I know that unfortunately he has huge health problems after the stroke, but in a better world... However, he continues to participate in voice acting, so not all is lost.

Duke Crocker from Haven. Played by Eric Balfour. The attitude, the styling, his whole deal is 100% a match to Harry, for me.

So I have a "To be Watched" list that is nearly 200 movies deep. This morning I watched "Tootsie" for the first time. There is a scene where Dustin Hoffman's character is hearing a story about a coworker's father's friend. A Native American named Injun-Joe.

I will bet this is where Butcher got Listens-to-Wind's nickname from. The movie is from 83. That is Prime Butcher reference time frame.

Very amusing thought for the first 5 books and half of Blood Rites: since Thomas knew Harry was his younger half brother since before they met in Grave Peril, it is hilarious going to any moments where they work together before that revelation and watching Harry be a dumb/badass in front of him. I can imagine the series as narrated by Thomas would be an endless string of screaming and swearing because his little brother is a reckless, unhinged, too noble for his own good walking magical nuke that he is trying to assist and help keep alive. Also, Harry in a cheesy vampire costume when they first met had to be one hell of an impression for Thomas

I recently posted a review of grave peril on my tiktok account and noticed that dresdenfiles is not big on booktok. Despite that i think it would be a big winner on there. Like i hear it all over youtube but tiktok nothing. From my understanding booktok likes relativly fast paced books with simple english, 1st person POV stories and short books and DF has all of that but its not popular on there and ill show you some examples

Dresden files has: 6,100 videos with #dresdenfiles and the first book has 388k ratings on GR

Where as suneater has 48k videos with #suneater and 63k GR ratings and suneater is slower paced, has denser prose and each book is around 600 pages where as DF usually has around 300-400 pages.

So, I am thinking about Mirror, Mirror and wondering if the money issues noted in both 12 Months and Outlaw is going to be one of the side quests in that book. Harry was saying he has less than a year's worth of funding left.

I'm sure the immediate answer for a lot of you will be 'Yes, absolutely' but I want to be more specific about my question:

So I've read the first three books, and they were largely okay.

I'm, a big fan of what Butcher clearly seems to be setting up, worldbuilding-wise, and I love a bit of urban fantasy and from what little I know it seems that this is a quintessential example of this genre done well.

So far, nothing but glowing praise. My issue, then, is with Mr Dresden himself.

I'll cut to the chase:

He's too passive. I want so badly to get into this series properly but Harry's total lack of proactivity is making it really hard not to drop it. His power level is a tad low, but I'm positive that will only increase in later books. The issue is he's just reactive when I want him to be dictating the flow of the narrative.

To be honest, in a bid to avoid spoilers I haven't done any research but I'd be shocked if this wasn't a reasonably common complaint. My question is, then, does it get resolved and if so, when? If I have to read four more books before i start approving of his actions is it really worth it?

TL;DR for the impatient: Harry too passive, when get better?

Extended thoughts for the devoted (pretty much just an incoherent ramble so I honestly wouldn't bother):

I genuinely think that there is a lot to love about this series so far and I certainly believe the potential is immense. It feels like the stakes in each book increase further and that's certainly a trend that I would like to continue. Furthermore, I mentioned worldbuilding earlier, and as far as that goes, I'm a massive fan. I'll always eat up worlds with distinct factions that allow for complex intertwining politics. The magic system is checking my fantasy boxes and feels like it will only get more expansive, and the supernatural elements hit just right.

I also like how knowledgeable our protagonist is, he seems to keep a clear head under pressure and I wouldn't describe him as incompetent, but I hope he gets a bit more hardened in the future. I know it was at the start but in the first book he saw a bit of blood and vomited everywhere, understandable for you or me, sure but it fully distracted from my initial perceived capability of the guy. I get it sounds nitpicky but I will always fundamentally prefer a more in-control protagonist. That's not to say he shouldn't be challenged but he should make use of his obvious intelligence to be more prepared for things.

I mean, as an example, instead of just sitting murphy down and explaining things, or perhaps preferably, cutting her out of his life for her own safety, he keeps her around and hides critical information from her which ends up with him being arrested. This felt contrived and frustrating rather than being a compelling character flaw.

