Dresden Files Reread - Fool Moon Chapter 11

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This is the one with Chaunzy! Chauncy? Harry's got him in a summoning circle, and he's shrieking and banging on it trying to get out. Apparently, this is required of a demon who gets summoned, and if they escape they're required to do their best to kill the summoner. Honestly, the amount of rules and vocabulary established in this scene leads me to suspect that at some point, demons and the "down below" were intended to play a much larger role in the series than ended up being the case. Apparently Hell has a whole hierarchy? And the way demons are talked about here makes them sound more different from other creatures of the Nevernever than is established in later books. (I don't remember which of the early-middle books it is, but we're told that "demon" is essentially a catch-all term for hostile non-fae entities from the Nevernever, or anywhere else outside mundane reality. Chaunzy, who's part of Hell, is a demon. So was that toad thing from the last book. So are Outsiders.) I don't know if Dresden's impression that down below "make Santa Claus look like an amateur" in terms of their ability to gather information is born of ignorance about who and what Santa Claus actually is in this setting, or if this is accurate and we just haven't had occasion to see it. For obvious reasons, I'm hoping for the former. 

Harry's attempts to research Harley MacFinn and the Northwest Passage Project through mundane means, and by having Bob talk to more benign spirits, didn't turn anything up. He still needs answers, and he's willing to trade Chaunzy one of his middle names for information. (The demon already has his first and last). There's a little back and forth during which Chaunzy points out that Harry's behavior is more like a dark sorcerer than a proper member of the White Council, and he's skirting the edges of the laws of magic by even doing this summoning. According to Harry, since he's not trying to mentally influence Chaunzy, he's in the clear on the Fifth Law, which tracks, and he's not violating the Fourth Law because there's a legitimate reason for the summoning, which... doesn't so much. The Fourth Law of Magic, "the shalt not enthrall", does not generally consider the summoning of beings from the Nevernever a violation, even though summoning often involves a mall amount of magical suggestion. This seems to be based on a combination of it only being the smallest possible amount of mind control, and nonhumans not counting as much as humans do, or in some cases at all, where the Laws of Magic are concerned. Actually binding a demon, or even one of the Fae, to your will is considered a violation less because it imposes on the free will of the one bound than because of the threat a mortal wizard with such a creature in their control poses to their fellow mortals. Legitimacy of purpose doesn't enter into it. I don't know if Harry is wrong, or lying, or if Jim Butcher was still feeling out the exact parameters of the Fourth and Fifth laws at this point in the series. The lattermost would be understandable - they're both pretty fuzzy. 

Chaunzy tells Harry that MacFinn is the heir to a railway and coal mining fortune, a Vietnam veteran, and one of the ten wealthiest men in the United States. His favorite color is red, and we'll never know his shoe size, because Harry cuts Chaunzy off, asking him to skip anything "trivial". This seems like it's giving Chaunzy way too much room to leave out important details, but my recollection is that it doesn't turn out that way, so I guess we don't need to worry about it. The next relevant detail is that MacFinn is a Loup Garou, cursed by St. Patrick to turn into a ravening beast at every full moon. The curse is hereditary, and stipulates that there will always be a new generation to whom it can be passed on. To be absolutely clear, this means there is a 100% chance that MacFinn has a child at least conceived by the end of this book. Could be some accident from a previous relationship that MacFinn didn't know about - we know it was his hope and intention that the cure would die with him. But it seems more likely that Terra West is pregnant during this book, and either doesn't know yet or hasn't told MacFinn. I also think it's likely that it's Fitz, but we can talk about that more when we get to Ghost Story. 

