{"id":169,"date":"2017-12-26T21:31:58","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T21:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordof.jim-butcher.com\/?page_id=169"},"modified":"2022-02-08T17:36:47","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T17:36:47","slug":"woj-on-harry","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"\/index.php\/word-of-jim-woj-compilation\/woj-on-harry\/","title":{"rendered":"WoJ on Harry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Link back to the main Dresden Files WoJ compilation<\/a><\/p>\n

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Harry<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n
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Quote from: jmsilverwolf on February 12, 2007, 03:25:30 PM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Harry has admitted (I think in SF) that he’d never even heard of the White Council until Morgan showed up to drag him before a trial.\u00a0 All of his experiences with being a wizard before than come from Justin DuMorne, who from all accounts was neither warm nor fuzzy.\u00a0 If memory serves, Harry mentions Justin using pain as a motivator on a couple different occasions.\u00a0 Which of course really means he was using fear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fear is an extremely effective, albeit unpleasant, teaching tool.\u00a0 Human psychology is built that way.\u00a0 Introduce enough fear into a situation, and a great many psychological barriers can be immediately, permanently bypassed.\u00a0 That’s why traumatic experiences leave such huge mental scars on people.\u00a0 Sure, maybe you like dogs fine, but if you get mauled half to death by four or five of them, it can change your outlook on the subject.\u00a0 My dog got a claw on his back leg half-ripped out by getting it tangled in something, and the vet had to pull it the rest of the way out so that it could heal.\u00a0 Now he doesn’t let ANYONE touch that back paw.<\/p>\n

Using fear to a lesser (or more at least more precise) degree lets you drive home lessons a lot faster than you would, otherwise.\u00a0 Believe me, getting repeatedly popped on top of the noggin teaches you faster than anything that your high block isn’t high enough.\u00a0 Experiencing what a properly applied grappling lock actually \/does\/ to you teaches you faster than anything how \/not\/ to get caught in one–they HURT.\u00a0 And I mean, HURT, a kind of pain that you just don’t get to feel, most days.<\/p>\n

While I don’t exactly back fear-oriented academia, it \/is\/ an awfully good way to teach people things that are going to be matters of life-and-death, such as hand-to-hand combat.\u00a0 Or, in DuMorne’s case, high-stakes wizardry.<\/p>\n

Pain wasn’t a teaching method for DuMorne.\u00a0 It was an environment.\u00a0 You learned to do \/everything\/ while in pain, because when it comes to actual wizardly conflict, you’d better be able to concentrate and focus, even if you’ve got two bullets in your guts, or if you’re on fire.\u00a0 DuMorne knew darned well that when you go up against Wardens, you don’t do it without taking some lumps along the way.<\/p>\n

Jim<\/p><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Star_Controller<\/a>,\u00a0December 05, 2006:\u00a0 “DF: Harry needs some Anita in him”<\/strong><\/p>\n

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No, im not saying the series needs to become, as someone named it, a ‘bodice ripper’.\u00a0 I simply find Harry’s moral time to be very tiresome.\u00a0 I will admit he’s changing as the books go on, and he’s faced with more things, however times like his being huffy about Ebanezer being the Blackstaff, i found infuriating.\u00a0 Eb. is Harry’s best friend on the council, yet harry was willing to throw all the good feelings they had together away for Eb. doing what he, known to Harry as a good man and wizard, felt needed to be done!\u00a0 It took harry through three books to begin to re-knit his relationship with Eb.\u00a0 Anita has always done what needed to be done to protect she and her people.\u00a0 She might have complained about it later, and felt guilty, but she did it.<\/p>\n

I’ve been re-reading the early books, Storm Front – Grave Peril, and it re-affirmed to me just how overly moralistic Harry was in those books.\u00a0 Course, Muphey was just as bad at that point.\u00a0 In those books Harry is more like Cadderly than Drizzt, to put it another way.<\/p>\n

Any thoughts?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He’s a part-time consultant for the police department dealing with supernatural mayhem in a large city in the Midwest.\u00a0 The bad guys who don’t want to kill him dead dead dead want to sign him up for their team.\u00a0 He spends as much time at odds with the authorities he’s trying to help as he does with the various supernatural baddies.<\/p>\n

