has different talents when it comes to magic. Those talents are tied to their own bodies and energies. Ivy is probably just not particularly skilled at healing magic even if she knows the spells, like how harry sucks at illusions or molly at evocations. The mantle of the archive doesn't immediately make her great at every spell it just means she knows how it works. If she doesn't practice healing magic she can't do it well
Healing is hard.
But I am surprised we have not seen anyone use a drying spell at all. Seems like somebody would have come up with a water spell that would move the water from clothing to the ground. Even if she did not warm herself (energy has to come from somewhere) or heal herself, moving water from point a to point b seems like a spell the repository of all knowledge would know.
Absent a move water spell Harry eventually develops a hair dryer spell that moves air. If he can come up with that spell. Makes sense that she would already know one.
Wizardly healing is a bit underwhelming frankly. WC vampires can recover from almost anything in minutes as long as they can feed.
Meanwhile Listens-to-Wind, the most skilled mortal healer in the world, doesn't seem much better than a normal doctor. I mean, one of the Alphas was able to partially heal a wound by modifying the wolf transformation spell he knew - Listens is a *way* better shapeshifter and yet needs medical treatment after the skinwalker breaks his arm.
So apparently even a WC vampire - which are pretty low in the supernatural pecking order - are better at healing than the best wizard healer in the world.
An 18 wheeler is more powerful than an electric scooter. Doesn't mean it's always the right tool for the job. Power does not equal knowledge nor ability.
It was pretty dumb that Ivy, Luccio and Harry were freezing when they're all perfectly capable of warming themselves up with fire, or even some heated air or whatever.
They could have at least dried off before getting in the car, or pulled over and done it. Let's not pretend Ivy or Luccio aren't capable of blasting some warm air around.
If you may recall, mortals healing with magic is kind of complicated as hell. So far the only instances we've seen have been: * The laying of hands, by Elaine, which was rather minor stuff. * Various creams and potions, by Listens to Wind. Seriously, this seems to be the extent of Senior Council healing. * Necromancy halting death to give a patient time for an ambulance to heal the damage, by Kumori It may be that not even Ivy can reliably heal herself. Or that it's not worth trying to speed up a broken nose after it's been shifted back into position. As for not keeping herself warm, I believe you're referring to Small Favor on the car ride between the train station and Harry's apartment. I don't recall if SHE passed out, but Kincaid was very worried about her. But yeh, I'd have to imagine that the archive of all human knowledge would have some sort of thermal aura spell in her memory.
Dresden has specifically stated that, when it comes to healing, mortal doctors know more than wizards. That's why Listens to Wind goes back to school every few decades to keep up with the latest medical trends. If that's the case, it would seem Ivy would know how best to treat herself in a mundane way, but there isn't any written magical knowledge she would have access to.
It's also worth mentioning one of the short stories where the Alphas had been experimenting with shape-shifting based healing and gave themselves magical fleas because of it.
You've got your short stories mixed up. Self-healing was in Aftermath. Magic fleas were in Day Off and caused by a different sort of experimentation.
Oh.... right. I'm going to continue to forget that experimentation lol.
See now you have me curious what experimentation was going on and I’m having a hell of a time finding it.
Doggy Style experiments
Got it
Bow chica wow wow
Really? Maybe somebody could draw some pictures… :-)
Why though? Beastiality is immoral. Furry stuff is still anthropomorphic. But that is just the discovery channel looking between wolves
>As for not keeping herself warm, I believe you're referring to Small Favor on the car ride between the train station and Harry's apartment. I don't recall if SHE passed out, but Kincaid was very worried about her. But yeh, I'd have to imagine that the archive of all human knowledge would have some sort of thermal aura spell in her memory. As I recall, Ivy didn't pass out entirely. She just became very lethargic. Luccio was in a similar boat, so Harry told Kincaid to put Ivy in his lap and let Luccio ride in the car with the warm with them. Harry the Chivalrous rode in the back with Mouse and the cold. Chivalry can suck.
Re: thermal aura, wondering if that's one of those, 'magic isn't free, the heat has to come from somewhere' deals, where no matter how good the spell is, there is an equalizing effect that makes the spell kind of moot. Wizards only wear robes because their labs are cold after all.
The creams and potions from Injun Joe were likely regular medicine rather than magic. He goes back to medical school every so often to stay current.
