The Dresden Files Read-Along discussion
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Yasmin wrote: "Caryl wrote: "Hmm, the argument that Mouse would have noticed the swap persuades me that this is one theory I can now dismiss.However, Fae changelings in mythology are not scions but are, instead..."
Yep, it's JB's world and I am just a visitor there. Just explaining why I was off on a trip there. ;-)
Wake Up Everyone! Priscilla says preview chapters begin Tuesday September 1!
Steven wrote: "Priscilla says preview chapters begin Tuesday September 1!" Yeah I saw that, and read most of the AMA.The thing with Maggie being a changeling is probably not true. “Changelings” have a specific meaning in Dresdenverse, though it might make an interesting original story if it was written in a different context.
There was some nice faerie lore in the AMA. The Winter Lady’s defence mechanism tends to, erm… rip things free. So Ramirez probably got off very lucky. Whereas that legend of the princess sleeping for a hundred of years was probably some Summer Lady before Lily and Sarissa…
If Bob the Skull’s “parentage” was mentioned at all I didn’t see it, and don’t really have any good guesses: Mommy Mab, maybe? Gotta be someone in Winter!
2 new chapters from battleground are out.Spoiler warning
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So, non-humans dont create soul gaze, like Tara - but a kraken does?!
Also - does what Harry saw means there are more living Krakens? Or are those just mental landscape?
And - another creature is afraid of what's in Harry's mind - really makes me wonder about all the humans that don't seem to mind it, or at least not in the "other monsters are afraid of it" way it merits...
Yasmin wrote: "2 new chapters from battleground are out.Spoiler warning
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So, non-humans dont create soul gaze, like Tara - but a kraken does?!
Also - does what Harry saw means there are more liv..."
Hey, if there are bull sharks in Lake Michigan why not more Kraken?
My theory on soulgazes is that just as wizards preceive them differently, ie. Ramirex gets 'theme' music instead of visuals, so does each mortal 'gazer preceive them differently. Also, it's Harry who tells us that he believes his images are an interpretation of the core of the person he sees. We don't know that for sure.
Add to that uncertainty the fact that those images and sounds are subject to the interpretation of the 'viewer' who sees through their own lens and you have the strong possibility that no two people who 'gaze Harry, or anyone else, see the same thing. The views may be similar but the interpretation probably isn't.
Caryl wrote: "... Add to that uncertainty the fact that those images and sounds are subject to the interpretation of the 'viewer' who sees through their own lens and you have the strong possibility that no two people who 'gaze Harry, or anyone else, see the same thing. ..."Susan fainted.
Agent Denton screamed that he wouldn't let Harry take him to Hell.
Marcone did pretty well, giving credence (at least to me) to the thought that interpretations might vary wildly.
Thomas's soulgaze ended with both of them crying, then laughing. Harry, at least, saw their mother, and spoke to her.
The Kraken (maybe a Kraken instead of the Kraken?) was terrified.
We don't know what Eb saw, but I wonder what Harry saw. Eb was the Blackstaff then, and had done great things; terrible things, true, but great. Harry apparently didn't see any of that, or it somehow didn't register.
Murphy's was blocked by the Nightmare, so it both has and hasn't happened.
Molly felt pity for Harry.
Any others? Michael?
Steven wrote: "Caryl wrote: "... Add to that uncertainty the fact that those images and sounds are subject to the interpretation of the 'viewer' who sees through their own lens and you have the strong possibility..."Michael pronounced Harry a good man after their 'gaze and Harry cried at the beauty of Michael's soul. But I can't find the quote. Anybody else got a better search method?
Caryl wrote: "Anybody else got a better search method ..."In another forum, a member reported downloading all his kindle Dresdens to his computer, where he used the Calibre application to convert them all to text, so he could use grep and all the other fine unix text-based tools to slice and dice.
Steven wrote: "Yasmin wrote: "2 new chapters from battleground are out.Spoiler warning
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[spoilers removed]"
yeah - I forget, also it doesn't appear as HTML in the emails.
