Hard to say.
As I said I'm not a fan of this True Love thing - I'd much prefer it to be sort of mental duel with such vampire than some almost excuse random category. With Skavis and Malvora you have to prove your virtue to burn those bastards.

I really hoped that Murphy would die by a freshly killed Jotun falling on her rather than something like death by Rudy, once it became apparent she had been marked for death.

I think I remember you making such "prophecies" when youtube trailer appeared.

"Totally worth it" - huh?

I agree.
But also WOJ says that supernatural beings do not change their natures really. We just learn more about them as story progress.
And personally while I support totally supes getting high and mighty on spiritual or psychic power of faith of believers, I'm really tired of trope that gods/titans/faeries are just some manifestations of human belief and do not exist really beyond that.

Of course notion that various creator Gods of various religions are just overall notion of THE CREATOR, is something that was quite commonly accepted among Ancient Church Fathers, like primordial memory from time of original Fall, and then Flood.

Dunno. Maybe Murphy's death breaks it.
Weren't he and Lara been able to shake hands?

Ah, I like that better. So, if he really changed his mind, I am glad. Still, intimacy works for my idea. Dresden and Murph have not been so intimate until PT.

I mean depends how widely you treat intimacy.
Now I'd generally prefer it repelance for psychic vampires were simply countering their emotional frequencies - fear with courage, despair with hope, lust with restraint - but I guess restraint against lust would make it virtually impossible for Dresden to ever be protected and he would be eaten by Inari.

According to Dob it has to do with exchanging pieces of your soul.

But then hope against Skavis works.. how?

It seems more likely that his Dresdenverse versions of gods are manifested Avatars of Creation rather than specifically angel children, because that'd be too much like saying one religion (the Abrahamic three, really) are above others. I don't get the sense that that's his intent.

I don't know. So far abrahamic powers (even Fallen ones) seems to trump any others, including Ethniu and her fine armour - and her reaction for both Sword!Angel and Namshiel point out to some common history, and calling Sword (maybe Uriel) a traitor, points to some former common history and camraderie.
And TBH you have to make decisions as a writer - you cannot make all religions equally true, because well overalapping metaphysics is not all that working together. Reality needs to be consistent. Then on the other side - well even abrahamic religions in those books are sort of vanilla Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, than real Abrahamic religions creed, so there's that.

Now of course there are also other things - Odin and Ethniu are called Elemental Forces of Creation so it can points to some lesser angelic spirits (lesser than well Archangels whose duties probably encompass galaxies and probably many universes at once) who were responsible for shaping / maintaining structure of our maybe no Universe at large, but our Earth - so they are powerhouses here, it's sort of their domain so they command much more actual power than extremely restrained angels but in terms of actual level of power so far Angels fallen or not trumps those chthonic powers.

Then we have WOJ about multiverse and how free will split universes - so it's quite possible for "Abrahamic God" here maintaining free will is like maintaining mechanism of keeping multiverse big - this way for each universe devoured by Outside you've got countless more.

PS. And we have WOJ that THE CREATOR sacked all pagan gods from their jobs for being basically awful so you know any believing pagans can be sort of offended from the get go. Maybe except of Asatru.

I think UF/PF should have tropes of either crime, thriller, romance story mixed with fantasy stuff in real world. Otherwise it's horror.

Murphy can leave Valhalla when the memory of her has faded from mortal memory and using faded vs forgotten means something different than no memory. Her memory only has to be weakened or diminished it's just a matter of how faded to use Webster's definition. So there are ways she could return sooner than that or BAT

Gard was using language of imprecise nature, but somehow I doubt it means - oh, it's only 50% weaker so you can be back.

LKH is Laurell Kaye Hamilton author of the Anita Blake series that she ran/turned a great to start to series into a porn/orgy fest while writing the main as a hero even though she is firmly on the side of the antagonist and drove a good chunk of fans away.

Ah, ok. I considered reading Anita Blake stories until I read about how main arc changes. That's quite irksome, yes.

Dosen't help fans that are wondering if continue to read DF is a good idea after BG , PT and Murphy being removed to find out that Jim is friends with her and thinks that a crossover would be cool.

I must say Butcher teasing multiverse is the WORST.
I can accept few splited timeline, but when according to WOJ each choice split reality it cheapens free will imensely. I mean literally that makes free will some bizzare mechanism to produce more alternative universes, not a real power of choice
That's what being comics nerd is gonna do to you

Nevertheless I somehow doubt we gonna see a real crossover, maybe some tribute, and while I get PT/BG has it's problem, I don't think it's anywhere shift so drastic as what Hamilton did with Blake.

The problem that most have with Murph's death is how it was done and handle afterward. We had what 17 books and side stories of H and K interaction and foundation building in the series only for her to used as a something to gut punch Harry and then no real show any kind of fallout to her death after Butters and Sanya snapped him out of turning Rudolph into a bloody smear. Then at the end we have Jim forcing Harry and Lara together it feels like he did it just to get Karrin out of the way for Lara

Well here we are bit in a traps of formula aspect. Fast paced, time constrained events overall limits character development much (and usually it happens only in stories despite them covering like 1% of time) - exception was "Ghost Story" which sort of used "while-you-were-gone" scenarios - but even then it was used to torture Harry a bit. I mean let's face it - those stories are very Harry-centric. Maybe bit too much. So basically what happend to others from story perspective is by blood demiurge Butcher considered in large as way to punch Harry in some hard way.
Like look - he witness like every death of character known to him in the Battle. (ok with Wild Bill and Yoshimo sort of ONLY direct aftermatch).

I think Murphy was planned to die - and I think also her Valhalla ascencion was planned since at least "Changes" (and mind is WOJ is that Karrin was meant to die even earlier - but she was too cool) - but method of killing was done in quite Harry-centric way - first she saved his life from the giant, then she was killed in such sudden, random way by minor villain - to push Harry to a dark side a bit (and even this was stopped by Knights - because for all teasing Butcher is not comfortable with those morality blurs for serious).

Also I kinda think - wedding with Lara will be sort of make for laughs, and there will be no real romance.
I mean in first draft of series - there was no 12 months - just mirror mirror.
I think most crucial thing was killing Murphy before Mirror, Mirror - to torture Dresden even more in MM. I mean it's usually to torture Dresden.

Which is a real disappointment, a bitch showdown between the two might have been kind of interesting...

Molly/Lara bitch showdown will be more than enough XD

Oh, I insist with some of my first reactions of BG. Harry and Murphy finally have sex only because JB needed Harry engaged with Lara but not vulnerable. The whole point was to give Harry True Love protection. If not for that, Murphy and Harry would have been still in the "will they, won't they" stage, and I would feel better. Because it's awful that any romantic partner Harry had has been killed or enthralled.

But by WOJ you don't have to have sex to estabilish True Love protection though intimacy helps.
(Now other thing I really dislike this True Love schtick for whampires, and I think it does not fit at all with how you repell fear and despair whampires according to WOJ - which is by courage and hope - so my take is romantic love True or not is not anathema, opposition of lust. Usually it's tamer of it - but not direct opposition. In other cases we have more like emotional state that is in direct opposition of what whampire try to do to you.

Also I think not... overall. Murphy was goner, she had to die before Mirror, Mirror so alt-Murphy would be greater torture for Harry.
But that also sort means Murphy had to went into loved one stage to hit those nails even harder. So I think even without Lara they would get together before her demise to put things in most devastating position before we seen Darth Dresden World.