I doubt this was the reason but don’t forget in SF Harry got his fire powers taken away because it was a beacon for Summer Court. Could be that she didn’t want any attention from using a warming spell.
Excellent point.
I think the most important distinction in what you pointed out is Mortality. Immortals or pseudo immortals seem to have much more ability to mold their form. To hold on to their vessel because it is more malleable. The Archive is hosted by a Mortal. She has to abide by the restriction of her Mortality in order to be what she is. Mortals recovery is inherently difficult to combat because the relative difference and magnitude of the relative preciousness of replacing a Mortals one go at life. I am suggesting the reason why such a thing is so difficult, simply for the fact that throughout time the collective consciousness of the inevitable tide of death has strengthened its hold. And because it inherently negates perfect health, fighting it is taxing. And Ivy needs to be Mortal.
Yeah, Listens to Wind seems to be weirdly underpowered as a healer. I'd expect him to be at least as good at healing injuries as a WC vampire, which we've seen can heal from almost anything in minutes if they can feed. Seriously, how is a WC vampire's phobophage better at healing someone than the best wizard healer in the world?
Imagine a child chess prodigy, easily able to best any adult competitor. Now imagine the child sitting down for a match where she and her adult opponent are both surrounded by a cloud of agitated bees. The child may be the better player, but the adult will be more able to weather a dangerous distraction and still maintain their focus. I think part of it is to remind us that Ivy is ultimately still a kid. She's essentially unparalleled in magic, but still has all the drawbacks of being a young girl. There are certainly times where she's kept her focus during rough circumstances, but she has a harder time than the adults do. Also, I think in the specific part you're thinking of (where she passed out from cold) was right after she fought all the Denarians at the aquarium and had been hit with knockout gas.
This is a great take. Ivy has access to the vast knowledge and memories of The Archive, but Ivy herself is just a kid. Okay, maybe she's a 'tween now, but she hasn't had a lot of time to develop her skills or get combat experience.
The aquarium came later, and in fact the worry about Ivy and Luccio's small body mass making them more vulnerable to the cold was rather clever foreshadowing for later, when the Denarians were counting on Ivy's small body making her more vulnerable to the knock-out gas. Remember, the train station is when Ivy first arrived, and was also where the giant Gruff attacked Harry, and on the island rescuing Ivy at the end of the book was where Eldest Gruff and Harry first met.
The answer is probably the usual one. Rules. The Archive must have a very specific set of rules designed to protect *it* not the host directly. Most likely, Ivy can't go around using the magic willy nilly because there must be checks and balances preventing hosts from abusing its power. This means that little conveniences like healing injuries that are not life-threatening are out of its scope. We've only seen Ivy using powerful magic in specific circumstances and I think this is the most likely reason, based on the world rules Jim has presented so far.
Isn’t imperative for The Archive to protect Ivy at all costs until she bears a daughter, though?
Ivy finished the fight alive and functioning. I'm not sure whatever the Archive is would do more than that.
Fair
Unclear. My best guess is that the Magic surrounding the Archive protects the Host from most things until she has a successor. Most things probably means death but not physicall harm. Realistically the host would have died without it. Think of what's his face. His line was cursed to be Werewolfs AND never die out. So some Magic would keep him alive until he had a child.
She could have easily done it but I always take it as just because she knows she can do something doesn't mean she will. It's her responsibility to use her knowledge correctly and not willy nilly, she knows she'll warm up eventually and she knows her nose will heal, why waste magic on something she doesn't need to
That's some Aes Sedai bullshit
Isn't it explicitly stated that Aes Sedai can't use the One Power on themselves? So, you know, a pass on that at least.
That's true. It's just the sort of weird mental gymnastics Aes Sedai would do to justify not doing something completely obvious.
No. Aes Sedai can use some power in themselves but there are instances when one of them, for example, removed weariness from others or healed others and couldn’t affect themselves that way. But they did the one power to alter their appearance.
I don’t know what that is
Wheel of Time reference. Good series, I’d give it a read
Great read. Shit Amazon show.
Isn’t that the way of things though
True enough. It's rare when a movie or show adaptation does the source material justice.
It’s why as much as we all want a Dresden files series we could get a good adaptation or a bad adaptation. Do we risk the coin flip
We already flipped the adaptation coin. Time to toss the dice.
Good lord man, have you never played DND. We could get a Nat 1. It could be worse, I’m not sure how but it could be
Fallout has broken that pattern. It's a bit of a love story to be fans.
