{"id":172,"date":"2017-12-26T21:59:58","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T21:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordof.jim-butcher.com\/?page_id=172"},"modified":"2022-02-08T17:37:04","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T17:37:04","slug":"woj-on-harrys-family","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"\/index.php\/word-of-jim-woj-compilation\/woj-on-harrys-family\/","title":{"rendered":"WoJ on Harry’s Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

 <\/p>\n

Malcolm:<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n

Forum Timeline reply<\/a>:
\nDavid Copperfield only adopted that stage name in 1974 and gained national recognition in 1977.\u00a0 Did you have these dates in mind when you named Harry, and if so, does this give us an upper limit on Harry’s age?<\/strong>
\nHarry’s dad was acquainted with [David Copperfield] from the [Society of American Magicians] when both were at a similar point in their careers–just getting going.\u00a0 Malcolm was a bit older and more experienced, but didn’t have the same kind of raw talent and had not had any major success or anything.\u00a0 Malcolm had an enormous amount of admiration for the young performer (and may or may not have contributed the notion for his stage name).<\/p>\n

Thomas<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

Forum Post:<\/a>
\nTo clarify.\u00a0\":)\"
\n1) Thomas is barely anything at all under six feet high, when he isn’t wearing shoes.
\n2) He has “natural” blue eyes when he isn’t hungry.\u00a0 They get paler and paler, based on how much he needs\/wants to feed.
\n3) Harry, being freakishly tall, mostly drops people into “much shorter than me” or “a little shorter than me” categories.
\n4) Avatars!\u00a0 Nifty!
\n5-10) Jim is humanly flawed.\u00a0\":)\"
\n2009 Lexington signing<\/a>:
\nQ:\u00a0 Does Thomas have a godmother?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Maggie figured he was a baby shark, and would be able to protect himself.
\n(Forum post lost to forum purge)
\nThomas is a natural liar and probably lies to himself about some of his motives.<\/strong>
\nAstute, Gman.
\n2014 AMA<\/a>
\nDid Maggie LeFay impart any important information to Thomas during the Soul Gaze?<\/strong>
\nBasically Thomas got the same stuff Harry did, along with “Look out for your little brother, Thomas.”<\/p>\n

2009 Independence signing<\/a>:
\nQ:\u00a0 How\/when did Thomas find out Harry is his brother?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 Thomas was old enough to remember his mother, and obviously he wanted to find out everything that had happened to her.\u00a0 He knew there was another child, and it was only a matter of time before he found out it was Harry.\u00a0 There is a reason Thomas showed up when he did \u2013 he was there to help Harry from the start.
\nQ:\u00a0 When Thomas called Harry from the storage facility and said he couldn\u2019t handle \u201cthem\u201d by himself, was he referring to Binder\u2019s minions or someone else?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 He was talking about Binder\u2019s minions.
\n2010 Lee\u2019s Summit signing<\/a>:
\nQ:\u00a0 Will Thomas\u2019s memories of Maggie ever come into play?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 Yes, but it won\u2019t be until much later in the series.
\n2010 Bitten by Books Q&A<\/a>:
\n#97 \u201cWould you ever consider writing another novella from Thomas\u2019 perspective?\u201d<\/strong>
\nOh, absolutely. Probably will, in fact, write up a short piece or novella about what Thomas has to do to pay off Lara for saving Molly at the end of Changes.
\nSome 2008 booksigning pulled off of youtube<\/a>:
\nDo Harry and Thomas have any other siblings out there?<\/strong>
\nNO
\n2009 Kansas City Q&A<\/a>\u00a0@36:20
\nHave you read the Twilight series?<\/strong>
\nNo, and I haven’t seen the movies.\u00a0 Maybe when they make it to cable.\u00a0 Although a bunch of people in Chicago made me write in their books that\u00a0Thomas could kick Edward up and down the street.<\/em>
\n2010 Mysterious Galaxy Q&A<\/a>\u00a0@5:10
\nAre Thomas and Justine ever going to have a happily ever after?<\/strong>
\nThomas and Justine’s relationship is really weird.\u00a0 I know what the relationship is in my head like right now.\u00a0 Their actually happier now than they’ve been in ever.\u00a0 But it’s all happening behind the scenes and nobody can see because Thomas has to have his bad ass vampire face on whenever he’s in public.\u00a0 But when they are alone together, nothing else going on, their like totally cute.\u00a0 Justine wears like these grownup version of footie pajamas so that she can snuggle up next to him on the couch and watch TV without actually burning him.\u00a0 They don’t have like a normal relationship or anything like one, but they’ve kinda adjusted, their fairly happy.\u00a0 You don’t go around letting the other vampires go “Oh how cute.”\u00a0 I’ll have to get to that one of these days, Harry doesn’t see that.
\n2011 Naperville Signing<\/a>
\nDoes the relationship of Ebenezar McCoy and Thomas Raith ever come into play as grandfather\/grandson?<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s one of those things that\u2019s in the future, that\u2019s way more fun if you don\u2019t get to find out about it. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your particular point of view on the matter, I think blood relations come into play and that\u2019s all there is to it. One way or another, positive or negative, they\u2019re there for something always, so yeah.<\/p>\n

