Characters / The Dresden Files – Harry Dresden

WARNING! Due to the books relying heavily on mystery and surprise, the pages would be virtually unreadable with excessive spoiler tags. Therefore, all spoilers except for the most recent novel (Battle Ground) are UNMARKED. Tread carefully.

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The Dresden Files Character Index
Harry Dresden | Harry's Household | The White Council | The Church | The Vampire Courts | The Denarians | The Fae | The Fomor | The Kemmlerites | Chicago Mafia | Other Powerful Entities | Ordinary People and Badass Normals

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Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden

Chicago's very own wizard PI at work.

My job hadn't changed: When demons and horrors and creatures of the night prey on this city, I'm the guy who does something about it.

Our hero, a smart-assed private investigator and wizard with a really big cat, an even bigger dog, and a dark past. Since he killed his mentor in a magical duel after said Evil Mentor's failed attempt to bring him over to The Dark Side, he's been under very serious suspicion by the White Council as a potential warlock. Only Ebenezar McCoy's intervention stopped him from being executed. Now he makes a living helping the helpless and beating the snot out of vampires, but he's starting to realize that his family history is a lot more complicated than he had suspected...

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A — B

• Action Dad: He wiped out the entire Red Court to save Maggie — who he had just found out existed — and outsmarted Nicodemus & ruined his credibility in the supernatural community after he tried to kill Maggie. When he learns he himself is 'pregnant' in Skin Game, he also makes sure no-one gets their hands on that child either. His id agrees with these sentiments.
• Addiction Displacement: After getting the Winter Mantle, Harry becomes addicted to excercise as an outlet for the Mantle's urges. It is by far the least objectionable way to appease it.
• The Alleged Car: The Blue Beetle is junk. Literally so as of Changes after a Red Court monster ripped it apart beyond even Mike the Mechanic's famous skill.
• Allegedly Dateless: Despite the fact that he sometimes laments that he doesn't have much of a love life, Harry is more unwilling to date the women in his life rather than unable, due to his personal hangups and issues. While he had steady relationship with Elaine, Susan and Luccio over his lifetime, and has had years of Will They or Won't They? with Murphy, over the years Harry has had plenty of moments of female attention from the likes of Lara Raith, Inari Raith, Justine, Lash, Mab, Maeve, Aurora, Molly, Sigrun, Andi, and various bad guys. Though most cases of that last one was either with manipulation in mind, or just plain crazy.
• Amazon Chaser: All the women he pursues are incredibly tough. One is an Intrepid Reporter, and the others are all extremely deadly combatants.
• Animal Motifs: Indirectly, but horses. Harry is nicknamed "Hoss" by his mentor, and later becomes a Knight (of the Fae)- a position symbolized in chess by a horse's head. When he completes Mab's training, she laughs "like a little girl who has just been told she’s getting a pony." Word of Jim confirms Harry himself has a love for horses that he developed while living under Ebenezer McCoy's tutelage.
• Anti-Hero: Pragmatic Hero. He's generally a good guy with a bad case of Chronic Hero Syndrome and Honor Before Reason, but piss him off and you'll wish you'd never been born. Such as when he maimed Quintus Cassius for trying to take advantage of the Knights' code of conduct, or he exterminated the entire Red Court. And of course, he also has a massive anti-authority chip on his shoulder, is terrible at communicating his thoughts with others, and has an unhealthy lust for power.
• The Anti-Nihilist: He is the Knight in Sour Armor who always does the right thing. This quote from Ghost Story sums it up perfectly.
  It.
  Wasn't.
  Right.
  No, it wasn't. But the world wasn't a fair place, was it? And I had more reason to know it than most people twice my age. The world wasn't nice, and it wasn't fair. People who didn't deserve it suffered and died every single day.
  So what?
  So somebody ought to do something about it.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • To Bianca and the Red Court. It ends with him causing their entire species to go extinct.
  • To the LaChaise clan of ghouls, since he is responsible for the deaths of several of the clan members. Since they have killed or maimed a lot of his clients, Harry returns the sentiment.
  • To Nicodemus Archleone, especially after Skin Game, and the Denarians in general (though it can be argued that Michael Carpenter and the Knights of the Cross are the greater enemies to Ol' Nick in the grand scheme of things).
  • To Nemesis, many of whose plans he's foiled. And as a Starborn, he is one of these to the Outsiders, He Who Walks Behind in particular.
  • To Cowl of the Black Council. Not only is it implied that "Mouse's Shadow" is owned by Cowl, but Cowl immediately sees Harry as a severe threat to his group's plans after he's responsible for serving as a massive Spanner in the Works in Dead Beat.
  • To "Gentleman" John Marcone. Both men might be Friendly Enemies with each other, but they also fervently hate each other and are preparing for the inevitable day when they will clash and hopefully wipe the other from existence.
  • To Mavra of the Black Court. Really, considering their similar levels of power, ruthlessly practical mindsets, Deadpan Snarker tendencies, and almost-instantly induced mutual loathing for each other, she probably has the best argument for being Dresden's greatest Arch Enemy when not including the Walkers and Outsiders. Along with Nicodemus, she is one of the few enemies he would give anything to kill. Even Bob has been surprised by his viciousness towards her.
• Armor-Piercing Question: He may seem slow, but Harry has a careful and analytical mind when it suits him. His questions in White Night gave a shadow of a fallen angel reason to believe that she could (and should) make a Heel–Face Turn.
• Armor-Piercing Response: Him sharply telling Lash "Lady, you ain't Lasciel" in White Night is implied to be the final turn of phrase that helps convince her that she is her own person independent of the "true" Lasciel.
• Arranged Marriage: as of Battle Ground, he's in one with Lara Raith courtesy of Mab. Neither party is thrilled with the idea.
• Back from the Dead: As of Cold Days, he gets back up after he was sniped and fell into Lake Michigan. It took the combined efforts of Demonreach, Mab, and the spirit in his head to keep his body alive for the six months his soul was set loose, and sent to Limbo Chicago and then Chicago proper. Butters is of the mind Harry was in a deep coma; though it's been remarked by several entities that, metaphysically speaking, he was clearly dead and back again.
• Bad Liar: One would imagine that someone capable of hatching a half-decent plan with a half-second's notice would be able to lie half-decently, but Harry simply cannot. Averted in the later books thanks to sheer practice. By the beginning of Proven Guilty, Murphy becomes concerned about him because he's actually able to tell a convincing lie.
  • invoked Which describes how he sounds in the audiobooks, as performed by James Marsters, pretty well. Given that "Aftermath" was written well after the first audiobooks were published, it's possible Butcher was inspired by them.
• Badass Bookworm/Genius Bruiser: Depending on where you place his six foot nine, but skinny, person. As of Skin Game it seems like his relentless physical training as the Winter Knight has pushed him permanently into the latter, with him noting when he enters a formal occasion with Hannah Ascher on his arm that while she, a beautiful and apparently non-threatening young woman, is overlooked by the security goons, in him they see "one of their own kind, who had better scars than they did."
• Badass in Distress: Becomes a Distressed Dude on a regular basis and cannot always get out on his own.
• Badass Longcoat: Harry wears a duster. A magically reinforced, black leather duster "with extra billow" that can repel almost any physical attack. After the original was destroyed in Changes, Molly got him a new one in Cold Days.
• Badass Teacher:
  • Played With. To Molly, he'll go through hell to protect her, and though his teaching can come off as harsh and enigmatic, he's actually rather soft on her by White Council standards.
  • He was also an instructor for the young Wardens at Luccio's bootcamp for a time. When an attack by ghouls resulted in two of the recruits getting killed and eaten, he makes sure the attackers suffer for it to an extent that even other Wardens thought he was going too far.
• Baritone of Strength: "Aftermath" (which is narrated by Murphy) mentions that Harry usually keeps his voice soft, but when he's either in combat or deliberately trying to intimidate someone, his resonant baritone emerges. Since Harry only rarely mentions it in any of his books, it's possible he's not very aware of it.
• Beard of Sorrow: In Summer Knight, Harry's so obsessed with saving Susan that he neglects everything else, including hygiene.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Harry's favorite trick is turning his foes' weapons against them. From bound demons and hexenwulf belts to zombie dinosaurs and bloodline curses, Harry doesn't just stop the bad guys' ploys, but volleys them right back at the villains themselves.
• Being Good Sucks: invoked Word of God has outright stated that they will have the plot always directed in whatever way will make Harry suffer more, as it makes the story all the more entertaining.
  • Harry is regularly forced into bad situations where, regardless of what he does, he will step on good people's toes and cause them great grief. In Grave Peril, his earlier poor choices led him to choose between watching Bianca slaughter an innocent girl and unmake Amoracchius (which isn't even his) or break his promise of good conduct and start a war with the Red Court. Lampshaded by Bianca and the headstone she gives him, with the epitaph "He died doing the right thing."
  • This trope really describes his life in general. The whole reason he lives in Perpetual Poverty in a crummy basement flat is that he chose to scrape together a living as a private investigator rather than go into a career that would make him lots of money but wouldn't have any opportunities to help people in need. This is pointed out on several occasions, though from time to time, fate rewards him for being a good guy.
• Big Brother Instinct: He's actually Thomas' younger half-brother, but the end result is more or less the same. Harry nearly levels an entire shopping mall in "It's My Birthday, Too" during his battle with a scourge of Black Court vampires trying to kill Thomas on his birthday.
• Big Brother Mentor: To Ramirez, and to a lesser extent, several other younger Wardens such as Meyers, Yoshimo, and Chandler. Ramirez in particular really looks up to Harry and trusts him deeply, which is why it hurts all the more when Ramirez gives Harry the message he's been booted from the White Council and calls him out for not trusting him.
  • Michael Carpenter is this to Harry (combined with Parental Substitute); Michael is pretty much always Harry's first stop when he needs mentoring or assistance.
• Big Entrance: Harry is fond of those, especially when he's pissed and wants to intimidate. In Storm Front, he uses a wind spell to rip open the doors of Marcone's restaurant outwards before announcing himself. In White Night he stages another one among the white court, walking in while slamming a force spell through his staff in the ground of the cavern to make a tremor ripple through it, while wearing his Warden's cloak. As a result of this tendency, Marcone has had flimsy, light doors installed at dramatic — rather than tactical — entry points of his businesses for magical monsters and practitioners.
• Big Little Brother: At 6 foot 9, he would be this to anyone who could be an older sibling to him, so given his actual older brother is Thomas Raith, who is of average height and due to his vampire genes, looks younger than his actual age, Harry is taller and looks older than Thomas.
• Blessed with Suck: As the Winter Knight, Harry gains a degree of Super-Strength, a Healing Factor, more magical juice and access to ice magic... but in return, it gives him a vulnerability to Cold Iron with a side order of mind-warping and psychopathic predatory impulses. On top of that, losing the Mantle (by breaking the laws the Winter Fae abide by) causes all injuries and defects the mantle "cured" to return, undiminished.
  • In Skin Game, Butters theorizes the Winter Knight's mantle isn't power-imbuing as much as it being psychosomatic, with increased testosterone increasing aggression and strength paired running the human body with the limits turned off. You know, like the limits that keep one from breaking their own bones, shredding their own muscles, or running themselves to death by exhaustion. Murphy's counterpoint is that Butters is pointing out facts that fit multiple theories — though Harry himself thinks it's plausible.
  • A relatively minor case (at least when compared to his Winter Knight Mantle), but thanks to being a wizard and thus a Walking Techbane he has to make do without most modern luxuries. He doesn't have TV, a cell phone, or hot water, and can't even get a CAT scan without setting the machine on fire just by his merest presence.
• Blow You Away: Early in the series, Harry used a wind spell, mostly to manipulate the world around him before he got a good handle on kinetic energy. Because air magic isn't his strong point, his wind spell and similar magic has been mostly obsolete since, though they start to come back, for example in Skin Game, when he uses a Soulfire-infused cyclone in a duel with Hannah Ascher and then in Battle Ground, uses it again on Ethniu.
• Blue-Collar Warlock: No formal education? Harry's a high school dropout with a GED. Unschooled language? Slang, snark, and pop-culture references galore. No independent source of money? Harry makes his living as a PI. City dweller? Chicago. Focus on practical magic? Pretty much. Blue collar family? As far as we know, yes. In addition to slinging spells and has a pretty good knowledge base of magical theory and the supernatural communities, Harry uses revolvers and a number of magical gadgets that slowly grows into a small arsenal (until the chain of events in Changes leaves him next to nothing to his name). His skills as a PI are pretty considerable, and it comes with a working knowledge of Chicago's underworld and a number of legally dubious items, like unprescribed painkillers, a sawn-off shotgun or two, and a good set of lockpicks.
• Book Dumb: Played with. Harry's a smart guy and pretty well-read, but he never finished high school. Which is in stark contrast to the many, many advanced degrees held by the rest of the White Council. On top of that, the Council conducts all its business in Latin: Harry can understand it pretty well, but speak it, not so much at first. Stupid correspondence course.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Blood Rites reveals that he's been taking regular aikido and bo staff fighting lessons with Murphy for several years.
• Brought Down to Badass: Being deprived of magic doesn't make him harmless. The very first (canon-wise) Dresdenverse story has him killing a troll with its own weapon.
• Buffy Speak: This gem from Fool Moon:
  "DON'T MESS WITH A WIZARD WHILE HE'S WIZARDING! NOW GET ME A STUFFED ANIMAL!"
• Burn Scars, Burning Powers: Harry prefers fire magic and gains a handful of specific fire abilities over the course of the series (Hellfire and Soulfire), but he also burns his hand so badly at one point he cannot even use it.

