I'm pretty sure Uriel said that the being that did this had such a fundamental knowledge of Harry that his free will was gone. It wasn't a matter of someone using some psychology on Harry, that creature understood him completely- and wanted him dead. It knew exactly the effect it's words would have.

The place that housed Lash could heal, doesn't mean that Lash would still be there.

I personally thought it was Lasciel. Butcher made some comments about how she wasn't done with yet. I can't remember what Harry did with her coin but if she needs her previous owner to die then there's motive right there.

The only thing that would make me consider Lash is that it happened in a church and I doubt a Fallen could have gotten there on it's own. Someone like Harry had to bring it in.

 

The only possible, plot-hole-proof explanation, is that Bob didn't perform his self-mutilation until after he went for a ride with Sue. Maybe he didn't think it was necessary to say it? Maybe he didn't think about how his next possessor could order the memories back up until they did so.

 

Didnt much care for the end. Whole book was probably my #3 favorite in the series, behind Changes, and Turn Coat. The ending where he comes back to life was way too rushed. Demonreach and Mab bit was well done, just wish it'd have been done more drawn out.

The time skip, and the reflecting on choices Harry made having massive effects on those around him was epic. Him dying and everyone changing because of it makes them into a better fighting force. Marcone leading the Chicago Alliance was a nice touch be interesting to see how that happens.

Harry setting up his own hit was nice, but way too suicidal for his character. Would've made more sense if he gave Kincaid directions to do it if rumors started getting around that Harry had turned super evil, not just to take him out minutes after he saves his kid. Best birthday present this year though!

 

I think that his decision to end this quickly was also somehow influenced by the Fallen.

Also, I wonder if Harry will try to find a way to protect himself from snipers in the future. He has now a first hand experience of how easily he can be killed by one, so it should be his priority now.

 

His old duster was probably strong enough to withstand a couple of bullets (even given that rifle shots carry a lot more energy than handgun shots), but a headshot is still obviously deadly. He already acknowledged in earlier books that Kincaid could take him out if he wanted to, so I think it would be wise of him to sit down and work out a solution to the problem. A portable ward attached to some jewelry that he never takes off?

 

Pretty sure wards have to be leveled over a threshold to have any permanency. I don't know if enchanted items, like the duster, can extend beyond the actual object.

 

I'm still going to entertain the "the parasite is a chunk of Uriel" hypothesis, if only because it's a mind screw and runs counter to what we'd expect:

• We know that some powerful angels can jam a chunk of themselves in people's noggins. The Fallen do.
• Doing so grants the ability to add stuff to their spells: hellfire, soulfire. It also grants intimate knowledge of what makes the host tick.
• The betrayal happened on holy ground, which Uriel can access at will.
• Uriel was afraid of Harry messing with his name (as he did with Lash, turning her into a different entity than Laciel).
• Uriel has already shown himself to have as good an understanding of what makes Harry tick as anyone. He fit all the stated criteria for the betrayer and he never came out and denied it was him.
• He's a sneaky bastard who Bob says is playing Harry. Bob just didn't appreciate at the time how much he was playing Harry.
• He's shown no problem with manipulating Harry in the past. Use him as an agent, but give him something back (soulfire). Take away his free will, getting him killed in the process, but then grant it again, bringing him back. No harm, no foul.

 

Well, we know Dresden is capable of creating objects that store and then release large amounts of kinetic energy. It wouldn't be unfeasible for there to be a remote/automatic activation for such a thing.

All Dresden would have to do is enchant a necklace (or hell, maybe just add it to his duster) to detect when a fast-moving object enters within a certain distance of it, then trigger the response in that direction.

Is such a thing possible? I'm not sure, I'd have to re-read the whole series and see if I can find anything that supports either side, but it's not an outrageous ability for an enchanted object to have.

Edit:

This makes a frightening amount of sense. I don't think it's terribly likely, mostly because it's just too "out there", but there is definitely a solid basis for your argument. We'll see as we go.

 

It should be possible because the armor that Lea crafted for him offered that protection and her magic follows the same principles as that of Dresden. But I also think that Harry mentions ho difficult such a thing would be for him especially if the charm has to hold more than a few hours.

To the Uriel thing. A few things speak against it.
1. Uriel said that somebody cheated and it seems clear to me that he doesn´t speak of himself.
2. It was lie. Angels don´t lie
3. God/Uriel protects the free will of the humans, what happened to Harry is the opposite: he was manipulated in a way that left him with no free will.
4. Dresden never changed Lasciel, he only changed her copy.

 

Right, well, even if it takes him a few weeks (months?) of work, it's still feasible. He spent an ungodly amount of time working on Little Chicago, after all.

As to the Uriel theory: it's possible, and hell, I even admit to liking the idea. I just don't think that's the sort of thing that Butcher would go for, because it's too morally ambiguous for a true Archangel to do.

 

Sounds like a personal kinetic barrier from Mass Effect. And there was an "arrowcatch" device in The Wise Man's Fear that was a lot like that.

I don't doubt it's possible. Maybe a little complicated, but I'm sure Harry could work it out if he wanted too, especially as the Winter Knight.

Well, Uriel does play by a different set of rules than the others.

 

Yeaaaaah, but it seems a little weird for an Archangel to do directly, even if he brought him back to life afterwards.

 

I loved the ending. For me, what really brought it home was the line about being 'a mediocre knight', which if you remember is a quote from Justin DuMorne, when he tells Harry that 'being mediocre is a terrible fate'. This really indicted how much Harry had grown, to be able to reference and deeply accept the portions of his life that were previously cut off.

