ParanetOnline
The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: didymos on April 08, 2020, 06:57:29 AM
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INTRODUCTION and PART I
PART II (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326795.html#msg2326795)
PART III (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326796.html#msg2326796)
PART IV (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326797.html#msg2326797)
PART V (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326798.html#msg2326798)
INTRODUCTION
This post (or rather, series of posts, but I'll get to that) is an attempt to compile every inconsistency and error in the Dresden Files. I say "attempt" because I know I inevitably missed one thing or another. Such is life. As to oddities, those are things that aren't errors or inconsitencies per se, just...odd. It should be pretty obvious what items they are.
Fair warning: things get real nitpicky, as the goal was completeness. No matter how trivial the error/inconsistency, I included it. Spelling errors, typos, you name it, it's in here (a note: I worked from the Kindle versions, and I'm aware some of these things may be unique to them. Still count. Don't worry: there aren't that many). That also means I included things everyone already knows about, because, again, completeness. I'm aware as well that not everyone is going to agree with every item I've included. Thems the breaks, I guess. I had to call 'em like I saw 'em.
As to what I covered: the books and short stories (except the most recent, Monsters). I didn't do the comics or RPG. For the former, I don't have all of them, and besides, they're not as convenient to work with as the ebooks. For the latter, I don't own any of the game books, and I don't know how canon they are anyway. With respect to order, I did things roughly in publication sequence, and that includes first publication date for the short stories. I say "roughly" because I skipped backwards or forwards when I found it convenient or natural to do so.
And now a word on format. I chose to do this as sequential posts within a single topic, rather than spam the board with a bunch of new topics in quick succession. As you might guess from that, the whole thing is rather long. Like really, really long. What can I say? There was a lot to cover, and a lot to quote. Prepare your scroll wheels and Page Down keys.
PART I
I rarely use the elevator, even though I’m on the fifth floor.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 8 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Harry's office stays on the fifth floor until Changes, when it moves down one:
Datasafe, Inc., resided on the ninth floor, five stories above my office.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 27). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
There's no mention of him having moved.
- In Storm Front, Harry refers to Bianca as a "vampiress" six times. They're the only times he ever uses the word. From then on in the series, even in Storm Front itself, he just uses "vampire".
- In Storm Front, Harry twice calls the laws governing magic "quasiphysics". He never does this again.
- Harry describes Morgan like this in Storm Front:
Perhaps fifty years old, his listless brown hair going grey in uneven patches, he wore a long, black coat, a lot like mine but without the mantle, and his jacket and pants, too, were done in dark colors—charcoal and a deep blue.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 70). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Harry has to know Morgan is much older than that, but it doesn't come up. In fact, we don't actually learn about the extended wizard life-span until Grave Peril:
Not in living memory—and some wizards live a damned long time.
Butcher, Jim. Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 422). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
You would be forgiven for thinking Morgan actually was around fifty given that (until we learn he's much older, much later in the series).
- During that confrontation with Morgan, Harry writes:
Morgan scowled at me. “No. It isn’t worth it.” He opened his dark trench coat and slid the sword away into its scabbard. I relaxed a little. The sword wasn’t the most dangerous thing about him, not by a long shot, but it was his symbol of the authority given to him by the White Council, and if rumors were true, it was enchanted to cut through the magical spells of anyone resisting him.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 73). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It's like Harry doesn't know much of anything about the Wardens, which he should by that point, especially since knowing about them was quite relevant to his survival (in fact, we don't even learn there are multiple Wardens until Grave Peril). Also, who would he be hearing these rumors from anyway? People on the White Council would know about Warden swords, so they'd have just told him (like, say, I don't know...Ebenezar). Random practitioners?
In any case, we learn later that he did know about the Wardens:
I’d spent most of my adult life living in fear of the Council’s Wardens. They’d been my persecutors, my personal furies, and despite the fact that I’d become one, I felt an almost childish glee in the notion that a Warden might be my bad guy.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Then there's this:
The swords of the Wardens were fairly famous in supernatural circles. Bright silver, supernaturally sharp blades, perfect for chopping off the heads of warlocks, and wrought with spells to deflect or disrupt magical attacks or enchantments. When you saw Wardens, you saw their swords.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 398 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
All that makes Harry's ignorance in Storm Front all the stranger in retrospect.
- This exchange in Storm Front:
Toot glared defiantly up at me and stomped his foot on the ground. More silver faery dust puffed out from the impact. “Release me!” he demanded. “Or I will tell the Queen!”
“If I don’t release you,” I pointed out, “you can’t tell the Queen. And you know just as well as I do what she would say about any dewdrop faery who was silly enough to get himself caught with a lure of bread and milk and honey.”
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 64). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Now, you could say that Toot is talking about either Mab or Titania, but we know from Summer Knight that he's wyldfae:
“Drawing of the wyldfae. Like you guys?”
Toot nodded and propped his feet up on the legs of the Star Jump, who let out a surprisingly basso belch. “Not everyone plays with the Courts. We mostly just do our jobs and don’t pay much attention. But when there’s a war on, the wyldfae get Called to one side or another.”
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 158 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I.e., he wouldn't go tattling to a Queen whose court he isn't part of. The only way to make sense of it is that Jim hadn't come up with wyldfae yet, or he hadn't yet decided Toot was one of them (more speculatively, it's also possible, given that both Toot and Harry speak about "the Queen", singular, that there was only one faerie queen at that point and Jim hadn't come up with the whole structure of the faerie courts yet).
- By the way, notice that it's spelled "faery" in Storm Front. It switches to "faerie" in later books. Well, except once in Grave Peril:
“Harry,” Bob pointed out, “the sun’s up. I’m exhausted. I can’t just flit around like some kinda dewdrop fairy.”
Butcher, Jim. Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 142). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And a few times in Changes:
They’re all carved with scenes of Old World fairy tales, some of them amusing, more of them sinister.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 3). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In my thoughts I lit the candles, walking slowly around the circle in a clockwise fashion—or deosil, as the fairy tales, Celtic songs, and certain strains of Wicca refer to it—gradually powering up the energy it required to operate.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 281). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I waited, in perfect darkness, for the mistress of every wicked fairy in every dark tale humanity had ever whispered in the night to put in an appearance.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 288 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
“Wow,” Susan said. “You . . . you really do have a fairy godmother.”
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 398 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
By the way, Susan should remember he has a faerie godmother:
“Look, Su—Miss Rodriguez. My faerie godmother just stole a year’s worth of your memory.”
“Actually,” Michael put in, “you traded it away to her to keep some kind of spell from leaving Harry helpless.”
I shot him a glare and he subsided. “And now you don’t remember me, or I guess, Michael.”
“Or this faerie godmother, either,” Susan said, her face and stance still wary.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 284). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Especially since Harry restores her memory later.
- Also, the quote at the start of the last item is one of only two times Toot is referred to as a "dewdrop faery", both in Storm Front. Later, in Summer Knight, faeries like Toot are called something else:
And the valise exploded in a cloud of crimson sparkles as a swarm of pixies, all armed with cold steel blades sheathed in orange plastic, rose up and streaked toward Aurora in a cloud of red sparkles and glinting knives.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 370). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
As is Toot himself in Small Favor:
“Toot-toot,” I said, nodding to the pixie.
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 35). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Now, you might think pixies and dewdrop faeries are the same thing, but they're not:
Toot buzzed in an excited circle. “For you? Every sprite and pixie and dewdrop faerie within a hundred miles knows that you saved our kind from being imprisoned by the Lady of the Cold Eyes! There’s not a one who didn’t have comrade or kin languishing in durance vile!”
Butcher, Jim. Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) (p. 365). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- But mostly, in later books, Toot and faeries like him are just referred to by the term "the Little Folk". Though you might have noticed that they get called "the Wee Folk" in Turn Coat. This is only towards the beginning of the novel. Later on, it switches back to "Little". Don't know why (Oh, and Gwyn ap Nudd calls them "Wee Folk" once in Curses).
- A trio of Storm Front quotes about vampires:
This hadn’t been the act of a malign spirit or a malicious entity, or the attack of one of the many creatures of the Nevernever, like vampires or trolls.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 16). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Murphy cut right to the point. "Was this part of one of Bianca’s territorial disputes?"
"No," I said. "Unless she’s having it with a human sorcerer. A vampire, even a vamp sorcerer, couldn’t have pulled off something like this outside of the Nevernever."
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 20). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It’s bad juju to go tromping into people’s houses uninvited. One of the reasons vampires, as a rule, don’t do it—they have enough trouble just holding themselves together, outside of the Nevernever.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 59). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Notice they're "creatures of the Nevernever" in this book. This isn't really the case in later books. Both Red and Black court vampires are made from humans and seem to spend the majority of their time in this world ('cause the food is here), and White Court vamps are born and raised just like humans and live in this world as well (as to the Jade Court....who knows?). Notice also that until Grave Peril, there appears to only be one kind of vampire: the Bianca-type (not yet called "Red Court"). Also, that bit about vamp sorcerers not being able to pull off much outside the Nevernever doesn't really hold up in later books (Bianca, Mavra, and Arianna say "Hi").
- Susan is described like this in Storm Front:
She was a woman of average height and striking, dark beauty, wearing a crisp business jacket and skirt, hose, pumps.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 50). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
She apparently grew a few inches in between that book and Fool Moon:
I was muttering to myself and deep in my own sleep-deprived thoughts when I bumped into a tall, lovely woman, dark of hair and eye, full of mouth, long of leg.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 68 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And then she shrunk a bit by Changes:
I opened the door and found Susan facing me.
She was a woman of medium height, which meant she was about a foot shorter than me.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 9). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I have a special charcoal stove and a vent to take most of the smoke out, though the whole place smells a little of woodsmoke and charcoal, no matter what I do.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 83). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In later books, it's a wood-burning stove, not charcoal.
- In Storm Front, Harry tells Bob he has a date, and gets this reaction:
Bob’s eyes fluttered from orange to red. “Oooooo.” He leered. “Is she pretty?”
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 85). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is the only time color change is used as one of Bob's "expressions". Typically, they're things like brightening, dimming, flickering, receding, blinking, etc. Color changes are later used to indicate changes in Bob's personality, like in Dead Beat when Harry activates necro-Bob, or when Cowl has possession of him, or, more subtly, when Harry "recovers" Bob from Butters' place in Cold Days. Also once when Bob runs into Marcone's new wards in Death Masks:
The cloud flowed into the skull, and after a moment, faint violet flames appeared in the skull’s empty eye sockets.
“Ow,” Bob said, his voice tired.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 102). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- In Storm Front, Harry describes the ingredients for a potion:
First you need a base to form the essential liquid content, then something to engage each of the senses, and then something for the mind and something else for the spirit.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 88 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
A few sentences later...:
Then a shredded bus ticket I’d never used, for the mind, and a small chain which I broke and then dropped in, for the heart.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 88 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- When Harry Listens for the first time in Storm Front, it's not capitalized like it (almost) always is in later books:
I listened. Listening isn’t hard to do. No one has practice at it, nowadays, but you can train yourself to pay attention to your senses if you work at it long enough.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 99). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
He also does this in It's My Birthday, Too:
I listened as hard as I could, which was actually quite hard. It’s a talent I seem to have developed, maybe because I’m a wizard, and maybe just because some people can hear really well.
Butcher, Jim. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Multiple times in Storm Front, Harry refers to his "Third Eye" and the "Third Sight". In later books and stories, he only mentions the "Third Eye" a few times: once in Summer Knight, Something Borrowed, Day Off, Turn Coat, Ghost Story, and B is for Bigfoot (Luccio also uses the term in A Fistful Of Warlocks, but that doesn't count because she's not Harry). Sometimes it's capitalized, and sometimes it's not. As to the "Third Sight", that never comes up again, but "second sight" does:
One of the wildest is the Sight, which has been described in various times and cultures as the second sight, the third eye, the evil eye, and a host of other things.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 8 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Let's take a look at Mac over the course of the series:
Mac is a tall, almost gangly man of indeterminate age, though there’s a sense to him that speaks of enough wisdom and strength that I wouldn’t venture that he was less than fifty. He has squinty eyes and a smile that is rare and mischievous when it manifests.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 48 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Mac stood behind the bar. I didn’t know much about Mac. He was tall, medium build, bald, and somewhere between thirty and sixty.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 178 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Mac himself glanced over his shoulder. He was a tall, spare man in a spotless white shirt and apron. Bald and good at it, Mac could have been any age between thirty-five and fifty.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 298 ). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Mac was a lean man somewhere between thirty and fifty. He wore his usual dark clothes and spotless white apron while simultaneously managing all the bartending and a big wood-burning grill where he cooked various dishes for the customers.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 128 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I nodded to Mac. He’s a spare man, a little taller than average, his head shaved bald. He could be anywhere between thirty and fifty. He wore jeans, a white shirt, and a white apron, and despite the fact that his wood-fueled grill was up and running, there wasn’t a spot or stain anywhere on his clothes.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) (p. 37). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Mac was waiting for us at the front door. He was a sinewy, bald man dressed in dark slacks and a white shirt, somewhere between the age of thirty and fifty. He had a very average, unremarkable face, one that usually wore a steady expression of patience and contemplation.
Butcher, Jim. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files (Heorot). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Mac is a man of medium height and medium build, with thick, bony wrists and a shining smooth pate that never shows signs of growing in. He could be anywhere between thirty and fifty and, as always, he was wearing a spotless white apron.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 2 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
He was a spare man, bald, and had been ever since I knew him, dressed in dark clothes and a spotless white apron.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 222). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Mac stood behind the bar, a lean man a little taller than average, his shaven head gleaming.
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 208 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Mac, bald, lean, and silent, stood behind the bar in his usual crisp white shirt and spotless apron.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files (p. 370). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Notice the changes in height and build. It's also unclear as to whether he's actually bald, or just shaves his head. Additionally, Harry's estimate of his age varies in earlier books, before settling down to "between thirty and fifty". Lastly, his typical outfit changes from all dark clothes to wearing a white shirt, then back to dark clothes, then back to the white shirt again.
- In Storm Front, Harry makes a "date" with Linda Randall:
She mmmmed into the phone. “You’re such a gentleman. I like that, once in a while. I get off at seven. All right? Do you want to meet me? Say at eight?”
“My car exploded,” I said. My tongue felt fuzzy. “I can meet you at the Seven-Eleven down the street from my apartment.”
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 148 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
He never tells her where exactly the Seven-Eleven is, and what's more, just a bit later, he's expecting her to show up at the apartment. Now, you could say it's because he's concussed at that point, but we later see that Linda was getting ready to meet him when she died, despite not having directions.
- When Harry blows up the toad demon with lightning in Storm Front, its remains don't turn into ectoplasm:
Flaming bits of something that I didn’t want to think about were raining down around us, landing with little, wet, plopping sounds upon the road, the sidewalk, the yards of the houses around me, burning quickly to little briquettes of charcoal and then hissing into sputtering coolness.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 178 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- In Storm Front, Harry's shield is made of air and isn't ever visible:
Pieces flew toward me and bounced off the shield of air I held in front of me, while others rained back behind me, into the parking lot.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 204). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The invisible shield of air met the scorpion a handbreadth from my body and sent it rebounding back onto its back.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 254). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Murphy and I rose up to the center of the space of the elevator while I pushed the shield out all around us, filled up the space with layer after layer of flexible shielding, semicohesive molecules of air, patterns of force meant to spread the impact around. There was a sense of pressure all around me, as though I had been abruptly stuffed in Styrofoam packing peanuts.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 258 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It was a dozen times harder to shield without my bracelet, but I blocked the flame, sent it swirling high and over me, huddling under a little quarter dome of hardened air that would not let Victor’s magic past it.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 285). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In later books (up until White Night, when he has an improved version of the shield bracelet) it's basically pure force, and it can be often be seen (usually when stuff hits it but sometimes in other instances). A force field, more or less. A few examples:
The force of the blast slammed into my shield. It wasn’t quite enough to shatter the protective field, but it made my bracelet grow warm and shoved my opposite shoulder hard against the wall.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 83). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The shield came together before me in a quarter-dome of blazing crimson energy, and the writhing tendrils slammed against it in a dozen flashes of white light.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 131). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I shook out my shield bracelet and hardened my will into a wall of unseen but solid force in front of me.
