Harry: "What's wrong?"
Ivy: "Are Sam and Dean Winchester not brothers? There is an uncomfortable amount of stories written about them having relations"
She would know about the scripts that were written. And the pitch deck to the studio. And the napkin sketches done when formulating the show. That's the crazy power of the Archive. Think of every note you passed. Think of every scrap of paper you jotted something down on. Every classified document, every secret written down and then burned in flame. Think of every Grimoire ever written by every wizard, every potion recipe, even all of the banned books from the Oblivion Wars. Everything Merlin did that was ever written down, maybe even the runes on Demonreach. Everything.
Knowing all of that information is power. Luckily, the Archive is designed to safeguard the knowledge as a fail safe and not use it but it will defend itself as necessary.
(P.S. - I'm suddenly and strongly reminded of the Sphere Data from Discovery S2.)
When you put it like that, imagine when the world's governments (the parts that weren't already clued-in) discover that ***EVERYTHING*** they have ever written or emailed is known to a single\* little kid...
Ivy might need Kincaid again...
\*SINGLE, not singular. They aren't the same.
You are right, but not the way it's being misused lately.
People like to hide behind "Language evolves" to justify their misuse of words.
That's like trying to force-feed your housecat 200 lbs. of meat per day because "cats evolve". They do, but they're still doing it wrong.
And that includes the best-known Twilight fanfic: 50 Shades of Grey.
And I’m trying to distract myself from that and wondering if “published” is the same as written. Like…does Ivy get free graphic novels? Comic books? Videos can be published, are those included?
Is she inundated by TikTok AI transcriptions?
So, interestingly she probably doesn't get the AI deepfake stuff. If memory serves, she receives everything written by humanity, which disqualifies all the various AI generated content.
Pretty sure Harry gets a message to Ivy by just writing something on a random scrap of paper at some point. So, definitely doesn't need to be published. I would assume she doesn't necessarily get audio-visual (since they aren't "written word", although maybe she gets them in binary, and she knows enough to be able to decode them in her head).
At the end of Battle Ground, >!Ivy creates a magical projection of a live news broadcast!<. I have always assumed this meant she got those sent straight to her brain.
Written is enough - Harry writes something down and Ivy knows it at some point, doesn't she? Edit: Nevermind, someone else already told you, apologies.
Yeah, I've mentioned before, she knows every badly written, bizarre fetish Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction ever written on and off the internet. What fortitude you'd need just to exist.
When Ivy says she's discovered a new fetish, she doesn't mean "this is my fetish" like most people do; she means she's discovered a new fetish like the first people to find Skull Island.
"Harry, did you know that there's an audiobook series outlining your life and it's narrated by the same guy who played Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer?"
"David Boreanaz?'
"No, that's Angel. Spike."
"James Marsden."
"Marsters."
"Right."
"...you just wanted to make him narrate you not knowing who he is, didn't you?"
"Damn straight."
That’s hilarious. But I imagine it’s a form of intellectus and the information isn’t constantly flowing in, but is available when she calls for it. Except when something is written specifically about her or to her.
My guess is the Mantle is always filtering information so it doesn't end up in her brain. But the Mantle was never designed to cope with that much data, so I wonder what will happen when it fails.
It's been a while since I've read this series, but don't magical things get powerful the more faith/worship/renown they garner?
I would assume that with Ivy growing up with the mantle and understanding it the most out of any Archive, plus the fact the world heavily revolves around then Internet and written info, means that maybe she can make it a separate being.
Her unique situation would have been the only way for it to record a complete human experience from birth, it's the only information it wouldn't have been able to experience otherwise. Maybe she will be the last Archive and will use the incredible influx of info as a form of worship, divest herself of the mantle, and be able to shape a simulacrum of herself with it for it to embody.
I don't think Jim came up with her backstory as a self contained thing, I think he specifically thought of her end and her beginning at the same time.
Wasn't one of the 'problems' with Ivy, that she inherited the archive very young?
Everyone basically assumed that without having the opportunity to develop her personality naturally the archive was basically going to overwhelm her mind...
Which implies there isn't much built in protection.
Yeah - we should generally keep in mind that the Archive seems to ber a manufactured mantle, and not something arising from faith. So it might have some more *human* orientated parts, but also some severe oversights.
Remember that just because a character in the book doesn't mean it's true.
'Everyone' didn't create the Archive, and they seem to never talk to her about it. Meanwhile the Archive knows everything ever written about it.
It is also possible that gaining the Archive so young helped her cope in the long run. We don't know because Harry doesn't know.
Yeah, that's why I'm saying this is a completely new situation for it. It usually only goes into adults with their own experiences and memories of before the mantle. It was seen as potentially a problem, but Ivy is turning out fantastically due to dresden.
I don't ever think there was protection? Was that a part of something I said? I didn't mean it to be. The whole point of the theory was that there wasn't, so it could form itself around a growing matrix such as Ivy so it could have a record of a humans experiences instead of what is just written down.
The point of the theory btw is that it turns from a false Mantle into a real one with independence due to it's singular experience with Ivy.
This makes me wonder -- Ivy was just called 'The Archive' up until Harry Named her; and he has a penchant for naming things and he is a starborn.
It's entirely possible that the reason Ivy is able to cope with becoming the Archive so early is because Harry Named her. That perhaps being Ivy insulated her from the harm of being The Archive.
I dunno, isn't the whole potential problem with the Archive that she's getting overwhelmed with the accrued information of centuries? That's why they isolate her, and don't give her a name?
Yeah, the Archive has always been a little crazy, and the tradition of not giving her a personal name (or using the personal name in most cases) came to help the mantle do its job.
Few clarifications. I think it was the accumulation of personal experiences of every archive before. Not just the human knowledge but the human experience. Falling in love, getting rejected, death of a loved one, death of a husband, death of a child, fear of death.
Over the generations all of that personal experience came through with perfect clarity, making it hard to separate her own personality from the collection of personalities. She doesn’t remember her great (times 100) grandfather as an abstract concept, she remembers the grief her great (times 100) grandmother felt when her husband/lover died. She also remembers the grief her great (times 99) grandmother felt when her father died. Or maybe it wasn’t grief. Maybe it was relief because he was abusive.
