That's actually a really fucking good question. Now it's gonna bug me for weeks. Thanks.

 

The way I read it mortal on Halloween =/= killable. I actually think there was a quote somewhere (don't have the book on hand) that the bailsafe would only slow the really nasty stuff down.

There's also the fact that everything in Demonreach is practically comatose. Attempting to kill them could very well wake them up and we have no idea how solid Demonreach would be with thousands of inmates banging on the bars.

 

There are two obvious possibilities that occur to me.

The first is that it would not actually work. Its possible that either not all creatures are immortal, even on halloween, or that they would indeed die but not permanently. Bob did imply that the summer mantle would eventually turn Lily INTO Aurora, so she would not truly have DIED died even though she perished at the stonetable which has the same effect as halloween. Now that may or may not be true in this case given that Mother Summers words imply the possibility of fighting this, but it could be true for the things on the island.

So basically, if they are killed on halloween, their "mantles" or equivalents will fly off and possess random people/things and eventually, given enough years and decades, the things will all be reborn anyway. So it would be better to kill them than let them all out at once, but the best option would be to keep them all contained for good, so that they can never leave and never be reborn. Basically, the things in the prison are so damn scary, that perhaps even death would just be a form of slow escape.


The second option is that maybe the point is not to imprison them at all. Maybe Merlins real goal is to use those things as a weapon. In all this talk about darkhallowing them, its been ignored that its generally not necessary to do so at all. By having so many things imprisoned in the same place, they give off energy, even locked up. So much so that it forms a very powerfull leyline. Demonreach referred to the place as a "The Well". The word "Well" in this context could refer to the idea of a water well or an oil well or the like. Basically, maybe there is no need for Darkhallow, because Merlin designed the whole place from scratch for the sole purpose of tapping into the power of the creatures.

Knowledge is power, and Ivy as the Archive knows near everything there is to know about magic. But by using the power of the Leyline on the island, the denarians were able to render her totally helpless. And one can presume that this was not something the island was happy with, nor helped them with. And yet even with likely opposition from Demonreach, there was still enough latent energy available from the prisoners to contain the Archive.

The Warden has greater access to the prisoners, and can apparently even free them. What if this greater access applies to the Leyline aswell? What if the power the denarians were able to draw from the Leyline was only a tiny fraction of the power Harry, as the Warden can draw from it?

For all we know, Harry might basically be able to gain god-level powers if he walks deep into one of the tunnels and draws on the Leyline as hard as he can. And maybe thats the plan all along? Maybe Demonreach is a weapon of mass destruction Merlin designed? To be used against the Outsiders perhaps, so that if they ever breach the gates and gain a significant foothold in reality, the Warden can use the powers of the island to basically nuke them to oblivion. As bad as such dark power would be, it would be better than the end of reality afterall. It would also explain why Nemesis is so eager to either free or destroy those things in the Well. With them gone, the Leyline vanishes aswell, and Merlins weapon of last resort against Nemesis is destroyed.

 

Plus. If the banefire is used, the prison goes to shit. Which means there's no place to stick any future baddies.

 

Demonreach can't finesse. It was flat-out stated that the Fairy Queens hit in a weight class so far below Demonreach that him trying to take them out and nobody else would be like trying to kill specific ants in a crowd of ants with a baseball bat.

The motherfucker is basically the Genus Loci of the Negazone and Green Lantern Gaol combined, if the Green Lanterns hunted Great Old ones and the Marvel characters were smart enough to imprison more god-tier supervillains there. If we're talking about the power scale he'd be hitting in, we'd have to define it in the number of asses of things we know about that he could kick. Ten Mab asses, for instance.

It was also pretty clearly stated that the beings imprisoned beneath the island "could not be dealt with any other way." So even if Demonreach was capable of taking them out without bringing the entire house down, that's apparently not an option anyway, because these are the things that can't be dealt with by any other means besides encasing them in magic crystals in the basement of Mordor. If, you know. Them being there in crystals was the reason Mordor was there.

Basically, it's implied that even on Halloween, you couldn't kill them. And that kind of pans out. As a lorefag, I can tell you that in nearly every story about skinwalkers? They can't really be killed. The Witching Way that they follow makes them basically unkillable and unstoppable. The Blessed Way (the way that Indian Joe, by the way, could not do, because he lost the ability to do it) can only hedge them out. It's a giant magical "fuck off" sign that makes an area sacred, so they can't walk it. It's not a magical lightning bolt that they can throw, or an arcane drop-kick to the face. Because those kinds of things don't really work on Skinwalkers. Not really. And because the Blessing Way is more subtle than that. But mostly the first thing.

