Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 8

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As it happens, the vampires aren't there to do violence, they're there to deliver an invitation. Bianca has earned elevation to Margravine. In between this and "wizardess" in the previous book, Jim Butcher should probably just stop trying to use gendered titles. Margrave is a title, military or hereditary, for a person assigned to maintain the defense of a border province. Marquis has a related etymology. Due to the remoteness of his position, a Margrave would have a fair amount of independent authority, including some ability to elevate his own vassals and grant them lands, which is referenced later in Bianca's newfound authority to turn new vampires. The implicit classification of Chicago as a remote borderland of this sort also has interesting worldbuilding implications. Does the Red Court just not have a presence in like, Wisconsin? Or Indiana? I'm fascinated, and it's never really followed up on. Anyway, a Margravine is not a female Margrave. (Yes, it was constructed thus in like, German, but please note that Margräfin is not actually the same word as Margravine, and that in Germany and Austria, the title was hereditary once granted, which we know for certain is not the case in the Red Court). A Margravine is a Margrave's wife, which we know is not Bianca's situation - she is presently unpartnered, and that last person with whom she was involved was Paula, who was human and thus ineligible for any such lofty position within a vampire court. It would have been easier and less weird to just say she's getting elevated to Margrave. La, words!

We get a reminder about vampire venom as Kyle and Kelly, in their matching tennis whites, draw closer to announce their nominally peaceable intentions. There's some back and fourth, which confuses the heck out of Susan, about whether this is Court business, Harry as a local representative of the White Council, and the fact that Kyle is an ordained Herald, afforded safe passage provided he doesn't start shit (and enjoined from doing so), while Kelly...isnt, that ends with Kyle approaching Harry alone to deliver the paper invitation, which is apparently important even though he already disclosed its contents. I don't think we encounter the term "ordained herald" anywhere else in the series, and I wonder if putting Kyle all in white is intended to be a Valdemar reference. Well, I'll keep an eye out for other possible references to Valdemar as we go forward, as well as Wheel of Time references. 

Once he's got the invitation, Harry uses his little wind spell to throw dust at Kelly and Kyle. While this messes up their hair and gets their pretty white clothes dirty, it's technically harmless and therefore not a violation of the Accords. It's a good illustration of the whole "there is not spirit of the law, only the letter" thing that's gonna be so important in a while. It was also fucking stupid. Like, at this point, antagonizing Bianca further probably won't make that much of a difference, but there's no need to go annoying a pair of strange vampires, who don't personally have a problem with him yet, and one of whom he can't legally attack, and at the very least, I feel like this kind of petty insult could have given Bianca leverage to pressure the White Council, which already doesn't like Harry, into making him go to the party, although of course that doesn't end up being an issue. 

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As soon as the vampires are out of sight, Harry almost falls over. He wasn't in great shape to begin with, on account of the ghost fight, and then he dealt with a scary thing and did more magic. So he's completely out of wherewithal, and Mister does not help by reappearing and slamming his 30lb self into Harry's legs. For the past two years, I have lived with a 19lb cat (no, she's not a Maine Coon, she's just big), and it's really given me a different level of appreciation for how stupid big 30lbs is on an animal that usually weights in the neighborhood of 10. That is a lot of cat. Anyway. 

Susan helps Harry get inside, and we get a description of his little basement apartment. I think this is the first time we're told that he decorates in textures, not colors, but I'd have to check. We also get a review of the whole no electricity, no heat, thing, although the usual obligatory cold shower joke is conspicuous in its absence here. I think we even got one in Turn Coat, when he's dating Anastasia. But not here. Not when Susan is taking his boots off for him and lighting the candles so he doesn't have to either stand up or use more magic. This is not as strong an argument or what works in their relationship as the scene in Fool Moon, but this reread is giving me a much better perspective on why even this relationship. Susan takes actions that make problems, and she's gearing up for the most problem-causing one of all (we'll discuss my thoughts on the Maggie thing when we get there), but I do get why they're together, at this point. 