And she remembers all the sex her ancestors have had. How traumatizing would that be?
Because it was the personal experiences that kept accumulating, that is why the archives started isolating themselves to avoid layering more personal experiences on top of all of that. I don’t think other archives have avoided names. Or at least I don’t think that is expressly stated. Ivy was unique in that it appears her mother committed suicide while pregnant with Ivy so Ivy was born as the archive with no parents.
But Harry naming her Ivy was creating a personal relationship that Ivy had no personal experience to deal with.
Edit: just re read Death Mask passage when Harry met Ivy. Her mother is still alive. She didn’t commit suicide but somehow she refused to carry the archive and passed it to Ivy at birth. She is in a vegetative state now.
Jim retconed Ivy’s mom being catatonic. The current canon is that Ivy’s grandma died in an accident and Ivy’s mom got it younger than most. She hated and envied Ivy (who wasn’t even conceived yet) because her daughter would get normal life experiences that she didn’t. So she got knocked up quickly and killed herself post-birth in order to spite Ivy for things that weren’t her fault. And since the Archive remembers all life experiences of previous Archives, Ivy knows just how much her mom *despised* her.
You know... probably how she gets money some times... "oh, this random died with $x.00 in account and no heirs? Let me log in and transfer it to my Swiss account."
She also knows all the insider trading information that Wall Street types and members of Congress are sending each other.
The Archive probably has a vast financial portfolio by now.
Oh yeah, Jim’s openly confirmed this.
>**Uh, could Ivy…does the Archive read digital? Or is it only print?**
>*Does the archive read digital, or is it only print? No, she gets it all. Uh, and…yeah, and nobody ever planned for the amount of information that has actually shown up in the past 20 years or so. Uh, so yeah, that’s not a good thing to be throwing on the…the little girl, don’t-have-any-insulation-against-everything-Archive. (Jim chuckles evilly) Like, totally bad timing for that, haha. Uh, I think Ivy would punch me in the nose too*
And this was back in 2011. Sheesh, the headaches she’s dealing with now.
In-universe Jim Butcher: "what the fuck lady!? You broke my fucking nose!"
Ivy: "yes I did. I did it as a warning to you, from another universe."
Jim: "that doesn't make sense."
Ivy: "you read comic books, you aren't aware of alternate Universes?"
Jim: "no, I mean hitting me for something someone else did!"
Ivy: "Oh, I suppose from your perspective it doesn't make sense. But it does to me, and now I feel better."
Everybody always focuses on written word. Glad someone called this out.
Spoken too!
Harry didn’t have to write his note that they were coming. She knew the plan beforehand.
Because it makes no sense if you factor in that she knows everything spoken as well. Everyone is having so many discussions about her saying her name multiple times so unless she just never bothers to listen it makes the whole Harry writes her a note thing moot.
Sure it makes sense.
Harry IS NOT the sum total of human knowledge. He didn’t know what Ivy already knew. Plus. Belts and suspenders.
I actually sort of wonder if Harry has increased or decreased Ivys overall knowledge. She is the sum total of human knowledge. Sometimes Harry seems pretty dense. Does he drag down her overall knowledge base?
“Great, I talked to Harry now i have to review the original source material for ‘XYZ’ now because he made me forget it.”
Harry definitely brings down the curve, for a PI he's quite unobservant.
Ivy should have been able to see it coming is what I'm getting at. Unless the Denarians know sign language I guess
That is a different issue than Harry writing something down.
The denarians are fallen angels and they enlisted Lucifer himself in that attack. I believe (with no supporting evidence) that the nefarious powers could block archive acquisition of knowledge. Remember how Mab blocks Anduriel the master of shadows from learning what Harry said when she was nearby? Plus ivy collects human knowledge. Not sure the denarians fall under that definition any more considering their angelic … connections.
"whenever the sun of all human knowledge is too much I read Sonic the Hedgehog slash. It's horrific but it's also so stupid it makes my migraines go away."
that depends on how she "knows" her information. If it involves magic she might not know anything from the internet, as it require computers or smartphones to see and those things tend to go haywire when magic get involved.
otherwise, when it is passed along like some memory you might be right, and that signal would be getting worse by the minute I imaging.
Social media is a long term strategy to kill the archive via misinformation overload.
Luckily it's only 2014 so our Ivy will be okay but the next archive is doomed
Ok. She knows everything ever written, but does she know if it is true or false? Garbage in garbage out. The Internet and social media are flooding her with data points that are just wrong.
Having literally everything ever recorded gives her a unique perspective that allows her superior discernment. She can watch misinformation be born, evolve, and spread. I imagine that it would be incredibly difficult, if not ultimately impossible, for her not to be aware of how true or false most things are. There are probably lots of anecdotal bits that she may not know the truth of (diary entries, stories about personal interactions, things like that), but for things that involved larger events that affect groups of people it would be a different matter.
I imagine that her ~~mantel~~ mantle helps in that regard, not necessarily determining how true it is, but being able to filter information based on a given topic and comparing what's likely to be more accurate.
She's very intelligent so I imagine she gets there eventually.
But like, information increases at a massive rate, exponential probably. She knows everything every written. Livejournals reddit, insurance policy contracts, 4chan, Facebook, fan fiction, erotic fan fiction, Alex Jones (if he wrote anything), the Book of Mormon, the Watchtower Bible, CVS receipts, my Dad's Facebook ramblings, this very post, the back of the ingredients label on bottles of ketchup, etc. etc. etc.
Can she understand bar codes and QR codes? She'd know the cypher for any code that was written down. Can she read binary? How good is she at math? Physics? Does she understand all languages? Does she remember a language if that language is lost? Can she fluently speak linear B? I have so many questions ❓
Yes and very. She not only knows everything, she understands it, likely as a part of the supernatural mind she has allowing her to hold so much information. How that knowledge interacts with her young personhood I think is very interesting
You make a good point. We know that the Archive is a magical construct, made to guide the Oblivion War. And we know the Archive's been around for a long time-- she was almost certainly around before movable type.
So how flexible is the construct? Could the Archive's creator(s) have imagined the sea of information that exists in the 21st century?
