Sure, he's been sidelined, but that doesn't mean he's not doing stuff. To me, it was implied that Uriel is basically running the show on Earth, doing what he thinks his Father would want him to do. Protecting Michael's family, throwing Dresden a bone here and there, and so forth.

But the best comparison I can think of for allowing the old 'Gods' free reign is like letting a kitten run around in your house. Sure, it'll get into shit and potentially make a nuisance of itself, but it's not like there's a lion roaming around, is there?

And, now that I've thought about, I'm sort of curious if we're going to do anything with Lucifer at some point. Christianity running the show and all, you'd think their Big Bad would get involved at some point.

But maybe that's what Nicodemus is fighting against in the first place? Lucifer doing... well... something.

 

This was my impression too. I saw it as God laying down the rules in the interest of protecting the free will of humanity. Where the lines were crossed--then God would interfere by allowing the action of his own actors. Why should God interfere directly when he has agents that are sufficient for whatever purposes he desires?

He'll intervene to protect humanity from outside influences where he feels necessary, but otherwise humanities fate is up to it's own decisions--hence free will. He wouldn't have given it if he intended to constantly shape events. I'd imagine his philosophy is the 'burned hand learns best'.

On the whole Christianity thing, I've always thought that it's been implied that God is God. The One. The Creator. It. Or so powerful that it doesn't make a difference. Christianity just happens to be the way Butcher uses to represent the all-powerful presence in a way the majority of his readers, and himself, are familiar with. It isn't that God is the Christian God, it's just that monotheist religions worship him by default. He's the same God for every other monotheist religion out there, though perhaps with different facets.

 

Three things made me love this book.

1. Goodman Grey. Holy shit he is a badass, I called him being a Skinchanger from the first time he transformed though. As soon as it was mentioned one would be in this book and I started reading I knew Nic would go for one.

2. Micheal's comeback. I read that scene like three or four times. It was basically just badass, and he only turned it up from there.

3. Hades. This was my favorite look at him by far. He's just a judge, not evil, just a judge. Li hope we seem him again soon. And Cerberus, it's like the Greek devil dog version of mouse. Deadly and adorable.

Also the British voice at the beginning. So many HP/ Dresden crossover possibilities.

 

Two things, first it seems pretty much every being in the series that we have solid information on (excepting Outsiders) put in a list how much supernatural power they have, with the Mothers and Archangels at the top, the vanilla mortals at the bottom and it would double as a ranking of how must freewill they have, only in reverse order.

We've seen how incredibly restricted the Mothers and the Archangels are, if 'God' has even less freedom 'he' really could be limited to being pretty much a mass of power held together more by a concept than an actual identity.


One theory I did have was that "God" actually a mantle and the Judeo-Christian God is just the current holder. So prior to taking it up was a lot more like the various other gods we've seen in the books.

Kind of out there, but when I first read a lot of the stuff about rites of ascension, mantles, and gods rising and falling in power it really reminded me of the early origins of Judaism and the evolution of Yahweh Sabaoth into the monotheistic 'God.'

Not a theory I have as much faith in as I did a few books ago, it hasn't been completely shot down, but with Jim laying the Christianity on thicker it just seems a less likely route for him to take. Still think it'd be awesome though, and if all else fails there's fanfiction, well, probably not, but that'd be awesome too.

 

I never got the impression that Christianity is part of the general free for all that the other pantheons are part of. To put it bluntly, Christianity seems to be the true religion among a load of fakes.

I mean, an average an6gel, of which there are supposed to be endless hosts, is equivalent in power to Mab. Christian God has an army of Mabs as his most basic servants. That's not even going into archangels.

Also, I'm still not convinced on the anthropocentric idea of supernatural power. There's a big difference between mass human worship giving a big power boost to a being (what we know happens) and saying that worship is the sole basis of these beings' power. Not only do many of the beings predate humanity (e.g. Uriel), many of them are linked to concepts unrelated to religion.

Mab is an embodiment of winter, not a figure of worship. Dragons are the leftover of some previous celestial order in which they were representations of natural law. Etc.