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For the past while, MacFinn has been divesting of business assets, and buying up land in the Rocky
Mountains, with the intention to donate it to the federal government to create a "migration size" wildlife preserve stretching from New Mexico up into Canada. Industrialists are... not happy about this, and there's been some opposition, including from Harding, one of the victims of last month's attacks. Harding was apparently working with Marcone on this, and Marcone is set to carry on talks about the Northwest Passage Project with MacFinn tomorrow night. This means Marcone technically stood to benefit from Harding's death, and Harry briefly toys with the idea that Marcone is controlling the Streetwolves, getting them to to the murders. He seems to have forgotten that he already ruled out the Streetwolves' involvement, and Marcone is the one who tipped him to this lead in the first place. Increasingly, I think this scene was either written ahead of the rest of the book, or got missed in the course of a fairly serious revision. 

The last thing Harry gets on MacFinn is his home address, or at least the address of his place in Chicago, and then Chaunzy starts hinting that he has information about Harry's family, his parents' deaths, and living relatives "every bit as alone and tormented as you are". That would be Thomas and McCoy, notwithstanding the possibility of secret Dresden half-siblings. He says they had a particular interest in Margaret Le Fay, which I think is the first time we encounter that title, but they didn't get he in the end. Cue the single, cringey use of the word "wizardess" in the series, and Harry wondering if his own interest in dark magic is...genetic? What? Harry gives maybe 2 seconds of series thought to trading his other middle name for this info, before he realizes he's being played, and pretty transparently at that. If Chaunzy has any motivation other than getting his soul, he would have been up front about having this, when they were initially negotiating. Harry refuses, and Chaunzy freaks the fuck out, screaming about how they'll get him eventually, he walks in shadows and some day he'll slip and they'll be there to claim him, et cetera, et cetera. Harry banishes Chaunzy, and spends some time sitting and thinking about how he'd underestimated Chaunzy, had cordial interactions with him in the past. Then the phone rings, forcing him to rush upstairs to answer it. It's Murphy, and she wants Harry to meet her at an address... the same address the same address he just got from Chaunzy. 

Thanks for reading! I'm sort of behind on everything right now, but when you're a writer there's really nothing to do about that except to keep on keeping on. Expect that next chapter, or something, later this week. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things. 

Dresden Files Reread - Fool Moon Chapter 10

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Marcone's role in the setting was already reintroduced in an earlier chapter, but he and Hendricks are physically described here, and Marcone is sitting in Harry's chair, which probably isn't the best way to start things off. Interestingly, this is Marcone's most consistent misstep in dealing with Harry. Dresden, like the series itself, is deeply conflicted about systems of power and authority. I think one some level he thinks he'd be happy to be a cog in the machine, if only he could find the right machine, and on another level he sees himself as a free-wheeling rebel, a professional thorn in the side of the very concept of organization. And of course there's a whole other level on which, especially prior to Changes, he hates himself to such an extent that he couldn't really feel comfortable respecting any authority willing to work with him. (He says as much, with regard to religion, in White Night, but I think it's more broadly true). Marcone probably picked up on all three layers of this during the soul gaze in Storm Front, but his own temperament and preferences cause him to overfocus on the first one. He makes unnecessary power plays which set Harry against him to a greater extent than would otherwise be the case - he hates it when anyone asserts their power. But also, Harry's dislike of Marcone spikes every time Marcone suggests any kind of cooperation between the two of them, because literally the only thing Marcone can do to make Harry think less of him is to express a willingness to work with Harry. Such are the depths of Early Books Dresden's self-loathing. 

As an aside, Marcone mentions offhand that he thinks the police should be privatized, which from where I'm standing is by far the grossest thing he's done or said in the entire series. Honestly I'd forgotten this was an opinion he'd ever expressed, and I hope his whole thing here is that they'd be easier to corrupt. 

Naturally, Harry orders Marcone out of his office, but Marcone wants to make him an offer, put him on retainer, with high pay, low hours, and a clause in the contract explicityly stating that he would not be asked to engage in any unlawful activities - in exchange for Harry signing this contract, he is willing to share what he knows about the case. It's a tempting offer, as it would basically sort out all Harry's financial problems forever, while occupying very little of his time, allowing him to do the work he cares about rather than taking virtually every case that comes his way because he needs the money. But he can't see his way clear to formally tying himself to Marcone under any terms. He rejects the offer, and tells Marcone that if he's worried about being the next target, he's right to be, and it's in his best interests to tell Dresden what he knows, contract notwithstanding. Dresden is pretty aggressive about this, trying to regain some ground over Marcone sitting in his chair, and likely over the soul gaze in the previous book. 

