Par for the series in general, there were quite a few ridiculously funny moments in this installment of The Dresden Files. WARNING: Unmarked spoilers below!
- Harry's method of amusing himself in the Well: vaulting and diving over the crystal mounds housing Eldritch Abominations, and shouting "Parkour!" every time he does it. It shows up again every few chapters afterward, even if it's just in the narration (i.e., when chasing after Butters and he hops over a fence, Harry's narration puts "Parkour!" in parentheses).
- It's worth bearing in mind that the Well houses some of the nastiest, evilest, most powerful beings ever to walk the Earth. And he's using them for parkour practice.
- And naturally, the amazing Brick Joke when Harry uses his parkour skills to finally defeat the Genoskwa and Ursiel near the end of the fight in Hade's Vault.Harry: "Parkour," I panted. "Bitch."
- Even Michael seems to find it pretty funny! Although he does question Harry's usage of the term.Michael: Harry, I'm fairly sure one is supposed to do parkour. I don't think one is supposed to "say" parkour.Harry: Do I criticize your Latin battle cries? No, never once.Michael: That is true.
- The British-sounding, unknown Eldritch Abomination who gets annoyed by Harry parkouring around and talking to him and tells him to "piss off."
- Harry deciding to call Demonreach "Alfred Demonreach" after a Batman joke flies over its head.
- Even better, there's Demonreach going along with it and actually claiming the name as its own.
- Harry insisting that Mab attach her tracker/parasite-repressing earring to his left ear because it's "a mortal thing".
- After yet another lavish description of Mab's incomparable beauty and fearsome power, Harry asks his Queen, "How's tricks?"Mab: Functioning flawlessly, my Knight. As ever. Get on the boat.
- During their talk in Murphy's house, Karrin snarkily calls Harry's now-destroyed Blue Beetle a "clown car." Insulted, Harry instead calls it a "machine of justice."
- Harry mentions Molly to her father, then hastily backtracks when he realizes Michael doesn't know about her new job... leading Michael to entirely the wrong conclusion.Harry: (embarrassed) Uh, I think I might have given your dad the impression that we, uh, you know...
Molly: (horrified) Oh, God! So that's what that look was about! - "Harry Dresden: one. Peaceful gathering: zero."
- Harry, Valmont, and Murphy are recuperating at Murphy's place after a shootout. Valmont's in Murphy's guest bedroom, and Murphy tells Harry to take her room while she sleeps on the couch. Harry immediately offers to take the couch.Murphy: You don't fit on it, bonehead.
- Shortly afterward, Harry finds her cleaning a small armory's worth of weaponry - including a rocket launcher. It's fake, actually a case for one of the Swords, but Harry doesn't know that.
Harry: Is that a bazooka?
Murphy: No. That is an AT-4 rocket launcher. Way better than a bazooka.
Harry: In case we have to hunt dinosaurs?
Murphy: The right tool for the right job.
Harry: ...Can I play with it?
Murphy: No. Now go to bed. - Michael seems to be ready to give a typical speech about God's mercy and forgiveness and loving kindness... and then, of all people he calls Harry a pigheaded, arrogant idiot. It's just the way he says it, not to mention the sheer Mood Whiplash of it all.
- Id-Harry asks Harry (while he's unconscious) why he's not banging Murphy. Even "Normal Harry" has trouble responding to himself.Harry: Because we aren't...We haven't gotten to...there's been a lot of... [exasperated] Look, just fuck off.
- And shortly afterward, it takes a lot of talking to get Harry to understand that the parasite in his head is in fact a fetal spirit. Special mention should be given to Id-Harry's play-by-play In the Style of an old-fashioned radio announcer for Harry's "Eureka!" Moment.
- And then there’s Harry’s eventual reaction:
Harry: See? You see? This is why you don’t go around having sex with everyone all the time! - Murphy's reaction to the news that Harry's pregnant. The book cuts back to the scene after several minutes of hysterical laughter.
- Harry being pregnant in general, actually. Even for this series it's pretty bonkers.
- Uriel giving Michael his Grace is more heartwarming/terrifying than funny, but the way it's described is hilarious."So, basically, he loaned you his giant passenger jet because you needed a reading light."
[...]
"I trust you," Uriel said. "But, uh, I would still very much appreciate it if you didn't push any buttons or pull any levers in my giant passenger jet." - Shortly after Uriel gives up his Grace (but before Harry realizes that's what happened), Harry is mad at him for not healing Murphy, and insisting he help carry the coat she's laying on.Harry: Some cosmic limitation that keeps you from picking up your corner of the coat?!
- When Harry comes face to face with little Maggie, any part of their interaction that isn't absolutely adorable falls into this. In particular, given Maggie's unusual circumstances and Mouse's supernatural nature, he can't be sure how much of what Maggie says is just based in a little girl's imagination and how much of it he should be taking literally:
- When Maggie tells him that she and Mouse are reading James and the Giant Peach, Harry wonders if this means she's reading the book to Mouse or if Mouse is reading the book, too. He doesn't immediately dismiss the idea — Mouse is going to school with her, after all.