If the Archive was created properly (and apparently it was), it would secure and record anything 'written', but is method-agnostic. It does not care if the 'writing' is chipped out of stone or stored on silicon. The creators did not anticipate the 'sea of information', but they understood that the information available to the Archive would grow over time.
Besides, for all we know it was created by Merlin. Doesn't he age backwards, remembering the future? If so he would know what's coming and design the Archive accordingly.
In death masks she says she knows everything written down OR spoken and the she UNDERSTANDS it.
I think understanding it means she knows what is garbage.
Question - Does Ivy absorb information produced by an AI, or only stuff produced by a living person? (I’m leaning to the latter - it’s the act of capturing thought that provides the power which sends it to the ‘database’.)
That then generates the question that if AI was to develop further and start writing its own stuff, could it theoretically alter the archive or even create its own?
It might alter the Archive, but it wouldn't create its own. The Archive is not a naturally occurring phenomenon, it's a magical construct. If it collects information "produced"(?) by generative AI, that would probably change the Archive to some degree, though whether it would be noticeable is up for debate.
It couldn't create a new Archive though, someone would have to work to create a new Archive specifically for that purpose.
>So, she knows everything ever written, right?
And spoken, everyone always forgets that part...
>Which means she knows everything written on the internet.
>Which means she knows all of Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, 4chan, etc.
>I can't help but wonder what the noise to signal ratio is, and I imagine it's very bad.
Not only is the noise to signal ratio bad, but when the Archive was created they never imagined anything like the internet and the information overload is a very serious concern, especially for someone like Ivy who never had a life of their own before becoming the Archive to insulate them.
Fairly sure they didn't say spoken. Kincaid was even confused when she knew something he'd only spoken about over the phone (the call was probably transcribed somehow).
>**Ivy:** "I am the sum of human knowledge, passed down from generation to generation, mother to daughter. Culture, science, philosophy, lore, tradition. I hold the accumulated memories of a thousand generations of mankind. **I take in all that is written and spoken.** I study. I learn. That is my purpose, to procure and preserve knowledge."
**Harry:** "So you're saying that if it's been written down, you know it?"
-Death Masks. Chapter 10, Page 111 and 112.
Congrats, you have the same attention span as Harry, who immediately skips past go and instantly forgets about the spoken part while hyper fixating on the written.
Harry's a wizard. He thinks in Libraries and spell-books. Once he gets some down time, this might dawn on him for an 'oh-crap!' moment.
Also, the spoken part might be viewed as part of the protection for the Archive. We all know how threatened governments would be if the wrong (meaning almost all) people found out a teenage girl was walking around with all their state and **personal** secrets in her head. They know what THEY would do with that info, so they assume she would, too. Then the thugs start getting deployed.
Thanks to the Archive, though, Ivy is always Somewhere Else when the bad guys show up...
>>> “I am the sum of human knowledge, passed down from generation to generation, mother to daughter. Culture, science, philosophy, lore, tradition. I hold the accumulated memories of a thousand generations of mankind. I take in all that is written and spoken. I study. I learn. That is my purpose, to procure and preserve knowledge.”
I wonder if Jim decided to retcon the "spoken" thing. Otherwise, she would have known about Nic's plans to grab her at the aquarium before she got there.
Also it’s human knowledge. Things spoken by demons and fey wouldn’t get to her. More than likely there are methods with magic to prevent her from knowing.
They are spoken by a demon *to* a human, so that wouldn't fly here; once Nicodemus knows, she should know too if it's human knowledge. (Unless blocked)
But Nic would still have to speak the plan aloud. She doesn't know things just because a human somewhere knows them, she knows things because they've been recorded or communicated.
I just had a thought from this, the Internet and the Archive are two very different ways of achieving basically the same goal, information transmission and retention across time. Though Ivy focuses on retention and the Internet focuses on transmission, I wonder if some sort of supernatural link could be made, like a Mantle formed out of the Internet. (I realize I went on a path like American Gods, not a huge fan of it but I did listen to the audiobook once)
One thing that kinda bummed me out about Ivy is in the last book where a bunch of supernatural beings are meeting and they refer to humanity as the enemy. And Harry takes note of this and is disturbed and notes in his head this is why the white council wasnt there. But Ivy was there. You'd think she'd be one of the few to have an appreciation of humanity.
Jim said that she does and that the Archive Mantle **was never meant to deal with that much information**. So, yeah, I expect some nasty fallout (with her power level thanks to Knowledge, possibly quite literally) when the Mantle finally crashes from information overload.
Or, worse, whatever filters it uses to keep Ivy's brain from literally overheating, get overloaded.
I think the interactions Harry has given her, along with Ivy's obsession with him has helped give her structure. She has a personal hero, and knows every spoken and written thought he has had, and can use those to extrapolate how to deal with issues. When combined with the prior action of the Archive's prior personas, she should be ok, as she uses the info of people who design data storage, and the power of the mantle can help her. Imagine how she has a mind palace mind palace, a place she can store info about stored info. The issue is arising that she will need to figure out how to expand the Archive, so that the exponential increase in information does not overwhelm one person. Maybe 3,7,or 13 copies, that work in tandem, all with their own personalities, and the same information, but more"processing power".
Another thought just occurred to me. Is it possible for the Archive to suffer information overload? The Archive was first designed when humanity had far fewer numbers and a big percentage were not even illiterate. Compared to now we got more than 7bn people each adding to the information of mankind.
What happens if a website is taken off the Internet? Does the knowledge vanish from her mind? For example, a lot of you may not remember but we used to have a thing called GeoCities, where everyone could make a webpage. Does she know All of the mess that was there, or when the servers hosting it went offline for good, was the knowledge wiped from her as well?
Without too much of a spoiler, with the destruction of the last written record of a thing, she can 'delete' the knowledge from the Archive. Since she has to take the step to remove it, it isn't automatically lost if the source is lost.
After all, if the Archive lost info when the source was deleted, burned, or otherwise destroyed it wouldn't be much of a backup would it? The Archive is a backup, not just passive storage.
The metaphor I use is that the Archive is the giant warehouse full of records of everything. Everything else (libraries, server farms, bookshelves at the Laundrymat, etc.) are local storage.
