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2 reviews
The Dresden Files
alt title(s): Dresden Files
My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden.
Conjure by it at your own risk.
When things get strange,
when what goes bump in the night flicks on the lights,
when no one else can help you, give me a call.
I'm in the book.

A horror/fantasy/mystery series of novels, eleven and counting plus associated short stories and comic miniseries and the like, by Jim Butcher. Harry Dresden is a wizard and private detective operating out of modern day Chicago, and reluctantly hired by a special police task force as a consultant on supernatural crimes. A cross between urban gothic fantasy and Film Noir, while having the Genre Savvy main character crack jokes about the various tropes it uses. Adapted into a drama series on the Sci Fi Channel, which is nowhere near as good as the original books, though by no means terrible. There's also a tabletop RPG in the works as well.

Harry meets a wide variety of characters in the series, and some of the more recurring ones are Murphy (the Action Girl cop who's aware of the city's supernatural underworld), Bob (an air spirit — ghost in the television series — who lives in a magic skull and literally acts as his Magical Computer), Michael (a literal modern-day paladin wielding a holy sword who frequently helps Harry), Billy the Werewolf and his pack of Alphas (a group of Heroic Wannabees who look up to Harry and kind of annoy him), Thomas (a Loveable Rogue incubus White Court vampire), Susan (Harry's on and off love interest), and Molly (Michael's oldest daughter, former accidental warlock and Harry's gothgirl apprentice). Like all detective stories, Harry also meets a ridiculous amount of femmes fatale, crime bosses, and hired goons, often the subject of much Lampshade Hanging in the series. There's a character sheet under construction here.

Recently, the series has been getting a bit grimdark, with such occurrences as Michael the Knight of the Cross being gravely hurt and losing his ability to fight and Thomas, Harry's vampire half-brother, being tortured into resuming his mind-raping (and literally raping) ways.

Word Of God says that the series will have at least twenty books, which will then be capped off by an apocalyptic trilogy. Because, to quote the author, "Who doesn't love apocalyptic trilogies?"

This series provides examples of (adaptation-only tropes have their own section further down):

  • Action Girl: Detective Lieutenant Karrin Murphy, the main Badass Normal. Has shades of The Lancer in the first couple books. As the Badass Normal, she isn't the most powerful character, but she uses her skills as advertised to kick ass and take names at regular occasions, never falling into Faux Action Girl territory. But sometimes overcompensating.
  • Adaptation Decay: The transition from book series to TV series... well, let's just say it lacks much of the flavor and charm of the books. Or the writing quality. Or the canonical details. Still entertaining, sort of, but once you've read the books, there's just no comparison. It became an even worse comic book (according to some; others of course disagree, see Adaptation Distillation below).
    • The DVD set of the TV series includes the Pilot, which is a loose adaptation of Storm Front and is much closer to the books: Harry has a separate office and apartment, Mister the cat makes an appearance, Bob stays quiet, and Susan shows up (though convincing anyone her last name is Rodriguez would be more difficult than convincing them that magic is real).
  • Adaptation Distillation: The comic book. As Jim Butcher himself points out, Dresden Files has the heart and soul of a comic book anyway.
    • Jim Butcher considered the television series this. His fans disagreed.
  • Affably Evil: Marcone, as well as Nicodemus when he's in a good mood.
    • In Turn Coat, Lara Raith describes herself as an "affable monster." Then she eats her cousin alive. Literally.
  • All Crimes Are Equal: How the Wardens and the Council view Black Magic, regardless of intent or circumstance. Killing someone in self-defense gets the same penalty as summoning Outsiders that can destroy the world. The theory is that black magic is addictive, so any at all can lead to more.
  • Allergic To Love: Completely literal. In the series, you are protected from the attack of a succubus (or incubus) if the last person you were intimate with loved you and was loved by you. If they try, they get horrible blister like burns, even if they are the person you loved.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: Harry can't believe Murphy is one of those girls when she admits to liking Kincaid, a half-demon assassin.
    • Kind of subverted, in that Harry later guesses that Murphy, being twice divorced, mostly just considers Kincaid emotionally "safe," since he is not interested in her romantically at all. Late de-subverted when Murphy reveals that she's falling in love with him anyway.
    • Also Molly's initial attraction to Harry could be seen as this, although he interprets it as a "damsel in distress" complex.
  • Almighty Janitor: Guess what the Archangel Uriel pretends to be.
  • Always A Bigger Fish: After escaping being sold on eBay by Madrigal Raith, Harry corners Madrigal and severely wounds his jann lackey with some help from Thomas and Mouse, Madrigal's lackey is dragged off and devoured by the Big Bad of the book, an elder fetch.
    • Similarly, in Small Favor, Harry is running like hell to get away from Magog and off the island. The giant gorilla-from-hell-Fallen Angel is about to catch him when Eldest Brother Gruff shows up and takes it down without even really trying.
  • Always Chaotic Evil: The Council's opinion on any vampire, although the White Court are at least capable of acting civilized and not sucking the life force from anyone they meet. That doesn't make them any less monstrous, though.
  • And Your Little Dog Too The Skinwalker threatens Harry with this.
Skinwalker: I will come for you. I will kill you. I will kill your blood, your friends, your beasts. I will kill the flowers in your home and the trees in your tiny fields. I will visit such death upon whatever is yours that your very name will be remembered only in curses and tales of terror.
  • Angel Unaware
  • Angst What Angst: Invoked to be debunked in Small Favor.
  • Anti Hero: Harry seems deeply convinced that he's one of these, but he's really a straight-up hero who occasionally gets a bit pragmatic in his methods and causes a great deal of collateral damage.
  • Anti Villain: "Gentleman" Johnny Marcone, the Chicago mob boss is more often help than hindrance to Harry; while his empire of crime is vast and increasing, he maintains order and reduces violence. We ultimately learn from his Start Of Darkness in White Night that the motivation that drives him is to prevent Innocent Bystanders from harm, and he is desperate to heal a young girl in a coma from a bullet meant for him.
    • Not to mention Small Favor, where he refuses to be freed first until the Archive is rescued, and during the subsequent escape, shelters her and makes sure she is the first person on the rescue helicopter.
  • Anyone Can Die: Pretty much. Carmichael, a character who in most other stories would survive the entire series, gets shredded by a super-werewolf in Book 2. In addition, while the main characters seemed pretty much immune to this for a while, this has been violently subverted in Turn Coat and Small Favor with Michael, one of Harry's best friends and a Knight of the Cross, getting shot with a machine gun. While not actually dying, he is horribly crippled and essentially put out of action. And of course there's Morgan's death.
  • Arc Welding: The Black Council is suspected by Harry to be directly or indirectly responsible for just about everything bad that has happened to him since the events of the first book.
    • The only things which we know they aren't directly behind are the events in Death Masks, Molly's abduction, and Harry's trouble with the Leanansidhe and Mab. Even then: the plan in Death Masks was a lot like the Black Plague, and Tessa (probably an ally if not an outright member of the Council) was in on that; the timing of the Arctis Tor raids was awfully convenient; and Harry's indebtedness to Mab (and Mab's apparent descent into madness) is because the Black Council gave Lea the black athame.
  • Artifact Of Doom: The black athame. Even more than that, the Blackened Denarii coins, each of which contains a literal Fallen Angel. They are probably the thirty pieces of silver Judas received for betraying Jesus. Taking up one of the coins gives the demon inside it the ability to communicate with the coin's bearer and bestow immense skill, magical power, knowledge and experience upon their human hosts. Additional perks include (but are not limited to): immortality, a demonic form that varies depending upon the particular fallen, eidetic memory as well as the fact that the Fallen can manipulate nervous system of their host (suppressing pain, casting life-like illusions etc.). Almost all holders of the coins end up becoming evil, insane or both (they might also become permanently possessed by the Fallen within the coin...as long as the possessor is in contact with the coin, as one former human partner of a Fallen explained to Harry in Book 8).
    • There's also the noose around the neck of the leader of the Denarians, which is supposed to be the noose with which Judas Iscariot hanged himself and which makes the Denarian in question virtually invulnerable. Of course, it also is the only thing that can kill the Denarian who wears it.
      • To say nothing of Mordite. Unless you are an Eldritch Abomination, touching it or going near it means instant deader than dead.
  • Ascend To A Higher Plane Of Existence: The plan of the Hags from the cult of Hecate in Welcome to the Jungle and the necromancers in Dead Beat.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: The Wardens are made up of around the top two hundred or so of the most combat-oriented wizards in the world (minus the seven on the council), or at least before Dead Beat. In addition, they are armed with swords that can cut through any enchantment. They are pretty much allowed to do anything they want. It doesn't help that Wardens oftentimes arrest, convict, and execute people on a whim for things less than mere suspicion. Or at least that's the view we get from Harry, who was nearly convicted a dozen times over on mere suspicion by Morgan. Later in the series we meet Wardens like Luccio and Ramirez, who really aren't all that bad.
  • Awesome But Practical: Dealing with a Native American Eldritch Abomination that eats magic and is practically immune to everything you throw at it? Morgan's solution: Nuke Em.
  • Awesome Mc Cool Name: The "actors" in Blood Rites have to pick stage names, and Bobby considers names like "Rocko Stone" or "Rack McGranite". Finally, at Harry's suggestion, he goes with "Gowan Commando."
  • Bad Ass: Harry is a true personification of the Rule Of Cool.
  • Badass Abnormal: The Knights of the Cross.And the Denarians. Especially Nicodemus.
  • Badass Longcoat: Harry wears a duster. A magically reinforced, black leather duster that can repel almost any physical attack. And occasionally gets made fun of because "You look like you belong on the set of El Dorado."
    • In Fool Moon, Dresden laments the lack of his duster when he steps through a wall he just vaporized, because of cool effect it would have had.
  • Badass Normal: Both Johnny Marcone, who is as much a highly skilled armed and unarmed combatant as he is Chicago's undisputed Mob boss, and more than once joins Harry in the field against vampires, demons and werewolves, and Lieutenant Karrin Murphy, a cop who, at "five nothing, one hundred and nothing", can still kick the ass of any non-superpowered person in the novels. Including, as she likes to point out, Harry. Following Small Favor, Murphy may be upgraded to Badass Abnormal if she reconsiders her decision not to become a Knight of the Cross.
    • Marcone's bodyguard Hendricks deserves a mention here for being a walking wall of muscle that can stand against most of the creatures in the series.
    • Averted in the TV show, in which mere mortals including Murphy simply can't cope with the magical truth.
  • Bad Dreams: Harry has them. A lot.
  • Battle In The Center Of The Mind: Harry versus The Nightmare/Leonid Kravos in Grave Peril. Unusual in that the hero gets his butt kicked the first time, being in a drug-induced coma due to vampire spit. In the rematch, however, Harry turns into a fanged and clawed monster and Eats Kravos alive...er...undead!
    • Happens again with Lasciel in Dead Beat, until Harry realizes that this is his head, and he's calling the shots, resulting in a Curb Stomp Battle In The Center Of The Mind.
    • Dead Beat has two of these battles. The other is with Corpsetaker, whose signature abilities result from shattering the White Council's ban on mind-manipulating magic.
  • Beard Of Sorrow
  • The Beautiful People: The White Court. But they are not very nice.
  • Being Good Sucks
  • Big Bad: At least one super-nasty per book. Additionally, it seems likely that most of the events of the series so far have been orchestrated by what Harry calls the "Black Council," particularly the traitor(s) on the White Council. Cowl may count as a mastermind. Or he may simply be a member. All of the Black council are masterminds. hes just the only one we know of.
  • Big Friendly Dog: Harry's dog Mouse, who started out that way as a puppy. He has grown quite huge (waist-high on a man who's six-foot-nine-inches tall), and has proven that he has human-level intelligence. He knows that his size would scare the Muggles, so he plays up the sweet, friendly dog act.
    • Incidentally, Mouse, or more properly Thomas' preparations for the care and feeding of Mouse in Blood Rites, prompted the best final line of a book in the history of the written word: "Thomas, why did you buy Large Breed puppy chow?"
  • Bishonen: Thomas, who is so pretty and handsome that Even The Guys Want Him.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Turn Coat
  • Black Cloak: Harry is less than impressed by Cowl and Kumori's fashion sense.
    "Touche, oh dark master of evil bathrobes."
  • Black And Gray Morality: Lampshaded by Harry when Ebenezar begins forming a clandestine group to oppose the Black Council. He names it the Gray Council.
  • Black Magic: Killing someone using magic, necromancy, and using Mind Control are the main forms we've seen. Addictive, and comes with a death penalty if you get caught. Word Of God states that everytime a Muggle is killed with magic, indirectly or otherwise (as in throwing someone off a building using a magic gust of wind), it breaks the first law and makes the forces of darkness even stronger. That's why Wardens apparently carry their swords around. Everyone Harry has directly killed using magic (except Justin) were all "non-humans", like various vampires and demons. And people like Victor Sells died as a result of their own dealings with magic like getting eaten by a demon.
    • Also summoning an Outsider.
