Headscratchers / Small Favor

• How were the Gruffs able to attack not just Harry, but the Carpenter children on Michael's property? It's supposed to be protected against supernatural threats by angelic guardians as a fringe benefit of Michael's status as Knight of the Cross.
  • The protection against supernatural threats by angelic guardians is part of Michael's retirement package, not something he gets while operating as a Knight. Recall that the Fetches had no problem attacking, either, a couple books prior.
  • Wait, forget about the threshold and the retirement package, how were they able to attack at all? Fae aren't supposed to be able to harm mortals except indirectly or through poorly worded requests, and here are two instances of Faerie creatures chasing the Carpenter kids around like an especially dark episode of the Benny Hill Show- one of them without even an invitation. Does that restriction only apply to the Sidhe? Were the Fetches tainted by Nemesis? Were the Gruffs somehow empowered to cross a threshold and attack Harry's allies by Titania's edict to take him down?
    • The Sidhe queens can only harm those bound to them in some way, hence Aurora being unable to harm Murphy in Summer Knight. Regular Fae have no such restriction, as evidenced by countless stories of them doing all sorts of harm. See also the hobs at the station
    • Thresholds so far seem to only apply to the houses themselves. The attack took place in the garden. No threshold out in the open.
  • Also, they never actually harmed Molly or any of the Carpenters; everything they did was a ruse to distract Harry and set up an ambush from the last, hidden Gruff. They can't harm the Carpenters, but Harry is fair game.
• How was Harry able to call up his 'little ball of sunshine' - not just once, but twice - when Mab had already scrambled his brain to turn off his fire magic?
  • Because he doesn't think of it as fire magic. He thinks of it as sun magic. Basically, it's filed under a different mental folder, so Mab missed it when she was setting up the block.
  • Mab seems to have specifically blocked off his combat fire magic linked to his blasting rod. His other fire spells aren't combat spells (it's noted in White Night that the "little ball of sunshine" is not something he could've come up with off the top of his head), so they get around the block that way.
  • To be precise, Mab blocked off evocations, which he channels through auxiliary means (either the rings, the staff or the rod) and incantation, specifically the fire ones that Summer had witnessed and could use to track him down, but the little ball of sunshine isn't an evocation (also, it's a controlled source of heat, while all his evocation are bursts of energy that are directed, but never actually controlled, that's one of the reasons Harry needs staff and rod to properly use them, while he's able to control the ball of sunshine on his own).
    • Harry doesn't use a prop to light candles with magic, just waves his hand a little — except after Mab takes away his memories of fire magic, when he uses matches or the fireplace to light the candles in his apartment. It's definitely a well-controlled use of fire magic, too.
  • I'm sure Mab didn't just forget about his non-combat fire spells, either—she tailored the block specifically to that which would attract Summer's notice, and left the rest alone. If Harry suddenly found himself unable to remember how to light the candles in his apartment, that's probably something he would notice, mental block or no.
    • Actually, she did block his candle-lighting spell. I noticed on re-read that he used matches or the fireplace to light the candles in his apartment, not flickum bicus.
  • Note that while Harry considers the ball of fire to be sun-based magic, it's still enough to draw Old Gruff to the train station.
• Gard asks Dresden to request that the White Council file an objection to the abduction of one signatory of the Unseelie Accords by another. Dresden, while happy to get involved himself, is unwilling to get the White Council involved. Why does Gard not just ask her boss to do the same? In the previous book, the CEO of Monoc Securities was one of Marcone's signatories to enter the Accords.
  • Chance are that Odin can't or won't file the objection. As for why, it's speculation but presumably if he files the objection then he has effectively taken sides in the conflict between Marcone and the Nicklebacks. In particular, if he files the objection and they don't back down he would presumably be obligated to take action against them himself. This could have a number of long-term consequences affecting the balance of power in the supernatural world.
• Harry kills at least one Denarian host in the aquarium fight, using magic to shove him through one of the pentagrams energy beam. How is that not breaking the first law of magic?
  • Harry doesn't use magic to kill the Denarian, he uses magic to move them around. It's the containment spell that kills them. Splitting hairs, yes, but in the same way as Lea did when she promised not to act against Harry, then summoned her minions to hunt him down for her.
  • If that sort of hair splitting was legal, we'd see a lot more of it, a lot more explicitly. I would have thought. Lea is not a mortal and not beholden to the laws of magic either.
  • Depends on whether or not anyone outside of the battle finds out to complain about in of course...
    Other than that, he killed a Denarian in "battle form"; would that count as killing a "straight" human? When Harry kills Formarians in Battle Ground, it is a sticking point that they were "merely" modified humans; Denarians are, however, 50/50 Human-Fallen Angel, and he's arguably acting against a Fallen Angel when he chucks one into the path of... well, anything, no matter how he does it.