The YLC (Why Little Chicago) thread

[kytheros]

Lara has got good enough intel on his wards to know that if Harry goes into lockdown as per DM he won't be able to get out again and therefore he would be the only option for Thomas to feed on.  That does not read to me like they're a perfect defence against deducing information from/through.

So ... something he's done before? The wards aren't invisible to people with the Sight, nor is there any effort made to conceal them. The wards are on the exterior. They can be visually examined, ala the wards on the Corpsetaker's hideout in Ghost Story. The lab with Little Chicago is buried behind them, and depending on what how one views the efficacy of the circle around Lasciel's Coin ... right next to a Denarian Coin. I'm not certain one could look from the outside without disturbing the wards/Bob.

While, strictly speaking, true ... that's also a timespan when both Thomas and Murphy would have been noticed as missing.

IIRC, we have Harry's lunch with Lily and Maeve, several hours of stuff at the hotel with Murphy around at the beginning of it, Harry getting knocked out and captured by Madrigal, and then Thomas appearing to save the day.  Depending on how long Harry is unconscious and captive, that's a span of a good few hours with Murphy unaccounted for and longer for Thomas.

For the lunch with Lily and Maeve, Bob is still in the lab.
Murphy was in charge of things at the hotel while Harry and Rawlins were captive - that was during the aftermath of the Xenomorph-phage attack.
Harry was unconscious for between an hour and an hour and a half. Thomas found Harry and Rawlins by following Mouse, and then was trying to figure out how to get inside and get Dresden and Rawlins out, sans new bullet holes.

Bob sees the change and deduces what it will do in moments. 

Also, if you believe as I do that Cowl in WN is pulling his punches to not kill Harry while looking like he barely missed killing Harry, that entails deducing a fair bit about Little Chicago's capacities in a matter of a few seconds.

Little Chicago is a major undertaking in a direction of magic that Harry's really not focused on before.  I think it taking him six months is comparable to Molly's slow progress with shields, frex.  I can believe a Senior Council level talent like Cowl with some experience in that form of magic being able to figure it out and fix it on a scale of hours.  I can believe an entity at Mab levels of superhuman being able to do it in minutes.  (The analogy that seems apt here is that I have been doing a particular subset of computer-programming-type things professionally for close on twenty-five years, and there have been times in my particular field of expertise when I've been presented with a specific unfamiliar-to-me problem using basic principles I know well, and have solved or made more progress on it in ten minutes than people without that have been able to in months.)

Bob saw the change and what it did ... because he'd been involved at every stage of planning, prep work, and construction with Harry.
Combat power and non-combat ability to study complicated magical constructs are two very different things. Remember, Ancient Mai is good at the non-combat things, but isn't that good at combat (relatively speaking, of course). Wizard's have different talent areas. Thaumaturgy is an area that Harry is naturally good at - he's got a knack for it. Sure, Cowl (for example) would probably be able to figure out what Little Chicago was in a short period of time - a magical construct representing a chunk of Chicago ... but that's a far cry from being able to figure out how Harry put it together or figuring out that it's got a lethal flaw, much less how to fix it.
According to Bob, Dresden has a gift for the kind of work involved with Little Chicago - and that none of the evil genius's Bob had ever worked for could have managed it, and most of the psychotics wouldn't have been able to either.
The Lea/Mab theory also has the side benefit of the fact that Lea (per her own words) had been following Dresden through the NeverNever, watching over him, even whilst he slept. Mab would have needed to do some of that, though she might have been able to delegate some of the watching, but she'd've been getting reports, and Dresden building Little Chicago is probably something that would probably draw some interest, something that she'd probably follow more closely, partly to see how Dresden was working it/progression of his skills, and partly because it's something that if it went wrong would definitely be something that wouldn't be good for Harry's well being.

