laura_be:

Did you mean the SENIOR Council (seven)? Because there are hundreds of members of the White Council, and the majority of them are probably NOT a match for Harry.

Tactics are how you handle yourself when the rubber hits the road, in the heat of battle. Harry not only excels as a tactician, it's one of the things that's kept him out of a grave up until now.

I'm aware of the definition of tactics and strategy, but I'm not interested in getting into a semantic argument.

Anyway, Harry's tactics are not very good. He often just lashes out blindly with all his power when he should be holding back at first, playing a defensive game, or even cutting and running. And he does not make good use of what he has. To give an example, consider the two times he has used soulfire constructively (as a big hand against the Denarian and as a rope against the skinwalker), it has been extremely effective. But most times all Harry uses it for is to supercharge his fire attacks, which wears Harry out quickly. That is not good tactics.

It is more than just strength. There is skill. Most, if not all, Senior Council members would beat Harry in a fight, since they are much more skilled and experienced.

He already can use the laser beam trick when he fight the giant scorpion in changes,

Giant scorpion? When was that exactly?

I wrote my reaction to Ghost Story the other day, I'll just copy paste it here:

Nice review. I agree with almost all of it, except "by enlarge" 

ARGH WHAT ABOUT BOB? Did he take down Nazi Bob? Will Harry get back Bob so he can stop being super dork Bob?

Yeah, then he can go back to dirty old man Bob. Makes you wonder where Bob got that from, considering that with Butters he took after Butters' personality.

One thing that confuses me though. I understand that Harry's body was kept alive and maintained by Mab and Demonreach, but why exactly did his soul go back to it? Did Uriel send him back? or did Mab and Demonreach force it back somehow?

EDIT (fixed error pointed out by Snaps At Fireflies)

Harry died and his spirit left his body. Apparently his spirit was kept on hold for 6 months, then someone decided to give his spirit a chance to go back as a ghost. After that, Uriel gave Harry a choice to work for him in the between, or to go on to what is next. Harry chose to go on, which turned out to be to return to his body, so apparently Uriel sent his spirit back to his body.

A more difficult question is why Harry's spirit was kept on hold for 6 months. I'm afraid the answer is that the story Jim wanted to tell required that everyone else be 6 months along past Harry's shooting and disappearance. I suppose we could say that Uriel wanted to give Harry some perspective, and Uriel thought that was best accomplished by waiting 6 months. Yeah, that's the ticket.

though i'm also inclined to think that mab, who's been around for ages, would probably have considered the possibility that harry would try something to get out of their agreement.

We do not seem to be communicating very well.

Of course Mab was alert to the possibility of a trick from Harry. That is why Harry had Molly erase his memory of ordering the hit on himself, because otherwise Mab would have seen it in Harry's mind when he accepted the Winter Knight position. If Mab knew that Harry was going to kill himself, she would probably either not accept him as Winter Knight, or would thwart the suicide attempt. Since Mab did accept him, and did not know about the shooting until afterwards, it is clear that Molly successfully hid the memory from Mab. But that means that Harry would not have ordinarily though of killing himself, since he did not try it again once he was no longer in despair, and Mab did not see any specific issues in Harry's mind.