If the Council had tried to execute Molly in Proven Guilty...

[nadia.skylark]

You are misrembering. 

You're right. My bad.

I didn't ask you how the plot would change, I asked you how the plot was served.  The plot was a quest to save Molly. Here was the promise to Charity. Molly forever a fugitive and almost certainly a warlock seems to not fulfill that promise.

I'll be honest here, I don't get what you're saying. Are you saying that the plot only works if Harry succeeds unproblematically? In my scenario, Harry makes an objectively awful choice in order to attempt to fulfill his promise to Charity. This spurs character development, conflict, and new directions for the plot to go, all of which I gave examples of. I'm not sure what you mean by "serving the plot" if it isn't that.

Also, I'm not sure why you think that Molly would "almost certainly [be] a warlock." Harry certainly wouldn't decide to just throw out the laws of magic just because the Council is trying to kill them, and he's probably still her teacher.

[forumghost]

Personally I feel like if Harry had gotten desperate he'd most likely have tossed Lily his shiny new pin and been like "Favour: get us out of here!"

Then Lily Nevernever's him and Molly to, I dunno, China or something and they go on the run.

Now, might he have called on Lasciel if he were cornered and it came down to a fight? Perhaps. He's been tempted before. But I don't think so. It would take a lot to make him that desperate, and as much as he wanted to save Molly (and if possible himself) I don't know that he'd go that far just yet.

[nadia.skylark]

Personally I feel like if Harry had gotten desperate he'd most likely have tossed Lily his shiny new pin and been like "Favour: get us out of here!"

Then Lily Nevernever's him and Molly to, I dunno, China or something and they go on the run.

That's a good point!

Now, might he have called on Lasciel if he were cornered and it came down to a fight? Perhaps. He's been tempted before. But I don't think so. It would take a lot to make him that desperate, and as much as he wanted to save Molly (and if possible himself) I don't know that he'd go that far just yet.

Yeah, I figure the odds of him doing it are something like 30-40% at most. I just really want to read a longer story where Harry takes up Lasciel's coin, and I think this is a better starting place for it than White Night (by that point, picking up a coin would mean killing Lash (who Harry seems to care about)).

Seriously, I can only remember three fanfics that have Harry picking up Lasciel's coin, and while they're excellent, one is a fairly short one-shot, one appears to have been abandoned, and one seems to update super-slowly (if it's not abandoned too) and Harry only picked up the coin at the end of what's posted. 

[morriswalters]

You're right. My bad.

I'll be honest here, I don't get what you're saying. Are you saying that the plot only works if Harry succeeds unproblematically? In my scenario, Harry makes an objectively awful choice in order to attempt to fulfill his promise to Charity. This spurs character development, conflict, and new directions for the plot to go, all of which I gave examples of. I'm not sure what you mean by "serving the plot" if it isn't that.

Also, I'm not sure why you think that Molly would "almost certainly [be] a warlock." Harry certainly wouldn't decide to just throw out the laws of magic just because the Council is trying to kill them, and he's probably still her teacher.

The plot as stated was to keep Molly from being Proven Guilty.  Serving that plot would be a change that achieves the same endpoint. 

If you want to write a book called Harry goes on the Lamb with Molly, that's well and good.  In your book he would lose both sources of his income, his business and his warden paycheck.  Making Harry and Molly homeless, not to mention under a sentence of death.  Not a good place to be in for a teacher or a student.  I assume Murphy would take his pets and clean out his apartment.  Harry has so much junk at the hacienda.  Swords, skulls and LC.  At least his landlady won't get burned out.

[nadia.skylark]

The plot as stated was to keep Molly from being Proven Guilty.  Serving that plot would be a change that achieves the same endpoint. 

So what you're saying is that the plot is only served if the good guys win. I disagree with this.