There's some banter back and forth, where Harry tells Marcone how horrible and criminal he is, and Marcone tells Harry how unreasonable he's being. Harry also gets pretty graphic about how Spike was killed, and eventually Marcone's self-interest wins out over his dislike of being refused, and his desire for a more sustainable working relationship with Dresden, and he suggests Harry look into the name Harley MacFinn and the Northwest Passage project. 

After Marcone leaves, Harry sits at his desk for a while, thinking about how scared Marcone must be, to try something like this to get Harry on his side, and how he can't really bring himself to hate Marcone, because Chicago is objectively a safer place with him in charge of most of its criminal activity, and that's more important than how much more money organized crime is making. He doesn't trust him but, recognizing that Marcone has every reason to give him good information, he gets to work following up on the new lead. 

A small note on the narration: I can work with Marcone being read as fancy and educated, even though he's neither, but Marsters has him sounding vaguely British here, and I can't with it. Outside of (unconfirmed) military service, I don't think he's been outside of the greater Chicago area in his life. 

That's what I've got for you this week. Well, maybe not this week, there will probably be another post in a few days, but it's what I've got for this chapter. Stay tuned, for that and the angel fiction thing. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things. 

Dresden Files Reread - Fool Moon Chapter 9

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Harry arrives at the Full Moon Garage, a run down building of a sort you apparently only see in the
"worst parts of a city". I honestly have no idea what this means, because it sound to me like the kind of building you find in...every mixed residential-industrial area. If Jim Butcher meant that it was a chop shop, not necessarily a legitimate automotive repair establishment, he might have said as much. Across the street, there's a pawn shop "a place for crooks to sell their extra knives and guns" when they need cash. I'm not sure what Jim Butcher thinks a pawn shop is, but I am very sure that this is not a viable business model for a pawn shop. For one thing, they have to occasionally sell things, not just buy them, or they're not going to make any money. 

Harry didn't bring his gun, on account of he's coming straight here from the police station, but in addition to his staff and blasting rod, he has the first version of the force ring. This one only delivers about twice the impact of a thrown punch, but this kind of marks the beginning of the evolution of magical gadgets that continues throughout the series, even after other things, like the potions, get dropped. 

The door is unlocked, so Harry just kind of strolls in, hoping that no one is there and he can just find come clues for Murphy and Denton and then go home. He specifically says "Murphy and Denton", which is interesting. He knows Denton is hiding something. He knows Benn tried to shoot Murphy, and that something feels off about Harris. But he's still inclined to think of Denton as someone he's working with. He wants them to be on the same side. I mean, that's almost certainly a more comfortable place to be than on opposite sides, but we're talking about the guy who like half an hour ago said that he thinks Harry is either slightly unbalanced or a very intelligent charlatan. So talking so casually in his own internal monologue about finding clues for Denton and Murphy... I don't know. I guess he has reason at this point to think Denton is on Murphy's side, regardless of how anyone feels about each other interpersonally, which would put Harry and Denton on the same side via the transitive property?

Of course, the place isn't as empty as it initially appeared, and Harry quickly finds himself surrounded by lycanthropes. He opts to take the straightforward approach, telling them that he isn't a cop, he's Harry Dresden and he's here to ask them about the recent murders. Don't get me wrong, this is probably exactly what I would have done in this situation, but like, first of all there are reasons I'm not a private investigator/professional wizard, and that's one of them, but also I was about 15 the las time I walked into a sketchy building full of presumably hostile strangers, and I was invited. Unfortunately for Harry, as lycanthropes, the Streetwolves are sufficiently tied into the supernatural community ti know that Harry isn't working with Marcone and is working with the police. While Parker, their leader, doesn't mention it, they probably also know that the last time Harry got within shooting distance of magically inclined criminal activity, the whole thing kinda ended up burning down. If it were just the two of them, I think Parker might still have let him walk away, but that whole pack starts chanting "Kill him, kill him" and there's really no hope of a peaceful resolution after something like that. Parker fires his shotgun, as much to snap his people out of it as to kill Harry, although that is definitely also a goal, and Harry makes a run for it, using the force ring to deal with the guy guarding the door. 