C — F

• Cartwright Curse: Harry is unlucky in love for a variety of reasons and his love interests have a tendency to meet tragic fates.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • Not obvious, but he's got a few phrases that he likes. The most prominent is a smug "Damn I'm good."
  • During Skin Game, he shouts "Parkour!" every time he performs it. Michael is slightly bemused.
• Character Development:
  • Starts out reckless & impulsive (if well-meaning), steadily gains brains, caution, & better judgment.
    • One mark of this is to count how many times per book he uses the Indy Ploy vs. Xanatos Speed Chess. In earlier books, he would stumble into a situation and then make something up, but as the series goes on, he becomes wiser, more manipulative, and much more able to pull off cunning plans.
  • The first couple books have him sticking to the idea that knowledge of the supernatural is dangerous and should generally be kept to oneself. After this attitude blows up in his face a few times, he starts accepting that sometimes people need to be clued in to survive.
  • It's subtle, but after Summer Knight, he is much more respectful to the Faerie Queens than he was the first time he met them. Most notably, even after having been nearly Eaten Alive by Mother Winter in Cold Days he still jumps to her defense in an argument with Mother Summer since he's gotten a much better understanding of the Fae's Blue-and-Orange Morality than he once did.
• Characterization Marches On: Granted, it can be argued as overlapping with both Early-Installment Weirdness and Character Development, but in the first two novels, Dresden often showcases some pretty anti-science views, directly mocking science in Storm Front by describing it as "the largest religion of the twentieth century" and deriding it for covering up the truth of the world. In the later novels, Harry frequently showcases a pretty healthy appreciation for science (despite his status as a Walking Techbane), often incorporating loopholes granted via his understanding of the laws of physics into his magic. Additionally, he wasn't that much of a Pop-Cultured Badass in Storm Front, with his Shout-Out quotient actually being fairly low by this series' own standards.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • His time spend at Ebenezar's farm has left him with a good knowledge of horse physiology and some general ungulate (hoofed-mammal) physiology. Thus when facing an enemy with similar physiology, he knows exactly where to hit for maximum damage. This has saved his life in many occasions, especially when magic is not usable.
  • Additionally, his regimen of self-taught parkour in Skin Game is all that saves his life in the final battle against the Genoskwa & Ursiel in Hades' Vault.
• The Chessmaster: While Harry is often fighting above his weight class in this category, he evolves into this over the course of the novels. Mab explicitly expects him to outmaneuver Nicodemus in Skin Game, with Murphy pointing out that it is what he's good at, and he manages to do so... with a little help.
• The Chew Toy: Jim Butcher has literally said that his whole career revolves around torturing Harry.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Harry would never take advantage of a girl, but that doesn't mean he won't look. Even if the woman in question is a Faerie Queen.
  • His peeping incident with a naked female thief was in academic interest only. Seriously!
• The Chosen Many: Harry has learned late in the series that he is a "Starborn", one born under a confluence of events (which happens to line up exactly with Halloween night), and it gives him power over Outsiders. It's why Justin DuMorne adopted him and, it is hinted, Elaine. It's strongly implied that his mother arranged the circumstances of his birth so this would happen and this may be why she married Malcolm Dresden in the first place. The only other known Starborn are Elaine (according to Word of God), his Evil Counterpart Cowl, the Fomor's Hypercompetent Sidekick Listen, and the Humanoid Abomination Drakul.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome:
  • In Turn Coat, Lara Raith realizes that Harry is protecting Warden Morgan from the Council's own internal manhunt because people in trouble go to him and he helps them.
  • And he has a massive Guilt Complex to go with that Chronic Hero Syndrome. It originated when he was escaping from Justin, as he got a civilian involved by trying to rob him, only for the sadistic He Who Walks Behind to come along and brutally kill the young man. The Chronic Hero Syndrome also feeds his Guilt Complex-whenever he fails to save someone, he always blames himself.
• The Collector of the Strange: Vampire teeth. He also has a variety of *very* odd things in his lab, including depleted uranium powder and a baggy made of the scrotum of a lion ("It was a gift.").
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • Primarily the reason that Harry continues to assert that he is not a "good" person. Occasional forays into spur of the moment damsel rescuing aside, Harry rarely ever goes into a situation without being prepared and more tellingly, if he sees an opportunity to get the upper hand over a superior opponent by playing dirty, he doesn't hesitate to use it.
  • He's perfectly willing to use a gun or hand-to-hand combat when that would work better than magic, which is especially effective since a lot of people expect him to be a stereotypical Squishy Wizard who has no combat skills other than magic.
    Harry: [after punching a bad guy in the face] Man, the yahoos I scrap with never anticipate that tactic.
  • It's perfectly spelled out in Battle Ground with this quote:
    Harry: Which idiot fights fair?
• Crazy-Prepared: While no Batman, he always keeps some nifty stuff at various points so that they may come of use. In Turn Coat, he had another hideout ready if it was ever needed, which he uses to hide Morgan.
  • It has been mentioned several times he keeps around stashes of the several Weaksauce Weaknesses of several supernatural beings in case he encounters them, like water balloons with holy water for Black Court vampires.
• Creature of Habit: To a degree that even his enemies know and they have used it against him occasionally.
• Cruel to Be Kind:
  • When training with Justin. Justin practised this old mentality of wizard training. He would strike Harry not in anger, but to make him work at the problem again. He didn't raise his voice, but pushed Harry hard. He used baseballs to make Harry get his shields even stronger. If not for the betrayal and brainwashing, this is considered the standard accepted method of training a wizard. Note that this was also how Luccio trained Morgan, except instead of baseballs, she used rocks.
  • Averted with Harry to Molly. He would push her, make her think about her actions, and such, but never was as hard or cruel to her as Justin was to Harry or Lea would be to Molly. However, Lea argues that his hand-holding and being a second-father-figure to the girl fails her needs. Pain motivates people, pushing them hard to make them find their limits and surpass them, and both are needed to be a well-trained wizard — thus Harry's failings helped Molly fall off the wagon in Ghost Story.
  • However, given Lea's character and point of view, the Winter Court's vested interest in both a Molly and a Harry that are susceptible to this point of view, and the revelation that it wasn't Harry's teaching style or lack thereof that led to Molly's breakdown but the fact that a Fallen Angel's whisper influenced Harry into arranging his own death and enlisting Molly's help in making him forget that he had done so, this is fairly arguable.
  • Averted and discussed in the case of raising his daughter. McCoy advocates this position (not without reason), but Harry refuses to even consider it. This ends up backfiring in both Skin Game and Peace Talks.
• Cultured Badass: Not as much as other examples, but he does compose a brief poem and whistle Carmen while hyped up on magic coffee in Fool Moon, is very knowledgeable about fairy tales and mythology, mentions some familiarity with Vivaldi in White Night, and in Skin Game is able to identify the painting styles of individual Renaissance masters at a glance. He also knows The Bible very well for someone who doesn't practise religion.
• Dark and Troubled Past: So, so much. Even he doesn't know all the details of just how dark and troubled it really is. And it keeps getting worse.
• Dark Shepherd: Occasionally acts like this, especially with Molly — see the fireball scene in White Night. He tries to be nicer to his friends, but when push comes to shove, he needs to work to not make his allies fear him rather than respect him.
• Deadpan Snarker: Constantly, to the point where his influence has turned several of his friends and associates into snarkers too. And when he isn't snarking at his enemies, he is typically going balls-to-the-wall and they will soon suffer for pissing him off.
  • What's the best way to establish that a bad guy is Serious News? If Harry's too scared to snark at them.
  • At one point, he shoots his mouth off to a couple of very powerful beings, with the excuse that they might feel left out if he didn't, seeing as he's shot his mouth off to everyone else.
• Deal with the Devil: He's turned down a lot of these over the course of the series, but some he did accept for the right price.
  • He made a deal with Lea in his teenage days to defeat his master. He had to spend years running from the consequences.
  • Played with in Changes. He accepts Mab's to become her Knight in exchange for the power to protect his daughter. However, Harry notes that while she is evil, dark, and dangerous, she was not the worst Devil available. He could have Chosen the Denarians or even become a necromantic god to save his daughter.
  • He previously accepted, and subverted, Lasciel's. He took knowledge from the Shadow to the point it was necessary to avert the major crisis, but it was always a last resort to him. Eventually, the Shadow realizes Harry will never truly accept the coin.
• Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: Harry infuses a bullet with Soulfire and Winter Ice Magic in Cold Days to do massive damage to He-Who-Walks-Before when he administers a point-blank headshot to the demon.
• Destructive Savior: When destroying buildings is a Running Gag, you know you've got one on your hands.
  • Ghost Story reveals that the first magical battle he engaged in at sixteen, against He Who Walks Behind, ended with an entire gas station exploding. And the fallout of the Battle of Chichen Itza results in a massive power vacuum across the better part of a continent and a half, if not the entire supernatural world.
  • In "The Warrior", Harry sees an electrician on Michael's construction crew about to go to work drunk. Harry hexes a transformer to blow out power to the construction site, stopping work until the man sobers up. Although Michael appreciates that Harry stopped the man, he points out that Harry simply could have told him about the situation.
    Harry: That's not how I roll.
    • Summed up perfectly a few lines later in the same story.
      Harry Dresden. Saving the world, one act of random destruction at a time.
• Determined Defeatist: In the climax of nearly every novel, Harry has accepted that he'll most likely die, and sets out to accomplish his goal anyway, without factoring in his own survival. His survival ends up being ensured anyway, somehow or other. Usually.
  • Sometimes he survives and/or wins due to this, pulling off near-fatal gambits that no-one wishing to survive would do to defeat the villain. Sometimes the only thing preventing a Mutual Kill is The Cavalry.
• Disappeared Dad: As of Changes, when he finds out about his daughter for the first time, though technically he's been one since Blood Rites.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Harry's self-admittedly weak element. So far he's seen making sinkholes under someone's feet or make a fissure to hide things, and neither were in pitched battles.
• Determinator:
  • He's usually been shot, stabbed, beaten, and kicked in the guts enough times to kill most men before the real fight even starts.
  • It's implied that being this is a prerequisite for being a powerful wizard. As one needs to wholly believe in their magic to do it, have the confidence and mind to not break under harsh circumstances or Seeing something that rapes the mind. He needs to hold it together.
• Dramatic Irony: He is not an incubus, like his half-brother is, and yet both women he's had children with (Susan and Lash) are dead.
• The Dreaded:
  • Harry becomes one of these to some of his enemies. At one point in Changes, when he encounters a Red Court vampire (who happens to be one of their oldest, deadliest, and most capable assassins), it panics and runs away screaming.
  • In the same book, when he barges in on a meeting, a Senior Council member orders the Wardens to escort him out. They were half a dozen of the old guard, each with decades of combat experience and centuries of training and skill to their names, individually. Harry simply asks if they're certain they want to do it. Every single one stops walking.
    • He also realizes that he's this to the Senior Council, when he considers what his accomplishments must look like to them from the outside in Turn Coat.
  • His literal genocide of the Red Court of vampires followed by taking up the Winter Knight mantle also leaves him this to the supernatural community, especially vampires who are already wary of him. Especially since he is expected to invoke this trope as the Winter Knight to keep both fae and non-fae in line. When he comes across a White Court vampire having kidnapped a little girl, he asks her to remember what happened the last time someone kidnapped a little girl he knew, and she cannot help but start to visibly tremble in fear.
  • Molly points out in Ghost Story that his reputation kept a lot of lesser supernatural nasties out of Chicago. Unfortunately, this means that after his death in Changes, the situation in the city deteriorates rapidly.
  • In Peace Talks, he very briefly connects his mind to that of the cornerhounds pursuing himself and Ebenezar. From their highly alien perspective, Harry takes on the image of a being made of pure light and dread, utterly terrifying them.
    • On a similar note to the above, he soulgazes a friggin' kraken in Battle Ground, and while he himself is terrified by the creature's alien mind, some part of him takes a smug bit of comfort from the fact that he can also tell that the kraken is scared of him, to.
• Dreaded Kids' Party Entertainer Job: Harry Dresden, professional wizard, occasionally has to put on magic shows when his usual Occult Detective work dries up. In one short story he specifically mentions having exhausted his magic at a birthday party as a reason why he can't fight a troll.
• Driven to Suicide: Harry in Changes. After being lied to by a Fallen about everything being his fault, he decides he would rather die than become Mab's creature.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Both played straight and averted. Harry has received a variety of sexual abuse from female characters. While he does suffer from mental trauma due to it, he never opens up about it to anyone, but that's presented as being more due to his lack of willingness to talk about his emotions than him expressing his emotions as being inherently wrong.
