Show Posts

DF Spoilers / Errors, Inconsistencies, and Oddities

« on: April 08, 2020, 06:57:29 AM »

INTRODUCTION and PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV
PART V

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

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
“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:

Quote
“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:

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
“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:

Quote
“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:

Quote
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:

Quote
“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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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.
Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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...:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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:

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
“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:

Quote
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":

Quote
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.

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
“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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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.
Quote
“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".
Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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:

Quote
"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:

Quote
"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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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:

Quote
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":

Quote
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.

Quote
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".

Topics - didymos

DF Spoilers / So does Odin...

DF Spoilers / Errors, Inconsistencies, and Oddities

DF Spoilers / Question about Small Favor