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 140). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Now, you might say "Oh, he just changed his shield" (he did have to replace the bracelet after the elevator incident, after all), but he didn't. He refers to them as the same thing:
It was primarily a defense against kinetic energy, and while I had used it to handle everything from bullets to runaway elevator cars in my career as a wizard, it just wasn’t all that good at stopping the transfer of intense heat.
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 320). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- In Storm Front, we learn about the Beckitts:
Murphy’s jaw tensed, little motions at the corners of her face. Then she said, “Greg and Helen Beckitt. Three years ago, their daughter, Amanda, was killed in a cross fire. Johnny Marcone’s thugs were shooting it out with some of the Jamaican gang that was trying to muscle in on the territory back then. One of them shot the little girl. She lived for three weeks in intensive care and died when they took her off life support.”
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 189). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
However, in White Night, when Harry soulgazes Helen Beckitt, we see this:
I looked over my shoulder to see a very, very young-looking Marcone.
He wasn’t wearing a business suit. He had on jeans and a black leather jacket. His hair was longish, a little mussed, and he also sported a stubble of beard that gave him the kind of rakish look that would attract attention from the girls who fantasized about indulging with a bad boy. His eyes were still green—but they were the green of a summer hunter’s blind, bright and intelligent and predatory, but touched with more…something. Humor, maybe. More life. And he was skinnier. Not a lot skinnier or anything, but it surprised me how much younger it and the other minor changes made him look.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) (p. 266). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Apparently, Marcone aged a lot in those three years. Like a lot a lot.
- In addition, the story of what happened to Amanda Beckitt changes in White Night:
“Tony Vargassi, my predecessor, I suppose, had a son. Marco. Marco decided that I had become a threat to his standing in the organization. He was the shooter.”
“But the girl,” I said, “didn’t die.”
Marcone shook his head. “It put Vargassi in an awkward position. If the girl recovered, she might identify his son as the shooter, and no jury in the world would fail to send a thug to jail who’d shot a pretty little girl. But if the girl died, and it came back on Marco, he’d be looking at a murder charge.”
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) (p. 439). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Not a shootout with Jamaicans, but rather what seems to be an internal Vargassi conflict that happened before Marcone took over.
- Harry says of Victor Sells:
He had probably broken every Law of Magic.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 243). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Somehow, I doubt this. I don't see Victor time-traveling, for instance. Not really in his league. Makes me think maybe Jim hadn't formalized all the Laws yet.
- Harry twice refers to the scorpion in his office as an "insect":
The elevator doors swooped shut. There was a sharp thud, and the car rattled, as the scorpion smashed into them. The car started down, and I tried to regain my breath. What the hell was that thing? It wasn’t just an insect.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 254). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I hated that my apartment and my office building had been trashed, torn to pieces by demons and giant insects and my own clumsy power.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 263). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It's not. It's an arachnid. The mistake is then repeated in Death Masks. Twice:
She opened the box and delicately plucked out an insect as long as her own fingers—a brown scorpion—by its tail.
...
Dark violet flickers of flame played over the insect’s shell for all of two or three seconds—and then it simply crumbled, carapace falling away in flakes and dust.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 310). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Interestingly, Harry only uses fire magic once in Storm Front, and for something rather trivial:
“Allow me,” I said, and snapped my fingers. “Fuego.”
The canister’s grey lid flew off in a little whoosh of flame, and Donny Wise yelped, drawing his hand back sharply. The red canister burst into flame on its way to the ground and landed there in a crumpled, smoking lump.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 225). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Kinda weird given how much he's into fire in later books.
- When Harry uses his Sight to gaze upon Victor Sells' lake house, he displays an ability for precognition:
I Saw the house wreathed in ghostly flames, and knew that those were part of its possible future, that fire lay down several of the many paths of possibility that lay ahead in the next hour.
...
The other thing that I Saw over the house was a grinning, empty skull. Skulls were everywhere, wherever I looked, just at the edge of my vision, silent and still and bleach white, as solid and real as though a fetishist had scattered them around in anticipation of some bizarre holiday. Death. Death lay in the house’s future, tangible, solid, unavoidable.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 273). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This seems like an early version of something Harry supposedly didn't develop until Small Favor:
I told her about my experience on the island, and the eerie sense of familiarity that had come with it.
“Oh, that,” Anastasia said. “Your Sight’s coming in. That’s all.”
I blinked at her. “Uh. What?”
“The Sight,” she replied calmly. “Every wizard develops some measure of precognizance as he matures. It sounds to me as if yours has begun to stir, and has recognized a place that may be of significance to you in the future.”
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 419). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
There was also that Molly soulgaze, so who knows? Well, Jim, I guess.
- Towards the end of Storm Front, Harry gets shot:
I heard a metallic, ratcheting sound behind me and spun my head in time to see Beckitt, naked, point an automatic weapon at me. I threw myself to one side, and heard a brief explosion of gunfire. Something hot tore at my hip, spinning me into a roll, and I kept going, into the kitchen.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 286). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It doesn't specify which Beckitt did the shooting there, though I suspect Jim meant Greg. In White Night it's said it was Helen:
Back then, Helen Beckitt had been naked, and holding a dainty little .22-caliber revolver, and she’d shot me in the hip.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Notice, also, that the gun has changed from an unspecified "automatic weapon" to a tiny revolver.
- In the first six books, when Marcone makes an appearance he's often referred to as "Gentleman Johnny Marcone". In Dead Beat, it changes spelling slightly to "Gentleman Johnnie Marcone" for some unknown reason, and stays that way in subsequent books. The exceptions are one time in Aftermath, a couple times in Ghost Story and one time in Skin Game, where he is called "Gentleman John Marcone". Also, the "Gentleman" part is sometimes in quotes and sometimes not.
- Speaking of Marcone, let's talk about his hair. We first meet him (and his hair) in Storm Front:
Gentleman Johnny Marcone didn’t look like the sort of man who would have my legs broken or my jaw wired shut. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut short, and there were lines from sun and smiling etched into the corners of his eyes. His eyes were the green of well-worn dollar bills.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 29). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It changes in Fool Moon:
Marcone met my eyes without fear, a man in his mature prime, his hair immaculately greying at the temples, his custom-made suit displaying a body kept fit in spite of the advancing years. His eyes were the faded green of dollar bills and as opaque as mirrors.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 230). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It's back to Storm Front-style in Dead Beat:
He was a man a little over average height, somewhere in the late prime of his life, his dark hair flecked with grey. He had skin that had seen a lot of time out in the weather, leaving him with a perpetual boater’s tan, and eyes the color of wrinkled old dollars.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 181). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Then it's back to how it was in Fool Moon in Aftermath:
His short, conservatively cut hair was dark, except for just enough silver at his temples to announce a man in his physical and mental prime.
Butcher, Jim. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And it stays that way in Skin Game:
Seated at her right hand, wearing a charcoal-grey suit, was Gentleman Johnnie Marcone, Baron of Chicago under the Unseelie Accords—and made so, at least in part, by my own signature. There might have been slightly more silver at his temples than the last time I’d seen him, but it only made him look more distinguished.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files (p. 441). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Dresden recalls his visit to Marcone in Fool Moon:
Last spring, when I had confronted him in his club, a previous incarnation of the Varsity, about a deadly new drug on the streets, the place had wound up burning to the ground.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 13). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
That's not quite what happened in Storm Front. Harry went there to confront Marcone about one of his thugs stealing some of Harry's hair. Three-eye came up, but only when Harry figured out Gimpy Lawrence was working with Victor Sells. This also makes it sound like Harry was responsible for the fire. He wasn't. Marcone had that done.
“Harry. Blackstone. Dresden,” Chauncy repeated carefully. “Harry as in Harry Houdini? Blackstone, the stage illusionist?”
I nodded. “My dad was a stage musician. When I was born, he gave me those names. They were always his heroes. I think if my mother had survived the birth, she would have slapped him for it.”
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 103). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Obviously, "musician" is supposed to be "magician".
My mother’s dark past? I had expected that she was a wizardess, but I had never been able to prove anything, one way or another.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 104). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is the only time a female wizard is called a "wizardess".
- In Fool Moon, Harry's subconscious double shows him an image of Elaine:
And then there she was, a girl of elegant height, perhaps eighteen or nineteen years of age—gawky and coltish, all long legs and arms, but with the promise of stunning beauty to add graceful curves to the lean lines of her body.
...
Her skin was pale, almost luminous, her hair a shade of brown-gold, like ripe wheat, her eyes a startling, storm-cloud grey in contrast.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 200). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Thing is, Harry and Elaine were both around sixteen when they, um, parted ways, not eighteen/nineteen. Also, that promise of stunning beauty doesn't quite pan out in White Night:
Her lean face was intensely attractive—more intriguing than beautiful, with wide, intelligent eyes set over an expressive, generous mouth.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Note Elaine's eye color: storm-cloud grey. It stays the same in Summer Knight, but changes in White Night:
She lifted her chin slightly, green eyes bright with unfallen tears.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- When Harry first sees the Alphas in Fool Moon, there are about a dozen:
Four or five of them were gathered behind and around a stout young man less than five and a half feet tall.
...
Another five or six of the young people were gathered behind her, and everyone seemed tense.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 41). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
When Tera and the Alphas rescue Harry from the Full Moon Garage, two are wounded. That left five who went with Harry to Marcone's:
When we’d arrived, a nude Tera West and five young people, three female and two male, had leapt out of the van, the Alphas hurriedly tumbling out of their robes.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 273). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
No explanation as to where the others went is given. They're back by the end of the book though:
The Alphas decided that I’m about the greatest thing since sliced bread. Which isn’t exactly the most thrilling thing in the world for me. They asked me to a campout with them, which I reluctantly attended, where all dozen-odd young people swore friendship and loyalty to me, and where I spent a lot of time blinking and trying to say nothing.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 340). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Maybe they had homework.
- When Harry's blending potion runs out in Fool Moon, he gets a full-color look at the loup-garou:
The scant protection offered by the potion collapsed, colors flooding my vision. The black of its muzzle warmed to a scarlet-smeared wash of dark brown, stained with wet scarlet. Its fangs were ivory and crimson. Its eyes became a brilliant shade of green.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 174). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Later in the book, its eyes change color:
I thought I saw a flicker of red eyes somewhere behind them, and then it was gone.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 325). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I saw its red eyes back among the trees. It came forward, slow, low to the ground, wary of some trick.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 328 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In the bushes, the loup-garou snarled quietly, and its eyes brightened, burned with scarlet fury.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 332). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- In Fool Moon, Harry hexes one of Marcone's security cameras:
"Malivaso," I whispered, and pushed my hand out at the square shape, like a grade-school girl throwing a baseball wrong handed.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 279). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is the only time he says that instead of the usual "Hexus".
- In Fool Moon, when Harry and Murphy are in the pit at Marcone's he tells her:
"Trying to cover their tracks from the White Council," I said. "Denton wants MacFinn to take the fall for all the deaths. I think he’s lost it."
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 306). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Up to this point, he's never mentioned the White Council to Murphy and she doesn't go "White Council? What's that, Harry?" or anything like that; she just makes a joke. Officially, she doesn't learn about it until Summer Knight:
And I told Murphy all of it. It took a while. I told her about Justin and about Elaine. I told her about the supernatural forces and politics at play in and around the city. I told her about the war I’d started because of what the Red Court had done to Susan. I told her about the faeries and Reuel’s murder.
And most of all, I told her about the White Council.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 218 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- We learn about Michael's haircut early in Grave Peril:
His hair was cropped close, Marine-length, on top, but he sported a short, warrior’s beard, which he kept clipped close to his face.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 3). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Apparently, it grows really fast:
I found Michael standing in a hallway. His hair had dried, all curled and mussed.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 221). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
"Marine-length" generally isn't long enough to curl much.
- Twice in Grave Peril Amorrachius is referred to as "true iron":
Ghostly steel chimed on true iron, and Amoracchius’s light flared bright-white.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 17). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The true iron struck the faerie beast, and blood and white fire erupted from the wound.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 52). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is never done again, and future books just refer to the sword as "steel".
-
INTRODUCTION and PART I (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326794.html#msg2326794)
PART II
PART III (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326796.html#msg2326796)
PART IV (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326797.html#msg2326797)
PART V (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326798.html#msg2326798)
PART II
Here, the Nevernever, Agatha’s ghost overloaded my shield, which detonated with a thunderous roar and sent me sprawling to the ground. Again.
Butcher, Jim. Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 42). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Spot the missing preposition.
- In Grave Peril, Harry can sense Red Court vampires:
It came as a total shock to me to feel a wave of cold energy writhe into my face, in tandem with a shadowy form rising up from the steps leading down to my apartment.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 65). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I turned, but before I got halfway around that cold energy I’d felt the night before flooded over the side of my face, my throat.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 150). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It's mentioned again in Death Masks:
A sudden sensation of cold, rippling energy and a pair of muffled thumps from the stairs leading down to my apartment changed my mind.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 31). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I looked around a bit more, and tried to reach out with my senses, to detect any trace of the unsettling energy that hovered around the Reds.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 32). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Strangely, he doesn't sense this energy when going to see Bianca back in Storm Front, nor when he meets Duke Ortega on The Larry Fowler Show. It has nothing to do with them being in monstrous form either. Both times he senses Red Court vamps in Grave Peril, they're in their flesh masks. Then the rules change a bit in It's My Birthday, Too:
Vampires gave off a certain amount of energy that someone like me could sense, but depending on which breed you were talking about, that energy could vary. Sometimes my sense of an approaching vampire was as overtly creepy as a child’s giggle coming from an open grave. Other times there was barely anything at all, and it registered on my senses as something as subtle as simple, instinctive dislike for the creature in question. For White Court vamps like my half brother, there was nothing at all, unless they were doing something overtly vampiric.
Butcher, Jim. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Still, even given that his vamp senses are variable as of that story, it's strange he never once mentions this "cold energy" in Changes, what with the tons of Red Court vamps in that book. The closest we get is this, right before the vamp squad shows up at his office building:
Before I could begin circling the block a few more times on that vicious cycle, a cold feeling went slithering down my spine.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 24). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And that's more of a general sense of danger than anything else. The classic chill-down-the-spine.
- There are multiple references to a singular court of vampires in Grave Peril:
“Please, Mr. Dresden,” Kyle said. “Understand that I am only pointing out the potential hazards of a diplomatic incident between the Vampire Court and the White Council.”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 68 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
“The Vampire Court,” Kyle said, a measured cadence to his words, “extends a formal invitation to Harry Dresden, Wizard, as the local representative of the White Council of Wizards, to attend the reception celebrating the elevation of Bianca St. Claire to the rank of Margravine of the Vampire Court, three nights hence, reception to begin at midnight.”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 69). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
“All you have to do,” I said, “is keep your mouth shut and watch my back. The bad guys have to play by the rules tonight. We’ve been given the protection of the old laws of hospitality. If Bianca doesn’t respect that, it’s going to kill her reputation in front of her guests and the Vampire Court.”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 242). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Now, you might think "Oh, that's just how the Reds refer to themselves", as if they think they're the true Vampire Court or something, but later on they don't:
“The Red Court would like to take this opportunity to present our guests with gifts at this time,” Bianca said, “so that they may know how very, very deeply we regard their goodwill. So, without further ado, Mister Ferro, would you honor me by stepping forward and accepting this token of the goodwill of myself and my Court.”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 303). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
“My name,” the man said, “is Ortega. Don Paolo Ortega, of the Red Court.”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 421). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Plus, Thomas was doing it too at Bianca's party:
“Oh, of course,” he said. “I forget that you probably know very little of the intricacies of the Court. My name is Thomas, of House Raith, of the White Court.”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 246). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
“Rather tacky,” Thomas sniffed, his butterfly wings quivering. “Have you been to any Court functions before, Mister Dresden? Are you aware of the etiquette?”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 248 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It comes across as if the Red, White, and Black (such as it is) courts share some kind of governance, but we know this isn't the case in later books. They're lukewarm allies at best. Personally, I think it could have been Jim's way of hiding the reveal of the three separate courts, just done a bit clumsily. In any case, it gets dropped for the plural when Ortega shows up:
Ortega’s eyes glittered. “I am present as a witness to the Red King, and the Vampire Courts at large. That is all. I am merely a witness.”