• The Easy Way or the Hard Way: There are many shortcuts to power in the Dresden Files universe. Usually with a very large or very subtle price tag. Harry has been offered at least one shortcut in every book, usually more. Each one more tempting than the last. While harry has occasionally needed help to do so, each and every time he's turned them down. This has actually impressed Mab of all people, who openly acknowledge that Harry has never taken the easy road. Much to her satisfaction and the frustration of every other black hearted villain.
• Enhanced Punch: Harry wears enchanted rings that sap a tiny amount of kinetic energy every time he moves his arm, to be released at his command. Fully charged, the rings can give him a punch strong enough to knock over a car. He originally wore one ring, but eventually went up to a whole fist full of them.
• Elemental Personalities: He's passionate, bluntly honest and prefers combat to the intellectual politicking of his peers, has a bit of a temper problem, and specializes in conjuring fire.
• Elemental Powers: Naturally, a wizard can do all of them as part of their magic set, but individuals have different strengths. Harry specializes in a few; in Changes he notes that his mentor made him learn at least one spell from each of the four classical elements so that he'd have experience with all of them.
• Endearingly Dorky: Can definitely come across as this due to having No Social Skills. For instance, his attempt at flirting with his physical therapist Sarissa in Cold Days has him awkwardly stammering for a bit before he grabs the nearest book to him and just weakly smiles at her while still holding the book up, causing her to burst out laughing.
• Everyone Can See It: Harry's UST with Murphy, starting after his final breakup with Susan in Death Masks. Thomas and Mouse are both Shipper on Deck, and it gets to the point where someone comments on it almost every book. In Skin Game, Nicodemus leverages it along with Karrin's Violently Protective Girlfriend streak to advance his schemes, and Harry's own Id asks him straight out "Why the hell haven't you banged Murphy?" Notably, Harry just awkwardly stammers before barking "Look, just fuck off!"
• Every Scar Has a Story: Even more than the other fictional wizard named Harry, who is famous for it. Harry has collected a battery of scars which would leave a medical professional squeamish.
• Evil Counterpart: Cowl of the Black Council is shaping up to be this for him.
• Eyes Always Averted: He always tries to avoid eye contact, since for a wizard, direct eye contact starts a soulgaze, or a direct experience of that person's innermost character. The memory of a soulgaze never fades, and the experience can be fairly traumatic. This trope is averted with people like Susan, Ebenezar, and Marcone, whom he's already soulgazed.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon- Inverted. See below for Face of a Thug. To most vinilla mortals and even the offical 'good' supernatural powers, Harry is seen as Darth Vader. A possible weapon against worse threats- at best. Or the next Kemmler, the greatest magical threat of a millennia- at worst. But to all the real black hearted villains that have fought Dresden, or just amoral poeple he's worked with, Harry is seen as a glorified boyscout with a dark taste in clothing. The very idea that someone so pig headedly heroic would truely join their ranks is maddeningly laughable. Just ask Mab or Nicodemus.
• Face of a Thug- Unfortunatly, yes. Because Harry doesn't pay too much attention to his apperance- offical or otherwise, Harry is rather unkept at the best of times. That combined with his hieght, muscles,battle scars, usually torn and dark taste in clothing gives Harry a rather intimidating appearance. The fact that the wizard usually doesn't have access to a mirror doesn't help. The one time Harry did manage to see an identical copy to himself, he was rather disapointed and shocked at how ungangly and desheviled he looked.
• Famed In-Story:
  • It's gotten to the point where nasties rarely come to Chicago unless he's a specific part of their plans, since they know it's a bit of a death sentence, and the other Wardens are scared to attack him when they outnumber him six to one (and these are some of the oldest and strongest veterans from the Vampire War) and have three members of the Senior Council with them (all three of whom, Harry notes, can tie him in knots single-handedly), and he can barely stand.
  • In addition to his own list of impressive feats, following Death Masks, Ebenezar dropped a satellite on Ortega's house and wiped out his followers after the latter challenged Dresden to a duel, then attempted to cheat. The message was clear: Attempt to harm Dresden, and you will draw down the wrath of the Blackstaff. This is generally considered to be a Bad Idea.
  • Those nasties by the way? We can add Nicodemus to the list of things that are afraid of Harry. According to Word Of Jim, Nicodemus is now terrified of Harry. Let me repeat that. Nicodemus, the two thousand year old man who is allied with a fallen angel and has been fighting Holy Knights and the various supernatural entities in the world for literally thousands of years, is now terrified of a wizard less than forty years old. Though in fairness, this is a perfectly understandable response, regardless of Power Level, when the wizard has nearly strangled you to death mercilessly with his bare hands twice.
  • As a result of all this, he's pretty much the Champion of Chicago. No small-time mage or other supernatural creature would start anything serious for fear that the wrath of Dresden would come down upon them. His death was far more destructive than he knew.
  • Stories of his exploits also stretch to the Nevernever, in particular a certain tale involving a doughnut that had all of the Summer Fae laughing for months. And according to Small Favor, stories of his underdog exploits are spoken of in a similar fashion among the Fae as bedtime stories are among humans.
• Family Eye Resemblance: In Summer Knight Martha Liberty says his eyes resemble his mother. Same as Thomas.
• Fatal Flaw: As befitting any noir protagonist, Harry has several.
  • Lust, which is probably Harry's most infamous and obvious flaw. While it's primarily displayed in his copious Male Gaze and bad habit of unintentionally talking down to women when he's not taking them seriously (though granted, the latter in particular has significantly lessened as the series has gone on), it manifests in a miriad of ways, such as:
    • His old-fashioned chivalry. He is a sucker for a Damsel in Distress. As of later books he seems to be getting over this, at least in the Wouldn't Hit a Girl sense, thanks in part because many of his deadly enemies have been of the female sex, including Aurora, Lara, Lasciel, Diedre, Rosana, Mab, Titania, Mother Winter, Tessa, the Corpsetaker, Duchess Arianna, and Maeve.
    • Temptation to and lust for power is another deep-rooted flaw. Harry used Black Magic at a young age, and the power of dark magic still tugs at him. He knows very well that he would have far less trouble in fighting villains if he used it. In more than a few cases, the temptation of power has snuck in when he least expected it, causing him to do more damage than he intended or get distracted by the raw joy of using that power. Lasciel's influence may have had some effect on this as well.
  • Pride is Harry's other main flaw. Due to severe self-esteem/abandonment issues, he has a nasty Inferiority Superiority Complex, which has really screwed him over multiple times. He constantly holds himself to such impossibly high standards and measures that even Michael Carpenter can scarcely believe, but also typically views himself as the only proper arbiter concerning the supernatural. After all, it wasn't until Summer Knight when he finally opened up to Murphy and told her about the greater supernatural world.
    • As part of his arrogance and typically assuming that he knows best for whatever situation, Harry faces a long-term issue of acting without thinking or considering the consequences of his actions, with it ultimately coming to a head over the course of Changes and Ghost Story. Letting his emotions decide his actions in such a manner becomes a serious enough flaw that he even exploits the expectation of it in Small Favor.
    • Subsequent to this, he also has a bad habit of mouthing off to authority/powerful figures when he really should just keep his trap shut. This is generally done to suppress or hide his own fear, or sometimes just for the fun of it without thinking things through. And regardless of the reason, at times it ends in him being on the receiving end of a thorough asskicking, reminding him why the trope of Do Not Taunt Cthulhu exists.
    • His refusal to tell his friends and allies about important, potentially life threatening, information. It was worse early on to the point Murphy has him arrested out of sheer frustration but it's still a recurring flaw. For example, if Harry had told Thomas about the deal with Mab, he could have talked Harry out of being Driven to Suicide.
    • His above-mentioned communication issues somehow manage to only get even worse in Peace Talks when Ebenezer grows hostile over Thomas knowing about Harry's daughter Maggie, being understandably paranoid about another White Court vampire getting so close to his family and unaware that Thomas is also his grandson. Harry could at least have attempted to tell Ebenezar the truth early on but doesn't until a critical moment and it ends with their relationship apparently shattered when Ebenezar accidentally kills Harry's doppelganger in the process of trying to kill Thomas. There's also a moment when Ramirez and several of the other Wardens corner Harry and question him, since they detected he's recently had sex with a spell and his last location was Lara Raith's house; understandably, they're worried that the White Court have been trying to enthrall him. Instead of telling them the truth — that the sex was with Murphy — Harry gets foolishly defensive and refuses to answer one way or the other, which just makes him look even more suspicious in the eyes of the White Council. In Battle Ground all of the aforementioned kerfuffle ultimately results in both the White Council voting to eject him and Ramirez ending their friendship, since he's sick of being kept in the dark or rebuffed when he tries to help.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • While not to the level of being genuinely bigoted, Harry is none too fond of vampires due to them being behind most of the miseries in his life. However, to the supernatural community he plays this trope straight due to having slaughtered the entire Red Court, when it was mainly self-defense.
  • Played completely straight against ghouls, with Harry himself comparing it to Ebenezar's fervent hatred for White Court vampires. Ghouls, especially of the LaChaise clan, are his most recurring enemies and have resulted in the most number of deaths of the people he was protecting. However, the tipping point was when a group of ghouls killed and ate some trainee Wardens in his care. Harry has since then carried a burning hatred for them and will never let any ghoul stupid enough to cross his path leave his presence alive if he has anything to say about it. As Thomas tells in "Backup":
    Thomas: My brother hates the creatures [ghouls] with a passion so pure that it’s almost holy.
• Fearless Fool: Averted thoroughly. Harry is of the opinion Fear Is the Appropriate Response, though he pretends to be this trope. That said — some of his loved ones can view him this way, with all that he gets up to.
• Figure It Out Yourself: A big part of the White Council's philosophy on apprenticeship and developing as a Wizard is learning by figuring out some things for oneself. Harry's understanding of how magic works in his world is incomplete. This is because he really wasn't taught or trusted by the most knowledgeable. Those who do know refrain from telling him because they believe it is important that he figure things out on his own.
  Does Harry have an incorrect understanding of the Darkhallow and other parts of the world?
  Butcher: Oh god yes. I won't say Harry is clueless, but his understanding of lots of things including the way that magic works is incomplete in many ways. If only because he hasn't been trusted by a lot of the wizarding community by a lot of the people who could have taught him better. And a lot of the people who do know better aren't correcting him because they think it's important to learn these things on your own.
  • As part of her apprenticeship, he gave Molly the task of magically making a string stand straight up and the beads on it rise to the top. For a green newbie like Molly, it would seem unreasonable and next to impossible, but the lesson was that it wasn't about magical muscle as much as that she needed to be in the right frame of mind to effectively use magic.
• First-Person Smartass: To the point that one of his defining traits in the Dresden Files RPG is "Epic Wiseass." In the Paranet Papers supplement, he fittingly gets upgraded to "Legendary Wiseass".
• Food as Characterization: Harry Dresden is a Blue-Collar Warlock with little disposable income whose tastes run in two directions — a magical Truce Zone pub with top-notch steak sandwiches and phenomenal beer, and fast food. In Changes, he insists on meeting The Don Johnny Marcone at a Burger King.
• For the Lulz: Could be the poster boy for this. For instance, as noted above, he insisted on meeting with Marcone in a Burger King because "I just want to see him there."
• Freudian Excuse:
  • Harry's massive and frequently self-handicapping anti-authority streak, along with his hideous abandonment issues, is because of having had to grow up in the foster care system before being taken in by the despicably ruthless and abusive warlock Justin DuMorne. The fact that Harry eventually had to kill in self-defense the first caregiver since his biological father that appeared to genuinely love him only further added to his distrust and contempt for authority figures.
    • Additionally, Harry killing Justin using magic has forever tainted him (however subtly) with Black Magic, giving Harry an unhealthy lust for control over others and him frequently getting Drunk with Power whenever it gets too much for him.
  • Relatedly, Harry's rather idiotically chivalrous view of women and low-level sexism is because of the only female authority figure for most of his life being his utterly insane Fairy Devilmother the Leansidthe. Furthermore, his psycho-sexual development with his First Love Elaine was intentionally manipulated and implied to be pushed for by DuMorne as part of his goal in turning the two of them into Laser Guided Tykebombs. The fact that he was later raised by Ebenezar McCoy (who, while an excellent teacher for a young Harry and great mentor for warding him awway from Black Magic, is still someone who fought in the French and Indian War) likely didn't help matters. There is also the undiscussed possibility that some of his hyper-sexual views could have been worsened as a result of him having been sexually assualted at various points himself.
• Friend to All Children: No matter how intimidating Harry may be to grown-ups, he is never anything but sweet and kind to young people, treating them seriously and enjoying spending time with them.
• Full-Contact Magic: He's only a Squishy Wizard in a Puny Earthlings sense. For all the chucking fire around, he's quite likely to slug someone. Or shoot them. The fact that he's as tall as a professional basketball player and also starts to increasingly work out and exercise (mostly jogging with Thomas) certainly helps.
• Freak Out: Undergoes a subtle and prolonged one in Changes, culminating in being Driven to Suicide. Eventually, he gets better.

