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Fridge Brilliance

  • Sarissa comes from an old Hebrew word, which is the same word that Sarah derives from (and in fact, Harry accidentally calls Sarissa Sarah when he's trying to remember her name.) The brilliance? The same word is also the Hebrew word for "princess." As in, "daughter of a queen." It's also a weapon (a type of spear).
  • Sarissa's actions at Harry's birthday party: Of course the only Changeling brave/confident enough to bring iron into Arctis Tor is Mab's daughter.
  • Two of Mother Winter's names are Skuld (a Norn) and Atropos, one of the three sisters. It’s also stated that there’s a name that both the Mothers share that’s even more powerful. Given the domains of the first two names, the third is most likely Fate. When you realize that in the original myths the creatures of Winter and Summer are not different individuals on opposite sides, but the same person at different times much like Kringle and Odin, the Mothers' conversation makes a bit more sense, kind of a "what once was split be made whole" kinda thing.
  • Going into Horror, when one thinks about what if Harry had used Fates' name. It's a good chance that instead of one of the Mothers he would have gotten the one and only Mother. Honestly, if Mother Winter is Fate, then the idea that Mother Summer is also Mother Earth makes a lot of sense.
  • Kringle is the expert on temporal manipulation. Which makes sense when you think that Santa would need a lot more time than one night to get all around the world.
  • Kringle riding with The Wild Hunt makes a lot more sense if you know that he's Odin, who commands the Hunt in mythology.
  • YMMV on whether this is brilliance or horror. Kringle is Odin, which means that the face of Christmas, the largest Christian holiday, is a pagan god (though Kringle admits "Santa Claus" is both recent and primarily secular). It also works in the real world as Odin is a candidate for the original myth of Santa Claus.
  • Erlking and Kringle are anagrams of one another.
  • Going off the anagram mention, it stands to reason that when Kringle took the "Santa Clause"-Mask, Erlking took the "Krampus"-mask and went after naughty children.
  • On Odin's source of power. Backup shows that a lot of the beings in the Dresdenverse depend on belief (or at least a large number of people knowing about the being in question), almost certainly including gods of various calibre. Since the worship of Odin is not nearly as big now as it was in the Viking heyday, how does he have all the juice to fight vampire gods and raise Norse heroes from the dead? Who believes in Father Christmas? Which might explain why the Erlking has a reputation for being a protector of children, despite his ferocity. He's been looking out for his hunting-buddy's best interests!
  • With respect to Proven Guilty. At the time, it appeared that Molly was taken to Arctis Tor as punishment for interfering with Winter's plans. But this was also when Molly was most likely to be executed by the White Council. She was kidnapped so that she would survive long enough for Dresden to become her protector. And Dresden became aware of her potential as a result of being told about black magic by ... The Gatekeeper. Who it turns out shares defense duty with Winter at the Outer Gates.
  • Alternatively, remember how "all of Winter" was after Harry in Proven Guilty? Now consider that most of those faeries were supposed to be guarding the Outer Gates. Also remember that this was at least partly Maeve's idea - and she was already saying that Mab was insane and therefore must have already been infected by Nemesis. And then Michael mentions there were Outsiders involved in the Red Court attack on the Warden training camp. It looks like the entire thing - Molly's kidnapping, the rescue mission, everything - was a diversion orchestrated by Maeve to get Outsiders into reality. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero. Although it was Lea's Nemesis-infected side that said "all of Winter" was coming - that "crazy gleam" in her eyes was a hint to that effect - so she may have been lying about that. Or, she may have meant all of Winter that was in Faerie, simply not including the Fae fighting at the Outer Gates.
  • Both Mab and Harry spend the book having daughter issues. Specifically, having a daughter that they, in their own ways, love and want to help, but because of duty can't either be with (Maeve) or help (Sarissa). It ends badly for Mab. One dies, and the other is taken by Summer forever. A possible foreshadowing of Harry's own relationship with Maggie?
  • A meta one: Butcher gives the weight that Dresden can press in both kilos and stones. The European fanbase approves, because we get length in feet and inches often enough to know what it is in meters - but weights are something completely different. This way, everybody understands just how ridiculously strong Dresden has become. And since it's a nice round number, it isn't too difficult for Americans to multiply by 2.2 to get weight in pounds.
  • Harry, who has consistently been One of Us (in terms of his obsession with comic books, sci-fi and fantasy) has no idea what Bob is talking about when he mentions the "special hell" for people who talk during a movie. Because since Harry's power makes him a Walking Techbane, he probably hasn't watched television since the Nineties (judging by his Buffy references), and thus never watched Firefly.
