We've got WoG for Jim explicitly arguing this point, so the discussion is rather moot. It is weird, though, since some lines in Ghost Story made it pretty explicit that Harry believes in self-autonomy (his conversation with Titania).

 

West Africans traded with Caribbean islanders generations before Columbus, and there are some indications of African influence in the ancient Olmecs of Central America. The Zuni Indians of the American southwest are closer genetically and linguistically to the ancient Japanese than to any other Indian tribe. Both pre-Imperial and Imperial-era Roman artifacts have been found in Mexico, in archaological dig sites that pre-date the Columbian arrival. There are some cultural indications of possible contact between ancient Sumer and the Americas, and 2000-3000 year old Egyptian mummies (including Ramses the Great) have been found with traces of tobacco and cocaine in their systems, both of which are native exclusively to the Americas.

The Vikings (and possibly ancient Japanese) were the first to try to colonise, but from what I understand, they were just too clean to make it work. They didn't carry nearly as many apocalyptically lethal diseases as the later Southern European colonists did, leaving a handful of colonists against a vast, thriving population (some estimates put the pre-Columbian, pre-plague population of North America as high as 100,000,000) of Natives that didn't like these weird white people muscling in on their turf.

Basically, pretty much everyone and their mother got to America before Columbus; he was just the first to make it stick.

With all that in mind, it's one hundred percent believable to me that Merlin knew about the Americas (at least in vague terms), and chose that region to put his prison due to its ludicrously vast distance from his own people.

 

I'm not too sure how indirect use of magic and the First Law intertwine, but I think the basic intent of the First Law comes from the fact that you cannot perform magic that you do not absolutely believe in. This is a point emphasized throughout the series. So, in order to intentionally kill another person with magic, you basically have to completely believe that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with taking the life of another.

And that sort of thought process of - oh, I'll just cross that line this one time - leads to big slippery slope into an abyss.

Of course, there is some grey area here. Like Harry's use of magic to defend himself against DuMorne. Or unintentionally killing someone with magic in general. But I think it's clear that any sort of premeditated use of magic to kill another mortal is black magic period. There's a reason why the White Council has a subzero tolerance for black magic. Black magic is progressive - use it once, and it tends to crop up again and again until you no longer actually care about what reasons you had in the first place. Cross that line enough times and at some point, you'll no longer act as if there had been any sort of line in the first place.

I don't think this is necessarily any sort of social commentary on Butcher's part either. It's just part of the way magic works in the Dresdenverse.

Anyway, one minor note about Cold Days. I was a little disappointed with the way Outsiders ended up being. Outsiders are pretty badass, as has been established. But I expected them to be far more badass. I imagined they were all Cthulhu-esque unimaginable horrors that could basically just about not be defeated, period. Something to the point like seeing them would drive you insane or that Harry or the Swords were one of the only things that could harm them. The fact that we saw Winter troops and other folks dealing with them seemed to make them less threatening in general.

On the other hand, these Outsiders are the "shock troops" of the real badass Outsiders of a sort. I imagine those are probably the Cthulhu-type horrors we all know and love.

Was also a little disappointed that the Outer Gates was an actual, physical place. I always thought of them as something more metaphysical than a "The Universe Ends Here" sign. But it does raise that stakes for Winter and Summer and I did like that.

 

All that says nothing about killing people with magic by accident, which according to WoJ also corrupts you. For whatever reason.

 

This seems kind of problematic, but like Provis said, there has been some (seeming) discrepancies with a number of the various magical laws. Like... Molly becoming the Winter Lady. Although, Mab did mention that she had been mortal once, so perhaps the road to becoming a Faerie Queen is significantly more flexible than previously thought.

On that note, Harry seemed to be capable of rejecting the mantle of Winter Knight i.e. "Screw Winter law." Could Molly do something similar, if she so wished, with the mantle of Winter Lady?

That said, after Cold Days, I can't imagine many people that would want to fuck with Harry. He's ridden a dinosaur, killed a Faerie Queen, driven back Denarians, fought at the heart of Arctis Tor, killed off the entire freaking Red Court, and his apprentice is the goddamn Winter Lady and he's the Winter Knight. He's apparently too badass to die to anyone but himself and even then he was too stubborn and came back anyway.

