History Literature / ProvenGuilty

* BittersweetEnding: On the bitter side, [[spoiler:way too many innocent people died as a result of Molly's sorcery at [=SPLATTERCON!!!=], it's completely ambiguous if her friends will ever be able to fully recover from her mental magic given to them, she's been tainted by BlackMagic, and both her and Harry are placed under the Doom of Damocles]]. On the sweet side, [[spoiler:Molly becomes Harry's apprentice so that she can learn [[ComesGreatResponsibility how to better improve the world around her with her magical talent]], Eldest Fetch is defeated, Harry and Charity finally learn to bury the hatchet, and Molly moves back in with her family to help her with her own maturity]].

** The young warlock at the start of the book is this, by the Merlin's words. He either personally killed or brainwashed his family to kill each other. Langtry firmly believed the young man he once was is dead and gone.

** The first one to appear is Hammerhands, a man who has sledgehammers at the ends of his arms instead of hands, has a premise rather similar to Film/EdwardScissorhands (though the latter wasn't a horror movie). Also possibly a reference to [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet Freddy Kruger]], who wore a glove with blades on the fingers, and took his revenge on the people who'd killed him by killing their children (much as Hammerhands targeted the people who'd left him for dead).

* DropTheHammer:
** The monster Hammerhands.
** [[spoiler:Charity wields a steel one as part of her arsenal in charging Arctis Tor.]]

** Way back in ''Literature/StormFront'', Harry had an aside remark where he mentions that he doesn't have any mirrors in his apartment since "[[MagicMirror there's too many things that can use [mirrors] as windows... or doors]]." In this book, Harry has a EurekaMoment and is able to realize the identity of the supernatural monsters attacking the horror movie convention [[spoiler:upon recognizing one of the common links between each of the attack sites was a reflective surface that the fetches were able to use to enter the material world from [[SpiritWorld the Nevernever]].]]

* InfectiousInsanity: Maeve, from her view point as a Fae, considers mortal notions such as "Good," "Evil," and "Love" as a type of insanity and in hindsight believes Aurora was suffering from "[[HumanityIsInfectious some mortal madness". [[spoiler:And she claims it has been passed into ''Mab'']].

*** Speaking of Harry, he also later confesses to Michael that he had this reaction to killing the Corpsetaker and Quintus Cassius in the last novel. More specifically, she admits that while they were both utter {{Asshole Victim}}s, he still feels immensely regretful over having consciously ended the lives of two people, and he's even had guilt-driven nightmares over it.

* CallBack: When discussing [[spoiler:giving the debt Lily owes him to Charity because of a wrong he did her,]] Harry refers back to how banks buy and sell mortgages, which is how Mab described it in ''Summer Knight''.
** In another Call Back to ''Summer Knight'', Harry dumps ice cold water on [[spoiler:Molly]] when she tries to convince him to have sex with her, just like he dumped it on himself when Maeve did the same.
** The FBI pitch in on the Splattercon!!! murder investigation, and Harry reminds Murphy that things [[Literature/FoolMoon didn't go so well]] the last time feds got involved.

** [[spoiler:The Silver Oak Leaves awarded by Titania, with Lily as the presenter, to both Donald Morgan and Harry Dresden. Both are named Squires in the Summer Court and owed one boon for their acts of bravery and fortitude in the book]].
** Fix's initial thought of [[spoiler:Winter Lady Maeve's statements]] will have some bearing in future books.

** [[spoiler:Red Court vampire Duchess Arianna, widow of Ortega, was mentioned as one of the bidders for Harry on Ebay]].

** However, Michael reveals Harry isn't the first White Council Wizard to hold this spot. [[spoiler:Merlin, the ''Original Merlin'', Founder of the White Council, held ''Amoracchius''. Yes, this means ''Amoracchius'' is Excalibur.]]

* {{Hellfire}}

** Molly's justification for [[spoiler: Mind Raping her friends and bending their wills to her demands, in order to get them off drugs and protect them from another miscarriage or worse]].

* InfectiousInsanity: Maeve, from her view point as a Fae, considers mortal notions such as "Good," "Evil," and "Love" as a type of insanity and in hindsight believes Aurora was suffering from some mortal madness. [[spoiler:And she claims it has been passed into Mab]].
** HumanityIsInfectious: Her fear.

