One of the more surprising comments people made about the last two books, is how bad at Magic Harry is, and how he is the worst Wizard there in BG.

I thought to break down the aspects of magic, and where he rates in them. It's a little hard naturally as there is a huge curve on magical power in the verse due to age.

First is the most obvious:

Magical Combat:
The Gate Keeper outright said Harry has more combat and "Battle experience" Than many wizards with more than a century under their belts. Since then he fought a war, trained and apprentice (Which honed his own skills, I don't think anyone of his generation has had an apprentice we have seen) and been Winter Knight.

In the "Art" of battle, he very much seems well beyond anyone of his generation, and touching on Senior Council level in some areas. Not to say his power is there yet, but his fighting intuition almost is. In Skin Games he splits up the Ghouls in the empty store which Grey commends him for, in BG he stalls the Giants charge, in White Night he executes a near perfect battle strategy in high stakes combat.

Rating: Top Tier for his generation, and highly over all. He certainly has trained physically a lot recently (Which does seem to matter over all) and his magic refinement seems to be steadily increasing.


Toolless magic:
An odd one but one I think that deserves comment. Since Changes Dresden has not had his tools mostly, he naturally still has the knowledge to make them but he hasn't had the facility or time to. In Cold Days he outright says, due to Mabs training, his skill in toolless magic has improved massively. Likely something many wizards don't really train in. Much of the "Stalled" power development people mention, is I think largely due to this. Dresden has been honing other skills than simply making better crap.

Rating: Top tier of his generation, Over all... it seems older wizards tend to be good a this, so it would seem Harry is just advancing faster.


Necromancy: Between Grave Peril and Dead Beat, along with a smattering of BG, Harry has more first hand necromancy experience than anyone we know, bar maybe Luccio and McCoy due to the Kemmler Wars. His knowledge of 'The Word of Kemmler" is certainly something special (Why he didn't use it in BG we don't know, maybe it's more abstract than simple combat magic). Also him "Being mostly dead", which according to Odin is not that common, would give him an insight few others have.

Rating: Top tier in his Generation and likely beyond all but "True" necromancers, who tend to get their heads chopped off.


Mind Magic: We know the WC frowns upon this, between his training with Lash, his interactions with Hyper Powerful beings, hanging around Fae a lot, and chatting with Molly. Harry would likely be right up there for wizards, which is not saying a lot due to them ignoring this branch of magic.

Rating: Top for his generation (bar Molly), and probably highly ranked over all.


Time Magic: Aside from being aware it exists, and maybe some small research due to Demonreach, Harry likely doesnt know a lot. Which seems par for the course for almost all Wizards. He has been tangential to Time Magic maybe 3-4 times so may of picked up some bits.

Rating: Maybe slightly above average, which means hardly anything but puts him towards the top in this forbidden field of Magic.


Tools: This is where a lot of people aren't happy, we basically haven't seen much in terms of enchanting in almost 5-6 books. But the last we saw, Harry had made a top tier shield bracelet (Elaine comments that its advanced and beyond her), his staff and rod are "Serviceable" according to Evil Bob which is likely a decent compliment. His rings are handy and went through constant refinement to get better. His duster is proven very effective and I think in Skin Games he comments the spells on it last a lot longer now. Also due to seeing Lea's enchantments and others he has likely picked up a few bits. Most telling he made "Little Chicago" which Bob says was beyond a lot of fully mature wizards. Added to that his tracking spells, his wards crystal that could blow up a small hill, his house wards, his study of Demonreach, his new castle and loads of other stuff. I'd say Harry is right fucking up their for the manufacture and study of magical tools. I think likely trow Bob and Bonea in here as well.

Rating: Top tier of his generation, and highly rated over all.


Magical World knowledge: Fiance to the leader of White Court, Winter Knight, friends with Summer Lady and Knight (Which is very odd), grandson of the Blackstaff and liked by LTW and River Shoulders. Was on good terms with Svartalves (unsure what they think of him now). Marcone is respectful and sometime ally to him. He was friends with Gwynn ap Nudd before his head was ripped off. Ally to 2/3 Knights of the cross and keeper of the third cross as well as the other Holy relics. Favoured by Odin, the Erlking, Hades and maybe the "Mothers". The icing on the cake is his inherited knowledge of the ways, which is likely rubbing off on him somewhat. And his very rare visit to the Outer Gates. Yeah...