 

Do we even have confirmation that the guy he killed was vanilla human? I mean, he was part of the hunt, and we saw that the hunt was practically ignoring any mortals (like the traffic on the street). So the guy who was killed might as well not be human.

 

Honest question, I'm not trying to argue or anything. If a wizard used a small fire spell to start a Rube Goldberg machine and it caused a person to fall out a window on accident, wouldn't it still just be a fire spell that the magic remembers, not a defenestration spell? I guess that's what I'm having trouble getting, and I'd appreciate any clarification or theories that people could offer.

 

IRRC in the final battle of Changes the black staff of the Black Staff (Ebenezer) actually drew in what seemed to be some kind of corruption while he was using it.

 

Wrong, the staff prevents the influence of the black magic on Ebenezer. The staff was in fact drawing it away from him, not him drawing power from it.

Jim has spoken to this effect.

 

I interpreted that as Harry being deprived the power of the Winter Knight, and also maaaybe not being beholden to Fae laws and vice versa... but still being connected to the Mantle.

Kinda like being deprived payment from a job. Or maybe like going AWOL from the military. Or ditching classes.

Or entering past a threshold without an invitation. You're still a wizard. Just, most of your mystical muscle probably isn't available to you.

 

There you have it - the ultimate megaplot was planned in advance, iirc the exception were the relationships - he left those open, as he had no idea how his characters might develop (I think the words he used were "those things happen")

 

Magic is not an impersonal force when it gets to the personal level. It is intrinsically linked with the person using it, so if that magic results in someone's death it either means the Wizard has no problem with killing or has no problem with recklessly using his power.

It's the difference between shooting a guy outright and going hunting then accidentally shooting him. You may not have intended to kill the guy, but the results are the same either way. It corrupts because you're using a deadly weapon without regard for other people, which as far as the First Law is concerned is just as bad as outright murder. One way makes a psychopath (like Victor Sells), the other creates a sociopath, but either way you still become a person much more inclined to kill people with magic again.

Dresden used his magic in a purposefully violent way that ended in the death of another human being. That he didn't know the guy was human is a moot point because he killed a man. Sure, it may lessen the amount of corruption he gets, but then again, that spell was intended to be nothing less than lethal so why would it?

Still, there are some degrees of separation that have to be taken into account. A Rube Goldberg contraption started by magic wouldn't likely result in a violation of the First Law because at the end of the day it's a machine that pushes the guy out the window. It'd probably get the Wardens on your back though. Burning down a building with people inside would break the First Law, because it's your fire that directly caused the falling timbers, flames and smoke, so by extension the people inside were killed by the fire.

 

Finished it. Loved it. And at the same time, got really annoyed over a bunch of stuff. I'll try not to repeat too much of what has already been said.

In general, I think the whole book felt rushed. There was waaayyy too much content for a single book. This led to a lot of little things, particularly revolving around Dresden's return:

- In Ghost Story, we are shown a Chicago where the Fomors are this new enemy who have changed everything. Dresden returns to Chicago and the BFS have conveniently dealt with it all. It basically made everything that was done in Ghost Story even more pointless than it was already.
- There's a lack of reaction from Murphy to Harry being back.
- There's a lack of reaction from *anyone else* apart from Molly, Thomas, Andi and Mouse. Not just his friends, but the world in general (eg, White Council, White Court, Marcone - the latter two who were even involved directly in the events).
- Karrin in regards to the swords basically saying "Yeah, let's not bother them for this matter."

Everything directly relating to the plot seemed well done, and everything else was just rushed through. I know Butcher likes to get every arc done in a single book, but there could have easily been two books here.

One focused on Harry adjusting to being the Winter Knight, everyone's reactions to his return, and the start of his work on trying to work out why Maeve needs to be killed, and what is happening on Demonreach. And a second book to wrap up that arc. Instead the impact of Harry's absence (and the absence of the Red Court), his new position and his subsequent return is diluted completely.


