The Dresden Files

I really dislike the We ARE Struggling Together trope when it's used for cheap drama (ie, to handicap the protagonists). It's possible to use it well when the various factions involved have legitimate differences and the threat they're facing is relatively minor compared to that, but when you're facing an existential crisis (like the Council is), then getting pissy about someone because you're unwilling to remove the stick from your ass is a plot point I always find more frustrating than engaging.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I mean, they have legitimate reasons to be leery of Dresden and then some. He hasn't exactly done a lot to quell suspicion, and that was before he sold his soul.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

See here for the question/answer I'm referring to.

In one of the later questions he mentions that the Council's probably afraid he'll be the next Kemmler.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

Transcripts are every reader's best friend.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Yeah, if somebody finds any transcript for that interview I will be very grateful.

So, normally I don't do this but

Silver Fox Nicodemus?

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They have good reason to keep an eye on him, certainly, but the Council has always been suspicious of him because of his backstory. There's a fine line between "this guy's behavior is worrying, we need to watch him closely" and "I don't like that guy, fuck his noise", but the Council has always been firmly of the latter opinion, even when they were relying on him to save their collective asses.

Of course, with the Black Council shenanigans, Harry has just as much reason to be suspicious of them, too.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I think that fundamentally, the nature of Black Magic means that their personal dislike of Harry and their professional reasons to distrust him have significant overlap. It makes it believably difficult for them to separate that out. When push comes to shove, they can (and do) set that aside, but during non-crisis situations, I understand them wanting to keep him at arms length.

It sounds like (1) the Council is correct that one you've used black magic, it's very easy to slip back and (2) there are plenty of good reasons to be careful around the Winter Knight, whoever that may be. They probably are treating Harry about the same as they would treat any other hella powerful wizard who took the Winter Knight mantle, for what that's worth. Mab is an ally, but she's Mab, and the Winter Knight is a lot worse than that.

And hell, both Molly and Harry did incur in their law-breaking again.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

There is one scene in a side story where Murphy makes it very clear that to mundanes who don't have Harry's handy first person narration, he can go from slightly odd to absolutely terrifying and everywhere in between with no actual explanation. Dresden himself in one story lists all the crazy things he's done and realises that actually the Council really is legitimately terrified of what he might do - and this was before he sold his soul to a Queen of Faerie who isn't known for picking candidates based on their resolute moral fortitude. His apprentice is/was a Warlock, and now a Fae Lady in her own right. He's allied himself with a mortal crime lord who is also a Baron of the Accords. His record and his power would scare the shit out of anyone who didn't have the context we do.

Obviously the readers know there's more to it, but in universe the Council are probably right to be scared of what he could do if he really did jump off the deep end.

"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex world of jet-powered apes and time travel."

On the gods discussion a little while back, there's obviously a lot of going up and down and being mindful which mantle you're wearing. AS the Queen of Air and Darkness, Mab is top dog. As a member of the Greek Pantheon, Mab, Mother Winter and Maeve/Molly (I sense a naming theme...) are 'only' Hekate, traditionally only middling in the ladder (lower than Hestia, higher than Phoebe and Hercules), despite Mother Winter and Mother Summer being (hinted) to be the divided forms of Fate, who is a LOT higher than anyone else in the Greek pantheon because she screws over everyone equally.

It sounds being on the boards (and in several positions on the same board) of SEVERAL different corporations that occasionally clash, with different levels of seniority in each post. Given this, it might explain why gods kept appearing to mortals in olden times. They were always pretty sure about their relative position to a mortal no mater what mantle they were wearing.

The second bit you mention is helpfully transcribed in the awesome moments section.

I love both those bits, and also the corresponding bit in Thomas's POV story. (Also helpfully available on thw wiki.) All three perspectives are very different from each other, and also from Harry's view of himself as this kind of everyman schmuck with his dry spells and mismatched car who keeps his apartment mainly because his landlady's got a soft spot for him. And while Harry's perspective is the one we're immersed in for a couple dozen books, and he's not exactly an unreliable narrator, his view of himself isn't really any less slanted than the others are. He just puts more emphasis on the day-to-day struggle to get by, in large part because Thomas and Murphy and Warden Bjorn aren't there to see him feeling blue-balled in his heatingless apartment.

Also, fun fact about Harry's Faustian leanings. The RPG corebook has a whole section about all the ways Harry could have become a villain or anti-hero in the books that had then been published. It concludes that becoming the Winter Knight is the second most likely way for him to turn black - or at least dark grey - hat.

I wish we get another Thomas POV book, along with the relevant "My little brother is a crazy person!" moment.

If you think about it, Thomas associating with Harry is more dangerous for him than acting vanilla White Court or at least being the nigh-useless Raith who barely muddles along and whom no one kills because it's just not worth it (in itself likely a rare ecological niche in the family). Thomas, given his being functionally the sidekick for about 1/3 of the books (where has time gone?) is likely very aware of this (pre-Harry, he dealt with lackluster murder attempts from dad and slowly increasing Uriah gambits. Post-Harry, he's had to deal with the Wild Hunt, Zombie armies, denarians, Winter fear-eating assassins, and crisis-level inter-government politics... on a beauty-salon vegetarian diet). Lara, with better spies and (if she were smart, which she is) an eye on what trouble Dresden is getting into, should be reasonably aware. So she must also be looking at Thomas in a "My brother is a crazy person" kind of way for insisting on sticking with Harry through all that crap. It took skinwalker to get him back for maybe a year, then one phonecall was all it took to get Thomas back on Harry's side.

