Lol, yea it does, someone had a brain fart.

 

Indeed. I just read it yesterday, in fact. It's in Blood Rites.

 

After Harry's trial, when he was sent to Eb's farm for training, Harry and Eb had a SG. Butcher was probably talking about pre-trial and got his tenses mixed up.

 

I love these books and I do not think I will get tired of a 23 book saga, after all as many of you have said he is one of those authors that gets better and better. I just hope he gets some power... I mean he has offers from all sides abd he is not taking them, I think soon Mab will trick him into taking the mantle (I hope so).

 

One possible idea for the "circumstances of Harry's birth": he is a wizard whose mother died giving birth to him due to magical causes.

 

I'm still in favor of 'weird cosmic event' on Halloween night.

 

The thing with the weird cosmic event idea that I don't like is that it seems completely random. I'd like to think that there's some kind of interesting story behind it.

 

His mother knew of the weird cosmic event and planned her breeding out to give her children the max power possible?

 

Then why isn't he on Merlin's power level? Or does his power increase as he ages? I don't understand the power system very well...

Maybe she just planned it so he could have that affect on outsiders?

 

Well somewhere (Dead Beat maybe?) he says that he is in the top 30 or so wizards in the world power wise, its just that he doesn't have the 300 years of experience that the majority of the other people in that power range have. Like I remember in Small Favor Luccio says that even before her body swap Dresden had more raw power than she did but he just couldn't use it as well as she could.

As for the whole Outsider power thing, I think that his mom planned out his birth for it as well. What the actual circumstances were I have no clue, but I doubt that JB will disappoint. I do know that he (JB) said that there were other people born under the same circumstances that we would meet later on in the series.

 

All Wizards are born with a set power-level. I believe the general concensus is that the Wizard is around the power of his/her mother, maybe stronger, maybe weaker. Natural power increases do not exist, however things like rituals or 'eating' another Wizard's power in dreamland is possible. As you age your powers do not grow but you do gain more contorl over them. For example: Dresden likely has the strength to pull a Satelite out of orbit (a la Ebenezer) but he has so little control he'd waste most of his strength and likely kill himself in the attempt.

Edit: Fuubar, I believe Dresden said 'top 30 in the US' but with the way the series is going I'm inclined to believe he was being modest. As for others having power over Outsiders, I believe the Gatekeeper would have to be one. Not much point to 'watching the Outer Gates' if you can't stop something from crossing over.

 

I'm pretty sure that he said top 30 or so in the world. I don't remember for sure but I got myself wondering so I'll go look find it now .... lol.

Edit: Aha thank god for e-books and search functions...

 

I thought a wizard gets stronger as they age. Not just experience but magic wise as well.

Maybe not a super saiyan powerboost, but significant enough that harry could maybe make his way up to the the top 15 or 10 one day.

Thats the impression I got.

If anyone remembers the fight with Ivy... remember that she was eating through her magic quickly. She only had a little at her disposal because she was so young. It was inferred that as she ages she would have more.

She has the most experience and knowledge of anyone, but she just isn't equipped yet to channel that much magic. If I recall she was using her magic so efficiently that was why she could last as long as she did.

Where as Harry, who may lack the knowledge and experience already has the advantage of being so powerful.

Thats why he can throw out so much magic in a fight and keep on going.

 

Correction: She had so little power because the Denarians' hellfire circle/pentagon thing was cutting off any ambient magic from circulating and giving them more ammo. Plus, any factor of age when it comes to magic is all but negated by Ivy's Archive memories.

 

Except that of her physical body, rather than anything mental.

Also, I'm not too sure about the whole "set power level" thing. It seems clear to me that the amount of power a wizard can access on any one given occasion depends on the amount of will he can muster, his mental state (e.g. depressed, scarred, angry...) and so forth. In addition, how many times have we seen Harry apparently exhausted but then "dig deeper" and pull off another powerful spell - sometimes even more powerful than the spells before it.

