Amunett Mite
20 Mar 12 - 03:46
Hello Mr. Stroud! As the title suggests, I have some questions about Spirits and their home, the Other Place.
1. How do people discover a spirits name? Do they just preform the summoning ritual and call out a random name, hoping it'll work? Also, in the Other Place, spirits are all essentially one 'being', with no way to differentiate between each other (meaning you can't pick out Bartimaeus' essence from the Faquarl's; they mingle and can't be distinguished); does this mean that when a new spirit name is discovered and is summoned, different parts of different spirit's essences come together to form a new essence? (Simply put, are the same pieces simply rearranged when a new name is discovered?)
2. How were spirits 'discovered'? They can't come to Earth willingly, so how did the first magicians (or shamans) find out about spirits?
3.Is there a fixed number of spirits, so when they die on earth, the number of spirits goes down? Or do they have some way of reproducing?
4. If a spirit is summoned by two magicians at the same time, what would happen to the spirit? (I've thought about this one a lot, and my theory is that either it's essence be ripped in half, or it would respond to the more powerful magician).
5. Okay this one is a little hard for me to put into words and is very long, so sorry if it get's a little confusing. :$ Okay, so, while reading GE I noticed a part where Nat doesn't need Bart for a night, so he "dismisses" him, without using a pentacle or anything; he just says "You are dismissed for now" and Bart says "Very well" disappears. When that happens, does Bart get to go back to the Other Place for a while? If so, why is a pentacle used sometimes for dismissals, and other times not? If not, where does he go? And when they are informally (without a pentacle) dismissed like that, their masters can call them back easily without using a pentacle. Is this why they don't use a pentacle? So they can summon them back easily?
6. How big is the Other Place? Is it a confined space (like how Earth is a human's "confined space"), or infinite (more like outer space without planets)?
7. a. If Kitty's and/or Ptolemy's bodies had died while they were in the Other Place, would they have stayed in the Other Place, or would their 'essences' have died as well when they tried to go back to their body?
b. If they HAD stayed in the Other Place with no physical ties to Earth, would a magician then be able to summon them like they would a spirit?
8. In the Other Place, do the spirits share memories? I just finished reading PG for like the millionth time, and while Kitty is in the Other Place, Bart hints that this is so, but I just want to be certain. If this IS the case, then can one spirit look into the memories of another without permission, or can spirits only see the memories that other spirits want/allow them to (OR can a spirit only see another spirits memories while they're thinking about it?)
9. If Bart (or any other spirit) ate another spirit while on Earth, he absorbs the other spirit's essence, right? So if he ate enough spirits, would he become stronger than a 4th level djinni? Or if, say, an imp ate a foliot or two, could it strengthen it's essence enough to become a higher level imp, or even a foliot?
10. Do spirits feel emotions while in the Other Place? After Ptolemy's death, when Bartimaeus is on Earth and remembers him, the memories affect him (he feels sad about his death, feels the respect he had for Ptolemy, etc), the same way memories affect humans. In the Other Place, when Bart thinks about Ptolemy, does it have the same effect? Or does he just see the memory, but feel nothing about it?
11. One last thing... I've heard a lot about a movie, and read some other questions where you personally answered that there was a movie in the works, but all of that is a few years old, so I was wondering if there are any new updates about a movie?
Thank you so much for taking the time to read all of this, and hopefully answering! (:
Sincerely,
Amunett
1. How do people discover a spirits name? Do they just preform the summoning ritual and call out a random name, hoping it'll work? Also, in the Other Place, spirits are all essentially one 'being', with no way to differentiate between each other (meaning you can't pick out Bartimaeus' essence from the Faquarl's; they mingle and can't be distinguished); does this mean that when a new spirit name is discovered and is summoned, different parts of different spirit's essences come together to form a new essence? (Simply put, are the same pieces simply rearranged when a new name is discovered?)
2. How were spirits 'discovered'? They can't come to Earth willingly, so how did the first magicians (or shamans) find out about spirits?
3.Is there a fixed number of spirits, so when they die on earth, the number of spirits goes down? Or do they have some way of reproducing?
4. If a spirit is summoned by two magicians at the same time, what would happen to the spirit? (I've thought about this one a lot, and my theory is that either it's essence be ripped in half, or it would respond to the more powerful magician).
5. Okay this one is a little hard for me to put into words and is very long, so sorry if it get's a little confusing. :$ Okay, so, while reading GE I noticed a part where Nat doesn't need Bart for a night, so he "dismisses" him, without using a pentacle or anything; he just says "You are dismissed for now" and Bart says "Very well" disappears. When that happens, does Bart get to go back to the Other Place for a while? If so, why is a pentacle used sometimes for dismissals, and other times not? If not, where does he go? And when they are informally (without a pentacle) dismissed like that, their masters can call them back easily without using a pentacle. Is this why they don't use a pentacle? So they can summon them back easily?
6. How big is the Other Place? Is it a confined space (like how Earth is a human's "confined space"), or infinite (more like outer space without planets)?
7. a. If Kitty's and/or Ptolemy's bodies had died while they were in the Other Place, would they have stayed in the Other Place, or would their 'essences' have died as well when they tried to go back to their body?
b. If they HAD stayed in the Other Place with no physical ties to Earth, would a magician then be able to summon them like they would a spirit?
8. In the Other Place, do the spirits share memories? I just finished reading PG for like the millionth time, and while Kitty is in the Other Place, Bart hints that this is so, but I just want to be certain. If this IS the case, then can one spirit look into the memories of another without permission, or can spirits only see the memories that other spirits want/allow them to (OR can a spirit only see another spirits memories while they're thinking about it?)
9. If Bart (or any other spirit) ate another spirit while on Earth, he absorbs the other spirit's essence, right? So if he ate enough spirits, would he become stronger than a 4th level djinni? Or if, say, an imp ate a foliot or two, could it strengthen it's essence enough to become a higher level imp, or even a foliot?
10. Do spirits feel emotions while in the Other Place? After Ptolemy's death, when Bartimaeus is on Earth and remembers him, the memories affect him (he feels sad about his death, feels the respect he had for Ptolemy, etc), the same way memories affect humans. In the Other Place, when Bart thinks about Ptolemy, does it have the same effect? Or does he just see the memory, but feel nothing about it?
11. One last thing... I've heard a lot about a movie, and read some other questions where you personally answered that there was a movie in the works, but all of that is a few years old, so I was wondering if there are any new updates about a movie?
Thank you so much for taking the time to read all of this, and hopefully answering! (:
Sincerely,
Amunett
The boy looked down at his cross-legged form. He was sitting straight-backed, legs folded neatly in the manner of an Egyptian scribe. "It's been two thousand, one hundred and twenty-nine years since Ptolemy died," he said. "He was fourteen. Eight world empires have risen up and fallen away since that day, and I still carry his face. Who do you think's the lucky one?"