Rating: Utterly top tier of his generation and likely right up there over all, the only issue is, we don't know what we don't know.


I can't see how people can complain about Dresden being a shit wizard. His circumstances have been not great the last 3-4 books, but it has allowed him to grow in other areas. He still has his old talents that will likely come back even stronger. I think the issue is he is compared side to side with literally some of the most powerful beings on Earth. The only discrepancy in his perceived power is Carlos, who is basically the new Morgan, and second to Harry in most aspects likely. Even then, Harry considered fighting and maybe winning against him and three other Wardens.

I think sometimes people see different magic, like Carlos and water magic, and think Harry is weak. But Carlos likely can't use Fire like Harry can. And who's to say which is better, fire has served Harry well, Luccio seems to favour it as well. McCoy likes Earth magic, each to their own. I hope Harry does pick up a bit, but everyone will always have their specialities. How boring if it was like Harry Potter and everyone was throwing around the same 4-6 spells.

I get the feeling "12 Months" will smooth a lot of this out as Harry pulls his life back together.

 

Comparing Skin Game to White Night brings an interesting contrast to mind, because White Night Harry could take on a dozen ghouls without breaking a sweat, while Skin Game Harry needs to be tactical and split them up to fight one at a time. And still gets hurt in the process.

Overall, I feel like a lot of Harry's best moments magical deeds are long behind him in the series. His most iconic and awesome magical feat was probably Sue in Dead Beat, ten books ago. I struggle to think of any really impressive magical feats he's performed since Cold Days.

Sure, Harry's skillset has gotten a lot broader since then, but his actual magical performance hasn't really gotten deeper. It's just that instead of using magic to solve a lot of his problems, now he'll run up to it and smack it with a big stick. Which also results in him getting banged up a lot more than he did when he was a wizard using spells.

Perhaps that will change now that he's got a proper home base to start rebuilding. It definitely bugged me in Battle Grounds that his new shield bracelet was markedly inferior to the one he had from White Night through Changes.

On the broader topic of Dresden power levels, it feels like Butcher is really struggling with being caught between a couple writing impulses:
1: Mortals with no powers need to remain relevant.
2: Threats need to keep escalating.
3: Harry must always be the underdog in every fight.

I feel like this is a big part of why Harry's power level feels so poorly handled. It's not so much that Harry is weak as it is that since Cold Days, Butcher's really doubled down on these. Pre Cold Days, Harry had plenty of awesome moments and fights he was able to unambiguously win. Now he's a lot more likely to get severely injured in even minor skirmishes since Butcher decided the Winter Mantle means Harry can shrug off injuries and pain. Attacks that Harry would've blocked or avoided Pre Cold Days are now things that Butcher writes as hitting him, so he can play up the "Winter Mantle means no pain" thing.

Additionally, the need to write Harry as always being the underdog makes power levels feel off. It almost feels like if Butcher tried to write Harry taking candy from a baby in Battle Grounds, Harry would suffer multiple broken bones in the process while the narration waxed on about how horribly outmatched he was and the baby's impossible to overcome strength, and he would end up only getting half the candy bar at the end of the fight. Probably after one of his friends came in to bail him out.

Point 1 had also become a real issue. We see stuff like Ethniu curb-stomping Odin, Titania, Mab, and members of the Senior Council, but somehow we're supposed to believe that Hendricks is an actual threat to her because ... he played football in college? Not buying it.

 

I'd say Harry has been getting less injured as of late. In Skin Games he got a broken arm and some general bumps. Cold Days he wasn't injured mush at all, he was however recovering from being shot. PT and BG again he wasn't overly injured, especially considering the fight he was in, just bumps and bruises.

Pre Changes he regularly got fucked up. Full Moon he got beaten very badly, probably about the worse physical beating he ever had. Turn Coat he was proper fucked up more than once. Changes he broke his back... I'd say he worse injuries are behind him.

Power creep is a thing. But I think Harry pre changes looked OP cause his targets were lower. Now he is getting to play with the big kids, and thus looks weaker in comparison.

White Night he had a great fight and planned well. but he did the same thing in Skin Games. His duel with Hannah Ascher showed him as a superior wizard. She was better with fire magic, he was better with Magic. He also out planned the leader of the Denarians.