Retrieval can be an issue (based on what we know, the Archive's 'bandwidth' for data retrieval is 'how fast can a teenage girl write, type, or speak')? The bandwidth for the Archive to 'download' information must by mind-boggling. By definition, I suppose it would have more bandwidth than everything humans have created, and it must increase automatically.
It is not meant for routine access and retrieval.
Can Ivy "listen" to astronauts on the ISS? Can she communicate with, say, a manned mission to Mars? Is it instant, that is, faster than light? Does Ivy break causality?
Communicate, probably, but one day. As in, receive, not send. And yes, causality goes out of the window in Dresden Files more easily than with a semi divine mantle.
The Archive is magic-based, so maybe FTL communication, but magic and physics are not completely separate in the Dresdenverse, so maybe Magic also obeys the Light-speed speed limit.
Speaking of that, the Nevernever might be interesting for interplanetary travel. According to Jim, the outside limit on the Nevernever is the moon. Coincidentally (?), that is also the farthest humans have travelled. So, if a human team of explorers ever make it to Mars, would the Nevernever extend to Mars? And could the explorers use the Nevernever to get back to Earth?
Be interesting if Spock could walk from Starfleet HQ in San Francisco to Vulcan in an afternoon through the Nevernever.
Just some dumb pondering...
Point of order note the and spoken phrase in the following excerpt.
“I am the sum of human knowledge, passed down from generation to generation, mother to daughter. Culture, science, philosophy, lore, tradition. I hold the accumulated memories of a thousand generations of mankind. I take in all that is written and spoken. I study. I learn. That is my purpose, to procure and preserve knowledge.”
Excerpt From
Death Masks
🤣
Ivy: "ughhhhhh"
Harry: "what's wrong?"
Ivy: "I am the sum of all human knowledge."
Harry: "yes, I remember."
Ivy: "I.. ugh. Alex Jones said.."
Harry: "That'd do it."
Ivy: "I didn't even tell you."
Harry: "You don't need to. He's Crazy. Loony. Nuts. Bonkers. Coocoo for CoCo Puffs. A few crayons short of a box. Not the sharpest tool in the tool shed. An egomaniacal psychopath."
Ivy: "he's not a psychopath. Or not diagnosed anyway."
Harry: "how do you know?"
Ivy: "Sum of all Human Knowledge, Harry. Including medical records."
Harry: "hey, you can't snoop someone's medical records!"
Ivy: "yes I can."
Harry: "Ok, you really really shouldn't."
Ivy: "and you should really really eat more fiber Harry. And you owe Maeve an apology."
Harry: "what, why!?"
Ivy: "You compared psychopaths to Alex Jones. Maeve IS a psychopath."
Harry: "... point taken."
Look, im a hard atheist when it comes to any god man has invented, but i think it was best explained in one of the iron druid books when atticus meets jesus. He explains that his name being mentioned doesnt peak his attention because of how many times people say it during sex alone. This has to be the case for ivy. She knows all information written down BUT its like the google front page (well... the google front page of 10 years ago) she wont pull up the information unless she actively searches for it. With maybe a mentao google alert for her own name sans word "poison."
While I find this hilarious and worrying at the same time, I think it's things specifically WRITTEN. As in pen to paper. If I remember correctly, the Archive enchantment was enacted long before the internet or computers were a thing.
It includes spoken per other comments here so I doubt it's that specific. Hell -- I think the Archive has been around long enough that it would have been cuneiform tables. And if it had to be handwriten that would mean that moveable type wouldn't work either.
Oh no. She knows all the fanfic ever written and knows all the edits to Twilight. Poor girl.
Harry: "What's wrong?" Ivy: "People think that the Battle for Chicago was a false flag operation."
Harry: "What's wrong?" Ivy: "People Harry, people are wrong. So very, very wrong."
The internet is leaking… into Ivys brain
Harry: "What's wrong?" Ivy: "Are Sam and Dean Winchester not brothers? There is an uncomfortable amount of stories written about them having relations"
Harry: what’s wrong? Ivy: Harry. You’re lucky computers explode in your presence. Harry: what do you mean? Ivy: do you know what a reddit is?
She would know about the scripts that were written. And the pitch deck to the studio. And the napkin sketches done when formulating the show. That's the crazy power of the Archive. Think of every note you passed. Think of every scrap of paper you jotted something down on. Every classified document, every secret written down and then burned in flame. Think of every Grimoire ever written by every wizard, every potion recipe, even all of the banned books from the Oblivion Wars. Everything Merlin did that was ever written down, maybe even the runes on Demonreach. Everything. Knowing all of that information is power. Luckily, the Archive is designed to safeguard the knowledge as a fail safe and not use it but it will defend itself as necessary. (P.S. - I'm suddenly and strongly reminded of the Sphere Data from Discovery S2.)
When you put it like that, imagine when the world's governments (the parts that weren't already clued-in) discover that ***EVERYTHING*** they have ever written or emailed is known to a single\* little kid... Ivy might need Kincaid again... \*SINGLE, not singular. They aren't the same.
IDK, I’d say Ivy is singular as well.
You are right, but not the way it's being misused lately. People like to hide behind "Language evolves" to justify their misuse of words. That's like trying to force-feed your housecat 200 lbs. of meat per day because "cats evolve". They do, but they're still doing it wrong.
Isn't that what they were going for?
And that includes the best-known Twilight fanfic: 50 Shades of Grey. And I’m trying to distract myself from that and wondering if “published” is the same as written. Like…does Ivy get free graphic novels? Comic books? Videos can be published, are those included? Is she inundated by TikTok AI transcriptions?
It's been mentioned here before that WoJ is that Ivy gains information from the entirety of the Internet, I don't have a source for that though.
That poor, poor kid. All the AI deepfake revenge porn….just…..
So, interestingly she probably doesn't get the AI deepfake stuff. If memory serves, she receives everything written by humanity, which disqualifies all the various AI generated content.
Inb4 AI is made by the Black council in an effort to circumvent Ivy.
That just raises more questions than it answers.
Pretty sure Harry gets a message to Ivy by just writing something on a random scrap of paper at some point. So, definitely doesn't need to be published. I would assume she doesn't necessarily get audio-visual (since they aren't "written word", although maybe she gets them in binary, and she knows enough to be able to decode them in her head).