Harry doesn't feel the need to soul-gaze Murphy - he saw her with his 3rd eye open several times - the warrior angel image that keeps getting more dirty and torn down.Marcone keeps his own councel, but his behavior was rattled - he tried to hire Harry several times and then spent a lot of money remodeling to either avoid him or try to kill him (Even Hand). I think he is frightened, just not showing it (almost).
Molly felt pity? I think she was scared, but then again the whole situation was stressfull to her - talking about surrendering to the White Council.
The Dresden Wikia states that any being with a soul can do a soul gaze - so that means Krakens have souls - weird - I wonder if it's pissed off that it needs to rise up to the surface or is it in league with the Fomor.
Yasmin wrote: "...also it doesn't appear as HTML in the emails."Ah, I didn't know that. Thanks.
Yasmin wrote: "Marcone keeps his own councel..."He does seem to spend a lot on anti-Harry features in his buildings, doesn't he?
Molly I was just plain wrong about -- must have confused it with some other Molly moment. I just reread the passage and Molly
... trembled like a frightened doe, staring up at me with her eyes wide and huge.
"My God," she whispered. "I never knew..."
Ever since Proven Guilty I've wanted to see Harry soulgaze Charity even more than Murphy. Harry averted his eyes to prevent it when he and Charity were talking in his apartment after Molly's baby hair turned out to be too old to use in a tracking spell.
EDIT: Chapter 34 is one of the finest Butcher has turned out, in any of the books, I think, and he's turned out a lot of really good ones.
Yasmin wrote: "Harry doesn't feel the need to soul-gaze Murphy - he saw her with his 3rd eye open several times - the warrior angel image that keeps getting more dirty and torn down.Marcone keeps his own counce..."
Harry believes that Ethniu called forth the Kraken, not the Fomor. Ethniu, however, seems to have power over the Fomor, to have them worshipping her and serving under her if Corb's behavior is any indication.
But if Ethniu called forth the Kraken and there are more in the lake, then does she also have power over the sharks? If so, how did Molly seconder them to fight the Kraken?
Caryl wrote: "Yasmin wrote: "Harry doesn't feel the need to soul-gaze Murphy - he saw her with his 3rd eye open several times - the warrior angel image that keeps getting more dirty and torn down.Marcone keeps..."
Sharks are winter fae? *giggling madly* Well, more logically, Wyld Fae. Thus inclined to assist Winter, when they feel like it?
like in Molly's POV story - the clan there was turning into cormorants and they looked genuine enough - why not a clan that turns into sharks?It's not the 1st time fae used that shape - in the attack on Demonsreach the hounds changed into sharks when diving into the water.
Trust vicious aggressive beings to choose the strongest shapes around.
I had forgotten about the details of that battle. Ok thanks for that reminder. That’s the best kind of answer; straight out of canon and quick.
Am I the only one who finds Butters extremely annoying and sanctimonious by the end of SkinGames? I've been enjoying my reread so much but this something I'd forgotten. Find myself skipping all the bits he's in. Really liked him in the beginning and I guess we are supposed to sympathise with him, but I just can’t, He's become the Xander of DF and it really bugs me that he's got Bob, and other stuff. He's the one character, good or bad that I wouldn't mind seeing bumped off in the first chapter of PT, but I don’t imagine I'd be so lucky.
Is it just me?
Km wrote: "Am I the only one who finds Butters extremely annoying and sanctimonious by the end of SkinGames? I've been enjoying my reread so much but this something I'd forgotten. Find myself skipping all the..."which part - the one with the lightsaber? that was awesome.
The stalking part that got Murphy hurt - less so, especially after he was practically the only one who believed Harry in Ghost Story - but coming back after claiming you're dead and burgling into Butters' place and beating up Andi, and then disappearing into the island for a year... I can see how that would be cause for suspicious, especially because Harry tried to commit suicide rather than be the Winter Knight.