- A separate mention also has to go to the fact that Harry feels a bit threatened because, assuming that Mouse stays with Maggie through college, his freaking dog is eventually going to be better-educated than him.
- Maggie also informs him that she and Mouse "slayerized" a monster under her bed and now Mouse is the monster under her bed. Harry can't tell if she's talking about a game of pretend or not.note
- When Maggie tells him that she and Mouse are reading James and the Giant Peach, Harry wonders if this means she's reading the book to Mouse or if Mouse is reading the book, too. He doesn't immediately dismiss the idea — Mouse is going to school with her, after all.
- Hades setting the record straight about Demeter and Persephone ("Empty nest syndrome"), and what his wedding present from Hecate was: a honeymoon free of his mother-in-law.Harry: The stories don’t record it quite that way. I seem to recall Hecate leading Demeter in search of Persephone.
Hades: That much is certainly true. Hecate led Demeter around. And around and around. It was her wedding present to us.- After Harry asks about it, he has a moment where he wonders if there's a spell to make him melt through the floor in a quivering puddle of "please-don't-kill-me."
- In keeping with Butcher's One of Us status, Hades points out that he named his dog, "Spot."
- Michael notes that one of the statues of the fairy queens in the Underworld looks a lot like Molly (she didn't tell him she's the new Winter Lady). Harry does an excellent job of covering."Pffft," I said. "What? No. Maybe. A little. She's got, uh, one of those faces."
- Michael not keeping up on his pop culture references.Michael: Only a flesh wound.
Harry: Yeah. 'Tis but a scratch. Come on, ya pansy.
Michael: Pansy?
Harry: Oh, you weren't quoting the movie. Sorry.
Michael: Movie?
Harry: Holy Grail?
Michael: Nicodemus still has it.
Harry: Never mind. - Harry on the Church losing the coins so often. "Are they putting them in vending machines?!"
- Harry describing Binder's mooks as the "Demons of corporate dress code."
- Doubles with Heartwarming Moments, but Harry's treatment of Squire Jordan is hilarious:“Jordan!” I boomed as I came in. I tossed a paper bag with a couple of cheeseburgers in it at the Denarian squire. “Chow down, buddy. They’re hot, so don’t let the cheese burn your ton— Oh, right. Sorry.”
- Harry's reaction to Nicodemus offering everyone doughnuts.But they were doughnuts of darkness. Evil, damned doughnuts, tainted by the spawn of darkness... Which could obviously only be redeemed by passing through the fiery, cleansing inferno of a wizardly digestive tract.
- And later:Ascher had a plate covered in the remnants of doughnuts that she was apparently struggling to redeem from the hellfire even now.
- And later:
- Despite the tension in the moment (or possibly because of it), when Uriel intervenes to try and convince Michael not to take action to save Harry, Butters, and Murphy, Nicodemus walks over to the archangel, a force that could disintegrate galaxies, and whose back is to the Knight of the Blackened Denarius... and taps him on the shoulder.
- Nick, in order to prove that Uriel can't interfere, flicks him on the nose. Uriel is completely nonplussed.
- The scene where the Badass Crew is having their meeting in the old slaughterhouse and Harry keeps interrupting by raising his hand as if he's in class. Nicodemus is very annoyed at his deliberately childish behavior, but it gets even better when Hannah and Binder start playing along too. You can just imagine Nicodemus lamenting about how he's Surrounded by Idiots.Harry: (raises hand) I've been meaning to ask, does this master plan of yours come with health coverage?
Nicodemus: (flatly) Dresden.
Harry: Because that kind of thing is getting to be more and more important. I mean, I know the government probably means well and all, but those people, honestly.
Nicodemus: [glares at him]
Harry: Life insurance seems like something that would be worthwhile too. [to Ascher] Maybe we should strike until we get a whole-life policy.
Ascher: (playing along) I've always thought that insurance was more or less betting against myself.
Binder: Nah, in my experience, you're just playing the odds.
Nicodemus: (sighing) Children, shall we focus on the matter at hand?
Harry: But I haven't even had the chance to dip Deirdre's pigtails in my inkwell.- Made particularly funny by Deirdre's Prehensile Hair weapon.
- Murphy's manshoes:"Perhaps Miss Murphy could serve as your driver. She has the shoes for it."
I couldn’t actually hear Karrin grind her teeth, but I knew she had. - At one point Michael is a little vague with his pronoun usage, and Harry has to very hurriedly correct him.Nicodemus: Lower the Sword, or I will order Grey to kill Valmont.
Michael: If you do that, Dresden and I will fight to the death.
Harry: Right. We'll fight you. Not each other. In case that wasn't clear. - An exceptionally pissed-off Lasciel keeps calling Harry, "lover." In response, he keeps calling her, "babe," as if she was his ex-girlfriend. Extra points go to the bit where he nonchalantly tells her, "We wouldn't have worked out, babe." Made even funnier by Michael's completely baffled reaction to all of it.
