Dresden Files Reread - Storm Front Chapter 20

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Monica's house is almost aggressive in its normality, with two trees and a basketball court, and a lawn that's only a little overgrown due to all the rain - perfectly understandable. In contrast, the neighborhood as a whole seems to be kind of...dying. Most of the houses are up for sale, no birds are singing, and the general vibe is wonky and unpleasant. We only see this effect in one other book, Blood Rites, and in that case it's a vampire. Either this is a common phenomenon that we just haven't seen very much because we haven't had that many bad guys with a long-term geographical base of operations, or Victor Sells is extra serious bad news. 

Monica answers the door, eventually, although she clearly doesn't want to. Harry says if she calls the police, he'll tell them what Victor's up to, even though he doesn't entirely know yet, and then forces his was into the house. Monica, rather reasonably, tries to taze him. In the resulting tussle, they make eye contact, triggering a soul gaze. Once again, we don't get the kind of detailed symbolic imagery that that becomes characteristic of the soul gaze in later books. Instead, we get told the emotions that drive Monica's decisions, predominantly love of and fear for her children, and the fact that her father abused her, and her husband gave her "more of the same". The fact of this is fairly obvious, although I suppose her twitchiness level in the chapter in which she was introduced could be attributed purely to anxiety about dealing with a wizard. What strikes me, though, is the way it's presented, especially as the first instance of the ways abuse and rape are handled throughout the series. We never see Victor and Monica in a room together, much less see him hurt her. We never see Lily and Lloyd Slate in a room together either. Victor burns to death. So does Justine DuMorne. So do the vampires who "did things" to Harry in Grave Peril. Lloyd is tortured horribly for years, forced repeatedly through a distilled version of the cycle of abuse narrative until Dresden cuts his throat on the stone table in Changes. Hannah Ascher burned her own rapists to death. Maeve gets a tidier end than she might have deserved, but what we've learned about the contagion, and the mantle of the Winter Lady, suggests that the clean mercy of a bullet through the head may have been more warranted than it initially appeared in Cold Days. Lord Raith will live out the rest of his considerable lifespan as a sock puppet for Lara, more thoroughly subjugated even than the lapdog Thomas once said she became in her father's presence. Lara is occasionally in-scene with her father, but the abuse is never shown. The closest we get to "on screen" sexual violence against a female character is the interaction between Murphy and Lord Raith, in the lead-up to the final confrontation in Blood Rites. This is all by way of saying that while Jim Butcher might not show quite the same level of restraint in this area that Robert Jordan does in The Wheel of Time, the influence seems clear (and if Robert Jordan got it from another series from which The Dresden Files might also have drawn, I'm not aware of it). Rape and abuse of women takes place off-screen, where the reader cannot possibly mistake it for something the they're meant to enjoy, and the people who commit those acts meet unpleasant, poetically just ends. 

When the soul gaze resolves, and Harry has hexed the tazer into uselessness by breathing on it, we get a brief glimpse of the kids, Billy and Jenny. Jenny is obviously named after her aunt, Jennifer Stanton, which lads on to wonder if little Billy here might be a hint that the Sellses are familially connected to the Bordens. I have nowhere to go with this theory, and nothing from later in the series to reinforce it, other than the fact that Will Borden's parents are never mentioned, but it's something to keep an eye on. 

At this point, Monica pretty much gives up, and agrees to tell Dresden what she knows about her husband's nefarious plans, with the caveat that she doesn't think it will make any difference.