As for it taking 6 months ... it's not because he's not good at it, it's because it's such a complex piece of work. Per Bob, Dresden's got a gift for this kind of thing - and that none of the evil geniuses he'd worked for could manage something like Little Chicago, and the same for most of the psychotics.
6 months of pouring energy into it, possibly another few months of design work.
Little Chicago is a highly detailed scale thaumaturgical duplicate of Chicago in a 2 mile radius from Burnham Harbor. That's not something that's going to be quick. Not if you want to build it with the necessary degree of accuracy.

[KevinSig]

For the lunch with Lily and Maeve, Bob is still in the lab.

So Harry takes Bob out of his apartment, does nothing with him & returns him briefly to his aparement? 

In my mind, its more likely that Harry leaves Bob with Murphy after he has her drop him off at Mac's.  He then retrieves Bob afterwards.

[kytheros]

So Harry takes Bob out of his apartment, does nothing with him & returns him briefly to his aparement? 

In my mind, its more likely that Harry leaves Bob with Murphy after he has her drop him off at Mac's.  He then retrieves Bob afterwards.

He hadn't taken Bob with him yet. He took a cab from his apartment to Mac's for the Lily and Maeve meeting, though he did bring Mouse with him.
He only took Bob out with him the second? Third? day that he went to SplatterCon!!! - when he set up the warning web. Aka, the same day of the Xenomorph-phobophage attack (the last phobophage attack, the one that grabbed Molly), and his capture by Madrigal.

[FlaggerX]

To get back to the beginning, I think Little Chicago  was  useful for a couple of stories, and might have been great had Harry's story arc remained in Chicago.   But I think Jim thought it binding, that he was thinking beyond  Harry the Private Eye/Wizard, so it went up along with his, car, apartment and duster. And his 'old' life.

While it might have proven useful in past stories,  simply knowing it was there would have led people like us to ask "Why didn't Harry try Little Chicago When . . . .?"  I think it became a noose around his literary neck, as was the Beetle and some of the other tropes.   Harry's story began as a writing exercise,  built around classic PI fiction with a magical twist.  But as Jim wrote the world evolved and changed, and he began to see more interesting possibilities in it.   The Codex Alera shows his interest in the epic, and he began to see that Harry could be an Epic hero, with more humor and reluctance then most, but it's a line that might be carried through the story.   Little Chicago, the Beetle, his apartment, and duster were the sort of things that belonged to struggling PI Harry.  Epic Hero Harry doesn't really need those quirks, and in fact they hold him back a bit.   

This doesn't mean Harry stops eating at Burger King, or gives up his friends, but symbolizes that the stakes are rising, and the scale of his problems have left Chicago behind.

[kytheros]

To get back to the beginning, I think Little Chicago  was  useful for a couple of stories, and might have been great had Harry's story arc remained in Chicago.   But I think Jim thought it binding, that he was thinking beyond  Harry the Private Eye/Wizard, so it went up along with his, car, apartment and duster. And his 'old' life.

While it might have proven useful in past stories,  simply knowing it was there would have led people like us to ask "Why didn't Harry try Little Chicago When . . . .?"  I think it became a noose around his literary neck, as was the Beetle and some of the other tropes.   Harry's story began as a writing exercise,  built around classic PI fiction with a magical twist.  But as Jim wrote the world evolved and changed, and he began to see more interesting possibilities in it.   The Codex Alera shows his interest in the epic, and he began to see that Harry could be an Epic hero, with more humor and reluctance then most, but it's a line that might be carried through the story.   Little Chicago, the Beetle, his apartment, and duster were the sort of things that belonged to struggling PI Harry.  Epic Hero Harry doesn't really need those quirks, and in fact they hold him back a bit.   

This doesn't mean Harry stops eating at Burger King, or gives up his friends, but symbolizes that the stakes are rising, and the scale of his problems have left Chicago behind.

Little Chicago, even at it's known largest form (4 mile radius from Burnham Harbor), has never covered more than just a portion of Chicago, much less the metropolitan area.

