Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 36

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It's not clear whether Kravos comes for Harry immediately, or if at the start his nightmares are his own, but whichever the case, it doesn't take long for the sorcerer to show up. He starts taunting Harry from the shadows, talking about how he watched the vampires take him, how he wishes he'd taped it so he could show Harry. Harry talks back, and Kravos hits him, hard, tell him jokes won't save him now. Harry, naturally, continues talking back, accusing him of cliches. This gets Kravos to come out of the mist and slam him into the ground. He's sitting on Harry's chest, which makes him at minimum the third thing to do that this book. Symbolism. He looks basically like he did in life - thin face, graying hair, awful beard, broad shoulders, ritual symbols all over his chest. Which I think speaks to a level of self-awareness of Jim Butcher's part that he doesn't always get credit for. Aside from the symbols being in blood, rather than tattoos, I have met like, twelve of this guy, and been inappropriately hit on by at least four of him. This is a very specific subtype of That Asshole in Your Local Pagan Community. Like every incarnation of this shithead I've met, he takes himself extremely seriously, and the more Dresden makes it clear that he doesn't take Kravos seriously, the more agitated he becomes. Eventually Harry makes a remark about how perhaps the Ken doll he used to bind Kravos worked so well because it was anatomically correct, and Kravos loses it, starts choking Harry to death. I know this is a life or death situation, but one would still prefer that we hadn't gone with what is, essentially, an anti-intersex joke here. To be clear, I am not of that school of thought which believes that jokes about small hands, small penises, short stature, and the like are only hurtful to those whose own beliefs prejudice them against such traits, and therefore fair game. Were Harry Dresden a real person, I might be inclined to grant him some leeway for his having just personally gone through a horrific trauma that he has been conditioned by the society in which he lives to regard as deeply emasculating, However, Harry is a fictional character, and Jim Butcher had both time to think and the emotional wherewithal to make better choices. 

Harry does die here, although there are some marked differences between this death and the one in Changes. There is, explicitly, no light, train-associated or otherwise, and no "kindly, beckoning voice". There's nothing, in fact, except a sensation like being pressed into, and through, plastic wrap. Then he feels a thudding on his chest, and the plastic wrap pulls away as his heart starts back up. Susan did CPR, just like they planned, and it worked. Crucially, because Harry is a wizard and died suddenly and violently at a time when the veil between worlds is turbulent, his brief death created a ghost. Ghost Harry observes that they look like hell, and offers regular Harry - well, Dream Harry, a hand up. I feel like there's some lesson to be had in "I offered myself a hand up, so I took it," but I don't think Harry gets it until maybe Death Masks. Ghost Harry is a little stronger than regular Harry, and between the two of them they're able to restrain Kravos. 

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Harry extends his dream-self's hands into claws, his face into a muzzle. The book doesn't say so explicitly,
but I am nearly certain these features are borrowed from the wolf form he took when he used the wolf belt in Fool Moon. Thus armed, he physically eviscerates Kravos and starts to eat him. In case we missed the metaphor, it says explicitly that Harry "wolfed into his vitals". He consumes his stolen magic, and then Kravos's own power as well. He eats his heart. This is how we close out the Little Red Riding Hood allusion from Chapter 26. In the discussion of that chapter, I mentioned that modern revisionist retellings sometimes include Red Riding Hood claiming her own wildness and engaging with the wolf on her own terms. That's what Harry's doing here. He is violently, physically reclaiming his power after being violated by Kravos in Chapter 17 and by Bianca in Chapter 33. He's embracing his capacity for violence and destruction. He's literally partly transformed into a wolf. This does not entirely bode well for Our Hero's psychological health, but it sure is good writing. I mean damn. 

When it's done, and the last bits of dream blood and dream viscera have faded from the scene, Ghost Harry puts his hand on regular Harry's shoulder and tells him it's over, he got Kravos. He also reassures him that ghost Kravos wasn't a real person, and that even on the scale of ghosts he was a "bad egg", that he doesn't have anything to regret. Harry says that's easy for Ghost Harry to say, since he doesn't have to live with himself. Ghost Harry is, in fact, already fading out, the unfinished business that brought him into existence completed. 

Harry wakes up, almost painfully full of energy after taking back much of his own magic and all of Kravos's. He assures Susan that she did her part of the plan exactly right. She's naturally a little concerned that he's suddenly able to move under his own power, and he explains that the extra magic is a kind of high - he still feels pain, but it's not important. He tells Susan to get some clothes on Justine so they can get out of there, but Susan says she won't come out from behind the washing machine. So Harry uses a gust of magical wind to physically get her out, and Susan puts her cloak on her. I don't think this is a Tam Lin reference, but we got one earlier so naturally I'm on alert for anyone putting their cloak on anyone else. Then Harry just blows out the locked door of the laundry room. And destroys a couple lightbulbs in the next room. He tells Susan and Justine to get behind him, not so he can stand between them and the forces of darkness but to keep them out of his line of fire. It accomplishes both, though, because as soon has he steps through the door, Kyle and Kelly Hamilton grab him, and announce their intent to find out what a wizard's blood tastes like. 

I am so sorry this took so long. I got Covid, which I haven't had before, and found the experience thoroughly unpleasant. One of my in-laws has never been all that diligent about precautions, and infected someone I live with, after which there's only so much one can do. Assuming I don't get any more potentially deadly diseases, my commitment to trying to go faster between here and the end of this book stands. You might reasonably expect another post within the next week. Until then, be Gay, do Crimes, and read All The Things!