Dresden Files - Cold Days
Sep. 25th, 2013 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cammehFinally getting around to reading Cold Days.
I’m about a third of the way through, and I’m wondering about Merlin, and why he looms as such a large figure in the history and memory of wizards. Bob’s mention of Merlin rescuing books from the burning of the Library of Alexandria and his involvement with King Arthur and Camelot could maybe put him as living anywhere in or around the 1st to the 6th century AD.
(And whoa, now that I think about Harry’s discussion with Vadderung and Merlin’s proclivity for time travel both in mythology and in Dresden Files canon, that’s interesting, maybe Merlin had traveled forward in time at some point?)
But anyway, back on track. 0-500 AD is not that long ago in terms of wizard lifespans, since they can live up to, what, 400 years or so? I think? So Merlin was feasibly still living only four or five wizard lifetimes ago. Why did he become such a looming mythological figure in that relatively short timeframe, and more importantly, why is it that the incredibly advanced level of magic that he wielded—which Bob compared to Harry’s magic as a carbine engine to a wheel and axle—why is it that it totally disappeared to the point that Bob didn’t even recognize it? Merlin kept no records? Merlin had no apprentices? Was there some sort of cataclysmic event that destroyed his level of knowledge in the handful of wizarding generations between Merlin and Harry? Or was Merlin just ~that genius~?
I hope this gets explained or at least at some point, gdit. It’s driving me a little batty.
I’m about a third of the way through, and I’m wondering about Merlin, and why he looms as such a large figure in the history and memory of wizards. Bob’s mention of Merlin rescuing books from the burning of the Library of Alexandria and his involvement with King Arthur and Camelot could maybe put him as living anywhere in or around the 1st to the 6th century AD.
(And whoa, now that I think about Harry’s discussion with Vadderung and Merlin’s proclivity for time travel both in mythology and in Dresden Files canon, that’s interesting, maybe Merlin had traveled forward in time at some point?)
But anyway, back on track. 0-500 AD is not that long ago in terms of wizard lifespans, since they can live up to, what, 400 years or so? I think? So Merlin was feasibly still living only four or five wizard lifetimes ago. Why did he become such a looming mythological figure in that relatively short timeframe, and more importantly, why is it that the incredibly advanced level of magic that he wielded—which Bob compared to Harry’s magic as a carbine engine to a wheel and axle—why is it that it totally disappeared to the point that Bob didn’t even recognize it? Merlin kept no records? Merlin had no apprentices? Was there some sort of cataclysmic event that destroyed his level of knowledge in the handful of wizarding generations between Merlin and Harry? Or was Merlin just ~that genius~?
I hope this gets explained or at least at some point, gdit. It’s driving me a little batty.