What's wrong with Butters having Bob? I found Jewish Mother Bob an impruvement from Teenage Boy Bob - Honestly - considering Harry gave Bob his personality, I'm surprised every time Harry manages to say No to a female.
Did nobody read Chapter 3 of Battle Ground?spoiler alert
Harry pushing Murphy in a shopping cart across Chicago - I couldn't stop laughing - but then he made her stay behind - and she still gave him a goodbye kiss - that is real love - poor Murphy - she will be stewing in anger - at least until the fight gets to Mac's...
So - who else things Mac is some sort of immortal and now the people inside the pub are the safest in the city?
How does that plack work anyway? so the house is safe until the owner dies - Mac just needs to hide inside where he is safe and nobody can hurt him. I'm betting it won't be that easy...
Yasmin wrote: "Km wrote: "Am I the only one who finds Butters extremely annoying and sanctimonious by the end of SkinGames? I've been enjoying my reread so much but this something I'd forgotten. Find myself skipp..."Well he wasn’t speaking there, so yes that was a cool scene.
Maybe reasons to be suspicious, but there are answers to those questions, much of them outside of Harry’s actual control, and he’s a bit holier than thou given how often he messes up too, what happens to Murphy is on him, that was a spectacularly bad idea. Too much Butters screen time at the expense of other more interesting characters.
Don’t think he’s qualified to have Bob, and keeps taking him out and exposing him to the world when he shouldn’t, Nicodemus knows about Bob now for example, and maybe eventually he will lose Bob to someone bad. And plus I suppose, I think Harry misses him and maybe needs him, and I miss them working together.
Km wrote: "Am I the only one who finds Butters extremely annoying and sanctimonious by the end of SkinGames? I've been enjoying my reread so much but this something I'd forgotten. Find myself skipping all the..."You're probably not the only one. We all have our least favorites and our "oh, wow, that's cool" characters in the Dresden-verse. Personally, I was so knocked back by the incredible foreshadowing that ends up with Butters as a Knight that I had to go back and read all the books again. *chuckle* But then, I liked Xander who had unexpected skills at exactly the right moment, now and again. I love the way Butters and Bob work together because Bob reflects his environment, although I suspect he hasn't given up his penchant for romances. I would be sad to lose Butters, but, like many others, he is a vanilla mortal and Butcher doesn't pull punches when they're needed. Enjoy PT when you get there.
Yeah he does set him up for quite a journey tho it seems to have gone to his head. .I liked early seasons Butters/Xander too, but the sanctimonious from the hero adjacent is just too much.Rereading has been a great ride, and a bit all consuming am just finishing brief cases in case I need some of the backstory then am really looking forward to PT.
Km wrote: "Am I the only one who finds Butters extremely annoying and sanctimonious by the end of SkinGames? I've been enjoying my reread so much but this something I'd forgotten. Find myself skipping all the..."I'm viewing Butters as a man who has been disappointed because his hero turns out to have feet of clay, to not be everything Butters imagined him to be. He's pouting like a teenager and not ready to hear Harry's 'excuses' for 'falling down on the job' as Butters sees it. So yeah, right now he's an annoying little git. I hope JB writes him to get over his disappointment enough to be the friend and ally he could be to Harry. Harry's got few enough friends and even fewer allies at this point in the story.
Good point, hope that happens, see how he handles his own inevitable failures. although for all that Harry blames himself and Butters is disappointed in him, it’s hard to see how he could have tried harder or what really he could have done differently..