  • Body Surf: Corpsetaker's preferred method of operation in Dead Beat, switching from body to body.
  • Book Dumb: Played with. Harry is clearly pretty well-read and generally seems well-educated, but he never finished high school. Compared to most of the White Council, though, he's not exactly the most educated guy around; in Turn Coat, when he was in a room full of wizards that contained a guy who went back to med school every ten years or so to stay current and others who had so many doctoral degrees their stoles were stretched from the little markers, he considered that he'd like to embroider "GED" on his in red, white, and blue.
  • Break The Cutie: Thomas in Turn Coat. He gets tortured physically, fed a bunch of women and tortured again. By the time Harry sees him again, he's in rotten shape and wants to rape Molly to death.
    • On the other hand, given Thomas' speed and power when in the grip of his Hunger, it's questionable whether Molly would have had time to raise her defense shield if some little part of him wasn't still fighting against the demon.
    • Also Ivy in Small Favor.
  • Brown Note: Harry does not respond well to some of the stuff he sees with his Sight. He just about broke his brain at least twice looking at very powerful, incredibly nasty things. Especially since you never ever forget what you see.
  • The Butler Did It: Well, not quite, but the traitor in the White Council was not the Merlin, Ancient Mai, Listens-To-Wind or even Ebenezar. It was the secretary, clerk and all-around paperpusher — in other words, the perfect guy to subvert, because he has access to all the information, and can just fade into the background.
  • Buy Them Off: Weregilds, which are paid for deaths throughout the supernatural community
  • The Cavalry: Morgan in Storm Front
  • Cast From Hit Points: Death Curse.
  • Camp Gay: Thomas' hairdresser persona as of White Night. He does this mainly because it's socially expected that a hot, well-dressed hairdresser will be gay as Christmas, and because it pulls in money. And because it makes it a lot less likely that his customers will try to molest him.
  • Canis Latinicus: Lots of it, Harry uses it for all his spells. Elaine uses Dog-Babylonian and Egyptian.
    • Morgan uses Ancient Greek.
    • Technically a Justified Trope; according to the books, the closer the words are to actually meaning something, the greater the chance that you'll get your mind fried by raw magic.
      • That's not quite the way I remember it. I can't look it up right now, but I remember the explanation in the second book that magic words are in a language foreign to the user to insulate their mind from the power. They can mean something, but if a wizard uses words from a language they speak fluently, or no language at all, that's when their brains get fried. Note that Harry's Latin is atrocious, which makes things difficult because it's still the lingua franca of the wizard community. If he ever takes a crash course in Latin, presumably he'd have to start using a different, more obscure language for magic words.
  • Can Not Spit It Out: If Harry could just fit his mouth around "I can't tell you, it's a 'Wizard Thing'" 99% of the angst with Murphy could be dispelled.
    • He can be taught! As of Turn Coat he does tell Murphy and the Alphas that he keeps them in the dark to protect them from the dangers his world holds.
    • And he's trying to stop, too. Looks like Character Development in the works.
    • This actually becomes less of a problem in the books after Summer Knight, when Harry finally spills the magic beans to Murphy about the supernatural world. The TV series uses this trope way too often, though.
      • A good case can be made that Harry was right to keep silent in the early books, because Karrin (at least) was not ready to deal with the full truth. Can you imagine the reaction of the Karrin in the first two books if Harry had told her, "Yeah, the Council is executing teenagers, and you can't interfere because the law doesn't apply to them and it's necessary that they do it."? She'd very probably have tried to interfere with the Council...and that would not have ended well for her. She didn't really start to 'get' just how dangerous the supernatural is, and why the mortal authorities sometimes have to avoid antagonizing it, until Carmichael's death and the loup garou rampage.
      • Considering how long the abovementioned progression took in the books, it's not unreasonable that the show would have relied on it for a while as well, but we'll never know if they would have subverted it eventually.
  • Cant Have Sex Ever: Thomas, with Justine only. If he tries, his Allergic To Love nature gives him horrible burns.
  • Catch Phrase: Harry has two: "Hell's bells!" and "Stars and stones!"
    • On a side note Harry in the books rarely drops the F-bomb in dialogue, thus common cursing being more effective.
    • Also, Thomas has, "Empty night."
    • Furthermore, Word Of God has said that those three phrases will also be the titles of the Apocalyptic Trilogy that ends the series. In Butcher's own words, "there's a reason those are curses."
  • Chaotic Good: Semi-subverted. In Small Favor, it's pointed out that although Harry likes to think of himself as the unpredictable element, he's more than a little attached to routines.
  • Character Development: Know that Tolkien quote about wizards? Harry's always had the "quick to anger" thing pretty much covered, but over time he's getting better at the "subtle." And he's learning how to juggle various magical communities.
  • Chaste Hero: Subverted. Harry likes sex just fine. The trouble is that the majority of women who are eager to sleep with him would kill him or enslave him. Plus, he would rather not indulge out of sheer carnal pleasure, but love. As if this were not handicap enough, he's also kind of clueless about women.
    • He's learning, though. In Small Favor, he sees through a Denarian's fake attempt at playing a victim, to the point of telling her point blank that he won't help her set up his friends by doing what she expects.
    • Harry's five-book self-imposed abstinence came to an end at the conclusion of Small Favor, although its uncertain if it will develop into a lasting relationship. The short story "Day Off" has Harry planning a date for the titular day off.
      • In Turn Coat, however, Luccio was revealed to be a puppet of the Black Council used against Dresden, thus pretty much reversing the whole love thing, since Luccio wasn't particularly aware of her doings.
      • From Turn Coat:
      Harry (speaking of Luccio: We got along well. We made each other laugh. And we occasionally had wild-monkey sex to our mutual, intense satisfaction.
      • And then it turned out she was being mind-controlled into wanting to sleep with him, so we're back to square one. However, it's strongly implied that he might have some interest brewing for Murphy, since one doesn't kiss one's platonic female friend on the lips.
    • In one example, one woman who offered to sleep with him was a human who looked no older than fifteen, possessed by a fallen angel that turns her into what looks like a mutant praying mantis. Yes, a praying mantis. Luckily, Harry is Genre Savvy enough (or at least knows enough biology) to turn her down
      Harry: You think I don't know what happens to a praying mantis' mate?
  • Chekhovs Gun: In any book where Harry brews a potion or two for a specific use early in the story, they turn out to be vitally important at the climax — which, needless to say, is not the purpose for which they were originally made.
    • And those aren't the only examples.
  • Chekhovs Gunman: Pretty much everyone at Bianca's party in Grave Peril. But probably most particularly Cowl and Kumori, who appear only as Black Cloaks with an athame, but are almost certainly members of the Black Council.
  • Chekhov MIA: Elaine in Summer Knight.
  • Children Are Innocent
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: We're looking at you, Harry.
  • Church Militant: Michael kicks ass for the Lord, in a very positive, idealistic, non-Knight Templar fashion, and is heavily hinted to be carrying the Arthurian sword Excalibur. The other Knights of the Cross are just as ass-kicking, but heavily subvert the "Church" part: one, a non-native English speaker, accidentally converted to Baptism when he was at an Elvis Presley concert and completely misunderstood the phrase "meet the King," and the other claims to be an agnostic despite receiving his holy sword direct from the hand of an archangel. (He argues that the "angels" and "demons" could be Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, or he could just be hallucinating the entire thing.)
    • Harry is also hired by a Vatican priest for a special secret mission in Death Masks. Of course, it turns out that the real priest had been killed at the airport and replaced by an evil demon.
  • Classical Movie Vampire
  • Coconut Superpowers: The TV series has this. Rather noticeably, especially if you read the books. Except for a few offensive spells, nearly all of the magic Harry is seen doing is revisiting the scene of the crime in several ways (i.e. the mirror trick in The Hair of the Dog), which can easily be done by using normal cameras. Pretty much all supernatural creatures are seen as humans, including the toad demon from Storm Front, who goes from being some sort of amphibian nightmare to a brawny human thug who looks funny, and Bob, who is pretty much only seen in human form, never as the talking skull from the books. The rare occasion a supernatural creature is shown, it is oftentimes poorly animated. Sheesh, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason Harry has a drumstick and a hockey stick instead of a blasting rod and a staff is because there was no budget for props.
    • He does actually wear the bathrobe, and, with the exception of his duster, most of his clothes are on the raggedy side.
  • The Collector Of The Strange: Harry Dresden has a collection of vampire fangs. And not the hinged plastic kind.
    • Not to mention spell/potion ingredients. Captured sunlight in a hanky isn't strange to you?
  • Colony Drop: Committed by Ebenezar McCoy. You do not want to piss off Harry's old mentor.
  • Cold Blooded Torture: Committed by Harry on a pair of ghouls after they kill two sixteen year old wizards in New Mexico. He lights all the fat on one's body on ''fire'', and then throws the other into a sandy crater, turns the sand into glass, and then pours orange juice all over him for the ants to eat him alive. Though after pleading from Carlos, he gives in and shoots the second one in the head.
  • Combat By Champion
  • Combat Pragmatist: Averted with Harry normally, due to his Honor Before Reason; however, he has one as a pseudo-"alternate persona" who occasionally pops up in his head (sometimes alongside Lash), and tries to convince him to do things its way. Played much straighter, however, with Kincaid, who would gladly level the villain's hideout and obliterate them (and their hostages) in one fell swoop, and who spends most of the trip grumbling about it when Harry refuses.
    Ah, yes. The "Bolshevik Muppet Solution".
  • Combat Tentacles: Deirdre's Prehensile Hair
  • Complete Monster: Lord Raith and arguably Nicodemus.
    • Hell, pretty much all the nonhumans, especially the greater fae and vampires. The author certainly won't let you forget that they may look human and act human, but they're definitely not and neither are their motivations. Occasionally, as in the case of Lara Raith, it comes from the monster itself.
  • Cool Car: The Blue Beetle averts the trope. It's not even blue all the way through anymore, due to all the repairs it's had to sustain. It's also the only car Harry can reliably drive without his Walking Techbane causing it to go haywire. It also bears several different types of battle damage, giving it character. Thomas' Hummer on the other hand is so cool Harry refuses to admit it aloud.
    • Played straight in Turn Coat; Lara Raith's Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith leads to a few expressions of pure awe.
    • Also subverted in Dead Beat with Billy and Georgia's giant SUV. Butters is talking about all the cool features of these new cars- and then he turns on the GPS. It has apparently been around Harry too long already.
      "Now entering Helsinki."
  • Cool Pet: Mister and Mouse. Especially Mouse.
    • What about Mister, the cat whose so awesome that when Harry looks upon his true form he sees...exactly how he looks in life. Mister is too dignified to abide by such silly things as the laws of physics.
  • Cosmopolitan Council: The Senior Council.
  • CPR Clean Pretty Reliable: Morgan performs it in Storm Front, and when Harry rouses, it's with no more than an observation that he had been performing it.
    • Slightly justified in the case in Grave Peril. Harry technically was only dead for a split second, so it was more like his heart skipped a beat or two or suffered from something similar to really bad sleep apnea rather than entirely stopped. The fact that Susan performed CPR may be more justified to jittery nerves rather than actual necessity. And he didn't vomit because...well, he had basically vomited up everything he had eaten already. And Harry did go to a hospital about an hour after the whole event. Not to mention the fact that the cause of his circumstances was due to a crazy ghost, rather than anything physical.
  • Crapsack World: The world is filled to the brim with all sorts of nasty preternatural monsters who pick us off like flies on a daily basis whenever they want, there are terrorists powered by fallen angels running around killing people For The Evulz, the world is constantly in danger because of two faerie courts who constantly duke it out (and rape women and steal babies, amongst other things), humankind is too deluded or scared to believe that these things exist, and there are no groups of Friendly Neighborhood Vampires or any non-human species willing to stand up for us with two exceptions. And of those two exceptions, one is a supernatural power unable to get involved in the world except in Xanatos Gambits, and the other is a bunch of corrupt old men and women more interested in bickering with one another and beheading teenagers for reasons that are never adequately explained to them than actually doing anything, and are still the wimpiest members of the supernatural community. Oh, and occasionally these people will get Drunk On The Dark Side, which corrupts you if you use it once, and start Jumping Off The Slippery Slope For The Evulz. And for those who have magical talent, there is no one to teach you how to stay out of trouble, just the people who will kill you if you so much as toe the line. And the world is filled with EldritchAbominations who want to kill us. And lets not even get started on the number of ways you can die or suffer a Fate Worse Than Death (but if we must, lets start with White Court slavery, the Winter Knight's torture (incidentally, he is a rapist), being raped by a troll/grendelkin/powered human/anything with male genitalia, and being drugged into becoming a vampire whore).
    • In fairness, it's not quite that bad. There are at least three supernatural groups protecting humans: in addition to the White Council of wizards, there's also the Order of St. Giles (Friendly Neighborhood Vampires, almost literally) and the Catholic Church (although, after Small Favor, they are down to one single field agent). As for the White Council, it's true that they are more interested in beheading warlocks then protecting humans from non-humans - Luccio attempts to justify this in the last book - but when they do decide to help people they definitely aren't the weakest members of the supernatural community, at least not on a one-on-one basis. Witness how Ebenezar deals with vampires, for example.