Uriel was a bit less cut and dry. For an archangel and a spook he presents himself far too humbly. Its in his nature to accept his position, but his almost gentle manipulations were always meant to guide Harry on a better path, and deliver him to the best choices. I simply cannot accept that Uriel, the Batman of Heaven(tm) was this direct. When you think about it, all he did was give Harry the opportunity to finish what he started, and screw around with the Winter Queen. And while I can agree that both of those provide good reading, Uriel's game is for sure fare more involved than what Dresden seems to believe.

Also, my thoughts on Demonreach, the reason Rashid was so surprised at the bonding, the reason its associated with demons, the reason its so mysterious: the island is a literal Gate. To the Outside. Thus, the irony, thus the symmetry. Demonreach wants Dresden alive to eventually get back its bestest buddy, He Who Walks Behind.

 

It's an interesting theory, but I believe that if this was a case then Eb or Rashid would just tell Dresden directly about it, so he could protect himself from Demonreach's manipulation. As they just left few clues for him to figure it out on his own, I don't think that the secret of the island is more dangerous to Harry than the island in itself.

 

Kind of a "meh" book for me. A little disappointing. Pretty good considering the main character was dead the whole book; not many things you can do with that. But it just doesn't compare to Dead Beat, Summer Knight, Turn Coat and Changes.

Didn't see Harry killing "himself" coming, but Kincaid was a given. More interested in what Harry's tasks as a Knight are than what the parasite and the shadow are.

And finally: Murphy. What a gigantic piece of fail. She's the worst character in DF and Butcher gives her a lot of "screen" time. She was, thankfully, not very present in GS, but I still can't get the sour taste off my mouth from the second book (orly, got shot by an FBI agent in the middle of a scrime scene, witnessed by every law enforcer this side of the U.S? No, not a big deal. I'm super tough cop-chick. More jarring than Harry/Draco buttzeckz).

 

Having a bit of a problem with the logic of the heavenly "Rules For Cheating".
As Uriel put it - any angel worth his salt has a sort of omniscience regarding mortals, thanks to their intimate knowledge of them. And using this omniscience to affect their choices for personal gain is a big 'No No', since it takes away the mortal's free will...
But, if they know every possible reaction a mortal can have to any possible occurrence wouldn't any action on the angel's part be "illegal" since he already knows how the mortal is going to react to it, rendering the mortal's free will useless?

 

The thing about mortals is that we have free will, and in any given situation it is conceivable that we could do something completely off the wall that would astound and confuse any Intellectus-wielding being nearby. Except Harry didn't have that. The Fallen struck at the perfect moment to completely bypass that free will and make him act the way he did.

In other words, Lasciel chose that exact moment to whisper in his ear because the only action that could come of it would be something suicidal.

 

Quite a few things of note here... Hope I can remember them all to put down.

The parasite sems to be almost definitely Lash, though the Uriel idea is certainly interesting. Unlikely though. In WoG, Jim did say that both Lash and Lasciel make an appearance in GS, and I can't think of another place where she would have come into it, lending me to believe in the straightforward hinting that its Lash. I just deleted a whole convoluted explanation of how Lash could have actually been Inez, freeing up the slot for the parasite, but since I don't really think that's the case, I can skip that part.

I'm actually surprised that out of everybody on discussing these books, only one person (killeregglord) has suggested that maybe it was the Big Fallen who whispered in Harry's ear... It would make a bit of sense, since it triggered a response from an Archangel, equivalence, and all. I really don't think it is just an unnamed rank-and-file fallen who did the whispering like Taure suggests; That doesn't really fit JB's style in my mind, and would just be a bit lame. That being said, Jim hasn't really given any impression of bringing Satan/Lucifer/Sammael/whatever into the story, so I'd rule him out too. Has Harry touched any of the other coins?

WoG says that Nicodemus basically has a fearection for Harry, which tells me he would take any chance he could get to surreptitiously get him out of the way, and the shadow part lends credence to it being him. But the ear-whispering Rasputin act is also the most likely place for Lasciel to have made her acknowledged appearance.

JB also implies in one of those replies that Lash's free-will self sacrafice has more in common with Harry's than anyone suspected... Could Lasciel have granted herself just enough self-awareness to make her think she has free will, while actually just being a further back-door into Harry's trust?

And with Uriel's seven words... The fact that they were in response to Mab's attempts to subvert Harry's self-identity might mean that THAT was the intent of the first whispers all along. It seems like Uriel didn't intervene in any way until the ending, when he shows Harry all of the current events. Sir Stuart implies that Harry's "naked soul" condition isn't all that unique when he says that other ghosts show up from time to time claiming to have been sent from Capt. Murphy... Maybe Uriel didn't really have anything to do with Harry's being sent back, and just had Faith that Harry would make the Right choice (err... he has intimate understanding of people, yadda...) How feasable is the idea that Harry's whole suicide-by-Fallen was engineered by Mab to convince him that, "Holy Fuck, I just killed myself to stay out of her clutches, what the hell else can I do?"

I'm sure there's more, but I have to shower and get ready for work. ugh.

 

Small Favor, the pentagram trap was powered by "The Prince of fucking Darkness" himself (Harry's Words) and that's why Uriel gave Harry soulfire. Lucifer pours Hellfire into a trap, Uriel pours Soulfire into Harry. Lucifer whispers seven words to take away his will to live, Uriel whispers seven words that give it back.

I don't think it's so much as Jim not bringing him into the story, as he's wary of flinging his power around. Because whenever he does, one of the other Archangels does the same, so he only does it for important things.

 

If Lucifer is the one whispering to Dresden, where does Lasciel show up? We know she does somewhere, and that shadow is the only place that makes sense.