Grammatical errors are mistakes. They're annoying and a good editor should catch most of them, but still. They're accidental.

This is a deliberate choice by Butcher, a continuation of Harry's transformation from an outdoorsy, athletic, outgoing, confident, sociable, and practical man into the quintessential basement dweller.

 

I thought Dresden was the magical equivalent of a basement dweller and nerd. In fact, isn't that more or less what he described himself as at one point, a geek about magic more or less? On that note and given Dresden's extended time with the Alphas, this is more or less a continuation of the them.

 

Also, Dresden's never really been what I would call athletic. Or outdoorsy. Or outgoing. He's definitely not sociable, either, locking himself away for months, at times. As for confidence, well, no--he spends about half of every book questioning himself about...everything. He might be practical, in someways, though on the other hand, he's been called out on how impractical his entire lifestyle is repeatedly.

So, not sure what you're talking about.

 

He's certainly athletic. He's mentioned time and time again that while he couldn't match (insert character) at (insert skill) he would leave them all in the dust in a foot race, given that he practises his sprinting on the off chance he has to leg it away from something nasty. Sure, he usually doesn't have that choice, but there have been many instances of his stature giving him an advantage in such matters.

 

Err, that only occurred later on in the books. Think it was book 6 or 7 that he started running (from memory).

It's one of the things that I love the most about the Dresden Files. The amount of character growth. He learnt that he needs to know how to run from shit, so he started running.

 

Right, so fresh from reading the series from start to finish (minus short stories), and reading this thread, I have some wild guesses that occurred to me.

Spoiler

Rather than the birthday party being in the sense of being the anniversary of someone's birth, what if it is a party celebrating the day of birth itself? In this case, the introduction of Harry as the new Winter Knight. Granted, she already showed the actual consummation of the event, but this will maybe be the unveiling that "He is risen!"

In the last few paragraphs of Changes, Demonreach mentioned that THE PARASITE KEPT YOUR BLOOD FLOWING. I'm going to wildly guess that Lasciel's shadow may make a comeback. I'm not entirely sold on this theory, being that a part of his soul got destroyed when she left and that I don't recall her ever being able to affect him physically, just his perceptions, but I'm putting it out there.

Perhaps the reason that Demonreach is so important that there might have the first Warden guarding it (in response to the theory put out earlier in this thread) is that it is somehow the physical location of/connection to the Outer Gates? It would explain why the first Warden guarded it, why it has such a powerful Genius Loci, why it is the source of a dark leyline, why Harry Child-of-the-Stars Dresden had his prescience tied to it, etc.

Rather than Mab trying to re-direct the mantle of Winter Lady to someone else, what if she's going to absorb it directly? Simultaneously having both the Lady and Queen mantles. This would grant her enough power to tip the scales in a grudge match against Titania, if she so chose. 'Course then we'd see another appearance of the Mothers Summer and Winter, which would be awesome.

 

I'd love a scene of nobody speaking to Mab...

Then Mother Winter shows up and breaks the ice.

 

God that'd be awesome.

I'm kinda looking forward to Harry revealing his being alive to his friends. I'm hoping for a Big Damn Heroes moment, but knowing Butcher's style we'll get him stumbling in out of the rain, wounded and in his underwear, muttering a Princess Bride quote before passing out.

 

Where the fuck did you get that?

Dresden is, and always has been, the magical equivalent of a neckbeard. The closest thing to any of those that he ever was is "athletic", and that's only because he started running regularly (to better facilitate a hasty retreat) halfway through the series.

@DrSarcasm: The Parasite that Demonreach mentions is most definitely Lash. There's no doubt in my mind. Butcher has confirmed that Lash is in the book somewhere, and there's no other possible place she could be.

 

Any chance I could get a link or quote of hard evidence? Whether Lash would make a comeback had always been something I wanted to ask Jim if I ever met him, so finding out the answer would satisfy one of my wishes.

And it needs to be something from Butcher himself, not his DLP persona.

 

This thread should be checked before citing things, and should be your first stop if you want to find a Word of Jim.

 

Well, there's the whole being raised for a few years on the farm and enjoying the solitude/quiet it had offered... you know the place where he had to chop wood and do other... ah let's say "outdoorsy" things. Last I read Dresden really feels at home there and multiple times in the book has wished he could just run away back to it.

And the running thing did come in response to monsters chasing him, as did learning Aikido and the Bo staff. However to call him nonathletic because he picked these things up in response to feeling threatened is kind of ridiculous. Not everyone has the discipline to be athletic and remain so. Running 5 miles (I believe Dresden's distance) often enough to be in shape, especially doing so on the beach, isn't something the casual runner who's trying to lose 10 pounds does. Only serious runners log that distance often enough to be able to work a full day after running it hard (I forget the book but the scene in which Harry jogs with Thomas comes to mind).

Oh let us also remember his first use of magic was during an athletic activity. So sports mattered to him emotionally at some point enough to want to be good in it.

As to the topic of him understanding memes because he used a phrase often used in memes... He played tabletops for years with people who would atypically look at memes and use the slang associated. I'm not even sure why you're all analyzing it so closely. His friends are geeky and likely speak as such. People tend to rub off on each other so him developing phrases people on the internet use daily isn't such a shock. And honestly shouldn't affect your enjoyment so much that you have to analyze it.

Frankly I don't want Jim stressing over using things like pop culture references, worried about every line of Dresden's because they get analyzed to death on the internet for their cultural relevance. I prefer him to worry about how next to fuck with Dresden's life and offer me an enjoyable book in doing so.

Every author has their quirks. I've never read a book and thought every single line the author gave me was gold. Pop culture references are one of Butcher's. It's really something to just get over and move through. And if it honestly bugs you too much you should probably go back to reading the classics or hard Sci-Fi. This is where the editing industry is at this point. That's not going to change while they're all busy fighting Amazon.

 

Geek & Sundry interviewed Jim Butcher, in case anyone's interested.

 

Jim said that the relationships Harry had weren't originally accounted for. Then how exactly was Changes planned out? I feel like the emotion in it is strongest driving force, considering how it starts and how it pulls everything together at the end.

 

Well, he started off with a Harry/Susan relationship, so I assume he planned that one from the start. She was the spark that set off the entire plot of the series, after all.

 

Who knows? I remember Butcher admitting that he did the scene where Harry and Susan conceive Maggie to win a bet that he can have BDSM scene in his book that will be important to the plot.

I think it could be a case of when your own story gives you awesome opportunities that you didn't notice earlier, but are much better than what you planned originally.

 

You know, after the Dresden files are done and various movies/tvshows are finished, Jim will probably admit that he wrote the books because of a bet involving something or another. It just seems like a pattern to me.

 

He already admitted that. He 'bet' with his professor that if he wrote a book following this cookie cutter system she taught his class, it would turn out to be a horrible book and there was no way that it would work. And that's how Storm Front was written.