Question Fridge Horrors

Not to be confused with nameless horrors, I had a few fridge horrors creep up on me.

Sidhe transformees that don't have people in the know like Nikki did could get themselve in deep poop by involuntarily Oathing themselves.

Sidhe = the Natzi's Aryan race?

Sidhe reign - the real thousand year Reich.

Cryptic wrote: Not to be confused with nameless horrors, I had a few fridge horrors creep up on me.

Sidhe transformees that don't have people in the know like Nikki did could get themselve in deep poop by involuntarily Oathing themselves.

Sidhe = the Natzi's Aryan race?

Sidhe reign - the real thousand year Reich.

Have a look of The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross, for a more Lovecraftian take on the Sidhe.

And, yes, this is a version of the Sidhe where they do have a 1000-year Reich.

An immortal empire that's based upon a magically-enforced feudalism.

Not the happiest of bunnies, but The Laundry Files tend towards the GrimDark a little.

Chewy reading though, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files

I'm a little unclear on how bad a Sidhe involuntary oath could be.

My understanding is that a Sidhe's innate magical nature means that an oath can force them to act, whereas a normal sorcerer's contract only binds a person with the threat of adverse consequences.

I also feel (but can't figure out a justification) that the strength of an oath can vary based on a person's power and/or position. Titled entities like demons (and of course "The Queen of the West") seem far more concerned about the strength of their words so it seems possible the 'ordinary' Sidhe like Absinthe and Whisper might have less to be concerned about, but that's only a hypothesis.

On the other hand I'm curious about how much trouble Jobe could make for himself before learning to respect the power of his own words (if indeed he even learns it at all).

Hebblejebble wrote: I'm a little unclear on how bad a Sidhe involuntary oath could be.

As (IIRC) Circe explained to Phase, any promise/oath/transaction made with a Sidhe includes with it thousands of years' worth of accumulated implicit codicils just by their nature. It's possible that no mortal knows the full extent of those things until they break some unknown-to-them clause.

Worse, people often say things that aren't always in line with their desires: "I should ...", "I wish ...", "If it were up to me, I'd ..." Not smart for anyone who's magically active.

The person in breach of the implied contract may be lucky to only incur a threefold penalty against the value that had been offered. There could be some creatively nasty penalty only known from an untranslated folk tale from Outer Ruthenia for which they just happen to match the conditions.

Demons (non-native entities) can point to "Solomon's Contract" as the senior agreement to any new agreements made. It's possible that the Sidhe can't even do that.

Consider how many empty promises the average person makes, or how many "sworn" threats in a moment of anger. Promise you "will always be there" for someone, for instance, and you could be binding yourself into identure.

Apologies if I communicated this poorly. My confusion wasn't "how bad can a promise be if enforced as a Sidhe Oath?" but rather "How hard is it for most Sidhe transformees to turn a promise into an Oath?".

My (again, unjustified) assumption was that an Oath was somehow a "magically charged" promise and the Nikki was a special case, being so powerful that a moments passion would produce enough of a magic charge to make an Oath, whereas most "ordinary" Sidhe wouldn't find their promised magically enforced.

Hebblejebble wrote: My (again, unjustified) assumption was that an Oath was somehow a "magically charged" promise and the Nikki was a special case, being so powerful that a moments passion would produce enough of a magic charge to make an Oath, whereas most "ordinary" Sidhe wouldn't find their promised magically enforced

Consider that all Sidhe, by their inherent nature, are made up of magics that are entwined in everything they and everything they do. A lower-powered leaf-nibbler's promise may have less powerful consequences, but less power is needed to enforce consequences on them. Obscuring that is the fact that in a society there should be other people's oaths and promises at-play and at cross purposes to one's own as well.

I think there could be a distinction between a "promise" solemnized between the two parties involved and an "oath" witnesses by one or more third parties ("I swear to God...", "As God is my witness..."). In the latter case, swearing by a far more powerful power than either party might mean that all of that entity's hidden contracts simply over-ride either party's, for better or for worse. Since the Sidhe are inherently magical, the Hidden World takes note of their actions, thereby making all promises witnessed.

Speaking of the Hidden World... is there a version of The Summerlands, or Under The Hill, or Tír na nÓg, or other hidden spaces of the Fae in the Whateley cosmology? What form would it take, and how would (say) Fey get there?

Schol-R-LEA wrote: Speaking of the Hidden World... is there a version of The Summerlands, or Under The Hill, or Tír na nÓg, or other hidden spaces of the Fae in the Whateley cosmology? What form would it take, and how would (say) Fey get there?

One of the possible hiding places that Nikki considered for Merry was "under the hill". Aunghadhail wasn't 100% sure they'd accept having her doing the vouch-safing.

Ignore this if it's covered in story, I have 2 Hanks to go.

When Leane ended up in the washing machine, it might not have been a student but Koene. Who likely under stands ful well the Link, and what would have happened if Hank hadn't gotten there in time.

Mister D wrote: Not the happiest of bunnies, but The Laundry Files tend towards the GrimDark a little.

Chewy reading though, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files

A little?

I think that wins with the "Brittish Understatement Award of the Decade"

And yet, for all that the books are also profoundly funny.

Erianaiel wrote:

Mister D wrote: Not the happiest of bunnies, but The Laundry Files tend towards the GrimDark a little.

Chewy reading though, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files

A little?

I think that wins with the "Brittish Understatement Award of the Decade"

And yet, for all that the books are also profoundly funny.

The reason they are funny is because of the way Stross manages to be humorous about the most terrifying aspect of the Laundry universe: bureaucracy. Forget eldritch horrors trying to turn the world into an icebox. The scariest thing in The Atrocity Archives was matrix management. (Which, unfortunately, really exists.)