Dresden Files Reread - Storm Front Chapter 8

 

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Dresden, get your fucking cat fixed. 

Dresden gets home, and we get a description of his basement apartment and the boarding house it's in. We are finally introduced to Mister, Dresden's inexplicably enormous tomcat. Mister is a wonderful cat, and I don't get on people for doing the indoor/outdoor thing, but if you're gonna do that, you really need to get them neutered. (Doing this early on might also have spared Harry some embarrassment in Summer Knight). Did they not have low-cost spay/neuter programs in Chicago at this point in time? Actually, this raises an interesting question. There's a popular fan theory that Mister is half-Malk, which would technically make him a changeling. Since Malks talk, and Mister doesn't, he presumably either Chose mortal or didn't Choose at all. Given that he was at least 17 and still going strong the last time we saw him, I'm betting on the latter (this is also the strongest evidence we have that he is part fae). But in either case, Mister is running around out there siring little quarter-Malk kittens, and like, are they changelings? Do they have to Choose? Do Malk changelings even get the Choice, given that they're half cat rather than half human? 

Once he's said hello to the cat, Dresden goes down to the lab to do some potion making, which is referred to here and (as far as I can recall) nowhere else as "alchemy". We get some discussion of how he handles heat and light, since gas and electricity are out of the question. 

Then we get introduced to Bob. As they argue about whether Dresden will make a love potion as well as the escape potion he actually needs, I was struck by how mean they are to each other. This isn't the playful banter we get in later books, it feels hostile. If we found out any time before Dead Beat that Bob's personality reflects his owner, this would be really cool, subtle characterization of Dresden, and it's still very effective on a reread. It also puts an interesting light on Dresden's self-perception throughout the middle and later books that he's becoming a worse person. "These days, I'm not a very nice person." (Proven Guilty). Bob becomes more pleasant, more moral, and nicer to Dresden over time. In this book, Bob is hostile to Harry. He's also lazy, sneaky, transactional, and generally kinda sketch. Which implies that, at this point in the series, Dresden is a similarly sketchy dude – and he fucking hates himself. 

On the subject of character development, in White Night, when Dresden is having Lasciel-induced anger issues, he at one point has to stop what he's doing and count to ten, and reflects that he hasn't had to do that since he was a kid. In this scene, however, he has to count to 30 to not smash Bob's skull. The time gap should be something like 7 years, but he isn't a "kid" here, he's in his 20s. Did Dresden just...forget how angry he was in the early books? Is Lasciel fucking with his recall in White Night? Is he just really, really committed to the idea that he's only become a worse person as time has gone on?

I find the mechanics of potion making in this series kind of fascinating, and I don't think I'm alone in that. Consistent with the idea that magic comes from life, and especially from people, five of the eight ingredients for each potion represent, not the elements or the directions or some other schema of the natural world, but the five senses. The others are the base liquid, and ingredients representing the mind and spirit. Much of the ritual magic we see later in the series uses a similar component spread, albeit with no liquid and two sets of sensory items, one specific to the caster and one specific to the working, rather than a single set based on some unspecified interaction between caster and intent. There's also no magic circle here, but maybe the beaker or cauldron like, is the circle? I would love to know what the process is for getting sounds into jars. Honestly, I would read a whole short story just about Dresden gathering potion ingredients. 

Also, Dresden presents potion-making as a stress hobby, something he does to unwind and productively kill time when he can't sleep, but there's more to it than that. He can literally put his difficult emotions (worry, anger, stubbornness) into the potions, and then they're in there, providing energy for the magic, rather than in him where they do nothing useful and make it hard for him to sleep. This is how a lot of magic works in this would, and while Dresden presents himself as just a huge magic nerd with no social life, I think it's possible that the reason he has no other hobbies might be tied to the fact that he has no other coping skills. 

Information about low cost spay/neuter in Chicago can be found here. Most major cities have programs like this, and some states offer low-cost spay/neuter to Medicaid or SNAP recipients. 

Be gay, do crimes, and get your cats fixed. 

