The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers

What questions should Harry be asking?

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morriswalters:
Ask Toot what?  It's like you asking, "What law might I break?"  Might I suggest 10,000 possibilities?  Certain things you know, like Toot, are things you know because you are of the culture.  In the story itself, asking people about things, like what it means to be a star born, might put you at risk of giving away what you don't know.  Which has it's own risks. To quote Mark Twain,
--- Quote ---It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
--- End quote ---
And the people who know about Margaret's evil plans are her fellow conspirators. People you can't ask, like Cowl or Lord Raith.

Dina:
All your questions, and this:
"Who is my grand mother? Do I have aunts or uncles? Eb has siblings?
Who exactly took care of me immediately after my mom dies, until dad took me? And of course, I want all details about mom's final day".

Firestarter:
Harry is a wizard. He understands and has demonstrated that knowledge is power.

But he only asks pertinent questions when the house is on fire. Apparently - his brain is functional, long-term.

According to WoJ the books are actually Harry's diaries [ like the one of Ebenezer ] so it's not unimaginable that we only get to read the diaries from the few exciting weekends.

Still: the progress of Harry's analysis is too slow and too little.


--- Quote from: Dina on November 10, 2019, 02:05:40 AM ---"Who is my grand mother? Do I have aunts or uncles? Eb has siblings?

--- End quote ---

--- Quote from: Harry Dresden ---Why do I like sheep so much?
Where can I buy a kilt?
--- End quote ---

The obvious questions posted above.

I mean: I get it: Harry's a hikkikomori who only goes to work to pay the rent. Otherwise he's at home, reading books, tinkering with magic, occasionally being sociable. Right...

So... why don't we see more gadgets? I understand Jim's reasoning, I don't undertand Harry's - his gadgets have saved his hide and other people several times over;
 - escape potion
 - boost when he jumped out of the car to face the Streetwolves
 - protective charm he gave to Lydia
 - anti-vampire venom
 - bear-charm [ would have been extremely useful in the Shedd Aquarium - even a gamechanger ]
 - Little Chicago - is now available to BFS [ yes, the house burned down. The lab was in the sub-basement, a concrete box, and I'm betting it survived ], but the few uses have been worth it.
 - panic room - great. Needs more.


What I'm missing based on what happened in the books:
 - longitude and latitude coordinates have been in use for centuries before GPS was ever invented. Harry is an old-fashioned guy but doesn't think of checking out a map? [ and yes, for those of you, who aren't aware, paper maps generally have longitude and latitude info in them... or they used to at least ] Maybe the search spell needs vamping up?

 - He's a magic nerd/geek but he doesn't jump at the possibility of checking out swords made by Lucio ??? Really? I don't believe that. Not in a million years.

 - HEALING ITEMS. Seriously, by now, with a bunch of shapeshifters figuring out healing, how come Dresden doesn't even heave a headache cure around??? Even if it's just a tiny boost. Dresden keeps getting busted up for 10+ years now - every normal person would try to figure out a way how to get out of hospital bed faster and with less trouble. I'm saying this as someone who spent a lot of time in hospital beds. Trust me, after a few weeks you don't care how nice the hospital personnel is. You want to go home.
   HIS HAND!!! Gods, just making it better a bit faster should have been motivation enough. That should have been the turning point; the reason why Dresden learns basics of healing magic.

 - Harry keeps whining about using his 3rd Eye. Ok, cool. So how come there is no gadget that helps him with that? Seriously! Harry is a snoop. You'd expect him to have a pair of enchanted glasses or a monocle to help him at least see parts of what he'd normally have to use his 3rd eye to see.

 - Back to healing magic - Carlos got hurt, Murphy got hurt, Michael got hurt, Shiro died from torture and a curse, Thomas endangered people when he was hurt, Molly got hurt, ... kids got shot and mauled to death by monsters. Again - at least a 1st aid to stop/slow down bleeding, you know, basic treatment that _EVERYONE_ who keeps getting injured learns eventually. If a spell is too complex, again, back to healing items.

 - Moneymaker - Dresden should have an item that helps him make money more easily. I'm not saying "cheating" as such. Just another tool to help him get the funding he needs. It's obvious from the books that money is always an issue, so I don't see a reason why he doesn't do what everyone does when they can: make their job a bit easier. You know, like a lie detector, better search spell, stuff like that.

 - More holding items like the unicorn hair rope. Even if they don't work as well. Something is always better than nothing. Christ, even cops have handcuffs which would be arguably better than bare hands when dealing with the fae.

...

Dina:
I agree, we here (in the forum, not in this thread) has been discussed magical items for ages. Yes, I understand some of them could be very expensive, but making one magical item every six months or so could be affordable. And I want healing potions too. I am sure Butters could help with the theory  :)

Kindler:
I think Harry would have a lot of trouble with crafting healing items. I don't know how they could be made to function reliably, with predictable (identical, repeatable) results. You might be able to cheat with it by making it work similarly to watercrafting in Codex Alera—basically, you help the body heal itself rather than close the wound.
I don't even know if healing magic is all that big a thing in Dresden. The only one who we've met who is confirmed to be capable of anything like it is Listens-to-Wind, but (evidently) it can't do things like mend broken bones (Luccio certainly should have been healed, right?) I mean, the number of injuries to Council wizards who should have access to the best healing magic the White Council has to offer is really, really high. Half the wardens have been shown to be in slings, on crutches, wrapped up with bandages, etc.
Even a necromancer, a wizard-level talent with power over life and death, was only able to prevent a dying man from dying. She was able to anchor his life to his body, right? But the guy still had to go to the hospital, and required tons of medical assistance to stay alive after the spell would run out. So Kumori was able to keep someone alive, but unable to do anything with the injuries.
And I can also totally see something that could work like that being really, really dangerous to mess around with. Cuz you can't see inside someone's body, right? Imagine if Harry tried to close up an internal wound with magic. He'd probably end up ripping more holes open.
Items... maybe. I don't know how they would work. Because, again, the issue is repeatability, right? You need an item that can, for example, slow blood loss from a variety of different wounds. Maybe potions? I don't know. I'd have to see how it would work. But sure, I guess that could be a possibility.

Harry could've used some money help up until Skin Game, agreed. Should've learned some more geomancy from Eb, gone down to a mountain range, and pulled up a gold vein. Or, hell, used it to find freaking oil or something. Instead he was working for fifty bucks an hour (and probably only about 10-20 hours a week) finding people's keys.

There are tons of places where his gear could've been improved. How about an extra enchantment on his duster that worked like his force rings, except they channeled the energy into a kinetic shield instead? Would be really nice if Harry didn't have to constantly get hit with "major league fastballs" every time a thug with a Mac 10 opened up on him. I even thought about doing something simple, like duct taping a bunch of extra force rings to the hubcaps of the Beetle. Let the rotation charge them up. Just drive the car around the block a few times in ten minutes instead of beating a speed bag for a half hour (or waiting three weeks of normal use or whatever).

Since he's the Winter Knight, it'd be kind of appropriate if he could magic up the Dresden equivalent of Aleran coldstones, too. Or toss around those Mind Fog dealies (which is apparently not a violation of the Laws of Magic if Butters does it?)

Or he could just use what he's got. I'm reasonably certain that the gem his mother left him with directions through the Ways is a lot more than just an auditory map. I think there's more information in there, since it appears she used it kinda like a tape recorder. I really, really want to know if there's more information in that gem, and it's barely been touched since it was introduced in Changes. It was, if I remember right, literally the only possession he still had in Cold Days, thanks to Mab keeping it safe for him.

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