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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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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!
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