Dresden Files Reread - Storm Front Chapter 7

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Apparently I actually covered a substantial portion of Chapter 7 in the previous post, and it was already only a bit over 13 minutes of audiobook, so this is going to be a short one. 

The rest of the chapter is just Dresden driving home and thinking about his backstory with Morgan, the White Council, and his old mentor Justin DuMorne, who at this point I think still hasn't been named. 

Do you know, the way Dresden lays it out here, especially in light of additional details we get in Ghost Story, the Doom of Damocles actually seems like a pretty reasonable choice, legally speaking. I'm opposed to punitive justice in general, incarceration, and especially the death penalty, so my discussion here is solely on the legal argument, not the moral one. Dresden killed DuMorne, and they had literally only his word that it was in self-defense. A third party, Elaine, was also thought to have died in the resulting fire, and we're never told how her "death" fit into the proceedings. We've got one dead warlock, whom the White Council was thitherto unwilling or unable to bring in, one apparently dead apprentice, and the other obviously traumatized apprentice who admits to killing them (or at least DuMorne), and says he was protecting himself. Honestly, if DuMorne hadn't been a known bad guy, I think they would have killed Dresden on the spot, and it wouldn't surprise me if Dresden's status as a Starborn and McCoy's grandson played more of a role in the decision to risk keeping him alive than any self-defense argument. 

And that's the other thing. It wasn't actually self-defense. Not by any standard that would hold up in a mortal court of law. Not unless there's something big that we still don't know about what happened after Harry ran away. He went back to the house. He didn't have to. As far as we know, he ran away, he fought He Who Walks Behind, he decided he needed to take out DuMorne, he went to the Leanansidhe for help getting strong enough to do it, and then he went back to challenge DuMorne, and he killed him. That is, by any conventional legal standard, premeditated murder. He thought Elaine had turned against him voluntarily, so he didn't have the dubious defense of trying to rescue her. It was reasonably clear that DuMorne wasn't going to stop coming after him, and Dresden didn't know about the White Council, but he had access to Lea, and he could have made a deal with her for protection, rather than for the power to defeat DuMorne. I don't know how much of that background the Council had, and their definition of self-defense may well include "he was going to keep magically attacking me from a distance unless I stopped him", but the whole thing look's sketchy as hell, and I honestly can't fault Morgan or the Council for continuing to be suspicious at this point in the story. 

Dresden Files Reread - Storm Front Chapter 6

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Mister is mentioned again at the beginning of this chapter, but still gets no discussion or description. We haven't even been told he's a cat. So I guess this is an early version of "Tell us something your cat does but say 'My roommate...'"? Dresden only stops home long enough to collect some supplies, and then it's off to the Sells's lake house. On the way, we are introduced to the Blue Beetle in all its mismatched glory. 

We get another one of these intensely detailed descriptions of Lake Shore Drive and the house itself. I will never know for sure why it matters how big the driveway of this house is, but I do know. I'm being picky here - this kind of detail is a great way to show that Dresden is casting about, not sure what he's looking for, and technically this is the first indication we get of the possibility that there could be large gatherings happening here, but it's a lot of detail and it takes kind of a long time. This is also where we get the film canister, which Dresden nominally picks up because they're useful for holding spell ingredients, but he neither notices by feel that there's film inside nor thinks to check. 

As much as Dresden is here to have a look around, he's also here to summon fairy assistance. This is where we get the introduction on how True Names work. It's also where to get introduced to "magic circle theory". Putting it that way makes it sound as thought there is a whole field of magical study on the construction and application of magic circles. Which, now that I think about it, is actually backed up by the variety of materials and activation techniques we see throughout the series, and the number of different ways we see them used. Dresden talks in various books about the importance a of neat, geometric circle, the use of plain circles versus other shapes, and the significance of which way you draw a pentagram. Hell, in the next book we get introduced to Greater Circles, and the specialized materials they require. We've got circles for protection, containment, summoning, rituals, and all but the most simple (and thus potentially least powerful) require items or materials specific to their purpose. Magic circles are a whole thing. 

Oh, we also get the like, 98 level on thresholds, but not details yet on how human practitioners, or anything but vampires, interact with them, although we are given a general impression that they aren't great for human wizards. 