And while Indian Joe did note that he could, potentially, have killed the Skinwalker if he had pursued it and it had deigned to fight to the death, he also called it a First Spirit, a messenger, or, in other words, essentially one of the Dine. Which, in Native American mythology, is basically a complicated way of saying "an angel, kinda sorta." So the Skinwalkers are basically really tiny, autonomous Fallen. A Cherubim that went over to the Dark Side of the Force. It's basically an evil first cousin of the guys hanging out on Michael's roof.

And the skinwalkers were "The Least." It only gets worse from there.

So yeah. tl;dr, it's pretty clearly said and implied that if killing anything in there was an option, it would have been done already. Since there are only six Skinwalkers in there, and there are, strictly speaking, a much larger number than that loose in the world (or at least, there should be), I'm assuming those six are, and this is purely an assumption, probably the worst of the lot, the oldest, the strongest, the smartest, the meanest, and the outright baddest and nastiest of the Naagloshii that were once loose upon the world. They may have found ways to prevent themselves from being destroyed, and become individual exceptions to the rules, like Lord Raith. Or maybe they're just so old and powerful that anything that could destroy them would wreck half the continent anyway, so it was never tried. Either way, if they could be killed conventionally, they wouldn't be in there in the first place, because it's a prison for things that cannot be safely dealt with any other way. One assumes that if they could have been easily disposed of, Merlin would have done it himself.

 

I can't help but notice--and I believe Odin alluded to this himself--the parallels between Dresden's time at the edge of Death beneath Demonreach and Odin being hung on Yggdrasill.

The Odin story translates as

Dresden sacrifices himself through the favor he calls in from Kincaid, and he sacrificed himself in order to prevent his corruption--so really the sacrifice is to the ideal of Dresden.

And while Demonreach isn't Yggdrasil, it is a place of power with unknown depths.

Human's thoughts are a huge source of power, and many of them believe--or at least are familiar with the idea--that Self Sacrifice followed by Resurrection greatly enhances the strength/wisdom of an individual.

Harry may have already gotten a huge, darkhollowish power boost. He just hasn't noticed yet.

 

That's all very plausible until I remember one thing: Harry Dresden can't have nice things. There's no way he'd randomly stumble into a source of power to put him above (or even at the level of) the things he fights.

 

Mhm not until he gets smacked around for a while

 

I doubt this would really result in an actual powerboost in pure magical energy. However it does occur to me that there may be something which might fit this kind of growth in wisdom or personal strength of character.

There is a scene in changes, where the Red King apparently uses his Will(capital W) to chain Harry to place. Harry is basically helpless, and even with Bob shielding him, we get the remark that Harry is a child wrestling a weight lifter. There is another scene afterwards, where the LotoN again use their Wills to chain Harry and he is helpless. Its pretty much made clear that this is not somekind of force magic type of thing, but something much more fundamental. A case of RK&co stopping Harry by just imposing their very Wills on reality itself, and using that to make Harry helpless.

There is another scene like that too. A scene where Odin himself does the same.

But what about after Ghost Story?

We get the exact same scene basically. Mother Winter, who is far more powerfull than even Red King, and who is in her place of power (just like the Red King and Odin were) paralyzes Harry with her Will, just like happened before. Whats more, its even directly compared to the attack of the Red King, except that apparently Mother Winters Will is both far more focused and far stronger than the Red Kings was. She again does not use force magic or earth magic in the traditional sense, or freeze Harry with ice, but simply somehow uses her very Will to command reality itself to obey her, and reality DOES. And this is actually stated. To quote from the book:

Before his death and resurrection, Harry, even with Bob offering shielding, was virtually helpless before the far inferior Will attack of Red King.

Post-resurrection, Harry easily taps into Soulfire, understands the true nature of Soulfire for the first time, and puts his own Will against the Will of Mother Winter. And basically bitchslaps her given how easily he shatters her bonds. Infact, what is referred to as a side-effect or a "shadow of true forces at work" of Harry shattering this Will attack is enough to throw Mother Winter back violently enough, that she basically collides with something (a wall maybe, whatever). An "echo" of Mother Winters bonds breaking is enough to basically throw her back as though pre-Changes Harry had hit her with his kinetic rings or something. And Harry does this with ease.