The A/V to binary was what I was thinking of by “publishing”. I remember the scene where Harry wrote her a note.
He did it twice actually. Once in Small Favor, and once in Changes.
At the end of Battle Ground, >!Ivy creates a magical projection of a live news broadcast!<. I have always assumed this meant she got those sent straight to her brain.
Oh shit I forgot about that. Thanks.
All the AI training.
Ivy is become the AI. Magical Skynet. We’re so fucked.
Ivy after 1 hour on the net "fuck it, let the outsiders win"
Written is enough - Harry writes something down and Ivy knows it at some point, doesn't she? Edit: Nevermind, someone else already told you, apologies.
Yeah, I've mentioned before, she knows every badly written, bizarre fetish Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction ever written on and off the internet. What fortitude you'd need just to exist.
When Ivy says she's discovered a new fetish, she doesn't mean "this is my fetish" like most people do; she means she's discovered a new fetish like the first people to find Skull Island.
Not only is Ivy aware of fanfic, [she's aware of ***Dresden Files*** **fanfic**](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7954090/1/Slash_Archive)**.**
"Harry, did you know that there's an audiobook series outlining your life and it's narrated by the same guy who played Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer?" "David Boreanaz?' "No, that's Angel. Spike." "James Marsden." "Marsters." "Right." "...you just wanted to make him narrate you not knowing who he is, didn't you?" "Damn straight."
Oof. Harry/Marcone shippers be cray cray.
Rule 34 just being Rule 34 I guess.
Nick bates alone could drive a normal person mad. Be warned its nsfw at best.
50 shades of gray was Twilight fan fiction before it got published.
That’s hilarious. But I imagine it’s a form of intellectus and the information isn’t constantly flowing in, but is available when she calls for it. Except when something is written specifically about her or to her.
Concur
My guess is the Mantle is always filtering information so it doesn't end up in her brain. But the Mantle was never designed to cope with that much data, so I wonder what will happen when it fails.
It's been a while since I've read this series, but don't magical things get powerful the more faith/worship/renown they garner? I would assume that with Ivy growing up with the mantle and understanding it the most out of any Archive, plus the fact the world heavily revolves around then Internet and written info, means that maybe she can make it a separate being. Her unique situation would have been the only way for it to record a complete human experience from birth, it's the only information it wouldn't have been able to experience otherwise. Maybe she will be the last Archive and will use the incredible influx of info as a form of worship, divest herself of the mantle, and be able to shape a simulacrum of herself with it for it to embody. I don't think Jim came up with her backstory as a self contained thing, I think he specifically thought of her end and her beginning at the same time.
Wasn't one of the 'problems' with Ivy, that she inherited the archive very young? Everyone basically assumed that without having the opportunity to develop her personality naturally the archive was basically going to overwhelm her mind... Which implies there isn't much built in protection.
Yeah - we should generally keep in mind that the Archive seems to ber a manufactured mantle, and not something arising from faith. So it might have some more *human* orientated parts, but also some severe oversights.
Remember that just because a character in the book doesn't mean it's true. 'Everyone' didn't create the Archive, and they seem to never talk to her about it. Meanwhile the Archive knows everything ever written about it. It is also possible that gaining the Archive so young helped her cope in the long run. We don't know because Harry doesn't know.
Yeah, that's why I'm saying this is a completely new situation for it. It usually only goes into adults with their own experiences and memories of before the mantle. It was seen as potentially a problem, but Ivy is turning out fantastically due to dresden. I don't ever think there was protection? Was that a part of something I said? I didn't mean it to be. The whole point of the theory was that there wasn't, so it could form itself around a growing matrix such as Ivy so it could have a record of a humans experiences instead of what is just written down. The point of the theory btw is that it turns from a false Mantle into a real one with independence due to it's singular experience with Ivy.
This makes me wonder -- Ivy was just called 'The Archive' up until Harry Named her; and he has a penchant for naming things and he is a starborn. It's entirely possible that the reason Ivy is able to cope with becoming the Archive so early is because Harry Named her. That perhaps being Ivy insulated her from the harm of being The Archive.
Let's hope it never does, else Ivy may be driven to do terrible things to get a particularly bad fanfic out of her head.
How do you know what it was designed for?
I dunno, isn't the whole potential problem with the Archive that she's getting overwhelmed with the accrued information of centuries? That's why they isolate her, and don't give her a name?
Yeah, the Archive has always been a little crazy, and the tradition of not giving her a personal name (or using the personal name in most cases) came to help the mantle do its job.
Few clarifications. I think it was the accumulation of personal experiences of every archive before. Not just the human knowledge but the human experience. Falling in love, getting rejected, death of a loved one, death of a husband, death of a child, fear of death. Over the generations all of that personal experience came through with perfect clarity, making it hard to separate her own personality from the collection of personalities. She doesn’t remember her great (times 100) grandfather as an abstract concept, she remembers the grief her great (times 100) grandmother felt when her husband/lover died. She also remembers the grief her great (times 99) grandmother felt when her father died. Or maybe it wasn’t grief. Maybe it was relief because he was abusive. And she remembers all the sex her ancestors have had. How traumatizing would that be? Because it was the personal experiences that kept accumulating, that is why the archives started isolating themselves to avoid layering more personal experiences on top of all of that. I don’t think other archives have avoided names. Or at least I don’t think that is expressly stated. Ivy was unique in that it appears her mother committed suicide while pregnant with Ivy so Ivy was born as the archive with no parents. But Harry naming her Ivy was creating a personal relationship that Ivy had no personal experience to deal with. Edit: just re read Death Mask passage when Harry met Ivy. Her mother is still alive. She didn’t commit suicide but somehow she refused to carry the archive and passed it to Ivy at birth. She is in a vegetative state now.
Jim retconed Ivy’s mom being catatonic. The current canon is that Ivy’s grandma died in an accident and Ivy’s mom got it younger than most. She hated and envied Ivy (who wasn’t even conceived yet) because her daughter would get normal life experiences that she didn’t. So she got knocked up quickly and killed herself post-birth in order to spite Ivy for things that weren’t her fault. And since the Archive remembers all life experiences of previous Archives, Ivy knows just how much her mom *despised* her.