G — K

• The Gadfly: Due to his near-pathological distrust of authority figures and No Social Skills, Harry loves to be a petty, belittling and snarky annoyance to others. It's to the point where acting like an insufferable wiseass is basically second-nature to him, and his first order of business after encountering a supernatural baddie is usually to annoy them with odd references to mortal pop culture that he knows they almost certainly wouldn't get. However, this also gets mildly deconstructed as the series goes on, as he's sometimes forced to learn the hard way that he'd shouldn't mouth off to some people who are way higher in power and/or influence than him (such as when he backtalks Mab in Small Favor and she responds by freezing the water in his eyes).
  • He also doesn't consider the fact that mouthing off to authority figures can reflect harshly on the people around him, as well. Shortly before Will and Georgia's wedding, he's nasty to Will's prospective mother in law, which is a funny and satisfying moment for him and the reader, but as Will points out, he and Georgia are going to have to deal with her afterwards.
• Game Face: Unknown by Harry himself, but Murphy spends some time reflecting on how he normally seems versus how he gets in a fight. He goes from quirky, gangling nerd to confident, scary badass with the power of the universe at his fingers. Or as Maggie puts it when he sensed Black Magic in the area:
  My dad’s head shot up like Mouse when he smells lighter fluid at the Carpenter’s house, and his eyes flicked around him like a big, hungry bear looking for something to tear into.
• Good Is Not Soft: Boy howdy is Harry this trope. Harry will go out of his way to be kind and caring to any child who crosses his path, is Nice to the Waiter regarding the Little Folk (with most other supernatural entities treating them at best with active disdain), took time out of his journey to find his own killer to help make sure a young homeless kid and his friends were safe from their cult leader boss, and will even shovel his elderly landlady's sidewalk in winter. He will also exterminate an entire race of monsters who try to hurt his daughter, nearly burned off his apprentice's face to teach her humility and that what they were involved in wasn't a game, pulverized a Denarian's legs and one hand after he surrendered to get information, and killed one of the Faerie Queens by having a group of pixies armed with box cutters made of Cold Iron essentially shred her to ribbons.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Small Favor includes a partial listing of his (large) collection and he acquires more after that, including some very noticeable ones on his face in Turn Coat. A Wizard's natural Healing Factor means that these will eventually fade away give or take about 50 years or so, but by then, Harry will more likely have accumulated several new ones.
• Gravity Master: Using earth magic, Harry has a spell where he can "borrow" gravity from a broad area for a moment and focus it into a much smaller area to create crushing g-force. It's one spell, and it takes some time to work it for an effect that lasts just a second or so, but it packs a serious punch. Enhanced by a Ley line, he can disable entire armies with it. Even without it, its capable of reducing Black Court vampires to Ludicrous Gibs and temporarily disabled Physical God Wyldfae Puck. A quick version can be used to temporarily incapacitate an army of ghouls, though only for a few seconds.
• Green-Eyed Epiphany: Harry starts to realize how much he cares about Murphy in Blood Rites after he sees her around Kincaid and realizes how jealous he's getting.
• Handicapped Badass: Getting his arm burned nearly to a crisp in Blood Rites didn't slow him down much, and he still had limited use in Dead Beat, wherein one of the most badass moments in the entire series happened.
• Hardboiled Detective: Harry's a Deconstructive Parody of the archetype. Yes, he's a world-weary, cynical, sarcastic, and tough-as-nails alcoholic detective with his own Private Eye Monologue, but he's also quite Endearingly Dorky (resulting in several Failed Attempts at Drama when his attempts to act like a smooth and confident detective fall flat because to him doing something absolutely ridiculous at the same time) and is trying to intentionally come across as a badass heroic detective due to his inner geek.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: It's almost never touched on thanks to both the series being from his own heavily Self Deprecatory perspective and that he's always going to be inevitably compared to his literal incubus of an older brother, but Harry can actually look very handsome when he has the time to put in the effort. It's perhaps most apparent in Skin Game, where despite her hating his guts Hannah Ascher still took the time to admire Harry's Heroic Build when he was changing into his tuxedo in preparation for part of their heist.
• Healing Factor: A very, very slow one- improved bodily regeneration is the reason wizards live so long, and it means he can eventually recover from what should be permanent injuries. Now enhanced as of Changes, one of the many benefits of becoming the Winter Knight.
• Heartbroken Badass: At a few points, particularly the start of Summer Knight and the end of both Changes and Battle Ground.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Frequently says that he's not a good man, holds himself to a nigh-impossible moral standard (Michael gently but firmly calls him out on this in Skin Game), and when someone gives him a What the Hell, Hero?/The Reason You Suck speech, he rarely disagrees, even if it's only partially true.
• Heroic Willpower: Harry has been tempted many a time to use dark magic and resists each temptation. Through this will power, he not only endures the mental manipulations of Lasciel's shadow, he turns around and slowly changes her to the point where she is willing to die for Harry Dresden. Later in Cold Days he endured and broke Mother Winter's bind on him, and later shattered a Mind Rape upon him and forced an Outsider to name itself.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Averted. Harry once had a sword cane, and while his physique gave him a lunge with some distance, he wasn't too skilled with it, and it was simply impractical if he couldn't solve his problems with staff, blasting rod, and revolver. The events of Dead Beat left Harry owed a sword, but unable to get one. And finally, Harry simply won't be receiving any sword from Mab, like Fix got from Titania.
  Jim Butcher: What's he gonna do with a sword? He'll cut himself. Honestly, if he had a sword he'd fall on it, you know he would. Somebody would take it away from him and hit him with it. That's the kind of thing that happens.
• Hero's Classic Car: Played with. It's parodied in the sense that, rather than most examples of this trope giving the Hero a really cool classic car, Harry drives a classic VW Bug he calls the "Blue Beetle". Not really a cool car to begin with; and then consider that it starts pretty lived in, runs rather poorly, and keeps getting battle scars and differently-colored replacement parts over the years (including an encircled 53 graffitied onto the hood). Then again, classic cars are Justified in that wizards mess mightily with modern electronics, so wizards like Harry cannot drive any car newer than roughly the 1970's for very long before they stop working.
  • Harry finally got it played straight in Turn Coat when Lara Raith lends Harry one of her family's cars, a mint condition 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith (of course) which had a pristine white paint job. Harry was more than a little impressed with it.
  • And again in Cold Days when Mab gives him a retrofitted Oldsmobile Hearse painted dark blue with a neon purple flame decal. Of course, thanks to Harry being a Cosmic Plaything, it gets wrecked within a few chapters when Ace tries to blow up Harry, and it gets sent to Mike the Mechanic. The newly refitted vehicle comes out as a hotrod, and is immediately dubbed the Munstermobile.
• Hero with Bad Publicity:
  • To the "straights" he's at best a quirky man who knows way too much and thus is pretty damned creepy, and at worst they see him as delusional or a charlatan who may or may not be conning Chicago PD out of good money. And so, Internal Affairs, Detective Rudolph in particular, rabidly hates him and tried to jail him at least once, while trying to undermine him and everyone connected to him repeatedly.
  • The FBI suspects him of secretly being a dangerous criminal, considering that one time four FBI agents investigated him and vanished a few days later, and his criminal record suspects him of kidnapping, murder, and at least two cases of arson, and he was accused of blowing up another building. At least Agent Tilly is willing to deal straight with Harry, and in no small part because Rudolph was trying so hard to nail Harry with a false indictment. Generally speaking, Harry has problems involving Jurisdiction Friction when he takes cases outside Chicago.
  • To the White Council, however, he is considered a loose cannon who may or may not be a devious, dangerous schemer at Black Magic, and it doesn't help that he caused a war with the Red Court of vampires, and then a war with the Fomor, by creating a power vacuum in his genocide of the Red Court. In Peace Talks, he creates the appearance multiple times of him having sex with Lara Raith (primarily to serve as a distraction from their interference but also motivated by his utter disdain for them), culminating (at least in part) in Battle Ground where he's booted out of the organization altogether.
  • His ostensible allies usually don't trust him, and the only people he's got on his side are a gaggle of werewolves, the Knights, a few members of the Chicago PD's Special Investigations unit, his half-brother, his apprentice, a Foo dog, and a smattering of allies in the Faerie Courts and the White Council. And knowing Harry, being homeless and dead for half a year causes even more problems.
• He Who Fights Monsters: In Ghost Story, Harry comes to realize that the lines he crossed in Changes made him into the very things he was fighting. And then later in the same book, realizes that this conclusion was an overreaction to one bad decision and that he's still fundamentally a good guy.
• Hidden Depths: Not only is he pretty surprisingly cultured for someone who never even finished high school (he can quote Scripture fairly well for someone who views himself as a "theological Switzerland"), but he's also remarkably intelligent and wise, frequently catching his enemies off guard by showing himself as a dangerously manipulative Guile Hero and adaptable Combat Pragmatist rather than the Dumb Muscle Person of Mass Destruction most villains see him as at first glance. And while he may not notice it all that much, he's also really overdramatic and loves to make a Big Entrance while being as comically petty as possible to even his ostensible allies. He's also not only protective of his friends and allies in combat, but tries to look out for them on an emotional level as well; when the werewolf GM of his regular Arcanos campaign is killed in Turn Coat, he recruits Butters to take over GM duties, so that it becomes a way of remembering Kirby, rather than being buried with him.
• Holy Hand Grenade: After he loses access to Hellfire, the Archangel Uriel covertly gives Harry access to Soulfire, the "fires of creation." It gives Harry the ability to infuse his magic with portions of his soul, being compared to combining concrete and rebar into something much stronger than either could be on their own (and also giving his magic a silvery glow when he uses it). Initially, it's Exactly What It Says on the Tin, infusing Harry's fire magic and even leading him to accidentally creating a giant magical hand out of fire. Despite the name, he can use it with all of his spells to give them some extra punch, but it really comes into its own when creating something like an illusion or a construct, and of course when invoking Holy Burns Evil. The downside is that it still uses up bits of his soul, and that could be a real danger for Harry if he uses it too much without giving himself time to recover what was used up.
• Hot-Blooded: He's snarky enough that it isn't immediately apparent, but just watch him react to challenges and/or slurs. In fact, the villains who are targeting Harry specifically (instead of just being unlucky enough to get in his way) often deliberately take advantage of his tendency toward this, to the point that Harry himself turns the Flaw Exploitation right back around in one villain's face.
• Honor Before Reason: Harry will swear up and down that he's an Anti-Hero, but he's kind of exaggerating. Then again, he has been repeatedly told he's a menace to society and been treated like a terrible person for most of his life, so it's possible he might have started believing everyone's bad opinion.
• Hope Bringer: In Ghost Story Molly notes that he was this for the little guy in the supernatural world. He scared off so many powerful dark things from Chicago and taught the Paranetters how to band together to be able to take on stronger forces.
• Houseboat Hero: At the end of Changes, he's briefly this before he's assassinated.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: He's about 6' 8", and Murphy, not an inch over 5 feet, supplies the "tiny girl" part. According to Welcome to the Jungle, he's six-foot-nine, actually. Everyone supplies the "tiny girl" part. Except maybe Gard. And Titania and Mab when it suits them.
• Human Weapon: As the Winter Knight, Harry is expected to be his own most dangerous weapon, not needing to rely on magical trinkets and items to survive. That said, Mab has nothing against using them if it makes the job easier, just so long as they aren't a crutch.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • He will act mysterious and enigmatic, citing it as a wizard's prerogative, in order to mess with Thomas, Molly, or Murphy, but then complains when the Gatekeeper or Mother Summer and Winter act mysterious and enigmatic towards him.
  • Similarly, Harry also loves to give lip to authority figures... and yet hates it when his apprentice, friends, and other allies snark back at him.
  • Furthermore, Dresden (a major source of the Male Gaze) gets very flustered in Skin Game when Hannah Ascher blatantly leers at his Heroic Build when the two of them are changing into fancy dress clothes.
  • In Peace Talks, he is impressed by Etri laying down a declaration to his grandfather, noting that only a fool angers Ebenezar McCoy. This immediately after accusing Eb of being responsible for his daughter's murder and his grandson's being placed in the foster care system and then adopted and raised by an abusive monster. Harry then proceeds to lampshade this.
• I Am Not a Gun: He often reminds the various more powerful beings trying to manipulate him that he is their employee, not their pawn or their weapon.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: A promise to Mab keeps him from knowingly seeking suicide to get out of being the Winter Knight. He tried to get around it by anticipating the deal and arranging the hit before the promise was made, and then having Molly make him forget about the hit.
• An Ice Person: One of the effects of the Winter Mantle is that Harry gets much easier access to ice, an element he had access only by pulling energy out of the environment to freeze water. Now, Harry can just pull it up with as much effort as he could his fire.
• Idiot Hero: Harry's tendency to not think the long-term consequences of his actions through can leave this impression. He's not stupid in any sense of the word, but he sometimes gets in over his head due to his habit of acting first and thinking later, though he grows out of this. Some of his enemies consider him one as well, but they usually discover a bit too late that he's much smarter than they gave him credit for.
  Lloyd Slate: Spooky, he doesn't look all that smart.
• Ignore the Fanservice: While he tends to be Distracted by the Sexy often, he is still capable of this. Most notably, both he and Marcone are the first two men to ever directly rebuff Lara Raith in the same century.
• Improvisational Ingenuity: Dresden is a decent powerhouse by about the 5th or 6th title, but his real advantage is that he's very intelligent and good at analyzing his opponents, then crafting ways to defeat them using tactics that they absolutely would not have predicted. He's taken down a fairy queen by arming a bunch of pixies with boxcutters, whomped a necromancer that was much stronger than he was by bringing along a zombie tyrannosaurus, and is apparently the only person who ever figured out that Nicodemus can be harmed by his own noose (or at least, the only one who's figured it out and was able to take advantage of it).
• Indy Ploy: He often does these in the first few books, and though he later starts to prefer Xanatos Speed Chess he's still pretty good at pulling off one of these in a pinch.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Collects this like candy due to his It's All My Fault attitude.
• Informed Loner: Harry thinks and reacts to problem as though he were entirely alone and unloved, but events in the series have rendered this attitude increasingly invalid. This is because, before Ebenezar started mentoring him, he basically was alone. A big part of his Character Development has been realizing that he has people he can rely on.
• Innocently Insensitive: Rather ironically enough for The Gadfly, Harry can sometimes piss someone off more when he's actually trying to be nice to them and isn't trying to be his usual status of "insufferable wiseass." Not only is there his long-running tradition of bone-headed chivalry towards women (which Murphy often mocks him about), but he almost instantly gets on the Genoskwa's bad side in Skin Game when he brings up River Shoulders to the murderous Bigfoot.
• It's All About Me: A minor case. While he's not selfish, he tends to have a blind spot in terms of empathy for others' viewpoints and needs. As mentioned elsewhere on this page, he's terrible about trusting people with sometimes vital information, and when he gets antagonistic with the White Council in Changes and Battle Ground, he puts all the blame on them without considering the fact that there's more going on than just them screwing him over For the Evulz.
  • Murphy calls him out on this in White Night, pointing out that what was just throwing a casual fireball for him meant property damage, frustration, injury, and a loss of livelihood for innocent people.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He considers it "the prerogative of wizards to be grumpy." Especially true during Dead Beat, Proven Guilty, and White Night, when he has a Fallen Angel slowly goading him towards evil. He can also be Innocently Insensitive at times, practically makes it a prerogative to be The Gadfly, and in general is an exceptionally cynical and embittered person thanks to his Trauma Conga Line of a life. At the same time, though, he'll go through Hell to protect a friend, or even an old enemy who needs his help, or any random civilians (mostly women and children) who happen to be around. And, of course, there's the fact that he has literally dedicating his life to helping save innocent people, improve the lives of the less fortunate, and protect those weaker than him from literal monsters.
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: Even putting aside the fact that Harry is already a Cosmic Plaything, he sometimes suffers from Laser-Guided Karma in response to him having to do really horrible things to villains in service of a greater good.
  • In Death Masks, he brutally cripples Quintus Cassius in Death Masks to stop Nicodemus from releasing a second Black Death. Later on, Cassius comes back in Dead Beat and nearly tortures Harry to death until Butters and Mouse rescue him at the proverbial last second.
  • There's two specific examples from Cold Days — The first is that he gets brutally divebombed and attacked by a vicious swarm of Little Folk armed with Cold Iron nails. As he himself realizes, this is disturbingly similar to the Cruel and Unusual Death he gave Aurora in Summer Knight. Meanwhile, the second moment is when he unwittingly made Mother Winter suffer through immense pain by trying to Summon her to Earth when she has lost her walking stick. As such, she got back at him for hurting both her pride and health by nearly eating him alive .
• Kill It with Fire: Harry can bring a lot of power to bear with fire magic, and it's his usual go-to for combat evocation. Many supernatural baddies either outright cannot withstand fire or have a healthy respect for it as it is a natural cleansing element. This served as a plot-point-by-omission when he doesn't try to Kill It With Fire during most of Small Favor and also served as character-development-by-omission in Dead Beat.
• Kind Hearted Cat Lover: Harry's landlady considers him this. It's one of the reasons she hasn't thrown him out after missing rent checks and "wild late-night parties."