Cold Days was very much him flying by the seat of his pants, that story took place in just over 24 hours soon after him being dead. He went toe to toe, naked, vs the Summer Knight and won.

I agree Harry has done less T-Rex riding and walls of molten lava. But thats circumstance, his ability in magic I think has been shown to increase.

Harry Dresden pre Changes wouldn't have lasted 10 seconds vs the Blackstaff like he did in Peace Talks.

 

In one of the recent interviews, Butcher mentioned that Dresden was actually at the same power level as McCoy which was pretty impressive to me. Though Harry is nowhere near as good as a wizard as his grandfather, he is at least on the same power level.

Though this does leave me with worries for the BAT trilogy. Harry is supposed to be a big player in the trilogy, right? Yet at his current level of knowledge/skill, I would really rather have a wizard who has worked on their Art for 200 years or more. He just doesn't seem like he can even hang in the same league as other wizards when an apocalypse is taking. I am really hoping 12 Months has a few of those months focused completely on lessons with the Big Foot. Butcher hopefully doesn't miss this opportunity to advance Dresden's skills when his power is already at a good level.

 

Stories are never about two evenly matched people.

Harry is strong yeah, but he has to win by cunning, planning, allies and luck. And yes, a bit of power.

 

Cold Days was the one where he repeatedly got ganged up on by sprites who poked him with cold iron to turn off his Winter Manter, then got the crap beaten out of him by a guy who was a nobody scrub back in Summer Knight. Granted, those injuries rarely left much impact because the instant he got the cold iron out of his body the mantle kicked back in and made the wounds stop having any impact.

It's the same story with PT/BG. His list of injuries by the end of Battle Grounds was pretty absurd, it's just that the Winter Mantle lets him ignore the dislocated shoulder he got in the opening skirmish, the gutshot bullet, the cracked femur, and everything else he went through. Harry generally ends most of the books fairly battered, but from Cold Days and beyond he routinely takes wounds that would've left him crippled without the Winter Mantle (even leaving aside the whole back thing). Yet at the same time, those injuries kind of lack any impact, both because they're overdone and because the Winter Mantle means they rarely have any impact beyond the scene he suffers them.

Additionally, it feels like Battle Grounds never really gave Harry a chance to unleash an awesome spell. He's turned his staff into the Spear of Destiny, and he still didn't pull off any magic that left as strong of an impression as Sue, lava walls, or crushing hundreds of Red Court Vamps with a gravity spell. When the entire book is just one huge battle, it really feels like he ought to get at least one really badass spell.

Hopefully Harry finally having a stable home base will give him a chance to properly replace his tools, because one of the things that's definitely been felt from Cold Days onward is that Harry's equipment is inferior to what he used to have. The shield bracelet he used in Battle Grounds appeared to be about on par with the damaged half-functional one he used in Dead Beat and Proven Guilty, when one would hope his gear would be improving over time.

 

@Erotic Adventures of S

You seem to have left out the category that most people have a problem with.

Control.

Sure Harry can pull off badass feats of power when he feels like it, though apparently in BG he didn't feel like it much. The problem is that we've had Harry say "Yeah I can throw a lot of power around but I'm not very good with the technical aspects."

That's been fine for most of the series as we've all assumed that he would eventually get better at the tricky uses of magic. He even did get better at one aspect when he learned to stop using flamethrowers and condense the power into his little death laser.
Then we see Ramirez in BG casually disintegrating things and Harry commenting in surprise that the kid has improved way more than he has.

This annoyed people because until now we always assumed that Harry would "get there eventually" and "that kind of control must come after a century or two."

Turns out over the past few books Harry has been more focused on cardio and parkour instead of the previous books where in his downtime he'd actually learn magic shit.

I'm not knocking cardio, cardio is a good thing and definitely helped him out during BG. My problem is that Ramirez can casually take shit apart at the atomic level while Harry can do a 5k and Harry keeps repeating that he's top tier when it comes to wizardly power levels.

It amounts to Harry reminding us every book that he has a twelve inch monster of a cock but he jizzes at the caress of a soft breeze.


All that meat isn't much good at the end of the day.

 

Harry Has been shown to be getting better with magic, tighter beams of fire ect. Remember it’s only been 15ish years since storm front and other wizards are 300ish.

