{"id":178,"date":"2017-12-28T19:49:08","date_gmt":"2017-12-28T19:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordof.jim-butcher.com\/?page_id=178"},"modified":"2022-02-08T17:37:04","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T17:37:04","slug":"woj-on-harrys-friends","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"\/index.php\/word-of-jim-woj-compilation\/woj-on-harrys-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"WoJ on Harry’s Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Molly<\/span><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0(and a little Charity)<\/h1>\n

*Editor’s note*<\/strong>\u00a0Molly isn’t mortal anymore, but she’s staying here nostalgically<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n
Quote from: Shiggy on September 22, 2006, 06:55:53 PM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

I just re-read Grave Peril, and I was wondering if the following passage was meant to foreshadow things that happen in Proven Guilty, or if I’m just reading into it too much.<\/p>\n

“Mortal Children are so sweet.\u00a0 And can be bent and shaped in so many, many ways.\u00a0 Your eldest daughter, I think, would-”\u00a0\u00a0Lea to Michael page 243<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If so, that would imply that I was thinking about seven years ahead.\u00a0 I mean, I would have to be, to have written something like that back when I did Grave Peril, which was way before the books actually *sold*.\u00a0 It would mean that I’m doing a lot of stuff on purpose, given that, you know, Molly actually wound up \/in\/ the Winter Queen’s fortress, with Lea (Mab’s chief advisor) actually \/right there\/.<\/p>\n

Hell, if I’m doing that, why not assume that I planted stuff in Storm Front that I don’t intend to come out until the big old apocalyptic trilogy’s finale?<\/p>\n

That would be kinda nerdy, dontcha think?\u00a0\":)\"<\/p>\n

Jim
\nNerd Royale With Cheese<\/p><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Word of Serack:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim’s implied to me (kinda like the above WoJ about Grave Peril<\/em>, which doesn’t flat out acknowledge the reference) that the line from chapter 3 of Small Favor<\/em>, “she looked natural in the snowy setting, her cheeks and nose turning red with the cold” is a foreshadowing of her potential affiliations with the Winter Fae.<\/p>\n