Dresden summons Toot Toot, a dewdrop fairy who makes a lot of threats, including to tell the Queen, before agreeing to ask around whether any of the local small fae have seen anyone at the house. I have two things here. First of all, we're introduced to the way that the fae can be bound by a promise made thrice. Also though, to which Queen is Toot referring? There are six, and while Dresden isn't yet aware of that, Toot Toot certainly is. He's also a wildfae, with no stable allegiance to either Court. Given which solstices we're between, and the fact that all the other options would be way too dangerous, my money's on Aurora, but the unspecificity is weird. 

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Dresden has to wait around for a while, but when Toot Toot returns, he reports that mortals were recently "sporting" (having sex) in the lake house, and needed pizza to regain their strength. Dresden guesses, not unreasonably, that Victor Sells is there with a mistress and not doing anything spoopy after all, but worries, also reasonably, that telling Monica this will upset her, and that she might not believe him. His sympathy with Victor's possible boredom with a "timid, domestic wife" is kinda misogynistic, and it bugs me a little because by wording the same idea only a little differently, this could have been presented as Dresden understanding human nature well enough to know where Victor is likely coming from but not thinking his actions were valid. This is where we find out that fairies like pizza, and Dresden dismisses Toot Toot after agreeing to try to get pizza sent to the local little folk. 

And then Warden Morgan shows up. He's already got his sword out, and he's all ready to kill Dresden on the spot for violating the fourth law of magic. The book doesn't actually tell us what the Fourth Law is, so let's review. The Fourth Law of Magic says "Thou Shall Not Enthrall Another". In practical terms, it forbids any mind control of humans (except sleep spells), and the binding to your will of creatures from the Nevernever. It does not forbid using a nonhuman creature's true name to get its attention, or even forcibly summoning it, nor does it preclude using basically any means of coercion to get a human or a supernatural being to do what you want, as long as you don't directly mind control them. This feels important because Morgan asserts that Dresden's defense that a) he did not bind Toot Toot to his will and b) the broader application of the fourth law that would forbid using his true name to "suggest" he walk into Dresden's trap only applies to humans is a "technicality", and Dresden pretty much accepts that (while asserting his willingness to hide behind those technicalities). But... it's kind of not. Dresden is pretty unambiguously in the clear here, and either doesn't know it or would rather be antagonistic to the heavily armed magic cop than point it out. (Protip: "I just leaned on him a little" does not sound like the argument of an innocent man). Morgan clearly does know it, he was just using the summoning as an pretext to harass Dresden because he thinks Dresden is the one killing people with magic. He stops Dresden from leaving. Dresden punches him in the face. Morgan expresses his suspicions, which Dresden thinks must be coming from someone higher up in the Council. Then he punches Dresden in the face, and the chapter pretty much ends there. 

Food: As part of the fairy trap, Dresden brings milk, fresh baked bread, and honey in a squeeze bear. The bread does not contain any preservatives, but we are not given similar information on the quality or origins of the milk and honey. I do not think Toot Toot would accept honey that was partly corn syrup, but who knows. The entire meal is served on a hand-carved teak dining set sized for a person six inches tall. There is some discussion of the usual production process for bread, milk, and honey, and why the fae do not typically make these things themselves. And of course there is discussion of pizza. Pizza pizza pizza! 

We're closing in on the end of the 2019-2020 blog year here at Mint and Brambles. That should mean an increase in output as I try to get closer to hitting my annual goals, but I'm also trying to move, which may limit my reading and writing time. Whichever way the rest of this month goes, remember to be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things! 