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Unfortunately, the Beetle. which was making a weird noise when he got here, refuses to start at first, and in the chaos, Harry makes eye contact with Parker. This is another of the weird, early books soul gazes where there's no imagery, just an infodump. He sees that Parker is getting older, slowing down, and that letting Dresden live would likely be the tipping point that caused him to lose control over the pack. He doesn't know anything about the murders. And he's furious with Harry for getting the pack stirred up, and thus endangering them. I find the lycanthropes fascinating. There's at least a dozen of them at the Full Moon Garage - did Parker, or his predecessor, if he has one, manage to gather every lycanthrope in the Chicago metropolitan area, or are there more out there? I wonder if people exist who are "natural channels" for other kinds of spirits. As I said in the previous post, lycanthropes kind of remind me of White Court vampires, but their symbiotic relationship with the spiritual entities with which they coexist seems to be fundamentally different. Is the phenomenon of "Cassandra's tears", described in the next book, the result of a similar relationship with a prognosticating spirit (which are established to exist in Proven Guilty)? Certainly, if we meet anyone else in the series who's a natural channel for a spirit in this way, they aren't identified as such. I'm also immensely curious whether this kind of pack structure is the usual thing for lycanthropes, or if Parker's ability to keep the Streetwolves together, keep them in line, an achievement which is almost certainly the only thing keeping most of them out of prison, is something special. 

While Parker is recovering from the soul gaze, Harry gets the damn car started and drives away, reflecting on what a monumentally stupid course of action this was. He's learned nothing new, and now a group of people totally unconnected to the current as want to kill him. He considers that the lycanthropes aren't strictly human, so he'd probably be okay under the First Law if he used magic to wipe them how. However, the idea doesn't sit right with Harry's own sense of the right and wrong ways to use magic. While the lycanthropes may not be human under the White Council's definition, neither are they vampires, or creatures of the Nevernever. They're people, and using a fundamental force of life and creation to kill them would be wrong. Sometime Harry's whole "mustn't indulge my darker nature" bit gets irritating, but I'm 100% with him where the lycanthropes are concerned. It also helps that this version of "This is what magic is and this is why I have to be careful not to turn into a bad guy" inner monologue is one of the best in the series - it includes the "there's more magic in a baby's first giggle" line, and also "fun and easy, like legos". 

There's something else I notice on this reread (like I said, I usually skip this one): it is blazingly obvious that this was a setup. Noting we know about lycanthropes in general or the Streetwolves in particular gives us any reason to think that they'd engage in ritualistic murders, wolf motif notwithstanding, and we know they don't physically transform. Sure, Denton and Harris could have had some reason to suspect their involvement, which they did not choose to share with Dresden, but even were that the case this is a damned irregular way of doing things, and out of character besides. I guess it's not unreasonable that Harry doesn't catch on at this point - all Denton's protestations about following the rules are somewhat counterbalanced by the fact that he's obviously got a secret, but it should be extremely clear to the reader, even this early on. 

The chapter ends on a cliffhanger, when Harry arrives at his office, to discover Marcone and Hendricks already there, waiting for him...

Apparently at some point last fall my Patreon got "unlaunched", so I don't know what that big orange button up at the top did, but I'm guessing it didn't actually give you the opportunity to support this blog and my other projects. It's fixed now, so this is a great time to become a Patron, and get access to cat pictures and the opportunity to tell me what books to review. 

I've been reading a bunch of YA romance featuring angels recently, for a thing I'm working on, so I might be putting up a post with my initial thoughts on this previously unfamiliar genre sometime in the coming weeks. Until next time, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things! 