  • So how did thousands of Eldritch Abominations get trapped in Demonreach? Well, that's what the giant uber-circle and the Warden are for. The Warden summons some unspeakable horror inside of the perfect, unbreakable trap and lets the island clap it in irons for him.
  • Waaaay back in Storm Front, Harry encounters a Three-Eye junkie at the police station, who raves about how "those who walk before and He Who Walks Behind" are coming for the wizard. At the time, Harry's floored that the addict could See the Mark of the Walker he'd confronted as a teenager on him. But now, it seems the junkie might actually have Seen Harry's future as well, because "those who walk before" might actually have been a reference to Sharkface — aka He Who Walks Before — and his power of Self-Duplication. Sells' potion/drugs may have been more potent than Harry ever suspected.
    • The exact relationship of Nemesis and the Outsiders is still unclear, so time with tell, but it's possible that it wasn't really powerful, it was just the Outsider's influence in making it that made it able to spot them.
    • Also, that means that the junkie knew about one of them well before Harry did, and the other well after, once again reminding that those aren't just pretty titles but fitting descriptions of them.
  • On a meta level, the reason Molly was able to become the Winter Lady conforms perfectly with Winter philosophy. During Changes, both she and Harry suffered trauma from killing the person they loved. The difference is that Harry could not bear the pain of this (and killed himself) where Molly endured her guilt and survived, making it possible for Lea to train her. In a culture that values strength highly, it makes sense that she would be ranked higher than him.
  • According to Word of God, Justin DuMorne was collecting the Starborn to raise them into a weapon to destroy Outsiders. So... does that mean Elaine Mallory is also a Starborn Outsider-killer?
  • At the birthday party, Mab and Harry dance to Shinedown's "45". The song's lyrical version describes an "unborn child" who will be given life. And in the very next book, Harry gives birth to a spirit- who was gestating in his head during Cold Days.
  • The revelation that Odin is also Santa makes Vaderrung's all-steel office decor more significant. In his Santa aspect, he's presumably susceptible to the limits and obligations of a faerie, albeit a very powerful one. An all-steel environment that's baneful to the fey may help him to keep his Norse-deity-turned-CEO aspect fully compartmentalized from his faerie aspect, freeing him to act outside Winter Law or Wyldfae custom, as well as limiting the Queens' ability to snoop at what he's doing in his office.
    • Of course Odin is also Santa. Who else has the information network to find out who’s been Naughty or Nice?
  • With the revelation that Demonreach is meant to act as a prison, it granting Harry Intellectus within its confines suddenly becomes clearer and not just a convenient power boost. Harry is THE Warden. And what's a good way to prevent prison breaks and escapes? A handydandy SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM. After all, the reason prisons used to have guards/wardens was to watch the prisoners and the environs to make sure no one was trying to tunnel in or out. Since Demonreach is a prison run by one man (Alfred doesn't count, he's technically the interface to the prison's OS), the man must be able to keep watch over everything those now-removed guards would have been watching for. That's what the Island's Intellectus enables. It's a panopticon.
  • Kringle and Eldest Gruff ignoring Sarissa's kidnapping by the Red Cap raises unpleasant connotations, especially with Eldest Gruff, who seems to be a pretty nice guy otherwise. But it may be that they know exactly what they're doing, after all. Harry has just become the Winter Knight, and for the Winter Fae to respect him at all, he needs to assert his authority violently. By standing around and making Harry fight the Red Cap, they simultaneously keep their own hands clean and encourage Harry to assert his own authority and gain Winter's respect.
  • A bit of both Brilliance and Horror, but why did Maeve choose that night to try to blow up Demonreach as opposed to any of the preceding time Harry was kinda-dead and thus not in any position to stop her, or when he was weak and in rehab? Simple: it's the same reason Mab is having Maeve killed then. That night, everyone is kinda-mortal, and as Chicago is a major hub, a lot of major powers will likely be there. We’re explicitly shown that Odin, the Erlking, Mab, and possibly even Titania if she chose to stick around are present. Then there's minor but not insignificant powers like Gwynn, all the Svartalves who live in Molly's apartment, etc. That is, beings that Mab might be able to call to her aid if the worst of the worst happened like a truly apocalyptic Outsider Incursion, and would be familiar enough with the situation to understand how important such a thing would be. Maeve was planning to use the explosion to kill them ALL on the one night of the year they're vulnerable.
    • It's not paranoia, either—all the beings listed above (except Gwynn, for obvious reasons) actually do join in the battle against Ethniu, who's being used by Nemesis, in a few books' time.
  • Merlin is said to have built Demonreach at five different times, simultaneously. Why five? He's creating a magical pentagram, like the ones Harry draws all the time. But whereas Harry just draws his in space, Merlin was drawing a pentagram in time.