I’d say he’s got plenty of Anita in him already.\u00a0\":)\"<\/p>\n

As far as the opening statement re: Anita always doing what she must to protect her people while Harry spent three years getting over his perceived betrayal by Ebenezar . . .\u00a0 \u00a0where’s the connection, there?\u00a0 That’s sort of like saying\u00a0 . . . oh . . . “Winston Churchill was a freaking lush and a great speaker, whereas FDR’s chair had wheels.”\u00a0 All you can really say to that statement is: Um.\u00a0 Well.\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0\":)\"<\/p>\n

My point being, in what way did Harry not take care of business, with regards to Ebenezar?\u00a0 The opening of PG shows, amply enough, that Harry kept his professional and personal life in different pockets, at least when it came to talking Council business with McCoy.\u00a0 In fact, even when it was happening in BR, he set it aside well enough to get through the crisis du jour.<\/p>\n

And as far as Harry always questioning the nature of right and wrong, well, yes, he does.\u00a0 Which can be annoying to some people at times, but for someone with so much, ah, \/executive priviledge\/, shall we say, it’s a FAR preferable flaw to possessing the kind of personality that never stops to consider it at all–or worse, assumes that anything they do is automatically right, and it’s just a matter of finding the best justification for it.\u00a0\":)\"<\/p>\n

Jim<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Quote from: jimbutcher on March 09, 2010, 03:39:41 PM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Susan did not take into account Michael.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is there some reason she should?\u00a0 Susan has spent what?\u00a0 An \/hour\/ around Michael?\u00a0 Maybe two?\u00a0 And she’s been scorched by one of the Swords, which would appear to clearly indicate that Michael might not be kindly disposed toward her.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

At which point did she have an experience that would make her think “this is one of the most important decisions of my life.\u00a0 I should entrust it to THAT guy.”<\/p>\n

Not everyone in the books knows everything that the reader knows.\u00a0 In fact, \/no one\/ in the books knows everything that the reader knows (since people have clearly been able to infer things about Harry’s character from his actions and thoughts which are huge blind spots to him, personally).<\/p>\n

Jim<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Quote from: jimbutcher on March 17, 2010, 06:32:58 PM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Quote from: gawime<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Anybody else was bothered by Jim announcing in Chp 3 that Harry can do veils now because he’s been training Molly?<\/p>\n

It’s not that Harry managed to get new abilities that bother me, but the timing of it seems off.\u00a0 If I recall, Molly was doing very good veils in White Night (supposedly under Harry’s tutelage) but we didn’t hear a thing about Harry being good enough to do a decent veil then.\u00a0 It’s only a few years after we’re shown that Molly can do pretty good veils that Harry announces “Hey I can do veils because I’ve been training the grasshopper to do them.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Actually, Harry first uses a veil in “The Warrior.”<\/span><\/div>\n

And there’s a big difference between magic done by sitting down in a lotus position, concentrating for ten minutes, maybe using props and\/or circles to augment the process, and magic that you know well enough to do nownownow.\u00a0 It’s the difference between shooting arrows at a target in your back yard, talking to friends, and shooting arrows at a running target through the cover of the forest.\u00a0 Theory and application are in different worlds.<\/p>\n

Harry’s always been able to do a perfect veil.\u00a0 He just had to be sitting in a circle, set up specifically for the purpose, sitting down, and he couldn’t be doing anything else while he did that.\u00a0 Which makes it minimally useful.<\/p>\n

By the time he was teaching Molly, Harry had been forced to sit down and practice his veils, working them into his regular routine.\u00a0 His veils suck, compared to Molly’s–but he can toss up a veil that’s not even as good as Predator camo, and at least retain enough awareness to walk or run around, and maybe pull off a couple of little tricks while he does it.\u00a0 But it’s not something he was born good at.\u00a0 He’s had to work for it.<\/p>\n

Besides.\u00a0 He keeps making Molly practice things she isn’t good at–like shields and kinetic strikes–because, he says, it’s good for her (and it is).\u00a0 But if he sits around not practicing things \/he\/ isn’t good at, how does that look to the grasshopper?<\/p>\n

It’s an ongoing process.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Quote from: jimbutcher on August 16, 2010, 06:13:19 AM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Quote from: kabal48<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