[KevinSig]

He hadn't taken Bob with him yet. He took a cab from his apartment to Mac's for the Lily and Maeve meeting, though he did bring Mouse with him.
He only took Bob out with him the second? Third? day that he went to SplatterCon!!! - when he set up the warning web. Aka, the same day of the Xenomorph-phobophage attack (the last phobophage attack, the one that grabbed Molly), and his capture by Madrigal.

Check again, Harry grabs Bob & Mouse in chapter 15 (& puts Bob in a backpack), chapter 19 is where Harry meets the Queens.  In Chapter 21, Bob is still in the backpack.  So in my mind, even if he did drop Bob off briefly, at his apartment, (like he did with Mouse,) Bob remained in the backpack.

Most likely put on the couch, or somewhere else coiveniant, for a quick grab.


The fixing of Little Chicago likely took place between chapter 15-18, or between 21 & whenever Harry gets back to his apartment afterwards (which might not be until he actually uses LC, from my recollection).

Thomas is around the apartment between the 15-18 period, but 21 onward he's obviously been following Harry. So it's possible to do the fix with & without Thomas.  However, there's a huge period of time to do the fix without Bob being able to see the change, until after the fact.

[dpara]

I think we are missing a valid piece of motivation;
 what if someone wanted to use LC ?

I am also not quite certain why one could not just tell Bob to forget about it.
Can only his owner do that?

edit: doesn't the Chicago in the sky also sound like a remarkably similar piece of magic?

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I am also not quite certain why one could not just tell Bob to forget about it.
Can only his owner do that?

Come to think of it, have we grounds for assuming Bob will always automatically wake up if someone is in the apartment ?

[knnn]

I am also not quite certain why one could not just tell Bob to forget about it.
Can only his owner do that?

In Backup, Thomas gets Bob to promise not to tell Harry about the Venators, so there is a precedence.

[breck]

Wild guess here. Have the brownies who clean the apartment been known to fix things? Depending on what the actual fix to lc was maybe they just cleaned something up on lc and it made the power flow better.



On later consideration i do not believe the brownies enter harry's lab, so withdrawing brownies as suspect. The brownies were a gift from the current summer lady though perhaps she can enter the apartment. She might even know someone with a toolbox that fixes things. Only being half serious here that speculation was just for laughs.

[KevinSig]

Serack, I found another use of Little Chicago that you'll need to add to the first post.

In the short story, Love Hurts, Harry mentions trying to use it to track down the mind boinking.  Its unsucessful, but regardless it did at least get used.

[robertltux]

On later consideration i do not believe the brownies enter harry's lab, so withdrawing brownies as suspect.

it is mentioned that there is a "No Brownies In The Lab" rule so unless one of the brownies ignored that rule thats a NO GO. (may explain how WhoEver found out about LC maybe).

[breck]

it is mentioned that there is a "No Brownies In The Lab" rule so unless one of the brownies ignored that rule thats a NO GO. (may explain how WhoEver found out about LC maybe).

Harry should ask the brownies or lily next time he sees her. As mentioned they might have told someone about little chicago or seen someone enter.

[KnightShade]

After re-reading Blood Rites in anticipation of Cold Days, I've run across something that triggered a recall of a discussion in this thread.

It's been hypothesized that future Harry comes back and fixes LC. This would seem to be in opposition to the Laws of Magic, as going against the flow of time is forbidden.

However, there is a loophole. Ebenezar openly admits, in his confession of being the Blackstaff, that he has, with impunity, violated every law of magic, including the flow of time.

Now, this lends to one of two theories, if we are still to consider a time traveler fixes LC and does so legally.
One. Ebenezar fixes LC.
Two. Harry inherits the mantle of Blackstaff and fixes it himself.

[peregrine]

However, there is a loophole. Ebenezar openly admits, in his confession of being the Blackstaff, that he has, with impunity, violated every law of magic, including the flow of time.

No he doesn't.  He admits that he has license to do so, but the only thing he admits to actually doing is a lot of killing.