Dresden Files Reread - Fool Moon Chapter 8

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Content notes: Spoiler for a major character death in Battle Ground - read at own risk if you are not caught up. Also brief mention of suicide. 

The chapter reopens with a re-description of the complex that houses SI headquarters. The vibe is super weird, because everyone thinks Harry is working for Marcone. Susan is apparently also here, sniffing around for a lead on the "lobo killings", and I gotta say that flirting with the tabloid columnist in the middle of the hallway probably isn't doing anything to help the impression that he's sketch. 

We get a recap on Susan and the Arcane, and Susan pressures him for information on the case. The tone of this interaction honestly makes me wonder to what extent Susan is just dating Harry so she can have better access to information on the supernatural. She acts like it's all in fun, initially, but she just keeps pushing the issue. Eventually Harry does the patronizing "this is too dangerous, you can't get involved" thing, and she stalks off. At least this time Harry shows a little self-reflection about the fact that he's kind of being a dick, and doesn't follow it up with a bunch of half-assed justifications. This is remarkably like actual character development, which would seem to suggest that if Jim Butcher didn't entirely intend the misogynistic flavor of Early Books Harry's refusals to tell anyone anything, the secrecy, in and of itself, is part of a deliberately planned character arc stretching at least through the scene in Turn Coat where Harry decides to give Will Borden the full picture of what's going on. He's learning to trust, and to break the habit of hoarding knowledge, and the power it represents, which Justin and, unfortunately, McCoy modeled for him. 

Let me be clear, even if the compulsive secret keeping isn't misogynistic, the "gotta protect women" nonsense still is. Moreover, the writing is still misogynistic. It's impossible to know whether the "I can't risk getting you involved" bit applies across the board, because until freaking Dead Beat, every man Harry has occasion to work with is either a trained operator, or willing to take a subordinate role and do what Harry says without asking questions. He is demonstrably less willing to led regular mortal women get involved in the actual fighting, and this tendency also becomes less pronounced over time, but here again the writing limits our sample in unhelpful ways. He's more willing to let Will into the field than Molly, but Molly is his apprentice, and Billy isn't. (He feels a greater responsibility to her, and has more reason to be playing out old patterns. And he is absolutely playing out old patterns with her. This will be discussed in more detail when we get to the books Molly is actually in, but toxic pedagogy and cycles of abuse are all over that relationship, in ways that have nothing to do with gender.) I think what we're looking at here is two separate things: a seriously problematic misogynistic streak that the author likely didn't fully intend, and had to write his way out of as his own understanding of women, and how to write them, developed, and a plausible and well-executed character arc about developing trust and unlearning old patterns. 

Denton is standing in the hallway that leads to the SI offices, and he does bot want to let Dresden go in. After a little bit of back and forth, Denton says that Murphy has someone from Internal Affairs in her office, and offers to take the report in for Harry, to spare Murphy any additional awkwardness stemming from her association with Harry and, by extension, with Marcone. In exchange, he wants to read Harry's report on werewolves, despite moments before having said that he doesn't believe Harry is a wizard, and implied that he doesn't believe in the supernatural in general. Denton says two things about Murphy here that I find interesting: "She's a good cop, and she does her job, but she's gotta follow the rules." and "I don't mind helping out a straight cop." There's some irony, of course, in "she's gotta follow the rules" coming from the guy who trafficked with the literal forces of darkness so he would become a werewolf, in order to extrajudicially murder people who seem to be beyond the reach of the law, but I don't thing he's being anything but totally sincere here. Taken together with his actions, and maybe with some of what he says later, although I usually skip this book on rereads, so I don't remember as clearly as on might hope, I think Special Agent Denton genuinely believes that by doing the werewolf thing, and killing people the way they are, he and his team are protecting people like Murphy, local law enforcement and maybe the rest of the Bureau, from having to go outside the system in order to do their jobs, or becoming so disillusioned with it that they give up entirely.