Bianca turned her eyes back to me. “A witness who will carry word of your treacherous attack and intrusion back to the Courts,” she said. “It will mean war between our kindred and the White Council.”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 422). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It's always "Vampire Courts" in the following books as well.
- By the way, notice that in one of the above quotes, Bianca's new rank is given as "Margravine". That changes later in the book:
He smiled, a show of broad, white teeth. “I’m sure you would, Mister Dresden. But I have been monitoring the situation here. And the Baroness,” he nodded to Bianca, “has broken none of the Accords. Nor has she violated the laws of hospitality, nor her own given word.”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 421). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- The first time the Accords are mentioned in Grave Peril, the word isn't capitalized for some reason:
I smiled back at him. “Look, Sparky, you’re the herald. You should know the accords as well as I do. You’ve license to deliver and receive messages and to have safe passage granted you so long as you don’t start any trouble.”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 69). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
That's the only time that happens in the series.
- In Grave Peril, we learn that ghosts live in the Nevernever during the day, and come into our world after sunset:
I shook my head. “I doubt it. Come daylight, ghosts usually head back to the Nevernever.”
“Usually?”
“Usually. Almost without exception.”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 85). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I didn’t let the sudden volume of his tone make me blink. “You’re saying that this instability has been making it easier for ghosts to cross over from the Nevernever?”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 99). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It would take me hours to grind through Mort’s notes, and sundown, when the spirits would be able to cross over from the Nevernever, would come swiftly.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 104). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I closed my eyes and could feel the power they stirred up, the way the air wavered and shook with the presence of hundreds of spirits, easily crossed over from the turbulent Nevernever.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 197). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This notion never comes up in Ghost Story, even when it would make sense for it to do so. For instance, when Harry is facing his first dawn as a ghost, he never even considers crossing over to the Nevernever, nor does he ever think to learn how it's done from some other ghost. He even has to have Molly open a portal for him and Mort's ghosts later on.
Instead of crossing over, we get the concept of sanctums:
He shrugged. “I’m not willing to leave Mortimer alone for so much time. You may also wish to consider, Dresden, that dawn is not far away. It will destroy you if you are not within a sanctum such as Mortimer’s residence.”
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 133). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
For spirit beings to survive sunrise, they had to be in a protected place—a sanctum.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 133). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
“Children,” she said, her tone full of contempt, “beware: The dawn approaches. To your sanctums, all.”
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 319). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
We later see wraiths exiting sanctums:
One of those ragged-scarecrow shapes was rising from the earth of a grave, like something being hauled up out of deep mud. It moaned in mindless hunger, its eyes vacant.
Then there was another moan. And another. And another.
Wraiths were coming up out of graves all around me.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 165). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Now, we do see one ghost go to the Nevernever on screen: Corpsetaker. And that's because she has a demesne (that concept is still around):
If it was strong enough, I supposed, it could have a demesne of its own in the Nevernever—the spirit world. I’d dealt with a ghost named Agatha Hagglethorn once, and she’d had her own little pocket dimension filled with a Victorian-era copy of Chicago.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 297). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The Grey Ghost turned and sank into the floor, evidently moving into a demesne in the Nevernever.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 320). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The idea of ghosts in general residing there is seemingly gone though.
- Even in Grave Peril itself, it can get ambiguous as to where ghosts reside:
And I found them. I found the dead, the victims, the ones who had been taken. Not just the few piled below, like so much trash to be discarded. I found others. Dozens of others. Scores. Hundreds. Bones hidden away, never marked, never remembered. Restless shades, trapped in the earth, too weak to act, to take vengeance, to seek peace.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 426). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
So, were those ghosts trapped in the earth, or were they trapped somewhere in the Nevernever that connected to the ground below Bianca's place? If the latter, then hopefully under the ground in the mortal world doesn't translate to under the ground in the Nevernever, since spirits have bodies there and can be destroyed by things like being crushed by tons of earth.
- Here's another Grave Peril concept that doesn't see use in Ghost Story:
“If you’re worried, get to a church. Spirits are strongest just after the sun goes down, around the witching hour, and again just before the sun comes up..."
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 35). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
To be fair, this idea of spirits being stronger at certain times doesn't really see use in Grave Peril either.
- Here's what Mortimer's place looks like in Grave Peril:
If his house hadn’t been a red-roofed, white-walled stucco transplant from somewhere in southern California, it might have worked.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 94). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In Dead Beat, he's moved:
Now he was working out of a converted duplex in Bucktown.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 107). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
In Ghost Story, he's back in the first house:
It was an odd home, for Chicago—a white stucco number with a red tile roof that looked like it had been transplanted from Southern California.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 21). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
No explanation for this is given (yes, I know there are theories about this, but until it gets explained in the books or a WOJ, it stays in).
- Harry says of Bianca:
“She’s not, horribly. But she just got promoted, too. Maybe she’s been studying up. She’s always had a little more than her share of freaky vampire tricks—and if she was over in the Nevernever when she did it, it would have made her stronger.”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 171). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Harry had had exactly one encounter with her at that point, so he would have little way of knowing what share of freaky vampire tricks she had.
- In Grave Peril, Rudolph is fiercely protective of Murphy:
“You’d better not be a fake, Dresden,” he said, quietly. “I’m not really sure what’s going on here. But so help me God, if something happens to the lieutenant because of you . . .”
I studied his face numbly. And then nodded. “I’ll call back for Stallings. I need that book.”
Rudolph’s expression was serious, earnest. He’d never much liked me, anyway. “I mean it, Dresden. If you let Murphy get hurt, I’ll kill you.”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 187). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is in stark contrast to his attitude towards her in later books, where he does whatever he can to sabotage her career. The change in him is never really explained. He's just suddenly a jerk.
- The word "sidhe" appears eight times in Grave Peril, and isn't capitalized once, as it always is in later books. Well, except for once in Dead Beat and four times in Something Borrowed.
- We also twice get what might be another name for the Winter Fae in Grave Peril:
“Iron,” hissed my godmother. Her lovely face turned livid, furious. “You dare defile the Awnsidhe soil with iron! The Queen will rip your eyes from your skull!”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 366). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
“Yes, yes!” Bob said. “Hurry! Some of the Awnsidhe will be here at any moment!”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 376). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This name is never used again after that.
- For some reason, for most of Grave Peril Kravos' ghost speaks in thees and thous and the like. It just gets dropped later on for modern diction. I suppose it might have been a way of hiding the Nightmare's identity, but it's still odd.
- Here's one everyone knows:
She fell quiet for a moment, thoughtful. Then she asked me, as she formally inclined her head, for the benefit of the crowd below, “Do you remember Paula, Mister Dresden?”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 310). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Her name was, of course, Rachel, as we see other times in Grave Peril.
- Speaking of Rachel, here's what she looked like in Storm Front:
A well-groomed young woman with a short, straight haircut greeted me in the enormous entry hall.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 101). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
For some reason, her ghost in Grave Peril has different hair, despite the fact that ghosts are supposed to be a copy of the person as they died:
The ghost took shape before me, very slowly, very translucently. It resolved itself into the form of a young woman, attractive, dressed like an efficient secretary. Her hair was pulled up into a bun, but for a few appealing tendrils that fell down to frame her cheeks.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 386). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- When Harry sets out to rescue Justine and Susan from Bianca's, here's what he takes:
I came through the rift between the mortal world and the Nevernever last. I bore my staff and rod, and wore my leather duster, my shield bracelet and a copper ring upon my left hand matched by another upon my right.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 359). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
After he escapes captivity, he finds Bob and his stuff:
I put on my bracelet, and took up my rod. I scanned around and found my staff wedged into a corner, and took it out as well. “Bob,” I asked. “What is all my stuff doing here?”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 414). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Note that the duster is not among the items he finds. And yet, he still has it in later books.
Murphy came out of the sleeping spell a couple days later. I had to go in a wheelchair, but I went to Kravos’s funeral with her. She pushed me through a drizzling rain to the grave site. There was a city official there, who signed off on some papers and left.
...
On the way out, Murphy stopped my wheelchair, frowning at a white headstone next to a waiting plot. “He died doing the right thing,” she read. She looked down at me. I shrugged, and felt my mouth curl up on one side. “Not yet. Not today.”
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 431). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I highly doubt the city would buy a Graceland plot for a jail suicide. It's an expensive privately-run cemetary.
- In Summer Knight we learn what color ghoul blood is:
She almost bounced back to her feet, scarlet splashed all over her rag of a dress, her face wholly inhuman now.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 18 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In Dead Beat we learn what color ghoul blood is:
He was bleeding a thin, greenish-brown fluid, and moved as if in great pain, but he came in on his own power, and his eyes were alert.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 175). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
In White Night we learn what color ghoul blood is:
I put two more shots into the ghoul’s head from two feet away, and emptied the revolver into the skull of the one I’d stunned with my staff. Watery, brownish blood splattered the deck.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In Bigfoot On Campus, we learn what color ghoul blood is. It's the same as it was in Dead Beat:
Ghoulish blood spattered the walls and the ceiling, green-brown and putrid-smelling, and as strong as he was, River Shoulders wasn’t pitching a shutout.
Butcher, Jim. Brief Cases (Dresden Files) (p. 211). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- We learn the Merlin's first name in Summer Knight:
Ebenezar looked up at the Merlin with a toothy smile, Scots creeping back into his vowels. “Aye, Alfred, laddie, I know.”
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 67). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
We learn the Merlin's first name in Dead Beat (and his last name):
You don’t get to be the Merlin of the White Council by collecting bottle caps, and Arthur Langtry, the current Merlin, was generally considered to be the most powerful wizard on earth.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 308 ). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Good thing that first name changed, otherwise we'd have two Alfreds.
- Harry tells Murphy about himself and Elaine in Summer Knight:
It hurt to think the name, much less to say it. But if it helped me get through to Murphy, I couldn’t afford to be touchy. “Elaine. We were . . . both of us were orphans. We got adopted by the same man when we were ten.”
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 095). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Their age of adoption changes in Ghost Story:
I hadn’t really been interested in girls yet when I met Elaine. We’d both been twelve, bright, and stubborn, which meant that we generally drove each other crazy.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 323). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Here's Harry's account of what went down between him and Justin from Summer Knight:
I shrugged. “My adoptive father tried to get me into black magic. Human sacrifice.”
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 95). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
“I ran away. He sent a demon after me. I beat it, then went back to save Elaine. She hit me with a binding spell when I wasn’t looking, and he tried a spell that would break into my head. Make me do what he wanted. I slipped out of the spell Elaine had on me and took on Justin. I got lucky. He lost. Everything burned.”
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 96). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And here's a piece of the puzzle from Elaine later in the book:
“Justin caught me about two weeks before he sent that demon to capture you. That day I stayed home sick, remember? By the time you got home from school, he had me. I tried to fight him, but I was a child. I didn’t have enough experience to resist him. And after he had enthralled me, I didn’t see why I should fight anymore.”
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 110). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Things play out differently in the version of events in Ghost Story:
I never suspected a thing about what he really wanted, until the day Elaine stayed home sick. Concerned about her, I skipped my last class and came home early. The house seemed too quiet, and an energy I had never sensed before hung in the air like cloying, oily perfume. The second I walked in the door, I found myself tensing up. It was my first encounter with black magic, the power of Creation itself twisted to maim and destroy everything it touched.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 323). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
So, now Harry comes home the day Elaine was out sick. Also, the bit about rescuing her no longer makes sense, given this:
And Elaine. She’d just sat there while he’d been doing whatever he was going to do. She hadn’t tried to warn me, hadn’t tried to stop him. I had never known anyone in my life I had loved as much as Elaine.
I should have known she was too good to be true, too.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 333). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Also, where's the human sacrifice? Apparently didn't happen anymore. You might think it occurred when Harry came back to confront Justin, but that would mean someone else died that has never been mentioned (or Harry saved someone who has never been mentioned).
There's also this bit from Storm Front:
I had seen only one person call a demon before—and I had killed my old master shortly after.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 294). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In neither the Summer Knight nor the Ghost Story version does Harry see Justin summon He Who Walks Behind. In fact, when Harry is remembering that encounter in Ghost Story he states:
I had never actually seen something summoned from the netherworld, but Justin had described such beings repeatedly, and I didn’t think he’d been lying.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 337). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- When Elaine shows up in Summer Knight, she says this:
“All right. Does anyone else know that you failed your driver’s test five times in one week?”
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 109). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
You can't do that. There's a waiting period before you can retest.
- When she leaves after that conversation, she does this:
Elaine reached back to the shadows beside the fireplace and withdrew a slender staff of pale wood, carved with swirling, abstract shapes.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 113). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The staff is never seen again, and later in the book she says this:
“Still going with the phallic foci, eh? Staff and rod?”
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 288 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
OK then, Elaine.
- We learn this in Summer Knight:
“It’s a binding,” I murmured in reply. “Faeries aren’t allowed to speak a lie, and if a faerie says something three times, it has to make sure that it is true. It’s bound to fulfill a promise spoken thrice.”
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 170). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Now, recall this rant from Toot in Storm Front:
“I warn you, mortal. Release me now, or you will feel the awful, terrible, irresistible might of the faery magic! I will rot your teeth from your head! Take your eyes from their sockets! Fill your mouth with dung and your ears with worms!”
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 64). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Harry calls it a "bluff" and Toot admits as much a bit later:
Toot scowled up at me. “You wizards. Always needing something. I really could do the thing with the dung, you know.”
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 65). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In other words, Toot was mostly full of dung about what he could do. I.e., he lied. There's also this exchange from Turn Coat:
“Hundreds!” Toot-toot declared, brandishing his sword. “Thousands!”
I arched an eyebrow. “You’ve been splitting the pizza a thousand ways?”
“Well, lord,” he amended. “Several dozen, at any rate.”
Butcher, Jim. Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) (p. 185). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Another little fib.
They sat there laughing at me for a good thirty seconds, and I felt my face begin to heat up with irrational embarrassment before Meave waved one hand in a negligent gesture and the laughter obediently died away.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 177). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
"Maeve" is misspelled.
- When Lloyd Slate is introduced in Summer Knight, Harry notices something:
He had a brand on his throat. A snowflake made of white scar tissue stood out sharply against his skin.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 186). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
We get this on the next page:
The snowflake brand flared into sudden light, and Slate’s advance halted, his body going rigid. The skin around the brand turned blue, then purple, then black, spreading like a stop-motion enhanced film of gangrene.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 187). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
So, where's Harry's brand? There's been no sign he has one. Was it unique to Slate? Apparently not, because Fix expects something like that in Small Favor:
“Turn it around,” said the man outside. “Let me see the inside of your wrist.”
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 68 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Not sure why he thinks it'd be on the wrist though.
- When Harry and Murphy are at the Wal-Mart in Summer Knight they have this exchange:
“Where’s Grum and the ghoul?”
“Don’t know. The ghoul’s blood trail went out, but someone shot at me when I followed it. Haven’t seen the ogre.” She blinked at the gate’s latch. “Damn. Guess he shut you in here, huh?”
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 241). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
At that point, Murphy hasn't been told it's an ogre they're dealing with. Then, shortly thereafter, Harry tells her it's an ogre they're dealing with:
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re right. The main exits are covered, that thing is in the garden center, and ten to one Ogre Grum is watching the back.”