Susan reads the invitation aloud, and is clearly gearing up to ask Harry to bring her along. Harry is not into this idea, and tries to head her off by telling her that he's not going, and even if he were, he wouldn't bring her, because it's unconscionably dangerous. This is pretty fair, honestly, although he could have been a skosh clearer. This situation is too dangerous for a fully trained wizard. That makes it way too dangerous for a human journalist. If he were going, it would be under duress, and it wouldn't make what he's up against any less lethal. Susan, it occurs to me, doesn't have a reat perspective here. She was present for at least some of the dangerous parts of Harry's last two cases, but his adversaries there were neither personal nor political. They needed Harry dead, but they had no reason to want him hurt, which meant that all Susan had to do was avoid antagonizing anyone or getting caught in the crossfire. She wasn't going to be a target in her own right. She's demonstrably able to do that, and I think part of what she's responding to here is that if she assumes this is a similar situation, it would, from where she's standing, be pretty unreasonable for Harry to assume she can't handle herself when she's already shown that she can. 

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She asks about the guarantee of safety, and Harry does his best to explain how very easy it would be for them to kill him anyway while keeping their actions in line with the Accords. He also points out that Bianca has a personal problem with him, although he doesn't say that she blames him for the death of her girlfriend, and would therefore almost certainly seize the opportunity to do something to his. Maybe he hasn't though of that yet. 

Harry's right, but he's also being patronizing as hell. Susan makes reference to publishing interviews with vampires, and he tells her she's been reading too much off the bestseller list. Not only is that dismissive, he's utterly ailing to consider that her readers are probably reading too much of the bestseller list, and that's why a literal interview with a literal vampire would do so much for her career. We know he reads her column, and reference is made to his thinking she's a good writer, but just at present it feels like he's not thinking of her job as a real thing. 

Susan points out that she doesn't make an obstacle of herself when Harry goes into danger because of his job, y'know, like he did tonight, and Harry... realizes she's right, inexplicably decides he has to try and prevent her going, and then tries to distract her by bringing up the White Council. Then he lies to her about what the White Council is. Funny thing about lying to people is that even when they don't consciously catch you at it (and Susan does, immediately), it often reduces your ability to tell them what to do. Honestly, I don't understand why his initial argument here isn't "Okay, yeah, you're a grownup, and you can take your own risks, but you can't go without me and I'm not going. It's a long step from letting you put yourself in danger if that's what you want, to putting myself in danger so you can get a story." This doesn't need to be about whether Susan understand what she's getting into - Harry understands the risks he would be taking, and he does not consent to them. And like, he does kind of try that eventually, but not until after he tries condescension, manipulation, and lying. 

In any event, she apologizes for pressuring him about this when he's exhausted and injured, and I'm genuinely not sure if she's being sincere, or if she's already decided to make a copy of the invitation. Harry prevents any further discussion by kissing her, and the proceed directly to having sex on the living room floor. Good thing he has so many soft rugs? 

I did it! Technically! Last blog post of the year. First post of next year will be analysis and new goals, and then we'll resume our regularly scheduled programming. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things!

Banking the Fire

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Sometimes, you need to be in a particular emotional space in order to make the story go. Some writers, like me, pretty much always do this - you might never need it, or you might only need it once. There's a decent amount of advice already out there about how to get into the right emotional state, and a nontrivial amount about how to get back out, but today I want to talk about a secret, third thing. 

Sometimes, you need to preserve the continuity of that emotional state between writing sessions. And sometimes, the emotion you're writing from is not a functional or comfortable one. Holding on to the warm glow of hope against all odds for the weeks or months it takes to complete a short story or a few chapters of a novel might be difficult, but it isn't unsafe. Actively keeping yourself in a state of rage, terror, grief, or despair for the same length of time though? That's not just unpleasant, it's dangerous. Most times, you want to come out of it when you're not writing, but if the emotional throughline is too delicate with withstand the subtle differences when you try to recreate your original headspace, obviously that isn't going to work. And seriously, this bears repeating, you cannot spend months repeatedly reopening self-inflicted emotional wounds. You will damage yourself. That's where the technique I'm about to describe comes in. 

