I mean, unless Harry becomes immortal...which has been hinted at. But I think Harry might go the Vadderung model if he does, rather than the Mab one. Something a bit more flexible. That said, after everything Harry has been through I think it would almost cruel to have to live more in the mortal plane (whether he is immortal or otherwise). Harry deserves to find peace and be with his family again.

  If Harry dies, it will be at the end I hope surrounded by his children and grandchildren.  I don't want to see Harry made into some kind of immortal of any stripe.  He does deserve peace, and after it is over, if he is surrounded by friends and family, he will have it.

Well, it's just a philosophical position. Which doesn't mean he follows every tenet of it. But he does surely hold the central tenet of liberty (the freedom from oppressive restrictions imposed by an authority on one's life) is a core value of his. So, even if he isn't a Libertarian in the sense of a political movement (and I was a bit unclear on that, I apologise) he is a follower of the philosophy.

It doesn't make him a libertarian, it just makes him an ordinary human who wishes to havethe freedom to mostly live his life as he sees fit.  That's no different from the rest of us, and most of us understand there are still laws we all have to abide by or there would be anarchy.  Harry understands that also.

But I am not suggesting he believes the world would be better without the White Council, yet. I do think he thinks the world is better off without a corrupt one, though. Which I think it could be argued the current one, is.

I don't think anyone disagrees with that except maybe some of the old fossilized wizards, however having said that I don't think for the most part that the White Council is corrupt so much as it needs to be reformed and updated to fit better into the 21st  Century.

As Ebenezar has pointed out, Harry is being isolated. By his own choice, to a degree. But also by his new allies like Mab. From Harry's perspective, he is making the best choices he can. But that doesn't mean he isn't being isolated.

However that isn't an isolation of choice on Harry's part.. That kind of isolation isn't the same as choosing to be a loner.

Ultimately though, Harry himself admits openly his distrust and disdain for authority. Every single book has had him clash with some sort of authority. I would even go so far to say it's a core part of his character - to clash with authority. He has improved a lot since the early days, is a bit wiser about how he goes about it and understands the issues better now. But he doesn't want to rule anyone, because he himself doesn't wish to be ruled.

Again, I disagree, Harry has reason to distrust authority, but that isn't the same as having a disdain for authority.  His clashes with authority in most of the books is about what the rules should be and living by those rules, not about disregarding the rules. 

Something else to consider. If the White Council had an enemy or group of enemies out there, who wanted to remove them, who found them inconvenient - one of the best and oldest tricks to do it is divide and conquer. Now, what enemy might the White Council have? A shadowy organisation with links to eldritch demon gods...? If, say, that organisation knew of a powerful, rebellious wizard and knew that by isolating him and playing into his fears and pressuring him it might send him on a collision course with the White Council, how might they go about that?

Well, that is a technique as old as when mankind first began to organize into groups.  In this case it isn't Harry doing the isolation, the White Council is it's own worst enemy.  The enemy plays upon the White Council's own fossilized view of the world, not much Harry can do about that.  He has clashed with the White Council at Molly's trial, and Rashid has foretold that he will clash with them again... However that doesn't mean that it is a bad thing if he does.

Would they just tell him to attack the White Council, make some offer for power that he wouldn't take? Or would they turn his allies against him? Misconstrue his actions and best intentions to look as bad as possible? Create an environment of fear and distrust in order to push people to act in certain ways, say, kicking a White Council hero off the team? Target his friends and family in order to get him to act rashly? Perhaps even put years of work into him just to get him to the moment he might act?

Except I cannot see Harry doing that, nor does the series point to that happening in my opinion.  Harry is too logical a being, that's part of his makeup as a good private detective.

Harry is perfectly capable of killing the black magic crazed warlocks, but he would want to give a shot at rehabilitation to all the border cases. He thinks the council should make an effort to save those who are not far gone, and he'd argue for lifting the Doom for their trainers. Setting up a central lor several regional schools and requiring Council members to staff them for a set term would at least give them a chance to save the next generation.

