I have visions of Young Warlocks held in Demonreach under the Contemplation Protocols whilst Georgia shrinks them in Group therapy.

Everybeing taken down by  Demonreach experiences the harm they have committed, certainly an important step in healing.

This is not a bad theory.  I wonder whether Demonreach can actually hold mortals.  Thomas and the "British Sounding Guy" are the only candidates to be "mortal" in any sense of the word.  Of course, Thomas may or may not qualify as "mortal." 

It may be that the White Court are more like the Coin Holders in that its the "demon" that makes them "immortal."  Mab considered Thomas "mortal enough" but at the same time she was going to use Justine as leverage for that, and as far as we know Mab's solution might be the same as Nemesis' solution.  Mab's solution might have been some kind of Unravelling too.  We just don't know. 

"British Sounding Guy," well that's about all we know of him.  He might be Merlin, King Arthur, some other Wizard, Just Some Guy or a jibbering lunatic demon that simply sounds like a pissed off British Guy (see, Chauncy). 

I am reading The High King to my kids. So good! Spoiler alert for this book:

Magic leaves Prydain after Arawn's defeat.

Could something similar occur in the Dresdenverse at the conclusion of the BAT? I'd be inclined to say no because magic is part of the "physics" of the universe, but perhaps if the Outsiders are finally defeated (big if) these physics could change. Maybe magical beings would still exist but not interact with mortals, unless they were divine/angelic. Maybe "talent" would no longer occur among mortals. Maybe God will hit a big ol' reset button (but not in a Matrix kind of way, shudder).

While I love that Book, my guess is that something happens in the BAT that turns our world into the world of the Cinder Spires.

The Fomor Servitors suddenly getting to be human, makes little sense to me.  If the Fomor Servitors are human, how are the White Court Vampires not human as well?

Both are "humans" with something not human grafted onto them.  White Court have little free will in being so, or at least the way that Lord Raith ran things. 

I suppose I need to try to be a bit clearer.  I'm not saying that the Fallen don't have real power, they do.  But, primarily what they offer to any of their hosts -- even Magog -- is knowledge.  Cheat codes for existence, for the small price of your soul. 

The Fallen are consummate liars as well.  The exaggerate and misrepresent what they actually do.  The purpose of these lies seem to get their hooks into you more and more, until you submit to being an actual agent of Hell. 

Let's say that the Fallen teach you to shape shift into a Grape Ape.  Grape Apes are awesome and lots of fun -- you get to throw barrels at little Italian plumbers and stuff all day.  But, the Fallen says -- if you toss my coin, you'll never be Kong again.  You believe the Fallen, because you couldn't do that before the Fallen.  Now you use or toss the Coin and because of your mistaken beliefs you can't go Kong anymore because you don't believe that you can.  Dumbo's magic feather.  You might know how to do it still -- in fact, I think you do -- but you don't believe that you can do it, and belief is all important to doing magic. 

Harry actually talks about this concept all the time, but he rarely thinks about its wider application. His duel with Hannah Lasher is an exception.  He contemplated that Hannah believed that she was more powerful because of Lasciel, but really it was because Lasciel riled up her rage.  Hannah could have learned to do even more potent fire magic on her own.  Harry exposes the "cheat code" approach for what it really is, because while Hannah's attack was more potent that Harry's defenses, Hannah didn't have the depth of experience and broader skill that comes with hard work.  And so, Harry essentially tricks Hannah into killing herself.

Yes, but not everyone can become an Alpha, there is some other stuff going on as well.  If you don't have that pre-existing talent, without a coin, I don't think it is going to happen.  I think the bigger question is why do you think you need to turn into anything with the power and strength that comes with it?  That is the temptation, Nic is very careful to match potential hosts with their coins, he had good reasons to match Lasciel with Harry.

Are we sure that not everyone can become an Alpha? Because the odds of a half-dozen or so friends at one particular college in Chicago learning to become werewolves at exactly the same time is pretty unlikely -- unless, literally anyone can do it if they have a teacher. 

Further, while Nic is "picky" about his flunkies, Tessa is notably the opposite.  She'll give a coin to whoever, seeing the people as disposable.

Yes, if he worked at it, but then again how many people teach conversational Etruscan these days?  Yes, with Lasciel's help Harry could and was able to understand the Ghouls.

Yes, precisely.  And, keep in mind Lash didn't actually TEACH Etruscan or Ghoul, she just translated UN style for him.  Now that she's gone, so is his translator.  She could have taught Harry Etruscan, but it probably would have taken a few weeks or months.  If she had, Harry would still know how to speak Etruscan. 

I think that if you review their time together, Lash constantly OFFERS to teach Harry things, if he only formally takes up the Coin.  But, she actually teaches him very little. 

She did teach him a pain suppression technique, which he has used since Lash departed.  She rarely gives away knowledge, as its her only lever.

No, you pretty much lose whatever skill you got with the bargain.  Look as Cassius, first things first, when he gave up his coin, he started to age rather rapidly to whatever his real age was.

Is that what really happened? Or is that just what Cassius believed happened?  After having been told for two-thousand years that he would age and swiftly die if he lost his Coin, did he come to believe and then his belief made it real? 

He didn't loose all of his Coin-acquired skills either as he could still do magic and produced a death curse at the end. 