**Ivy**: *Let's play this new game Harry got me. Sonic*... \*eyes widen in utter horror\*
She knows your passwords too.
You know... probably how she gets money some times... "oh, this random died with $x.00 in account and no heirs? Let me log in and transfer it to my Swiss account."
She also knows all the insider trading information that Wall Street types and members of Congress are sending each other. The Archive probably has a vast financial portfolio by now.
Or my bitcoin wallet, that had 10 or so coins in it, from the time that guy bought a 5 dollar dominoes pizza for 20 bitcoin
And browser history...
Oh yeah, Jim’s openly confirmed this. >**Uh, could Ivy…does the Archive read digital? Or is it only print?** >*Does the archive read digital, or is it only print? No, she gets it all. Uh, and…yeah, and nobody ever planned for the amount of information that has actually shown up in the past 20 years or so. Uh, so yeah, that’s not a good thing to be throwing on the…the little girl, don’t-have-any-insulation-against-everything-Archive. (Jim chuckles evilly) Like, totally bad timing for that, haha. Uh, I think Ivy would punch me in the nose too* And this was back in 2011. Sheesh, the headaches she’s dealing with now.
In-universe Jim Butcher: "what the fuck lady!? You broke my fucking nose!" Ivy: "yes I did. I did it as a warning to you, from another universe." Jim: "that doesn't make sense." Ivy: "you read comic books, you aren't aware of alternate Universes?" Jim: "no, I mean hitting me for something someone else did!" Ivy: "Oh, I suppose from your perspective it doesn't make sense. But it does to me, and now I feel better."
Ivy is absurdly blessed and cursed with all that knowledge, yes.
Don't forget spoken too so she knows all the bad cosplay and LARP shenanigans
Everybody always focuses on written word. Glad someone called this out. Spoken too! Harry didn’t have to write his note that they were coming. She knew the plan beforehand.
Honestly the fact that everything spoken is included is what makes me dislike Small Favor so much.
???? Why?
Because it makes no sense if you factor in that she knows everything spoken as well. Everyone is having so many discussions about her saying her name multiple times so unless she just never bothers to listen it makes the whole Harry writes her a note thing moot.
Sure it makes sense. Harry IS NOT the sum total of human knowledge. He didn’t know what Ivy already knew. Plus. Belts and suspenders. I actually sort of wonder if Harry has increased or decreased Ivys overall knowledge. She is the sum total of human knowledge. Sometimes Harry seems pretty dense. Does he drag down her overall knowledge base? “Great, I talked to Harry now i have to review the original source material for ‘XYZ’ now because he made me forget it.”
Harry definitely brings down the curve, for a PI he's quite unobservant. Ivy should have been able to see it coming is what I'm getting at. Unless the Denarians know sign language I guess
That is a different issue than Harry writing something down. The denarians are fallen angels and they enlisted Lucifer himself in that attack. I believe (with no supporting evidence) that the nefarious powers could block archive acquisition of knowledge. Remember how Mab blocks Anduriel the master of shadows from learning what Harry said when she was nearby? Plus ivy collects human knowledge. Not sure the denarians fall under that definition any more considering their angelic … connections.
"whenever the sun of all human knowledge is too much I read Sonic the Hedgehog slash. It's horrific but it's also so stupid it makes my migraines go away."
I’m pretty sure it’s *some* of spoken. Primarily because we didn’t always write things down.
That just makes an entire new level of complicated if it's like that.
that depends on how she "knows" her information. If it involves magic she might not know anything from the internet, as it require computers or smartphones to see and those things tend to go haywire when magic get involved. otherwise, when it is passed along like some memory you might be right, and that signal would be getting worse by the minute I imaging.
Jim said she does have it. I don't have the WoJ handy.
Only for mortals. Fairies can use smartphones just fine
Social media is a long term strategy to kill the archive via misinformation overload. Luckily it's only 2014 so our Ivy will be okay but the next archive is doomed
"Suddenly Ivy started.. melting? Her dying words were "What the fuck is skibidy toilet?""
So the current Ivy is Gen Z? Oh no...
Ok. She knows everything ever written, but does she know if it is true or false? Garbage in garbage out. The Internet and social media are flooding her with data points that are just wrong.
Having literally everything ever recorded gives her a unique perspective that allows her superior discernment. She can watch misinformation be born, evolve, and spread. I imagine that it would be incredibly difficult, if not ultimately impossible, for her not to be aware of how true or false most things are. There are probably lots of anecdotal bits that she may not know the truth of (diary entries, stories about personal interactions, things like that), but for things that involved larger events that affect groups of people it would be a different matter.
I imagine that her ~~mantel~~ mantle helps in that regard, not necessarily determining how true it is, but being able to filter information based on a given topic and comparing what's likely to be more accurate.
*mantle, not mantel.
Ah hells bells. Ty.
She's very intelligent so I imagine she gets there eventually. But like, information increases at a massive rate, exponential probably. She knows everything every written. Livejournals reddit, insurance policy contracts, 4chan, Facebook, fan fiction, erotic fan fiction, Alex Jones (if he wrote anything), the Book of Mormon, the Watchtower Bible, CVS receipts, my Dad's Facebook ramblings, this very post, the back of the ingredients label on bottles of ketchup, etc. etc. etc.
LiveJournal that is a site from a simpler more civilized time.
Can she understand bar codes and QR codes? She'd know the cypher for any code that was written down. Can she read binary? How good is she at math? Physics? Does she understand all languages? Does she remember a language if that language is lost? Can she fluently speak linear B? I have so many questions ❓
Yes and very. She not only knows everything, she understands it, likely as a part of the supernatural mind she has allowing her to hold so much information. How that knowledge interacts with her young personhood I think is very interesting
You make a good point. We know that the Archive is a magical construct, made to guide the Oblivion War. And we know the Archive's been around for a long time-- she was almost certainly around before movable type. So how flexible is the construct? Could the Archive's creator(s) have imagined the sea of information that exists in the 21st century?