Agreed, though I think the Merlin was right in the case of the Koren Kid, he was too far down the tubes to rehab with the Doom. I do think Harry was also right when he argued in Molly's defense, that most of these kids deserve a chance at rehab.  The problem Harry will run into will be the same problem that the Merlin and the White Council have run into, enough qualified wizards willing to take on the risk of being responsible for an apprentice under the Doom, since they themselves would suffer the same fate if the apprentice went full warlock.  And yes, I think Harry capable of executing a full warlock kid.  Harry may find himself having to reform the system so that it is fair to kids who do dumb dangerous stuff with their new found talent before they know better, and at the same time weeding out those who cannot be redeemed... Easier said than done...

Assuming he survives "when all is said and done".

I think what's particularly interesting to consider is how long Harry will live, and how much will we see of his whole existence. Wizards live several hundred years, and give this story goes into the End of Days and is titled "The Dresden Files" one might assume we see his whole story. Jim has openly said in previous interviews that he isn't sure if Harry will survive the series.

Not maybe as we have known him, but Harry will survive.  But then again, Jim is now successful enough that if he loses some readers because he kills Harry off it won't hurt him that much.  Also consider, Jim has already "killed" Harry off once and brought him back, and he isn't the same Harry he was before, nor is his world.

t only that, I think it should be noted that Harry fundamentally rejects authority. While he has matured and become less abrasive, he ultimately still dislikes the idea of any governing body being in charge of him or anyone else. He's quite the libertarian. So, in the event the White Council does dissolve, I don't know that Harry would be the one to rebuild it. That's more of a Carlos type-of-thing.

Yes, young Harry rejected authority in a lot of ways, corrupt authority especially.  I disagree, Harry is no libertarian, not in the classic sense.  Up until they rejected him outright, Harry had a lot of respect for the White Council from just the way he talked about it.  No, he didn't follow all the rules all of the time, but more out of nessesity rather than disregard for them or belief that they didn't have merit.  Go back to his debate with the Merlin in his defense of Molly in Proven Guilty, that wasn't argued by a libertarian, it was argued by a future Merlin wanting the White Council to follow it's own rules.  Carlos maybe still young but he still represents the old guard, Harry is the new.

Dresden is an outsider (not the monster...probably...that's another theory for another day). But he doesn't want to be part of the establishment. He likes being on the outer. Look at his last conversation with Carlos.

Harry didn't leave the White Council, the White Council left him.  I also disagree that Harry likes being an outsider, he cannot afford to be with the BAT coming.  He has to learn to play well with others and become a leader.  This is what makes the series interesting, Harry has to evolve and is evolving, he has had to learn to play nice with some and reject others, watching him grow up is what makes the series compelling.

I think Harry and Lara do marry ...do the wild thing honeymoon...and Lara conceives...just a afterthought twist... besides Maggie needs to be a big sister. 😳😜👍

She already is..

I don't think Chandler was all that young, or that we know he had any "rapid rise in rank."  I got much more of a sense that he was long-established as a warden (and rather older than Dresden), by the time we first meet him.  Of course, this would just put him into the "50-250" range of wizardly "almost unaging," so we can't really be at all sure.

  I don't think Chandler is that much older than Harry, but I agree he is older, perhaps fifty to seventy.  I do think though that he has been a Warden a lot longer than either Harry or Carlos. 

Not sure about WoJ. My gut still says Chandler is a bad guy and that Drakul didn't send him to a bad place. I mean, really. Why waste a wizard level talent by sending them to nothingness when you could turn him into a Blampire?

Odd, I feel the opposite, I predict that in Mirror Mirror Harry will rescue and return with him and the White Council won't trust him because of it. Thus Chandler will also be kicked not only out of the Wardens but the White Council as well.  This will allow him to join Harry and fill the role left vacant by the retirement of Michael, imprisonment of Thomas, and rejection of friendship by Carlos.