Locate where the emotion sits in your body. Usually, it's gonna be somewhere in your chest or abdomen, but if you sincerely feel like it's in your left kneecap, go with it. Now, picture that feeling, that center of emotional and somatic sensation, This may require you to stretch your brain a little if you've been writing from something in the space of sadness or fear and you're used to only "hot" emotions being fire. Sometimes it'll end up being a weird color, which is fine as long as you can get it to otherwise behave like regular fire. If absolutely necessary, you can let it give off cold instead of heat, but that's really not ideal for what we're gonna do with it. For me, it's more important to be able to feel what I'm doing than to "see" it, but you might be different. 

Okay, now you've got that clear in your head, give yourself a second to just experience it. Give it your full attention. Assure yourself of it's reality. Know how easily it can keep going as long as you continue to feed it. If the answer is "pretty small", "reasonable campfire", "it would fit in a fireplace", you can go ahead and skip the next step. If it's bigger than that, we're gonna need to get it a little smaller before we proceed. 

If you have not already done so, turn off your writing music. It's best to do this step without any music on, but if you do not vibe with that, go ahead and switch to something emotionally neutral or, failing that, something that's in the same emotional direction but less intense. Change position. If you can, go into another room. Or outside. We're trying to reduce the "fuel" our fire has. Once you've done what you can in that area, see what size it feels like now. Still pretty big? No worries. Take a proper full breath, from your diaphragm if you can. That one was just for practice, and because your breathing was probably not great while you were writing. Now, do it again, but this time, on the exhale, see/feel the fire getting smaller. Keep doing that until it's down to a manageable size. If your lips start feeling tingly, take a short break to breath kinda shallowly for a minute. But try to hold onto the visualization. 

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Once it's a size you can work with, start putting stuff around it. Move the coals together, and put something that holds heat and resists flame around the side.  I use dirt, but you can use rocks, if you'd rather. When you've got the first layer around it, start building up and in - you want it partly covered, so you can still see some of the coals, but there's no longer any visible flame. Put a couple extra chunks of wood on top of the coals. If you put your hand near it, you should still be able to feel the heat coming off the top, but only at close range. 

You can now go about your day normally, and not worry about preserving the headspace you need for your story. It's there, tidied away and protected so it can't spread and won't burn itself out. You should be able to check it whenever you like and feel it still smoldering, but you should also be able to do other things, and feel whatever portion of the full range of human emotion you usually have access to. Heck, you can sleep, and it will still be there when you wake up. 

When it's time to go back to writing, do whatever you normally do to start your process. Open to document, put on your music, all that. Maybe reread the last paragraph or so of what you wrote. Then go back to your little banked up fire, and take the dirt or rocks away, exposing the coals. Throw some dry grass or twigs on there, (that's why the music and rereading) and blow gently. It'll get back up to full strength in a couple minutes, and you'll have the emotional continuity you need for the story. 

If it's gonna be more than a day or two between writing sessions, you may want to uncover your fire and add more fuel like once a day. If people look at you funny, tell them you're meditating or something. I can at this point do the whole process under two minutes, but if you don't have a lot of practice, or aren't great at the whole visualization thing, it could conceivably take as much as 20 or 30 minutes to get the fire banked and as much as five to start it up again. Plan accordingly. 

I honestly couldn't tell you why it felt so important that I write this out, but it did, so I did. Hopefully it will prove useful. Hard at work on the next Dresden Files post - you'll get at least one more out of me before the end of the month. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 7

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Michael doing the talking didn't go as well as they hoped, and Our Heroes are now in jail, charged with disturbing the peace and about half a dozen other crimes that amount to "freaking everyone right the hell out". Harry, individually, is also looking at a solid handful of traffic violations, enough that he's worried about losing his license, although I don't think this possibility ever gets any real follow-up. Harry's feeling validly bitter and cranky about having fought the good fight, et cetera, no one even knowing the work they do exists, and now getting arrested for it. He's also anxious because, while they now have some idea what's getting the ghosts all worked up, they still don't know who's doing it, and they kinda need to figure that out before something even worse happens. 

Michael isn't worried about that, or feeling so resentful, and he points out to Harry that they saved about a dozen babies from the forces of darkness, which is pretty much the dictionary definition of "worth it". What he's worried about is how mad Charity is gonna be when she comes to bail them out. When Harry quotes his own "have faith, it'll work out" rhetoric back to him, he says he'll say a prayer to St. Jude. So that's two jokes he makes in this book. 