“Ogre, check. What’s his deal?”
“Bullets bounce off him, and he shakes off magic like a duck does water. He’s strong and pretty quick and smarter than he looks.”
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 242). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Here's what happens when you nail a faerie with iron in Summer Knight:
The ogre screamed, his body contorting in agony. The scarlet skin around the injury immediately swelled, darkening to black, and tendrils of infectious-looking darkness spread from the wound up over the ogre’s leg and hip within the space of a breath.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 245). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This changes in Proven Guilty:
Blue sparks erupted from the fetch as its flesh hit the iron, along with a yowl of protest, tendrils of smoke, and an acrid odor.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 286). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The saber’s blade cut and burned a flattened X shape into the fetch’s abdomen. The fetch roared in agony, and liquid green-white fire burst from the wound.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 304). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The faeries-catch-on-fire thing stays the same in later books, though the colors vary with the faerie type. Also, notice that when Aurora is killed by the pixie death squad, she doesn't show any of the effects of iron that Grum did. She just bleeds.
- When Harry is summmoning Lea in Summer Knight he mentions some scars:
I focused it with my thoughts, shaped it, and then opened my eyes and lifted my arms, wrists out so that the old pale round scars on either side of the big blue veins there felt the rain falling on them.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 265). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is the first time they're mentioned, and it's not clear what their relevance is. Possibly they're from when Lea tortured Harry as a teen, but you'd expect the scars to have faded by then given the wizardly healing ability. In any case, they're never brought up again.
- When Harry visits the Mothers in Summer Knight, Mother Summer says of Mother Winter:
“Don’t be offended if she doesn’t get up. It’s the wrong season, you know. Hand me that broom.”
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 299). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This would imply that Mother Summer would be similarly hampered when it's the wrong season for her, but in Cold Days she is perfectly mobile after midsummer, as we see when she takes Harry to the the Outer Gates. We also get this in Cold Days:
“It is her way,” Mother Summer said, smiling. “She rarely leaves our cottage anymore. She lost her walking stick. While your summons was impertinent, it was a necessity and you had the right. But it is terribly painful for her to travel, even briefly. You, a mortal, hurt her.”
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 331). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
So now she can't really move around even if it's the right season, but she was able to do so just fine towards the end of Summer Knight when she shows up at the battlefield:
She gestured, and the thorns parted. Maeve stood there in her white armor, and Mother Winter stood behind her, all shrouded in black cloth.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 373). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Harry mentions what pseudo-language Elaine uses for her magic in Summer Knight:
She murmured something in the language she’d chosen for her magic, some variant on Old Egyptian, adding a roll of her wrist, a graceful ripple of her fingers, and I felt her spell lock around me like a full-body straitjacket, paralyzing me from chin to toes, wrapping me in silent, unseen force.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 317). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Fast-forward to White Night, and we find her using pseudo-Latin like Harry:
And then a voice that rang with silvery rage rolled through the air, kicking up a layer of dust from the ground in a broad wave in the wake of its passing as it rang out in an echoing clarion call, “FULMINARIS!”
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Ahead of us, the bluish mists began to give way to murky shades of green, faerie steel chimed and rasped on faerie steel, and the shrieks and cries of battle grew even louder.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 347). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Somehow, I doubt there's such a thing a "faerie steel". Steel is kind of anathema to them.
- Harry loses his .357 in Summer Knight:
I tried to bring the gun to bear again, but Slate took it from my hand, spun it around a finger, and lowered the barrel toward my head, already thumbing the hammer back.
...
A ferocious, high-pitched shriek of fury made him whip his head to one side as a new attacker entered the fray. Fix brought his monkey wrench down in a two-handed swing that ended at Lloyd Slate’s wrist. There was a crunch of impact, of the delicate bones there snapping, and my gun went flying into the water.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 358). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is reinforced in Death Masks:
I’d lost my .357 during a battle between the Faerie Courts hosted on clouds over Lake Michigan the previous midsummer, so I’d moved my .44 from the office to home.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 105). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
However, he still has the gun after the battle:
My staff and blasting rod were in the corner, gleaming as if they’d been polished, and my gun hung in its holster, freshly oiled. The gun had been polished too.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 375). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- When a wounded Meryl Chooses, she becomes a troll, and we see what a wounded troll is like:
The troll was huge, and green, and hideous, and strong. It wielded an axe in one hand like a plastic picnic knife and was covered in swelling welts, poisoned wounds, and its own dark-green blood. It had a horrible wound in its side, ichor flowing openly from it. It was dragging itself along despite the wounds, but it was dying.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 369). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
However, when Harry wounded a troll in A Restoration Of Faith, something very different happened:
The rotten, grimy flesh just beneath his ribs split open with a howl of sound and a burst of motion. Gogoth leaned his head back and let out a high-pitched, wailing yowl. I backed off, knowing what came next.
The poor cop stared in white-faced horror as the troll’s wound split and dozens, hundreds, thousands of tiny, wriggling figures, squalling and squealing, poured out of the split in his flesh. The massive thews of the beast deflated like old basketballs, slowly sinking in upon themselves as the bridge became littered with a myriad of tiny trolls, their ugly little heads no bigger than the head of a president on a coin. They poured out of Gogoth in a flood, spilling onto the bridge in a writhing, wriggling horde.
The troll’s cheeks hollowed, and his eyes vanished. His mouth opened in a slack-jawed yawn, and, as the leathery, grimy sack of tiny trolls emptied, he sank to the ground until he lay there like a discarded, disgusting raincoat.
Butcher, Jim. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files (A Restoration of Faith). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Guess the troll rules changed, or there're different kinds of trolls.
- In Death Masks, Harry says of Susan:
We’d gotten involved, and on our first date she wound up lying naked on the ground in a thunderstorm while lightning cooked a toadlike demon to gooey bits.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 6). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Actually, Susan wasn't the naked one. That was Harry.
Jerry paused for a moment...
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 10). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
That should be "Larry".
- We learn in Death Masks that Butters was under observation for reporting on strange corpses found at the fire at Bianca's place:
Murphy nodded. “But you can’t just stick that in a report without people getting their panties in a bunch. Butters wound up doing a three-month stint at a mental hospital for observation...”
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 53). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The length of time Butters was in doubles in Ghost Story:
He’d been packed off to an institution for half a year in response.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 183). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- In Death Masks Ursiel's Fallen set of eyes is orange:
The cliff face rumbled and slits of seething orange light appeared, and then widened, until I faced the second set of eyes, eyes the size of subway tunnels, opening on the great marble cliff.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 61). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It's unclear what color Deirdre's eyes are and what color her Fallen's are:
Like the demon form of Ursiel, she had two sets of eyes, one luminescent green, one glowing cherry red, and a luminous sigil burned at the center of her forehead.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 129). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Cassius' eyes are easy to distinguish from the Fallen's:
He too had the double pair of eyes, one set golden and serpentine, the other, inside the first, glowing faintly blue-green, matching the pulsing symbol of the same light that seemed to dance in the gleam of the scales of the snake’s head.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 216). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Whatever the case with Deirdre and her Fallen, the eye rules change in Small Favor. Fallen eyes are all green in that book:
Its eyes gleamed with an inner fire, an orange-red glow—and immediately above the first set of eyes another set, this one blazing with sickly green luminescence, blinked and focused independently of the first pair. A sigil of angelic script burned against the chitin of the insect-thing’s forehead.
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 100). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
“What?” he demanded, his voice still a whisper. His eyes, though, were very wide. Both sets of them. A second set, these glowing faintly green, had opened just above his eyebrows—Anduriel’s, I presumed.
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 244). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Greasy, lanky hair hung from its knobby skull to its skinny shoulders, and its two pairs of eyes, one very human brown and one glowing demonic green, were both wide and staring in shock.
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 251). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
“That’s the Hellhound’s work,” Magog spat, bright green eyes glowing brightly over dull, animalistic brown ones. “He’s fought us before.”
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 261). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The light spots began to clear away in time for me to see a Denarian I’d never seen before atop me, this one like an androgynous, naked, bald statue of obsidian, green eyes glowing above human eyes of bright blue.
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 265). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Rosanna proved to be a rather beautiful-looking woman, the classical demoness with scarlet skin and a goat’s legs, complete with leathery black wings and delicately curling horns—though her deep brown eyes were haunted beneath the demonic green glowing set.
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 270). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Also notice that only one set of eyes glows in Small Favor, whereas both did in Death Masks. As for Skin Game, the Fallen eyes stay green (and Deirdre's Fallen eyes have changed to green too), except for Lasciel's:
And as I watched, a second set of eyes, glowing with a hellish violet light, opened above her eyebrows, and a burning sigil of the same fire, in a shape vaguely reminiscent of an hourglass, appeared on her forehead.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 135). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Not sure why Lasciel is special.
-
INTRODUCTION and PART I (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326794.html#msg2326794)
PART II (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326795.html#msg2326795)
PART III
PART IV (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326797.html#msg2326797)
PART V (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326798.html#msg2326798)
PART III
- In Death Masks, the Fallen partners of the Denarians have a neat counter-magic trick:
This time the blast didn’t even slow it down. The set of orange eyes flared with a sudden luminance, and my fire splashed against an unseen barrier, dispersing around the creature in sheets of scarlet.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 62). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
A shimmer in the air around her fingers threw off a prismatic flash of color, and with a flash of light from the upper set of eyes, the demoness drove her fist at my shield.
She hit the shield hard, and she was incredibly strong. The blow drove me back against a wall, and when the heat-shimmer of power touched my scarlet shield, it fractured into shards of light that went flying around the cabin like the sparks from a campfire.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 131). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
We only see this once in Small Favor, despite all the magic-slinging going on in that book and all the damned Denarians:
But while the Denarian’s mortal set of eyes may have still been blank with shock and surprise, the glowing green set was bright with rage. The thorny Denarian lifted his left hand in a sweeping gesture, made a rippling motion of his fingers, drawing his hand toward his mouth, and…
…and he just ate my spell.
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 252). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Tall and broad-shouldered, his close-cut hair dark and feathered with silver, Michael Carpenter snapped the blade of his broad sword, amoracchius, to one side, clearing droplets of blood from it.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 66). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Amoracchius isn't capitalized.
- Ivy tells us how she became the archive in Death Masks:
“My mother passed it on to me,” she replied. “As I was born, just as she received it when she was born.”
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 111). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is not how it works according to Small Favor:
“Normally, an Archive would have her own lifetime of experience to insulate her against all these other emotions and memories, a baseline to contrast against them.”
I suddenly got it. “But Ivy doesn’t.”
“Ivy doesn’t,” Luccio agreed. “Her grandmother was killed in a freak accident, an automobile crash, I believe. Her mother was a seventeen-year-old girl who was in love, and pregnant. She hated her mother for dying and cursing her to carry the Archive when she wanted to have her own life—and she hated the child for having a lifetime of freedom ahead of her. Ivy’s mother killed herself rather than carry the Archive.”
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 407). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
So no more receiving it as you're born (and that may not have even happened to Ivy. It's not clear exactly when her mother killed herself).
Speaking of Ivy's mother, this bit from Death Masks doesn't appear to hold anymore either:
“Certainly not. My mother is dead, wizard.” She frowned. “Not dead, technically. But all that she knew and was came into me. She became an empty cup. A persistent vegetative state.” Her eyes grew a little wistful, distant. “She’s free of it. But she certainly isn’t alive in the most vital sense.”
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 111). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Here's what Deirdre's demon form looks like in Death Masks:
The demon was more or less human, generally speaking, and disturbingly female. The lines of curvy hips swept down to legs that were oddly hinged, back-jointed like a lion’s. She had skin of metallic green scales, and her arms ended in four-fingered, metallic-clawed hands.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 129). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It's different in Small Favor. She loses the scales and changes color:
I recognized this one, which looked like a woman, except for the reverse-jointed legs ending in panther claws, the bright red skin, and the mass of metallic, ten-foot-long, independently moving blades in place of hair. Deirdre, Nicodemus’s darling daughter.
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 261). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Then in Skin Game she gets the scales back but changes color yet again:
Deirdre was in her demonic battle form, all purple scales and metallic ribbons of hair.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 359). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Harry acquires one of the Churchmice's cell phones in Death Masks:
I would need to ask Murphy to see what she could find out when I talked to her.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 139). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
He never goes to see Murphy, but when she shows up at his apartment later, she has info on the phone anyway:
“Did you get the information on that cell phone?”
“No,” she said. But as she said it, she passed me a folded piece of paper.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 169). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Neat trick, that.
- We're introduced to McAnally's neutrality in Death Masks:
A sign on the wall said, ACCORDED NEUTRAL GROUND.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 178 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In Dead Beat, it changes:
A sign on the wall just inside the door proclaimed, ACCORDED NEUTRAL TERRITORY.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 298 ). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
It changes back in White Night:
On the wall beside the door was a wooden sign that stated, simply, ACCORDED NEUTRAL GROUND.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It changes again in Last Call:
None of the chairs were broken, but the framed sign that read ACCORDED NEUTRAL TERRITORY was smashed and lay on the ground near the door.
Butcher, Jim. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Then it stays the same in Cold Days and Skin Game. Maybe Mac has a couple signs he just changes out every now and then. Or Jim sometimes forgets what it says.
Thomas shrugged. “Ortega’s been alive for about six hundred years. It isn’t something you do by playing nice.”
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 187). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
That would put Ortega's birth in the early 1400s, which was quite a while before the Spanish conquest of the New World. Thomas's exposition here is faulty.
- Harry sees Gard for the first time Death Masks:
He had a gorgeous, leggy, blue-eyed, elegant, tall, Nordic angel of a date.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 200). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Her looks get a downgrade from "gorgeous" in Small Favor:
Gard was blond, tall, athletic, and while she wasn’t precisely beautiful, she was a striking woman, with clean-cut features, icy blue eyes, and an athlete’s build.
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 97). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Marcone introduces Harry and Susan to Gard in Death Masks:
“Mister Dresden, Miss Rodriguez, I believe you both know Mister Hendricks. And this is Miss Gard.”
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 201). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Her honorific changes in White Night:
“Where’s Amazon Gard?” I asked him. “You lose the consultant?”
“Ms. Gard,” he said, emphasizing the Ms., “is on assignment elsewhere at the moment. And our working relationship is quite secure.”
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Harry ignores this in Small Favor and Changes, but it's back to Ms. in Even Hand and Aftermath.
- Speaking of Gard, here's who she works for in Death Masks:
“I’m from the Monoc Foundation,” she said. “I’m a consultant.”
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 201). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
That changes in Dead Beat:
“I work for Monoc Securities,” the woman corrected me.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 180). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
It stays that way in the books that follow.
- Harry does a spell with a little toy duck in Death Masks:
I focused, brushing aside any thoughts besides those I needed for the spell, and let the gathered magic go with a whispered, “Seek, seek, seek.”
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 207). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Notice he doesn't use faux-Latin, just English. The only other time he does that is when he manifests in Ghost Story.
- Susan touches Fidelacchius in Death Masks:
Susan reached out to take the blade. There was a flicker of silver static and she hissed, jerking her fingers back. “What the hell is that?”
“Magic sword.”
“Well, it sucks,” Susan said. “Go ahead; I’ll come up behind you.”
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 248 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This momentary minor annoyance changes in, um, Changes:
She stared at me and then shook her head slowly. “The last time I touched one of those things,” she said, “it burned me so bad I could still feel it three months later.”
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 413). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- In Death Masks, we learn Harry lost his shield bracelet, presumably while being held captive by Nicodemus:
I took one of the potions I’d brewed, the ones to counter the venom of the Red Court, and put it in my pocket. I missed my shield bracelet.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 259). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Later in the book, he has to defend against some Red vamps without it (also, note that "shield" is misspelled. Could be a Kindle thing):
No help there, and there wasn’t time to look for options. I crouched and concentrated, chanting, “Defendre, defendre,” in a steady litany. It was difficult to do without my shielf bracelet to focus it, but I brought up all the defensive energy I could manage in a dome around me.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 319). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Then, on the same page, it suddenly reappears:
My shield collapsed, overloaded, and the bracelet began burning my wrist. I crouched lower.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 319). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Good thing too, given that it saves his life in the next book (well, I suppose he could have made another one if it hadn't spontaneously reappeared, but whatever).