  • Crazy Awesome: Almost everything.
  • Creepy Child: The Archive, or "Ivy" as Harry names her. The latest of a hereditary line of women whose daughters inherit perfect knowledge of everything that has been written down, in any form, anywhere...as well as all the accumulated memories of every other previous Archive. What makes her creepy is that all this was forced upon her prematurely; a new Archive usually takes on the position after puberty, but her mother was killed before Ivy was old enough. Somewhat averted in that Harry makes an effort to treat her like the little girl she is, and as a result she flipflops back-and-forth between being the Archive (and thus creepy) and a normal child (decidedly uncreepy).
    • Given the juxtaposition, I would say normal child mode is even kreepier. Kincaid even comments on that.
  • Crossover Cosmology: Big G God exists in Dresdenverse and is fairly active. So do all the demons and angels that come with Him. The Fae are real. There are various demons, loa, and other supposedly mythological spirits and creatures around that Dresden can call up. The Norse gods formed a corporation relating to magical security. Oh, and Harry pretty much says in Proven Guilty that all gods of all pantheons are real, if not very active these days.
    "...there are beings who aren't the Almighty who have power way beyond anything running around on the planet...Old Greek and Roman and Norse deities. Lots and lots of Amerind divinities, and African tribal beings. A few Australian aboriginal gods; others in Polynesia, Southeast Asia. About a zillion Hindu gods. But they've all been dormant for centuries."
    • This is partially addressed in Welcome to the Jungle and Dead Beat. It's possible for mortals to ascend to "godhood" through rituals with rare components and circumstances. It's possible that this is where at least some of the lesser gods came from.
  • Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Heck, just look at the page. But particular mention should go to the Dinosaur Incident. (Yes, it deserves the caps.)
    • Toot taking on the Skinwalker. Sure Harry is always getting props, but Toot deserves special notice.
  • Crowning Moment Of Funny: In Grave Peril, Harry is invited to Bianca's costume party as a representative of the White Council for her ascension. He goes to the party dressed as a vampire. Not the Dresden-verse vampires, though. Think Bela Lugosi with really cheap makeup and polyester clothes. Michael, the Knight of the Cross, goes as a Knight Templar. Even Thomas makes a note of exactly how ridiculous (and in Michael's case, ironic) the costumes are and loves it all. If you can read the related chapters without laughing, you have no soul.
    • When Harry meets the Eldest Gruff in Small Favor.
      "Likest thou jelly within thy doughnut?"
      "Nay, but prithee, with sprinkles 'pon it, and frosting of white."
      • Lampshaded in Turn Coat. When Harry wants to know how Morgan found out about that, he says that the entire Seelie Court has been laughing about it for months.
    • See also the frozen turkey incident in Blood Rites, listed under Crowning Moment Of Awesome. It was so incredibly strange that everyone in the area, including Inari, Lara, and a crowd of attacking Black Court vamps, all stopped fighting to stare at it.
    • Summer Knight: Harry's battlecry: "I don't believe in faeries!!"
    • Turn Coat:
      "Besides, who was the one on the ground getting pounded?"
      "Yes. You're forty pounds heavier than me."
      "Bitch, I know you didn't just say that."
    • "Sufficiently advanced technology, my ass."
    • From the short story "The Warrior", we have Harry's conversation with Uriel at the end.
    "You... you're billing the Lord God Almighty?"
    "Nope. I'm billing you.
  • Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: From "Gentleman" Johnny Marcone, of all people, with the girl who took a bullet for him. He even goes so far as to steal the freaking Shroud of Turin to try to heal her.
    • Another one from Lasciel's shadow in White Night.
      Lash: "I... she doesn't deserve you."
  • Crowning Music Of Awesome: Ride of the Valkyries. Also tells you something about Gard's sense of humor especially considering what the short story "Heorot" reveals about her true nature.
  • Curse
  • Cuteness Proximity: Ivy, the all-knowing Archive in Death Masks, is all business when introducing herself and her purpose for visiting Harry... but goes to full 7-year-old little girl mode when Mister enters the room.
  • Dangerously Genre Savvy: Nicodemus is not only insulted by the idea of telling Harry his plans and vulnerabilities when he has the wizard on the ropes, he also keeps Harry in a completely inescapable position and wants to kill him by simply cutting his throat after breakfast. It takes a Heroic Sacrifice by Shiro to save Harry in Death Masks.
  • Deader Than Dead: The Necromancer Kemmler's backstory in Dead Beat: "They killed him good. A couple of times. He'd come back after they'd killed him early in the nineteenth century, so they were real careful this time".
  • Dead Person Conversation: Harry talks to both of his deceased parents in the series (to his father in Dead Beat and to his mother in Blood Rites), though neither is a ghost.
  • Deal With The Devil: Harry made a deal with a demon he calls "Chauncey", giving up one of his names for information to help him with a case.
    • Notably, this is the last time he makes such a deal in the series having come to realize that Chauncey was far from the benign information-seeker that he'd like Harry to think that he is.
  • Death By Childbirth: Harry's mother, although it is later revealed that this was the result of a curse.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: "I punched it in the nose. Now we're friends." (Turn Coat)
  • Demonic Possession: the Knights of the Blackened Denarius act as hosts for the Fallen (Death Masks, Small Favor).
  • Department Of Redundancy Department:
    Harry: "...you're going to do everything in your power to be the most respectful, loving, respectful, considerate and respectful daughter in the whole wide world." (Proven Guilty)
  • Depraved Bisexual: A lot of the Raiths. They're happy to do whatever gives them sex power.
    • At one point, Lara flirts with both Harry and Luccio in the same scene.
  • Destructive Saviour: Harry's tendency to destroy a lot of buildings has become a Running Gag.
  • Destructo Nookie:
    • Inverted: in Death Masks, Harry has to have sex with his quasi-vampire ex girlfriend Susan, in order to keep her mind off drinking his blood and completing her change into a Red Court vampire.
      • Well, mostly because he's horny and she's, uh, there. He makes a point of it to tie her up real good first, though.
    • Played straight (almost): Bob The Skull congratulates Harry on having Destructo Nookie; but it turns out that Bob is mistaken.
    • Sort of played with, in that it wasn't quite nookie and the destruction was less of a direct result. In White Night, he uses lust to power his magic by getting into a heated kiss with Lara Raith — riding an explosion inside of his shield, smashing through numerous baddies and dropping down through the roof and four stories of a house. The lustful actions didn't directly cause the destruction, they just provided the power to allow them to survive the explosion and make like a cannon ball.
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu: Harry lives for this.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: Harry is a bit surprised in White Knight when he discovers that He Who Walks Behind who Harry had beaten in the backstory is an Outsider, one of his universe's Eldritch Abominations.
    • Or when Harry successfully binds the Erlking in a magic circle. A Being who is at least as powerful as the Faerie Queens!
  • Did Not Do The Research: Normally pretty good, but the early books were pretty bad about Chicago geography (see You Fail Geography Forever). Later on, after actually visiting Chicago, Jim gets better about it.
    • Also, be very careful about introducing the series to anyone who practices real-life Aikido: it tends to be a Berserk Button for them when they find out Murphy the "Tough Cop" won several Aikido tournaments. Apparently, tournaments are supposedly against the spirit of Aikido, which is supposed to be a non-violent art or some such. So Yeah.
  • Dirty Business
  • Disappeared Dad: Harry gets a chance at this in Summer Knight. He declines.
  • Discard And Draw: Harry lost the Hellfire and immense knowledge he gained from Lasciel's shadow in White Night, then picked up Soulfire from Uriel in the very next book, Small Favor, and forged a mystical link with a sentient island in the book after that (Turn Coat).
  • Dis Continuity: TV series? What TV series?
    • The TV series JIM BUTCHER loved? He complained on his own forums that he had no problems with the changes and actually got into arguments with his OWN fans over what constituted the books. It was Fan Dumb at its absolute worst.
  • Disease Bleach: Justine in Blood Rites
  • Distressed Damsel: The subject of what amounts to a Running Gag, with Harry inevitably helping her (even when it's unwise) because he has a chivalrous streak he can't seem to override. He even puts himself back under the Doom of Damocles again to save a girl.
  • Dont You Dare Pity Me
  • Doom Magnet: Harry. He can't even get a day off without mayhem. Except, of course, when Thomas is trying to give him the best birthday present ever. See below.
  • Downer Ending: Turn Coat. While a downer overall, Harry is determined not to let it stay that way.
  • Drunk On The Dark Side: Anyone who uses Black Magic ever with the exception of Ebenezar McCoy, the Blackstaff.
    • Harry's an exception too; he broke one of the laws when he killed Justin. And using literal Hellfire isn't technically forbidden by the laws of magic, but that's one hell of a technicality to hang a defense of it on. And Molly is an exception too. And probably Kumori in Dead Beat, although we don't get to see enough of her to say for sure. Black magic is stated to be addictive and inherently corrupting in the series, so that even if you start out using it inadvertently or for good reasons if you keep on using it you'll get corrupted, but we've seen many people pulled back from the brink or even continually resist that temptation.
  • Dude Wheres My Respect: Harry has managed to defeat multiple black wizards, demons, and vampires, played a pivotal role in the war between the White Council and the Red Court, saved Chicago from a horde of necromancers, prevented a death plague from taking out most of the United States, and saved the entire world from the faerie Courts being thrown out of whack, and the White Council still treats him like Lucifer: The Next Generation.
    • Then again, he's also the only young wizard who managed to avoid being mind-controlled by a Black Council agent among the White Council due to his disaffection from the Council, which naturally paints a big target on his back for both the bad guys and their dupes.
    • This is perhaps justified by in-universe Alternate Character Interpretation. Harry is the son of an enemy of the Council, has used Black Magic before, was trained by another enemy of the Council, started a war between wizards and vampires, severly weakening the former, hangs out with criminals and monsters, picked up an apprentice who has also used Black Magic before, and keeps coming out on top when fighting with extremely old and powerful beings, usually gaining increased knowledge, more allies, or some kind of super powerful artifact in the process. Even the Gatekeeper, who actually seems to like him, can't decide whether Harry's a good guy, or some kind supreme Chess Master playing everyone for his own benefit. It's really no wonder that the Council is paranoid about him.
  • Dying As Yourself
  • Elaborate Underground Base: A natural subversion in the form of the House Raith-owned Deeps, a mass of caves and caverns in and around Chateau Raith; also Undertown, a city below Chicago consisting of old streets and storefronts that sunk into the mud of the swamp upon which Chicago was built, creating a quite elaborate underground habitat.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Outsiders, vast demonic creatures which destroy reality and can only be turned back by the most powerful of wizards... working together. And, in Turn Coat, the skinwalker.
  • Elvish Presley
  • Emotion Eater: The White Court vampires draw their sustenance from lust (House Raith), fear (House Malvora) and despair (House Skavis). And in Proven Guilty, there are phobophages — creatures from the Winter Court of Faerie that feed on fear. And they're perfectly willing to beat some humans to a pulp, kill them or drive them permanently insane to create the fear they need in others.
  • The End Of The World As We Know It (multiple times. Also the subject of much Lampshade Hanging)
    • At the beginning of Blood Rites, after Harry saves the puppies from a monkey demon, then mentions about a previous case in which he prevented The End Of The World As We Know It:
      Harry: "I helped to do it and lived to walk away. But there was an unhappy ending."
      Thomas: "What?"
      Harry: "I didn't get paid. For either case. I make more money from flaming demon monkey crap. That's just wrong."
    • Regarding Summer Knight, where he singly-handedly broke up a huge Xanatos Roulette by one of the Queens of Faerie:
      Harry: "I only saved the world in a Greenpeace kind of way"
  • Enemy Within: Subverted. Harry does have an inner subconscious persona, but he's really harmless, or at worst annoying. Lampshaded in his first appearence.
    Harry: "Wait, I've seen this before. I'm good Harry and you're bad Harry, and you only come out at night.
  • Epileptic Tree: Anyone else wondering why the ghouls kept referring to Harry as "great one", even before he spoke ghoul to some of them?
    • Not particularly. I figured it was the use of Hell Fire.
      • Probably a combination of factors. One is that Harry simply speaks their language, another is that he has flung a lot of very nasty magic and attitude around. As Harry himself has said dozens of times, quite a lot of supernatural creatures have the same social skills as undomesticated predators: act like you aren't afraid of them, and they assume that you have no reason to be afraid of them.
  • Et Tu Brute
  • Even The Dog Is Ashamed: Mouse's remarkable degree of common sense leads to a few instances of this, especially in Turn Coat.
  • Even The Guys Want Him: Thomas Raith, who apparently inspires sexual feelings in... well, everybody.
  • Everyone Calls Him Barkeep: Averted with The Archive. Everybody did just call her "the Archive," until she met Harry. Now she's "Ivy."
  • Everythings Worse With Bears: The first Denarian ever seen in the series is, appropriately, a giant demonic bear...with six limbs, horns, and four eyes.