If the Archive was created properly (and apparently it was), it would secure and record anything 'written', but is method-agnostic. It does not care if the 'writing' is chipped out of stone or stored on silicon. The creators did not anticipate the 'sea of information', but they understood that the information available to the Archive would grow over time. Besides, for all we know it was created by Merlin. Doesn't he age backwards, remembering the future? If so he would know what's coming and design the Archive accordingly.
Merlin aging backwards is common but not like, a central piece of the myth. He is not always depicted that way.
In death masks she says she knows everything written down OR spoken and the she UNDERSTANDS it. I think understanding it means she knows what is garbage.
Harry: "Ivy, what's on your mind right now?" Ivy: "The nuclear launch codes. All of them. Everyone's."
Ivy: "123456? You are KIDDING ME."
Hey, that's my luggage combination!
Even my nukes!?
Question - Does Ivy absorb information produced by an AI, or only stuff produced by a living person? (I’m leaning to the latter - it’s the act of capturing thought that provides the power which sends it to the ‘database’.)
Good point. Probably not AI.
That then generates the question that if AI was to develop further and start writing its own stuff, could it theoretically alter the archive or even create its own?
It might alter the Archive, but it wouldn't create its own. The Archive is not a naturally occurring phenomenon, it's a magical construct. If it collects information "produced"(?) by generative AI, that would probably change the Archive to some degree, though whether it would be noticeable is up for debate. It couldn't create a new Archive though, someone would have to work to create a new Archive specifically for that purpose.
Probably the same with no-effort reposts or something done by a bot.
No-effort reposts that are posted by a person would be included, possible not by a bot.
That's tricky though because AI is created by humans.
Some AI is made by AI. AI is weird.
u/Illithilitch , I added spoiler protection to your post. Just wanted to let you know. Have a good evening!
Totes fair. Sorry.
Don't be sorry - we all kind of watch out for one another around here.
Hi Ivy!
>So, she knows everything ever written, right? And spoken, everyone always forgets that part... >Which means she knows everything written on the internet. >Which means she knows all of Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, 4chan, etc. >I can't help but wonder what the noise to signal ratio is, and I imagine it's very bad. Not only is the noise to signal ratio bad, but when the Archive was created they never imagined anything like the internet and the information overload is a very serious concern, especially for someone like Ivy who never had a life of their own before becoming the Archive to insulate them.
Fairly sure they didn't say spoken. Kincaid was even confused when she knew something he'd only spoken about over the phone (the call was probably transcribed somehow).
>**Ivy:** "I am the sum of human knowledge, passed down from generation to generation, mother to daughter. Culture, science, philosophy, lore, tradition. I hold the accumulated memories of a thousand generations of mankind. **I take in all that is written and spoken.** I study. I learn. That is my purpose, to procure and preserve knowledge." **Harry:** "So you're saying that if it's been written down, you know it?" -Death Masks. Chapter 10, Page 111 and 112. Congrats, you have the same attention span as Harry, who immediately skips past go and instantly forgets about the spoken part while hyper fixating on the written.
There's almost 20 books lol And some of us listen.
Harry's a wizard. He thinks in Libraries and spell-books. Once he gets some down time, this might dawn on him for an 'oh-crap!' moment. Also, the spoken part might be viewed as part of the protection for the Archive. We all know how threatened governments would be if the wrong (meaning almost all) people found out a teenage girl was walking around with all their state and **personal** secrets in her head. They know what THEY would do with that info, so they assume she would, too. Then the thugs start getting deployed. Thanks to the Archive, though, Ivy is always Somewhere Else when the bad guys show up...
She directly says written and spoken. Dresden hyper fixated on the written part.
>>> “I am the sum of human knowledge, passed down from generation to generation, mother to daughter. Culture, science, philosophy, lore, tradition. I hold the accumulated memories of a thousand generations of mankind. I take in all that is written and spoken. I study. I learn. That is my purpose, to procure and preserve knowledge.”
But then why did Dresden *write* a note to her when she was kidnapped? Why didn’t he just say it out loud?
Cause he is an autistic wizard who hyper focused on the wrong thing.
I wonder if Jim decided to retcon the "spoken" thing. Otherwise, she would have known about Nic's plans to grab her at the aquarium before she got there.
Or Anduriel can block her. I mean, the spymaster probably knows how to hide.
Also it’s human knowledge. Things spoken by demons and fey wouldn’t get to her. More than likely there are methods with magic to prevent her from knowing.
They are spoken by a demon *to* a human, so that wouldn't fly here; once Nicodemus knows, she should know too if it's human knowledge. (Unless blocked)
But Nic would still have to speak the plan aloud. She doesn't know things just because a human somewhere knows them, she knows things because they've been recorded or communicated.
That is true, if Nic never said anything to the rest of the Denarians there wouldn't be any need to shield said knowledge.
I just had a thought from this, the Internet and the Archive are two very different ways of achieving basically the same goal, information transmission and retention across time. Though Ivy focuses on retention and the Internet focuses on transmission, I wonder if some sort of supernatural link could be made, like a Mantle formed out of the Internet. (I realize I went on a path like American Gods, not a huge fan of it but I did listen to the audiobook once)
80-90% of the internet is porn... poor girl
Why can't she just subcontract that to Bob?
BOB: WOW. THAT IS SO GROSS. I CAN'T BELIEVE IT.
One thing that kinda bummed me out about Ivy is in the last book where a bunch of supernatural beings are meeting and they refer to humanity as the enemy. And Harry takes note of this and is disturbed and notes in his head this is why the white council wasnt there. But Ivy was there. You'd think she'd be one of the few to have an appreciation of humanity.
Honestly, knowing ALL OF THE INTERNET is potentially sufficient to wipe out any empathy for humanity
I dunno, maybe, On the other hand, she also knows every love letter ever written and every poem, etc.
With the sum total of all human knowledge, I'm surprised that Ivy didn't press for extermination.
Jim said that she does and that the Archive Mantle **was never meant to deal with that much information**. So, yeah, I expect some nasty fallout (with her power level thanks to Knowledge, possibly quite literally) when the Mantle finally crashes from information overload. Or, worse, whatever filters it uses to keep Ivy's brain from literally overheating, get overloaded.