And Odin and Hades still have far too much power for beings who are at best worshiped by hundreds. Maybe worship got them started, but they clearly used their time in power to cement themselves some more objective sources of power. Either that or they had the power already.

Edit: general Skin Game impressions:

- Best Dresden book in a while, in that it almost felt like we were back to the old formula. The heist was like a case in format.

- Agree with others about fanboy service with the lightsaber and Butters being annoying.

- Christianity wank has been on the cards for a long time now, so no surprises there.

- Something I disliked a lot that others haven't said yet was the constant artificial emotional conflict about trust etc. I didn't feel like any of Harry's fears about himself were justified, nor did I feel that his friends had any reason to distrust him. The book was full of characters making bad arguments about Harry's character/behaviour and Harry going "I realised they were right." No, they aren't. It's bullshit emotional melodrama that Butcher shoehorned in.

- Yet again, more beautiful women.

- Very much resent the nerfing of the Winter Knight powers as entirely psychological using a load of "humans have loads of spare capacity" crap.

- Completely "meh" at the parasite's identity. Not sure what it's doing there at all. Want a spirit of knowledge? Bring back Bob, a great character whose absence is keenly felt and whose disappearance in the first place was complete bull. Want parental Harry? You've got Maggie for that. The new air spirit brings nothing new to the table. It feels like it was meant to be Lash but Butcher changed his mind because so many were anticipating Lash's return.

- Butcher couldn't seem to decide just which supernatural being had masterminded the whole thing. Was it Uriel or Mab-Hades?

 

Well, Odin is also Santa freaking Claus. There's a few more million "worshippers" for you (children). Maybe Hades is also something else.

Anyway, it's not all about number of worshippers, I agree. Remember, for example, that every Halloween immortals come out to play to gain power. Bargains must be another source, too.

 

This first point is pretty true. The emotional conflict in Changes and Ghost Story fit into the context of the books, but its getting old now. God forbid we have a supernatural mystery thats more important than how Harry is fitting in with his friends.

Winter knight powers were pretty damn lame. If you were a Winter Knight who wasnt a wizard, your only powers would be strength, walking smoothly on ice (yay!) and ruthlessness. No wonder these guys were feared and respected.

But I have to disagree with you on that last point. While its true that Bob is great and should never have been written out of the story (basically), theres nothing wrong with introducing new characters or plot devices like that. I have hopes for that kid.

 

We're stuck very heavily on christianity in these discussions. Some possession of Mohammed may have been around the corner for all we know.

We do know that Jesus was the son of God, died for our sins, all that stuff, in Dresden Files. But we don't really know that Christianity is 100% correct and that the other religions are 100% incorrect.

I'm pretty sure that there is no "true" religion. Especially since these days the knights' faith doesn't seem to be as relevant.

 

It's not 100% correct, but mostly because there is no True Christianity. However, if we're talking about a version of Christianity- the liberal version with a cuddly God- then yes, it mostly seems to be true. Even if he's not murdering people for apostasy he's still THE God, with his angels.

It's essentially the exact same situation as Supernatural. There is a Right (in the "might makes" way) religion that predates all the other religions that feed off human worship, which means that there's something going on with them that's more important than just using humans as batteries.

Also: can I talk about how much of an egotistical prick Michael is? Oh, "God wouldn't let Nicodemus harm my kids"...oh, you mean like he let a young girl get hunted by the White Council for not getting raped? Like he let God knows how many other people die? That god?

I'm not the only noticing this?

And their interaction at the ball seemed straight out of a romcom.

It's incredibly shoehorned in the case of Butters.

Butters: I resent you for leaving and I don't believe that Harry Dresden could abandon us like that.

Harry: Butters, I couldn't leave. Not "I had bigger concerns I couldn't escape" but I literally couldn't leave. Also: your point about paying debts like the Fae is idiotic.