    • And one of the forms the skinwalker in Turn Coat takes is a Biological Mash Up of a bear, a cougar, and some sort of lizard.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good
  • Evil Detecting Dog: Mouse.
  • Evil Feels Good: Black Magic and vampires.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Lara Raith is pretty much the embodiment of this.
  • Evil Mentor: Justin DuMorne, who tried really really hard to turn young Harry into a Black Magic practitioner. Almost succeeded, too.
  • Evil Sorcerer: Given that it's a supernatural detective story there're a lot of them. Victor Sells, Leonid Kravos, Corpse-Taker, Cowl, and Justin DuMorne just to hit the high points.
  • Extra Strength Masquerade
  • Eye Scream: Mab found what is probably the only way to get Harry to stop making smartass comments in Small Favor. It wasn't pretty.
  • The Fair Folk: Harry has a faerie godmother, only she's the Leanan Sidhe, and there's nothing nice about it. Think "vampire fae who grants poets and artists inspiration in exchange for a vastly shortened lifespan." Also, for a while there she was trying to "protect" Harry from being hurt or killed in the real world by attempting to trap him in Faerie and turn him into a dog. Permanently.
    • Harry also has two Queens of Faerie furious with him at the moment: Titania, one of the Queens of Summer, because he killed her daughter, Aurora, in Summer Knight, and Mab, one of the Queens of Winter, because Harry managed to rain destruction on her capital, Arctis Tor, in Proven Guilty...and used Summer fire to do it.
    • On the other hand, Toot-Toot the fairy and his pixie buddies are quite fond of Harry, to the point of putting together the "Za Lord's Guard".
    • As a result of Summer Knight, he also has a faerie housekeeping service he can never mention (except to the reader) or they'll leave forever.
    • Harry has also earned the friendship of the current Lady of Summer. Unfortunately, this friendship is greatly strained by Titania's ability to compel her and the Summer Knight.
  • Fairy Companion: Toot-toot and "the Za-Lord's Guard".
  • Faking The Dead: Several important characters.
  • Famed In Story
  • Fan Disservice: The scene in Turn Coat where Lara Raith feeds on (read: consumes emotions and soul by having sex with) her cousin Madeline— and Lara, who has been severely injured in battle, is a charred, ravenous, vengeful living corpse. Also appears to eat her cousin's internal organs.
  • Fate Worse Than Death: Happens to the Winter Knight after the events of Summer Knight.
  • Faux Yay
    I was going to kill Thomas.
  • Fearless Fool
  • Femme Fatale: Too many to list. Once again — subject of a lot of lampshade hanging.
    • Lara deserves special mention, though.
  • Fertile Feet
  • First Name Basis
    Everyone else who lets me ride on their dinosaur calls me Carlos
  • First Person Smartass: Harry Dresden, primarily, though Thomas Raith exemplifies this trope in the novella Backup.
  • Fingore: One way Mab shows to Harry that she really has control of him. And then she freezes the wound just for spite. Deirdre of the Knights of the Blackened Denarius also likes to employ this trope in torture.
  • Flat Earth Atheist: Sanya (see Church Militant example above). He's stretched "agnostic" to the breaking point.
  • Flatline Plot: The climax of Grave Peril. Seeing as ghosts are impressions of a person before death, and Harry needs assistance in fighting a particularly nasty ghost, Harry lets himself be attacked, then has his girlfriend revive him so he can team up with his own ghost.
  • Friendly Enemy Harry and Lasciel's shadow, in the end
    • Harry and Marcone. They are civil and have some mutual respect, and Marcone extends great courtesies to Harry when it suits him.
      • While Harry loathes Marcone's business, the two of them spend an awful lot of time rescuing each other and risking their lives to save each other (Death Masks, Dead Beat, White Night and Small Favor). Additionally, Harry knows Marcone's weakness but has refrained from using it to destroy him or his power in the city. Harry has twice contacted or called up Marcone asking for his help battling monsters (Death Masks and White Night). In White Night, Marcone brought not only weapons but a hundred or so hitmen, his personal bodyguard and himself to fight White Court vampires, ghouls and at least one Eldritch Abomination called an Outsider. Most Mafia dons do not deliberately put themselves at risk, especially not for men that they supposedly hate.
      • Harry's Fatal Flaw of being unable to ignore a woman mistreated means he has assisted and/or protected Marcone's female underlings more than once; this has increased Marcone's regard for Harry.
  • Fridge Brilliance: When you realize that the name of the Mon Oc corporation is a kenning (Norse Incredibly Lame Pun) for Odin. "Mon Oc" = "Mono Oculus" = "One Eye" = Odin. Also, the CEO is named Donner, which is the Germanic name for Thor.
  • A Friend In Need: Poor Murph. She got demoted for helping rescue a teenage girl from monsters.
  • Friend On The Force: Lieutenant Karrin Murphy.
  • Friend Or Foe: In Dead Beat, figuring out who is on what side gets quite ugly at the climax.
  • Friendly Neighborhood Vampires: Subverted; although some vampires like to portray themselves this way, especially to human groupies to be used as food sources, most of them are really nasty monsters. Thomas may be an exception to this subversion, but then again he is half human (like all White Court vampires) as well as Harry's half brother.
    • As of Turn Coat, Thomas is now a deconstruction. Whether this will last remains to be seen.
  • Full Contact Magic: A Squishy Wizard, Harry is not.
    • And, for added awesomesauce, we have some of the other wizards' battle magic. Like the time when Morgan stamped his foot and sent a shockwave through the ground that threw zombies everywhere.
    • Butcher plays with this a good deal. In reality only the Wardens have magic that is well-suited to combat applications, and they're in the minority. The rest of wizards world-wide typically are fairly defenseless in a fight.
    • There's even a subversion of Full Contact Magic in Harry's own Nakama later on. Molly, Harry's apprentice, has useful talents but she's poorly suited for combat, overall.
  • Full Frontal Assault: In the first book, a very nasty demon shows up while Harry's in the shower and Susan's in his living room.
  • Functional Magic: While it generally runs on life energy and (by proxy) emotions, a lot of rules govern it, and not just the White Council's laws against using it to kill, either. For example, any faerie can be forced to comply with a promise if they say it three times, a symbol of faith can be used to consistently ward off or hurt certain creatures, anything with iron will hurt or ward off faeries, a loup-garou werewolf can only be killed with something made from inherited silver, et cetera.
    • One reason that Bob is such a valuable resource to Harry is that Bob has an encyclopedic knowledge of the current state of the rules, whether due to vast experience, mystical knowledge, or the ability to compute it all, helping Harry to create highly functional spells and potions.
      • It's from his experience. He used to be a winter court spirit and thus knows very little about things on the summer side.
    • It also helps make the Badass Normals genuinely badass — Lieutenant Karrin Murphy has that all-too-rare character trait of "listens to information and makes appropriate use of it". As soon as Dresden tells her that inherited silver can hurt a Loup-Garou, for instance, she melts down her aunt's silver earrings to turn into bullets. When someone knocks on her door in the middle of the night, she answers with her sidearm in one hand, and a crucifix in the other. The rest of Special Investigations is similarly savvy.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: The short story "Day Off", found in the anthology Blood Lite, introduces the characters of Kirby and Andi, the fact that they're going steady, and the fact that Harry is in a relationship with Warden Captain Luccio. In the book Turn Coat, Kirby dies and Harry and Luccio are told that their relationship was psychically arranged by the same Council traitor who killed LaFortier and Morgan. Consider the difference in tone between the two stories and you've got Mood Whiplash as well.
  • Gatling Good: Hendricks in Small Favor, to the tune of The Ride Of The Valkyries.
  • Genre Savvy: Most anyone mortal has seen the movies and heard the stories necessary to recognize a trope when they see one. For instance, Murphy once referred to hunting Black Court vamps as "living the cliche." Harry also described killing Black Court vamps as "doing the Buffy thing." See the Our Vampires Are Different note below.
    • Thomas also shows up for a vampire-duel in a Buffy shirt.
    • In Dead Beat, he considers whether he is High Noon or early in The Maltese Falcon about whether going outside is safe.
  • Geometric Magic
  • Get It Over With
  • God Save Us From The Queen: the Faerie Queens of Summer (Titania) and Winter (Mab). They are not so much evil as ruthlessly amoral and self-interested.
  • Godwins Law: Used by a minor villain to justify their killing of a young single mother with two kids.
    Harry: For god's sake Trixie, she's got kids.
    Trixie Vixen: So did Hitler.
    Harry: No, he had dogs.
  • Good Is Not Nice: You do not want to mess with Ebenezar McCoy, Charity Carpenter, or, on occasion, Harry.
  • Good Samaritan
  • Good Scars Evil Scars: Harry has taken a whole lot of abuse over the years. Small Favor has a partial list, but he's acquired even more since then. Including one of those "badass" eye scars, thanks to a psycho with a knife in Turn Coat.
  • Good Shepherd
  • Gosh Dang It To Heck: Given a humorous jab in Grave Peril:
    Harry: Holy shit. Hellhounds.
    Michael: Harry, you know I hate it when you swear.
    Harry: You're right, sorry. Holy shit. Heckhounds.
  • Goth: Molly.
  • Green Eyed Monster
  • Groin Attack: In Proven Guilty, Harry makes up for his lack of real skill with a sword by stabbing an ogre "in the danglies." The rest of the ogres wisely back off at the prospect of getting cold iron in their privates.
  • Hanging Judge: The Merlin, accordinng to Harry
  • Hanging Separately
  • Healing Factor: Explained in detail by Butters. Wizard DNA is different from that of normal humans, in that wizards don't heal until their bodies are fixed—they heal until every trace of the wound is gone and the injured body part is back to normal. As in, no scar tissue, no fractures in bones, nothing. This perfect healing (or as close as makes no never mind) also slows down the normal cellular deterioration that causes aging, giving wizards a lifespan measured in centuries rather than decades.
  • Heroic BSOD: After Grave Peril Harry has a total meltdown due to the loss of Susan, to the point where he looks like a crazy hermit and hasn't done detective work in months. In Turn Coat, it was a lot more spectacular; after seeing an Eldritch Abomination Harry crashed his car and was a gibbering wreck for a good hour or so.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Shiro sacrifices himself in Death Masks to save Harry's life. That Shiro was soon going to die of cancer gives it an interesting edge, but considering how horrible his death was...
    • For that matter, in White Night, Lasciel's shadow committed heroic suicide to save Harry by giving him power that allowed him to save himself but also burned out the section of his brain that contained her.
  • Heroic Sociopath: Lara Raith. Also, Kincaid, when he's choosing to be heroic.
    • Lara kind of skirts the line between this and Anti Villain.
  • Hidden Depths
  • Hide Your Lesbians: Inverted. Because Harry and Thomas hang out all the time, and Thomas is so hot that even the guys want him, people immediately leap to the assumption that they are gay rather than them being half-brothers. Harry vehemently denies this, but Thomas plays it up for all its worth because he knows how much it annoys Harry.
  • Honorary Uncle
  • Honor Before Reason: Harry will tell the reader repeatedly that he is not a good and decent man. But any time the opportunity occurs to do the right thing at great personal cost, Harry Dresden steps up without a second thought.
    • He dove to protect one of Michael's children from the Artifact Of Doom.
    • He put his own life on the line to protect another of Michael's children (Proven Guilty).
    • He sacrificed one hand to protect others (Blood Rites).
    • He gave away one of his magical protections to save a girl in trouble.
    • He risked his life to save a child in danger.
    • Receives a rather cruel Lampshade Hanging in Grave Peril, when an enemy of Dresden's mockingly gives him a tombstone inscribed with the epitaph "He died doing the right thing".
  • Hope Spot: Seems to happen at least once per book.
  • Horny Devils: White Court vampires of House Raith.
  • Ho Yay: Harry and Thomas. Even though they're half-brothers. Half-Bro Yay!. Hell, the Ho Yay actually becomes a plot point at times. Also, in more Foe Yay terms, Harry and Marcone.
  • Huge Guy Tiny Girl: Harry is more than six and a half feet tall, while Murphy is five foot even. Guess who is the more physically violent and capable of the pair?
    • There's also Ivy and Kincaid. Ivy is much more dangerous.
  • Human Sacrifice: Used more than once.
  • Hungry Hungry Vampire: happens to Thomas, which leads to him nearly killing his girlfriend and almost raping Molly to death. Only quick thinking and Harry's protection spell kept her safe.
  • Hurting Hero: Harry's life sucks.
  • An Ice Person: Mab, who is very definitely An Ice Person but very definitely not A Nice Person.
  • I Did What I Had To Do
  • I Hate You Vampire Dad: Slightly subverted, as the White Court Vampires don't infect other humans, but are born human and become White Courts in house Raith if they feed prior to finding love, which they are forced to do. All of Lord Raith's children seem to despise him for this and for other reasons, as well.