L — Q

• Lady and Knight: Becomes this to Molly after the events of Cold Days.
• Large Ham: Harry can be really overdramatic and petty when he wants to, as shown when he intentionally hams it up as part of a gambit for tricking Nicodemus and the other senior Denarians in Small Favor while he's actually scouting their base.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Quite literally. Lash does this so that the part of Harry's brain that have her impressed upon them will be burned out when Harry goes under psychic attack. She does however leave him a gift of the knowledge of how to play guitar.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • In Dead Beat, he points out to Luccio that the Fifth Law of Magic (the one against necromancy) only applies to human dead.
  • He invoked this plus Exact Words at Molly's trial in Proven Guilty. He pointed out that the whole of the Senior Council present hadn't voted. Since it was only Rashid and the Merlin present, the Merlin would be the default proxy if the others were absent and hadn't made arrangements, giving his vote the added weight of the five who weren't present. The Merlin was willing follow protocol and wait for Rashid to vote, even though it was a forgone conclusion that the majority vote of one favored death. They couldn't touch Molly until all voted. Rashid stalled long enough that Michael arrived with McCoy and all of the Council recruits that he saved, giving Harry the leverage he needed to convince the Merlin to change his vote.
  • He also uses this, again crossed with Exact Words in Small Favor, to avoid getting slaughtered by Eldest Gruff. The Eldest Gruff mentioned that he serves the Summer Court and then the Summer Queen, and Harry reasoned that the Eldest Gruff killing him when he still had a favor to call upon would look poorly on Summer. The Eldest Gruff agreed but points out that a single favor didn't carry enough leverage to spare his life. Harry still works this to his advantage by cashing the favor and requesting a doughnut. They shared a good laugh over the matter, and Eldest Gruff left to fulfill the favor. The got Eldest Gruff out of the picture (or rather, allowed him to leave it) long enough for Harry to end the situation and the hit on him from Summer. In this case, it works mostly because the Eldest Gruff wasn't under orders and not that keen on killing Harry anyways and thus is willing to play along.
• Made of Iron: By the climax of every single book, Harry's pretty much always running on too little sleep and several injuries, but keeps going anyway.
• Mage Marksman: He routinely uses guns in combination with his magical tools. When confronted by a group of wannabe warlocks, their leader is incredulous that Harry would use "mortal weapons." It says a lot that the guy didn't merit a visit from the Wardens, nor was he familiar enough with them to know that their traditional swords and combat magic are complemented with automatic firearms and grenades.
• Magic Fire: Harry Dresden frequently throws around mundane, if magically-conjured and -sustained, fire. But after bonding with the Genius Loci of Demonreach, his flames are green. Once in a while, he'll combine his magic with soulfire if he really needs to make an impact.
• Magnetic Hero: Not that Harry realizes it, but over the course of the series he has won the friendship of the Alphas, the Carpenter family, the Knights of the Cross, Lash, Butters, the respect of John Marcone who often aids him, Rashid the Gatekeeper, Listens to Wind, many young Wardens as well as their leader, and so many others in the mortal and supernatural community and many of them would aid him without hesitation. Not bad for a guy who started out with only Murphy, Bob and Mister.
• Magnetism Manipulation: Possible through the runes he engraved into his sword cane. Mavra was humiliated with it. However, it is quite taxing on him when it is used in battle.
• Magic Staff: Harry's primary weapon is his staff, which serves as a powerful focus for him to better manipulate his sorcery through (and it can also be used as a pretty effective bludgeon when necessary). He also routinely packs increasingly large (In the first book, he had a .38, he's moved up to a .50 caliber) revolvers of one stripe or another.
• Male Gaze: Harry notices women who look good, to the point that one review site named the "Dresden Goggles" trope after him. Part of it is an element of The Dresden Files being a Genre Throwback to the pulpy detective noir novels of the 1930s and 1940s, but even then Harry is a Chivalrous Pervert, and it varies in blatancy depending on the book. This is one of his big character flaws and blind spots, and is explained as being due to a mix of factors, most prominently his immensely screwed-up upbringing, which involved both the deliberate manipulation of his sexual development and the complete lack of a maternal figure.
• Manly Tears: Averted. Harry has described himself to sobbing or blubbering several times. Probably the most noteworthy and heartwrenching cases of this trope in action are in Skin Game (where he absentmindedly notes that he's crying as he's walking up to the Carpenters' home) and in Battle Ground (where he's reduced to Inelegant Blubbering after Butters talks him down from vengefully murdering Ruduloph for accidentally killing Murphy and he basically collapses in Butter's arms).
• Meaningful Name: invoked Malcolm Dresden was a stage magician, and thus named his son after three of the greatest stage magicians in history. Consider not only how many seemingly-impossible situations Harry's escaped from, but also how his greatest weapons are his shrewd intellect, trickery, and deceit, always finishing his stratagems from an unexpected angle. Out-of-universe, his last name was also chosen in reference to the (in)famous fire bombings of the German city of Dresden in World War II by the Allied Powers, mostly because Harry has a similar effect on nearby buildings.
• Men Don't Cry: He generally believes this and adamantly tries not to cry a lot of the time, but usually isn't that successful and is instead reduced to Manly Tears more often than not.
• Mirror Character: Cold Days has Mab accuse him (for an arguable value of "accusation") of being this to his late master Justin in how he indoctrinated Molly into being a Wizard who's loyal and willing to die for him at the same time he helped her to develop her talents to the point she became a powerful ally of his. None of this was ever his intention, but she's not exactly wrong.
• Mistaken for Gay:
  • By Butters in Dead Beat with Thomas as his lover.
  • Later takes advantage of this in White Night to sneak into Thomas' apartment. And once word passed to SI, they were merciless... particularly Murphy.
• Mister Seahorse: He gets pregnant with a spirit of intellect, like Bob, born from Lash's sacrifice. If not for Molly "delivering" it, it would have popped out of his mind in the same vein of Athena out of Zeus, only his head wouldn't have healed up afterwards.
• Moment of Weakness:
  • Harry's breakdown when talking with Aurora in Summer Knight and his realization of how much he let Susan's suffering damage his own life.
  • Harry is forced to admit to Lash's growing influence when such a moment causes pointless collateral damage in White Night.
  • After one of the Fallen whispers one last comment of overly harsh Self-Deprecation into his mind during Changes, he falls down the Despair Event Horizon and arranges his own suicide with both Molly and Kincaid's help after he decides to finally accept Mab's offer of becoming the new Winter Knight.
  • The realization that his actions have such tremendous long-term consequences, including breaking Molly's mind causes another one in Ghost Story.
  • In Skin Game, a particularly strong one led Harry to Michael Carpenter's door. There's a reason Harry refers to Michael as a "good man."
• Muggle–Mage Romance: Had an ultimately tragic relationship with his first girlfriend Elaine Mallory, an ultimately even more tragic on-off relationship with tabloid reporter Susan Rodriguez, and has had a star-crossed will-they-or-won't-they with Karrin Murphy for some time, which also ends badly.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Proven Guilty has just such a moment. Yes, it's awesome that he kills a xenomorph with Hellfire, but immediately after, he finds that the girl he was rescuing from it had bled to death, and he might have saved her life if he hadn't been focused so much on, and having so much fun with, obliterating the monster.
  • He's sickened in White Night when he learns that after he granted Lash the gift of free will through his Affectionate Nickname for her, she used it to essentially kill herself as part of a Heroic Sacrifice on his behalf. Even though he knew that she was a literal copy of a Fallen Angel planted in his mind for the sole purpose of tempting him into a Face–Heel Turn, he still can't help but feel like he basically just talked someone into committing suicide.
    Bob: You gave her a Name, Harry. The [free] will just came with it.
    Harry: (after a brief silence) And she used it to kill herself.
    Bob: Sort of. [...] She took a psychic bullet for you. I guess it's almost the same thing as choosing to die.
    Harry: (now starting to tear up) No, it isn't. She didn't choose to die. She chose to be free.
  • A completely heartbreaking example in Changes, where he kills Susan to save both their daughter and the entire world from the Red Court:
    I used the knife.
    I saved a child.
    I won a war.
    God forgive me.
  • A significant part of Ghost Story hinges on Harry realizing just how horrible the consequences of his choices were, especially after he learns that he was the one who arranged for his death and even had Molly assist him. This revelation shakes him to the core, to the point where in one part of the novel, he seriously considers jumping into a river (which would subject him to a Cessation of Existence). That being said, he does later realize that these terrible acts don't necessarily condemn him to Hell so long as he keeps striving to improve and make amends, and as Michael later directly tells him in Skin Game, the mere fact that he still feels legitimate guilt over these actions is the most important indicator that he's not really doomed to be a monster.
  • He's travelled on planes three times. The third time it interfered with the plane's navigation systems. While they managed to land safely without anyone getting hurt or any damage, Harry feels quite guilty over it.
• Nay-Theist: He acknowledges the likelihood of the Almighty's existence and is very much likely an insanely powerful being. Doesn't mean Harry will be penitent to the being. However, this has more to do with Harry's self-image and low self-esteem than his views on God. It's not that Harry doesn't like or respect God, it's that he feels unworthy to be on God's team. There's a lot of evidence that God doesn't necessarily agree. Of course, Harry's standard for worthy behavior is Michael Carpenter, who sets the bar kind of high.
  Harry: The Almighty and I don't exactly see eye-to-eye.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • While he only did it because his back was against the wall, he helped the dangerously competent and manipulative Lara Raith perform a coup d'etat on her weakened father Lord Raith in Blood Rites. Ever since then, the White Court has moved away from its previous isolation and has become ever more active, powerful, and dangerous in the world at large. Harry even notes this in White Night, wondering at one point if he ultimately did the world a disservice by helping Lara make her father her Puppet King.
  • By killing the entire Red Court, he created an Evil Power Vacuum that various baddies (most prominently the Fomor) are trying to fill, and with his (temporary) death he wasn't immediately there to help his friends and stop the Fomor from moving in on Chicago. His arranged suicide also unfortunately sent the message to his brother Thomas that Harry would rather die than be "a monster" like him. And since the spell used to kill the Red Court was indiscriminate, it also killed a lot of good people in the Fellowship of St. Giles who just happened to be part-Red Court vampire, eventually causing Hannah Ascher to seek revenge on him in Skin Game.
  • A combination of becoming the Winter Knight, his general attitude as The Last DJ, and his later refusal to give the Wardens anything resembling a straight answer regarding what he's been up to with Lara Raith in Peace Talks inevitably leads to the White Council declaring him persona non grata in the following book.
• The Nicknamer:
  • It even becomes significant in-story on occasion; his naming of Ivy and Lash gave them identities separate from the Archive and Lasciel, respectively, and naming Bob allowed him to develop a different personality as well. It's implied that this will also happen with Alfred Demonreach.
  • And when he calls Uriel "Uri", it ticks off (and terrifies) an archangel who has the power to unmake galaxies. That last syllable is a very important part of his name — it's the "God" part of "Light of God". On the other hand, he has no problem with Mr. Sunshine, especially given his association with fire and sunlight.
• Oblivious to Love: Harry can be... a bit dense when it comes to women. He's not oblivious to sex, he understands that perfectly. It's just that he has a few self-esteem issues. And a tendency to attribute others' seduction attempts to their own problems or secret plots to control him (which, in all fairness, they usually are). And difficulty with understanding or recognizing subtlety. And all of that factors into how he communicates with and interprets other people.
  Thomas: What does a woman need to do, Harry? Rip her clothes off, throw herself on top of you, and shimmy while screaming, "Do me, baby!"?!
• Occult Detective: Easily one of the most iconic examples, even if the series itself has gradually focused less on his detective business and more on the greater supernatural world & his place in it. Many times, Harry's cleverness and skill in deductive reasoning has proved to be a far greater weapon than any amount of fire or ice he can summon to hand.
• Odd Friendship: Has formed a lot of these due to the wide diversity of weird contacts he's garnered throughout both the supernatural and mortal worlds. Probably the most surprising case is that which he gained with Lash, with him eventually developing a remarkable level of camaraderie with the literal copy of a Fallen Angel stuck inside his head, to the point where she performs a genuine Heel–Face Turn and Heroic Sacrifice on his behalf (much to Harry's shock and genuine grief).
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Played for Laughs in Blood Rites; When he, a Snark Knight par excellance who regards virtually any authority figure place in front of him with at best active disdain, actually calls Ebenezar McCoy "Sir", Murphy drops her duffle bag in shock and then proceeds to treat McCoy like he's the Pope.
  • His trauma from Mavra's flamethrower attack on him in Blood Rites actually renders him pyrophobic for the events of Dead Beat, with him not performing a single fire spell until the last two pages of the whole book.
  • Him gradually taking more and more levels in Jerkassery, along with gaining a pretty significant Hair-Trigger Temper during both Proven Guilty and White Night, turns out to be Lash's subtle influence.
  • His complete absence of fire magic (his Signature Move) throughout most of Small Favor seriously freaks out his allies, to the point that it turns out to be evidence of him having been Mind Raped by Mab into forgetting about his blasting rod to help keep the Summer Court off his trail. Additionally, he's so scared out of his mind when Mab personally shows up to talk him into performing one of his favors to her, he initially can't even speak, much less snark.
• One-Man Army: He has the highest known "monsters killed/time" ratio on the entire White Council, except probably for Ebenezar.^note Krakatoa alone was responsible for over 36,000 deaths, and that's far from his only action as Blackstaff
• Our Hero Is Dead: Harry's shot at the end of Changes and falls into Lake Michigan. It's been confirmed that he's dead. Though as he was Only Mostly Dead, he gets better.
• Papa Wolf: Few things make him madder than threatening or actually harming children. Along comes Changes...and let's just say that no one would be making any attempts on Harry's daughter any time soon should Harry still be alive.
  • In Skin Game, Nicodemus tries. And runs away screaming in both terror and rage, having lost his squires, and gained a new Knight of the Cross to fight him. So after that, it's even more unlikely that anyone will mess with her. His inner self also furiously demands Harry needs to protect his daughter Bonea (a.k.a. the "Parasite"), simply growling "Protect the offspring" to Harry after the bombshell is dropped on him.
• Parental Favoritism: This was initially subverted in Skin Game, where he was weirded out but still protective when he found out what the "Parasite" truly was. But generally speaking, from Peace Talks onwards this is present. From here, he shows much more concern and care for Maggie's well-being than Bonea's, to the point that even in his own private thoughts he thinks of "daughter" in the singular. He also does not spare Bonnie a thought when the family home is on fire, while frantic for Maggie, or similarly when the whole city in chaos. Granted, there is some justification, such as with how Bonea technically has Complete Immortality and cannot be easily "killed" in comparison to the mortal Maggie (although she would still be in trouble if broken or stolen). Furthermore, he also can't be more public in how he acts with Bonea like he can with Maggie due to the... "unique" circumstances involving her birth and subsequent existence. With it being very dangerous if anyone found out about her. Battle Ground also defies this somewhat when he decides to use Bob instead of Bonea in the binding ritual for Ethniu at least in part because he doesn't want to expose her to the carnage of war-torn Chicago and put her at risk of being hurt by Ethniu. But even then, it's still noticeably odd how much he seems to just forget about her entirely there too in comparison, even when association alone should logically prompt at least a passing thought about her existence.
• Perpetual Frowner: Often seen scowling, snarling, glowering, or frowning.
• Perpetual Poverty: Highly prevalent in the first few books, but begins to be mitigated as the series progresses, especially once Harry starts getting a regular paycheck as a Warden. Nicodemus and others note that this may be by Harry's choice as he could make money a lot of ways using magic but instead, he keeps to the streets helping the poor people who have nowhere else to go. This is ended after Skin Game.
• Person of Mass Destruction: He's one of the strongest wizards in the world, and has demolished numerous buildings along with at one point essentially "deleting" a whole supernatural empire that had geopolitical power on par with the Real Life Soviet Union. Murphy's narration in "Aftermath" highlights that even when he's on your side, Harry's absolutely terrifying, inspiring a level of fear that makes vanilla mortals like her "feel like a casualty of evolution." Fuck with Harry Dresden, and he will blow you up. Fuck with his apprentices, and he will set your internal organs on fire while you're still alive. Fuck with his daughter, and he will wipe out your entire species.
• Playing with Fire: Harry's signature is fire. It's highly offensive magic (as Harry is reminded to his chagrin from time to time), and his blasting rod is a magical focus meant to use fire exclusively. It's later enhanced by Hellfire, one instance with Summer Fire, and then later he gains permanent access to Soulfire. Ironically, the power of the Winter Mantle can be used to empower his fire spells, and the effect mixes surprisingly well with Soulfire. Lea even lampshades this at a couple of points.

  Lea: Honestly, child. There are elements other than fire, you know.