If I wasn't reasonably sure Lara is one of the few White Courts in the setting that has a clear understanding and appreciation of how love and familial affection works, then she, like the rest of the court, must be wondering what the heck Harry has on Thomas, speculation that might be inflating his reputation with them.

Additional thought: While they haven't met in a while since his 'rebirth', I think the focus of Lara's come ons to Harry have changed as of Turn Coat. Used to be, she was hitting on him to try and ensnare him as a useful tool. Afterwards though, when she heard he just went one-on-one with the skinwalker (the very one who attacked her with impunity) and lived, her 'seduction' is no longer purely about ensnaring him (which she must have reasonably decided has about as much chance of happening as getting Angra Mainyu on the FGO gacha five times in a row but what the hell, it might eventually work). It's also about lulling him into a familiar repetitive cycle to keep him from attacking her. Kinda like the White Court version of offering someone a refreshmentwhen they come into your house. It's a social nicety that's meant to reinforce non-violent behavior in Harry, one that actually works because of his chivalry thing.

Thomas was; they lived together for a year, remember?

Heart of Stone

Lara's useful to him, and she keeps the rest of the House in line. As long as she doesn't actively turn on Harry, it's doubtful he'll ever try to kill her unless he's decided to go Open Season on all Whitecourt vamps.

At that point, who knows what would happen. If he knocked her off first she wouldn't be there to keep the others from doing more harm to humanity. On the other hand, if he didn't, she'd probably show her people the best ways to tweak Harry's buttons and bring the human race to its knees.

Lara seems to be the vampire equivalent of Marcone: bad news, and a bad person, but with a code and motives that are lot more sympathetic and useful than the alternatives would be. They try and manipulate Dresden but he knows them well enough to recognise when they are doing it and has as reasonable a grasp on their character and thought processes to return the favour on occasion.

There were a few occasions when Harry did actually wonder whether Lara was running a very long con on him and could end up potentially even worse news than her dear old dad but that's mostly been sidelined in favour of Faerie shenanigans recently.

"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex world of jet-powered apes and time travel."

Lara is basically a villain playing an anti-villain. She's sympathetic enough in her own right to make it work, but much like Marcone, her primary success has come from making sure that whatever genuinely heinous stuff she does, she does somewhere Dresden doesn't get keyed on to it, and helping him when the need arises. Thus, she's always priority #2 or lower, and avoids getting Fuego'd.

edited 30th Aug '16 8:20:33 AM by kingtiger522

Are we aware of Marcone doing anything especially heinous, by Dresdenverse standards? Lara is the head of a clan of rape vampires; she puts the "evil" in Affably Evil. I can't recall any moment in the books that puts Marcone on remotely the same level.

edited 30th Aug '16 4:00:14 PM by Galadriel

The usual mafia fare (racketeering, drug sale, prostitution, etc) may not be heinous by Nicodemus standards but thats pretty much Damned by Faint Praise ?

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They're wrong, yes, but society's moving towards legalizing drugs and prostitution (my country's a couple years from it at most, at least for the softer stuff like pot). There are legal items sold that do as much or more harm as some illegal drugs (tobacco, guns). I consider prostitution morally wrong, but Harry's not exactly a conservative on sexual matters, and from all we've seen, Marcone ensures good working conditions for the prostitutes he employs, and they're willing employees. To my mind, his treatment of his employyes (aside from the ones who fall into the 'morally heinous' category and get executed) puts him morally ahead of a lot of major corporations.

And he's shown himself willing to risk his life for others even when it doesn't directly benefit him, so that counts for quite a bit.

He's a bad person, but he's not even close to as bad as any of the Dresdenverse's other bad guys, even the 'affable! ones like Lara. He's certainly a better person than the lady Harry's currently working for - so, glass houses, stones.

Harry's objections to Marcone always feel like they come more from the Lawful side than the Good side, which is ironic, since Harry's pretty Chaotic himself.

edited 30th Aug '16 4:17:30 PM by Galadriel

Harry has stated a lot of times Marcone would be an awesome guy if it weren't for the, you now, gaining his fortune from human suffering aspect of it. Actually, he comes off as an American version of a cinema Yakuza. Or possibly a comedy manga Yakuza, like the ones from Manga/{Nisekoi}.

He's pretty much a textbook example of The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything from what we see of him from Dresden's POV. I'd be down for showing him doing crime boss things so as to lessen all the Draco in Leather Pants. Crime bosses are not good people.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Unless it's in a highschool love comedy manga, in which case they're big softies who call the protagonist 'Young Master'...

Yes! The fact that we've not seen him do anything especially bad, and that what we do see and hear is pretty good (he treats him people well, violence has declined since he came to power, and he gets several genuinely heroic moments) makes it hard to take Harry's constant digust for him seriously.

Plus, now there's Harry being the Winter Knight. When one of Marcone's people breaks his rules (e.g., by harming children), Marcone kills him quick. When Mab's last liutenant betrayed her, she spent a decade torturing him into madness. On a scale of evil, Marcone doesn't even compare. And Mab is now Harry's boss.

edited 30th Aug '16 4:54:20 PM by Galadriel