  • I Have A Family
  • I Know Your True Name: True names (i.e. a person's name pronounced exactly the way they do so themselves) grant a wizard power over the one named; to the point that demons will consider a portion of a person's name from their own lips to be worthy payment for a service. Some dragons are apparently so powerful they only need part of the name, and Harry wonders what he could do with the full one. However, it is pointed out that humans are far more mutable than supernatural beings, so a human's True Name can change over time.
  • Indian Burial Ground
  • In Name Only: The Dresden Files TV show happens to be a TV show about a wizard named Harry, but then again there are other wizards named Harry out there. While the story does revolve around a wizard private investigator in Chicago who works with a police officer named Murphy and someone named Bob, and considered suspicious by a wizard named Morgan, the two series just about have nothing in common after that.
  • Inspector Javert: Morgan, Morgan, and again Morgan. Especially so in the first book, but he generally suspects Harry of working Black Magic and conspiring with demons and vampires at every turn.
    • He later almost settled for Harry being a semi-competent loose cannon.
    • As of Turn Coat, Morgan basically changes from Inspector Javert to Jean Valjean—the innocent man, pursued relentlessly by the other Wardens for a murder he didn't commit. There's also a traitor on the White Council who wants him dead—not to mention whoever the traitor's boss is. Oh, and the Council will kill him to appease a political bloc of wizards who won't believe Morgan's innocent even if all the evidence says he is. By the end of the book, Morgan is still the aggravating zealot he always was—but he's also been shown to be a good and fiercely honorable man who will take insane risks to protect magic, the Laws and the Council...even if none of them seem to deserve it. Not unlike Harry in many ways, really. In another reality, Harry could have called him friend.
  • In The Back
  • Inverse Ninja Law: One Denarian? A nightmare that it takes all three Knights of the Cross to take down. 4 Denarians? Scary, but beatable. 19 Denarians? Unusually tough Mooks.
    • Justified in that those were Tessa's Denarians, rather than Nicodemus'. Tessa prefers Mooks with more brawns over brain. Nick goes for the crafty and clever ones.
      • And also that the 19 denarians were really fought in small groups or one-on-one, rather than all at once. And that Harry called in every ally he'd ever made for the fight, plus a few enemies.
      • Also 1/3 of them just left rather than fighting, and some died because they got between Harry and something else that wanted to kill him.
  • Ironic Echo
  • Irony
  • It Was A Gift
  • Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: In Harry's defense, the guy deserved it so much that even Michael didn't object.
  • Jerkass: The current Merlin, whose hatred towards Harry is such that he sentences Molly to death just to spite Harry.
  • Karma Houdini: Harry worries that he is this in Grave Peril, and that karma will subsequently come and bite him on the ass. However he seems to dispell these thoughts after a pep-talk from Michael. On the other hand, Mavra is a Karma Houdini, full stop. For now at least, since there are quite a few books left.
  • Kick Them While They Are Down
  • Kill It With Fire: Harry's combat choice du jour.
  • Killed To Uphold The Masquerade
  • Kill Me Now Or Forever Stay Your Hand
  • Kiss Me I Am Virtual: Lasciel in Dead Beat.
  • Kiss Of The Vampire: The Red Court vampires have a powerful narcotic in their saliva, that addicts their victims to being bitten. They also spit into beverages to poison and thrall people that way.
  • Knight In Sour Armor: Karrin Murphy.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Enough for a whole store of various lighting fixtures and accessories.
  • Large Ham: Mouse in Turn Coat, hamming up his gunshot wound to more strongly impress upon Molly the severity of what had happened. Harry is amused at his unexpected talent for being a Manipulative Bastard.
  • Laymans Terms: Lampshaded in Summer Knight, when Harry stops to give a massive plant monster a cool name, simply because such a thing needs a cool name.
    Harry: "It's a chlorofiend."
    Murphy: "A what?"
    Harry: "Plant monster."
    Murphy: "Oh."
  • Lawful Stupid / Stupid Good: Averted with the Knights of the Cross, especially Michael.
    • But definitely not with Morgan and much of the White Council. They constantly look at Harry like he's "Lucifer: The Next Generation", and even try to set him up to get killed.
  • Lesbian Vampire: According to Thomas Raith in Backup, most of the White Court vampires of the House of Raith aren't particular about what gender they feed on. Since Raiths feed off of lust, especially lust generated through sex, this essentially means that most of the Raiths are practicing bisexuals.
    • Thomas is a subversion of this trope, since he seems to be robustly heterosexual, and we've never heard of him feeding from a man; his father Lord Raith is also, as Thomas specifically says "His tastes don't swing that way" when Harry asks him if he breaks his sons' wills the same way he breaks his daughters'.
  • Les Yay: All of the female members of the Raith clan are bisexual, but the few male members are all straight. An example of Fanservice or Author Appeal anyone?
  • Lets Get Dangerous: If you ever hear Harry say Fuego, run. Run very, very fast. If you ever hear him say Pyrofuego, bend over, grab your knees, and kiss your ass goodbye.
  • Like Parent Like Spouse: Molly's infatuation with Harry is attributed to this in Proven Guilty.
  • Little Miss Badass: Ivy takes this to levels unequaled by pretty much anyone else, ever. For one thing, she controls the Mordite, a literal piece of antilife, with needle-threading precision.
    • Not to mention, she knows the absolute most efficient and effective way to do anything anyone has ever done. Knowing everything any human has ever known has it's benefits. She casts literally hundreds of spells off an amount of power that wouldn't give Harry one spell.
  • Living Shadow: Nicodemus has one of these that can strangle people.
    • And can fly. What next, does it shoot frickin lazers? And don't forget that we have never actually seen Nick's Denarian form, like we have with every other Denarian who has popped up.
  • Loners Are Freaks: Harry spends the first few books as a "loner", but less so in the later books when he builds up a decent Nakama. It gets worst between Grave Peril and Summer Knight, when he's trying desperately to figure out how to remove vampirism.
    • Later so VERY subverted as Harry was the only one unaffected by the traitor's mind control at the headquarters because he doesn't hang around there.
  • Locked Out Of The Fight
  • Locked Out Of The Loop: Inverted. Charity has the deep dark secret (Proven Guilty). No one else knows but Harry, and that's because he figured it out.
  • Long Lost Relative: Thomas, revealed in Blood Rites.
  • Lovable Coward: Butters, in Dead Beat, as acknowledged by both himself and others. Though he eventually managed to overcome his fear enough to save Harry and aid in the series' definitive Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
  • Love Potion: Played perfectly straight and despite no mind control being an explicit law for wizards, the ethical implications are never mentioned.
    • It is not so much mind control or really love-inducing as it simply lowers someone's inhibitions; Bob refers to it as super-tequila. And Harry's ad does say "No love potions."
  • Luke I Am Your Father: Thomas Raith is Harry's half-brother.
    • And lampshaded by Harry:
      A half-hysterical chuckle slipped out of my mouth. "Wait, I've seen this one before. This is where you say, 'Search your feelings; you know it to be true.'"
  • MacGuffin: Appears a bit throughout the story, but most notably The Word of Kemmler. Harry even lampshades this in one scene by comparing his situation to two similar stories involving MacGuffins.
  • Made Of Explodium: Most of Chicago goes up ten points in flamability level whenever Harry is around. One particular instance is when he tries to ground out a magical charge he built up, and Murphy's car randomly explodes. Later Justified in that Harry screwed up the timer on a bomb somebody planted on Murphy's car, but it was still hilarious.
  • Magical Native American: Listens to Wind a.k.a. Injun Joe, although he is also a normal wizard. He seems to be the only one with a familiar, though.
    • He also is shown to have a unique power not demonstrated by any other wizard to date. This ability to alter his form was used with such skill that it made Injun Joe more than a match for the Skinwalker.
    • While Injun Joe technically fits this trope, the the Skinwalker pointed out that Joe was not a "holy man," and therefore did not have the power to banish the Skinwalker directly. Which is why Injun Joe settled for "kicking [his] ass up between [his] ears"
  • Magic Tool: TV version. Harry uses a drumstick/wand exactly like a sonic screwdriver form Doctor Who.
  • Malicious Slander
  • Mama Bear: Charity Carpenter more than fits this trope, considering that despite having to parent seven kids, she manages to make and mend all her husband's armor and sparring weapons and has functioned as his sparring partner for twenty-odd years. And in Proven Guilty, she storms the gates of Faerie itself to get her daughter back.
  • A Man Is Not A Virgin: The sex lives of some of the guys in the series bring this trope into play straight [no pun intended] or from angles.
    • Harry is the butt of many jokes for the length of the dry spells in his sex life.
    • Harry himself frequently Hangs A Lampshade on his own dry spells, given how many hot and preternaturally hot women he encounters.
      • Particularly given Bob the Skull's obsession with sex and his inability to have it.
      • He can have it, if he's allowed out of the skull to possess people. Harry doesn't let him out because last time, he started an orgy.
      • It is hinted that he can have it, but only when he's possessing someone. In Grave Peril he wanted Harry to let him ride shotgun the next time he had sex with Susan.
    • Thomas is unable to make love to the only person he wants to; as of Turn Coat he's back to being a practicing Incubus, though, thanks to the Shagnasty having tortured and starved him and fed him human women.
    • Carlos, the big talker subverts this in White Knight, as he really is a virgin, despite all his big talk. Harry, needless to say, laughs himself sick.
  • Masquerade: Though most of the supernatural creatures don't really bother to hide themselves, the public refuses to believe they exist.
    • Harry himself pays very little attention to the Masquerade. In one book, when a villain taunts him with the fact that they're in public, and Harry wouldn't do anything to reveal himself, he replies, "I'm in the Yellow Pages. Under 'Wizards'."
      • Also Justified. Harry will often spell out why the vampires, the demons, and the other supernatural creatures at least use a cover. If Normals find out that they exist, the general response for all of them will be Kill It With Fire (read: possible nuclear fire) and they'll be totally outnumbered.
    • Note that the TV series plays this trope straight, leading to many frustrating Cant Spit It Out moments between muggles and Harry.
    • Ironically, Harry says in Small Favor that people generally won't pay any attention to the supernatural world unless there was something like a parade down Main Street. This after Dead Beat, where there really was a parade of zombies down Main Street and throughout Chicago, and no one noticed. Nor did anyone notice the zombie T-rex.
  • Maybe Magic Maybe Mundane
  • Meaningful Funeral: Specifically denied at the end of Turn Coat
  • Meaningful Name: Harry's father was a stage magician. He's named after Harry Houdini, and his middle names are self explanatory.
    • Not to mention that his surname is Dresden — as in "firebombing of." Is there a better surname for a wizard who likes using fire as a weapon?
    • And there's his mom... I mean, seriously, Margaret LeFay? Even given that it's a nickname, there are very clear King Arthur vibes there...
      • Possibly a Justified Trope It is mentioned that the most powerful wizards have several generations of magic usery running through their veins. And magic is usually passed on mother-child. Harry is in the top fifty for wizards in terms of brute magical strength. The fact that his ancestry goes all the way back to the days of King Arthur is not too much of a surprise.
      • On the same note, Morgan as in Morgan Le Fay's first name.
    • Add Nicodemus Archleone to this list.
      Harry: Seriously? Archleone? As in "seeking whom he may devour"? Could you get any more obvious?
    • And Michael Carpenter. Michael, as in the angel, and Carpenter, as in Jesus' job before he became all holy and stuff. And Michael is an actual carpenter to boot.
    • Thomas' sister Inari. Inari was the god of, among other things, foxes/kitsune in Japan. Given the folklore surrounding kitsune, its kind of obvious who Inari was before it was said outright.
  • Mega Neko: Harry's cat, Mister. He's huge. Seriously. Easily thirty pounds and described by Harry as potentially part bobcat. In the comics, he says he feeds Mister sheep.
    Harry : I like dogs, they give Mister something to snack on. '''
  • Mexican Standoff
  • Mind Game Ship: Lara seems to enjoy manipulating Harry a little too much than can be considered strictly professional.
  • Mind Rape: A favorite tactic of vampires of all stripes and a decent number of sorcerers.
  • Minion With An F In Evil: Arturo's second wife in Blood Rites. She was the guiding force for most of the entropy curse, and her modes of death were all straight out of a Looney Tunes cartoon. Not to mention that in trying to eliminate the women around Arturo to try and systematically off his new fiancee, she had the bad taste of targeting the Big Bad's teenage daughter. Then, in an even more incomptent move, she tries to assasinate Harry with a poison blow dart, not only missing him completely but putting him on his guard that he was digging in the right direction. Unfortunately for her, the Big Bad of Death Rites, Lord Raith, appears to be Dangerously Genre Savvy at times, and has her sacrificed for her incompetence.
    • I think this more Minion with an F in General. Said baddie wasn't very bright in general. As for the big bad's action, I think it was another version of Even Evil Has Standards.
      • Not so much — Lucille was the one who tried to kill Harry and Inara, not Trixie, and Lord Raith's anger at her was less Even Evil Has Standards and more about the fact that she nearly robbed him of a potential new slave.
  • Mistaken For Gay: In the later books, Harry and Thomas both mislead with this, though for different reasons.
