The Laws are designed to prevent humans from using magic that upsets the fabric of reality or is innately harmful to the caster and other humans. The First, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Laws are to do with reality (since bringing back the dead is against the natural order of things, and going back in time/contacting Outsiders is a bad idea purely on a common sense level), while the others (transforming/psychomancy/enthrallment) are obviously bad for humans to go through, and in the case of psychomancy and likely enthrallment, derail the caster's sanity as well.

 

Hmmm, haven't seen the RPG. I'd assumed that during the first book that Morgan was just being Morgan, especially considering how fast he actually backed down.

And if it says that the Wardens are to use there judgement on the case than I can't see them getting into much of a tizzy over Dresden coming back. Some (more like almost all actually) of the old guard don't like him but the only thing that they're going to have been hearing about recently is how he exterminated the Red Court, that probably earned him a few Brownie points. In the end, if the Council even considered it they would be in as deep of shit as they were immediately following LaFortiers death.

 

Remember that he used black magic to kill the Reds though. The bloodline extermination curse is the same one Victor Sells used in Storm Front, and Harry was in danger of being executed simply for researching it at that time (since he was still under the Doom at that point).

 

True, but all he did was kill Susan. No magic involved on his side, so even Morgan would just beat him a little for a good measure and let it pass in the end.

 

Yea but at the same time he won a fucking war for them, and he did it by killing a Red Vampire (Susan was not human at that point, remember that apparently grey area in the laws?). Political institutions do not survive by executing their heroes. Eb would literally cunt punt quite a few people, as would his allies on the senior council, also remember Luccio backs him, as do a large number of the Wardens (Steed, Ramirez, and god knows how many others that he helped train). The council will want to keep him around, he's there new Morgan.

"Oh yea, you wanna fuck with us? Well we'll sick Harry Dresden on you! Last time he went out and played he exterminated our enemies entire species, and then didn't even stay dead after someone killed him!"

Yes, he and some of the Senior Council disagree and spit on each other at every opportunity, but at the same time when the monsters come knocking on the proverbial door they know that they are on the same side (as much as they would like the other to be on the other side but that's life/politics for you).

Edit: This is all assuming that he doesn't stay the Winter Knight for some time. If he does there is no way that the White Council is going to want to mess with him as they aren't going to go out of their way to pick a fight with Mab. And then if he does get out of it well above reasons + all Dresden says is "Well I wasn't going to argue with Mab when she did her thing, why don't you go accuse her of breaking the Laws?"

 

True, and I agree, just pointing out a couple of things.

On your second point though, Jim has already said that Dresden has become the boogeyman for all the supernatural beasties out there. Hell, even Warden kill teams are afraid of him, as we saw in Turn Coat and this is before he became Winter Knight and died. Once he comes back to life I reckon he'll be the Most Feared human in the world, and pretty high up the ladder of Most Feared in general.

Just think of what this will do to his reputation.

Spoiler

He has, in order, fought an Outsider and lived, killed a Loup Garou, started a war, became the emissary of Mab, killed the Summer Lady, fought a duel with mordite, halted an Apocalypse, gained a Sword, desposed the White King in secret, Sue, stormed Arctis Tor and lived, tortured ghouls, fought in a White Court death match, resisted the Temptress, fought the Gruffs, gained Soulfire, foiled the Denarians' scheme again, killed Nicodemus (or at least appeared to), gained another Sword, became a buddy of Uriel, fought one of the Naagloshii and wounded it badly, revealed the traitor in the White Council, became associated with Odin, became Winter Knight, and finally annhiliated the Red Court of the Vampires.

All in all, he's been a very busy guy these past 12 years.

 

No clue what your talking about

I was just flipping through his forums again and found this No time skip for book 13. I know a lot of us had been under the impression that it was going to be a full year in book time between the books.

Edit: @Aekiel, makes you wonder if anyone would actually be willing to try and execute him.

 

I thought that was the Side Jobs novella that Jim was writing for the short story anthology.

 

I can see it now "Harry Dresden, you have been accused of breaking the Laws, we have been instructed to bring you before the White Council... PLEASE DON'T KILL US!" or something to that extant.

 

That's what I had thought as well, but it pretty clearly says Ghost Story.

/me shrugs

I'm just reporting it.

 

That's rather interesting if true. For a shortcut, here's the Twitter question and answer referred to in the above link.

I suppose it would still be very possible to keep to the "one Dresden book = ~1 year" formula though. Maybe the passage of time is sort of squirrely for ghosts; that way you could traverse an entire year's worth of events in a single book, vs. the usual few days. Or maybe Butcher merely intends to spend a few chapters in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, before skipping a big chunk of time.

 

If true, i'm pretty happy about that.

 

I'm personally really happy that there will be no time skip. You get to see everyone's emotional reaction when it's still raw.

We get scenes like Murphy discovering the body, or not finding Harry at all. Not to mention seeing the Council's reaction to the entire Red Court disappearing overnight.

 

Considering the fact that this series is written in first person, the likelihood of seeing those scenes is almost nil.

 

Well, for Murphy, I figured since Harry would most likely be by his body as a Ghost, it would at least be plausible, and the Council one could possibly be mentioned at the end. Not a lot of hope, I admit, but those were just two scenes off the top of my head.

 

This idea to me, is like the idea that Dresden actually dies, and leaves the plot.

This is the Dresden Files, something that's remained that constant throughout the whole series, is not going to change. I just can't see it happening.