2009 Lexington signing<\/a>:
\nQ:\u00a0 Are Molly’s actions of peeking into Harry’s head in SmF (TC spoiler) and into Luccio in TC violations of the 3rd Law?\u00a0 What about Harry and Elaine’s communication spell in WN, or (TC spoiler) Merlin’s actions at Morgan’s trial?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 Molly’s actions are a violation of the 3rd Law.\u00a0 She is entering someone’s head without their consent.\u00a0 Harry and Elaine’s communication is consensual sharing of thoughts.\u00a0 (He didn’t really answer the last part of the question)
\n2010 Lee\u2019s Summit signing<\/a>:
\nQ:\u00a0 Harry says several times that Molly isn\u2019t going to be a good combat wizard, but she seems to hold her own.\u00a0<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 Harry still sees her as a little kid AND she\u2019s a girl.\u00a0 Those are two things that Harry has a hard time looking past.\u00a0 She really could be very dangerous, but not in the same way Harry is \u2013 and that\u2019s how Harry measures combat talent: sudden and intense violence.
\n2011 Naperville Signing<\/a>
\nIs the Winter Court interested in Molly?<\/strong>
\nLea\u2019s offer (back in Grave Peril) was a pretty generic, \u201cGive me your first child\u201d offer, as opposed to \u201cHey, I specifically want that one.\u201d But Molly is unfortunately in a position where she\u2019s going to get noticed by all kinds of things that intent her no good, and the Winter Court may be among them, yes. But that\u2019s what you get for hanging around with Dresden, it rubs off on you.\u00a0(This answer almost directly contradicts the implications in the first WoJ in this section\u00a0-Serack<\/sup>)<\/span>
\n2011 Bitten by Books Q&A<\/a>
\nIs Mollys progression & endgame fairly planned out already in your notes? Or are you adapting her as the stories are written?\u201d<\/strong>
\nI have a good idea where she\u2019s going, though that\u2019s subject to change if I come up with something more fun.
\nKansas City release party Q&A<\/a>
\nAt what point did you realize that Charity had had her own experience with the magical world, and had been a practitioner in the past, and at what point did I know that Molly was going to be Harry\u2019s apprentice?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>
\nThe answer to that is: when they appeared. I knew that Charity just couldn\u2019t stand Dresden, and I had to have a good reason for her to really not stand him and really, the best reason that anyone could possibly have for not liking somebody is because they remind them of themselves, something they hate in themselves. So I thought that was just perfect. And then I gave her all kinds of good, rational reasons on top of that to not like him. \u201cYou get my husband arrested, and in trouble, and beat up!\u201d Ok, well, good point. As far as Molly goes, I knew she was going to be Harry\u2019s apprentice by the end of the first book she showed up in. No, not the end of that one. By the end of Death Masks.\u00a0 By the time she was sitting there with the Knight of the Cross, prank-calling the grocery stores with him, just to play around with his head, you know, that was like, \u201cShe\u2019s not going to get away from being Dresden\u2019s apprentice at this point.\u201d
\n2011 DC Signing<\/a>
\nMolly seems to be doing a lot of very-close-to-black-magic stuff. Is she getting, like, totally corrupted?<\/strong>
\nWell… what’s “corrupted” mean? [laughter] Yeah, she’s playing around with some nasty stuff and it’s only a matter of time before that catches up to her. On the other hand, she’s doing things she knew Dresden would’ve done if he could have done them, so it’s all Harry’s fault.
\nSalt Circle interview<\/a>
\nOkay, Why didn’t Ebenezar take over Molly’s training after Changes?<\/strong>
\nEbenezar, he was not able to afford…we’ll have to get into some of the politics of it, he was not able to afford to actually show up and do it, he was able to keep the council off of Molly’s back and that was as far as he could go at the time. Meanwhile, she was getting trained up by the Leanansidhe so it’s not like she was, so it’s not like she did not have an instructor. She probably could have had a friendlier instructor, one who didn’t throw knives at her, but on the other hand maybe it was kind of good for her to have somebody tough because she wasn’t hanging around in the kiddie pool anymore after Harry was gone.
\n2014 WyrdCon pannel<\/a>
\nIf seven and eight had been in a different order, what role do you think Molly would have played in Dead Beat<\/strong>\u00a0(Editor’s note:\u00a0 7&8’s planned order got switched due to the desire to have Sue in the first hard cover book #7)<\/span>
\nWell she would have been Harry’s locked down apprentice at that point, official apprentice.\u00a0 She would have been inducted into the wardens as well at that point.\u00a0 Harry would have demanded a cloak for her as well so she would have had warden time under her belt.\u00a0 Ramirez probably wouldn’t have gotten the role he got because Molly would have been filling it at least to some degree.\u00a0 And she might have gotten horribly hurt somewhere, broken an arm or something like that.\u00a0 Because, the closer you are to the center of my story, the more likely you are to, you know, attract my attention.<\/p>\n

Bob<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n
\n
\n
Quote from: neurovore on August 25, 2006, 01:27:57 PM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Don’t know whether this might turn out to be a plot point or not, but who was the original “owner” of the skull Bob lives in ?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bob doesn’t know!\u00a0 Etienne the Enchanter picked it up on the cheap, back in medieval France, and skulls weren’t exactly uncommon.\u00a0 Etienne himself probably had it for the reason that so many writers and sages had skulls hanging around–to make their office look cooler.<\/p>\n

Etienne, though, is the one who originally laid out the enchantment on the skull to enable it to be a little home-away-from-home for Bob, and he’s been passed down, wizard-to-wizard, ever since.\u00a0\":)\"<\/p>\n