Doesn’t Bob stall Harry so Andi can attack him, and doesn’t he actually tell either Butters or Andi that Harry can’t be trusted now that he’s the Winter Knight? Butters has good reason to be suspicious. And some of it is definitely “We expected you to save us and you didn’t,” which seems petulant except that most people really aren’t going to step up and take on the bad guys. Hell, a lot of people won’t even stop for an accident or call the cops if they hear their neighbor being beaten. Butters massively steps up, and is, yes, probably upset and resentful and scared that he had to do that when he made it clear way back in book, what, 3? that he isn’t a hero. And he has to be now, and he expected Harry to either take back the hero job or at least *help* when he came back and he didn’t. And he’s got Bob telling him Harry, inevitably, is going to be corrupted by the mantle and that — not only will no one else know exactly when that happens — but that Harry *himself* won’t be able to tell.Additionally, I think someone in one of these threads pointed out that we have the enormous advantage of being in Harry’s head, so we *know* he’s trying his best and that *as far as he knows* he hasn’t been corrupted. Remember, Harry is, to some extent, an unreliable narrator — he wasn’t aware that his blasting rod had been taken away by Mab that time, he wasn’t aware that Lash was messing with his mind and he was talking to the air, and he wasn’t aware that he’d arranged his own murder. We know he’s doing his best, but we only know what he knows — we know the mantle is pushing him, but since we’re in his head, whatever he can rationalize to himself, he can also rationalize to us.
And Butters is a Knight of the Cross now. Michael himself told Harry that if he became evil, Michael would be there — to stop him. With what seemed to me the clear understanding that Michael would kill him if he had to. So from Butters’ perspective, Harry has always been powerful, always been dangerous, always been looked at askance by other wizards, and now he’s got the Winter mantle which Bob tells him will corrupt Harry whether he wants it or not, that he’s massively beholden and influenced by the Queen of the Evil Fairies, and now Harry is working with Nicodemus. Nicodemus!!
Butters totally has the right to say what he does, and worry about Harry going darkside. He is also, beyond doubt, being unbelievably stupid to use Bob the way he does and I’m very concerned that that is going to lead to utter disaster, but he’s listening to Bob and no doubt Bob is telling him it’s totally fine — which is something Harry really ought to warn him about.
Km wrote: "Good point, hope that happens, see how he handles his own inevitable failures. although for all that Harry blames himself and Butters is disappointed in him, it’s hard to see how he could have tr..."
Exactly, Harry could have done nothing other than he did with the information he had at the time or with the circumstances he faced -ie. Bonnie in his brain- but Butters hasn't listened to Harry's side. And we all know, Harry always takes on the blame, the responsibility for others, expects too much of himself, holds himself to too high a standard. That's why he has Michael, to help him see that Harry Dresden isn't TWG. ;-)
Caryl wrote: "Km wrote: "Good point, hope that happens, see how he handles his own inevitable failures. although for all that Harry blames himself and Butters is disappointed in him, it’s hard to see how he co..."
:-) Yes that scene in Skin Game between Michael and Harry is one of my favourites.
Lillicat wrote: "Doesn’t Bob stall Harry so Andi can attack him, and doesn’t he actually tell either Butters or Andi that Harry can’t be trusted now that he’s the Winter Knight? Butters has good reason to be suspic..."You said at the end that Harry should warn Butters about Bob, but would Butters believe Harry? If he thinks and believes Harry might go darkside with the winter mantle, would he think that Harry is trying mess with him. Harry can warn Butters about Bob, but I doubt it will change anything.
I think Harry might have said to be careful with Bob right when Butters was really only supposed to be hiding him, and not using him. I wouldn’t think Butters would listen to any warnings now, no whether or not he thinks that Harry might go bad, he likes using Bob now and relies on him a lot, as he’s now part of a world he doesn’t know anything about.
Plus it kind seems like he thinks of Bob as his now, so. Feels dangerous.
I think Harry thinks Bob belongs with Butters too. Harry's new connection to Winter would be problematic were he still in charge of Bob. Plus he had the opportunity to take Bob back from Butters instead of just 'borrowing' him in Skin Game. He chose not to.Will this lead to trouble for Harry in the coming books? My guess would be, yes. JB and his twisted subplots. Grrr- lol - You know we LOVE it.
