Being the most powerful doesn't necessarily mean you get your way in the end. Hell, there isn't any real proof that there is a big-G God, just that the Archangels say so.

The Faerie Courts are constrained to acting within nature, so no End of the World for them. Being Queens over nature has its limits after all. Still, they could wipe out human life on this planet with ease, if one of them gained enough power to take the other out, a la Summer Knight.

Cowl and Kumori were never Kemmlerites, but they do know necromancy, and Mavra has the Word of Kemmler.

Dude, you're not thinking this through right. This is not supposed to be Mavra sticking to the 'hide in the shadows' philosophy; this is Mavra going for the win. Forever. Checkmate. Holding all the aces. Game Over, please insert new credit to start again. This is Black Court supremacy with her on top. The End.

I mean, it's got to rankle that she has to hide from weak, pathetic, mortal humans, of all things. The only thing they have going for them is numbers, which the Black Court can turn to their advantage better than any other species out there.

So would I, though I'd go with 20% chance over Tehan's 30%.

If there's one thing the White Council is good at, it's making sure a given warlock is dead. Any attempt to trick them would fall short on account of the Sight, and the Warden's philosophy of stabbing him with anything that comes to hand seemingly gives them the first hand evidence necessary to take it as proof.

Personally, I think he's made himself immune to death by mundane means, so that the only real way he could be killed would be through magic, which the Council is generally against. The Blackstaff excluded, but that's supposed to be a Secret, so not much good for going up against Big Bads like Kemmler.

 

Maybe they have, though I doubt it's common. Could require some major power behind it, or some other kind of steep requirement. Or maybe the side-effects are truly horrific. We don't know too much about the full extent of the power of Necromancy, all in all. Dresden's hardly an expert on the subject, and what we know comes from him.

 

My point with Mavra is that she won't do anything that even potentially exposes her to risk. Starting the Black Court anew does that, at least for the first few days while they spread. Once its known that the Black Court is reforming, literally every single being with any supernatural abilities and interest in the mortal plane will be hunting for her head. Regardless how good she is, she will lose that fight.

Before that though, she's not likely to be in that situation in the first place. She's been more or less hiding for several hundred years. You don't live that long without developing certain instincts. Those become ingrained habit, and the habit of centuries is damn near impossible to break.

 

Now I wonder how one being could become powerful enough over night to rival any of the major powers. Oh yeah, the Darkhallow, which Mavra has the how-to guide for.

Also, it's Black Court instinct to kill. It's their reproduction method, their way of feeding and (possibly) their way of gaining power all at once. Ingrained habit counts for a lot, but so does the need to feed.

 

That is true, I forgot she had the book on the Darkhallow. With that she could certainly be a contender. That raises a good point though. If she has the knowledge and skill to perform the Darkhallow, why hasn't she done it already? There's plenty of places in the world that are at least somewhat under-protected by the White Council that would yield a staggering number of people to be sacrificed. Delhi and Bangkok immediately spring to mind. The East is underrepresented by the Council and as such is likely to have a correspondingly lesser guard. If some hack mortals can put together the Darkhallow with almost no warning to the Council, someone who has specialized in stealth and secrecy for multiple centuries must be able to set it up equally as quietly.

And using places like Delhi has the advantage that no one will come charging in on a Dinosaur to interrupt her.

 

Me Im going with someone like say Uriel, Odin, Mother Winter, Mother Summer, Mab, or someone like that, sends someone to recover the body and heals him, does CPR, or something along those lines so that his heart doesnt stop beating for long. The heart can be restarted. There doesnt have to be anything miraculous about it.

And the idea that none of them could do is a strech. Mab is atleast Uriel's equal, the equal of an Arch Angel. Since your really pushing the God stuff Im guessing that means something to you. Her mother and mother Winter are even more powerful and have intellectus which means they could easily know whats about to happen to Dresden and have a plan ready to prevent him from completely dieing. Theres a big difference in being shot and dieing and being shot and your heart stopping for a few minutes.

 

Because wherever there's people, there's movers and shakers. And they get uppity if you try to eat their turf. As was so aptly demonstrated when Harry went all zombie tyrannosaurus.