Maggie Jr.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

2010 Bitten by Books Q&A<\/a>:
\n#37 \u201cwhat gifts will Harry\u2019s child have? Like he isn\u2019t gonna save said child-no matter what!\u201d<\/strong>
\nWho says she\u2019ll have any gifts at \/all\/? Under the circumstances, the gift of life is already pretty darned miraculous.\u00a0\":)\"
\n2011 NYC Signing Q&A<\/a>
\nAre we going to see more of Maggie and is she a witch?<\/strong>
\nWe WILL see more of Maggie and (sing-song voice) I\u2019m not gonna tell yooooou.\u00a0 But yeah, she\u2019s definitely going to be a part of what\u2019s going on.
\nKansas City release party Q&A<\/a>
\nAs an author, when did you know that Maggie existed?<\/strong>
\nBy book three. By book three I realized, “Oh, wait a minute, I have to do this,” because I remember there being some huge uproar on The List and I was still kind of keeping track of things at the time. There’s nothing that will get me riled up faster than a discussion on the Internet. There was somebody upset about the Laurell Hamilton books and going on steady with the argument that these books have devolved into BDSM* sex that have nothing to do with plot. So one of the counter arguments was, “How could you possibly have a BDSM sex scene that was actually plot relevant in any way?” *Jim makes the facial equivalent of “Well…”* It could be done, plot relevant, there you go. So her existence was planned – though the specifics didn’t get settled until a little later – but in book 3 was about where I figured it out
\n2011 Boston Signing<\/a>
\nIs Maggie going to start playing a bigger role?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nShe\u2019s like seven! Seven year olds\u2026.seven year olds, you\u2019re lucky if their big role isn\u2019t falling off the monkey bars and getting a broken arm, like mine did when he was seven. But, on the other hand, if I\u2019m ever done with the Dresden Files and I\u2019ve got to pay off my gambling debts or something, I suppose I could always do Dresden: The Next Generation with Maggie, although she\u2019d probably think Dad was a little soft<\/p>\n

Maggie Sr.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n
\n
Quote from: jimbutcher on December 11, 2006, 04:29:10 PM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
Quote from: GnosisRoads<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

What death curses are able to do? How powerful can they be? Why don’t more wizards just use die as their curse? Its short and kills your killer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/div>\n

They sometimes do.\u00a0\":)\"\u00a0 See what happened to all the vampires around Simon when they assaulted his compound immediately prior to the onstage events in Summer Knight.<\/p>\n

However, while taking your killer down with you might be the most immediately gratifying thing to do with a death curse (assuming that they haven’t up and prepared to defend against that kind of magical retaliation, which only a real moron *wouldn’t* do if they knew they were off to murder a wizard), it might not be the SMARTEST thing you could do with it.\u00a0 Still, magic in the Dresden universe is only as formidable as a wizard’s imagination can make it.<\/p>\n

I mean, Maggie’s death curse on Raith did \/more\/ than render him virtually powerless.\u00a0 It freaking crippled the entire White Court by rendering its head executive suddenly unwilling to get aggressive.\u00a0 It took that same executive’s focus and warped it from an outwardly-oriented expansionist agenda (What, did you really think Raith just bumped into Maggie at a \/bar\/ somewhere?) to one of frantic power-defense, paranoia, and infighting.\u00a0 Had she merely killed Raith, another vampire much like him would simply have stepped into his shoes.\u00a0 Instead, her curse sandbagged the entire White Court for two or three \/decades\/.<\/p>\n