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Given what we see happen to
Murphy's mental health between Death Masks and Changes (a process which arguably began as early as Grave Peril), and to a lesser extent what is gradually revealed about the kind of damage Morgan and McCoy have taken over the course of their careers, there is even a textual argument to be made that h's kind of right. I'm not entirely sure what the series is trying to say here. The textual morality of The Dresden Files has always been conflicted about systems of rules and authority, recognizing their value, to society as a whole and to the people who operate within them, but also acknowledging the inadequacies of those systems, the inherent inadequacies of systems as a substitute for human judgement and compassion ("There's a system in place for taking care of orphans, of course, but it is after all just that, a system. It's not a person looking out of you."), and honors the people who recognize the necessity of working outside the rules, and taking it upon themselves to do so. It's potentially significant here that the FBI doesn't have a blackstaff, and the closest the CPD comes is Special Investigations, whose (fundamentally impossible) task is to try and bring the supernatural world, or at least its practical impact on the citizens of Chicago, into the appearance of compliance with the system, more than to go outside of it in order to deal with the problems it isn't equipped for. It might have been different in the Black Cat era, but Jack Murphy killed himself, so what is our takeaway supposed to be here? In Blood Rights, McCoy says that most of the major supernatural factions have a guy for this, someone who's allowed to disregard the law when necessary. Paulo Ortega, the Winter (and to a lesser extent Summer) Knight, the blackstaff, etc. A lot of the people in those roles have died during the series, and I notice that, with the arguable exception of Ronald Reuel, whose inclusion on this list is debatable in the first place, they didn't get what might be considered good deaths. Not compared to Murphy and Morgan, who both went down heroically, failed and betrayed by the systems they spend most of their lives trying to uphold. (Reuel got pushed down a flight of stairs, which seems rather ignominious on the face of it, but  he also got a funeral part of which happened "on screen". As far as I can recall, Morgan is the only other character for whom this occurs - they can't give him an actual funeral since he's officially a traitor, but Harry is present for the wake, which is held in the last chapter of Turn Coat). Harry himself is a long string of footnotes and technicalities, as far as his place within and without the various structures of authority to which he is attached. I think we would certainly describe himself as one of those who has to go outside the rules in order to make sure things turn out as they ought, but he doesn't display the same "so other people don't have to" attitude common among the others we see. (Except, oddly, with Michael, the Carpenter family, and the other Knights of the Cross, to whose more limited system of power and authority he has no direct personal connection). Seventeen novels in, it's still not clear what the series is saying about this paradigm, and it well may be that it's trying to raise questions, more than to answer them. 

There's also an odd parallel between Harry's desire to protect the people around him by keeping secrets, and the thing Denton is going. I think if they had the opportunity to sit down and talk under better circumstances, they would discover that they had a lot in common. They both feel like they've been irrevocably changed, damaged by what they've experience, and in doing the incredibly goddamn questionable things they're doing, they hope to preserve not just the physical well-being, but the innocence of the people in their respective spheres of influence, for whom it might not yet be too late. Part of Denton's approach to that involves murdering people, which is obviously worse, but the fundamental motivation is very similar. 

Harry calls Murphy from the front desk to let her know Denton's dropping off the file, then heads back to his car, where he's met by Agent Harris, from Denton's team. Harris's demeanor is described as "eager as a puppy", which is not terribly subtle foreshadowing. He suggests Harry look into a "spooky"  gang called the Streetwolves, and Harry agrees, provided Harris will get him copies of his FBI and CPD files - everything they have on him, but also notices out loud that this was obviously Denton's idea. When Harris acknowledges this, and agrees to Dresden's terms, they shake hands, and Harry gets a weird feeling. He attributes this to misgivings about investigating the Streetwolves, but it seems likely that this is another clue that there's something magically screwy going on with Denton's team. The wolf belt is messing with Harris's aura, and Harry can feel it, even if he doesn't recognize it in the moment. 