- We learn about the membership Fellowship of St. Giles in Death Masks:
“Saint Giles,” I said. “The patron of lepers.”
“And other outcasts. Like me. They’re all like me.”
“You mean infected?”
“Infected. Half-turned. Half-human. Half-dead. There are a lot of ways to say it.”
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 261). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Notice that they're all half-vamps. This is different in later books:
Now she was a part of the Fellowship, whose members included those like her and, I’d heard, many other people and part-people with no home anywhere else.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 8 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The Fellowship of St. Giles was a collection of the supernatural world’s outcasts and strays, many of them half vampires like Susan.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 12). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Harry goes to Wrigley Field in Death Masks:
I hadn’t ever been to Wrigley when it was empty. That wasn’t really the point of a stadium. You went there to be among about a bajillion people and see something happen. This time, with acres and acres of unoccupied asphalt, the stadium at its center looked huge and somehow more skeletal than when it was filled with vehicles and cheering thousands.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 307). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Wrigley doesn't have "acres and acres of unoccupied asphalt". It doesn't have parking lots at all.
- Nicodemus asks Harry in Death Masks:
“Have you read Revelations?”
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 353). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is a common mistake. The correct name is "Revelation".
- While on top of the moving train in Death Masks, Michael does this:
He reached out, caught the cane, and with a sweep of his arm threw the cane-sheath free of the sword so that Fidelacchius’s blade shone with its own light.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 355). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Somehow, they're able to recover the sheath later on. Hopefully it fell off the train, otherwise that sucker was gone.
- We get our first description of the puppy-who-will-be-Mouse at the very beginning of Blood Rites:
One of the puppies, his ear already notched where some kind of doggie misadventure had marked him, was either braver or more stupid than his littermates.
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 1). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
While the notch gets mentioned elsewhere in this book, it isn't in later books, except once in Dead Beat:
The big dog padded over to me and nudged my hand with his nose until I scratched him in his favorite spot, just behind one notched ear.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 262). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Mister gets one in Ghost Story though:
There was a quiet motion, and then a tiny grey mountain lion with a notched ear and a stump of a tail appeared and leapt smoothly up onto the love seat with Murphy.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 82). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- At the end of Death Masks, Harry buries Lasciel's coin:
I dropped the coin into the hole. I slipped a steel ring about three inches across around it. I muttered to myself and willed energy into the ring. The whispering abruptly cut off.
I dumped two buckets of cement into the hole and smoothed it until it was level with the rest of my floor. After that, I hurried out of the lab and shut the door behind me.
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 373). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The details of what he did change in Proven Guilty:
A ring of plain silver was set into the floor—my summoning circle. Underneath it lay a foot and a half or so of concrete, and then another heavy metal box, wrapped with its own little circle of wards and spells. Inside the box was a blackened silver coin.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 36). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Nothing is said about him re-doing the prison at some point.
- Harry discusses Foo dogs early in Blood Rites:
I shrugged. “They believe these dogs have a foo heritage.”
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 10). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
For some reason "Foo" isn't capitalized as it always is later.
- We learn this about Murphy in Blood Rites:
And she’d been a student of aikido since she was eleven.
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 44). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In Aftermath, the age at which she started is different:
I’m not a truly advanced student, but I’ve practiced every day since I was seventeen.
Butcher, Jim. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files (Aftermath). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In Cold Days, it's back to the younger end of things:
Murphy’d been a martial arts practitioner since she was a child, mainly in aikido along with several others.
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 262). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
No matter what the rational part of my head thinks, when I see someone hurt a woman my inner gigantopithicus wants to reach for the nearest bone and go Kubrickian on someone’s head.
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 71). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The correct spelling is "Gigantopithecus".
- In Blood Rites, Harry reminisces about when he pissed Murphy off in Fool Moon:
From where she’d been standing, it looked like I had betrayed her trust, and she had expressed her anger with a right cross that had chipped one of my teeth.
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 82). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is first time the chipped tooth comes up. It wasn't mentioned in Fool Moon when she hits him:
“Harry,” she said, in a calm tone. “You lying bastard,” and on the word she drove her fist into my stomach, hard, doubling me over. The motion put my head within easy reach, and her fist took me across the jaw in a right cross that sent me to the floor like a lump of wet pasta, stars dancing in my vision.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 133). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- When Harry meets Lara in Blood Rites, he notes her eye color:
She had eyes of dark grey with hints of violet twilight at their centers.
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 95). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
They're different in White Night:
It was her eyes, though, that were the real killers. They were large, oblique orbs of arsenic grey, highlighted with flecks of periwinkle blue.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
They change again slightly in Turn Coat:
Her eyes were a deep, warm grey, framed by thick sooty lashes, and just looking at her full soft mouth made my lips twitch and tingle as they demanded an introduction to Lara’s.
Butcher, Jim. Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) (p. 223). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Harry sees his mother's portrait in Blood Rites, and the name beneath:
It read, MARGARET GWENDOLYN LEFAY.
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 162). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It stays "LeFay" until Turn Coat:
“The woman had a great many contacts among the Fey. That’s why everyone called her Margaret LaFey...”
Butcher, Jim. Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) (p. 263). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Then it changes back in Changes:
And, as I now knew, my mother had not been called “LeFay” for nothing.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 139). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It switches again in Cold Days:
It was not general knowledge that Maggie LeFey had been Ebenezar’s daughter.
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 347). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Then, in Skin Game, it changes back again:
He was silent for a moment, and then said, “You didn’t choose to be the son of Margaret LeFay. You didn’t choose the legacy she left you with her blood. And she was a piece of work, kid. I knew her.”
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 580). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Harry gets some food in Blood Rites:
After that, the puppy and I got back in the Beetle, hit the drive-through at McDonald’s, and puttered back home to my apartment.
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 175). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Strange that he doesn't go the Burger King, his preferred fast-food place.
I took off my coat and looked around the lab until I located my clawhammer. I picked it up.
Bob’s voice gained a hurried, stammering edge. “And while I know that wasn’t exactly the mission you sent me out on, you have to admit that it was really quite a noble purpose that totally supported your quest to preserve life.”
I took a practice swing with the hammer. I took my duster off, folded it, laid it over the table, and tried again. Much better. I fixed a murderous gaze on the skull on the shelf.
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 177). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Notice that Harry takes his coat off twice.
- Murphy says this in Blood Rites:
“I’m trying to adjust. In my head, I think what we’re doing is just about the only thing we responsibly can. But I’ve been a peace officer since before I could drink, and this kind of cowboy thing feels . . . wrong. It isn’t what a good cop does.”
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 189). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
You can't become a cop in Chicago if you're under the age of 21.
- In Blood Rites, Harry takes the gun Trixie tried to shoot him with:
I recovered the gun without touching the handle, checked, and found it empty.
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 206). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
He then contemplates shooting her with the empty gun:
I’m not sure how I kept myself from acting on that flood of violence and lust. But instead of gut-shooting Trixie, I stared coldly at her for a second, studying her injuries.
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 207). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- This exchange between Harry and Murphy in Blood Rites:
“Do you remember Agent Wilson?” Murphy asked.
“The Fed you shot off my back.”
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 243). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It was of course Agent Denton, not Wilson. Wilson was shot in his hexenwulf form by Harris.
- During the vamp hunt in Blood Rites, this happens:
Murphy drew the machete from her belt and threw it underhand.
Kincaid caught it as he turned back to Mavra, and took her head off at the base of her neck.
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 280). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
That's cool and all, but Kincaid had his own machete already.
- Here's what the Raith throne in the Deeps looks like in Blood Rites:
The floor sloped very slightly up, to where a shift in the rock gave rise to an enormous carved chair of pure, bone-white stone. The chair had been decorated with flares and flanges and every kind of carved frivolity you could imagine, so that it sat at the center of all the carving like a peacock poised in front of its tail.
Butcher, Jim. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) (p. 332). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It's somewhat different in White Night:
Raith’s throne was an enormous chair of bone-white stone. Its back flared out like the hood of a cobra, spreading out into an enormous crest decorated with all manner of eye-twisting carvings, everything from rather spidery Celtic-style designs to bas-relief scenes of beings I could not easily identify engaged in activities I had no desire to contemplate.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Halloween was almost here, and the borders between Chicago and the spirit world, the Never-never, were at their weakest.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 17). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
"Nevernever" is hyphenated for some reason.
- Bob says of Kemmler in Dead Beat:
“Very,” Bob said. “After what the guy did, the White Council hunted him down and wiped his dusty ass out in 1961.”
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 28 ). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Harry gets his time of death wrong in Ghost Story:
Evil Bob had been the part of Bob the Skull, which had been in the service of this jerk named Kemmler, who had apparently been killed for good sometime during World War II.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 443). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
“Grevane was reading a copy of a book called Die Lied der Erlking. I want to know why.”
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 70). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
This one is well known: the German is incorrect, and "Erlking" is English. In German it would be "Das Lied des Erlkönigs". And yes, I know Jim covered for this in Turn Coat, but it still counts.
- Harry states in Dead Beat:
Throw in a couple of demons, various magical constructs, a thirteen-story fall in a runaway elevator, half a dozen spellslingers of one amount of nasty or another, and I’ve seen more sheer mystic violence than most wizards in the business.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 90). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
He's one floor off on that elevator fall:
My office building is twelve stories high.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 257). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- In Dead Beat, Harry picks a car to toss at Cowl:
They flooded out over the sidewalk, under the Toyota parked on the street nearest Cowl.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 92). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
The make changes just a page later:
One was crouched on the wrecked Buick, within an easy leap of Cowl, bright eyes fastened on him.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 93). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
- Harry says of Mort in Dead Beat:
A few years ago Mort had barely been able to crawl out of his bottle long enough to cold-read credulous idiots into believing he could speak to their dead loved ones.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 111). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
This is the first time Mort being a drinker is mentioned. It didn't come up in Grave Peril or Death Masks.
- Harry says of the Erlking in Dead Beat:
“He’s one of the high sidhe,” I said. “And he isn’t part of Winter or Summer. He’s a wyldfae.”
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 200). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
First, "Sidhe" isn't capitalized. Second, the Erlking is some sort of uber-goblin, not a Sidhe. Sidhe are pretty. He's not.
- Harry goes to his office during the power outage in Dead Beat. When he leaves, he does this:
As I rode down in the elevator, I had to admit that Billy might have a point.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 274). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Amazing that the elevator worked with no power.
The front bore a spidery scrawl of cursive writing: The Word of Heinrich Kemmler.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 368 ). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Weird that the title was in English when the book itself is in German:
I lay on my back, poring over what Lasciel had given me about the writings in the book. Hell, the thing had been written in German.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 387). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
- Li Xian tries to kill some Wardens and children with a car in Dead Beat:
Out of nowhere there was the roar of an engine, and an old Chrysler shot forward along the street.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 399). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Harry has Sue jump, and when she lands on it, the make of the car is different:
Sue landed with one clawed foot on the street, and the other came down squarely on the Caddy’s hood, like a falcon descending upon a rabbit.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 400). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
- Here's how Corpsetaker dies in Dead Beat:
In that single second of uncertainty, Corpsetaker had been relying upon her disguise to defend her, and had her mind bent upon planning her next step—not preparing her death curse. The bullet from my .44 hit her just over her right cheekbone.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 410). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
In Proven Guilty, the Merlin has somehow gotten the wrong idea as to what went down:
The Merlin arched a silver brow at me. “Did you not discharge a firearm into the back of the head of a woman you merely believed to be the Corpsetaker from a distance of a few feet away, fatally wounding her?”
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 3). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And Harry agrees that's how it happened:
I shot the necromancer in the back of the head because the Corpsetaker had to be stopped, and I’d had no other option.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 4). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Speaking of Corpsetaker, everyone generally uses male forms forms address when speaking to/about them in Dead Beat, even when Corpsetaker is in Alicia Nelson's body. In Ghost Story, Corpsetaker's soul/ghost is female, and referred to as such.
- Ramirez's name changes for one sentence in Dead Beat:
Rodriguez sighed. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Watched you at that Council meeting. My gut says you’re okay. It was worth checking out.”
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 420). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
-
INTRODUCTION and PART I (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326794.html#msg2326794)
PART II (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326795.html#msg2326795)
PART III (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326796.html#msg2326796)
PART IV
PART V (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326798.html#msg2326798)
PART IV
- In Proven Guilty, Harry says of Lasciel's shadow:
But in touching the coin, I’d created a kind of outlet for the demon’s personality—embodied as an entirely discrete mental entity living right in my own head, presumably in the ninety percent of the brain that humans never use.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 17). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
That whole "ninety percent" thing is a myth that deserves to die. We don't really have unused portions of our brain. We just have parts we aren't using at the moment. They become active as needed.
- Harry describes Murphy in Proven Guilty:
She was maybe a rose petal over five feet tall, had blond hair, blue eyes, a pug nose, and nearly invisible freckles.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 21). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is the first and only time Murphy is said to have freckles.
- In Proven Guilty, Harry goes to the hosptial to check out the victims of the attacks. Murphy tells him:
“We need to go down a floor and then use the back stairs. A nurse is going to let us in. You won’t have to walk past any of the other rooms before you get to our witnesses.”
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 115). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Then at the start of the next chapter, he says this:
We went up the stairs, and I was already preparing my Sight.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 116). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Not down. Up.
- When Fix shows up at McAnally's in Proven Guilty, this occurs:
The Summer Knight projected confidence and strength. They shone from him like light from a star. When he opened the door, the dim shadows retreated somewhat, and a whispering breeze that smelled of pine and honeysuckle rolled through the room. The air around him did something to the light, throwing it back cleaner, more pure, more fierce than it had been before it touched him.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 129). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is the only time all these weird effects happen when he shows up.
Similarly, Lily has some weirdness happen when she shows up:
This was the Summer Lady, youngest of the Seelie Queens, and when she came in the room, the whole place suddenly seemed more alive. The lingering taste of lemonade on my tongue became more intensely sour and sweet. I could hear every whisper of wind around every lazily spinning fan blade in the room, and all of them murmured gentle music together.
...
She stepped forward, between two of the carved wooden columns, and the flowers wrought into the wood upon them twitched and then burst into sudden blooms of living color.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 129). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And Maeve too when she makes her entrance:
It didn’t take long. My sandwich wasn’t halfway done when Mouse let out a sudden, rumbling growl of warning, and the temperature in the bar dropped about ten degrees. The whirling ceiling fans let out mechanical moans of protest and spun faster. Then the door opened and let in sunlight made wan by a patch of dreary grey clouds. The light cast a slender black silhouette.
...
When she walked by the flowers that had bloomed in Lily’s presence, they froze over, withered, and died.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 134). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Again, we don't get these effects when Lily or Maeve show up other times.
- Harry goes to the Carpenter home after the fetches have attacked and sees this:
An imitation old-style, wrought-iron gaslight had been bent to parallel with the ground about four feet up.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 236). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
One wonders why a bunch of faeries bent some iron. Or how they managed without gloves.
- Also, he sees this:
A minivan parked in the driveway had been crushed, as if by a dropped wrecking ball.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 236). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
A few pages later...:
We went there, Charity driving her family’s minivan, Thomas, me, and Mouse in Madrigal’s battered rental van.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 242). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Either Jim glitched a bit, or they had multiple minivans.
- When Harry and co. arrive at Saint Mary of the Angels in Proven Guilty, he notes:
Thomas didn’t want to go into the church because he wasn’t optimistic that the Almighty and his institutions would smile on him. Like me, he favored maintaining a low profile with regards to matters temporal.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 242). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
"Temporal" refers to worldly things. That should be "matters spiritual".