It isn’t until the events of White Night that the White Court really begins to . . .<\/p>\n

. . .but perhaps I’ve said too much.\u00a0 \u00a0\"::)\"<\/p>\n

Anyway, Maggie’s curse, of course, also made Raith suffer.\u00a0 Horribly.\u00a0 It made him live in a constant state of drug-withdrawal-level hunger, and fear, and eventually reduced him to outright slavery to someone with centuries of comeuppance to dish out.\u00a0 But that was just icing on the cake.
\nJim<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

Forum Quote:<\/p>\n

“Time runs at varying speeds in the Nevernever, too.\u00a0 Remember that there was a reason she was called “LaFey.”\u00a0 Ten minutes in some portion of the Nevernever where time runs at 10,000:1 or something could add up.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

2009 Lexington signing<\/a>:
\nQ:\u00a0 When will we learn more about Maggie?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 It will be little bits at a time, like we\u2019re learning now.\u00a0 But eventually we will find out that what we\u2019ve been told so far is only accurate from a certain point of view.\u00a0 It will all have a different meaning once we\u2019ve learned the whole story.
\n2010 Lee\u2019s Summit signing<\/a>
\nQ:\u00a0 Should Harry\u2019s first deal with Lea been covered by Maggie\u2019s deal?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 Not really.\u00a0 One problem is that Harry dealt with Lea the way that one would deal with another human, so he really didn\u2019t get much out of the bargain besides some confidence.\u00a0 Lea gave him the \u201cmagic feather\u201d so to speak.
\nAnd, Maggie could have done a little better job on her deal with Lea, but she was kind of in a rush, so she wasn\u2019t as detailed as she should have been.
\n2009 Kansas City Q&A<\/a>\u00a0@37:15
\nAre we ever going to learn more about Maggie?<\/strong>
\nYah you will find out more about her as we go.\u00a0 In bits and pieces.\u00a0 The problem with her running around doing secret things is no one knows what she was doing.
\n2010 Mysterious Galaxy Q&A<\/a>
\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.
\nEditor’s note:\u00a0 There’s a\u00a02011 WoJ<\/a>\u00a0Where Jim says if he remembers right, she died around 1810<\/span>
\nAfter discussing Harry’s Grandmother:<\/strong>@8:15
\nHarry’s mom was around for a good long while before she had him.\u00a0 I think she was a hundred and something.
\n2011 NYC Signing Q&A<\/a>
\nAny word on Harry\u2019s mother and whether she\u2019s going to make it back?<\/strong>
\nNo, they did a good job on her. Although they didn\u2019t do a good enough job\u00a0 as evidenced by the fact that her kids are wrecking people\u2019s plans left and right.
\n2011 Bitten by Books Q&A<\/a>
\nDresden\u2019s pentacle necklace \u2014 can anyone besides Thomas and Harry have access to his mother\u2019s information? Or does it have to be someone in his bloodline?<\/strong>
\nThat one is all about bloodlines, hence the use of a ruby.
\n2011 Bitten by Books Q&A<\/a>
\nIs there any similarity (beyond the obvious) between the red gemstone that Harry received from Lea in Changes and the red gemstones that Lord Raith and Lara Raith have been seen wearing in the past, and if so, can you elaborate at all?<\/strong>
\nThey\u2019re rubies. The Raiths like rubies because they think they go with the dark hair and silver eyes to make them look stylin\u2019. Maggie the Elder used a ruby because she wanted to create something that could only be used by someone with her blood.
\nHow old were Eb and Maggie Sr when they first manifested a talent?<\/strong>
\nSame age as Harry\u2013around 12 or 13.
\nKansas City release party Q&A<\/a>
\nMaggie LeFay, Morgan LeFay, is that a generational name, are they related?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>
\nNo, the \u201cLeFay\u201d is something that gets added as an honorific in the wizarding community, it\u2019s one of those kind of mixed names that you give somebody that is sort of a name that she\u2019s earned, so it\u2019s a bit of status, and it also means you\u2019re insane. Which everybody thought Harry\u2019s mom was, being a big-time explorer of Ways and hanging out with Faeries and generally kind of doing things that most wizards considered to be pretty crazily, stupidly dangerous. When you\u2019re somebody who can live for three or four hundred years as long as nothing goes wrong, you tend to be a little conservative, really, you get a lot of benefit from that. And certainly, in Maggie\u2019s case, she was bucking the trend, and we\u2019ll probably get into a little bit more of why she was doing that later in the books.
\nSalt Circle interview<\/a>
\nNow, I think it was in book 1, we’re told very clearly that Harry’s father is dead, but the demise of his mother has always been more nebulous, has there ever been a reliable source that saw her die or did she merely disappear?<\/strong>
\nOh no, she died died. I mean she died in childbirth, or shortly after but it was written down and documented and everybody saw it, that was out in the open.
\n2014 AMA<\/a>
\nDid Maggie LeFay Intentionally and for a purpose have a child, Thomas, with Lord Raith?<\/strong>
\nNo. She was having lots of awesome vampire sex and it sort of happened.\u00a0\":)\"<\/p>\n