On this point, actually, I'd guess that this is the type of story where the main character always tries to go off and do dangerous things on his own but keeps being told that he has friends that would gladly help and going alone is stupid and suicidal and arrogant and selfish etc etc etc. I would really like it if my suspicions are incorrect and he actually learns not to rely on others too much, maybe due to the fact the the forces he ends up facing being too powerful for anyone but him to take on? A lot of the time, popular, well selling fantasy novels have 'stronger together' aspect to them, but to be honest most of the time I just wanna see the main character do cool, impressive stuff.

That last point doesn't matter too much, I've found its pretty hard to find a book series with good character work and storytelling, with a powerful main character who maintains well-written friendships, yet still regularly goes off and does cool dangerous stuff on his own without relying on anyone else. If you have any recommendations that fit these specific criteria, I would appreciate them.

As a final note, assuming that my aforementioned issue does indeed get resolved, I will leave you with my ideal direction for the future development of this series. I hope Butcher continues to expand the worldbuilding and the stakes, and that Dresden grows into a renowned figure within the world, doing supposedly impossible stuff and surprising beings that ordinarily would be way too powerful to be impressed by what should be a relatively insignificant individual. (this is my favorite niche trope)

Heads up for anyone who’s interested.

I remember being really excited when 12 months and outlaw dropped this year and in interviews, Jim said he expected Mirror Mirror to be completed by the spring. Looking on his website, it’s been sitting at 42% for a while. Has he provided an update as to when his will have this finished and sent off to his editors?

I am currently listening to the final battle of this book in Molly's mind. This got me thinking about Harry's mind. In this book he says it's like a castle. However the only times I can think of that we have been to Harry's mind is Lash's prison. In that prison we only see dark Harry. Does Molly have a full enterprise space crew due to her state in this book? Does this show Harry is more depressed then crazy?

I know how it can be used…

I finally found what the White Council has been doing for the last year while they were offscreen. Langtry clearly had priorities. Poor Idaho, though. How could they just leave it transmuted into... *that*?

On cold days we see how Dresden deactivate the mantel of the summer knight with an iron nail. So he can't simply deactivate the winter mantel with a pair of iron earrings.

Here I am killing time at work, listening to Side Jobs (It's My Birthday Too) when a realization hit me like a Mac truck.

Harry doesn't have to hide his relationship with Thomas anymore.

Or at least his primary reason for doing so, to avoid trouble with the White Council, is now moot. The council kicked him out.

Lara may still want to keep it quiet but Harry's fundamental situation has changed.

Langtry's cold, blue eyes smoldered.

"You've known about her your whole life. Through your time on the White Council, through your time as a Warden, and you never spoke up."

My own eyes matched the heat in his. "What should I have said, honored Merlin? I thought she died with DuMorne. Should I have told you I didn't kill one person with magic that day, I killed two? Is that what that terrorized teenager under the black hood should have said in his defense?"

I hope I don't spoil anything by this negative statement, but I marked it as spoiler despite being related to fan theories and rules more than the books themselves, because it discuss characters that shows up several books into the series, more specifically, Dead Beat.

For years people have speculated in just who Cowl is, and I frequently read about which characters could return from the future as Cowl, or become Cowl.

The title says it all, and I want to put the discussion to rest: Cowl, and Kumori for that matter, cannot be time travelers by the rules Butcher has set for this universe.

To support my thesis, I want to bring the concept of multiverse to your attention. I hate this concept with a passion, because nothing good can come of it, but it is what it is, and I hope I can contribute to navigating the pits with this post. In preparation for Mirror Mirror we have been clued in on the fact that the timeline branches, and that it's possible to move between branches in one way or another (which is also completely irrelevant to this post).

This is a summary of most, it not all, of what Butcher has said regarding parallel universes, the multiverse, and time branching over the years.

In the Dresden Files Podcast Butcher said the following in response to a comment about time branching at choices, aka, parallel universes being created at each and every choice each of us make.

"Yeah which is interesting because if you look at that from you know, Uriel's point of view then suddenly the battle of good and evil is all about choices because every choice starts creating more and more different realities, more and more universes eternally branching universes and are they going to be places where good things happen or places where bad things happen? That's kind of an epic struggle if looked at that way."