- Binder's off-color stories, which Harry's never in the room long enough to hear all the way through. And which Charity laughs out loud at, while Michael blushes in embarrassment.
- After Harry returns from a chat with Deirdre to find Grey shamelessly hitting on Murphy, he simply sits down at the table and lays the BFG right out in front of him without even one menacing word to get the point across.
- This exchange immediately after Harry puts the literal gun down:Grey: (flatly) Dude. You're cockblocking me.
Harry: Nope. (loudly pulls back the hammer on his revolver before setting it back down again) Now I'm cockblocking you.
Grey: (gives Harry a Death Glare) - Which becomes even funnier in hindsight once we learn that he and Grey already knew each other. Furthermore, said aforementioned conversation with Deirdre includes her pointing out to Harry that sharing his life with pretty much just Mister is somewhat sad.Deirdre: The closest you have come to [sharing your life with another over the long term] is providing a home and affection for a being which is entirely your subject and in your control.
Harry: Well, not at bathtime...- And incidentally, this proves that Deirdre has never lived with a cat.
- This exchange immediately after Harry puts the literal gun down:
- Harry's explanation of how Nicodemus can throw his sword so it lands with the point in.Harry: A lazy Sunday afternoon every decade or so practicing adds up.
- The price Goodman Grey charges after the whole fiasco: One dollar.
- The fact that Harry didn't have that much money (in such a small denomination; he was carrying millions of dollars' worth in diamonds at the time) made it funnier. He asks the Carpenters to spot him a dollar!
- Adding to the humor is that Grey isn't the least bit surprised that Harry doesn't have a dollar on him.
- In James Marsters' narration, the voices for the Eldritch Abominations in the caverns of Demonreach are hilarious, especially the completely deadpan delivery of:Bloodpaindeathbloodfleshbloodpaindeath . . .
- When Harry starts worrying about putting Maggie in danger by reconnecting with her, Michael gently reminds him of the glaringly obvious.Michael: Harry, I'm not sure if you noticed this. But things did not turn out well for the last monster who raised his hand against your child. Or any of his friends. Or associates. Or anyone who worked for him. Or for most of the people he knew. (...) Whether or not that was your intention, you did establish a rather effective precedential message to the various predators should they ever learn of her relationship with you.
- What makes this whole scene even funnier is how Harry's narration specifies that Michael is looking at him in evident exasperation and saying this all if he was talking "to a particularly dimwitted child."
- At the end, when Michael's offered his share of the diamonds, of course he begins to refuse. Charity, however, is more practical and points out they have to put seven kids through college, so they are taking the damn diamonds.
- Harry and Murphy's Big Damn Kiss lasts so long that a nurse who came in cleared her throat several times and eventually went outside to complain to Rawlins, who found the entire thing hilarious.
- In the denouement, Murphy, Harry and Butters are discussing the latter's new role as wielder of Fidelacchius. Murphy and Harry solemnly tell him that he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to, and remind him that it's a path fraught with danger. Butters is undeterred, and says he's willing and ready to take up the responsibility. There is, however, one thing bugging him about the whole arrangement...Butters: A Jewish Knight of the Cross?
- Hades mentions that Socrates is in the Underworld. Harry asks what his fate is, to which Hades replies (while quirking a smile) "People question him."
- Grey's blatant flirting with Ascher can come across as pretty funny, as some of it has him sounding not so different from a younger Harry.Ascher: I'd rather not make the rest of this trip naked.Grey: (smirking) I would. I would prefer that.
- "Mac's beer was an excellent argument that there is a God, and that, furthermore, He wants us to be happy." Funny enough as it is; exponentially more so when you remember that Harry is friends with a literal Archangel, which ought to be all the proof he needs.
- Upon hearing that Kringle has a Christmas gift for him, Harry demands that he prove it by saying, "Ho ho ho." Kringle complies.
- There's something inherently funny in Uriel, The Spymaster for Heaven, an ancient being of immense power and knowledge, a literal archangel, one whom even Harry Dresden shows a certain amount of deference to...wearing an apron and making pancakes.
- The fact that Jim Butcher so delights in the fact that the utterly sexy love scene between Harry and Murphy — after fifteen books of waiting — was just a Dream Sequence. To the point where he even admitted "My God, it's like heroin for writers!" and all he wants to do is "make us flip tables."
- Also, even though it's goddamn frustrating as hell, it's pretty hilarious that Harry wakes up furious that he couldn't finish getting laid even in his own dream. "That's ri-goddamned-diculous!" We agree, big fella. We agree.
- The sheer Mood Whiplash when nearing the climax of the sex scene: Dream Murphy suddenly gets Glowing Eyes of Doom (and Laschiel's sigil), pulls her gun from off a nearby table, and shoots him.