Mouse<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

Quote from: Jaroslav on October 21, 2007, 09:35:47 PM<\/a><\/p>\n

\nMaybe you right. But Toto, Abby’s dog from White Night, didn’t seem able to sense the supernatural. And he even had a magical owner, who while not strong by herself interacted with many other practitioners. So you think if the skill simply comes from being around magic, he would have picked it up.<\/p>\n

Don’t forget, Toto was trained to detect seizures. So I don’t think it was simply a case of him being unobservant.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What, all dogs are equally talented, the way all people are equally talented?\u00a0 Please.\u00a0\":)\"\u00a0 Dogs who can sense the supernatural are all over it, when it comes to protecting their adopted family, but not all dogs can “see” in that spectrum, all of the time.\u00a0 It doesn’t make them any less good or dogly, any more than Murphy is cheapened by not being able to hurl around cosmic energy.\u00a0 It just means that it isn’t a part of what they are.<\/p>\n

Cats are much more likely to be sensitive to the supernatural, but their reaction to it is considerably less predictable–anything from the fluff-up-the-fur-and-hiss to the yawn-and-go-to-sleep.\u00a0 I mean, you just never can tell with cats, can you.\u00a0\":)\"<\/p>\n

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

\n

2007 Huntington Beach B&N Q&A<\/a>
\nI wanna know if Harry is going to at least ask Bob what a Foo dog is?<\/strong>
\nHe knows what a Foo dog is, it’s a spiritual dog thing… Chinese… But even so, Bob’s information on that is gonna be sketchy in terms of what he knows and what he’s heard.\u00a0 Those aren’t the kind of stuff that you just run into anywhere in the Dresden world so (person in audience:\u00a0 Unless your Dresden)\u00a0 Well yah, unless your Dresden in which case well you know, you’ve got one that bails out in your car and hangs out with you.
\n@43:47
\nLong story about how his 25lb french beshan frezae (can’t spell that) saved his son from a bear causing Jim to decide that Harry needed a dog too.
\n2009 Bitten by Books Q&A<\/a>:
\n#31 \u201cWhat breed of dog is Mouse? I mean, I realize he\u2019s fictional in that he\u2019s a Foo dog of Chinese and Tibetan legend, but what would be the closest approximation to an actual dog breed?\u201d<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 The closest you can come is a Caucasian Mountain Dog:
\n2010 Buzzy Multimedia interview<\/a>
\nDoes Mouse look anything like this?<\/strong>
\njim holds a, 8 inch statue of a Chinese temple dog almost exactly like the right statue in this picture, but a darker bronze<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Yes, this is a statue of a foo dog, or at least a replica of a statue, Mouse himself is a temple dog.\u00a0 The way he looks in my head is he looks a lot more like a Russian Caucasian.\u00a0 The Soviets bread them as security dogs, from Tibetan mastiffs, and I think Saint Bernards.\u00a0 Mouse looks quite somewhat like this, if you scale up a Tibetan Mastiff, you get to Mouse Size, and that’s about where he is.
\n2010 Bitten by Books Q&A<\/a>:
\n#136 \u201cI am interested in knowing if we will ever get back to Mouse\u2019s comment about \u201cwinning\u201d Harry. I\u2019m totally mystified. \u201d<\/strong>
\nIt might help to know that while Mouse and Lea are both using the same word, winning, they are talking about entirely different meanings of it. As a result, Lea was mystified, too.
\n2011 Marscon<\/a>
\nAbout Mouse’s siblings<\/strong>
\nhe does have a bunch of brothers and sisters who wonder how come they haven\u2019t heard from him. \u2018You never howl, you never pee on anything\u2026.\u2019\u00a0 And plus, there is\u2026uh, I will just say that the possibility exists that Harry didn\u2019t rescue all of them, and if so, where are the others?
\n@longshotauthor:<\/strong>\u00a0 Oh, wow, here is almost exactly Mouse:\u00a0http:\/\/bit.ly\/f6Ot9M<\/a>
\n
\n2011 Atlanta Signing<\/a>
\nHow about a short story from the perspective of Mouse or Mister? A day in the life?<\/strong>