True to Michael's prediction, when Charity arrives, she is not happy. She's also like eight months pregnant, and that doesn't make her even a little bit less intimidating. Harry makes an effort to greet her politely, but she's not having it. She doesn't approve of Harry. She doesn't like Harry. And it's her assertion that he's bad for Michael, because only when the two of them team up does Michael come home covered in blood. (Or, y'know, get arrested). This is fascinating. I'd love to know whether she's right, for one thing, or whether she's just doing a confirmation bias. This option might require that she actually have another reason to dislike him, but it's possible that she just arbitrarily latched onto him because he's a size and shape she can theoretically control. If Harry is what's putting Michael in danger, all she has to do to keep him safe is keep Harry away from him, and that's far more achievable than keeping every danger in the entire supernatural world away. It's not exactly a productive way to think, but it's pretty normal. If she's right, and this only happens when Michael and Harry work together, I see three possibilities. It could be that jobs serious enough to need both of these two very powerful and capable people are on the extreme upper end of the dangerous situations Michael gets into, and are thus the ones where he ends up covered in blood. Since some of Michael's work without Harry includes fighting Denarians, this doesn't seem super likely, but it's possible. More provably, Michael's work takes him all over the world, and when he's not actually in Chicago, he takes the time to wash up, do laundry or change his clothes, and bandage his wounds before Charity has a chance to see him. So there's no correlation between Harry being involved and Michael getting covered in blood, but they only work together locally, so there is a correlation between Harry's involvement and Charity finding out about it, and naturally Michael isn't super inclined to say "actually, my job is always like this, you just don't see it." Or hell, maybe he did, and she just didn't internalize it. The third option, more likely, in my opinion, than the first, but less likely than the second, is that Harry's general lack of regard for his own safety, combined with Michael's unwillingness to let friends do stupid things alone, puts Michael into situations when he's working with Harry that he would otherwise be able to avoid. And if that's the case? Then Charity kind of has a point. No matter how important the work they're doing it, it's hardly unreasonable to resent someone whose low-key suicidality keeps getting your husband hurt. 

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Michael and Charity leave, and Harry stands there for a minute, thinking about "the married thing" and his own terrible relationship history, until Susan gets close enough for him to sense her presence, which is apparently a thing he can do. She asks about Michael's backstory, including Charity, and after insisting that it remain off the record, he fills her in on how Michael saved Charity from a dragon, and the basics of the whole "Knight of the Cross" situation, although at this point he's not entirely sure if they're real holy artifacts containing actual nails from the Cross, or just pieces of metal that Michael believe in real hard. 

Susan is a little annoyed that they won't be having their date tonight - Harry is tired and injured, and she gets that, but when pressed, says she wishes she were as important to Harry as his work is. Harry makes a couple attempts to say how much he cares about her, but nothing he says is sounding right, and he figures now is a pretty good time to tell her he loves her, but he physically can't make himself say the words. Everyone he's ever said them to has died. Which is honestly kinda fair. He came by this baggage honestly. Since talking isn't working out for him, he just kisses her and hopes she gets it. Then he lets her drive him home. 

Mister isn't there when they get back to Harry's place, and Harry's pretty concerned. Susan brushes it off, on the basis that cats pretty much keep their own hours, which is sorta valid, but also very much evidence that Susan isn't a cat owner. Cats get into a rhythm with their humans, and if the human notices a break in a known routine, it's often a sign that something is up. And indeed, a moment later, two vampires emerge from around the side of the building in a wave of spooky energy. Harry tells Susan to get her keys out so they can escape. 

Hope you're having a good time with these. We'll have somewhere between three and ten more of these before the end of the month, probably, and I've got a shorter non-Dresden post ready to go in a day or two. Until then, be Gay, do Crimes, and read All The Things!

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 6

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Lea says the burning city reminds her of old times, and asks Harry if it reminds him as well. This is an allusion to the final confrontation with DuMorne, although I don't think a first-time reader would have the context on that. It might have come up in the brief discussion of Elaine with Inner Harry in the previous book, but I'd have to check. She tries to make it like she just stopped by to say hello and catch up, all the while having her hellhounds spread our to better bar their way. 

