The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers

Why is Marcone such a heavy magical hitter?

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Yuillegan:
There's a couple of reasons this can be explained, none of them necessarily any more likely or relevant than the others.

1. Jim's writing changes. I doubt anyone (even Jim) would argue he has been consistent with some of his rules over the years. While Jim likes to pretend he has a "hard magic" system, it's actually quite plot based. Which all of them are of course, it has to be. Everything is just a tool for the story. But for it to be believable for the reader it has to makes sense and be fairly consistent. For this story it seems he needed Marcone to be a Denarian and a magic user. It's also clearly a future part of the series and he felt he had to set it up now. Yes, it appears to break the rules. But likely Jim could find a good enough explanation if challenged.

2. Marcone has had the Coin of Namshiel since SmF. Who knows how long he resisted (at least in his mind)? Likely, he saw the business opportunity and he took it. But that's 6 years later or so that he reveals it to Dresden (and perhaps the world). It is a small amount of time even if you are a rare talent to become that good...but then again look at Ivy. She isn't just a big tank of magic power - she has so much knowledge that clearly allows her to master her powers and puts her on a league seemingly beyond the Senior Council and even the Ladies. Even if Namshiel isn't providing the horsepower perhaps he knows the right secrets - places to draw energy from outside yourself, ways to be extra efficient, secrets that are normally forbidden. Plus Hellfire which grants quite a fair bit of magic muscle on it's own.

3. The breakdown of reality caused by Ethniu and the Eye of Balor. Between a Titan showing up (which was probably hard enough on Reality, plus several old gods and demigods etc) and her firing off her father's Eye, reality was having trouble playing by the rules. Dresden's magic (by his own account) was far stronger and more "real" than it should have been. Ferrovax was doing his best to hold the barrier closed between the Nevernever and the mortal world. But it was still very thing and likely Things slipped through (note - I love that Ferrovax says his contribution to the defense of Chicago must be subtle and then goes and closes the Earth and the Nevernever). Anyway, Marcone probably had far more juice than normal (and unlike Harry he wasn't spent) when he fought Ethniu. So Marcone might not be that strong normally.

4. He might have found a cheat way to gain more magical muscle. A sacrifice, a bargain, a special object or potions, a ritual or spell etc. Even if he hasn't he still might.


--- Quote from: morriswalters on December 04, 2020, 09:16:52 PM ---Measure Harry's strength by the bodies of his enemies.  He's changed the nature of a Fallen's Shadow,  survived death, killed a whole species, forged a bond with the Caretaker of the prison of the Gods, imprisoned a Titan, caused the death of two Faerie Queens and fought and won against three Outsider nobles.  Smoke that Carlos. You got you butt handed to you by an Ice Princess.

--- End quote ---
Couldn't agree more.

Harry is sometimes portrayed weaker or less skillful but as I said above part of that is Jim's narrative reasons and part of that is we only see it from Harry's perspective. Harry might even think some wizards are better than they are. Harry also is dealing with his own misconceptions, preconceived notions and insecurities. Any and all of that skew his view from the "truth".

The_Sibelis:
1 Jim hasn't broken any of his magical rules to date... Any denarian has a battle form which is an excellent usage of shape shifting. Namshiel is simply more finesse than that. Anyone is capable of magic after all, the denarians is just filling in for the inability to sense it. I'm not particularly fond of this plot of Marcone becoming better at magic than Harry, but I don't think it breaks anything but my ability to suspend my disbelief.

TheCuriousFan:

--- Quote from: forumghost on December 04, 2020, 06:20:36 PM ---And yet we constantly get shown how every magic user in the series is better then him.

Early Harry says he's gòod at tracking spells.
Molly -Harry's apprentice with a fraction of the experience- tells us 10 books later that he sucks at it.

Same with Carlos, who is again, far less experienced than Harry, and yet he can pull things apart from the atomic level for no effort, and all Harry has learned to do is explode things bigger.

How about Luccio? We see her from back during her young and reckless days, and she can already do those lazer beams without a focus, whereas in Changes Harry struggles to do one with a focus.

Marcone has apparently zoomed so far past Harry in skill that he can now do something that Harry would struggle to manage after a century of dedicated study (teleportation) and he's been learning for less than a decade, and started with zero magical talent.

Literally every Magic-user in the series has absolutely rocketed past Harry in terms of skills in the past 4-5 books or so. The only thing Harry can do is make a bigger boom.

--- End quote ---
Molly's case was more that you don't strictly need another object (compass, needle, a pen etc) to use for tracking spells rather than being flatly better than him, we don't know how long Marcone has been studying for from his pov because of Namshiel's ability to train him for a year or two in a single day (and Jim isn't sure if teleportation is something Harry could be doing), Luccio was nearly a century old when we see her in that story.

Mira:

--- Quote ---Harry is sometimes portrayed weaker or less skillful but as I said above part of that is Jim's narrative reasons and part of that is we only see it from Harry's perspective. Harry might even think some wizards are better than they are. Harry also is dealing with his own misconceptions, preconceived notions and insecurities. Any and all of that skew his view from the "truth".

--- End quote ---

Harry sees himself as weaker and less skillful, some of that is modesty and insecurity, a lot has to do with his own admission that he has been lazy over the years.  That is where Molly becoming his apprentice was one of the best things that ever happened to him in his growth as a wizard.  One of the huge areas where his skills have improved ten fold is his ability to make a veil.

KurtinStGeorge:
One of the things to remember about Marcone's new power level is that Thorned Namshiel got his ass handed to him when Harry accidentally used soulfire to create a giant hand, which Harry used to throw the demon sorcerer around like he was a rag doll.  Harry won't want to exhaust himself by doing something like that again, and Thorned Namshiel will probably have a defense against the same thing happening again, but that doesn't preclude Harry from coming up with something equally, or nearly equally, devastating if less taxing. 

Plus, Harry's experience with using magic is far wider than Marcone's.  The Baron of Chicago won't be as easily suckered as Hannah Asher was, but when it comes to using magic, Harry should be able think outside the box and be more effective then Marcone.   

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