    • "NBA-sized gay burglar"
    • It doesn't help that Murphy and by extension SI won't let go of the joke.
  • Missing Mom: Harry never knew his mother.
  • The Mole
  • Mood Whiplash: Harry likes to tell jokes to lighten tense scenes. An especially memorable incident took place in Death Rites: Harry was being tortured and refused to take a bribe to end the pain with, "Sorry, I follow the Tao of Peter Parker." He then followed up by saying the nonplussed villain "must be a DC comics fan."
  • Monster Of The Week: subject of Lampshade Hanging.
    • Almost every villain appearing in one of the short stories as opposed to the main books. Includes a Hecatean hag, the spawn of Grendel, a Crazy Survivalist priest, a group of ringwraith and Slytherin house rejects, supernatural fleas, and a maenad.
  • More Hero Than Thou
  • More Than Mind Control: Molly Carpenter, who has developed a VERY bad habit of entering people's minds without their permission. Her intent is always good, but the results are not; so far she's driven her ex-boyfriend and her best friend into permanent insanity by trying to frighten them away from drug use; revealed Mab's spell to conceal Harry's fire magic from him, which led to her father repealing the spell by divine intervention, thus exposing Harry to Titania's assassins who using Harry's fire magic as a tracking device; and invaded the mind of Captain Luccio—and got caught by Morgan. If Morgan had turned them in when he got caught, or had told Luccio what Molly had done, both Molly and Harry would have been beheaded automatically. Oh, and by Dresdenverse rules, invading another's mind and compelling someone to do something (or not do something) against his/her will not only breaks two of the Laws of Magic, but is highly addictive black magic.
  • Mr Exposition: Bob on anything magical. Waldo Butters on anything scientific, up to and including trying to give scientific explanations for some of the weird stuff that happens to and around Wizards... and succeeding.
  • Muggles: Harry's word for them is "Straights". Seems to apply specifically to not simply people who can't use magic but rather those who also have no knowledge of the supernatural at all. (IE, Murphy and Butters, both exposed to the supernatural, would not be called "Straights", but Murphy's superiors outside SI would.)
  • Mayincatec: The cover for Changes.
  • Names To Run Away From Really Fast: The books are filled with them. Queen Mab, Nicodemus Archleone, and "The Hound of Hell" Kincaid are but the most obvious examples.
    • Don't forget Harry's guess name for Nick's fallen angel. I wouldn't want to run into an angel named "Badassiel" myself.
    • Kemmler, the necromancer who evaded the White Council for two centuries, had allies in pretty much every evil magical species and started World War One. Damn.
  • The Nicknamer: Harry, being an out-and-out wiseass, is prone to this. He often names random people when he doesn't know their real names, leading to him referring to them as something like "Eyebrow," "Turtleneck," or "Spinyboy." Perhaps his most epic feat of nicknamery, though, came when he decided that "Knights of the Order of the Blackened Denarius" was too dignified and started calling them "The Nickelheads." Even Michael uses this. In keeping with certain traditions about the power of names for wizards, Harry's nicknaming also has no small amount of significance: For Lash and Ivy, being given a name also gives them their own identity separate from Lashiel's Shadow and The Archive.
    • Don't forget Bob. Bob could be considered the epitome of what Harry's nicknames do to people. Despite claiming to be neutral, Bob seems to be shifting towards the side of good. He also retains and prefers to have the personality he does with Harry, even if someone is forcing him to do his Evil Bob routine.
      • Justified in that Bob says that naming an entity gives them free will.
    • One notable instance in Summer Knight features him deciding that "plant monster" is too stupid a name for what he is fighting, so he calls it a "chlorofiend". No one knows what the hell he's talking about, so he defaults to "plant monster". Another has him failing to remember a Warden's name, and calling him a mash up of possible candidates.
    • Also more than justified with beings like "Shagnasty" (which could be described as a super-phobophage protogod), where not using a goofy or insulting diminutive gives them more power.
  • Night Of The Living Mooks: Which fight like the Terminator...
  • Nightmare Fuel: a handful of instances here and there, but special mention goes out to the description of the Skinwalker when Harry turned his Sight on the thing.
    Try to imagine the stench of rotten meat. Imagine the languid, arrhythmic pulsing of a corpse filled with maggots. Imagine the scent of stale body odor mixed with mildew, the sound of nails screeching across a chalkboard, the taste of rotten milk, and the flavor of spoiled fruit.
    Now imagine that your eyes can experience those things, all at once, in excruciating detail.
    • Made even worse by the fact that Harry will never, ever forget it.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Tons of them across the series. The best thing is that they make sense in context of the plot. Including, but not limited to FBI werewolves, a cult of porn-star sorcerers, ninja ghouls, zombie polka-powered T-rex, and a dog being put on the stand as a reliable witness.
  • Not A Game
  • No Bisexuals: As of the end of White Night, Harry is seen by Thomas' employees and clients as Thomas' boyfriend. In the short story "It's My Birthday Too" Harry meets up with Thomas in his Camp Gay persona along with Thomas' attractive employee Michelle. Thomas berates Harry for leering at Michelle thus invoking the Unfortunate Implications of this trope.
    • The Raith family is almost entirely bisexual, except for Inari (sex with only one person) and Thomas.
    • And Lord Raith
  • No Such Thing As Wizard Jesus: Lampshaded in Dead Beat, when Harry explains the basics of Necromancy and raising the dead to him, Waldo Butters immediately swears, "Jesus". Snarky as ever, Harry immediately quips back, "I kinda doubt they had anything to do with that one." Butters, being near-panic, overreacts and Harry has to explain that it was just a joke.
  • Not A Game
  • Not Now Bernard: Harry brushes off friends and allies trying to give him important information because he is concentrating hard on some task or problem. He has done it once with Bob (in Dead Beat) and once with Susan (in Grave Peril), to his remorse.
  • Not Himself: Various possession plots, and Harry himself is later possessed by a fallen angel and brainwashed by one of the fairy queens.
  • Not So Different
  • Nuke Em: Morgan's preferred method for dealing with skinwalkers. And it. Was. AWESOME.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Thomas in Death Masks, who acts like a drunken, unreliable playboy with no sense or restraint. In reality, he warns Susan and Martin about Ortega's attempt to force Harry into combat by champion and thus saves Harry's life, and even manages to bag a Red Court vampire in the ensuing chaos.
  • Obstructive Bureaucrat
  • Occult Detective: Currently one of the more popular examples.
  • Offhand Backhand: Ivy pulls off one of these in Small Favor, vaporizing a Denarian jumping at her back without even looking at it.
  • Offing The Offspring: Lord Raith, Incubus head of the White Court, kills all his male children when they get old enough to be a threat. The girls, he seduces into sexual slavery. Both of these practices eventually backfire on him, with Harry's help.
  • Older Sidekick: Michael, sometimes. Kincaid also may qualify.
  • Orphans Plot Trinket
  • Omniscient Morality License: The White Council, especially the current Merlin. They claim the right to execute those who break the Laws of Magic, but make no real effort to teach burgeoning practitioners about their powers, about the Laws, or indeed take any steps to prevent magic-users becoming warlocks. Almost always they just kill them after a fifteen-minute kangaroo court, regardless of circumstances or ignorance, because of course anyone who has ever practiced Black Magic is completely irredeemable.
    • The Merlin is the worst; this Jerk Ass would have had Molly Carpenter executed despite the sympathy of every wizard present, her own best intentions, and her having turned herself in, purely because Harry managed to accidentally outmaneuver him politically.
      • Best intention or no, she drove her best friends insane. Even Harry himself admits later on that the Council might have a point: Every warlock he had to help execute was basically too far gone to even count as human, and the recidivism rate is apparently at least in the high 90s. By Turn Coat, Harry pretty much assumes that people like Morgan have just seen the consequences of mercy too often even bother trying any more.
    • Assuming they even bother with having the pretense of a trial. Accused warlocks are often killed resisting arrest by the Wardens.
    • Most young wizards going untrained is attributed to low numbers in the White Council and the war. There simply aren't enough trained wizards for the youngsters getting powers.
  • One Man Army: They call Michael the Fist of God for a reason. In Small Favor, he and Harry are attacked by more than a hundred hobs in the subway station. Michael kills all of them. Singlehandedly.
  • Our Demons Are Different: the Fallen associated with the Knights of the Blackened Denarii are Fallen Angels; Red Court vampires and White Court vampires can also be considered demonic.
    • There are also lesser supernatural creatures called "demons" (hence why the Fallen are called this), but they're usually just mindless grunts like the toad demon in "Storm Front."
      • And the Outsiders, who are sometimes mistaken by people (read: Harry) to be really, really badass demons.
  • Our Dragons Are Different
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: The ghosts tend to be echoes of the person's last moments with an imprint of their personality. One tragic ghost simply repeats the last action she undertook in life before her death. Unfortunately, the last act she took in life was accidentally smothering her baby. And axing her hubby to death. And she was haunting a nursery.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: The series manages to have its cake and eat it too, by simultaneously subverting and playing straight several now classic vampire tropes. There are three types of vampires, divided into modern Anne-Rice inspired vampires who're humans converted into demons (Red Court), succubi and incubi (White Court) who are born that way, and Dracula-inspired vampires (Black Court), with the last one subject of particularly considerable Lampshade Hanging as Dresden notes that "[Bram] Stoker told everyone how to kill them," with only the strongest and cleverest of them remaining after the beginning of the 20th century. There may or may not be even more types of vampire, though, as an Asia-only "Jade Court" (presumably Jiang Shi-inspired Chi vampires) is very vaguely mentioned in Death Masks as well.
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: From the Black Magic of the Hexenwulfen and the all-but-unstoppable cursed loup-garou to the simple transformation of the "true" werewolf and the wolf that takes on human form, Fool Moon pretty much covers the entire range of possibilities. There are even the Lycanthropes, who only change in their own minds, becoming animalistic beserkers every full moon. Only anthropomorphic wolf-men are non-existent, and the contagious bite is notably absent (as per Bob: "Bah, no. Hollywood stole that from the vampires"). In an early scene, Bob lists off all the different types of werewolves, so you know Harry's going to run into every type.
    • There's even a wolfwere. (Were in this context is a corruption of wer, meaning "man".)
      • You mean "wolfwif". Wer means man — masculine, not generic.
    • Technically, an anthropomorphic wolf-man could exist, seeing as the Dresdenverse's werewolves are created by a magically talented human envisioning themselves as a wolf. And because they change into whatever they imagine (Harry's subconscious points this out that because your average joe doesn't know the detailed skeletal anatomy of a wolf, they more or less turn into something that looks sort of like a true wolf). Its not too hard to make the step from changing your whole form into 100% pseudowolf and 50% pseudowolf.
      • To say nothing of wolf demons, which, in all likelihood, exist somewhere in the Nevernever. I mean, mold demons.
  • Papa Wolf
  • Parental Abandonment
  • Parental Incest: There's a reason almost every mention of Daddy Raith on this page is linked to Squick. See also Nicodemus.
  • Parental Substitute: Justin, in Harry's Back Story.
  • Person Of Mass Destruction: Harry alone has a pretty fair-sized collateral damage record. And he doesn't hold much of a candle to people like Nicodemus or Kincaid... or heck, even Ebenezar.
  • Perverse Sexual Lust: Despite having no visual aids (for the books), only a slim minority of the female characters are not smokin' in their own ways. Some males as well; notably Thomas.
  • Playing With Fire: Harry prefers fire magic but will occasionally use wind-based and earth-based spells when the situation calls for it.
    • For a while after the fire magic injured him badly through no fault of his own, Harry defaulted to wind spells.
      • It wasn't fire magic, it was just normal garden-variety flamethrowers.
  • Post Modern Magik: Pretty much built around it. The series' original name was going to be Semiautomagic even.
  • The Power Of Love: White Court vampires cannot abide the touch of True Love. It causes them burns and physical pain.
    • Harry's love for Susan burned one such. And lack of that reaction was a clue to him that Anastasia Luccio doesn't love him.
    • Thomas has a similar problem. He literally can't touch Justine or anything she gives him made with her own hands for the same reason.
  • Power Trio: Harry, Murphy and Thomas develop into this over time.
  • Precision F Strike: As mentioned above, stronger curse words are relatively rare in the books. So when someone drops an F bomb, you know that either someone is very angry, or something is very wrong.
  • Prehensile Hair: Deirdre.
  • Private Detective: Harry, technically, and Vince in Turn Coat.
  • Private Eye Monologue: The books are narrated by Harry in the first person and he is a Private Detective after all, so we get hardboiled inner monologues like this:
    "Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face."
  • Pronoun Trouble: This was the phrase Harry was looking for when he was complaining about what to call Shagnasty.
  • Public Domain Artifact: Several times, and oddly enough, usually Christian-themed objects despite the main character not being technically Christian (he seems to believe in everything involved, just doesn't affiliate himself). The three recurring Knights of the Cross each have a magical evil-fighting sword that supposedly has a nail from the True Cross in the hilt (and one is implied to be Excalibur, as well), for instance, and the Shroud of Turin itself is the MacGuffin in the fifth book. In addition, Nicodemus wears the same noose Judas used to hang himself and the Blackened Denarii are probably the very same 30 pieces of silver that Judas received for betraying Jesus.