Butters: *rubs back of head* Oh, that makes sense, I'm a fucking moron and I'll give you your skull back before my cadaver-examining skills fail me when I go up against actual badasses and my piece of shi-

*Takes deep breath*

That said, the general argument isn't bad. Consider what Uriel said about Lasciel: immortal beings can basically do a Laplace's Demon act: they know so much about people that manipulating them is relatively easy. If you can escape this is fine (they don't care enough to chase or compel you most likely), however if you're stuck being forced to obey Mab or be tortured for all time then you're fucked. You're gonna break. Sorry.

It's not just worship. It's all about knowledge. This was talked about in Thomas' short story in Side Jobs. Mab is still around because the Brothers Grimm permanently nailed fae into the public consciousness (and the reboots don't help). No one worships Mab. People know about Mab. So this gives her power, or maybe just power in the moral realm.

The things Thomas is fighting aren't being blocked just because one group of cultists can see them and worship them, it's that knowledge of them weighs on the mind of morals and gives them power.

As for Uriel: just the special status of Christianity confirmed. But note that even the Old Ones that predate humanity have little power in the realms that humanity frequents because of this.

 

To me it suggested that he is certain that God will protect his children from Denarians, not that nothing bad can ever happen to them.

 

Wasn't directly Nicodemus was it. Not that that has ever stopped him.

 

There is a vast difference. God doesn't make good or bad shit happen to people. He's not working to stop world hunger, or innocent warlocks from getting raped. But if something supernatural, which Nicodemus qualifies as, moves. Then he moves in turn. Or his angel do, in any case.

 

Why? I think that was decently done by Butcher.

I agree that Butters' attitude was annoying, just like Murphy's was in Cold Days to an extent and going back even in Fool Moon, but I'm firmly convinced that's because it was supposed to be. We, as readers, ride alongside Harry through the story. We see everything from his perspective, we know all that's happening with him (or rather, what he's aware of about himself). The other characters don't.

And it's not like Butters' arguments during his first talk with Harry had no merits, because they did. We know he should trust Harry because we know better (and more), but why should he, really?

 

I wouldn't say all supernatural, just if the Fallen are involved, God gets involved too. Michael and his family are only protected from their direct and to lesser extent indirect actions. Though there is a good chance that if Nicodemus would do his trick with giving up a coin, he could kill Carpenters family without any divine intervention stopping him. Right now it would be too risky for him to try, but I wouldn't be surprised if this attempt is his last act in the series.

What's a little disappointing is that we didn't get Michael reaction to his daughter slowly becoming a soulless monster, especially when we don't know what will happen with her soul. That will probably test his faith more than anything else up to this point in the series.

 

I thought Nicodemus would die the moment he gave up the coin, that he would start to age like Snakeboy did.

 

That guy took a couple of years to age, not 48 seconds.

 

Michael is still unaware of Molly's new job.

 

Yes he is though we can wonder if he will start to suspect something after he saw her statue. He has enough info to make a good guess what could happen to his daughter.

 

All this talk of the religion, and no mention of Michael's little revelation?

He has finally accepted that there is corruption within the church itself. Which, for a church-going kinda guy, is sort of huge. Might be a hint from Butcher that, even if God is good, even if faith is good, particular religions, particular churches, might not be.

Though I would still like to see objects of faith from other faiths come into play.

Actually... I'd love to learn that Harry isn't the only one out there Dresden-ing things for bad guys. Harry's main area of action has always been North America, almost entirely Chicago. I'd love to learn that there are other people, in other countries, with similar attitudes, doing similar things.

Other thing I've noticed is that I liked Murphy in this one. And from the comments, I've also noticed that (almost) no one had a problem with her. She seemed to have total faith in Harry this time around, didn't question him, didn't try to hold him back - that role fell to Butters, which led to some serious fucking-up of shit.

Anyway, nice to see her character developing and changing, too.

 

The question would then be where that corruption is at. We have very little inside information about the church. We'd either have to have a book devoted to that, or the reveal of the traitor would make very little sense. Unless it's Forthill, and fuck that. Guy's a boss and he had a personal escort to Heaven ready for him.

You know, the new pope is way too nice a guy. Clearly he's the traitor.