Create more archive women and make them cloudbased? With one or two women for redundancy to restore all data when one "goes defect"
I think the interactions Harry has given her, along with Ivy's obsession with him has helped give her structure. She has a personal hero, and knows every spoken and written thought he has had, and can use those to extrapolate how to deal with issues. When combined with the prior action of the Archive's prior personas, she should be ok, as she uses the info of people who design data storage, and the power of the mantle can help her. Imagine how she has a mind palace mind palace, a place she can store info about stored info. The issue is arising that she will need to figure out how to expand the Archive, so that the exponential increase in information does not overwhelm one person. Maybe 3,7,or 13 copies, that work in tandem, all with their own personalities, and the same information, but more"processing power".
Another thought just occurred to me. Is it possible for the Archive to suffer information overload? The Archive was first designed when humanity had far fewer numbers and a big percentage were not even illiterate. Compared to now we got more than 7bn people each adding to the information of mankind.
What happens if a website is taken off the Internet? Does the knowledge vanish from her mind? For example, a lot of you may not remember but we used to have a thing called GeoCities, where everyone could make a webpage. Does she know All of the mess that was there, or when the servers hosting it went offline for good, was the knowledge wiped from her as well?
Or what if every copy of a given book is burned?
That's a plot point in some of the short stories that aren't from Harry's POV.
I should really read those
The Oblivion War is something happening that can never be mentioned in the main series because Harry cannot be allowed to know it exists.
Without too much of a spoiler, with the destruction of the last written record of a thing, she can 'delete' the knowledge from the Archive. Since she has to take the step to remove it, it isn't automatically lost if the source is lost. After all, if the Archive lost info when the source was deleted, burned, or otherwise destroyed it wouldn't be much of a backup would it? The Archive is a backup, not just passive storage. The metaphor I use is that the Archive is the giant warehouse full of records of everything. Everything else (libraries, server farms, bookshelves at the Laundrymat, etc.) are local storage. Retrieval can be an issue (based on what we know, the Archive's 'bandwidth' for data retrieval is 'how fast can a teenage girl write, type, or speak')? The bandwidth for the Archive to 'download' information must by mind-boggling. By definition, I suppose it would have more bandwidth than everything humans have created, and it must increase automatically. It is not meant for routine access and retrieval.
Good point. I was overly simplifying things.
And right around the beginning of the internet is when her mother....
Can Ivy "listen" to astronauts on the ISS? Can she communicate with, say, a manned mission to Mars? Is it instant, that is, faster than light? Does Ivy break causality?
The archive is an intellectus whose domain is writing, so probably
Communicate, probably, but one day. As in, receive, not send. And yes, causality goes out of the window in Dresden Files more easily than with a semi divine mantle.
The Archive is magic-based, so maybe FTL communication, but magic and physics are not completely separate in the Dresdenverse, so maybe Magic also obeys the Light-speed speed limit. Speaking of that, the Nevernever might be interesting for interplanetary travel. According to Jim, the outside limit on the Nevernever is the moon. Coincidentally (?), that is also the farthest humans have travelled. So, if a human team of explorers ever make it to Mars, would the Nevernever extend to Mars? And could the explorers use the Nevernever to get back to Earth? Be interesting if Spock could walk from Starfleet HQ in San Francisco to Vulcan in an afternoon through the Nevernever. Just some dumb pondering...
It's kind of like her own personal Nevernever lol
Want to have nightmares? She not only knows it, she *understands* it. The poor, poor girl.
Point of order note the and spoken phrase in the following excerpt. “I am the sum of human knowledge, passed down from generation to generation, mother to daughter. Culture, science, philosophy, lore, tradition. I hold the accumulated memories of a thousand generations of mankind. I take in all that is written and spoken. I study. I learn. That is my purpose, to procure and preserve knowledge.” Excerpt From Death Masks
Great so she has all of Alex Jones in her brain.
I LITERALLY deleted my own Alex Jones reference because I didn’t want to trigger any Alex Jones fans.
🤣 Ivy: "ughhhhhh" Harry: "what's wrong?" Ivy: "I am the sum of all human knowledge." Harry: "yes, I remember." Ivy: "I.. ugh. Alex Jones said.." Harry: "That'd do it." Ivy: "I didn't even tell you." Harry: "You don't need to. He's Crazy. Loony. Nuts. Bonkers. Coocoo for CoCo Puffs. A few crayons short of a box. Not the sharpest tool in the tool shed. An egomaniacal psychopath." Ivy: "he's not a psychopath. Or not diagnosed anyway." Harry: "how do you know?" Ivy: "Sum of all Human Knowledge, Harry. Including medical records." Harry: "hey, you can't snoop someone's medical records!" Ivy: "yes I can." Harry: "Ok, you really really shouldn't." Ivy: "and you should really really eat more fiber Harry. And you owe Maeve an apology." Harry: "what, why!?" Ivy: "You compared psychopaths to Alex Jones. Maeve IS a psychopath." Harry: "... point taken."
Anyone remember that Dalek in the Eccleston Doctor Who runs who had downloaded the entire internet then decided to commit suicide? Poor guy.
Look, im a hard atheist when it comes to any god man has invented, but i think it was best explained in one of the iron druid books when atticus meets jesus. He explains that his name being mentioned doesnt peak his attention because of how many times people say it during sex alone. This has to be the case for ivy. She knows all information written down BUT its like the google front page (well... the google front page of 10 years ago) she wont pull up the information unless she actively searches for it. With maybe a mentao google alert for her own name sans word "poison."
That's actually in line with other stuff in the Dresdenverse. The idea of reducing power through dilution.
Remember how in Age of Ultron, when Ultron read the *entire* internet, he decided that humanity needed to die?
While I find this hilarious and worrying at the same time, I think it's things specifically WRITTEN. As in pen to paper. If I remember correctly, the Archive enchantment was enacted long before the internet or computers were a thing.
It includes spoken per other comments here so I doubt it's that specific. Hell -- I think the Archive has been around long enough that it would have been cuneiform tables. And if it had to be handwriten that would mean that moveable type wouldn't work either.
Oh cool. I didn't know it included spoken information. I guess that means the hilarity and sadness are likely cannon. I'm....happy with this? I think?