So i was just reading the Harry Dresden Security File, which has slightly scary implications if you are a council warden and i wanted to kind of continue that line of thinking but in the extreme.\u00a0 The security file has a pretty good summation of what Harry has done through mostly legal means under the wizard laws but it omits some of the even scarier things that harry has access to. Namely Denarian Coins, Word of Kemmler, Mab, Bob, and Molly. Also i don’t think it mentions that sans anything but his own power he is among the top 30 strongest mortal wizards in terms of raw power.<\/p>\n

So Question: If Harry were to actually go all the way over to the dark side could the Council take him?<\/p>\n

My Personal opinion is that he would make Kemmler look like a run of the mill (although admittedly sadistic) grade school bully.<\/p>\n

Link to Warden Security File: Harry Dresden
\nhttp:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/index.php\/topic,19774.0.html<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What makes you think all the other wizards of the Council, with their \/centuries\/ of experience, don’t have access to similar temptat–er, that is, sources of emergency power?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\";D\"<\/div>\n

At the end of the day, Harry is one guy.\u00a0 Wizard or not, he’s one man.\u00a0 And while he might be in the top thirty for raw strength, that… really doesn’t add up to much, unless you’re moving heavy stuff or trying to break things.\u00a0 The strongest guy at the gym is not necessarily (in fact, he \/probably\/ isn’t) the most dangerous guy at the gym.\u00a0 If that person happens to be a guy and not a girl.<\/p>\n

Harry is tough-minded, resourceful, and imaginative.\u00a0 He’s friggin’ dangerous.\u00a0 But no more so than any of several dozen other wizards with similar (or at least applicable) experiences and talents, and no more so than hundreds of thousands (if not more) other beings running around the planet.<\/p>\n

Long story short–if the Council ever actually took the gloves off and came after him, they’d squash him flat.\u00a0 If Harry ever went totally Dark Side and wore big black cloaks and grabbed every ounce of power he could find–they’d squash him flat.\u00a0 It might take longer to accomplish (like maybe days or weeks instead of hours), but short of successfully pulling off a Darkhallow or snuggling up to someone grotesquely powerful for protection, he wouldn’t have a prayer of outright victory.\u00a0 He’d be doing very, very well merely to escape and survive.\u00a0 And, frankly, Harry openly filling out his application for a Sith membership card would be the thing most likely to provoke exactly that reaction from the Council.<\/p>\n

As it is, he has the advantage of being an annoyance to them, but not a threat.\u00a0 He’s a fly that’s landed on a buffalo’s back.\u00a0 He might irritate the buffalo, but it’s not going to go into violent action in an attempt to crush the fly unless it gets really, really, REALLY annoying and crawls up its nose or something.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if the fly suddenly turned into a frickin’ lion, totally different story.\u00a0 THAT is completely worth a buffalo flipping out over, and bringing along several hundred of its best friends to help.\u00a0 Lion might be dangerous, but have you seen that battle at the water hole video on youtube?\u00a0 Buffalo are the most dangerous things in it.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the point is that Dresden might well be one of the more dangerous opponents you could find in the White Council–in a one on one fight.\u00a0 But on the scale of someone like Kemmler (who was \/way\/ mightier than Harry has ever been, and who still died, several times, when he took on the Council), no one bothers trying to fight fair.\u00a0 The most dangerous person in the world might well be able to kill anyone reading this thread, for example–but all that means is that he’s probably way more skilled than all of us.\u00a0 It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t die if one of us stuck a knife in his brain while he was sleeping.<\/p>\n

Far more dangerous to the Council would be if Dresden decided it needed to be destroyed\u00a0without<\/span>\u00a0going all black hat about it.\u00a0\":D\"\u00a0 As a traitor, feeding information to its enemies, he could inflict far more damage to the Council than he possibly could alone–which is what haunted Morgan’s dreams at night for YEARS, by the by.\u00a0\":)\"<\/p>\n