The pace of posts will hopefully be picking up a little in the coming weeks, although we won't be returning to the consistent twice-weekly schedule just yet. Also, the Wheel of Time TV show has wrapped filming for Season 1, so it seems likely that we'll be starting up the reread posts for Wheel of Time in the very near future. Be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things! 

Dresden Files Reread - Fool Moon Chapter 7

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Harry has finally gotten home to do his werewolf research, and we are reintroduced to his apartment and his cat. Nothing about the space or decor has appreciably changed since the previous book, except that he's replaced the door with a sturdier one (although not yet with the reinforced steel monstrosity he installs between Dead Beat and Proven Guilty), but he seems to feel more positively about it than he did in Storm Front. We are told, for the first time, that Harry decorates in textures, rather than colors, and the layered rugs and hangings are described her as a matter of aesthetic as well as warmth. 

This picture of greater comfort and confidence is carried forward into the lab, where Harry's initial banter with Bob is considerably less sharp-edged than in the previous book, and mixes some support and compliments in with the teasing. Harry isn't quite able to match Bob's (snarky) emotional honesty about the challenges of incorporeality, and pulls them back to business when Bob brings up Elaine - the first time she's mentioned by name. 

Of interest only to the truly obsessive (although if that's not you...what on earth are you doing here?), Harry nearly trips over a stack of comic books, about which we are told "don't ask". I am not aware of any text confirming what this is actually about, but these are almost certainly the Calvin and Hobbes treasuries that Harry finds in with his research materials in Small Favor, which at that time he cannot account for. Presumably, they were tidied away into that box when he was cleaning u the lab to go Full Research Mode between Grave Peril and Summer Knight. 

The two potions Harry makes, one a kind of super coffee, and the other a "blending brew" intended to make him seem like an unremarkable part of the background, have weirdly parallel ingredients. Soap and deodorant, for the stimulant and the blending brew respectively. Washcloth bits and plain cotton for touch. A to-do list and a blank piece of paper for the mind. "Bright, cheerful music" and elevator music for the spirit. The sight, hearing, and taste ingredients are less closely matched, but it's still strange, and I don't really know what to make of it. This may just be a question of Harry's available set of personal associations being limited, but I wonder if the ideal ingredients would be so similar were Harry not brewing them in tandem. 

Bob walks Harry through the five different kinds of werewolves, which consist of

• Werewolves - humans who can use magic, but only to turn into a wolf. 
• Humans transformed into a wolf by someone else's magic. Not really shapeshifters, since they can't change back on their own, and will eventually lose their memories and their reason. 
• Hexenwolves - humans who use an amulet, usually a wolf pelt belt, typically acquired from a demon, to turn into a wolf. The amulet contains a "spirit of bestial rage" which helps them manage the wolf body and insulates their humanity from the transformation, but it's bad for their conscience and inhibitions. 
• Lycanthropes - natural channels for a spirit of bestial rage. They act like animals, at least some of the time, and get some enhanced strength and healing, but don't physically transform. 
• Loup Garou - people cursed to turn into a huge wolf monster every full moon. They can only be killed with inherited silver. 

The way lycanthropes are described honestly makes them sound like something akin to White Court vampires. They have a demony thing attached to them from birth, which gives them access t greater speed, strength, and healing, but also influences their actions. I'm immensely curious where these spirits get their energy, since they don't seem to feed the way the way the White Court do, and I strongly suspect it's from the lycanthropes themselves. Likely, they would have dramatically shortened lifespans, even if they didn't tend to die by violence, but it's something worth keeping an eye on when we get to the part where they actually show up. 

The chapter ends with Harry sitting down to watch the potions simmer and write up his report to Murphy. It hadn't quite clicked for me before that the reports Harry does in the first few books are written entirely by hand, unless he has a mechanical typerwriter in his office and types up a fair copy to hand in, and this is just never mentioned. But i think he's literally just writing them on a yellow legal pad. No wonder people have questions about his professionalism. 

That' what I got. Thank you all so much for being patient with me during these uncertain times. Be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things.