The naive (aka ignorant) POV is one of the key types of "unreliable narrator."

And Harry is always ignorant.

  That,isn't true because always[/i ] implies an absolute..  Harry may be or can be ignorant in some areas, but he isn't always ignorant in all areas.. However if you want to agree that you too are always ignorant, I will admit to that as well, since there are a lot of things you and I don't know, thus are always ignorant.

He starts that way (q.v. Jim writing an actual, literal, "talking head" to "educate" Harry); but, despite how much he has learned, Harry stays that way:

    he's a magical heavyweight, and he's fighting his way into the deeper & murkier end of the supernatural power-pool
    he's also a PI, so he inquires & investigates as a central element of his professional life

Despite all he has learned, he keeps forging out beyond what he knows, into new areas... areas where he's still ignorant.

Or do you call that curiosity?  Without curiosity there is no progress.. However exploring new areas isn't simple, it is always complicated, and an intelligent person knows he or she doesn't know everything.. So Harry is a detective, he is investigating to find answers, but with the answers come more questions to find answers to..  Yup, Harry is ignorant, just like you and I.

Finally, I reiterate:  Jim himself says that Harry is an unreliable narrator.  When professional writer (who has not only a bunch of successful novels, but a bunch of academic & workshop training in writing) says "I used this well-known method" ... I honestly don't understand why it's so important to you to deny it.

Just Googled it;

What Is an Unreliable Narrator in Writing? An unreliable narrator is an untrustworthy storyteller, most often used in narratives with a first-person point of view. The unreliable narrator is either deliberately deceptive or unintentionally misguided, forcing the reader to question their credibility as a storyteller.Sep 29, 2021

Yes, the Dresden Files is written in the first person.
 
Is Harry an untrustworthy storyteller?  Sometimes due to his own errors and mistakes, but is he always untrustworthy? No, he isn't..

Is Harry deliberately deceptive in his story telling?  I'd say not..

Unintentionally misguided? Sometimes, but not always..

Forcing the reader to question their credibility as a storyteller?  For some of you apparently.. However when you have lived as long as I have, it is easier to see the whole picture of a person's life, the series covers a huge chunk of Harry's life.  Perhaps I am the only one here, but there is no way I could read and reread over a dozen books written in the first person if I felt the story teller had no credibility as a story teller.. What a waste of my time!  And yes, Jim is a good successful writer, he knows that as well!  He skillfully mixes the two, the reliable with the unreliable, so we are looking for the truth along with Harry, thenwhen the truth is found, and since it is written in first person, we the reader usually accept the truth, that Harry has found out and is reliably telling us!   

OK, this is an entirely different point!  And it can be a crutch, yes; but equally, it can be simply point out that just because Harry says such-and-such is "true" (like his early reports of Mab being "the archetypal evil queen"), that too isn't really "evidence" that "such-and-such" is a "truth" of the Dresdenverse.

Thank you, that is my point! Too many use it as a crutch..

Yes, I am merely pointing out that what Harry said when he was young and inexperienced might not be true,but for him in that point in time, it was true.. So the picture he paints of Mab in Summer Knight was unreliable. However as he gotten older and understands more, the picture he paints of Mab now, is much more reliable.  Or if Jane Austin wrote "Pride and Prejudice" in the first person, that person being Elizabeth, or Darcy for that matter, both would be very unreliable narrators because their first impressions of each other were totally wrong.

It's a 1st-person-POV story, so Harry only "knows" what the author writes him as knowing... and as noticing, in the moment (for example, there's the scene where Lash reveals there was a veiled figure at the Ordo Lebes meeting); though Harry is a keen observer, e.g. Harry noticed Abby's medic-alert bracelet.

It is, what it is, right? 

But most of all, Jim himself attests that Harry is an unreliable narrator, and that Harry has a fairly simple & "straightforward" perspective, and mostly doesn't  grasp the subtler (and more-correct) nuances of many situations & individuals.