I think if Harry has grown in wisdom or knowledge due to his death, then this is it. Its not raw magical energy or even technical skill but rather something far more basic, and the new Harry utterly dominates.

It makes me wonder, could he actually use Soulfire to create bonds of his own? For example, could he learn to use the same trick he used against Mother Winter, but in reverse, so that he creates bonds of Will rather than shatters them. If he had thought of it, when Lily was preparing to kill him on the island and he was out of "normal" magical energy, could Harry have simply used Soulfire and Willed, "No, this is not how reality works Lily, you will stop", and have it actually be true?

Harry does do something like this as a ghost, when he manifests a body for himself using sheer will, and its implied to be a pretty major thing for a ghost to do. But Harry was a soul when he did it. And now, he is a soul in a living body with access to Soulfire, the "fire of creation".

I suspect there are VERY few people who could have done anything to break free from Mother Winters Will. And Harrys Will could likely now create far more powerfull bonds considering how easily he shattered Mother Winters Will. Its not impossible that we might yet get a scene, where Harry uses his newfound wisdom, his newfound Will and his newfound understanding of Soulfire to create chains of Will to just plain freeze someone in place, the way HE was frozen by the Red King and Odin.

It might be pretty cool to see if for example he confronted the current Merlin or maybe Nicodemus or some major badguy, and just used pure sheer willpower to force them to freeze by making reality his bitch. This kind of thing is something things like Ferrovax did to Harry in book 3 casually, and Odin in Changes. It might be pretty cool to get a scene later, where now its finally Harry, thats able to do that.

 

I'm not so sure about that. When Harry breaks the bonds Mother Winter placed on him, it was because his Free Will allowed him to defy anyone and anything. It went something along the lines of mortals being special because they can defy anything, apparently including beings on the same tier as Archangels.

 

Well, I would argue that what Dresden did with ordering Kincaid wasn't really a sacrifice on his part, it was the easy way out for him to skip out on his new responsibilities to Mab and the deal he made.

 

The entire book verse is filled with, If a lot of belief is placed into something, it'll get stronger. Now Dresden is essentially Jesus to the wizarding world, I've wondered if that'll translate into a power kick once word gets around. Paired with the Warden mantle.

Yeah I was thinking that too. He shrugs her off after a minute, when she's clearly above the RK's class, and Odin's for that matter, since he's seen, as Kringle, to be a noble of Winter. Hes gotten a major power boost up, he just doesn't realize it totally yet.

 

Odin doesn't get explicit power from his self-sacrifice, he gains greater wisdom and depth of understanding.

So it would make sense for Harry's better grasp of Soulfire and such to be rooted in his own living-death.

 

You forgot the part about how Mother Winter actually likes Harry, and was just testing him. It was something that was made for him to break out of, and if he wasn't strong enough or smart enough, then she would have devoured him for being unworthy. Don't pretend Harry "bitchslapped Mother Winter." If you think that's what happened, you need to go read the scene again.

 

I did infact read the whole scene. There is nothing to suggest Mother Winter was not serious in using her will to hold Harry down. Harry can focus his own will to sense the opposing strength, and is is clearly stated that the Will of MW is stronger and more focused than that of RK, which Harry was helpless against before. And Harry breaks free. A feat FAR beyond what he could do just a short time before in Changes.

I guess it might be an exaggeration to say that Harry bitchslapped Mother Winter. It is also true that we don't know if MW was using all her strength. It is possible that she could have pushed even more of her Will into the binding, but likewise it is possible that Harry too could have tapped more deeply into his reserve of Soulfire. This however is irrelevant, since whatever her absolute max may be, the amount she DID use was far more than what crippled Harry before. And this time it did not cripple him.

Now just to clarify here, I am NOT saying that Mother Winter could not have killed Harry? Ofcourse not, she could have crushed him like a bug using basic magical power. I am certain she could have used ice magic and basically turned him into solid block of ice. What I am saying, is that Uriels gift of Soulfire combined with Harrys experiences has given him a lot more power in this one area of using Will to affect reality.

Bottom line:
In Changes, Odin demonstrates how Will can affect reality and be used against Harry. Harry also demonstrates, that he can detect the strength of the opposing will (important, since he uses this to gauge the strength of MW in comparison to RK in Cold Days).

