The Dresden Files

Honestly, War Cry is the only one I've really liked. The rest I've found somewhere between mediocre and bad.

I was trying to softball it in there, but yeah, I think War Cry is the only genuinely great one, by the usual standards of a story-something I would recommend to a person who had not read anything else out of the series.

The newest one is solely written by this Mark Powers guy who co-wrote the latter ones, so I'm personally treating them as graphic fanfic, with War Cry and Welcome to the Jungle being the exceptions.

Random thought: So, faeries have been said to be vulnerable to ALL forms of iron, including iron alloys and compounds... so why do they not seem to have a problem with human blood? after all, iron is part of why it's red. My thought is that it does as much damage as any other form of iron, but since it's molecularly minute, we don't see it. It's purpose is to essentially punch holes into a faerie so they can metabolize and absorb the energy in the blood and grow stronger from it. It's basically a small-scale version of the mantle-unlock during halloween.

I still think iron as fae kryptonite is dumb. The original point was that The Fair Folk are really good at magic, so trying to out-magic them is pointless — you're better off just stabbing them. "Cold iron" was a poetic way of referring to blades, the same way you can use "hot lead" to mean bullets. Which is already something that Harry makes extensive use of, of course.

More on-topic, magic in the Dresdenverse doesn't work on scientific principles, it works on the level of meaning and symbolism. This is the setting where you can use hundred dollar bills in place of diamonds in the recipe for a love potion — the point isn't crystallized carbon vs fabric and ink, it's that both symbolize wealth. Iron is iron, whether it's a cast iron skillet or a steel alloy blade. Blood is something else — even if it has iron in it on a molecular level, on the level of what it represents, they're very different things.

Ah, but we have the precedent of the ghost dust. It's essentially a solid potion, and when harry makes a potion, its because some weird edible magic liquid, despite being made of things like sounds, hundred dollar bills and motor oil. However, because it was made with iron dust, pour it on a fae and it'll still act like iron. And secondly, it's am MAJOR point of the series that, yes, magic still has to deal with the relevant laws of physics a lot of the time. And while blood is symbolically power, it is chemically iron, in the same way that while Harry's ghost does is symbolically there to add 'weight' to a ghost, it is chemically part DEPLETED URANIUM and thus must be kept in a lead box.

Jim answered that in a panel-the point is not iron the element, but what it represents. Fae are beings of the wild, the natural world, and iron-manufactured iron-represents civilization, which is anathema to them. Thus, any iron from a blade or frying pan or whatever, down to the rendered iron dust and filings Harry uses are poison. Just because there is an iron atom in hemoglobin does not automatically make human blood poison to Fae.

edited 28th Aug '17 9:13:05 PM by ViperMagnum357

Well, if HE says so... though I'll point out my point wasn't that blood should be poison to fae, it's that the the molecular iron in it punches holes in their immortality-lock like Halloween to let them make the power in the blood part of them.

It's possible that its magical properties as BLOOD supersede it's chemical properties by a wide margin.

Because it's BLOOD.

Then that just opens up a whole other can of worms. Fabric, other metals, a whole litany of materials are artificial. It's arbitrary to have only one represent civilization. I mean, heck, gold does just as much to represent us as iron does.

Bit fuzzy on the recollection, there was more to it I cannot remember. However, another bit was what iron specifically represents-as a material for building, crafting tools, and forging weapons. And remember the power of belief in the Dresdenverse-Iron was always the preferred material when a durable metal was needed. Lead, copper, tin, nickel, zinc, and the various alloys from them usually took back seat to iron in antiquity, so I guess the logic is not that iron was unique in that regard, but that iron was indelibly imprinted in the minds of everyone that this material represented the power of civilization-holding it together and forming the most common weapons.

edited 28th Aug '17 9:26:34 PM by ViperMagnum357

Blood weakening fairies is super dumb. For one thing, it would make the Knights completely useless.

Which means in the very early days, copper, then bronze, then iron symbolized civilization.

again, NOT WEAKENING. Punching holes in their immortality so that they can take in power like it was Halloween. I explicitly said so in my last post.

I was kinda unclear what you were trying to say actually.

Anywho, the significance of blood likely overshadows any chemical composition.

Jim had a Dragon Con Q&A. A lot of it was repeat of a lot of stories he tells at cons, but there were a few interesting tidbits:

He's been playing around with the idea of writing a novella starring Goodman Grey and his company, Monster, LLC. Nothing in the pipeline for it yet, though.

Morgan has a very personal reason to despise necromancers. Kemmler killed his folks.

Oberon is super dead. He doesn't exist, not even as a mantle of power somewhere. He died around Billy Shakes' time.

The Archive has access to digital as well as 'analogue' information, and the Archive was most certainly not built for that. This is meant to come up in future books.

He also mentioned a little bit about the other choices Harry could have made in Changes. If he picked up the Coin, Lasciel would have become his teacher and tried to isolate him from his friends as she taught him black magic, similar to the role Mab currently occupies, minus the whole 'teaching him black magic' thing.

If he'd pulled off a Darkhallow, even one in a relatively unpopulated area, he would have become the new Heinrich Kemmler, and the series would have featured a lot more necromancy after that.

edited 4th Sep '17 2:58:15 AM by math792d

I think had he tried the Darkhollow without the backup of someone like Mab too he'd be dead right now.

Harry's tough, but he wouldn't survive the kind of heat being the most viable Kemmler-lite would draw upon him.

Not even with a significant power boost.

Plus, it wasn't Halloween. Mantles weren't unlocked. No ascensions.

That's not how Halloween works, though. It's not a day to create new mantles or switch between them, it's the day even immortals can die.

Harry could have picked any day to perform the Darkhallow as long as he had a suitably powerful body of monsters/people/ghosts to feed on for power. It wouldn't have created a mantle, but it would probably have made him a Sidhe Lady-tier spellcaster.

And yet, Heinrich Kemmler survived for centuries before his ascension to Worst Necromancer in History.

edited 4th Sep '17 7:03:07 AM by math792d

Yeah, but while Harry is very good, I don't think he's absolute top tier like Kemmler was.

And I don't think he would be willing to make the kinds of sacrifices (morally) that Kemmler needed to to stay alive so long.

Once he did the Darkhallow, I rather think he'd let go of most moral scruples.

A young girl

Oh dear...

Let's hope that doesn't include images, or else the likes of /d/ will not be very fun for her.

Yeah, but while Harry is very good, I don't think he's absolute top tier like Kemmler was.

Spoilers for A Fistful of Warlocks:

Kemmler wasn't always top-tier. He got that way by performing sacrifices of his own. He was a minor power, not even Council-tier, when Luccio first encounters him in the Wild West

Wow, so not even a wizard?