- Before entering Clark Pell's theater in Proven Guilty, Lily tells Charity:
“It will not be as much help as you might desire,” Lily told her, her voice serious. “I dare not directly strike at the servants of Winter acting in lawful obligation to their Queen, except in self-defense. Were I to attack, the consequences could be grave, and retaliation immediate.”
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 281). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
A few pages later, she directly strikes at a servant of Winter, and not in self-defense:
Light flashed. Something that looked like a butterfly sculpted from pure fire shot over my head like a tiny comet. I scrambled to my feet, to see the blazing butterfly hit the fetch square in the chest. The thing screamed again, front legs thrashing, rear legs entirely limp, as fire exploded over its flesh, burned a hole in its chest, and then abruptly consumed it whole.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 287). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
There are no consequences of any sort, and retaliation is non-existent.
- When Harry and Charity are fighting the Scarecrow in Proven Guilty, she does this:
While I’d drawn the Scarecrow’s attention and eye, Charity had slipped around behind it, silent as a puff of smoke. As I spoke, she lifted her sword and swept it down at the appendage holding her daughter. The steel blade hissed and flashed and seared its way through the limb holding Molly.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 310). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
First, I think that's supposed to be "sheared its way". Maybe. Second, despite being down one arm, the Eldest Fetch does this after grabbing Charity:
It seized Molly in its other hand and lifted her as well, holding the pair of them face-to-face.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 312). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Nothing was said about it regrowing either.
- Harry tells Molly in Proven Guilty about his first use of magic:
“Must have looked silly. But when I shouted and jumped, some of the power rolled out of me and threw me about ten feet farther than I should have been able to jump. I landed badly, of course. Sprained my wrist. But I won this little blue ribbon. I still have it back at home.”
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 338 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In Ghost Story, a couple details are different:
I fell, out of control, my arms spinning like a windmill. I went down on the blacktop and left generous patches of skin on its surface. I remember how much it hurt—and how I didn’t care because I’d won. I broke the Iowa state high school long-jump record by more than a foot. It didn’t stick, though. They disqualified me.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 129). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
No sprained wrist and no blue ribbon.
- At the beginning of White Night we learn about Molly's hair:
Her hair had been cut into a short, spiky style and dyed peroxide white.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
By about two-thirds of the way through the book, it has grown substantially:
She wore a dark green baseball cap, with her hair gathered into a tail and tucked up under it, where it wouldn’t provide an easy handle for anyone wanting to grab it.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Harry says this to Molly in White Night:
“Molly,” I told her in my gentlest voice. “Heroin feels good, too. Ask Rosy and Nelson.”
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In Proven Guilty, it was spelled "Rosie".
- Harry decides to put a scare into Molly in White Night:
I stripped the glove off my left hand and held it up, my fingers spread. It didn’t look as horrific as it used to, but it was plenty ugly enough to make an impression on a nineteen-year-old girl.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Of course, as is well-known, Molly should be eighteen, not nineteen.
- Harry confronts Helen Beckitt at the Amber Inn in White Night:
“Ladies,” I said, then after a brief pause added, “Mrs. Beckitt.”
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
He then switches honorifics:
I backed off on the aggression and tried to make myself sound polite and compassionate, yet serious. “Did any of you know that Ms. Beckitt is a felon?”
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And then switches back:
I didn’t meet that frozen gaze. I didn’t want to see what was behind it. “You’ve got a record, Mrs. Beckitt. You’ve helped in supernatural murders before. Maybe you’re doing it again.”
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Mouse exhaled steadily, then shook his head once and laid it back down, politely and definitely ignor- ing me.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
For some reason, "ignoring" is hyphenated, and has a space in it. Maybe a Kindle thing.
La sciel’s translation was flawlessly smooth, but it wasn’t hard to extrapolate that Madrigal’s Etruscan was about as bad as my Latin.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I didn't put that space in "Lasciel's". Again, maybe a Kindle thing.
He hit a brawny thrall with a neatly clipped goa tee, and then the wave caught up and struck the man, too, as well as the folk on either side of him.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Another space that doesn't need to be there. Yet one more time, maybe a Kindle thing.
After all, we all use only about ten percent of our brain’s capacity, anyway.
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Again with this myth. That's not how brains work: we do use all of it, just not all the time.
“That recording was written in your brain, in portions you weren’t using.”
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
No, not again...
Thomas sighed. “Well. Yes. Washing, cutting, styling, dying. I do it all, baby.”
Butcher, Jim. White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
That should be "dyeing".
- In It's My Birthday, Too, Harry tells the cobbs:
“I helped set you up with a good deal here at Shoegasm,” I said. “But I can see you’re getting a little crowded. I can get you another good setup—a family, seven kids, mom and dad, all of them active.”
Butcher, Jim. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files (It's My Birthday, Too). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is never brought up again.
- In Heorot, we meet Caine. He has no hair:
He was bald and sported a bristling beard.
Butcher, Jim. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files (Heorot). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In Last Call, he has hair again:
Decker’s eyes went flat, and his entire body became perfectly still. It was reptilian. “Caine?”
I smiled wider. “Big guy, shaggy hair, kind of a slob, with piss running down his leg. He made a deal with a woman for some bloodstone, and you helped.”
Butcher, Jim. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files (Last Call). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I suppose he could have regrown it, but his baldness wasn't said to be a result of shaving, which leads one to conclude he lost his hair.
- In Small Favor, we learn something about faeries:
“That corpse is still there. It’s mostly a burned mess, but it didn’t dissolve.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Faeries aren’t wholly beings of the spirit world. They leave corpses behind.”
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 9). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Fair enough, but that doesn't explain why this happens in Proven Guilty:
Its head crunched and fractured like a cheap taco shell, and suddenly there was no phage, no creature. There was only the damaged hallway, the tainted smell of hellish wood smoke, and a mound of clear, swiftly dissolving ectoplasm.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 194). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In that book, it's the same with all the fetches when they're in the mortal world.
- Harry scopes out Luccio in his apartment in Small Favor:
Luccio was beautiful.
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 217). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
He changes his mind on that score in Changes:
She was a young woman, not particularly tall, with curling brown hair and a heart-shaped face that was appealing and likable, if not beautiful.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 61). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Luccio talks about ley lines in Small Favor, and mentions one in particular:
“Agreed. A third runs directly beneath the Field Museum.” She glanced up at me and arched an eyebrow as her voice turned dry. “But I think you’re already familiar with that one.”
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 326). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Harry never says a thing about tapping a ley line in Dead Beat. Of course, raising Sue happens off-screen so I guess there's some wiggle room there. On the other hand, ley lines weren't even introduced as a concept until Proven Guilty:
The skull turned slowly, left to right, candleflame eyes studying the model city—not its physical makeup, I knew, but the miniature ley lines that I’d built into the surface of the table, the courses of magical energy that flowed through the city like blood through the human body.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 38 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Harry, Molly, and Luccio discuss the mysterious island in Small Favor:
“Then why aren’t they on the maps and stuff?” Molly asked.
“The islands are dangerous,” I said. “Long way from any help, and the lake can be awfully mean in the winter. There are stone reefs out there, too, that could gut a boat that came too close. Maybe someone down at city hall figured that the islands would prove less of a temptation to people if everyone thought they were just stories, and invested some effort in removing them from the public record.”
“That wouldn’t be possible,” Molly said.
“It might be,” Luccio responded. “The energies concentrated around those islands would tend to make people unconsciously avoid them. If one did not have a firm destination fixed in mind, the vast majority of people in the area would swing around the islands without ever realizing what they were doing.”
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 326). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Molly seemingly forgets all about this in Turn Coat, and has basically the same conversation again with Harry:
She frowned quietly. “I heard him talking to my mom about the island. But when I tried to go look it up, I couldn’t find it on any of the maps. Not even in the libraries.”
“Yeah,” I said. “From what I hear, bad things happened to everyone who went out there. There used to be some kind of port facility for fishing and merchant traffic, big as a small town, but it was abandoned. Sometime in the nineteenth century, the city completely expunged the place from its records.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t want anyone to go out there,” I said. “If they merely passed a law, they knew that sooner or later some moron would go there out of sheer contrariness. So they pretty much unmade the place, at least officially.”
“And in more than a century, no one’s ever seen it?”
“That dark ley line puts off a big field of energy,” I said. “It makes people nervous. Not insane or anything, but it’s enough to make them subconsciously avoid the place, if they aren’t making a specific effort to get there. Plus, there are stone reefs around a big portion of the island, and people tend to swing wide around it.”
Butcher, Jim. Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) (p. 336). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Tessa shoots Michael in Small Favor:
Tessa, her pretty human face showing, her eyes gleaming with manic glee, swept a mantis claw at my head, and I at least managed to interpose the rifle before she ripped my head off. Only instead of smashing the gun, as I’d expected, she ripped it out of my hand, just as easily as taking candy from a baby and spun away from me.
Then she winked at me, blew me a kiss, and opened fire on Michael with the Kalashnikov on full automatic from no more than ten feet away.
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 366). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Notice she's using her mantis claws. Now, I don't know if you've seen a mantis's forelimbs, but they're not exactly adapted for using assault rifles.
- Murphy loses her P-90 towards the end of Small Favor:
She screamed and recoiled as the blade continued, an S-shaped cut that missed Murphy’s throat by a finger’s breadth and sliced through the strap that held the P-90 on her body. The weapon tumbled into the water.
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 388 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Nothing is ever said about recovering it, but she has it again in Changes:
She wore her automatic on her hip, and her odd-looking, rectangular little submachine gun, the one that always made me think of a box of chocolates, was leaned against the wall nearby.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 409). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And no, nothing is said about it being a replacement.
- Thomas describes the Pavilion in Backup:
It was an enormous structure, which I always thought looked something like a medieval Mongol’s war helmet. Giant Attila chapeau, turned into a building, where concerts were held on a regular basis for the good people of Chicago.
Butcher, Jim. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files (Backup). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Attila was a Hun, not a Mongol, though the peoples may be related. It's disputed. Different periods of history in any case.
Forthill nodded. “He spent the last year trying to convince the senior members of Malleus that we had been deceived. That you were, in fact, an agent of an enemy power, who had taken the swords so they could not be used.”
“And no one thought to mention the way those archangels gave orders that I was supposed to hold them?”
Butcher, Jim. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files (The Warrior). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It was definitely implied that a higher power (probably Uriel) gave such an order regarding Amoracchius:
He was carrying Amoracchius in its scabbard. He offered it to me. I lifted both eyebrows.
“Instructions,” Sanya said. “I’m to give it to you and you will kn—”
“Know who to give it to,” I muttered. I eyed the ceiling. “Someone is having a huge laugh right now at my expense.” I raised my voice a little. “I don’t have to do this, You know! I have free will! I could tell You to go jump in a lake!”
Sanya stood there, offering me the sword.
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 414). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
However, no such order was implied in Fidelacchius’s case. Shiro simply told Harry to take it:
He twitched the arm nearest the sword. “Take it. Take it, boy.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not like you. Like any of you. I never will be.”
“Remember. God sees hearts, boy. And now I see yours. Take it. Hold it in trust until you find the one it belongs to.”
Butcher, Jim. Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5) (p. 337). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is also the first time we hear that multiple archangels were supposedly involved.
- Bob exposits about the naagloshii in Turn Coat:
Bob rolled his eyelights. “It’s a semidivine immortal, Harry. It doesn’t procreate. It has no need to recombine DNA. That means that gender simply doesn’t apply. That’s something only you meat sacks worry about.”
Butcher, Jim. Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) (p. 268 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Goodman Grey would like a word with Bob about that:
My heart leapt up into my throat and I slammed the gate shut. “Hell’s bells,” I stammered. “A naagloshii? You’re a freaking naagloshii?”
...
“I didn’t choose my father, either,” Grey said. “And he was a piece of work, too. But I do choose how I live my life. So pay up.”
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 580). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- In Turn Coat, Harry takes some of Binder's hair for a tracking spell. Binder easily (relatively speaking) defeats this:
“Stopped at a convenience store on the way. Then he goes to his room, shaves himself bald, comes out in his skivvies, and jumps in the damn river. Goes back inside, takes a shower—”
Butcher, Jim. Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) (p. 296). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Going all the way back to Storm Front, Harry has some of his hair stolen by Gimpy Lawrence, and Harry freaks out (erroneously thinking it was done on Marcone's orders):
My heart pounded in my chest and didn’t slow down even after I recovered my breath. My hair. Johnny Marcone now had a lock of my hair. He could give it to someone who used magic, and use it to do whatever they damn well pleased to me.
They could use my hair to tear my heart from my chest, rip it right out, like they had done to Jennifer Stanton, Tommy Tomm, and poor Linda Randall. Marcone had warned me to stop, twice, and now he was going to take me out once and for all.
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 198). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Apparently, the rules changed and the hair thing was a lot harder to dodge back then, otherwise Harry would have just bought some clippers and a razor and some shaving cream and easily been free of any evil wizardry. Well, that stuff and a shower.
- The Gatekeeper mentions the Za Lord's Guard in Turn Coat
“...[t]he Little Folk, Wyld fae, banding together and organizing...”
Butcher, Jim. Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) (p. 375). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I didn't put that space in "Wyldfae".
The seats on the Senior Council were awarded geriocratically.
Butcher, Jim. Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) (p. 511). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
"Geriocratically" isn't a word. "Gerontocratically", however, is.
In the same vein, we have this from Changes:
For once, the Council’s geriatocracy had worked in my favor.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 55). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Again, not a word. "Gerontocracy" is though.
- We learn about the mistfiend-related casualties towards the end of Turn Coat:
The Senior Council managed to contain and banish the mordite-infused mistfiend, a rare and dangerous gaseous being from the far reaches of the Nevernever, before it had killed more than forty or fifty wizards.
Butcher, Jim. Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) (p. 502). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The casualty count goes up in Changes:
Cautionary rumors of their presence had been met with derision and accusations of paranoia by most of the White Council until last year, when a Black Council agent had killed more than sixty wizards...
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 178 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Note that the misfiend is just some weird Nevernever creature in Turn Coat. This is in contrast to Cold Days:
I sighed. “That little creep Peabody dropped one Outsider on a meeting of the Council...”
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 234). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I guess it's an Outsider now. Makes more sense that way actually, given that it was "mordite-infused" and mordite is from Outside.
We went back to my apartment.
Susan and Martin were waiting. About two minutes after we got back, there was a knock at the door, and I opened it to find both half vampires standing on my doorstep.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 76). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
So, were they waiting for Harry or did they show up after he got there? Or did they just sit around for a couple minutes for no reason before knocking on the door?
- Bob and Harry have this conversation in Changes:
“I told you,” Bob said. “You should have found out what was on the other side from here long before now.”
“And I told you,” I replied, “that the last thing I wanted to do was thin the barrier between my own home and the bloody Nevernever by going through it and then attracting the attention of whatever hungry boogity-boo was on the other side.”
“And you were wrong,” Bob said smugly. “And I told you so.”
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 98 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
But way back in Grave Peril, Harry did enter the Nevernever from his apartment:
The Nevernever, near my apartment, looked like . . . my apartment. Only a bit cleaner and brighter.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 360). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Now, you could argue that his basement lab was a different enough location that it came out somewhere else, but you could just as easily argue that it was all one place: Harry Dresden's apartment. Also, it's clear in any case that he's supposedly never done this before, in any part of his home. Also, don't be fooled by that ambiguous word "near" above. They were inside his apartment in Grave Peril when they crossed over to the Nevernever:
Bob turned his eyelights toward the stairs leading out of the Nevernever version of my apartment. “That way,” he said.