Dresden Files Reread - Storm From Chapter 5

 

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This chapter opens with a description of MacAnnaly's Pub and the introduction of Mac himself. This description, which is repeated in almost every book, includes 13 of everything, with special attention to the 13 columns carved with fairy tale scenes and distributed at random around the room. Apparently this is to break up magical energy from grumpy wizards, although I find it interesting that no one else uses this technique like, anywhere. The decor also includes 13 mirrors, and given what we're later told about how Things can use mirrors as windows, or doors, I have to wonder how this is safe. This seems to suggest that Mac's place may be far better protected than we're led to believe (twice, once here and once in Dead Beat, it is described as 'like a big beach umbrella, not a bomb shelter'). Either he can stop Things from getting in through the mirrors, or he's confident that he can take anything that does. Which ties in interestingly with an oddity in his description. Dresden describe's Mac's age as hard to place, but here, he says he wouldn't guess younger than 50. In later books, he says Mac could be anywhere between 40 and 60, or 30 and 50, depending on the book. Is Mac actually de-aging? Is Mac Merlin? He's not the best candidate in the series, but this offhand discrepancy could certainly be an indicator. 

This is where the Three-Eye drug is first mentioned. Dresden doesn't think it really gives you the Sight, on the rather tenuous basis that if it did, the CPD would have already called him in about it. This feels like a kind of iffy assumption, given that it would require regular narcotics cops not affiliated with SI to recognize that something magical was going on. Also, I think I said a few chapters back that all the major plot threads have been set, but I guess I was wrong, because technically the Three-Eye is its own plot thread - it isn't connected with Victor Sells until later. 

And then Susan Rodriguez walks in. There's some flirting here, and some truly awkward sexism. Mostly, Susan tries to get information out of him about the murders, but she also tricks him into agreeing to go on a date with her. We also get background on the Midwestern Arcane and the fact that Susan was present for Dresden's abortive investigation into the musician who thought his house was haunted. Probably the most interesting bit of this is the description of the Unseelie Incursion of 1994. First of all, it's a date stamp, which is a rare thing in this series. We can now say with some certainty that Storm Front is set after 1994. I'm also just immensely curious about the event itself. The entire city of Milwaukee disappeared for two hours, due to some kind of action on the part of the Fae. This is bigger scale magic than we otherwise see the Fae pull off in the real world; even the rain of toads in Summer Knight and the blizzards in Small Favor and Ghost Story don't really compare. Where did it go? Why would they do such a thing? I have so many questions and I don't think any of them will ever be answered. 

Why, oh why does Dresden find it "appealing" that Susan has no idea how attractive she really is? I've seen this from other male writers, and I have yet to think of a reason why this would be a thing aside from the hope of exploiting insecurity or, I guess a tiny bit more charitably, that a woman who might otherwise be "out of their league" would take an interest? It's just weird and gross. This isn't like, assumption or conjecture on Dresden's part either. He saw it during the soul gaze she tricked him into during their first meeting. Whatever she saw in Dresden's soul caused her to faint. So I guess their whole relationship is built on Susan tricking Dresden into things and Dresden liking how fragile and manipulable she it. I'm not a Susan-hater, but their relationship was always fucked. Like, nothing good was ever gonna come from this pairing. 

We also get our first mention of Elaine here, as Dresden reflects on how bad he is at dating. She isn't named, but Dresden says he murdered her. It's possible this is foreshadowing, given how it gets tied in with the beginning of Harry and Susan's relationship. Technically, this is also where we get out first mention of Mister, but where Elaine is Discussed but not named, Mister is named but not Discussed. 

Food: A longtime reader has requested that these chapter writeups include a list of the food in each chapter along with any details. So here it is. Mac makes his own ale, about which we are told nothing beyond the fact that it is ale, and not "beer". Dresden eats a steak sandwich and fries, prepared on a wordburning stove. We get no details about the stake sandwich, but it is being made and eaten in Chicago, so it seems reasonable to suppose that it is the style of steak sandwich known as "Italian beef", which uses sirloin or round steak prepared with garlic, oregano, and spices. Traditionally, the meat is sliced with a deli slicer, which I don't think Mac would use, so I am guessing at bigger, hand cut pieces, rather than something that looks like the meat in a Philly cheese steak. I have no idea how you make fries on a woodburning stove, but I would guess that they are "home fries" rather than french fried, and prepared in a cast iron skillet on the stove. But I guess it's possible that Mac has some kind of woodburning deep fryer setup. 

I know this post went up kinda late - I'm hoping to still have Chapter 6 ready to go on Saturday like normal, but real life is making it harder to keep up even the rather questionable pace and consistency I had during the summer. Until then, as always, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things.