I also think that belief/worship is what the beings "feed" on and it recharges them.

Ethnui said something that I found interesting. She said something to Odin about how they needed mortals fear, not love. I took this to mean that gods/immortals get their power, some or all of it, from the emotions humans direct towards them. Maybe that they have to choose a specific emotion to feed off of. A lot like the White Court.

It implies a lot about Odin that he chose either to feed off of love or to nurture such feelings in mortals.

Oh crap I forgot about this!  So does this mean that Harry...  That he is basically his own Blackstaff?

Only if the theory that Black Magic Taint (BMT) is from Outside is correct.

I don't think Harry has immunity to black magic, because it's something you do, it's something you on some level choose to be a part of and magic is of your identity, your beliefs. Can't protect from yourself.

I think BMT is more than that. If that was all it was reforming your beliefs would be something the White Council considered a possibility. They'd try to reform warlocks because some of the attempts in the past would have worked. Or the stuff Harry's been told about the subject of warlocks is a big old pack of lies.

By the way OP, totally agree that Supernatural's Death (played fantastically by the great Julian Richlings) was brilliant (especially with that haunting "O Death" intro) - at least in Season 5. I stopped watching about season 7 and only watched clips from later seasons but it seemed like they ruined it a bit, and then recast it. There's a show that probably should have stopped much earlier. But I digress.

Season 5 is where it should have ended if you think about it from a literary perspective instead of business. I eventually finished the whole thing. I liked the final episode. I don't think you need to watch anything past season 7 to watch that one episode.

It really depends on what Death is as to whether or not I want such a character in the series. I wouldn't mind if we met the Grim Reaper, but I'd prefer it if he was just another psychopomp, maybe one a bit more in charge of where the dead go than the ones we've seen so far, instead of some being in charge of all death everywhere. I don't think there's a lot of room for a supreme being devoted to death. It'd be a lot like what the WG has been in the DF, and I don't want to meet him either.

I don't mind authors answering questions they pose. I prefer it to leaving the questions totally up in the air. But what I like best is authors strongly suggesting answers. Once a character like season 5 death or the WG is introduced (in person, not just as a concept in the story), the author is answering too many questions too forcefully. And introducing characters like that, and the accompanying answers they provide to the big questions the author is posing, is often done really really poorly. Often insultingly poorly.

Anyway, few people see themselves as the villain of the story (unless you count the poorly written Even Hand.

Or Harry about half the time. I've never been a big fan of the "everyone is the hero of his own story" type statements, so I appreciate the few people formulation, but I'd probably go further. There are plenty of terrible people out there who know they're terrible. Plenty of villains in stories that know they only care for themselves and are after power for their own sake.

[1]Vadderung did help destroy the Red Court, as did Lea (another possible Black Council agent). Mab sent her Knight and her strongest servant to destroy the Red Court. Let's be real here - they were not merely protecting/aiding Harry or Ebenezer.
...
[2]Ethniu deliberately refers to it. Strangely, she seems to be saying she is above the game yet she also has a starborn on her roster so clearly she she wasn't just relying on brute force.

1) Mab was getting revenge for all the Accord violations and the violations of Faerie from DB. Plus getting them out of the way for whatever they'd be in the way of down the road. Maybe even intending to draw Ethnui and the Fomor out so she could deal with them sooner rather than later.

Harry and Eb are obviously Merlin's descendants, the bloodline curse was way over powered to hit just Harry and Eb, so it's also obvious that Odin didn't just teach Merlin but also fathered him. (The strength and confidence of this statement is meant as a joke).

2) Also ironic as she was being used as a pawn of Nemesis in the game.

I think Harry's probably already moved away from his reasoning that led him to call it the Black Council. Does that make it more likely that he was initially right?

I think he's referring to this:

Yeah.

I also remember something about "two sides of the same coin" and that the hellfire/soulfire distinction is more about the user than the source. Like Fallen use hellfire because the Fallen are evil and the angels use soulfire because they're good. If one used the other, it would be because they are no longer what they were. As Yuillegan points out, this was from Jim instead of Bob, so I was wrong about my source on that part.

My best guess is that both hellfire and soulfire are both powered by souls. It's mostly about intent of the user as to whether hellfire or soulfire comes out.

I don't recall if Dresden ever use Hellfire on a Denarian but I wondered if it would have garnered as strong as reaction from them (and other similarly divine beings) as Soulfire? I mean, they almost take it personally that he uses it. We haven't seen Dresden try and use Hellfire while hateful or trying cause horror and harm (attacks on Outsiders don't count I think). I wonder what would happen if he did? Would he convert it himself?

I think all this is evidence of my guess. For example, they way Namshiel reacts to Dresden's use of soulfire seemed to me as if Namshiel still used soulfire. His statements about it were present, not past, tense.

[1]I more meant that Harry's continued exposure to darkness is making him more resistant to influence and temptation than he otherwise might have been, as he possibly has inner darkness.
...
[2]Yes she did, but her actions are rather more volatile than Mab's. Never saw Mab throw a meat cleaver at someone for being rude.
...
[3]Does anyone else think that Justin's abuse went beyond the merely violent? Obviously it was psychological too, but something Jim said about how Twelve Months is about Harry dealing with a lot of repressed trauma...but yeah Harry had a bad hand regardless.
...
[4]I get what you're saying but Bob also says that Soulfire is how Angels do all their "stuff". I don't see how Fallen could operate if they were too different. Jim sort of answered this in a Q&A once, he said that Angels have access to Soulfire and Hellfire but which one they use sort-of determines what kind of Angel they are (Fallen or just normal Angel).

1) We know Harry is being prepared for what comes, so maybe the powers that be are working to expose/not protect/protect just enough Harry to/from temptation to build him up to where he needs to be?

2) Well, not a cleaver specifically, but she's certainly given Harry an attitude adjustment or two ... or a lot more. https://genius.com/Hank-williams-jr-attitude-adjustment-lyrics

3) I don't think Justin abused Harry sexually if that's what you're getting at. I do think Harry was abused sexually by the Red Court Vampires in GP.

4) The way angels work in traditional Christian theology, angels can't make choices in the same way as humans because they exist outside of time. Harry is a human who exists inside of time, so he could go back and forth from hellfire to soulfire if it's just about choice.

On page 112 of PT, Eb says Outsiders can't take a starborn's free will, but we've been told that about everything. That doesn't really make a starborn special.

On page 97 Eb says that "their minds can't be magically tainted by contact with anything from Outside."

However the dark magic itself is just corruption and temptation, that's not in and of itself an effect of Outsiders.  That's just Dark Magic.

That's speculation. We don't know why Black Magic is Black Magic. It could be related to the Outside. Plenty of people here have theorized that Black Magic Taint is Outsider taint.

Harry's dealt with temptation throughout the series. At first, he appears to be dealing with Black Magic Taint(, but as groinkick points out, it might have been something else). As he gets past that, he's exposed to Lasciel. Shortly after he gets rid of Lash and starts to recover from the anger issues she was helping along, he becomes the Winter Knight. Now that he has been getting better and better at managing the mantle's influence, he's engaged to Lara.

Basically anyone seeking to rely upon prophecy in the Dresdenverse [around Harry] is screwed.

FIFY.

@Dina: