This could also arguably be extended to include oral traditions as well. The stories, tales and teachings of such are intended, and designed to be remembered. One could argue that the Archive's magic does recognize such as something to note.

There's no evidence that I've seen one way or the other for it, but it's definitely plausible.

 

Also otters. She likes otters.


I agree with you though.

Remember Dresden's inner thoughts right before he asked Lea what his mother had left him? Knowledge is the only real legacy that can be left to the next generation. No matter what else people have, if they have no idea what to do with it, they're fucked.

Hell, every post-apocalyptic, we've-moved-past-the-dark-age-of-technology-and-have-no-idea-how-this-shit-works story is that idea, expanded.

Ivy is the legacy of all of humanity. No, we don't know all the ins and outs and limits she has or even what her relative processing power is, but I guess that's part of the point - even someone who knows everything is still only human.

Humans are limited and flawed - that's one of the main themes of the series: everybody makes mistakes. Ivy's above every wizard on Earth in terms of raw power, and probably in terms of understanding how to use it, but she's not a god.

 

I always just held by my belief (and will until WoG says otherwise) that it is intent that drives EVERYTHING with magic in the Dresdenverse.

The Archive was intended to be a store of recorded knowledge. Therefore she is a backup of ALL stored knowledge. We could take it literally, and only written knowledge, but that goes against my initial belief.

I got it from the laws of magic, specifically, Do Not Kill With Magic. After a long discussion between several of us on the JimButcher boards (same username over there) about what constitutes killing, I ended up on the side that it doesn't matter whether the magic is the tool that does the killing or not (throwing them off a building is killing, although gravity is the tool; stopping their life is killing, as magic is the tool), but it is based on intent. As opposed to the other side which is that effect matters more than intent (knocking them off a building is killing, deliberate or not).

 

You're thinking too much into this Tehan. By your logic, she can't even know what knowledge there is in the world at present, because for that, she would have to understand every language currently in existence. And as much fun it is to fantasize about how she can't knows ciphers and heliographs, ultimately, it comes down to the fact that she just knows. Doesn't matter if the language was for an imaginary troll, or an NSA cryptologist. She knows the meaning behind all those words.

On the other hand, I can get behind your argument about human knowledge not being the perfect way to record the actual events. Still, magic or technology, human factor always accounts for errors.

 

I'm not saying that she's gotten the short end of the stick with all those examples I brought up, I'm saying that if you want to talk about what power Ivy has, you have to answer all those questions, and if your answer to every single one is 'she knows everything' you need a good smack upside the head. You can't just say 'magic did it', because Dresden Files demonstrates time and time again that magic has limits and rules.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that Butcher himself hasn't quite nailed down the details of the Archive's powers, considering he's waffled on the topic of whether printouts count.

 

No he actually has, you'd need to give me a bit to locate the quote but I'm sure I've seen him say that she gets absolutely everything even before they started writing things down including word of mouth and hieroglyphs and the like.

 

From Dresden RPG (that is considered almost the canon since Jim is working with authors and actually didn't let them write some things, because they figured out details that weren't in the books yet):

 

If her bailiwick covers everything that's spoken, why'd Dresden have to write down the message that they were en route in Small Favor?

 

The whole thing is a mess, but again - I think intent is the most important bit. Things which are meant to be recorded, in whatever medium, the Archive will know.

 

There is WoJ saying the exact opposite, I'm afraid, and killing without magic is perfectly fine compared to killing with it.

 

In the specific context of history, Ivy does have something of a huge advantage, since she wouldn't have the whole problem of ever losing a record. Most societies had plenty of writing among the elite upper class, it's just that 99.99% of that writing is gone a couple thousand years later.

I think Ivy's real problem would be the opposite; too much information (especially if oral histories/traditions are covered too). So, for example, Ivy would probably have an incredibly difficult time sorting out something like either of the World Wars, where she would have millions of different accounts from thousands of different perspectives to sort through.

 

IMO, part of her gift is the ability to actually sort out the underlying pattern in the world's texts, despite the potentially high "noise ratio."

The human mind is fairly well wired for this sort of thing; we can look at a very noisy digital image and at least have a rough idea of what we're looking at. How long is it going to be before a computer could be given that image, and output a comprehensible description of what it's seeing?

I believe Ivy can do this on a grand scale with the world's documented knowledge, and with more accuracy than normal humans can. To complete the analogy with the image I linked, it would be like her looking at that image, and not only describing the scene, but telling you exactly where that photo was taken. How? Magic. :awesome

 

That's the joy of Intellectus. You ask it a question and it just knows. it is like a database, in a way, but it's also so much more than that.

 

The problem isn't having to deal with unrelated noise, it's the fact that having access to all of recorded human knowledge would often give her dozens of contradictory answers to the same question. Different records written by different people are going to have different answers to the same questions. The problem isn't getting an answer, it's getting 20 different answers and having to figure out which one is the right one.

Fridge Horror realization of the day: if Ivy has all the written knowledge of humanity, that includes stuff like Nazi propaganda.

 

You're missing Chengar's point.

What if she has thirty thousand different rituals to summon the Dark Gods? How the hell does she know which of those thirty thousand is the one correct ritual?

I mean hell, I could write a book explaining how to summon a Daemon Prince of Khorne, that doesn't mean it actually would work. The Archive would still know it however, and if I were to match my ritual closely with some other method of reaching beyond the Outer Gates, there wouldn't be a whole lot of evidence to prove it's incorrect.

It could be the magic of the Archive just removes that entirely, and she just knows what's true and what's false, but it is a valid concern.

 

Yet she has the knowledge of all of them ever written. How does she know which rituals are true and which ones are bogus shenanigans someone put down to look like they knew what they're doing?

The point is not whether or not she knows all the rituals, because we all know and agree she does. The problem lies in the fact that she knows all the rituals. It's much like historical documents, it's very, very hard to really tell when something is a true story, based on a true story or a complete fabrication.

Maybe a better example is how can she differentiate between a real magical tome or a dedicated D&D RPer's spellbook.

Just because she knows something does not mean that knowledge is useful, practical, or even true.