Jim<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Forum Timeline reply<\/a>:
\nHow long was Harry in Chicago before opening his detective business, and how long did he work with Nick at Fallen Angel?\u00a0 (Also, can we get a last name for Nick?)<\/strong>
\nHarry was in Chicago for most of two years before he started working with Nick.\u00a0 He spent three years at Ragged Angel.\u00a0 Nick’s full name is Nicholas Christian, and he was the protagonist of three or four short stories I wrote when I was even more ignorant about writing and storytelling–and was in fact my “original” prototype for Harry Dresden.\u00a0 No wizard stuff or anything, just sluething and savvy, a little karate and a gun.
\nHow long was Harry with Ebenezar?\u00a0 Was there much intervening time between when he left Ebenezar and when he moved to Chicago?<\/strong>
\nHarry was with Ebenezar for nearly three years, from sometime not too long after his 16th birthday until his 19th or so.\u00a0 He roamed around for a while before winding up in Chicago, but it wasn’t Children of Israel In The Desert roaming or anything.\u00a0 Call it somewhere between nine and twenty months.
\n2008 ComicCon Playing God panel Q&A session<\/a>\u00a0@0:45
\nWhere do you find the inspiration for Harry to always manage to do the right thing and never do anything out of spite despite how bad things get for\u00a0 him?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>
\nFrom my Father probably.\u00a0 My dad was a very unique individual.\u00a0 Very quiet.\u00a0 At his Eulogy I wrote “My dad was a great man.\u00a0 He wasn’t a great man that shook the world, he was a great man who managed to calm it down.”\u00a0 He was the sorta guy you always turned to when things went bad.\u00a0 And I think he was probably a lot of the influence that I had for Harry Dresden that I had.
\n2009 Lexington signing<\/a>:
\nQ:\u00a0 How does Harry know so much about movies and TV?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 He goes to the drive-in.\u00a0 Also, there\u2019s a TV store near Wicker Park, and he sits on a bench across the street from it and watches shows with closed captioning.\u00a0 Yes, Harry is often like a sad Dickens character, standing outside the window looking in.\u00a0 (Jim makes sad big puppy dog eyes)
\nQ:\u00a0 Will Harry ever get a Warden\u2019s sword?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 He can\u2019t, because Luccio can\u2019t make them anymore.
\nQ:\u00a0 Why don\u2019t we see Harry making potions any more?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 The potions were more like a security blanket for Harry.\u00a0 He wanted to be doing something, but he didn\u2019t really know what he should be doing.\u00a0 So he was making potions in case they might be useful.\u00a0 Now he actually has a clue about what he should be doing most of the time.\u00a0 But Harry is teaching Molly about potions.\u00a0 That\u2019s how she keeps changing her hair color \u2013 that was the first potion she learned to make.
\n2009 Independence signing<\/a>:
\nQ:\u00a0 Will you tell us more about Harry\u2019s headaches?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 Yes. (Note:\u00a0 This question and answer were repeated after Changes at the Lee\u2019s Summit signing)
\n2010 Lee\u2019s Summit signing<\/a>:
\nQ:\u00a0 Since there haven\u2019t really been cases in the past couple of books, and with Harry\u2019s office gone is this the end of Harry\u2019s role as a private investigator?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 No, he has to work on something besides being a wizard.
\nQ:\u00a0 Why would Harry do something as drastic as take on the mantle of Winter Knight?\u00a0 He\u2019s never had to do that kind of thing before.<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 There was much more on the line this time.\u00a0 He was desperate.
\n2009 Bitten by Books Q&A<\/a>:
\n#10 Q:\u00a0 \u201cSo what are some of Harry\u2019s favorite bands? He more of a country boy? Classic Rock? Showtunes?\u201d<\/strong>
\nHarry\u2019s problem is that given how technology reacts around wizards, and that his apartment doesn\u2019t have electricity, he has problems having any sort of music collection.\u00a0\":)\"\u00a0He gets most of his music either live or by osmosis\u2013and as a result, he tends to think in terms of favorite \/songs\/ more than a given group.
\nIf you put his feet in a fire, though, he\u2019d say that he likes Beethoven, Mozart, the Beatles, the Offspring, Guns n Roses, Bush, Johnny Cash, and Chicago\u2019s own Disturbed.
\n2010 Bitten by Books Q&A<\/a>:
\n#101 \u201cWhen Queen Mab heals Harry to become the Winter Knight does she also heal his burned hand?\u201d<\/strong>
\nNo.
\nMab digs scars.\u00a0\":)\"
\n#121 \u201cWhen will Harry finally get the whole truth about his past? (As in his mom, grandfather \u2014 who they REALLY are\/were?)\u201d<\/strong>