Fridge Horror

  • At the end, Mab tries to make the events of the climax less horrific to Harry by explaining that she had intended for Molly to become the Summer Lady, but things didn't quite work out. But considering Titania's reaction to meeting with Harry, and Lily's more especially, and knowing what we know about Molly's character, isn't it even creepier to think of her being considered as the prime candidate for a position whose job description literally includes poor emotional control? Possible Fridge Brilliance: perhaps that is why Mab considered Molly a better fit for Summer. Mitigating this would be the fact Mab didn't intend for it, but merely knew it was a high chance of happening and had several plans in motion. Note, had Harry just summoned Mab when he arrived inside the circle, things could have happened differently.
    • Consider also that Titania, already angry over losing her daughter and having Lily thrust upon her in her place, could very easily have wound up with Harry Dresden's apprentice as her new surrogate daughter and chew-toy. Molly might have gotten off lucky.
  • Blink and you'll miss it, but Harry mentions four "famous" historical figures that had held the mantle of the Winter Knight before Lloyd Slate: Gilles de Rais, Fritz Haarmann, John Haigh, and Andrei Chikatilo. All of them were executed as serial killers, and three of those four were known to prey on children. Given the similarities in those cases, and the repeated statements from various parties that the Winter Knight's mantle alters its holder's personality to conform to its archetype ... it's tough to blame Sarissa, or Fix, or Harry's friends, or Harry himself for being scared.
  • Throughout the novel, Harry takes great pains to try to keep his friends and family out of the brewing conflict with the Sidhe, since involvement in his affairs makes anyone fair game. He utterly fails. Everyone's involvement is known — Butters, Andi, Mac, and Justine all catch hits for it despite being only briefly involved with supporting him. Those people? Got off light. Thomas was an active fighter in the whole affair, and Molly is now Winter Lady. They can at least take care of themselves on some level, though. Karrin killed Maeve, Mab's daughter, by shooting her in the face. Worse, the person likeliest to take revenge isn't Mab — it's Redcap, Maeve's lieutenant and the fairy equivalent of a Serial Killer.
    • Nullified by Battle Ground, where it's revealed that the Redcap was on Mab's side the whole time.
  • Harry spends the entire novel lacking the nerve to visit his daughter, and never works himself up to where he dares go to the Carpenters' place and come inside. He's afraid she might remember the events at Chichen Itza, and how he'd killed Susan on the Red King's sacrificial altar. By the end of the novel, Harry has just started to embrace the notion that he needs to re-integrate with his friends again, a process which one would think would culminate in him finally meeting Maggie ... except now that Molly has been forced to become the Winter Lady on Harry's watch, he probably won't have the nerve to visit the Carpenters for fear of how Michael and Charity will react to that!
  • Speaking of the Carpenters, how will any of them react to the news that Molly has become the Winter Lady? Does this mean her soul will spend eternity in Faerie and can never go to Heaven?
  • At first, it seems like for all the bad things that would happen if Demonreach exploded, killing millions of people and wiping out a good portion of the United States, we could have taken some comfort that the explosion would have happened on Halloween Night. The time when all of those horrible immortal nasties are mortal, and can actually be killed. It’s likely that the ritual to destroy Demonreach was originally created by Merlin, or someone working with him, and specifically designed to be cast only on Halloween night, specifically for this purpose. What makes this horror instead of brilliance is that the setup of the attack as described by Demonreach and elaborated on by Odin. The attack spell was set up through space and time. Harry stopped the ritual on Halloween night, but if he hadn't, the spell would have hit and the island gone critical the following morning. Arguably, that's even better for Nemesis if it could trick the ritual into starting, setting up the prison breaking open, and then fudging things so that the explosion happened at a time when the prisoners could not be killed.
  • Nice Girl Lily attempting to kill Harry is already Nightmare Fuel but also raises some horrific implications. First, she blames Harry for her current situation, saying that by killing Aurora making her Summer Lady, he stole her chance for a normal life, which makes one wonder if she only came to this conclusion recently when Meave was manipulating her or was this resentment something she always had towards Harry, starting from the end of Summer Knight. Then there's Lily summoning a mountain to charbroil Harry while he's holding Fix's body meaning Lily was so fixated on revenge that she didnt care about burning her best friend alive or desecrating his corpse. Finally, there's Fix and Lily's reactions afterwards once she cools down when its revealed he's alive and ok. Fix tells her to calm down and do her usual meditations, and doesn't seem scared, shocked or horrified at his friend's behavior and near murder of him, implying that this isn't the first time Lily's gone on a rampage like this and given Titania's earlier rage against Harry such tantrums may be normal. Meanwhile, Lily finds out she almost killed her friend but rather than sit down and digest it or show remorse, she immediately goes back to breaking the island's seal showing where her priorities lie.
  • Molly submits to the Winter Knight's urges, which is made even more disturbing by her past captivity in Arctis Tor. She knows how brutal Winter can be, and serves it anyway.

Fridge Logic

On the headscratchers page.

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