\nI suppose it could be done.\u00a0 Mister\u2019s would be really freaky, because he\u2019s a cat. [unintelligible]\u2026.he\u2019s a cat.\u00a0 \u00a0I guess it could be fun writing that.\u00a0 From Mouse\u2019s perspective?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know, Mouse knows too much about what\u2019s going on, he\u2019d give it away. Mouse is actually far more clued in than Dresden
\n2011 DC signing<\/a>
\nThere’s a lack of Mouse in this book (Ghost Story). Are we going to have more of him, or is he going to be protecting Maggie from now on?<\/strong>
\nAnd the answer to that is: Yes. Yeah, Mouse was one of those characters that I wanted to create so that Dresden had kind of a home security system, ’cause otherwise, there are more and more of these bad guys coming that would just kill him in his sleep. It’s like, Oh wait, there’s a Foo dog there, that isn’t going to work
\n2012 Reddit AMA:<\/a>
\nbadowntown:<\/strong>\u00a0Is mouse a Foo dog or a Temple dog? My understanding is that Foo dogs are Tibetan celestial beings, and Temple dogs are Foo dogs crossed with mortal canines (possibly multiple generations removed).
\nYou, at one point, referred to mouse as a Temple dog, but Ancient Mai at one point in Turn Coat exclaims something like “That is a Foo Dog. Where did you get it!?”. Could you clarify?
\nJim:<\/strong>\u00a0You’re splitting hairs, here. They’re the same thing (for every practical purpose). A Foo Dog is a celestial being which chooses to give up its divinity (and immortality) to serve and protect in the mortal world. Part of being mortal is having offspring, who share in their progenitor’s power.
\nMarathonbrewer:<\/strong>\u00a0Will Mouse continue to operate at Foo dog level now that he’s guarding Maggie? When he faced down Lea in Mexico she said that he was far from his place of power, but he replied that he cheated by living with a wizard. Does that mean he needs to live with a full-fledged wizard or just someone with wizard talent? Obviously he’d still be a giant killing machine with a snarky personality, but I worry that he might try to bite off more than he can chew if he loses the Superdog status.
\nJim:<\/strong>\u00a0Here’s something I’m not sure will ever make the books: Mouse draws the fundaments of his power from a house’s threshold. \/Weaker\/ at the \/Carpenter’s\/? Ye gods and little fishes, he went from Thing to Hulk when he moved in to protect Maggie. But, having grown up with a wizard who regards conventions as things to mourn as they are shattered into little pieces, and to speak nicely about in retrospect, he’s learned to use other kinds of power, too.<\/p>\n

Mister<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nIn making this compilation, I ended up skipping stuff about Mister because he’s just a cat.\u00a0 But observing the amount of interest other readers have in him, I’ll add a section for him.\u00a0 I’ll type up a few WoJ’s from memory, but I won’t be able to source them until later.<\/em>\u00a0-Serack<\/sup>
\n*Mister survived the events of changes!!!\u00a0 “Mister is way too cool, we haven’t met anything that could take him out.”<\/span>
\n*Jim has told a story a couple times how he based the name for Mister off of a cat owned by a guy in a text based MUD (Multi user dungeon back in the 90s).\u00a0 The guy would sometimes have random text show up on the screen and would blame it on his cat “Mister.”\u00a0 It happened often enough that when anyone accidentally typed gibberish, people would immediately respond with “Hi Mister!”\u00a0 See Mickey Finn’s comments in the “Word of Mods” page for his input on the subject.<\/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   Malcolm: Forum Timeline reply: David Copperfield only adopted that stage … More WoJ on Harry’s Family<\/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-172","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/172","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=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/172\/revisions\/210"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}