* LadyOfWar: [[spoiler: Charity Carpenter]] reveals herself to be one. She has been [[spoiler: Michael's]] training partner for the past 20 years and is skilled in various forms of fighting.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone
** There is the (in)famous instance where Harry fights a [[Franchise/{{Alien}} xenomorph]], including quoting from the movie with "Get away from her, you ''bitch!''" [[spoiler:as he proceeds to roast and smash the beast repeatedly until it is turned into chunky salsa. Moments later, however, he learns the "her" he was rescuing has bled out and died, and he is left to wonder if he wasted the chance to save her because he was indulging in blasting the monster repeatedly instead, and in turn whether that enjoyment had something to do with Lasciel's shadow's influence on him]].

* ObstructiveCodeOfConduct: Titania still has ''issues'' with Harry after the events of Literature/SummerKnight. [[spoiler:So she creates a code of conduct and places it upon Lily and Fix, preventing them from speaking of matters that could help Harry out.]]

** The White Council is genuinely unnerved by the fact [[spoiler:the Red Court attacked both Summer and Winter domains and ''neither'' side is reacting with movements to destroy the Red Court for this massive smack to the face]].

* RewatchBonus: In hindsight, whenever [[spoiler:the Leanansidhe is described as speaking with "a mad gleam" in her eyes during her talk with Harry at Arctis Tor, it's not her actually speaking - it's Nemesis speaking through her]].

--> Stupid damned streetlights, getting all blurry like that.

--> I started to get annoyed, but was struck by the disturbing thought that if I did, I would be coming down on the same side of the situation as Charity, which might be one of the signs of the apocalypse.

* TemporalParadox: Messing with the currents of time can cause this, so it is one reason the Senior Council has a law against it. [[spoiler:[[ForWantOfANail Rashid gets around this by giving tiny hints to nudge things in a different direction.]]]] As Bob explains, if a car was going to be stolen, [[spoiler: Rashid]] could not tell the owner to move to protect it via a message from the future or this will cause a paradox. He ''can'' however suggest that it is moved from the street to a garage. It will still be stolen but in the former case the car owner is shot and killed by a junkie, while in the latter they're carjacked by a professional who knows how to get the car without anyone getting hurt.

** Harry realizes a bit too late that [[spoiler:using Summer Fire on the Winter wellspring]] is a big one to ''the entire Winter Court''. It is enough to [[spoiler:draw back the ''entire Winter Army'' currently watching the border of Winter and Summer]].

* TheChessmaster: Lea describes Mab as such, with her habit of being patient and detailed about her plots. [[spoiler:It is implied she had the Fetches go after Molly and played restrained about reacting to the Red Court's actions in ''Dead Beat'' because she, personally, was waiting for a better time to strike. So, she allowed Maeve to think her wrong, to make her work with Lily in a long plot to get Harry Dresden chasing Eldest Fetch to Arctis Tor with Summer Fire and destroy her Wellspring, giving Summer their chance for vengeance.]] Harry gets this idea because [[spoiler:one of the ice statues in Mab's garden was her in disguise and winked at him]].

* BatmanGambit: It is never truly said whether [[spoiler:the Gatekeeper Rashid, Faery Queens Lily and Maeve or Mab, or God[[note]] though since He works InMysteriousWays, it's possible that the answer is "all of the above"[[/note]] ]] started the events in motion to help save [[spoiler:Molly, Harry, and the members of the Senior Council]], but the plan works out perfectly in the end. See GambitPileup for more.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: [[spoiler:One of the con-goers bleeds to death when Harry gets distracted by beating up a phobophage instead of providing proper First Aid]].

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** [[spoiler:One of the con-goers bleeds to death when Harry gets distracted by beating up a phobophage instead of providing proper First Aid]].
** Daniel Carpenter is able to escape from [[spoiler:the Hammerhands phobophage... by hiding in the Carpenters' old tree house and pulling the rope ladder up behind him. After all, [[LogicalWeakness Hammerhands doesn't have any actual hands]]]].
** ''Dead Beat'' was the first time that Harry ''consciously'' decided to end two peoples' lives - the Corpsetaker and Quintus Cassius - with all other times Harry had killed someone prior to this point being in self-defense (more or less). While both deaths were treated as awesome and satisfying in the moment, this book shows that Harry is [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone understandably horrified and sickened with himself]] over having ''ended the lives of two people''. Granted, as both were {{Asshole Victim}}s, he's not ''as'' upset about it as he would be if he had killed two innocent people, but as in RealLife, he's still guilt-ridden over it to the point of having nightmares. Since most people nowadays are taught to have at least some general respect for the sanctity of life, Harry's [=PTSD=] is perfectly understandable.