One more metaphor to suggest somewhat of a compromise or synthesis of our theories:

Let's say I've been cast in a new movie -- the 600 Hundred -- which will be like 300 but with twice as many people.  I'm a big guy, but sadly a bit doughy around the middle now that I'm closing in on 50.  I could get back into shape, but it might take three or four years.  Besides, I don't myself have the knowledge about fitness and diet, etc. to turn myself into a Hollywood Spartan and just figuring all of that out could take me years all on its own.  Thankfully, the studio has that knowledge -- personal trainers, chefs and ... ahem ... pharmacologists eager and willing to help.  In six months time, they whip me into shape so that I don't look out of place next to Leonidas or Creepy Persian Man.  Now, replace those professionals with Fallen Angels telling me exactly what to eat, how much and when and knowing exactly what exercises, weights, reps and times will give maximum results.  Now, instead of being movie buff, I'm super human essentially and the star of the movie now.   

After the movie is over, the trainers, chefs and drug dealers have all left (or alternatively the Fallen Angel). I can't keep up that level of fitness anymore.  But, I've learned a ton and with some effort I can keep it up at least to a degree.  Maybe I can't be as fit as I was with those true professionals guiding me each step of the way, but I'm a great deal more fit than I was before they came and left.

I don't think so, the Alphas didn't need the coin to turn, and so far none of them have even tried to be other than what they are, werewolves.  As far as Marcone goes, at the end of the day, a wizard needs talent to power his spells.  The more talent, the more power, Thomas did say that everyone has some talent, but that doesn't make everyone potential wizards.  I think if Marcone had that kind of talent he would have used it to his advantage long before he picked up a coin.  If he dropped the coin he may still have the knowledge, but he'd lack the power to do any of the spells.

  Or a better example, when the Shadow of Lachiel was in Harry's head, he could understand many languages, read them, even speak them, after Lash sacrificed herself, he cannot do that, nor can he create Hell Fire anymore, though he can create fire..  That is the temptation of the coin, if you could do these things without the coin, why would you be tempted to pick it up?

My point is that the Alphas are proof that you don't need a coin.  I think that Alphas could turn into giant demon bears or grape apes -- just like Listens to Wind -- if they worked on it.  The Alphas are working on other stuff, just not grape apes, according to them.  Frankly, why would they?  wolves are almost ideal predators if you have a pack.  Grey proved to me that giant demon bears are not that practical. 

Harry could learn to speak all sorts of languages too -- if he worked on it -- I can't be bothered to learn Spanish, not because of an lack of use for it, but because I'm too lazy.  But, I'd take a Matrix download of Spanish in a heartbeat. 

In short, the temptation of the Coin is NOT the skills or the power per se, it's that they get to skip the hardship of EARNING those skills.  Hellfire might be the one exception.  You might not be able to channel Hellfire without that demonic bargain, whether express or implicit. 

In short, Marcone could become a Senior Council level wizard -- but he doesn't have the six hundred years of life and hard work it would take.  A Coin is a great short cut, so he gives into the temptation.  His further temptation is that if he could do X in a decade, what could he do with infinity?  I'm sure Namshiel TELLS him that if he ever gave the coin up, he couldn't do X anymore.  If Marcone believes him, then he won't be able to do X.  But, personally, I think it's a lie.  Once you learn to tie your shoes, magically speaking, you can. 

This actually ties into Alera a bit too, potentially rising to the level of a "theme" of Jim Butcher (a weight lifter and martial artist, I might add).  In the early books, the injustice we feel on behalf of Tavi  is NOT that the Aquitaines have nearly god-like power, it is the injustice that it seems to come so easily to them because of their blood while Tavi, who wants it very bad, works very hard and is admirable in almost every respect is denied that same power. 

In fact, we are not really shown any powerful crafter working on being a powerful crafter -- not even the students in Academ's Fury.  I would suggest that this was intentional on Butcher's part, to keep our sense of injustice well stoked.  In fact, Academ's Fury raised my sense of injustice because it just seemed as if the crafting rich got richer.   

After we have Tavi's training montage where Alera herself trains him (though much failure and hypothermia), we learn that even Invidia went through a lot of hardship and training as her father (whoever he was) sent her to learn from numerous master crafters and artisans to refine her skill over the course of years.

Then, as Alera's final act, she agrees to implement Tavi's merit based crafting program where humans will be limited only by their own expectations, desire and hardwork.  Injustice solved for all time. 

I'm going to be a bit contrarian here.  I don't think Harry is actually that good at magical combat.  I'll bet that he's maybe top 50 in the council, which considering their casualties over the past ten years is not as great as it seems. 

To use a combat sport analogy to explain, I'd say that Harry is a good puncher, but not a good boxer.  Like a lot of very hard hitters, it's a crutch for him and he leans on it way too much.  His duel with Hannah Asher was quite ironic, given that he was essentially fighting himself from only a few years prior.   

We've seen several examples of far less -- let's use the word energetic, rather than powerful -- practitioners demonstrate that they could be more than a match for Harry. 

It's actually a good thing for the narrative that he is so bad.  Given the potential power he wields, if he were also very skilled, it would lower the stakes.

I don't think Harry is going to get much out of the Journals.  They were a clever way to set up the existence of the Dresden Files themselves.  Harry -- after having saved the world -- sits down to write his memoirs, just like McCoy and his mentor and his mentor before him. 

Justine can still do a great deal of harm.  Who knows what secrets she had access to as Lara's Privy Secretary.  Granted, some of that information will eventually go stale, but there will be more damage to the White Court for certain.

One easy example: Justine/Nemesis knows that Lord Raith is a drooling moron.  That is not public knowledge, but suspected by some. 

Another easy example:  Justine's "betrayal" of Lara demonstrates Lara's relative incompetence at scheming, justifying (more) plots to depose her.  Yes, many of her serious enemies died during Blood Rites and Turn Cloak, but many remain, certainly.