Butters may not believe Harry about Bob, but he probably hasn’t been told Bob’s history either. He knows Bob is dangerous — he’s been warned about that — but he may not know that any other wizard who becomes aware of him would destroy him, and that Bob will say or do nearly anything to get out and about. I’m sure Bob is seriously downplaying the dangers of carrying the skull around. And at the end of Skin Game, Butters is reassured that Harry is still, for the moment, on the side of the angels, so to speak, which would have been a good time for a word about the dangers of listening to Bob when his own amusement is at issue, but we don’t see Harry give him that warning.
don't forget that Bob is taking the personality of whoever is holding the skull thinks he should be. If Butters is afraid of Bob, he will get different personality from him and it may be worse than treating him as a comic relief sidekick.All in all - I doubt Harry can do anything about Bob right now - even if he wanted to.
Anyway - now Butters is a Knight of the Cross - if Bob isn't safe with him, where else would he be safe...
Yasmin wrote: "don't forget that Bob is taking the personality of whoever is holding the skull thinks he should be. If Butters is afraid of Bob, he will get different personality from him and it may be worse than..."Good points.
Midwinter, maybe the last post in the Year of Dresden. Let’s make it a good one eh?1/ Of course Justine was an Outsider! Stolen property in the hands of stolen property is exactly the kind of person to be dismissed instantly as any threat whatsoever. Yet think about it… woman is a fulcrum of intelligence between the Wizards White Council and the White Court. Couldn’t ask for a better positioned spy.
2/ This might be obvious, but I’m pretty sure Gwynn ap Nudd’s death is what allowed the Cubbies to win the World Series in 2016.
3/ It’s xmas and I’m watching movies again, you guys think by shear oversaturation and mortal belief all those Avengers films would have made Thor more powerful in the Dresdenverse?
4/ Next book is going to be TWELVE MONTHS, and unlike all the others it’ll be set over a longer period, not just a three day fustercluck… That’ll be interesting to watch, kinda want to see what his house is going to look like.
5/ Even if you’re not normally a fan of podcasts linked is one you might want to watch anyway – it’s sixty five minutes and there’s a lot of meat on this particular bone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGgyJ...
5-i/ Talks a bit about the cloud of alternate universes existing parallel to the one we read about, I think making ours Dresden c-137, or maybe Dresden-Prime. There’d be others; Michael dying on the island, Marcone not saving Harry in Dead Beat, Mirror Mirror universe, and Evil Molly. Probably lots and lots more.
5-ii/ Einherjar Revenants are possible not because of anything like necromancy but due to Vadderung being blessed with Soulfire!
5-iii/ The time travel story we were all certain was coming has been confirmed as the last before the big trilogy, so book #22 maybe? My suggestion for the title: Time’s Watch.
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I guess Year of Dresden is over… It’s been a blast, made this whole plague thing a little easier to deal with, and we got to re-read and talk about the whole series which is always fun!
2) too early - it's a recent death - he did say he was keeping the curse going out of tradition and not spite.3) after Endgame - not sure... anyway - power of belief will only take you so far - it's your life energy, not raw power to throw around. Thor would be really limited if people only think of him as the movies character.
4) Harry was decorating the house with stuff he found at dumpsters - but that wouldn't do for the Winter Knight - good question.
6) Evil Harry with Laciel wispering in his ear - I do wonder what would happen if 2 identical coins from different worlds actually meet... I guess if we get past the explosions, it will go down to the character of the person meeting themselves. Laciel is a loner, but Harry did show he's capable of cooperating with himself several times. Hanna Asher - not so much...
7) Isn't Soulfire something that requires a Soul?! When did Vadderung start having one of those?
8) I think he announced the 3 last titles, but since they're the 3 common swearwords from the dresdenverse, it may have been a joke. Empty Night is not a bad title, but Hell's Bells...
BTW - we finally start to see why people curse Stars & Stones - but that infodump was one of the things I didn't like in the books - JB used to be more subtle with the expositions...
Considering it took about 5 months to reread the whole series - we can always start again when they announce the new book.
However, Fae changelings in mythology are not scions but are, instead, whole replac..."
if it wasn't for the clear statement in Summer Knight, sure, but since JB bothered to define Changelings as halfbreeds, I'm sticking with that for this world.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...