• Poor Communication Kills: Due to his trust issues, he has had major problems with this. Murphy arrests him twice in the first two books because he leaves her Locked Out of the Loop regarding important supernatural matters, and in later books, the White Council boots him out due to the fact that not only does he spend lots of time with Mab, Marcone, and Lara Raith, he constantly acts defensive and refuses to give a straight answer even to his friends. This also costs him his friendship with Carlos Ramirez, who's understandably fed up with having information kept from him and constantly being rebuffed why he tries to reach out to Harry.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: He quotes Star Wars and he's badass enough to be a Jedi. Honestly, the man is full of pop-culture references, ranging from classic movies to comic books to literature.
• Powers as Programs: The Winter Mantle contains knowledge and, perhaps, a low level sentience and understanding of things around Harry. The magic it imbues in Harry, giving him access to his new ice magic, only needed the spell names Harry chooses to give them to have access to them.
• Power Stereotype Flip:
  • The wizard who's famous for "having a... problem with buildings" is gifted Soulfire, which is used best for creation.
  • Since Changes, the Hot-Blooded Harry has lots of ice magic at his disposal.
• Power-Up: invoked Being one of the strongest Wizards of his generation is nothing to sneeze at, but he gets a few upgrades as he goes along. Word of Jim states that gaining a power up isn't exclusive to Harry, but he has a few of the most unique.
  • He gets access to Hellfire while Lash was in his head, and loses it after her Heroic Sacrifice. He could've even more power as well as agelessness if he took up Lasciel's coin, but Harry staunchly refused damnation.
  • Shortly afterwards, it's implied Lucifer himself intervened in the mortal world by doing a favor for his minions by creating and sustaining a giant ring of Hellfire, in spite of the agreement against divine interference in the mortal realm. Doing so allowed Heaven's black-ops guy Uriel to intervene to balance the scales, and quietly gave Harry access to Hellfire's angelic equivalent, Soulfire, which is good for hurting demons and the like, but its real strength is in boosting his magic, particularly creation-based magic. In one instance he uses it to actualize his will to counter a deity flexing her own will on him.
  • Harry later earns the respect of Demonreach and becomes its Warden. While it can be considered more of a responsibility than a gift, as long as he's on its shores, he gets a massive boost to power, omniscient knowledge of the island's surface, and its full cooperation on it manipulating its surface. It's very situational since very few of Harry's enemies will go there, but it's still a pretty big boost. And he also later learns that he can bind certain immortal entities with his will and imprison them within the island, with him threatening Mab with this fate at the end of Cold Days and actually inflicting it upon Ethniu in Battle Ground.
  • He's taken up the mantle of the Winter Knight. It gives him low grade Super-Strength (he can bench press 400 kilos, almost 900 pounds), he feels less pain, he gets a small Healing Factor, it gives him enhanced stamina, makes him sure-footed and silent while walking on ice, and it can augment his magic, even his fire spells. Also, while he already could, on paper, use ice magic (and has done so a few times in the past), it took him a lot of effort and magical juice to get relatively minor and unsophisticated effects; but with the Winter Mantle, he has easy access to ice magic with some good fine control. While it gives him some pretty good benefits, it's at least semi-sentient and thinks in very instinctual terms, including but not limited to power, authority, territoriality, and indulging the user's baser instincts. In practical terms, it tries to push Harry to dominate, kill, and rape those around him, and if the Mantle doesn't agree with what Harry's doing, he has to reframe the task ahead of him in terms the Mantle can understand or it won't cooperate.
• Pregnant Badass: No, really. With Bonnie, Lash's child no less. Lash's last action was out of love and self-sacrifice, which imbued Harry with their child, a spirit of intellect which was gestating inside his skull for years. He was ignorant of her until she was nearly born in Skin Game.
• Pride: Not in the usual flavor, but he definitely falls under this sin. He holds himself to impossible standards, to be able to keep his friends and family safe and when things go wrong, like with Michael ending up with a bummed leg, he thinks he failed them and punishes himself mentally.
  Harry: There's no guilt like wizard guilt, because there's no arrogance like wizard arrogance.
• Private Detective: How he makes a living (at least prior to Changes, where he became the Winter Knight).
• Private Eye Monologue: Even into the later books, Harry's narration is rich in creative (and often silly-sounding) metaphors pertaining to his situation, and are typically interspersed with semi-philosophical musings on the nature of humanity and the world at large.
• Properly Paranoid: To quote Harry himself, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face."
• Pure Energy: His second most used spell is using kinetic force. While it was initially limited to storing it up using rings and could only release it with physical contact (i.e. a punch), he eventually gains enough control to shoot the energy stored up in his rings to good effect. He also can use it on a much smaller scale without his rings to mimic the effects of telekinesis. Less flexibly used than fire, but certainly with almost as much frequency. Harry uses this to create his magic shield. Initially, it was useful in deflecting and absorbing kinetic energy (i.e. bullets and charging mooks), but barely surviving an encounter with Mavra and her flamethrower-wielding Renfields lead him to upgrading it to cover a fuller spectrum of harm, but it's more taxing on Harry. He usually compensates by raising it to cover quadrants and keeping tabs on when he needs to keep it up moment by moment. He can also form it into different shapes.