We passed out of the apartment, and into a sort of vague representation of Chicago, which looked like a stage set—flat building faces with no real substance to them, vague light that could have come from sun or moon or streetlights, plus a haze of grey-brown fog.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 361). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Also, Lea says she guards his entire apartment on the Nevernever side:
“Indeed, child,” she said. “Did you not think it strange that in your turmoil-strewn time here none of your foes—not one—ever sought to enter from the other side? Never sent a spirit given form directly into your bed, your shower, your refrigerator? Never poured a basket of asps into your closet so that they sought refuge in your shoes, your boots, the pockets of your clothing?” She shook her head. “Sweet, sweet child. Had you walked much farther, you would have seen the mound of bones of all the things that have attempted to reach you, and which I have destroyed.”
...
“It has been true for your entire lifetime, child. I have followed you in the spirit world. Created guardians and defenses ’pon the other side to ward your sleep, to stand sentinel over your home. And you still have only the beginnings of an idea of how many have tried.” She smiled, showing her delicately pointed canine teeth again. “Tried, and failed.”
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 137). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
From what she said, you would end up in her garden from Harry's living room as well (guess she was off her game when Kravos's ghost attacked Harry in his dreams and ate part of his magic, though).
- After Harry speaks with Ebenezar via the black stone in Changes, he does this:
I picked up my sending stone wearily and slipped it into my pocket.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 181). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Later, it's in the bag he left in Lea's garden, even though the conversation with Ebenezar happens after the FBI raid:
Right. The speaking stones. I’d stuck mine in the bag, but since I was holding it on my lap now, it was close enough to be warmed by the heat of my body to function.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 420). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Mab shows Harry a true vision of Maggie in Changes:
A She’d evidently been wiping her nose on the knees of her little pink overalls. Her shirt, white with yellow flowers and a big cartoon bumblebee on it, showed stains of dirt and worse.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 301). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Later in the book, Harry sees her at Chichén Itzá:
Blood had spilled out from the altar, and she had retreated from it until she was pressed against the wall, trying to keep her little shoes and dress, both filthy already, out of the blood.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 465). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I highly doubt the Reds gave her new clothes. Plus it's implied she'd been wearing them for quite a while, so it seems they're supposed to be the same clothes.
- Harry and Susan find themselves in the Erlking's hall in Changes and have this conversation:
“Jesus,” Susan whispered. “What are those things?”
“I . . .” I swallowed. “I think they’re goblins.”
“You think?”
“I’ve never seen one before,” I replied. “But . . . they match the descriptions I’ve heard.”
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 365). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Thing is, Harry has seen goblins, back in Summer Knight:
Another troop of battered, lantern-jawed, burly humanoids with wide, batlike ears, goblins, dragged their dead and some of their wounded over to the sylphs, tossing them onto the carrion pile with businesslike efficiency despite their fellows’ feeble screeches and yowls.
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 347). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
They look very different in Changes though:
There was a curious similarity among them, though no two of the creatures were the same. They were vaguely humanoid. They wore cloth and leather and armor, all of it inscribed with odd geometric shapes in colors that could only with difficulty be differentiated from black. Some of them were tall and emaciated, some squat and muscular, some medium-sized, and every combination in between. Some of the creatures had huge ears, or no ears, or odd, saggy chins. None of them carried the beauty of symmetry. Their similarity was in mismatchedness, each individual’s body at aesthetic war with itself.
One thing was the same: They all had gleaming red eyes, and if ever a gang looked evil, these beings did.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 364). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- The Erlking does this shortly after that:
First, he took off his helmet. The horns were, evidently, fixed to the dark metal. I braced myself to view something horrible but . . . the Lord of Goblins was nothing like what I had expected.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 368 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In Cold Days, Harry claims:
It was the first time I’d seen him wearing something other than a helmet. He had shaggy, grizzled light brown hair that fell to his shoulders.
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 37). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Speaking of the Erlking, here's his eye color in Changes:
Within the visor of that helmet was a pair of steady red eyes, eyes that matched the thousands of others in the hall.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 366). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And here it is in Cold Days:
His features were asymmetrical but, though not handsome, contained a certain roguish charm, and his eyes were an unsettling shade of gold-green.
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 37). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
-
INTRODUCTION and PART I (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326794.html#msg2326794)
PART II (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326795.html#msg2326795)
PART III (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326796.html#msg2326796)
PART IV (https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53393.msg2326797.html#msg2326797)
PART V
PART V
- Harry borrows a staff from Ebenezar in Changes:
“As long as there’s some carpet to scuff your feet on,” he said, and tossed me his staff. “Here.”
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 493). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Ebenezar tells him to keep it after the battle:
He got halfway down the stairs before I said, “Sir? Do you want your staff?”
He nodded at me. “You keep it, until I can get you a new blank.”
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 531). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
After that, we never see it again. What happened to it after Harry died is unknown. Harry ultimately makes a new one out of wood from Demonreach, as seen in Skin Game.
- Still on the staff thing, Harry states in Changes:
It was a better-made staff than mine, but Ebenezar had been the one to teach me how they were made, and both staves I had used over the years had been carved from branches of the lightning-struck oak in the front yard of his little farm in the Ozarks.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 493). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
However, way back in Fool Moon, Harry's staff was not made of oak:
Had it been only wood and muscle involved, I might have snapped the ancient ash. But a wizard’s staff is a tool that helps him to apply forces, to manipulate them and maneuver them to his will.
Butcher, Jim. Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) (p. 202). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Also, note above that Harry says he's used two staves "over the years". This apparently doesn't count the one he used to fight Justin:
When I faced my old master, I did it with newly made staff and blasting rod in hand, with the ancient forces of the universe at my call, and with words of power upon my tongue.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 412). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Maybe Lea gave them to him. That would fit with the idea above that it was Ebenezar who taught him how to make a staff. Or maybe it's another goof.
- In Even Hand, Marcone threatens Mag:
“However, your behavior gives me ample latitude to invoke the defense-of-property-and-self clause. I will leave the decision to you. Continue this asinine behavior, and I will kill you and offer a weregild to your lord, King Corb, in accordance with the conflict resolution guidelines of section two, paragraph four.”
Butcher, Jim. Brief Cases (Dresden Files) (p. 150). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
He shouldn't know who King Corb is, given that he just learned who the Fomor are a few pages before that and Gard said nothing about a king.
- Gard says in Aftermath:
“That’s fomor magic,” she said quietly. “One of their lesser sorcerers and his retainers.”
Butcher, Jim. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files (Aftermath). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
"Fomor" isn't capitalized like it usually is.
- In Ghost Story, Harry has a converstion with Murphy’s dad:
“The opposition,” Jack said. “You died because they cheated.”
“Wait. What opposition?”
“The angel standing guard at the elevator is what we cops think of as a clue. You need me to draw you some pictures?”
“Um. Hell, you mean? Like…actual Fallen angels?”
“Not exactly. But if you want to think of it that way, it works. Sort of. What you need to know is that they’re the bad guys.”
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 12). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
So why does Collin not just say "Yes. Fallen angel."? Because that's exactly what we learn happened later in the book. The little lie here makes no sense, given how much he's already telling Harry about the circumstances involved.
- Harry goes to see Mortimer in Ghost Story:
Mortimer Lindquist seemed to have finally given in to the inevitable. I’d seen him with a bad toupee, and with an even worse comb-over, but this was the first time I’d seen him sporting a full-on Charles Xavier.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 33). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This isn't true actually. Mort was sporting the full bald look back in Dead Beat:
Fifteen minutes later, a bleary-looking little man answered. He was short, twenty or thirty pounds overweight, and had given up trying to conceal his receding hairline in favor of shaving his scalp completely bald.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 107). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
- In Ghost Story, while in Mort's kitchen, Harry learns the hard way not to go plunging through walls and doors in Mort's place:
“—op,” Sir Stuart finished. He sighed, and offered me a hand up. I took it and he hauled me to my feet. “Ghost dust mixed into the paint inside the room,” he explained. “No spirit can pass through it.”
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 34). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
A short while later, he does exactly that with no problem:
I gritted my teeth and plunged through the wall into Mort’s kitchen and ran for the study, several steps ahead of the gunman.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 51). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Harry learns in Ghost Story that Molly has been leaving scraps of his clothes on victims. The scraps are remnants of his garb in Changes:
My faerie godmother (yes, I’m serious. I have one, and she is freaking terrifying) had transformed my clothes into protective armor that had probably saved my life half a dozen times that night without my even being aware of it. When they had turned back into my coat, my shirt, and my jeans, there had been little left of them but tatters and scraps.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 190). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
However, in Changes, it's just his coat that falls apart:
The little ticking clock chimed twelve times at noon, and on the twelfth chime the armor changed. It . . . just melted back into my leather duster. The one Susan had given me before a battle a long, long time ago.
I picked up the coat. There were gaping wounds in it. Slashes. Patches burned away. Clearly visible bullet holes. There was more hole than there was coat, really, and even the surviving leather was cracked, dried, stiff, and flaking. It began to fall apart while I stood there examining it.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (p. 540) Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Nothing is said about the clothes he was wearing (though they were indeed supposed to be part of the armor).
Not that Justin had a TV. I had to sneak out on Friday nights to watch it in the store at the mall, or else face the real risk that I’d miss Knight Rider altogether.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 226). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Knight Rider was no longer airing at the time of this memory, which was when Harry was about thirteen.
- Harry works a tracking spell in Ghost Story:
The first tracking spell led me to the hotel that had once hosted a horror convention known as SplatterCon! It was closed now, and deserted. I guess maybe all the deaths at SplatterCon! had taken a toll on the hotel in the civil-court cases that followed the phobophage attacks.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 232). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Damn it, Harry. It's "SplatterCon!!!" Three exclamation points.
- In Ghost Story, Harry describes the spells he had on his storage unit:
I’d once set up a rental storage unit as a short-term haven in case things ever went to hell. I’d laid up about a hundred small protective spells on the walls, floor, and ceiling of the place in various colors of paint. The energy inside them was stored in the paint, safe from the sunrise and ready to project a shield whenever the symbols felt the touch of hostile magic.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 299). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is how he described them in Turn Coat:
“Concealment and avoidance, mostly,” I replied. “Plus a Faraday cage.”
Butcher, Jim. Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) (p. 106). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
No mention of a shield.
- Harry scopes out the leader of the Fomor servitors in Ghost Story:
He was still dressed in the black turtleneck, but had added a weapons belt with a holstered pistol beneath his left hand and a short sword at his right. It was one of those Japanese blades, but shorter than the full katana. Wakazashi, then, or maybe it was a ninja-to.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 316). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The correct spelling is "Wakizashi".
- Harry describes He Who Walks Behind's smile in Ghost Story:
That was a smile from Lewis Carroll’s opium-inspired, laudanum-dosed nightmares.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 338). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Carroll isn't known to have abused opium or laudanum (same difference, really). I mean, yeah, he wrote some weird stuff, but still. Maybe it's just supposed to be figurative? I don't know.
I should have known better. The Corpsetaker had once been part of the White Council, sometime back before the French and Indian War.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 430). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is first time this comes up, and no mention is made of when exactly Harry learned this, or from who. Sure, he had plenty of opportunity to learn this, but it's jarring to just have it dropped in like that.
- In Ghost Story, Harry says of Uriel:
He’d taken notice of me a few years back and had bestowed a measure of power known as soulfire on me. I’d done a job or three for him since then.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 543). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The only job Harry has done that has been mentioned is The Warrior, and he didn't even know it until after the fact. I suppose there could be untold tales in between that and Changes, but still.
- At the very end of Ghost Story, Mab tells Harry to get ready:
“For what?” I asked.
“For the journey to my court, Sir Knight.” She paused and looked over one shoulder at me, green eyes bright and cold. “There is much work to be done.”
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 578 ). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
One wonders how Harry was supposed to get there, given that his body had been comatose for half a year and he was bedridden for months more in between this book and Cold Days. Seriously, how did he get there? He was in bad, bad shape. Did Mab just teleport him or something? I don't really see him climbing all those stairs and then walking across the island so they could safely enter the Nevernever (though I suppose Mab might be protection enough that they could just cross over from where he woke up).
Also, notice how he remembers all that stuff after waking up in the Well below the island, but doesn't remember the next few months of convalesence at Arctis Tor (or even arriving there). What's up with that? I mean, obviously, he had to remember for the ending of Ghost Story to work, but that's not really a satisfying explanation.
- In I Was a Teenage Bigfoot, Harry casts a diagnostic spell on Irwin:
I took a deep breath, then flicked the packet of quartz dust into the air at the same time I swept the rune-inscribed fan through a strong arc, released my will, and murmured, “Optio.”
Butcher, Jim. Brief Cases (Dresden Files) (p. 98). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
"Optio" isn't italicized for some reason (Kindle thing maybe. It is italicized in the Kindle version of Working For Bigfoot, though).
- In Bigfoot on Campus, Harry goes to rescue Irwin from being eaten by Connie:
Connie and Irwin were there, and the haze of lust rolling off the ingénue succubus was a second psychic cyclone. I barely managed to push away.
Butcher, Jim. Brief Cases (Dresden Files) (p. 205). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
There should be an "it" in that second sentence after "push".
Clawed hands began to grip the edges of the hole behind River. Wicked, bulging red eyes appeared. Monstrous-looking things in the same general shape as a human appeared in complete silence.
Ghouls.
Butcher, Jim. Brief Cases (Dresden Files) (p. 210). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is the only time ghouls are said to have red eyes. Strange that it comes up so late, and in a side story.
The malk bowed his head once. “A faithful servant of the Queen of Air and Darkness. I am most often called Sith.”
“Heh,” I said. “Where’s your red lightsaber?”
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 12). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Here we see "Sith" is pronounced Star Wars-style. That's not actually how it's supposed to be pronounced. It's the same as "Sidhe" (but then you lose the joke, I suppose).
- Harry breaks into Butters' place in Cold Days and Bob asks him:
“Andi totally got the drop on you. Where was your tiny secret service team?”
“I forgot to invite them past the threshold,” I said. “Besides, I think she’d hit me before anyone could have shouted a lookout anyway.”
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 104). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Harry shouldn't have been able to invite them in anyway, since he didn't live there.
- Harry says of Hook and her gang in Cold Days:
“Someone tossed a gym bag full of explosives at my car,” I growled. “And followed it up with the freaking pixie death squadron from hell.”
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 120). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Later in the book, Hook gets reclassified:
I frowned at Toot and then at Hook. The enemy sprite just sat there on the floor, making no further effort to escape.
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 296). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Remember from an earlier item that dewdrop faeries and sprites and pixies are supposed to be different things.
I’d been to the island on most weekends up until I got shot, and Thomas had often come with me.
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 146). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This seems off, because he and Thomas supposedly weren't hanging out much after the events of Turn Coat.
- In Cold Days, Harry gets taken in the Well:
Eleven more of them. Because one infinite tunnel full of horrors obviously wasn’t enough. I had twelve.
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 165). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The number of tunnels increases by one in Skin Game:
My voice echoed through the tunnel, number seven of thirteen.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 3). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Harry says of Fix in Cold Days:
It was a slender man, a bit below average height.
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 192). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Back in Proven Guilty, he was a bit taller than average:
Fix had grown, and I mean that literally. He’d been about five foot three, maybe an inch or so higher. Now he had towered up to at least five nine.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 129). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Harry summons Mother Winter in Cold Days:
“I am Harry Dresden, the Winter Knight, and I needs must speak with thee! Athropos! Skuld! Mother Winter, I summon thee!”
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 319). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
There's no 'h' in "Atropos".
Then a small crew of goblins exploded out of a pile of shale at precisely the right moment, when the Outsiders were pressed almost into the Winter lines, but before reinforcements arrived.
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 341). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
One wonders why goblins, who are under the Erlking's rule, are fighting at the Outer Gates with Winter. Maybe he's civic-minded?
- When Harry is preparing to cross the groovy circle on Demonreach in Cold Days, he passes some of his stuff off for safekeeping:
I passed the Winchester to Thomas and took off my new duster. At his lifted eyebrow, I said, “Not of the island. Hold ’em for me.”
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 461). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Notice he doesn't remove his pentacle amulet. He of course still has it in Skin Game, despite that.