"So poor Uriel has to deal with millions and millions of Harry Dresdens because they're always causing problems and they're always making choices and they're always creating new branches for the universe so poor Uriel just has to deal with so many copies of this guy."

What this implies, or spells outright, is that time from any moment will look like this:

Just with, you know, infinite lines going out from any moment instead of the almost 20 I artistically went with.

This is an attempt to visualize the concept of any moment in time branching into an infinite number of parallel universes. Each and every time anyone makes a choice, from tiny choices akin to which button to press on their keyboard to whether or not to accept some form of cosmic power from godlike beings. Not once every minute, nor once every second, we're talking an infinite amount of parallel universes being created every moment, in the [smallest fraction of time you can imagine].

Some of you might see where I'm going with this.

Time traveling is probably frowned upon for a reason.

Your timeline will always be a straight line backwards in time, and an infinite mess if you look forward. (Poor gatekeeper and others who enjoys divination.)

If someone should decide to travel ahead in time, that someone is removed from the timelines branching forward from that moment until the point in time that someone chose, and keep being part of the infinitely branching universes from that moment. No big deal in itself. It would likely be a 1:1 ratio: one copy moving ahead landing in one copy of the universe.

However, If that someone should decide to go back in time again, the problem arises, and this is what Cowl would face.

If someone, let's just say Cowl, should decide to travel backwards in time, an infinite number of Cowls would be created from the moment of decision until the moment of execution. An infinite number of Cowls would coalesce in a bottleneck that is the moment in time which their infinite number of parallel universes originally branched from. (See my masterpiece above, just trace it from right to left instead.)

All other challenges related to time travel aside, an infinite number of Cowls would arrive at the exact same moment in the exact same space.

Infinite is a freaking huge number. An average adult human body, weighing around 70kg, contains approximately 7 octillion atoms (7 x 10²⁷) - Nowhere near infinite, yet a single atom is practically non-existent next to a human body. The Sun contains approximately 1.19 x 10⁵⁷ atoms. We're still nowhere near infinity. In fact, the number of atoms in the (observable) universe, even counting energy yet to become matter, is likely finite in a very abstract sense.

Cowl going back in time would not just fill up a room with Cowls, nor a small town or city.

By the rules Butcher has set for this fictional universe, there would be more Cowls ending up in the exact same point in space and time than there are atoms in the universe.

If Cowl travels back in time, the whole universe would become Cowls, effectively ending that timeline and creating an infinite amount of paradoxes for Uriel to sort out, if he even can.

I think it's pretty safe to say traveling back in time is not an option in this universe.

Even if we interpret what Butcher said to only include major choices, there would be too many Cowls running around to count.

This is a cool visual imo of what the passages through undertown look like. Obviously these had electric lighting and are well maintained but still cool.

*Credit to urbexashton on instagram

To heckin’ “Stress Talks” because no other book in this series manages to stress me out as effectively as this one does in the first few chapters.

Please someone take my involuntary reflexive empathetic response out back and shoot it.

I mean, look at his role in Bones. After all, he was in Buffy, for Christ's sake.

I am a huge fan of the Dresden Files and re-read the series multiple times. But I'm at a loss as to how to address this issue.

I'm running/GMing an RPG set in the Dresden Universe. The PCs are planning on going back in time to stop a possibly world ending event in my story. This will have major ramifications for the entire campaign and possibly the Dresden Universe as a whole.

I plan on Urial showing up to try and talk them out of it, as Urial does, by hinting and suggesting and not stripping them of their free will/choice. Is Rashid the White Council's Time guy? Or am I remembering that wrong?

The spell and travelling also involve god-magic, but I don't want Vanderung there. Is there anyone else that could conceivably show up to this impromptu meeting? And not just gods, anyone else have an interest in time travel?

Thanks in advance

I don't recall when in the books Harry is supposed to make the choice that changes everything.

But ...

What if its *not* picking up Lasciel's coin?

Arguably he never gets angelfire, dies messily or is disabled before rescuing Maggie, no Bonnie, and maybe the Red Court is still running around.