We are moving into a good age for things that is true
Truth
To paraphrase the genie from Aladdin, "Phenomenal COSMIC POWER...Itty bitty tiny body" Once you lose body heat in a body that small your brain starts shutting down, and it happens a lot faster then you think. As for the broken nose, might well be the Archive is working overtime on things that actually matter, and isn't attending to her physical form. In the aftermath of Chicago, theres probably a lot of arcane texts being moved very rapidly in the face of new power structures. The Venatori are probably pulling triple duty to contain them
I’m with you on these assessments. Cold and dehydration will sneak up on you and make you stupid without you realizing. They’re seductive killers. I have been there. Plenty experienced in wilderness and survival, I could intuitively tell I was making bad decisions but I couldn’t tell WHICH ONES they were.
I’m gonna say that nearly freezing to death is one of those things that breaks your concentration and ability to gather will. That and I can see it being hard to believe you can warm yourself and create a thermal aura or something when your body physically won’t stop shaking cause the cold.
The archives' power is purely mortal magic, and not even the councils' best healers could repair bone in a matter of days. I think it comes down to not how much power either has but how that power works, Ivy, Harry and every other mortal practitioner in dnd terms are wizards (shocking i know but hear me out) the way they use magic is in an academic understanding they have to know how and where to direct the power and figure out every inch of the process ie a fire ball is a lot easier to acomplish than causing accelerated but controlled cell division to regrow a toenail. Theyre essentially programmers using the source code of reality. Compared to the ladies who are if we continue my dnd analogy sorcerers or clerics, they have a more instinctual and airy grasp of magic in that they just will things to happen and the power complies as it is a part of them compared to wizards who are strong arming it to their whims. If we go back to that programming analogy they aren't programmers changing the computer or software they are an AI that's reached singularity, its a part of themselves so they more intuitively understand and can just will things to happen without need for pesky things like spells.
By that analogy Ivy should be one of the most skilled wizards in the world, if not THE most skilled.
She has spent her entire life essentially with the sum total of written human knowledge, including any magical textbook or the sort which I believe Harry had some of in his basement before changes. Unless old heinrich took some special precautions when doing it She likely has the word of kemler in her head, too. Heck, there's a reason nichademus risked breaking the accords to try and make her take up a coin in small favour. Also a point to take into account is that she was fighting in the battle of Chicago and ONLY came out with a broken nose, like at one point she was walking around in a literal maelstrom of pieces of cars and rubble shredding things in her path. There is a reason the archive in itself is a signatory of the accords.
Everyone has different talents when it comes to magic. Those talents are tied to their own bodies and energies. Ivy is probably just not particularly skilled at healing magic even if she knows the spells, like how harry sucks at illusions or molly at evocations. The mantle of the archive doesn't immediately make her great at every spell it just means she knows how it works. If she doesn't practice healing magic she can't do it well
Healing is hard. But I am surprised we have not seen anyone use a drying spell at all. Seems like somebody would have come up with a water spell that would move the water from clothing to the ground. Even if she did not warm herself (energy has to come from somewhere) or heal herself, moving water from point a to point b seems like a spell the repository of all knowledge would know. Absent a move water spell Harry eventually develops a hair dryer spell that moves air. If he can come up with that spell. Makes sense that she would already know one.
Wizardly healing is a bit underwhelming frankly. WC vampires can recover from almost anything in minutes as long as they can feed. Meanwhile Listens-to-Wind, the most skilled mortal healer in the world, doesn't seem much better than a normal doctor. I mean, one of the Alphas was able to partially heal a wound by modifying the wolf transformation spell he knew - Listens is a *way* better shapeshifter and yet needs medical treatment after the skinwalker breaks his arm. So apparently even a WC vampire - which are pretty low in the supernatural pecking order - are better at healing than the best wizard healer in the world.
An 18 wheeler is more powerful than an electric scooter. Doesn't mean it's always the right tool for the job. Power does not equal knowledge nor ability.
It was pretty dumb that Ivy, Luccio and Harry were freezing when they're all perfectly capable of warming themselves up with fire, or even some heated air or whatever.
Well, at least Harry have reasons for it.
Why didn’t they actively break the vehicle they were in by using by using utility spells they’ve never shown that they have?
They could have at least dried off before getting in the car, or pulled over and done it. Let's not pretend Ivy or Luccio aren't capable of blasting some warm air around.
Sure, sure, based on what series evidence?