The Dresden Files

It's also worth noting that Harry himself has, at this point, broken two (maybe three depending on how you count his ghost shenanigans in Ghost Story) of the Laws. He broke the spirit of the Fifth Law back in Dead Beat, and as far as we know, he broke the First Law twice - once when he was put under the Doom, and one more time in Grave Peril when he immolated the vampire mansion. He knew there were mortals inside, and he speculates on as much when the Council eventually show up.

And while Harry isn't always the greatest human being, he's broken two Laws and remains firmly(ish) a person with strong convictions. So even Lawbreaking is a matter of degrees.

On the Fifth Law, the (non-canon I know) RPG states that the reason necromancy is up there is because necromancy works on equivalent exchange. For someone to be brought back, someone else dies.

I think the Wardens themselves acknowledge breaking the Laws doesn't make you a bad person, it just makes you a person too risky to keep around. Which is controversial and horrible, both In-Universe and out, but from a strictly-by-numbers perspective is still better than the alternative (as in, by executing 100 untrained mages who broke the Laws we prevent the outbreak of, say, 5 powerful warlocks who would kill/mindwipe hundreds of innocent people).

I see the behavior of Wardens (and Council in general) as half actually necessary Shoot the Dog, and half them being too set in their ways and unwilling to try better ways to deal with problems.

Edited by Cozzer on Jan 14th 2019 at 2:27:45 PM

Given that the intent behind it is why killing with magic is so corruptive, as long as Harry only intended to immolate the vampires, and merely showed reckless disregard for any humans who might be in the building, I think that doesn't technically count as breaking the First Law.

I don't think it works that way. Don't know it offhand, But I think there's some WOJ on the topic of unintentional magic murders and them counting as a break still.

Yeah, I think with the first law it's the intent that matters, not the result. You use magic in a way that's meant to kill someone, and that's illegal.

So deliberately causing electrical sabotage with the intention of hurting someone is definitely toeing the line.

Glad I sparked such discussion. It definitely seems like something some members of the council might quietly send Dresden's way, even if it's not quite breaking the rules.

Been re-enjoying the series as Audio book. Nice to go back and catch up on early installment weirdness and foreshadowing. And loving James Marters' awesome reading.

One thing bothers me though.

If Cowl and Peabody are allies. Why did Cowl need a copy of "Die Lied der Erlking" ? He reveals himself to Dresden trying to steal his copy. But surely Peabody had it. Or the research material he used to make it. He wrote the damn book.

It seems weird that Cowl's only recourse to get a book written by one of his own allies is to mug a White Council Wizard.

Edited by Ghilz on Jan 15th 2019 at 1:07:23 PM

Deniability? He wanted to be seen getting the book so it's obvious where he got the knowledge from, even if he already had it, and to keep it from the other Kemmlerites.

I´m actually right at the point in my own reread of the series where Harry first meets Cowl and Kumori and Kumori suggests that Harry could just destroy the book to prevent the Kemlerlings (i don´t care what they are called i call them this^^) from getting it. Cowl remains silent during that, even though he is constantly complaining that Kumori is taking to long, therefore i beleive he realy only wants to prevent Corpsetaker and Grevane from getting the book and doesn´t need it himself

Hrrm, good point.

Also, he's being a good mentor and letting Kumori try and deal with this problem. It's not so high priority so he can afford to let her try, her solution has merit, if it fails it's a good learning experience against a foe that's not batshit insane and can be dealt with (they think), and if it succeeds, good for her.

While too on the nose, I'm of the opinion Cowl is probably Justin Du Morne and we'll find out he really has been black magic to fight black magicking this entire time.

I believe Cowl is Justin who in turn got his body stolen by Kemler when the council killed him the last time, but for some reason Kemler could not take all his knowledge with him into Justin. I think the reason was Justins deathcurse, if Harry didn´t bluff when he said he could block someone from using ones Talent with his deathcurse i don´t think it is impossible to block acces to ones knowledge.

Provided she is someone we know, and she survived the dino attack in Dead Beat, what about Kumori?

Someone we know, hence the cloak, or just copying Cowl's look?

EDIT: Almost certainly not the case, but imagine if she was Elaine.

Edited by asterism on Jan 18th 2019 at 12:52:43 PM

For some reason I imagine Du Morne to be a lot less polite, competent and rational than Cowl.

Do we ever learn who fixed Little Chicago in Proven Guilty?

Seems the candidates are Thomas, Lash or Mouse. I lean towards the later, especially as Zoo Day shows he can alter fate and is knowledgeable about flows of energy. It seems unlikely Lash could affect something outside of Harry without Harry knowing about it. And Thomas doesn't really know magic.

AFAIK hasn't Butcher confirmed Justin is actually legit dead?

As Harry name dropped Cowl to Corpsetaker and Grevaine, and they recognized the name, I doubt he's Kemmler. Grevaine outright says he deserves the darkhallow because he was Kemmler's first and favorote. Which would be weird if Kemmler was still around and he both knew it.

Edited by Ghilz on Jan 20th 2019 at 10:58:45 AM

When I last lurked TDF forums I believe the major theories were Lash or Time travelling Harry.

I believe the confirmation was something along the lines of "Justin is dead! D E D dead" so that´s just an invitation for theorizing. Also i believe i´ve read Jim is not afraid to bend the truth a little during interviews, when something comes up he doesn´t want to talk about (or he says "not gonna tell you" in an annoying singsong voice^^)

Edited by Samaldin on Jan 21st 2019 at 10:00:12 AM

As that interviewer I would have said, "you missed the a in dead. I'm gonna take that as Justin is alive, confirmed. Moving on . . ."

Yeah, Jim took the wind out of the sails of a lot of the fandom last year when he admitted he bent the truth or sometimes simply lied about plot elements during interviews. Up to that point, his Word of God was considered ironclad; so the greater portion of fan theories revolved around his answers and clarifications during interviews and whatnot, and taking the First-Person actual books with a grain of salt for Harry's personal perceptions and prejudices.

Suffice to say, there was a MASSIVE blowup in the fandom over that, and the fan community has somewhat fallen apart over the last few months. Compare the fansite activities to where it was last year at this time, and it feels like 95% of the fandom has wandered off to invest in other media.

Edited by ViperMagnum357 on Jan 21st 2019 at 10:02:01 AM

Never heard of that. But seems more likely that that's due to the extended hiatus than anything to do with unreliable WOG, honestly.

I have been part of the community there since 2009 or so, and I have kept an eye on the pulse of the community. Three years on after Skin Game, the community was still churning nonstop theories, with a full page of new or updated threads every day. The last few months, there might be 4 or 5 posts total in a 24 hour period, and some days with zero activity. While the fandom is certainly plenty large still, Jim's nuclear strike on the WOJ archive validity ripped the heart out of the hardcore fan community, and I am not sure if it will ever recover.

That amuses me and now I respect Butcher for that.

Honestly I think a part of it is also fan groups moving out of dedicated subforums and onto aggregate sites like reddit and whatnot.

Because the Dresden Files subreddit is still reasonably active.

Almost exclusively casual fans, plus the Beta readers making the rounds across the sites as they always have. The core of the dedicated fans who kept the original fansite up and running, compiled the archive of WOJ, ran the social media...almost all of them have gone silent, their handles not showing anywhere Dresden related. It might change when Peace Talks eventually hits the shelves; but for the moment the only real Dresden discussions going on are new fans asking the same questions over and over that were answered in the books themselves or WOJ, and putting forward the same 'brand new' theories every week that have floated around for years.

Edited by ViperMagnum357 on Jan 21st 2019 at 8:27:48 AM