  • Puny Earthlings: So many supernaturals are immortal, have powerful magic, can withstand a substantial amount of punishment if not being attacked by their bane (and even then), and many of them can snap a human being in two without trying. Wizards are by no means squishy compared to regular humans, but they might as well be when compared to everything else.
  • Rage Against The Mentor: Harry goes nuts at his former mentor when McCoy reveals that he's the Blackstaff, who can violate all the Laws.
  • Rape As Backstory: One of the changelings in Summer Knight is the end result of when a male troll raped a female mortal.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Lash, and Morgan to a degree
  • Refuge In Audacity: Mostly in-universe, as some of the feats in the books are almost too outrageous to believe, including most of the Crowning Moments Of Awesome throughout the series, ninja ghouls, the zombie tyrannosaur controlled by polka, the frozen turkey incident, etc. Lampshaded in White Night when Harry remarks about the time he was up against a "cult of porn-star sorceresses" (Blood Rites), only to see Molly completely confused by how bizarre that sounded. Even weirder, all of this actually makes sense within the context of the plot, which just makes it more awesome.
  • Remember The New Guy: Michael, sorta. Much of the working together he and Harry are said to have been doing happened between book 2 and book 3, so we the readers never got to see it.
  • Remember When You Blew Up A Sun: People keep bringing up that zombie dinosaur thing from Dead Beat.
    • That is because it was simply so awesome, that it has become not only the hallmark CMOA of the series, but also the standard watermark of awesomeness that a later book would have to achieve to be truly epic among the Dresden Files novels.
  • Rescue Romance: Charity and Michael's Back Story
  • Rivals Team Up: In White Night, book nine, Marcone teams up with Dresden to defeat a gang of ghouls in the House Raith-owned Deeps.
    • White Night isn't the first time. Marcone and Dresden teamed up several times before, most notably in Death Masks.
  • Robe And Wizard Hat: Averted. Harry prefers a Badass Longcoat. He's pictured on the cover with a fedora but the books rarely, if ever, mention him with a hat. Plus, Harry does wear a robe in his Wizarding lab because it's cold. Finally, he also has formal robes he must wear for White Council meetings. But, being Harry, he once showed up for one in a ratty bathrobe anyway.
  • Royal Blood: Two of the three Holy Swords are in the umbrella stand by Harry's door, along with his own sword-cane and sometimes a shotgun. Operating under the assumption that the rightful successors to bear the swords are descended from kings (given that all three of the previous bearers substantiated the claim), Harry now keeps a weather eye out for anyone with royal history and the proper attitude.
  • Rules Lawyer: The Fae and how you usually deal with them. Harry also does a fair bit of it to avoid getting decapitated by Wardens.
  • Rule Of Three: Subverted with the Gruffs, as well as making an arguable use of the Bishonen Line, since no transformation is involved.
  • Sacred Hospitality
  • Sad Clown: Harry
  • Saintly Church: Father Forthill's church, and heck, pretty much all of the religious organizations affiliated with the Catholic Church.
    • Maybe subverted when Nicodemus all but states that the Denarians have infiltrated the Church... the Denarians have managed to exist so long because corrupt church officials keep getting successfully tempted into giving them back their coins.
      • Not clear, since these are individuals within the Church rather than organizations.
      • On the same note, the short story The Warrior essentially revolves around one ex-marine priest getting fed up with a wizard, an evil soul in his opinion, holding two of the three holy swords. So he threatens a crippled man and his family to get Harry to give him the swords, and later kidnaps the crippled man's child and threatens to shoot her.
    • What about the fact that MacFinn's curse, which turned him into an Ax Crazy loup-garou, was put on him by a saint. The source doesn't seem entirely reliable, but still.
      • On his ancestor, not on him. MacFinn was a pretty good guy when he was human but he was descended from a real bastard, methinks. The Loup-Garou curse just had the unfortunate side-effect of being hereditary.
  • Sand In My Eyes
  • Science Is Wrong: Tones down more and more as the series goes on to something more like "Science is missing some important facts." Science comes in kinda handy for Harry in what is probably his most epic Crowning Moment Of Awesome so far, in Dead Beat. Without it, where would he have gotten the dinosaur?
    • Butters kind of helps this along, chalking up Harry's Walking Techbane status to a "Murphyonic Field" surrounding him, and that the immediate physical reason for the wizards' longevity is because their cells divide much better.
    • Harry also takes advantage of certain useful principles of physics, such as transferring heat out of objects with fuego to freeze them.
  • The Scottish Trope
  • Screw Destiny: In Dead Beat, when Corpsetaker and the ghoul attack Harry in an alley, he's quickly rescued... by Johnny Marcone and Ms. Gard. When Gard (a Valkyrie) mentions Harry was fated to die there and their interference had changed his destiny, Marcone's quick response is, "It's fun to spit in Fate's eye once in a while."
    • Harry's interpretation of a similar Gard stare in Small Favor wasn't very effective, though.
      • Actually, if you read The Warrior in Mean Streets: Harry's told by Uriel that if he hadn't acted there, both Michael and Harry would have died.
  • Scully Syndrome
  • Sealed Evil In A Can: TV version. Every other villain.
  • Secret Test Of Character
  • Scaled Up: Inverted by Quintus "Snakeboy" Cassius. His demonic form is, suprise, surprise, a giant naga (snake-man). However, he regains he legs in order to avoid being skewered by a pair of holy swords. Just in time for Harry to break his kneecaps. That's how we do things in Chicago, bitch!.
  • Shape Shifter Showdown: Epically in Turn Coat.
  • Sharing A Body: Harry and Lasciel. Actually, she's sharing his brain.
  • Ship Tease: A Harry/Murphy one in Turn Coat
  • Shut Up Hannibal: Harry to Marcone, mostly.
  • Shout Out: Countless.
    • Dracula (when referencing the Black Court vampires), acknowledged in-universe,
    • Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Harry tells Inari to "make like Buffy" when they're surrounded by Black Court vampire lackeys in Blood Rites)
      • Also, Thomas on the subject of Denarians in Small Favor is a direct quote from Angel: "I already have one demon inside of me. What's one more?" Harry quickly corrects him.
    • Angel (before opening his own P.I. business, Harry worked at "Ragged Angel Investigations".)
    • Firefly (Inari the almost-Succubus)
      • Also, "Thomas is too pretty to die."
      • Also, Thomas' consort Justine is practically an expy of River, complete with insanity, rampant, uncontrolled emotions, and a tendency to devolve into crazed babbling whenever Thomas isn't around.
      • She just lacks Psychic Powers. ... Why are you looking at me like that?
    • Harry Potter (Dresden notes early on that he often gets calls from people who see his ad in the phone book and apparently just have to call just to ask if he's "really a wizard named Harry")
      • Also, this is not to mention Darth Wannabe's group of "wizards", who come complete with Slytherin scarves.
    • Thomas's boat is named the Water Beetle, also a Shout Out to Harry's beloved car, the Blue Beetle.
    • The Blue Beetle itself being a shout out to the comic book character.
    • " I follow the Tao of Peter Parker". When the addressed villain doesn't get it, Harry notes that he "must be a DC Comics fan"). Other Spider-Man references abound, as Harry is an admitted fan in-continuity. Harry himself closely resembles a version of Peter Parker that was bitten by a radioactive wizard instead of a spider.
    • In Summer Knight, Harry investigates the death of one Ronald Reuel for the Winter Queen of the Fae. Ronald Reuel is what the 'R. R.' in J. R. R. Tolkien stands for. Reuel is also described as a "creator of worlds"/fantasy illustrator.
    • During Proven Guilty, the evil creatures mostly take on the role of generic horror movie monsters. One, however, is quite obviously the Xenomorph from Alien. (Harry even intentionally quotes the movie at it during the fight.) Others are Captain Ersatzes of Freddy, Jason, Chucky, and Pumpkinhead.
    • In Proven Guilty, Harry avoids mentioning his little project because having a scale model of the city in his basement "projects a little too much of that evil, Lex Luthor vibe."
    • Murphy and Dresden quote a few lines from Monty Python And The Holy Grail at each other early in White Night, much to Harry's delight and amusement.
    • In Small Favor, Toot-toot does a full-blown parody of Full Metal Jacket: "This is my boxcutter. There are many like it, but this one is mine."
      • The original quote comes from the Rifleman's Creed which apparently was/is a genuine part of US Marine doctrine. Toot-toot is probably more likely to have seen the movie though, particularly since Harry attributes it to the movie when he hears Toot-toot say it.
    • In Small Favor, a serious gut wound is sealed up with superglue, with the victim mentioning that they saw it in a werewolf movie.
    • In Death Masks, when an enemy doesn't reveal his plan after capturing Harry, Harry later notes that the villain "must have read the Evil Overlord List." Later, in Small Favor, when said villain finds his operations compromised by his habit of cutting out the tongues of his followers, Harry sighs that he didn't read that list after all.
    • In Small Favor, Harry (mis)quotes The Princess Bride: "You rush a miracle-worker, you get rotten miracles."
      • Bob quotes The Princess Bride in Grave Peril when he tells Harry to "have fun storming the castle."
    • Even the book covers feature one: the glowing runes on Harry's staff are actually the word "Matrix" written in Japanese katakana and mirror-flipped.
    • After a reference to the Alien movies goes unnoticed by a 2000-year-old demon in Small Favor:
    "That's the problem with you immortal types. You wouldn't get a pop culture reference if it skittered up your neck and implanted an embryo down your esophagus."
    • In Fool Moon Bob purposely has Harry repeat the word werewolf so he can do the "There wolf. There castle." line from Young Frankenstein. He's then annoyed when Harry doesn't get it.
    • Obviously, Lord Of The Rings references abound, but Harry refusing Lasciel's offer of power by quoting Gandalf's refusal of the One Ring stood out as pretty awesome in this troper's opinion.
    • Not to mention Harry's description of the potential results of the Darkhallow; they'd get "Phenomenal cosmic powers and all the living space they can grab."
    • Monty Python and the Holy Grail is mentioned in one book. Run Away!
    • Harry's famous battle cry in Summer Knight, "I don't believe in faeries!" is a shoutout to Peter Pan. Really funny because the source material says that everytime someone says that, a fairy drops dead somewhere. Perfect war-cry.
    • This Troper wonders if the title of the Blackstaff is a Shout Out to a certain Khelben Arunsun.
    • Lampshaded at the end of Summer Knight when a character remarks that he can't believe they just had an entire faerie adventure and no one had referenced Shakespeare. A mistake that was quickly corrected.
    • And honestly, these are just the few that stand out. Harry rattles off one such reference every couple of chapters or so, most of the time.
  • Shrouded In Myth
  • Significant Anagram: Not spelled quite in the same way, but Sheila is Lasciel.
  • Smug Snake: Every White Court vampire whose last name isn't Raith and whose first name isn't Thomas or Lara. Also: Grevane and Corpsetaker. And some of the Denarians, especially Cassius.
  • Snowball Fight
  • Somewhere A Paleontologist Is Crying: Several of the books manage to get many facts regarding paleontology wrong, including stating that dinosaurs did not care for their young (which has been disproven by Oviraptor and Maiasaura, amongst others), Harry comparing his primal urge to protect women to "his inner Gigantopithecus" when the former was more "super-orangutan" than caveman, and having Sue stand in the out-dated, erect gaited stance in Dead Beat. Though to be fair, one could also interpret Harry as having put the saddle on Sue's neck, which would have been in "a rearing horse position", but what makes matters worse is that they reference Jurassic Park quite a few times throughout the dino-rampage. You know, the movie that spread the idea that theropods had a horizontal body posture to the public.
    • Actually, once she starts running, she does so using the correct posture; Harry mentions that it became easier to ride her after this.
  • Soul Jar: each of the titular thirty pieces of silver associated with the Knights of the Blackened Denarius (Death Masks, White Knight, Small Favor)
  • Sophisticated As Hell: "And again I say unto thee: Bite me."
  • So Proud Of You
  • Speak Of The Devil: Do not mention the skinwalker in Turn Coat. It'll just make it more powerful. Harry compensates by renaming it "Shagnasty."
  • Spirit Advisor: Lasciel; unusually, this time the adviser is evil.
    • Bob has been Dresden's primary Spirit Advisor on supernatural matters, more so then the above examples.
      • Both Bobs have — both the air elemental Bob from the books and the eternally bound necromancer from the TV series, Hrothbert of Bainbridge.
  • Squick: Nicodemus' lover is Deidre...his daughter. Her mom, Tessa, is Really Seven Hundred Years Old, but looks in her teens.
    • Deirdre gives her dad kisses...with tongue. Eww.
    • And Lord Raith ensures his daughters' complete loyalty by raping them into submission.
  • Squishy Wizard: Both averted and played straight for Dresdenverse wizards, surprisingly.