\nI doubt he\u2019ll get much more truth than any of us do. As far as who people REALLY were\u2026 well. What Harry knows so far is all accurate. I\u2019m really not sure of the direction of this question.
\nWhat? Professional assassin for the White Council and powerful wizardess who consorted with the White Court aren\u2019t interesting enough?\u00a0\":D\"
\n#335 \u201cHm, will we see more of Harry Subconscious in any of the books (he is somewhat of a favorite character for me) and will we ever met Mike the Jesus of mechanics?\u201d<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019ll run into id-Harry again, sure.\u00a0\":)\"\u00a0I really ought to have Mike make an appearance, sometime. Let me check the schedule\u2026
\n2010 Powell’s books Q&A off of Youtube<\/a>\u00a0@7:50
\nHow old is Harry?<\/strong>
\nHe was 24 or 25 in Storm Front.\u00a0 He’s about 8 or 9 months younger– no he’s about a year younger than I am.\u00a0 (JB’s birthday is October 26, 1971\u00a0per wikipedia<\/a>)
\n2010 Mysterious Galaxy Q&A<\/a>\u00a0@4:30
\nWill Harry get a sword?<\/strong>
\nHe can’t because Luccio can’t make them any more.\u00a0 I suppose he could use another warden’s sword if he became enough like them.\u00a0 Morgan’s sword for example (smirk).\u00a0 If he shared the same kind of psychological profile as Morgan, if he ever got beat into that shape, he could probably be able to pick up his sword and use it.\u00a0 Naw Harry is more of a gun guy really.
\nDo you have it planned out who Harry’s grandmother is?<\/strong>\u00a0@6:05
\nYes… Well she’s not alive any more.
\nWas she significant?<\/strong>
\nWell, she was a mortal.\u00a0 That was about it.
\nWhisper radio interview<\/a>\u00a0@59:52
\nBy the end of the series he’s (Harry) going to be like granite or something, nobody will be able to break him.<\/strong>
\nYah, well he’s going up that way anyhow.\u00a0 I’m planing on a big old Apocalyptic Trilogy to cap off the series with in the future and I’ve gotta have him whipped into superhero shape by then. (Editors note:\u00a0 The tone of this comment was snarky)
\n2011 Orbit books interview<\/a>
\ncould you give us one little-known fact about Harry and his world?<\/strong>
\nHarry loves horses! He doesn\u2019t get to ride much anymore, but when he was living with Ebenezar on his farm in the Ozarks, they went riding all the time. Granted, given his size, it might be fair to say that horses don\u2019t like him nearly as much as he likes them, but I wouldn\u2019t want to be presumptuous about the opinions of Equine-Americans.
\n2011 Fast Forward, Contemporary Science Fiction interview<\/a>
\nOn Harry empowering the people around him :<\/strong>
\nI think in the series, one of the things that I hadn’t actually planned out which has come forward is that the main facet of Dresden’s character is not that he’s personally tough, or personally a good wise ass, but that he is able to empower the people around him to become something more than they were.\u00a0 And as he does that suddenly he finds himself standing with these allies who are very, very capable.\u00a0 In part because he’s shown them how to be so.
\n2011 NYC Signing Q&A<\/a>
\nIs Harry left- or right-handed?<\/strong>
\nHe\u2019s a righty.
\nAt the end of Changes Harry had a memory blank. Are we ever going to find out what he blanked out?<\/strong>
\nNo, on account of it wasn\u2019t inflicted by anyone else; he did it to himself.
\n2011 Bitten by Books Q&A<\/a>
\nNow that Harry has used magic in this book without and tailismans, will he be a stronger\/more adept wizard with his magic in the next book?\u201d<\/strong>
\nHarry really hasn\u2019t gotten all that much stronger since the series started. He\u2019s gotten more efficient, more skilled, and smarter, and inasmuch as that makes him more powerful, that will continue. I mean, what doesn\u2019t kill you only makes you stronger\u2026
\nOh wait.\u00a0\":)\"
\nKansas City release party Q&A<\/a>
\nYou\u2019ve mentioned several times that marriages are used to seal pacts and alliances, will Harry be forced into a marriage, and will it be with Lara [Raith]?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nWhat makes you think that Harry hasn\u2019t been forced into a marriage already?\u00a0 I mean, the whole thing with Mab, come on. Read more book. Read the most recent one, and see if that doesn\u2019t give you more answers. Certainly, he\u2019s in it deep with Mab at the moment, because there\u2019ll be none of this, \u201cHe\u2019s going to get out of this because he was technically dead\u201d\u2014no, it\u2019s too easy.
\n2012 Reddit AMA:<\/a>