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

\n

2009 Whisper radio interview<\/a>\u00a0@1:12:14
\nAbout Bob<\/strong>:
\nHe’s a thousand year old being, he’s not in a hurry
\n2010 Bitten by Books Q&A<\/a>:
\n#296 \u201cIs it safe to say, that since Bob is a romance addict, he was a womanizer back when he was in his human form?\u201d<\/strong>
\nBob never \/had\/ a human form.\u00a0\":)\"\u00a0He\u2019s a spirit of intellect (which gets confused with \u201cair spirit\u201d in some writings, I believe because air was the element that symbolized the intellect, intelligence and logic).
\nThe SF Site interview, 2004<\/a>:
\nWhat in the world possessed you to create Bob?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nBob\u2019s origins are the subject of upcoming storylines, so I won\u2019t get too far into them\u2013but he\u2019s always been a being of spirit, never mortal.
\nBob started off as an inside joke between my writing teacher, Debbie Chester, and myself. I needed a device to get the rules of magic across to my readers, so that they would have a point of reference for the laws of my story world. I talked with Debbie about maybe designing a character whose fundamental function was to have conversations with Harry about the nature of magic, so that the readers could all understand what was going on. “Sounds fine,” says Debbie. “But whatever you do, don’t create some kind of talking head.”
\nIn story craft terms, a talking head refers to a character whose purpose in life is to dispense information. Talking heads will wander onto the page, blurt out exposition without bothering to display much in the way of character or motivation, and promptly exit. So when I designed Bob, complete with his little obsessions and quirks, I decided to make him a literal talking head, while avoiding the traits that add up to a story-craft talking head.
\n2009 Dayton Book Signing<\/a>\u00a0@0:29
\nWhy is bob increasingly less and less in the books<\/strong>
\nHe’s not increasingly less and less in the books, he’s just had less of a roll lately.\u00a0 Actually I think we will end up with bob as the main side kick not in the next book but in the book after that.\u00a0 Book 13, that’s kinda appropriate actually.
\n2009 Ann Arbor Signing<\/a>
\nWhy is Bob the way he is and will we find out why he’s hated so by the Fey<\/strong>
\nJim mentioned that Bob takes on some of the personality of his “master” so when he came to Harry. Harry was about 16 years old.\u00a0 Sooo that’s why he’s so smart alecky and into girls so much.\u00a0 As for the Fey comment mentioned we will find out in later books.
\n2011 Bitten by Books Q&A<\/a>
\nIt\u2019s been a while since I re-read Changes, but my last recollection of Bob\u2019s whereabouts were hidden on the Water Beetle. How\u2019d Butters get his hands on the skull?<\/strong>
\nFrom Murphy.\u00a0\u00a0\":)\"
\nHow did Harry explain to Molly the shelf in his basement with the skull and all those well-read steamy romance novels, and did she believe his answer?\u201d<\/strong>
\nHe didn\u2019t. You might not have noticed this about Dresden, but he is often cryptic and unwilling to come across with random bits of information.\u00a0\":)\"\u00a0Molly spent years staring at the damned thing, thinking it was some kind of obscure test.
\nAre there any other powerful spirits in the world like Bob who could contend with his experience and council?<\/strong>
\nIndeed. >\":)\"
\n2014 AMA<\/a>
\nDoes Harry know Bob’s Name? Would knowing it give him anymore hold over it then possessing the skull?<\/strong>
\nWell, he GAVE Bob a name. And yes, it does give him more hold over him than he would have otherwise, though not more than actually holding the skull would.
\n2015 AMA<\/a>
\nWhy does Bob have to obey whoever owns his skull? Is it because of the enchantments on the skull, or is it just that all spiritual entities must obey whoever controls their sanctum?<\/strong>
\nIt’s the bargain Bob made to be who he is, basically. The skull is essentially his contract–shelter in exchange for service.<\/p>\n

Murphy<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n
\n
\n
Quote from: Mickey Finn on August 12, 2006, 11:36:22 AM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