- Sarissa says to Harry late in Cold Days:
“I told you I was older than I looked.”
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 497). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Thing is, she never actually told Harry that anywhere in the book.
- After Lily dies in Cold Days, her mantle transfers to Sarissa:
Fire flickered to life over the late Summer Lady. It did not consume Lily. Rather, it gathered itself into green and gold light, a shape that vaguely mirrored Lily’s own, arms spread out as she lay prostrate upon the frost-covered earth. Then, with a gathering shriek, the fire suddenly condensed into a form, the shape of something that looked like an eagle or a large hawk. Blinding light spread over the hilltop, and the hawk suddenly flashed from Lily’s fallen form.
Directly into Sarissa.
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 503). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Similarly, with Maeve and Molly:
Deep blue fire gathered over the fallen Winter Lady. It coalesced with an ugly howl into the outline of a serpent, which coiled and then lashed out in a strike that carried its blazing form fifteen feet, to the nearest corner of the ruined cottage . . .
. . . where Molly, behind her veil, had been crouched and waiting for a chance to aid me.
The serpent of Winter cold plunged into her chest, shattering her veil as it struck, and my apprentice’s expression was twisted in startled horror.
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 506). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Going back to Summer Knight, nothing of the sort happened when Aurora died. She just died. Harry didn't even find out Lily was the new Summer Lady until days later, something he would have known immediately if Cold Days rules were in effect back then.
- Skin Game isn't consistent as to how long Harry had been living on Demonreach:
There was a ticking time bomb inside my head and the one person I trusted to go in and get it out hadn’t shown up or spoken to me for more than a year.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 1). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The ancient spirit of the island had been keeping the thing in my skull from killing me for a year.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 6). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I’d spent the last year acquainting myself with the island’s secrets, with the defenses that I hadn’t even known existed—defenses that could be activated only by the Warden.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 7). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I closed my eyes as the Winter rose up in me and I fought it down. I’d done it often enough over the past year on the island that it was almost routine.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 49). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
He looked at me for a moment before turning back to the sink and continuing to wash things. “It’s been a long year,” he said. “And I haven’t slept in a while. That’s all.”
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 116). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
“You made a deal. With Mab,” he said simply. “You apparently died. Your ghost showed up claiming you had died, and got us all to do things. Then you show up alive again, only you’ve got freaky Winter faerie powers. You were here for a day before Molly was gone, with freaky Winter faerie powers of her own. And you’ve been back for a year, living out on that island where hardly anyone can get to you, not talking, not helping, not here.”
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 119). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
“It’s been a hard year,” she said. “They’re tired, and scared. People lose faith sometimes. They’ll come around. You’ll see.”
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 122). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Sometimes within the same dialogue:
“And my friends,” I said. “Even Thomas . . . I was stuck out on that island of the damned for a year. A year, Michael, and they only showed up a handful of times. Just Murphy and Thomas, maybe half a dozen times in more than a year. It’s just a goddamned boat ride away, forty minutes. People drive farther than that to go to the movies. They know what I’m turning into. They don’t want to watch it happening to me.”
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 197). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I chewed on my lip and looked up at him. “But . . . Michael, she wasn’t . . . for the past year . . .”
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 201). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Now, if it really had been just a year, not more than, the book would take place at Halloween, but it doesn't. It takes place months afterward:
I had visitors sometimes, but the winter months were dangerous on Lake Michigan, both because of the weather and because of the ice, and spring had only barely begun to touch the world again.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 4). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It was a sunny morning, promising a mild spring day.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 151). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I headed deeper into the building, stumbling blindly over things on the floor while my eyes struggled to shift from the light of the spring morning to the gloom of the store’s interior.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 163). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
That puts the correct timeframe in late March, meaning the "more than a year" quotes are the correct ones, and the "year" ones are wrong. Closer to a year and a half than not, actually (and yeah, I get people can be imprecise, but that's pushing it a bit).
- Harry goes to a party in Skin Game:
The interior of the ballroom had been decorated in a kind of Chinese motif. Lots of red fabric draped in swaths from the ceiling to create semi-curtained partitions, paper lanterns glowing cheerfully, stands of bamboo, a Zen garden with its sand groomed in impeccable curves.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 75). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Zen gardens are of Japanese origin, not Chinese.
- Here's the one everyone knows from Skin Game:
“She used to belong to a gang called the Churchmice,” I said. “Specialized in robbing churches in Europe. Nicodemus hired them to swipe the Shroud of Turin for him a few years back.”
Ascher tilted her head. “What happened?”
“The three of them got it,” I said. “I suspect they tried to raise their price. Nicodemus and Deirdre killed two of them, and he would have killed Anna if I hadn’t intervened.”
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 76). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Anna Valmont reinforces this a bit later in the book:
“Nicodemus Archleone,” I said. “You remember what happened the last time you did a contract with him?”
“We tried to screw him and he screwed us back harder,” Anna said. She eyed Ascher, as a couple more hotel staff flitted by the alcove. “What happens if I say no?”
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 81). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
This is, of course, not what happened in Death Masks at all. Marcone was the buyer of the Shroud in that book, not Nicky. He and the Denarians were interlopers attempting to steal it from the Churchmice.
- Harry and Butters have a talk in Skin Game:
“And your ghost showed up, and that was . . . you know. Weird. But we all figured that, hey, you hadn’t lived like the rest of us. It figured you wouldn’t die the same way, either.”
“Technically, it was more of a code-blue situation . . . ,” I began.
“You didn’t say that at the time,” Butters said.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 117). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Actually, Harry did bring up that very possibility in Ghost Story to Butters:
“Bob thinks that there is hinkiness afoot with regard to my, ah, disposition.”
“You…you could come back?” Butters whispered.
“Or maybe I haven’t left,” I said. “I don’t know, man. I got suckered into this whole encore-appearance thing. I’m as in the dark as everyone else.”
“Wow,” Butters breathed.
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 421). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
You'd think Waldo would have remembered that.
- Michael diagnoses Harry's broken arm in Skin Game:
“Radial fracture,” he said quietly.
“You’re a doctor now?”
“I was a medical corpsman when I served,” he replied. “Saw plenty of breaks.” He looked up and said, “You don’t want to go to the hospital, I take it?”
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 190). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Thing is, Michael's not supposed to have medical training:
Michael paused beside me. “Charity is the one who’s had actual medical training, but it seemed a simple enough injury to me. A bandage stopped the bleeding, and we cleaned the wound thoroughly. She should be careful to monitor her condition for the next few days, but I think she’ll be all right.”
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 167). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Harry meets the "parasite" in his dreams in Skin Game:
Her hair was dark, like mine, but her eyes were a crystalline blue-green, the way Lash’s had often appeared.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 242). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Except when she was masquerading as Shiela, Lash's eyes were always just blue:
Her eyes were of a deep, deep blue, like a sunny October sky, and her skin glowed with wholesome appeal.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 249). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
She watched me with luminous blue eyes.
Butcher, Jim. Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files (p. 254). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Lasciel watched me with patient blue eyes.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 208). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
She put both hands on the table and leaned toward me, her blue eyes cold and hard.
Butcher, Jim. Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) (p. 264). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Not blue-green.
- Michael saves Harry from Tessa in Skin Game:
Pure white fire spread down over my body, and I remembered when I had seen something similar once before—when vampires had attempted to manhandle Michael, many moons before, and had been scorched and scarred by the same fire.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (pp. 402-403). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It was actually just one vampire, Kelly Hamilton:
Kelly’s hand touched Michael’s steel-clad arm—and erupted into sudden, white flame, as brief and violent as a stroke of lightning. She screamed, a piercing wail, and fell back from him to the ground. She lay there, curled helplessly around her blackened hand, struggling to get enough breath back to scream. Kyle flew to her side.
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3) (p. 260). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
“I was fighting wars when this planet was nothing but expanding gasses,” Uriel said.
Butcher, Jim. Skin Game (Dresden Files Book 15) (p. 551). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
If Uriel is talking about the early solar system, as he seems to be, then he should have said "contracting" not "expanding".
- In Jury Duty, Harry hexes a phone:
I gathered up enough power to get the job done without taking out the lights on the whole block, flicked a finger at the man pacing the girl, and murmured, “Hexus.”
Butcher, Jim. Brief Cases (Dresden Files) (p. 341). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
"Hexus" isn't italicized (possible Kindle-only thing).
- In Cold Case, Molly casts a couple spells:
I FOCUSED MY will, quietly murmured, “Kakusu,” and brought up the best veil I could manage—which is to say, world-class.
Butcher, Jim. Brief Cases (Dresden Files) (p. 294). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I went back to the dock and then to where it met dry land. I couldn’t see very well, but I murmured, “Akari,” flicked my wrist, and created an orb of glacial green light in the air over my right shoulder.
Butcher, Jim. Brief Cases (Dresden Files) (p. 307). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In neither case is her pseudo-Japanese italicized (this is true in the Kindle versions of both Brief Cases and Shadowed Souls. I suspect it's true for the physical as well).
- Butters speaks of his training in Day One:
To that end, Charity, who was into jujitsu, had made me practice several different defenses a hundred times each, every day, for the past two months.
Butcher, Jim. Brief Cases (Dresden Files) (p. 358). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
While that spelling can be found in dictionaries, the correct romaji is "jujutsu".
- In Zoo Day, Harry opens a portal to the Nevernever:
I swept my arm up in a vertical line, fingers locked and rigid like claws as I channeled my will into them and barked, “Aparturum!”
Butcher, Jim. Brief Cases (Dresden Files) (p. 394). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Again, his pseudo-Latin isn't italicized (it is italicized in the Mouse section of the story though. Possible Kindle-only thing).
END
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I will respond more tomorrow, as I don't have a lot of time now but I just wanted to say this is incredible.
A tad insane, but also amazing. Well done!
I am someone who truly appreciates this, and while errors/inconsistencies don't always ruin my enjoyment of a series I love when someone pays attention this much.
Seriously, congratulations on such a big effort. More discussion to follow :)
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Great job, inconsistencies to bother me in a series. The one that troubled me is the differences between Summer Knight flash backs and Ghost Story flashbacks as to what really happened when Harry came home early from school to be with Elaine and found what he found, and what happened.
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Great job, inconsistencies to bother me in a series. The one that troubled me is the differences between Summer Knight flash backs and Ghost Story flashbacks as to what really happened when Harry came home early from school to be with Elaine and found what he found, and what happened.
I don't think this is an inconsistency. I think someone messed with Harry's memories
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I don't think this is an inconsistency. I think someone messed with Harry's memories
It can be seen that way, however there is the issue of the "knot" Elaine used to tie Harry up with when he got away from Justin.. She used it again at the end of Summer Knight to fool Aurora so Harry could escape and Elaine confirmed that.. But in Ghost Story, if I remember correctly, Harry wasn't tied up at all, just told to put on the straight jacket, and he rabbited out of there.
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Up to this point, he's never mentioned the White Council to Murphy and she doesn't go "White Council? What's that, Harry?" or anything like that
I've always figured that she did some looking. Maybe she figured most of it out from Billy who seems to know way too much in Summer Knight. It would explain her attitude change toward Harry.
You can't do that. There's a waiting period before you can retest.
I imagine it's different in every state. For example: "WHAT HAPPENS IF I FAIL MY KS DRIVING EXAM?
If you fail the KS Driving Exam, you will not receive your KS Driver's License. You will be able to retake the test as early as the next business day." What state was Harry in? I've always assumed it was in the midwest. Also, we'd need to figure out what the law was in the 70's.
Somehow, they're able to recover the sheath later on. Hopefully it fell off the train, otherwise that sucker was gone.
Harry's shtick is finding lost items.
I’m not a truly advanced student, but I’ve practiced every day since I was seventeen.
She could have been once a week and taken summers off or whatever before she was 17.
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Either Jim glitched a bit, or they had multiple minivans.
I could see them having multiple minivans. Why trade one in when you're going to have a bunch of drivers pretty soon?
"Temporal" refers to worldly things.
I see that misuse often.
Harry never says a thing about tapping a ley line in Dead Beat.
That's because he created it. It had something to do with him not putting Sue back."I Was going to put the dinosaur back," I said. "But I was unconscious."
The casualty count goes up in Changes
I guess an additional ten succumbed to their injuries?
So why does Collin not just say "Yes. Fallen angel."? Because that's exactly what we learn happened later in the book. The little lie here makes no sense, given how much he's already telling Harry about the circumstances involved.
This could mean that the opposition is broader than just fallen angels. This seems to be the case in Fool Moon, but seems to be dropped after that.
The only job Harry has done that has been mentioned is The Warrior
It could also be argued that he did a job or three in The Warrior.
Here we see "Sith" is pronounced Star Wars-style. That's not actually how it's supposed to be pronounced. It's the same as "Sidhe" (but then you lose the joke, I suppose).
Sidhe is Irish, and Sith is Scottish, IIRC. Jim's said he doesn't know how a lot of words are pronounced because he's only ever read them. I think that's pretty common.
It was actually just one vampire, Kelly Hamilton
This is probably a reference to when he was dogpiled in Chapter 31. One can search for "like a dog shakes off water" to find the paragraph.
That's all my specific comments. Generally, I'd say early in the series errors and inconsistencies should just be ignored as EIW. Jim hadn't really solidified his rules.
And finally, this is great. I can't imagine how much time, sheer brainpower, or some combination of both this took. Impressive.
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I imagine it's different in every state. For example: "WHAT HAPPENS IF I FAIL MY KS DRIVING EXAM?
If you fail the KS Driving Exam, you will not receive your KS Driver's License. You will be able to retake the test as early as the next business day." What state was Harry in? I've always assumed it was in the midwest. Also, we'd need to figure out what the law was in the 70's.
It would have been the 80s or even early 90s depending on when exactly Harry was born, but that's a good point. I hadn't considered the state he was in.
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Yeah, Sinistar was released in 1983, so it can't be much earlier than that.
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Some examples in here might indicate timeline shenanigans. I don't suppose there's any sort of Coles Notes version that filters out the obvious minor typos?
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- In Ghost Story, while in Mort's kitchen, Harry learns the hard way not to go plunging through walls and doors in Mort's place:
...
A short while later, he does exactly that with no problem: - Knight Rider was no longer airing at the time of this memory, which was when Harry was about thirteen.
- One wonders why goblins, who are under the Erlking's rule, are fighting at the Outer Gates with Winter. Maybe he's civic-minded?
Pretty sure it's just the one room that is blocked off, inside Morty's (and the threshold around it all, of course). Most of the internal walls are passable, but he had made one room where he could get away from the spirits' nagging, if he needed to.
Knight Rider could have been in re-runs.
Goblins LOVE a good fight.
And the Erlking probably wants a good idea of what's coming -- all the heavyweights seem to have at least a solid hunch.
And IIRC Mab's forces come from all of Faerie, not just winter... there are Summer sidhe at the Gate!
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What I find interesting when people talk about inconsistencies is they never mentioned Bob how and one book when Harry was asking him about the winter night he said he was a part of Summer and you didn't know about winter when asked about the billy goat gruff. he said he was Winter and didn't know about summer
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What I find interesting when people talk about inconsistencies is they never mentioned Bob how and one book when Harry was asking him about the winter night he said he was a part of Summer and you didn't know about winter when asked about the billy goat gruff. he said he was Winter and didn't know about summer
No, that's not what happened. Here's what Bob said in Summer Knight:
I turned to the folder Mab had given me and went through the newspaper clippings inside. “Any idea who the Winter Knight is?”
“Nope. Sorry,” Bob said. “My contacts on the Winter side are kinda sketchy.”
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 136). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In Small Favor, he says this:
“My knowledge of the faerie realms is mostly limited to the Winter end of things,” Bob said. “These guys don’t sound like anything I’ve run into.”
Butcher, Jim. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (p. 13). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
There's not really a contradiction here. Most of his knowledge is of Winter, but his current contacts with them aren't as good. They're really two different things.