\nginnerben:<\/strong>\u00a0Throughout Changes (and Ghost Story, to a lesser extent) you systematically destroy most of Harry’s connections to Chicago. He loses his house, his car and his office. He graduates his apprentice. His “pets” get re-homed. At this point, he has friends and family in Chicago, but he’s not needed there (Or at least, not more so than having a world-class wizard is needed anywhere, with the darker turn of the world after the return of the Fomor). Is this a deliberate shift to a more international (\/inter-dimensional, bearing in mind the beginning of Cold Days), less tied-down Harry, or is it just the only way you can actually change anything for a character who’s so resistant to change?
\nJim:<\/strong>\u00a01) Heh. Everything Harry lost in Chicago in “Changes” was a \/thing\/. It was the building he lived in. The furniture he sat on. The office he sort of had considered giving up because it was so expensive anyway. The metal and leather and plastic he drove around in. The two really key things he lost were: 1) Susan and 2) his freedom. And not because of any deal he made with Mab or anybody else.
\nKids are huge. Suddenly there’s this person in the world who is going to be reaping the consequences of your decisions, for good or for ill. Suddenly it’s not just \/you\/ you’re looking out for any more. It’s not just \/your\/ life you might be screwing up. That changes your perspective. It can make you stronger and truer, or it can make you bitter and desperate. Some people react to that by becoming something more than they ever thought they could be–and some turn into something despicable. Kids are a fire, man, something that burns unnecessary things away and changes whatever is left. How you see yourself, how you look at the world, the future, your choices. Everything.
\n2013 KC signing Q&A<\/a>
\nWhen Harry is battling Sharkface in the end, is that all in his head, or did everybody there hear?<\/strong>
\nAnd the answer to that is yes. It\u2019s all going on in his head, and everybody there heard. Which, if you\u2019ll remember the closing to book 1, because book 1 was written from the perspective of a guy who has already finished his story, um, all the books are really, they’re him looking back, you get to the end book 1, and Harry says \u201cMy name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, but conjure by it at your own risk\u201d which, you know, there\u2019s a reason for that. Figured I\u2019d just throw that in there. Really, Harry\u2019s one of those guys whose name is more dangerous to other people than it is to him, in a lot of ways, a lot of people would be vulnerable by doing that, he\u2019s not. We\u2019ll get to see that in the future.
\nSalt Circle interview<\/a>
\nGiven the events of Changes through to Cold Days, what’s Harry’s relationship with the White Council now?<\/strong>
\nHe doesn’t know yet, I don’t want to give too much of that away, but uh, goodness, they are not going to be terribly pleased with him. The last wizard that they had that was running around, dying and then coming back again kinda caused them a little bit of trouble. They don’t really appreciate that sort of thing too much, so as usual Harry is showing all the signs of being a horrible monster and if you don’t know him that’s what he looks like. And the White Council, they’ve never really had any patience for him and I’m sure that they will continue to be their charming and generous selves.
\nNow, prior to Cold Days Dresden still owes Mab one favour, does he still owe her that favour or did the events of Cold Days make up for his obligation?<\/strong>
\nTechnically yeah, he still kind of owes her that one favour, but on the other hand, he also sort of owes her his complete loyalty, devotion and obedience so the extra favour is, you know, it’s like “yeah okay, he also does have a hand grenade in his hand while he’s sitting on top of a nuke that’s about to go off”, so you know, technically she could probably mess with that if he somehow got out of being the knight, But uh, generally speaking that didn’t just get wiped away, Mab keeps very good books and that’s not something that’s going to be, she does not let things slide, it does not happen.
\nMysterious Galaxy Signing Q and A<\/a>
\nRegarding Harry\u2019s first use of magic, in Proven Guilty he tells Molly the story, and in Ghost Story he reflects back on that.\u00a0 The stories overall are the same, but there are a lot of small details.\u00a0 That can be explained, but I was wondering if that was proof that changes [unintelligible] may have happened in the series?<\/strong>