 

Hack mortals?? These were Kemmeler's students, his best and brightest. Who survived when he did not. They had serious influence over the Red court and sufficent knowledge and skill to summon outsiders. They completely shut down Chicago and proceeded to tear it apart. The surviving part is proof enough that they are not hack mortals. The second part makes them very very dangerous and scary as hell. Marva sent Harry to get the book so she wouldnt have to face them. In no way are they hack mortals.

 

The thing about Dehli is that the local gods and goddesses might get a little pissed about someone trying to make them into muchies, and India has a lot more people who seriously worship than America. Imbuneing a champion with a shit load of power so he could go stomp the shit out of some necromancer would be easy for just one old god. India has thousands. Chicago was an easy target, no local gods and a lot of dead spirits hanging around Native American burial grounds just waiting to be picked up by a soon-to-be-god. Other places in the world not so much.

 

Now, if we are talking about gods in Dresden verse, did Jim said anything more what is with them? Going by sher number of various gods from different pantheons it's wonder that aside of Odin we didn't see any influencing world in more direct way.

 

I get the feeling that there are alot of beings who are considered gods, like the top members of the red court; actual gods, like Odin; and God, aka the alpha and omega, the almight, the christian god.

 

Except Butcher has come out and said, flat out, "Dresden is dead". Other than that, I agree.

And no, the God stuff really holds absolutely no significance to me. I'm a fairly hardcore atheist with regards to religion. It just seems the most likely course for the books to take.

And yet they still lost.

The point is that if a small collection of mortal wizards could get way too close to succeeding with the Darkhallow, Mavra (a vampire who has had centuries of training in secrecy, stealth and misdirection) could do at least as well as they.

 

Actually I believe Butcher has said he is dead but not 100% dead. But that doesnt change what I said. If he is heart stops beating he's dead no doubt about it. But if its restarted soon enough he isnt dead then.

I am saying Im right? No, it could very well be on the third day Dresden walks into Mac's bar and says it will all be okay before ascending to heaven in a beam of light with angels playing trumpets in the background and all his dearly beloved friends spend the rest of their natural born days preaching the gospel according to Dresden... but I doubt it.

They failed because 2 of them couldnt stop fighting among themselves long enough to do anything and because Dresden got lucky, found the word before they did, and had an fallen angel who could speed read really well. Take out luck, Dresden getting his hands on it first, Lash, or the fact that they were constantly fighting each other and they win. They win big time.

 

That's like saying "Take out the giant meteor and the dinosaurs woulda won". It's also fairly irrelevant. The whole point was that Mavra is significantly more experienced (and therefore highly likely to be more skilled) than any of the Kemmlerites.

 

Skill isn't universal. Someone that learned from the scariest necromancer known to history that took the entire White Court to kill and has spent decades practicing his lessons is going to be better at necromancy than someone who's only claim to necromancy fame is generic 'experience'.

 

I'm not talking about necromantic skill. I'm talking about skill in going unnoticed. It doesn't matter if she's less skilled in Necromancy. She has a step-by-step how-to guide. What's important is the ability to set it up without setting off any alarms. Mavra is infinitely better at that than any mortal.

 

Except 'setting it up' meant 'sending a bunch of ghosts batshit crazy to weaken the walls between life and death'. Which sure as fuck does need necromantic skill, especially if you're trying to do it without leading the local powers-that-be right to your door.

 

Er, you all do remember that Mavra is essentially a walking corpse, right? If anyone is capable of learning how necromancy works on a fundamental level, it's the one who is essentially kept up and moving through it.

 

Or it could very easily mean that, having already crossed the line between life and death, it's much harder for her to muck around with it. Assumptions: they make an ass out of u and umptions.

(and if you think that's a CAD quote I will straight-up stab you in the mouth)

 

While I generally agree with this hierarchy, I wouldn't be so quick to name the White God the Christian god. He has performed various actions in the past that have been interpreted by humans into the Christian church, but the White God himself may not be as Christian theology says.

In fact, he can't be. If he was omnipotent there'd be no story to tell.