Onto actual plot points, to start with I absolutely loved everything to do with the Fae. From all the scenes in Arctis Tor, the scenes with the Mothers, all the way to the fact that shockingly, both Mab and Titania got heavily humanised (something I thought I'd hate, but actually ended up liking a fair bit). I never thought I'd say it, but I actually found Mab likeable at the end (which is important, given that Dresden will be working with her a lot more). I think part of the reason Butcher introduced the whole Gates thing was to give Mab a positive purpose Dresden could relate to (otherwise she seems to exist just to be the Queen of everything 'dark').

I also think Molly becoming the Winter Lady is one of my favorite plot points in this series so far. I was a bit sad we didn't get a scene of her family's reaction. And I was really sad to see Lily die (Though I also quite like the fact Sarissa will play an important part in the future).

As for the Nemesis...

This. This so much.

I was loving the idea of the Black Council being the ultimate bad guys, and being a bunch of humans who potentially had deep characters and reasons for doing what they did - more than the "harr harr, I'm a supervillain".

That being said, having Outsiders aren't terrible either. The problem is that Butcher basically fucked up his opportunity to make them interesting completely.

Every single super powerful being on Earth and Nevernever are very strongly linked with humans, due to the power of free will and all that. So it makes sense that all these villains are human like in their manner and so on.

The whole point of the Outsiders seemed to be that they were completely apart from this universe. They would have no reason to be humanized at all because of what they were. They wouldn't be 'evil' - they would just be.

There was the potential here to see some sort of Lovecraftian eldritch abominations, so beyond human understanding and just forces of (un)nature. Or maybe a Zerg-like hive mind just focused on consuming everything. So on.

Instead we have Sharkface giving speeches just like every other villain. We have Nemesis being some sort of parasite which tries to use human emotion to enact cunning schemes to get its evil way (implying some sort of understanding of human-kind). We have a coordinated assault of Outsiders using manmade boats to assault an island, with them just being described as 'strange looking monsters'.

It seems like the only point of them being 'Outsiders' is that unlike every other enemy, their goal is to wipe out humans completely, not just subjegate them. They are so utterly boring. We got more of a reaction from Dresden being introduced to Queens or the Mothers than meeting an Outsider.


On a whole, this book while good, has heavily lowered the potential of the remaining books in this series. It has diluted a lot of what has happened, and hasn't really replaced it with something else. The Black Council are now just insignificant pawns, the new enemy seems dull and major changes - Harry being the Winter Knight and the Fomor - were skimmed over.

At the very least they didn't have Dresden go back and return to his old job. That would have *really* diminished everything. He's living on his fucking island. Way more awesome.

 

Was rereading Cold Days and this stuck out to me when Mab is summoned to Demonreach.

What'da think that's about? My initial thought was that maybe Demonreach could have outright killed the ladies, but chose not to. However that doesn't seem likely, because the island is a prison system, and its priorities are keeping the prisoners locked up, not playing politics with the Sidhe. So now I'm thinking maybe it's something regarding Harry, though that would seem to be a weird choice of time to mention it.

 

While Dresden could have been bluffing he did tell DR to lock Mab away if she shot him, and it appeared to at the very least startle Mab. I figure it was well within DR's power to shut down Lily and Maeve, and it probably would have done so if they actually posed a threat.

 

Brought up pages ago. Pretty sure it just means that Demonreach could've curbstomped the hell out of Maeve and Lily but chose to wait it out. Basically one of those little problems he decided to let his Warden solve by just not acting.

This could mean the problem was so little that when he attempted to remove Lily and Maeve he would cause irrevocable damage somehow somewhere or that he decided they were beneath his notice until he truly deemed them a threat.

 

It was mentioned in the book that if Demonreach were to act, Harry would want to be a pretty large distance away - which he wasn't. The way it was put was, IIRC, that Demonreach was incapable of focusing on such a small scale. It probably didn't act to obliterate, and just waited things out, in order to not cause collateral damage to Dresden.

 

Yes...that was my point, it may have been worded slightly badly but I think the fact that I was responding to a question about how Ebenezer could use magic that broke the laws would be more then enough context for the average person to understand.