Awesome / Peace Talks

Moment Subpages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.

• The first chapter has Harry out jogging with Thomas. When Ramirez shows up, Harry does his best Goku/Rock Lee impression by dropping the two hundred twenty pound training vest he had been wearing onto the sand.
• Ebenezar casually walking through hundreds of security measures of the svartalves as through a breeze. He does it so quickly that they literally didn't know what hit them till he knocks on Harry's door. Ebenezar is so powerful that he gives zero fucks about pissing off an entire supernatural nation.
  • Oh, he stops to flatten a jerkass svartalf security guard who had been pestering Harry for days. Papa Wolf McCoy strikes again.
  • Back in Blood Rites, we learned he was responsible for Tunguska. That becomes a hundred times more awesome in this book, when Harry reveals that in doing so, he killed a Dragon. Not a cute little flying lizard, but a being on the same level as Ferrovax.
• Harry gets an emotional one where he stands up to Ebenezar for all of his holier-than-thou condemnations as well as lecturing him on how to raise his family. Ebenezar, after all, did nothing for Harry until he was his grandson's jailer. Whether or not it was entirely deserved, Harry certainly has a fair point.
• When the svartalves think that Harry is part of the attack on their king, they attempt to take Maggie, and Amanda, who had been babysitting Maggie, hostage. Mouse literally plays whack-a-mole with dozens of them who try to get in.
  • While we are on it, svartalves are the specialists of security measures of the supernatural community. When trying to capture Maggie, they are forced to phase through the floors, because they cannot get through the force-field Harry put around his apartment, which Harry admits was simple.
• Harry and Ebenezar working together against the cornerhounds. We've never seen those two fighting side-by-side (save for a very brief bit in Changes), so watching them as a seamless team really ups the ante.
  • When Harry is banishing the cornerhounds, he gets a momentary glimpse of himself from their perspective:
    I saw... a being made of coherent light, a column of glowing energy centers, and pure dread, standing like an obelisk before the cornerhounds, a bolt of terrible lightning gathered around its upraised fists, head, and shoulders like a miniature storm front.
  • This needs to be emphasized. Harry Dresden terrifies eldritch abominations. If he wasn't a Memetic Badass already, this would seal it.
  • Eb's no slouch during the fight either, taking the brunt of the cornerhounds' attacks so that Harry can trap them, and repeatedly pulling off magical tricks that leave his grandson (by now a highly experienced combat wizard) flabbergasted.
• The Genowska gets a name, Blood on His Soul, and he somehow escaped Hades' realm.
• One more of Vadderung's other names is now known: Beowulf.
• Karrin manages to intimidate one of the Valkyries into letting her pass into Lara Raith's house. Not because of the threat she poses but because of her lack of fear.
• Karrin is used as a hostage by one of the Valkyries, only for Karrin to reveal that she's holding a grenade in each hand when she drops the pins for them. Karrin promptly lets her know in no uncertain terms that Harry is not the person to worry about here. The Valkyrie finds this hot and dives into Lake Michigan.
• Say what you like about Marcone, but he's got balls that drag the ground when he walks. For instance, he stands up to Ethniu, someone who just effortlessly kicked Mab through multiple walls.
• Harry, Murphy, Lara, and Freydis are able to sneak Thomas out of Marcone's fortress with (almost) no one noticing.
  • One of the important ones to see through it? Ferrovax. As he prepares to incinerate Harry and company, Odin silently indicates to his peer that if he wants to get to Harry, he'll have to go through him. The dragon relents with a smile.
• Say what you will about the Fomor being far beyond the Moral Event Horizon, but showing up to the Accords, trouncing Mab, and declaring war on ALL the other nations is badass. Possibly stupid, but badass.
  • Considering all the horrible things Queen Mab has gotten away with through the entire series, it almost counts as Laser-Guided Karma. This is the first time she's ever been that thoroughly trounced on screen!
  • The challenge is so bold and unprecedented that Odin reacts with stunned disbelief and a trace of fear. Let that sink in; the Norse god renowned and worshipped for his wisdom and foresight was utterly blindsided, and arguably one of the most badass gods of any pantheon is worried.
• Ebenezar attacks Harry after he rescues Thomas, and nearly wins the duel until Harry reveals that Thomas, a vampire, is his grandson. When Ebenezar responds with murderous rage, Harry takes the hit and dies in his arms...only for his body to dissolve in ectoplasm, revealing Harry had been manipulating a magical duplicate of himself safely aboard the Water Beetle. If he can't win with force, he'll win with trickery. Even against the Blackstaff.
  • Harry's battle against Ebenezar is one of the biggest wizard duels we've seen so far in the series. Even with all of his upgrades over the years, Harry proves no match for The Dreaded Person of Mass Destruction Old Master Ebenezar (though he does hold his own for an impressively long time, especially given the handicap of working at range, over water, through a construct), but his willingness to die for Thomas is something that stymies Ebenezar.
  • Ebenezar, in turn, definitively beats the Winter Knight, on his own ground, in just a few minutes. While it's explicitly stated that he was holding back.
• Harry's unintended Batman Gambit that blackmails Lara Raith into becoming his steadfast ally and protector. Even he's completely blindsided by this because he hadn't consciously realized she was planning on betraying him, nor does he put up with her claims that he must have done this on purpose and used Thomas as leverage against her.