Or more to the point, the author is giving himself wiggle room for changing his mind later in a long series or CYAing for his own mistakes that his "Beta Readers" might miss.  So it all has to be taken with a grain of salt.  I just think too many times it is a convenient excuse for posters who fail to adequately back up their own posts.  If they can't prove their point the fall back line is Harry is an unreliable narrator..

Early Mab was written as the stereotypical "mythical villain" figure, the archetype and prototype of all Evil Queens (and Kings, &c); later we see that she's cold&hard because she's Winter, but possibly the single mightiest champion who's fighting on behalf of Creation.

But Harry's early perceptions of Mab,or of Morgan for that matter, don't make Harry an unreliable narrator.  They were accurate as he saw them at the time as a young inexperienced wizard.  When we first meet Harry he is a young wizard in his mid-twenties, a lot has happened to him, the characters, and the world around him in the last 35 years, and with them his perceptions  Though he writes in first person, he writes not as a historian beginning the first page of the book," back in 1982 these are the events as I remember them.." No, his tale reads in first person, in that time period, as he perceived it in that time as a young man.  I bet if you were to try and narrate a story about your life at 25, even with a daily diary, you'd do some correcting about the people you've met and how you saw the world at that time, at 50 you see the people you have met and the world around you differently.  So for as he saw it at the time, right or wrongly, I think Harry is quite reliable.. That doesn't make him always correct, but for that moment as he saw it, he was.. Now often he will correct or admit he was wrong about events and characters as the series goes along.  Events, information have changed his impressions of characters like Mab and Morgan in addition to his own maturity.

Harry's "unreliable" narration is from a place of ignorance, & an unrealistically-simplistic perspective.

No more than any human perspective, looking at the series as a whole, I think you can say Harry's perspective is a hell of a lot less simplistic in the last five books, from what it was in the first five..  Harry's narration is reliable for the time period he was writing in, it has shown mental and emotional growth over the series.  His world has become more complex, he has a character has become more complex and matured.

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." -Mark Twain.Mar 24, 2015

The same can be said of Harry..

Harry the unreliable narrator with a very confusing backstory even without the constant shifts?

Is he?  Everyone says that yet outside of a few short stories he is the only narrator we've got. So is he a liar? Just stupid? Maybe senile when he wrote his story?  Unless you got an alternative story out there..

Let's jump back to Star wars for the metaphor of chosen Orphan. Did luke know... Anything that was true? Leia what about Rey?

What has that to do with anything?  Harry is a starborn, he would be so whether he was an orphan or not.  As far as his names go as Harry explains back in Fool Moon, it isn't the names themselves that would give Chauncy power over him, it is giving him, his names..  Harry was careful even to change the inflection of how to say the names he did give him to try and prevent Chauncy from having power over him..  Didn't matter if his name was John Jinglehimer Smith, or Harry David Copperfield Dresden, it was giving his name or part of his name that gave Chauncy power over him and what he bargained for.

I find it far more likely they named him together, as they were indeed together before her death 👀

So what if they did? Harry's name in of itself has no power, at least up to this point it hasn't shown itself to have power of any kind or protection.

I find it fair less likely Malcolm named him unilaterally and just by happenstance gave him the extra protection of names in a verse where such things actually matter.(Something Harry mentioned in storm front, FM, GP, ECT)

Whether Malcolm did or didn't give him those names unilaterally doesn't matter.  The name, Harry, in of itself has no power or protection, nor David, nor Copperfield, nor Dresden, what gives power is that they are his names.

Again:  do we know this?  Was he on-board with the "starborn" scheme?  I don't really count the scene in the dream (around the campfire), because it's evident that Malcolm was VERY clued-in at that point.

Oh I think he was more clued in than you think, at least the importance of the conception, even if he didn't fully understand.  This is hinted at both by Margaret herself during Harry's soul gaze with Thomas in Blood Rites and when Lash begins to tell him about his power over Outsiders in White Night.  It takes two to make a baby, and that's even more important in the case of a star born.