\nYeah, it\u2019s happened several times, and I\u2019m not going to tell you where because I\u2019m going to use that in a book.\u00a0 I\u2019m trying to write Harry as much like a person as I can, and people remember things differently, especially over time.\u00a0 You think you remember thigns perfectly, but a lot of the time, I\u2019ve run into people that I haven\u2019t seen in 20 years, and they\u2019ll say, \u201cDo you remember this?\u201d and I\u2019ll say, \u201cNo, I don\u2019t remember that at all!\u201d\u00a0 They\u2019re like, \u201cYeah, yeah, you totally got into this fight and beat this guy up.\u201d \u201cI did?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWell, it pretty much looked like it from where I was standing.\u201d\u00a0 And I don\u2019t remember it like that at all, I just remember helping him up off the floor.\u00a0 Or something like that.\u00a0 But the point is that we remember things in very odd ways and you can see it in the short term when an investigator goes around and tries to get all the witnesses who just saw something to tell him what they saw.\u00a0 And everybody saw something a little bit different and it just gets more skewed and magnified over time.\u00a0 So, Dresden was telling Molly what she needed to hear, mainly, because he was concerned about her.\u00a0 And he was more or less stating what happened, but he\u2019s not the most reliable narrator in the whole world, because people aren\u2019t.\u00a0 And that\u2019s one of the great things about people, I think, UI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s going to kill us, or if it\u2019s going to be the only way we manage to get by, is by saying, \u201cOh, I\u2019m really not quite sure what happened that far back, maybe we should just move ahead.\u201d
\nBooktalk Nation Interview 5-15-14<\/a>
\nDoes Harry have an incorrect understanding of the Dark Hollow and other parts of the world?<\/strong>
\nOh god yes.\u00a0 I won\u2019t say Harry is clueless, but his understanding of lots of things including the way that magic works is incomplete in many ways.\u00a0 If only because he hasn\u2019t been trusted by a lot of the wizarding community by a lot of the people who could have taught him better.\u00a0 And a lot of the people who do know better aren\u2019t correcting him because they think it\u2019s important to learn these things on your own.\u00a0 Harry\u2019s going to be stumbling across things where he goes \u201cOh, well I didn\u2019t understand this exactly right.\u201d\u00a0 Like for example the literal Outer Gates.\u00a0 That was something he did not know actually existed.\u00a0 He thought that was a metaphor for a long time.
\n2014 AMA<\/a>
\nHow much of a pause would the White Council take if Harry were to start flagrantly breaking the laws and saying “Come at me bro” while Winter Knight? Would his connection to Mab provide much protection?<\/strong>
\nThey wouldn’t pause long at \/all\/ in that case. And Mab would look at him and say “you started this: finish it.”
\n2015 Grid Daily interview<\/a>
\nWill Dresden be featured in any of the spinoff stories?<\/strong>
\nVery possibly.\u00a0 I like the character a lot.\u00a0 Although I think he will be very different in the spinoff stories, because when you\u2019re not seated inside his point of view you don\u2019t see how scary he is to everyone around him.\u00a0 He is creepy.\u00a0 For one thing, he\u2019s huge and dark and scarred, and never makes eye contact with anybody.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t talk a lot, but when he does he usually says something that is reasonably incisive or makes fun of someone.\u00a0 It would be a little eerie hanging around him if you weren\u2019t close enough to see behind the mask that he wears.\u00a0 He would be a totally different person showing up in a place like that.\u00a0 Although it would be fun to do a series of short stories showing people seeing Dresden from the outside.\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019ll do that in the future sometime.
\n2013 Geek Hard interview<\/a>
\nHarry’s gone back to it so many times, he’s hung out in the grave, he’s called the Mothers, he’s done all that stuff and it was just sitting there, and that’s a looming thing to have over you in that character.<\/strong>
\nOn the other hand, though, that’s not really a thing of fear and trepidation at this point, it’s a place of power. It’s not a particularly pleasant kind of power but uh, that’s somewhere that he can go where he’ll have access to things that he wouldn’t have elsewhere. And Harry’s been dead, done that. Not as scary as everybody makes it out to be, you know, so he’s got a slightly different attitude about now. He’s not in a hurry to check out or anything but neither is he terrified of it. So having his own grave it’s like, well, “it’ll be nice to have a nice place someday”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Link back to the main Dresden Files WoJ compilation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Link back to the main Dresden Files WoJ compilation   Harry Quote from: jmsilverwolf on February 12, 2007, 03:25:30 PM … More WoJ on Harry<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":144,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-169","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/169\/revisions\/209"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}