R — Y

• Rage Against the Mentor: Let's see.
  • The first one, Justin, was highly abusive^note Justin was definitely emotionally abusive, and both his apparent inability to bond with his adopted children and betraying Harry and Elaine the way he did left Harry with a mess of emotional issues and without the context for the generally harsh training for wizardom and Harry killed him in self-defense.
  • He briefly had a second one, Lea, that was his Fairy Godmother. She just made him stronger with Training from Hell, is insane by most reasonable standards, and until they "reconciled", Harry spent much of his life avoiding her to avoid being turned into a dog.
  • His third (and the second actual mentor) was Ebenezer, with whom he had a good relationship with until the day Harry learned he was secretly the Council's assassin the whole time. Harry was understandably angry about the blatant hypocrisy, but Harry forgave him when he came to terms with the necessity of such a role. He later learned that this mentor was also his grandfather, a secret kept from him for some time. Then again he gets angry at Ebenezar again due to him trying to teach Harry his Fantastic Racism and Hands-Off Parenting.
  • And now Mab's a pseudo-mentor to him and by the end of Cold Days, he privately and credibly threatens her immortal life twice, to which she's just grateful he's not an idiot nor a sycophant, though she beats him up at times depending on her mood. Things just keep getting better and better.
• Respected by the Respected: Harry's penchant for punching above his weight and penchant for winning against forces that would have normally killed him has earned him the respect of multiple powerhouses, such as Uriel, Odin or Hades.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Harry prefers revolvers, generally large-caliber ones, because of both the simplicity, the power of such a high-caliber weapon, and because having a .44 shoved in your face is quite intimidating. Harry also believes it's justified because of his "Murphyonic Field", that any other, more complicated firearms would have a very high likelihood of jamming/malfunctioning for Harry; revolvers are simple, making the chance of them failing him at critical moments no greater than it would be for a vanilla mortal. Murphy chides him on using revolvers (without any speedloaders no less, just loose shells in his pocket) at one point in Turn Coat, asking him if he's ever seen modern automatics ever jam, which is corroborated by other Wardens using semiautos without problem.
  • The potential Dirty Harry jokes are also probably part of it.
  • Murphy upgrades him to a .50 caliber Smith and Wesson Model 500 in Skin Game
• Ring of Power: Starts off with one that builds up force each time he moves his arm, capable of knocking a big man off his feet and flipping a car. He eventually upgrades to modified ones, one on each finger, capable of delivering impacts common with high speed car crashes and could possibly flip 24 cars when fully charged .
  • Lacking any rings in Skin Game, he just carves the spell into his wizard's staff. Seventy-seven times.
• Running Gag: In addition to frequently (and correctly) being blamed for buildings erupting into flame (with Blood Rites famously opening with "The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault'), later books introduce one revolving around Harry's particular method of becoming the Winter Knight, and people who are aware of it. Among other things, he slept with Mab. She made sure all of Faerie saw it happening.
  • Come Skin Game, whenever Harry jumps over something, he yells, "Parkour!"
  • Harry's Destructive Savior tendencies are another, to the point where Marcone reveals that he has flimsy, light doors at dramatic (rather than strategic) entry points.
• Sad Clown: He tends to use humor to mask internal issues.
• Sanity Slippage: In Dead Beat, Harry is clearly feeling the effects of the Shadow in his head. He's becoming more and more aggravated and short-tempered as the story progresses, and his friends are becoming afraid of him. He was noticed speaking to empty rooms as though having a conversation with somebody only he could see, but then he was the only one who could see and hear Lasciel when she assumed the identity of Sheila. They come to terms, and he's clearly doing better by the next book.
  • Related to the former, during Proven Guilty and White Night, he gets increasingly short-tempered, which Murphy points out in White Night — while he's always been angry, he's now more so, to the point where he can end up in a blind rage. It turns out to be Lasciel's work.
  • Again in Cold Days, the influence of the Winter Mantle is giving Harry impulses to rape and kill the people around him, though he is resisting with effort. He didn't come out of Mab's domain unchanged however, and Murphy notices that at least a small part of him has started to enjoy the violence that comes with being the Winter Knight.
  • In Skin Game, while Harry's got a hold on the Winter Mantle (or at least, figured out how to control it) Butters is afraid this is happening because he's Locked Out of the Loop. In fairness, this is justified, but he doesn't know it.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Constantly. Most important in Grave Peril, where he breaks the Accords and starts a war over doing the right thing.
• Secret-Keeper: Over the course of time, Harry has come to know a few big secrets in the series.
  • He knows how to perform the Darkhallow ritual.
  • He knows Lara Raith is the power behind the White Court and that Thomas is his half-brother.
  • Harry keeps the fact Maggie is his daughter a secret.
  • Harry knows about the island of Demonreach and its true nature. This is a secret known only to a few major players in the supernatural world, but Harry learned of it when he was still young. Not only that, but it allowed him to be its Warden as well as learning its origin, and the only other ones we know who also knew it is Bob, the original Merlin, and Demonreach itself.
  • Harry knows Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, was mortal once.
  • Harry knows how to kill immortals, a secret he learned from Bob.
  • Harry knows that reality has always been under attack by the Outsiders, and that the Winter Court is currently responsible for keeping them out.
  • Harry knows that Margaret LaFey's father (and thus, his own grandfather) was Ebenezar McCoy.
• Sensor Character: Wizards can sense the presence of magic in others. Harry can tell how strong the other person is from skin contact, usually just a handshake.
  • He can use his wizard's senses to sense magic in the environment and glean details about it. Harry mentions that sensory magic isn't his strong suit, yet his basic wizard's senses can recognize the signature of a caster by sensing the residual magic around where they last cast a spell, and could recognize that person through skin contact.
  • His magical Sight can also tell him a lot about people and the environment, as he can see what a person's true nature is, albeit in a fashion that seems to carry a lot of allegory, and it can see through illusions, no matter how good or powerful. He could see the "bones" in the stadium of Chichen Itza, where players routinely died for centuries, and Molly could see his ghost with it. The downside is that Seeing things can reveal something horrible enough to damage their sanity, and they have perfect recall of the things that they Seen, no matter how long or how hard they try to forget.
  • And finally, Harry has learned to Listen. It's a skill that he picked up to hear small things very well or very selectively. He's not certain if it came bundled with the Wizard package, or if he just has really good hearing and has just learned to focus to pick up details and block out background noise. Gatekeeper Rashid is, to his knowledge, the only other character Harry met that has learned to do this.
• Separated by a Common Language: Played for laughs more often than not, but this is one of the more thought out and cruel aspects of DuMorne's training. The point of a Language of Magic in the Dresdenverse is to insulate the caster's mind against the raw forces of magic they command. It has to be a language not used in other circumstances so a wizard doesn't cast spells accidentally, fluency in the language is generally a downside, and it seems to be impossible to change once you start using it. The language DuMorne chose to teach Harry in? Latin. The common language of the White Council, used in literally every formal interaction between capital-W Wizards? Also Latin. While it's possible for Harry to muddle through meetings, he has to go through some procedural convulsions to address the council in english when he needs to speak before them.
• Shock and Awe: Harry is capable of a Dangerous Forbidden Technique where he can channel real lightning through his body to hit targets —once used for taking out a demon sent by Victor Sells and on another occasion burns one of Winter Knight Lloyd Slate's arm into uselessness. He can generate a small ball of lightning in between his palms for Intimidation Demonstration, which can set on fire the trees it hits. He has once generated electric discharges from his body to subdue someone strangling him. He also pulled a Catch and Return on a lightning bolt hurled at him by a Red Court vampire using a staff.
• Significant Birth Date: Halloween. Since this is also when dark power is at its strongest and the barriers between the afterlife and mortal realm are at their weakest, his birthdays tend to really suck.
  • Cold Days reveals that this is also the one day of the year when immortals can change and die. As it's hinted that Harry has a special destiny, this is probably not a coincidence.
  • Peace Talks reveals that Harry is Starborn, born under a stellar conjunction that occurs every 666 years, and that this is the (or at least a) source of his power against Outsiders.
• Slasher Smile: Sports one of these while looking at the ghoul delegation in Peace Talks. and fantasising about brutally killing them and when slowly crushing Rudolph against a wall in Battle Ground.
• Smarter Than You Look: Harry might occasionally bumble along and wing it on numerous occasions, but make no mistake; beneath the gangly, wisecracking exterior lurks an extremely sharp mind. Several villains have found out — often to their cost — just how much of a steel trap Harry's brain really is. Part of this is Obfuscating Stupidity — how much, exactly, is up for debate.
  Lloyd Slate: Spooky. He doesn't look all that smart.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Tends to drop into this when he's not just being outright snarky and rude. As Thomas notes, Harry has a cobbled-together philosophy from the sayings of saints and comic books.
• Squishy Wizard: Only in a relative sense. Harry is a big man who keeps himself in good physical condition, as he recognizes that running away very fast is a good way to stay alive, and sometimes hitting something with a sturdy piece of wood is more effective than a spell. Still, he's only human, and up against all sorts of supernatural nasties who are quite capable of reducing him to a smear on the wall if they get the chance, so he usually relies on his wits.
• Stepford Snarker: He snarks to hide his pain and/or fear.
• Survival Mantra: When Harry sees a Skinwalker in its true, gruesome, terrifying, evil, monstrous form, he nearly is driven into a permanent gibbering puddle. After crashing his car, which he was in when he Saw the creature, he hobbles his way to Will and Georgia's home desperately reciting all of the prime numbers he can recall in escalating order to not think about the creature because any time he did, he immediately broke down.
• Superpowered Evil Side: When Harry allows the Winter Knight Mantle to take over. He effortless tears through several Sidhe with ice claws, killing several of them in the initial assault. Of course, this being the Mantle, Harry's filled with murdery and rapey intents.
• Super-Strength: Gains a relatively low level version after becoming the Winter Knight.
• Talking in Your Dreams/Talking to Themself:
  • In a few instances when he was unconscious, Harry has a conversation with his subconscious and/or his Id. While he consistently looks like a Dark Wizard version of Harry, in the first instance in Fool Moon he actually gave Harry some good advice. In the following instances, his Id encourages Harry to follow his baser desires, which Harry rebuffs. In his more recent appearance in Skin Game, he's trying to warn Harry's conscious mind that the original Lasciel is out and about seeking revenge, and that he needs to protect "the parasite" Bonea.
