Yeah, I also reread in between each new release, and I started the series back before Small Favor, so that's been about 5 times, I think.

 

November 27th for those wondering.

 

UK (supposedly) Book Jacket. More awesome hints than we had before. Really, really can't wait now!

Spoiler

You can't keep a good wizard down - even when he wants to stay that way.

For years, Harry Dresden has been Chicago's only professional wizard, but a bargain made in desperation with the Queen of Air and Darkness has forced him into a new job: professional killer.

Mab, the mother of wicked faeries, has restored the mostly-dead wizard to health, and dispatches him upon his first mission - to bring death to an immortal. Even as he grapples with the impossible task, Dresden learns of a looming danger to Demonreach, the living island hidden upon Lake Michigan, a place whose true purpose and dark potential have the potential to destroy billions and to land Dresden in the deepest trouble he has ever known - even deeper than being dead. How messed up is that?

Beset by his new enemies and hounded by the old, Dresden has only twenty four hours to reconnect with his old allies, prevent a cataclysm and do the impossible - all while the power he bargained to get - but never meant to keep - lays siege to his very soul.

Magic. It can get a guy killed.

 

Might want to fix those spoiler tags.

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but now that Harry is the Winter Knight does he have to obey Council laws? I mean, I imagine it's unlikely he'd jump right into killing people with magic or neuromancy or whatever, but if he did would the Wardens still execute him?

 

Yea, forward slash, back slash all the same right?

It doesn't really need spoiler tags but some people have been kinda whiny about them lately.

 

I would imagine that the Council would, largely, still enforce their laws but at the same time I would also imagine that being the Winter Knight would afford him some leeway. Being part of the Winter Court now, he falls under the Accords. I'm sure that he'd probably get a visit from Ebenezar, telling him that unless Mab directly ordered him to do so, don't break any of the laws.

Now, you could put anyone else's name where Ebenezar's is and get largely the same scene, but Dresden is probably more likely to actually listen to his grandfather than, say, Ancient Mai.

 

As part of the Winter Court, he falls under their jurisdiction, and has to comply with their rules. Mainly, this would boil down to "do what the Queens tell you".

However, he is a mortal practitioner of magic. And even though he is part of the Courts now, his position means he NEEDS to be mortal. And as a mortal wizard, he falls under the White Council.

I'd assume that the WC wouldn't be able to kill him or any infractions, because that would be a murder of another Signatory's members, much like when Dresden set the Rampire house on fire.

 

You'd have to be crazy to take away Mab's toy. Personally, I think he's got diplomatic immunity.

 

I think it's a blurrier case than a matter of legal jurisdiction. Essentially, the White Council would claim jurisdiction over everything if they had the power, but they don't. So it's not a matter of if Harry legally falls under their power. It's whether or not in practice they can get at him.

 

Assuming the book jacket is correct, it doesn't sound like he's after a mortal, thus the law wouldn't apply anyway. Also, lets not forget that Harry Dresden ended a long, long war single handedly (one he started), by wiping out an entire species. I can't imagine there are any Wardens left alive who would want to tangle with him. They didn't want any part of him before Changes, after all.

 

Wardens, probably not.

But the Senior Council, especially the Blackstaff, might not be nearly as worried.

 

Yeah, Harry, even with Winter Knight powerups, is still not a match for any of the Senior Council. They've got centuries of experience on him, after all. Maybe he'd be an annoyance, but not a real threat.

 

I dunno about that. I mean yes, Dresden would definitely be outclassed, but Dresden has made a career out of punching well outside his weight class and, usually, winning.

He's absolutely a threat. Whether or not he would actually win in the end would most likely come down to whether or not the SC member in question actually recognizes that.

Edit: And that doesn't even begin to take into account the politics of the situation. Dresden has the backing of Winter, the Summer Lady and Knight both like him personally, his mortal contacts are the majority of the list of people who matter, the White Court is at least interested in him (if not controlling him outright), and he has spies everywhere. Dresden's a scary mofo from an outside perspective, and that perspective is shared by just about everyone on the Senior Council save McCoy and maybe the Gatekeeper.

 

I disagree. We saw in Turn Coat, I think it was, that some of the senior council members were nervous about fighting him. With the addition of his winter knighthood, which on its own is enough to make him a threat to most things out there, I think he could certainly give one of them a run for their money.

 

I think that most of the Senior Council would avoid a fight with Dresden unless they had no other choice. Sure, they are more powerful and experienced, but they also saw too many examples of Harry ignoring these things and managing to screw up his enemies nonetheless.

 

Seems obvious to me --

Every character who's underestimated Dresden has come out on the losing side of the fight, most of them ending up dead.