    • More specifically, they're way squishier than most of the nonhuman types, not to mention Badass Abnormals like Michael. But the fact remains that Harry's probably taken more abuse than most professional athletes and a lot of military personnel.
  • Star Crossed Lovers: Harry and Susan. Also Thomas and Justine.
  • Stop Or I Will Shoot: Police don't seem to think twice about shooting at Harry, even when he's just running and giving no sign of fighting back.
  • Stout Strength
  • The Straight Will And Grace: Harry and Murphy, in their own words, love each other too much to engage in the kind of relatively shallow sexual relationships they like having with others.
    • Or rather, Dresden can't do casual, and Murphy can only do casual.
      • Not to mention that in Proven Guilty, Murphy gave half a chapter's worth of reasons about why she did not want to get romantically involved with Harry Dresden.
      • And yet despite this, Turn Coat has them kissing on the lips.
      • Consider the context. Harry was going to the island where everyone who wanted to kill him would be present, and both he and Murphy were aware of the odds against his survival. The kiss wasn't romantic—it was a goodbye.
  • Summon Magic: Typically only used by villains.
  • Sunnydale Syndrome: The people of Chicago don't notice when a massive werewolf from hell gets blasted through two buildings, a giant evil scarecrow monster charges down the middle of the street, undead armies rampage across the city (Dead Beat), armies of dark fairies and a huge gruff attack a train station (Small Favor), or- well, you get the idea.
    • This may be due to the fact that the people who were there to see these things are so traumatized they can't be sure of their own memories, and for those who aren't there most supernatural things tend to dissolve into quick-evaporating goo when they die leaving very little evidence. The one major time where there would have been a lot of physical evidence left over was Dead Beat with all the corpses, and the Wardens were on site to clean that one up. That and it's Chicago, there's a lot of "normal" things to blame random destruction on before jumping to the weirdness.
    • Harry spends a couple of pages of narration in Small Favor justifying this. The people do notice it in action — but they try and deny what they see, justify it as something understandable, or their observations are dismissed as hysteria or confusion. it doesn't help that a lot of the evidence of such things is usually covered up, and the officers of SI spend a lot of time essentially making things up so that the weirdness fits within what is considered "acceptable" to their superiors and the public.
  • Supernatural Soap Opera
  • Talking In Your Dreams
  • Take That: A more subtle one against Chucky with the quote:
    • "That was Bucky the Murder Doll."
    • "Kind of a wimp."
    • "Must have been the runt of the litter."
    • "Personally. I never understood how anyone could have found that thing frightening to begin with."
  • Tell Me About My Father: Harry never has to ask his father about his mother; he notes that his father had told him so much about her that he felt as if he had known her, so he never felt the need.
  • They Call Me Mister Tibbs
  • Thicker Than Water
  • Think Nothing Of It
  • This Is A Sentence Bitch: Blood Rites: "Get on the bike, bitch."
  • Time Abyss: Word Of God has it that Demonreach pre-dates the ice age.
  • The Three Faces Of Adam: Harry (Lord, especially in the recent books); Thomas (Hunter), and Ebenezar (Prophet)
  • To Absent Friends: End of Turn Coat, since they aren't allowed a Meaningful Funeral.
  • Too Cool To Live: Shiro
  • Touched By Vorlons: Harry gains Soulfire thanks to the Archangel Uriel in Small Favor.
  • Trenchcoat Brigade: Harry's black leather duster and occult focus confirm him to be a card-carrying member. And he revels in it.
  • Trope Overdosed: Understandable after 11 books, a TV series, an ongoing comic book series, and an RPG in closed beta. Owes absolutely nothing to Entry Pimping. *whistles innocently*
  • Truce Zone: Mac's Pub
    • Subverted in a recent short story, in which Mac's pub is torn up by a maenad looking to steal his beer. She does it by starting an orgy.
  • Turn In Your Badge: Murphy is head of Special Investigations, a department of the Chicago PD which deals with the weird stuff. Her success at the job (hiring a professional wizard as a consultant helped) gives her a certain amount of immunity to this, but in Proven Guilty, she really blows it... and ends up demoted.
  • Unstoppable Rage: In Grave Peril, when confronted by a horde of vampires, Harry unleashes Pyrofuego, to their thorough dismay.
    • And in Small Favor, where Harry unleashes Pyrofuego again in a beam of destruction that blasts straight through one of the Denarian's hearts, and even apparently negating their Healing Factor.
    • A little before this, the Denarians attempt to turn Harry's Unstoppable Rage against him by showing him the tortured body of Ivy, which they knew would push him to an unthinking fury and break his promise, which in turn would unmake the Sword he had promised in exchange for her. Fortunately, Harry figures out the plan just before his rage gets the better of him.
  • Unusual Euphemism: Harry wonders if cuss words in angelic language are just nice words said backwards..."doog! Teews doog!"
  • The Vamp: Lara Raith.
  • Vegetarian Vampire: c.f. Thomas using hairdressing to sate himself until the events of Turn Coat.
    • Would the events of Backup also count as Thomas breaking this trope?
      • Probably not, since the creature in Backup wasn't human.
  • Virgin Power: The White Court find virgins a particular delicacy, so to speak.
  • Wait Here: If Harry hasn't said this or "If I Dont Come Back," then you haven't finished the book yet.
  • Walking Techbane: Wizards, especially Harry, who has to put up with an icebox cooled by real ice, no working furnace in a basement apartment in Chicago (he has a fireplace instead), no hot water and a car from the 50s, and can't get near an active computer without frying the motherboard. If he actively tries, he can hex a camera at 100 yards. On a bad day.
  • Weather Dissonance
  • Wedding Day: Subverted in the short stories Butcher wrote for My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding and My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon. The brides were not Runaway Brides; they were abducted by supernatural but still formidable Little Bads.
  • We Help The Helpless
  • Well Done Son Guy: Ebenezar McCoy, who was the third and most significant of Harry's father figures (including his own father). He's also the only one still around.
  • Well Intentioned Extremist: Morgan and Aurora, although the latter is also Ax Crazy. Morgan is eventually revealed to be a bit less extreme when he's off the job.
    • Cowl could be considered one as well, trying to absorb the power of the Darkhallow so neither of the other, more insane necromancers become minor gods. He thinks that someone is going to end up with the power of the Darkhallow, and better him than either Corpsetaker (just plain sadistic and crazy) or Grevane (same there). However, his likely Black Council membership card may push him more towards the "evil" end of the spectrum, depending on the way things go.
  • The Wild Hunt: One of many, many profoundly awesome things in Dead Beat.
  • Wizards Live Longer: Waldo Butters actually reveals the immediate physical reason for this. Compared to normal humans, wizards have vastly superior cellular repair and healing: broken bones heal without a trace, scars face, and even Harry's toasted-to-the-bone hand has healed completely. They DO age, but their bodies last a few centuries and we haven't heard of any wizards dying of cancer or such diseases.
  • What Measure Is A Non Human: If you go by the book's definition, anyone who is less than half human. Almost every sentient character that is less than half human is evil, or at least no friend to Harry. Susan? Bitten by vamps, still somewhat human (though Changes may indeed change this). Thomas? Half human, as are all members of the White Court. Lily and Fix? The former is specifically stated to be the first mortal to becomd a fairie queen, and the latter has mortal written in the job description. The sole exceptions to this are Bob and Toot-Toot, but these may as well be the exception that proves the rule.
    • There's also Kincaid. So far he's been on Harry's side, but he used to work for Vlad Drakul, and he's called "The Hound of Hell" for a reason. But he seems kind of attached to Ivy, and he and Murphy have a Beast And Beauty thing going.
      • Yes, but Kincaid is a scion of a human and most likely a hellhound. That makes him at least half human. And if we look at the events of Grave Peril, hellhounds are transmogrified humans. So that would make him... all human? But if a character is non-human, ninety-nine percent of the time they will turn out to be evil, or at least a JerkAss. Of course, there are a lot of evil mortals in the series, ranging from Victor Sells to most recently, Peabody.
      • I'm not so completely convinced that Kincaid's non-human half is a hellhound... or if it is, that it's the same kind of hellhounds we saw with Lea. I figured the name "The Hellhound" for Kincaid was more of a moniker for his temperament and style while serving Drakul, or a hint at a more fiendish lineage. Maybe Hellhounds in the more traditional sense, rather than Lea's knockoffs. And now we're into Epileptic Trees.
    • On the other hand, there are angels mentioned who help the Knights of the Cross (specifically warding Michael's house).
  • Woman In White
  • The Woobie: Both Harry and Thomas. The universe clearly hates their family.
    • Also, Ivy becomes one in Small Favor.
  • World Of Badass
  • World Of Cardboard Speech: Harry's rant to Mavra at the end of Dead Beat.
  • World War One: It was Kemmler's fault, apparently.
  • Wouldnt Hit A Girl: Harry is chivalrous to the point of it interfering with his ability to defend himself from female attackers. He knows it's a weakness and a stupid one in a world where female vampires and werewolves and fae can all kill him with trivial effort, but he can't stop himself. If pushed really hard, he can make himself attack a woman, but it takes a ton of pressure to get him to that point.
  • Xanatos Gambit: Multiple times, most commonly in relation to the White Court vampires who are pretty much an entire race of Chessmasters. Examples include:
    • The plot of Grave Peril, and even events leading up to the book, is a huge Gambit by Bianca, Mavra and the Leanansidhe for numerous reasons depending on the person involved — to gain an advantage on Harry and/or teach him a lesson, to kill him, to destroy an exceedingly rare Holy Sword and give the Red Court of vampires a chance to launch its long-planned war against the White Council of Wizards. Half of it succeeds, but it backfires pretty majorly on Bianca.
    • The entire plot of Summer Knight are part of a Xanatos Gambit by Summer Lady Aurora that hinges upon Harry obtaining a piece of Phlebotinum for the villains in the course of his investigation. It nearly worked, too.
    • Blood Rites' events are orchestrated by Lord Raith in a needlessly convoluted plot to take out Harry and Thomas and rid himself of the curse Harry's mother gave him. Justified in that the White Court's very nature requires them to solve any conflicts with Gambits if at all possible. Harry also uses Lara Raith in a successful Gambit to bring the villain down.
    • White Night features two overlapping Gambits: House Malvora and Madrigal Raith want Harry to take out their rival Skavis for them so they can reap the fruits of his work (fails utterly), and it is later revealed that the entire thing was orchestrated by Lara Raith to make her rivals strike prematurely and be stomped down by Harry, while simultaneously weakening future generations of the White Council (succeeds perfectly).
    • The novella Backup involves an attempted Xanatos Gambit by the villain. Harry falls for it hook, line, and sinker thanks to his Chronic Hero Syndrome, but Thomas (acting as the titular backup) manages to prevent the plan from succeeding via a Xanatos Gambit of his own.
    • It is becoming increasingly apparent that the entire series was the result of a Xanatos Gambit by Harry's mother, or possibly someone using her.
    • In Turn Coat. Dresden gets one of these by inviting three renegade factions to the same location to play them off against each other. He later reveals that this was all a setup to get surveillance photos of the real traitor when they find out about the fray.
  • Xanatos Speed Chess: The Denarians play a mean game. Harry and Michael note on several occasions that the Denarians seem to plan things out so that no matter what happens they can still come away with some advantage. Fortunately, in Small Favor Harry proves that he is also becoming quite an adept player of Xanatos Speed Chess and manages to play the Denarians to a draw at the end of the book.
    • The Denarians managed to walk away from that encounter with several of their coins. While Harry prevented them from accomplishing their main goal, they're as strong as ever and have put a mortal man and a twelve-year-old girl through a week of humiliation and torture.
      • Not to mention the part where they crippled Michael, reducing the number of active Knights of the Cross to exactly one. Harry played a good game, but the best he managed was a draw.
      • Interestingly, the actual winner isn't Nicodemus, the arguable head of the Order, but rather Tessa who's betrayed him and walked away with the coins after playing him rather badly. For that matter it's implied Thorned Namishel may have put one over on her too.
    • Harry managed to pull off a much better game in Turn Coat.
  • You Are Not Alone
  • You Called Me X It Must Be Serious: In Turn Coat, Harry calls Captain Luccio "Stacy", a diminutive of "Anastasia" he knows she hates, just to make sure it's not an impostor.
    • Also, in Blood Rites, Murphy tells Dresden's mentor, Ebenezar, to get out of the driver's seat so she can take the wheel and get them to their destination before people die. She is not polite as she says this. Harry sighs, and asks Ebenezar to take her lead, slipping in the word "sir." Murphy drops her jaw, and everything she's holding at the time, and calls Harry out on this. After a second, Murphy asks Ebenezar again. This time, she is very polite when asking.
  • You Fail Geography Forever: Chicago in some of the early books.
  • You Have Failed Me: Every odd numbered lackey.
  • Your Vampires Suck: Not just vampires; Bob has opinions on werewolf stories.
  • Zombie Apocalypse: See the book Dead Beat. Chicago is about to be overrun with zombies and a necromantic "dark god" who, ironically, intends to abolish death.
    • Multiple would-be gods, not all of whom are quite so 'well intentioned.'
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