  • It's not known if other wizards have ever manifested and conversed with their subconscious mind the way Harry has, and a more cynical reader could consider it a sign of Harry having gone off the deep end, aside from Harry's id having actually conversed with Lash, as did Molly when she "midwifed" Bonea.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He's about 6' 8", has dark hair and dark eyes, and is an epic wiseass. Various characters have compared him to an NBA player.
• Thanatos Gambit/Memory Gambit: In Ghost Story, it's revealed that Harry arranged his assassination with Kincaid and then had Molly delete the memory. However, it's also revealed that he was only Driven to Suicide through the intervention of either Anduriel, Lasciel, or Satan/Lucifer himself.
• Took a Level in Badass: As the series progresses, via necessity, Harry gradually goes from being a semi-athletic gumshoe who gets exhausted slinging a few spells to a well-toned, building-crushing chessmaster who can sling with the nastiest wizards and monsters the world over. And this is prior to the events of Changes, where he finally becomes the Winter Knight.
  • He's taken multiple levels. When Susan was turned he suffered a Heroic BSoD and started kicking more ass; when he started training with Murphy he learned enough martial arts that he actually could kick ass; when his hand was charbroiled he began fighting smarter and developed more clever uses of his spells; when he had a demonic entity living in his head he learned a lot about the world (and got access to Hellfire while she was there); when he got an apprentice he relearned better ways of casting magic by going "back to the basics"; when he got soulfire from Uriel he started kicking more ass; he gained low-level superhuman stats through a combination of the Winter Knight mantle and the Training from Hell Mab put him through along with enhanced ice magic and becoming less reliant on tools to focus magic; when he got the Genius Loci, he gained power and a super sense while on it; and once he started living in isolation on the island, he taught himself parkour by running through the prison. And all the while, in terms of magical power, stamina, and skill, he's getting Stronger with Age.
• Touched by Vorlons:
  • For changing the Shadow of Lasciel into the self-sacrificing Lash, Uriel chose Harry to be given Soulfire, the Fires of Creation, replacing Hellfire.
  • Donar Vaderrung (aka Father Odin) tells him in Cold Days his dying and subsequent resurrection has marked him on deeper level than he knows. He is now a "fulcrum," a turning point in many plots.
  • Someone looking at him with the Sight's Aura Vision in Storm Front remarked that his aura had been stained by He-Who-Walks-Behind along with a couple more related Eldritch Abominations, though Harry was not familar with them yet. Harry himself had realized this but had forgotten it (understandably due to how traumatic the experience was) , until he remembered it while narrating the incident to Lea in Ghost Story.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Harry loves Burger King, Mac's steak sandwiches, and Mac's beer.
• Tragic Hero: Ever since he broke free from Justin's conditioning, Harry's wanted nothing more than to prove to the world that he isn't some mindless pawn to be deployed against people's enemies. Unfortunately — as various people who believe he is just that try to force him into their service (and Harry fends them off, which inadvertently increases his perceived 'value', which makes more people try to conscript him...)- it's become clear that that's impossible. He has to be content with only a few people knowing the truth.
• Treacherous Advisor: Lasciel, and Lea to some extent. The former wants him to give up his soul to her. The latter wants him so deeply indebted to her she can turn him into a dog to protect him, claiming that he would be safer and happier that way. To be fair, she might not be entirely wrong about that, considering the sheer misery and danger constantly piled on him.
• Tyke-Bomb: It's implied Justin was training Harry and Elaine to be this. Harry also counts as a deconstruction; as far as the White Council is concerned, Harry is one of these, so they aren't exactly friendly to him; Harry has entirely justifiable angst from killing Justin (compounded by the fact that he knows killing with magic taints your soul); and throughout the series we see he has major trust issues.
• Underhanded Hero: Downplayed; Despite being a Person of Mass Destruction, Harry still counts as this by virtue of being a very clever Guile Hero who more often than not successfully resorts to trickery to take down vastly more powerful opponents. Perhaps one of his most impressive examples of this is in Blood Rites, where he plays a mean game of Xanatos Speed Chess to make Lara Raith think he's acting as her cat's paw against her own father Lord Raith when in reality she is acting as his Unwitting Pawn as he tricks Raith into revealing to Lara how he both sees her and her siblings as utterly expendable and he's been putting on the illusion of still being super-powerful ever since Margaret LeFay's death curse effectively neutered him. Even Lara is impressed by Harry's quick thinking and manipulation.
• Undying Loyalty: A mutual case with Murphy, once the Early-Installment Weirdness was cleared up by Summer Knight. In Dead Beat, Mavra gets Harry to act on her behalf by blackmailing him with Murphy's ruin; in return, Harry threatens to come after Mavra with every weapon and upgrade he can get his hands on if Mavra ever tries it again. Harry lists off his potential options for this, and Harry flatly refuses every single one of them in later books... until he heads off to save Maggie in Changes, whereupon every single one of them is either taken up or seriously considered. In Cold Days, Harry gets this equal parts touching and terrifying line from Karrin:
  Murphy: I don't know what I'm meant to do or who I ought to be. But what I do know is that I've got your back. Always. [...] So goddamnit, don't you start taking the highway to Hell. Because I'm going to be right there with you. All the way.
• The Unfettered: If something hurts Harry's found family he will do anything to avenge or protect them.
• Uninhibited Muscle Power: Butters speculates that this is all he really gains from the Mantle of the Winter Knight, and Harry sees his hypothesis as very likely. However, this is demonstrably untrue; Butters has not seen Harry cut loose, and no ordinary human can perform a standing long jump with a distance of 50 feet.
• Unluckily Lucky: Harry could be the poster boy for this trope. In pretty much every book, he is out of his depth fighting warlocks, vampires and Eldritch Abominations, beaten within the inch of death, and having a headache. Yet, he always manages to survive and save the day thanks to quick thinking, help of his True Companions, and sheer dumb luck.
• Unreliable Narrator: Sometimes. Jim Butcher makes a point that Harry has severe tunnel vision about some issues, such as when magic he isn't particularly good at is being used (especially noncombat magic, water magic, and noncombat water magic). Books with other viewpoints show that some characters Harry writes off have Hidden Depths. This is also used to explain the occasional continuity errors, such as issues with geography and names changing between books (he's bad at that subject/heard the name wrong). Small Favor takes this to a new level; the omission of one key item (Harry's ubiquitous blasting rod and fire magic) doesn't become apparent until one character points it out, and then Harry realizes that he's been Mind Raped by Mab.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Especially early in the series, Harry has massive amounts of magical brawn but is neither skilled nor subtle. Seeing senior Wizards and Wardens at work usually has him realizing how much he still has to learn. He's getting better after training Molly has him brush back up on the basics and even moreso after Mab's Training from Hell.
• Unusual Pop Culture Name: His unusual middle names, Blackstone and Copperfield, are for stage magicians Harry Blackstone Jr., Harry Blackstone Sr., and David Copperfield.
• Vague Age: Because there isn't much reason to bring it up in his own narration, aside from occasionally griping about how he can't shake off things like all-nighters the way he could when he was 20, and remarking in Cold Days that he no longer looks younger than Thomas. The author comments on Twitter that he's "...25 in Storm Front and 36 in Cold Days," but admits that this might contradict canon. Also the fact that Wizards age slowly make it a bit less relevant, given Harry is going to be physically younger than his chronological age would suggest.
• Walking Techbane: To the point where he can't have a water heater in his apartment. Or a refrigerator. Or light bulbs. When he gets a hot shower in Blood Rites, he describes it as bliss.
• The Watson: Usually the one to whom the Monster of the Week is explained, mostly by Bob but sometimes by Mab, Luccio, etc.

• Who Watches the Watchmen?: In Cold Days, it is implied Queen Mab wants him for this as she is happy that he gives her two serious, legitimate threats to her immortal life and with all every intent of going through with them if she crossed a line. As the Outsiders could even infect her, she wanted a Knight to kill her if the situation came about, not some loyal Yes-Man who may not realize her infection.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: After becoming the Winter Knight, his impulses begin pushing him to become more and more predatory, in every sense of the word. Harry resists it, but finds the implications disturbing.
• Wizard Workshop: He invests most of his funds into a low-budget version of this in the lab in his sub-basement, accumulating features like a high-security summoning circle, a Sympathetic Magic model of the city, and a stock of potion-making ingredients stored in rows of tupperware boxes and assorted jars.
• Worthy Opponent: He eventually starts to see Mavra, Marcone, and Lara Raith all as this for him, with the latter two being begrudgingly considered as Friendly Enemies of him.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: He has trouble assaulting female characters unless it is a life-or-death situation. Averted with Mavra and Ethniu, though it's possible that's at least partially because they're not at all human.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: From the get go, Harry demonstrates some pretty decent skills as a PI, but he develops some serious skills in the art of manipulation, cunning, and developing plans to leave him winning something even if he doesn't end up with all the marbles at the end. Then again, he had a Fallen Angel living in his head as a counsellor for a couple years, so maybe that helped. To elaborate:
  • In Blood Rites, he successfully dethrones the King of the White Court by using Lara Raith as his catspaw, a move that impresses her, since he manipulated her by claiming that he would be her catspaw.
  • In White Night, Harry outsmarts several members of the White Court and solidifies Lara's power base again by manipulating the situation. In Small Favor, he manages to outwit Nicodemus of all people, nearly killing him in the process.
  • In Turn Coat, Harry successfully comes up with a scheme to smoke out the White Council's mysterious traitor. Arguably subverted, though, in that as Ebenezar later conveys to him, he only barely succeeded through sheer dumb luck.
  • The entirety of Skin Game is a speed chess rematch with Nicodemus, which ultimately ends in Harry's favor when he's able to provoke Nicodemus into breaking his word, irrevocably tarnishing his name in the supernatural community, and ending in Nicodemus also murdering his own daughter, losing two coins in Hades' realm, his squires deserting him, and a new Knight of the Cross active. Admittedly, part of that was Harry being played by greater forces, but still.
• You Killed My Father: Mother, to Lord Raith. By the end of the book Harry finds it out, Raith ends up in a Fate Worse than Death.
• You're Insane!: Some of his zaniest and craziest plans can get this reaction. Two standout examples are inviting a Skinwalker to a fight, riding a zombie T-rex through the city streets to stop a cabal of necromancers from becoming Physical Gods, and playing poker with a Nigh-Invulnerable faerie for the fate of Chicago. Or as a Red Court vampire who was a victim of another such plan put it:
  The wizard is a madman!

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