That leaves those people smart enough /not/ to underestimate him, and therefore far more capable of taking him on, and lo and behold - none of them seem particularly eager to throw down with him.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the players who'd have the best chance of taking Dresden out have shown no desire to do so. They can probably see that, unlike most people, Dresden holds a strong sense of right and wrong while lacking the ability to quit. When anyone else would admit defeat, he digs deeper and finds a way to go on, and usually to win.

It's what any smart opponent would learn from what happened in Grave Peril first, again in Small Favor and Changes (just to name a couple off the top of my head) and you can bet that any competent schemer will have lots and lots of back-up plans in place before trying anything overt again.

 

You know, this gets brought up and I always wonder to myself what people are talking about because, well, what are you guys talking about? Few of the people Harry fights (and wins against) are more powerful than him in any real way.

Book 1: Victor was weaker then Harry and it was said so repeatedly. He had a storm and some neat tricks backing him up and after awhile Harry got tired, but it was said again and again that he was stronger.

Book 2: Harry made the Loup Garou his bitch and the others were barely threats--and only because of numbers. Harry stated flat out that if he walked away he could put up a circle to keep out the Garou with sticks and stones with no trouble. He had to run out of magic for most of them to be a threat.

Book 3: The Nightmare was weaker then Harry--if anything, he beat Harry despite being weaker. It just that after doing that he stole a lot of Harry's mojo. Otherwise, he basically proved, repeatedly, that he was way stronger then all the vamps except maybe Bianca, who might have been a match for him (only not really).

Book 4: The Summer Lady didn't focus on Harry at all and when she went down it was due to iron. Even then, she was only a little bit stronger, at best, and a hell of a lot more limited.

Book 5: Several of the Denarians were impressive. Most of them also kicked Harry's ass. He had back up from the Knights for everything, too.

Book 6: Mavra was stronger and also pimped slapped him. Lord Raith was maybe stronger and did the same, but that was possibly because of Harry's hand and exhaustion, but who knows. Everyone else was weaker then Harry and tried to corner him.

Dead Beat: I guess this is sort of true for Dead Beat, but all the Necromancer's kicked Harry's ass. He managed to shoot one in the back of the head and nudge the other while he was holding dynamite (which didn't kill him). Otherwise, they kicked his ass, though.

Proven Guilty: Again, who was really stronger then him? The Phobophages preyed on his fears. The White vamp sucker punched him. I guess Scarecrow counts, maybe? But Scarecrow also kicked Harry's ass and was taken down via the intervention of Lily.

White Night: Again, who? He had to figure out who he was fighting, but when he did, well, he had to fight some Whites. And all of them were way weaker then him. The Uber-Ghouls might count, but Marcone took them out via high-explosives, so.

Small Favor: Again, who was stronger then Harry that he actually beat? Maybe Nick? But that was Nick without his powers, though, so not really.

Turncoat: Who? The Skinwalker won, even on Harry's home turf. Other then him, who was stronger then Harry? Peabody wasn't, not really (and Harry didn't beat him, besides). So who?

Changes: The Lords of the Outer Dark (or whatever) whooped Harry's ass even with the Winter Mantle. Eb and the others saved him and he eventually turned the ritual against the Reds which I guess sort of counts, maybe? Though it had little to do with anything he did, since he just slit Susan's throat, who willingly died to kill the Red, and it was only possible thanks to Mab, Eb, Odin, and God himself siding with Harry, which I don't really think counts as being 'weaker' really.

Ghost Story: Who? He didn't beat Evil Bob or Corpsetaker.

So, again, I have to scratch my head when everyone talks about Harry beating people stronger then him. Who do you mean, exactly?

Also, on the subject of the Council, Word of God:

The Council would crush him like an insect.

 

Dresden's chances against the Council aside, what you're forgetting is that what most people know about Dresden is that he's thrown down with some fairly serious people--and he was the one still standing once the dust cleared.

People have watched various beings come to Dresden's town to make trouble, and now most of them are dead. Kemmler's apprentices were defeated, with gossip on the Warden grapevine saying that Dresden beat them on his own riding a zombie dinosaur after Morgan and Luccio had already fallen. The White Court stirred up trouble on various occasions; the most public of which saw Dresden and one other walk into their home and throw down, the end result of which was a fucked up White Court home and numerous dead vamps.

Whenever Dresden leaves Chicago his legend amongst others only seems to grow more. He brutally executed the ghouls responsible for an attack on him and his, he fought in a major Fae battle; a battle that ended to find the Summer Queen dead in his arms. Most recently, he walked into a room containing the Red King and his Lords of Outer Night and when he walked out, their entire race was dead.

It's all about perspective man.

 

Plus there's also the whole "Mab would come after you and kill you and everyone you have ever so much as laid eyes on for screwing with her favorite project" factor. Let's not forget that.