His progress is fine.

 

We don't have 300 years to see him improve though. He's a protagonist on the verge of the apocalypse. Git Gud.

 

Whilst I agree with much of the rest of what you posted, or don't disagree enough to pick at it, on this section I'd have to point out that you're not talking about magic here. You're talking about strategy and tactical instincts. These are important, yes. But they're nothing to do with him whether or not he's a competent wizard.

 

I think it’s more the fact we haven’t seen him in a situation where he needed to get all subtle magic.

What “advanced” magic did Carlos do? The disintegration? That isn’t advanced, it’s water magic, it’s just different. That was my point, different does not mean better.

 

What information we have about water magic in previous books? My impression was that Carlos' spell was way beyond what Dresden could do with his own specialisation instead of just simply being different, but comparable to his arsenal.

 

Carlos had been using disintegration blasts and shields for as long as we've known him. Just as Harry has improved his fire magic, Carlos has improved his water magic.

 

In the short stories we see the Fomor use a fair bit of water magic. And in White Night Carlos does a bit.

As Awkiel says, Carlos and Dresden have both got better at their respective branches. And from what we see, you very much have to pick a speciality and focus on it.

Different is not better.

 

Harry literally gets his ass kicked by the scouts. I'm not going to quote the whole damn thing but he gets into a fight with huntsmen on page 87ish.
He shoots them with a fucking gun, like we are still dirty harry fighting some faeries with iron weakness or some shit. He's so good at battle strategy and so great with his finesse in so many areas of magic that his strategy to fight these inhuman, stronger and faster than him absolute GOONs is to shoot them and then try to take them hand-to-hand?

He may not go in swinging with his club full caveman style, but the thing literally swings at him and he dodges instead of conjuring a shield. Because his shields are wasteful/inefficient/too slow/whatever the damn case, it's still him being a shit wizard at this point. River shoulders has to save his broke caveman ass multiple times in that fight.

So good at battle strategy that he counts on the sasquatch to save him from being merk'd multiple times just so he can 'conserve energy' for later. The dislocated shoulder being much less important than CONSERVING ENERGY Y'ALL.


Ramirez on the other hand:

Battlegroundp307

I'm just not seeing it. Ramirez has grown by leaps and bounds, out of our sight in the background, because of his war against the reds, then the fomor, and against warlocks in general. And probably a lot due to his run-in with Molly.

Dresden on the other hand? We've seen his growth and it's lacking. He also supposedly fought in this war in the background and we get glimpses of it, but again, how is it that his solution for goons is freaking magnum? It's not cool or charming at this point, even if it calls back to the whole "It's like Harry Potter meets batman, but with a gun" tagline or w/e the hell it was.

 

Your comparing apples and oranges again.

Harry was fighting goons that were giving River Shoulders pause. It was also the very first fight of the night where he knew he would have a few dozen or hundred more ahead of him. It actually proves my point he is smarter in fighting as he doesn’t just splash around power uselessly.

Carlos fight was good yes, but I think from that scene he was fighting the generic Fomor goons, mortals with minor upgrades. So yeah he took down a down vanilla guys.

Everyone just seems to be wanking off these new Magic’s we haven’t seen before. My point is that it’s not stronger or better, just different.

And I’d point out The Merlin also goes into battle packing revolvers.

 

Well, generally speaking everyone's magic was rather poorly done in this book and this made Carlos' spell a lot more impressive. While simple telekinetic spell to pick few big object as a weapon is more practical, I would like something more magical from someone like Ivy.

 

@Erotic Adventures of S

Answer me this out of curiosity. Do you believe that Harry is living up to his potential as of Battle Grounds?

 

I think it is what it is.

Considering no one, not the black staff, not the half dozen wardens and I think 4 senior council along dozens of Fae sorcerers, did any huge magical workings, I think hey likely did what was appropriate to the situation.

Letting rip magically in he city of Chicago would be like using a miniature nuke.

The circumstance of the battle prevented Harry, or anyone waving a molten wall of fire over anyone.

Yeah In a way I would like to see more. At the same time I look from a story perspective and see it flowing reasonably.

Harry is not supposed to be able to go toe to toe with the big boys yet. But he is punching well above his weight and is progressing.