So, to start:
\nCan Murphy actually use the katana set she has on her mantle?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes!\u00a0 Murphy is a fairly serious traditional aikidoka (though that isn’t the only art she’s studied or employs) and she’s leaned quite a bit of jo technique, which largely carries over to katana technique.\u00a0 Her knowledge, though, is kinda academic.\u00a0 She isn’t a kendo practitioner, and it’s not as though you can just go a few quick practice rounds with swords to keep your reflexes in shape.\u00a0 So when it comes to large choppy-slashy blades, she’s never used it in life.<\/p>\n

Well.\u00a0 Except for this really extreme moment in Hawaii . . .<\/p><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Whedon interview<\/a>:
\nW : So Murphy is…<\/strong>
\nJB : Murphy was actually based on somebody I saw give a karate demonstration, an aikido demonstration. She was a little 5\u2019 tall, she looked like somebody\u2019s favorite aunt ; a little cheerful woman and they had three 250-lb. guys start trying to tackle her. They were told, “All you have to do is try and hold her down.” And she just tossed them all, left and right, for like five minutes…
\nAnd it was funny too, because she was just a little old lady ! So that\u2019s where Murphy came from, but yes, in my fantasy casting of the show, I was like, “Yeah, yeah, we\u2019ll have Sarah play Murphy. Why not ? She probably didn\u2019t have anything better to do. She can play Murphy.”
\nAmazon.com reply<\/a>
\n“On another note did you notice how at the very, very beginning he was calling her Murph. Then as soon as she said she had his back for his child he always called her Karrin from then on?”<\/strong>
\nGod I love an observant reader.\u00a0\":)\"
\n2011 NYC Signing Q&A<\/a>
\nAbout Murphy\u2019s dad and how he killed himself in the books\u2026was that despair forced on him?<\/strong>
\nWho says he killed himself?\u00a0 (lots of audience reaction) You know, they just found him there and it, you know, looked like a suicide.
\n2011 KC signing<\/a>
\nWill the history of Collin Murphy – how he killed himself, et cetera – turn out to be important in any way?<\/strong>
\nWell, no. Because that would require that he actually killed himself. So I’ll just leave it at that.
\n2015 Grid Daily interview<\/a>
\nEven though you write all these characters, have you ever had one that refused to do what you wanted it to?<\/strong>
\nNo, because those people work for me.\u00a0 There are times when the characters don\u2019t seem to be going as easily in a direction I want them to go.\u00a0 Often I will have to stop and take a look at what I\u2019m doing since maybe the story has squirreled off in the wrong direction.\u00a0 Which is sometimes the case and I\u2019ll have to rewrite.\u00a0 Often what I will do is I\u2019ll go back and I\u2019ll play Time Lord and go back and retool the character\u2019s past to give them a good motivation to do what I want them to do.
\nMurphy was continually too much in the way in Fool Moon, for example.\u00a0 She kept trying to participate in what was going on and not in the adversarial way I needed her to, because she was essentially a minor villain in Fool Moon.\u00a0 It was not working out at all until I went back and tinkered with her backstory and Murphy has a paralyzing fear of big dogs.\u00a0 That was changing her opinions and put enough brakes on her that I could get her to slow down enough to let other people get killed instead of her.
\nBut it also means that she wasn\u2019t too sure about Mouse the first time she met him.\u00a0 She\u2019s OK with him later on, because he\u2019s a big dog that she doesn\u2019t have to be afraid of, she trusts him despite that fear.\u00a0 But that\u2019s all under-the-table stuff that I can\u2019t write about because Murphy is not going to go up to Dresden and say, \u201cI\u2019m terrified of big dogs.\u201d\u00a0 Because Dresden would make fun of her for being short and it\u2019s not going to happen.<\/p>\n