In Changes, RK uses Will to contain Harry with ease, even with Bob acting as a shield and taking a lot of the pressure off Harry.

In Cold Days, Mother winter contains Harry with Will. Harry does what he did with Odin, and senses that the Will holding him is far stronger to that of the Red King. Whether MW was holding back some of her strength or not is irrelevant. At the level it was, it was still far stronger than RK. And Harry breaks free easily, when before he was utterly helpless.

His ability to impose his Will on reality has massively increased, and thats that.

 

The one and only thing Ill interject into this is that in my opinion she wasn't even coming close to using all of her will on him. She wanted to test him and see what kind of a Knight Harry really was and if he died in the process then in her viewpoint, fuck him he wasn't worth the effort anyways. MW was caught a hair off guard by the boldness of him trying to summon her so she decided to take out her aggression in the form of a test. No matter what happened she would have gotten an outcome she liked. If he managed his way through the binding then Mab didn't pick as weak of a Knight as she had thought and if he didn't she got dinner on the house.

Also Im not saying your wrong Datakim at all, just my own opinion on it.

 

Its certainly possible that she could have used more Willpower to hold Harry. I obviously have no idea how strong the Mothers truly are. The reason I tended to think Harry may have broken the bonds she created far more easily than she anticipated was because the breaking of those bonds was enough to physically throw her back as though she has been struck.

If it was just an easy test and she was basically using only a tiny percentage of her power, would she not have been ready for the backlash she would experience from Harry using his Will to break free.

One possibility might be that she did not know about Harrys soulfire (less likely) or realise that he could use it with such skill now (possible), and so she was surprised by that.

That is to say, she might have expected Harry to push his will against hers in a more "traditional" wizard way or something. But he used Uriels gift of Soulfire instead, which shattered her bonds far more easily than she had anticipated, which is why she was thrown back by the strength with which the bonds snapped.

Its pointed by Harry himself, and Odin too, that the Queens don't like showing weakness or having their pride insulted. So if Mother Winter was in absolute control all along, why did she allow this:

 

You make a very fair point about her getting flung from her feet, I hadn't considered that. I'm still fond of my personal theory about it but considering that maybe she wasn't prepared for the method he chose? Turning yourself into pure light with Soulfire can't be a common parlor trick. You really do make a fair point though, Ill have to consider that one.

 

Yeah. Like you say, the Soulfire trick is probably pretty unique to Harry. Uriel was only able to give it to a mortal to balance a direct interference by Lucifer, and even then he did it only because Harry had proven himself by resisting a shadow of a fallen. And Harry presumably only become so skilled at it and gained the full understanding of Soulfire thanks to his experience at being death.

We are talking about pretty unique events here. Heck, its quite possible that in all of history there has never been a mortal Wizard who has been given Soulfire and then learned some truths by dying. I am reminded that Lash mentioned once that Harry would have to die to learn some important truths about existence, and as a former angel that could foreshadow Soulfire usage being improved by death.

Mother Winter not expecting that Harry could do this would be perfectly understandable under those circumstances, IMHO. She probably has Intellectus ability, but it was established that you need to ask the question first with that, and would MW really have a reason to randomly ask whether or not her knight can turn his soul into pure light to counter a Will attack? I doubt it.

Anyway, I will say that I now regret claiming that Harry "bitchslapped" Mother Winter. It was the whole way she was flung back by the backlash that caused me to say that, but it gave the wrong impression. I fully believe Mother Winter is WAY beyond Harry. It would be more accurate to say that she was just caught offguard by an absurdly unique set of circumstances that had never happened before. Very understandable.

The basic idea that Harry has improved his skill on imposing his Will on reality using soulfire thanks to his "Death" is something I do believe remains true however. No matter what else is true, MW used more Will than RK did, and Harry was able to counter that amount of Will when he could not counter RK's lesser usage before.

I only wonder if this is just a case of Harry being able to basically protect himself a bit better and thats it, or if Harry really can now impose his Will into actual reality using Soulfire and truly change stuff/bind others. I could easily buy that he really can do what Odin,RK and MW can do now too, though obviously it would likely cost him a lot of soul so its not something to be used lightly.

I could also see it being much easier to do in NN (where the rules are more fluid) than in the real world (where the laws of physics are much tougher). If Lash comes back, maybe she can give Harry some lessons.

 

Supposedly, the mothers are in the same league as the archangels.