Michael asks her, very politely, to get out of their way, and she refuses sharply, although she's respectful enough, addressing him as "sir knight" while she explains that Harry belongs to her, by the terms of an agreement he made, meaning that Michael has no right, and little ability, to intervene on Harry's behalf. They don't really get into the mechanics of the whole "free will" thing until Small Favor, but this establishes the basic shape of it - the Swords, and the Knights who wield them, can't really help you out of something that's your own stupid fault. 

Lea tells Michael to leave, and sets about glamouring Harry to make him come away with her to the woods and waters wild. It's working pretty well, initially (although the astute reader might accurately assess that his stated inability to resist her "for more than a few seconds" means he's waiting for his moment), and once he's within touching distance, things get...distressingly erotic, given that she opened the conversation by asserting a familial relationship. I mean, consenting adults can do what they want, and it's not like their blood relatives, but she's literally mind-controlling him right now, so there's absolutely no consent happening here, and within that context, the whole "my son" thing just adds an extra layer of creepy. Occurs to me that this is foreshadowing for what happens to Harry later in this book, and further evidence of the influence of Robert Jordan's writing upon Jim Butcher's. 

Michael refuses to leave, asks Harry what he thinks he's doing, all that. Not leaving his friend behind. Lea asks if Harry will go with her, and he's all "I will go with you...when hell freezes over" and dumps the sack of ghost dust into her cleavage. Solid foreshadowing on this one, since we were told at the beginning of the previous chapter that it contains cold iron. We are also reminded of it in narration here, which I'm not at all sure was necessary, but I suppose it's better than giving inattentive readers the impression that fae in this setting react to depleted uranium. And react she does, breaking out in a painful-sounding red rash everywhere the dust touches her skin. This breaks her concentration, and the glamour along with it, giving Harry and Michael the chance to flee. Unsurprisingly, it also posses her off, and she starts gathering fire from the nearby burning buildings, preparing to blast them with it, yelling about how Harry belongs to her, about the promises he made, and the ones his mother made. I think this is our confirmation that Maggie is the one who made her Harry's godmother, although it wasn't like, a big mystery before. Godparents are generally chosen by ones parents, and since it's already been established that Maggie was a wizard and Malcolm was a vanilla mortal, there isn't really anyone else who could have arranged it. 

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Michael kills a couple of hellhounds who attack them on their way out which is a little awkward since they used to be, and might in some sense still be, people. This is, so far as I can recall, never addressed, even after it's established later in this same book that Lea is going to turn Harry into one of those things if she ever gets ahold of him. They get to the rift, and Harry pushes Michael through, but not in time to get through himself before Lea launches her attack, so he puts up his shield again and lets the force of her spell propel him back into the mortal world. This is sort of a very soft foreshadow of his trick with the shield bubble in White Knight, in much the same way that his hand injury in the previous chapter is for the one in Blood Rites. Those, interestingly, being the other two that are really focuses on vampires. I think there's similar foreshadowing for Changes later in this book too, but we can talk bout that more when we get there. 

The rest of the fire from Lea's attack turns back into ectoplasm as soon as the rift closes, leaving Harry temporarily slimy but basically intact. The babies are all awake and crying. Michael, while they're trying to clean up their injuries from splinters and hellhounds, expresses his surprise and disappointment that Harry lied to Lea, because they're "supposed to be the good guys". This is the only book where we get Judgey Michael, and I will not be at all sad to see him go. I feel like I might have said that in the discussion of a previous chapter? Also, does taking a while to finish a sentence really count as lying? Also also, like, I get that the Knights can't interfere with the exercise of free will, but is there really no flexibility there for minor children who had to way of comprehending what they were getting into? The books kinda dodge this with Molly by having Michael absent for so much of Proven Guilty. 

Naturally, someone called the cops, and they arrive after not too much of this most unpleasant conversation. Michael tells Harry that it will be okay, just let him do the talking...

Yeah we've really hit that school year slowdown now. I'll do what I can to keep posting regularly this month, and of course, you'll get the post about how we did with this year's goals, and what the coming year's are going to look like, sometime in very early October. (Preview: I probably am spreading myself to thin, but there's definitely more going on than that). Until next time, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!