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

2009 Kansas City Q&A<\/a>\u00a0@39:35
\nWhich character relationships did I want to keep going but had to kill through plot line?<\/strong>
\nI originally hadn’t intended for things with Susan to work out the way they did.\u00a0 But then I realized part way into book three that Susan Rodriguez was going to turn into Lois Lane, which I didn’t want.\u00a0 I didn’t want Harry to be rampaging around rescuing her.\u00a0 So I wound up “killing” her sort of.\u00a0 In terms of what she had been in terms of the story before then she was certainly dead.\u00a0 She deserved to be, but I got to give her some cool neat stuff that she could do later on.\u00a0 That’s the only time it’s happened but that’s because I haven’t really scripted out Harry’s love life.\u00a0 I wanted it to be something that was organic, and what I found out is that [snark]apparently, if you love somebody, it can sometimes effect other portions of your life too.[\/snark]
\nAmazon.com Jim Butcher comment<\/a>
\nDid anyone else note that the costume that Lea gave Susan was sacrificial robe to Harry’s conquistador?<\/strong>
\nGOD I LOVE AN OBSERVANT READER!\u00a0\":)\"<\/p>\n

The Alphas<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

2009 Independence signing<\/a>:
\nQ:\u00a0 What happened to the other Alphas?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 Like happens with a lot of kids after college, they graduated and went their separate ways.\u00a0 Some of them wrote off the whole experience as the result of taking drugs in college.\u00a0 One ended up super religious.\u00a0 One ended up institutionalized.\u00a0 Given Kirby\u2019s death, Billy is going to try to track down some of the group.
\n2010 Lee\u2019s Summit signing<\/a>:
\nQ:\u00a0 Harry seemed to be gathering every powerful ally he could \u2013 why not Elaine, or the Alphas?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0 There are only so many characters I can keep straight.
\n2011 Bitten by Books Q&A<\/a>
\nDoes the DFRPG actually get published within the Dresdenverse, is it as successful as it is in the \u201creal world\u201d, and will it ever get a cameo appearance within the books?\u201d<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m not sure if I\u2019m gonna get quite that incestuous yet.\u00a0 The causality loop of something like that could tear a hole in spacetime, and I\u2019m not sure that would be good for the environment.<\/p>\n

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

2007 Huntington Beach B&N Q&A<\/a>\u00a0@40:53
\nWhere did you pull Butters from?<\/strong>
\nButters was supposed to be a one op character that was supposed to be in one little scene in\u00a0Death Masks<\/em>.\u00a0 That was all he was planned for.\u00a0 But he was inspired mostly by the M.E. in The Prophecy.\u00a0 The M.E. who has to dissect these dead angels in The Prophecy and who gets to deliver those lines to the guys playing the cop.\u00a0 Just the fact that he had the organ weighing hanging up there and he put a\u00a0smiley face on it<\/em>.\u00a0 I was like ok I need a character that’s vaguely like that so I made up Butters, but he’s only gonna be there for like one show but he’s like so much fun that I was like no, no, I absolutely need, when we’ve got walking corpses running around, the perfect side kick to have is the medical examiner!\u00a0 Because there’s just something so wrong about that and that’s what I need for Dresden so I promoted him to side kick.
\nKiama, Australia Q&A, 2014<\/a>
\nButters, why polka?<\/strong>
\nWhy polka on Butters? Because my main writing — okay, every time, I make basically a new mix tape every time I start writing a new Dresden novel. And the mix tape for Dead Beat — or the mix tape for the book that had Butters originally in it, which I believe was, it was the fifth one, Death Masks, that one had a load of polka, Weird Al’s polka music on it. And so, why not? I’ll have him like polka. I can do that. So, in my head, basically Butters is being played by about a 1984 age or by a 1990 age Weird Al in my head. In my head, that’s who plays him.<\/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 Molly\u00a0(and a little Charity) *Editor’s note*\u00a0Molly isn’t mortal anymore, but she’s … More WoJ on Harry’s Friends<\/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-178","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/178","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=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/178\/revisions\/215"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}