So I would say that there is perhaps a natural ceiling through which a wizard cannot pass in terms of the power he or she can wield, but that this ceiling is rarely actualized.

If any of you do economics, think of it as the difference between potential growth - the amount of capacity in the economy - and actual growth - the amount of economic activity occurring. So in the case of magic, it would be potential power - the amount of power that the wizard theoretically has access too - and actual power - the amount of power that the wizard in actuality can utilise. Potential power is constant, actual power is variable.

Finally, we know that peoples' level of power can drop if they "give up" magic, and that this power level can be regained again if they take it back up again (Dresden and Mortimer in Grave Peril).

 

I'm willing to concede that maybee the circle had something to do with it... but as to the Archives memory...

It's not about the quality of the magic, because we all know that whatever she can sling will be exemplary. It's about the amount of magic she has to fling.

Taure's right in that the wizards do tend to derive their power from their emotions which puts a bit of a hitch into the whole set power level thing.

I was always a little confused by how Harry could use his emotions to fuel powerful spells but then somehow become incapable of drawing on his emotions again once he claims he was spent.

There seems to be another component to his magic other than emotion.

Maybe the emotion allows him to access his own magic.

It might not be a case of how much magic is allotted to him, as much as How fast he can recharge his reserves.

Until Butcher comments we won't know...

 

Hmm...let's think of all the different things we're told about magic.

Magic comes from life.
Magic can also come from death (necromancy).
Magic comes from emotions.
Magic comes from faith/belief.

One big question is if a wizard's magic comes from outside the wizard or internal to him.

I'd say the later: we never see Harry using other people's emotions to fuel his magic, nor another's faith. Also, in Dead Beat when Bob tricks him into doing a bit of necromancy, the magic that comes from death is coming from Harry himself - he finds it though the death on himself (hair, fingernails, cells dying etc).

However, it cannot be denied that there is also magic external to the wizard in the world about him. Whether or not a wizard can use this, I cannot say. Maybe someone else can think of some instance of it being used.

Anyway, for now we shall have to say that magic accessed by a wizard is internal to the wizard.

But how can we reconcile this to the fact that a wizard can get exhausted? If magic comes from emotion etc., then surely you wouldn't be able to run out of magic, just as you can't run out of emotion?

I think the answer lies in the fact that it's not saying that magic is emotion/life/whatever, merely that it comes from emotion/life/whatever.

So the sources of magic are like a generator: they generate magic, and then a wizard uses this magic that has been generated. A burst of emotion would mean a burst in generation.

I'm not sure I entirely like this idea though. I don't think it fully accounts for the use of Harry's magic in the books - the way he never seems to be running out of anything, but merely growing exhausted.

 

Hidden for Taure because you haven't got to this bit yet.

Spoiler

In Small Favor, just before he enters the Denarians' circle, he gathers as much magic as he can from around him and mentions that he normally only gathers as much as is needed by whatever spell he needs to cast. That suggests that he draws magic from the external world.

In Summer Knight, when he is trapped by Aurora's circle in the Nevernever, he gets ready to use his Death Curse by gathering all the energy inside of him, which is basically the wizard's life force. This suggests that there is an internal source of magic as well.

Thus we see that magic in the environment is what wizards normally use for spells, but there is magic inside of them that can be used for a variety of purposes. I imagine it is the internal magic that makes wizards live longer than normal humans.

 

I'm still not clear on if the weak practitioners will live as long as the wizards. or are they more on the normal side of the scale.

Does having magic itself guarantee a couple centuries of life, barring any beheading, or is it the actual amount of magic available to them that determines it.

 

I've been wondering that too...

It can't be an all or nothing thing as the power scale in Dresden-verse is continuous (not an all or nothing.) Would it possibly make sense that the more powerful a person was the longer life expectancy they would have?
People who have no magic at all would live the normal 75 or so years and the most powerful people at the 400 years or somewhere in that range and everyone else falling somewhere in the middle.