If you want to write a book called Harry goes on the Lamb with Molly, that's well and good.  In your book he would lose both sources of his income, his business and his warden paycheck.  Making Harry and Molly homeless, not to mention under a sentence of death.  Not a good place to be in for a teacher or a student.  I assume Murphy would take his pets and clean out his apartment.  Harry has so much junk at the hacienda.  Swords, skulls and LC.  At least his landlady won't get burned out.

Actually, one's been written: Fight and Flight by TheRedPoet. You can find it at Archive of our Own. You should read it. It's really good! I just wish it had more Lasciel in it (the premise is that Harry does a runner when he realizes that the Merlin has 6 votes, rather than my suggestion of him picking up Lasciel's coin). Things work out fairly well for Molly, actually--Harry doesn't have a job, so with nothing to distract him he notices how much of a problem her sensitivity is an works out how to train her how to deal with it.

[morriswalters]

So what you're saying is that the plot is only served if the good guys win. I disagree with this.

No.  I'm saying that in any reasonable world, you don't change the last act without changing what came before.  Proven Guilty moves to the end after multiple chapters of setup.  The book sets up the conclusion so that Molly can return home to her family and reconcile with her mother. The book is a puzzle and you've introduced a piece that doesn't fit.

There can be a story where your idea works, but not Proven Guilty.  Or at least not without a significant rewrite. 

Chapter one sets up the final confrontation with the White Council.  It mirrors what Molly will face at the end.  The warlock that is executed contrasts with Molly directly, and it is this outcome that sickens Harry and motivates Harry to act for Molly.  Running with Molly wastes that setup, it remains unresolved.

Rashid's note is the next part.  It tells us at least two things.  That Rashid has a mechanism for finding acts of Black Magic in Chicago, and that he finds it important enough to warn Harry.  The point is to give Harry a chance to save Molly rather then turn her into a fugitive.  It also advances the ongoing backstory.

The last part I will note is Harry's interaction with Michael.  Part of the hazard that Molly faces is the loss of support from her family.  And Harry has allowed the coin to estrange him from his friend.  Michael's willingness to put his family in Harry's hands and trust in him to try and repair Molly's relationship with her mother despite his knowledge of the shadow, ends that estrangement, and shows Michael's faith in both TWG and Harry.

Your scenario offers no payoff.  It turns the book into a cliffhanger and basically wastes all that setup.  Molly doesn't die, but neither is she free.  Rashid's warning is wasted, and things are now worse for Michael's family rather than better.

As a general rule I refuse to read fan fiction.  There isn't anything wrong with it.  But for me it destroys the flow of the books.  In the case of the Dresden Files I am more interested in the ongoing backstory.  Why the characters act the way they do.  And what happens off the page.  So while you want to see more Lasciel, I want to see why Jim created Bonea.

You soldier on and I'll torment someone else for a while.

Personally I feel like if Harry had gotten desperate he'd most likely have tossed Lily his shiny new pin and been like "Favour: get us out of here!"

That would seem to violate the rules of hospitality.

[Mira]

  The book as written also foreshadows when Harry will confront the Council in a future book.  Echoed by what Rashid tells him in Turncoat.   It proves that Harry can go head to head with the Merlin verbally, intellectually, and win, even if in this case without a little help he was going to lose anyway because the Merlin had his thumb on the scale of justice.

[nadia.skylark]

No.  I'm saying that in any reasonable world, you don't change the last act without changing what came before.  Proven Guilty moves to the end after multiple chapters of setup.  The book sets up the conclusion so that Molly can return home to her family and reconcile with her mother. The book is a puzzle and you've introduced a piece that doesn't fit.

There can be a story where your idea works, but not Proven Guilty.  Or at least not without a significant rewrite. 

Yeah, I'm sorry, but I just don't see this. Maybe it's just because I'm not looking at the books as discrete entities so much as chapters in an ongoing story, but to me this seems like a natural extension of the "problems with the Council" thread that's been running through the books. I do agree, however, that changing some things earlier in the book would make it flow more smoothly. For example, if I was going to write this story, I would have Lasciel, in her first appearance right after the warlock is executed, say something like "I wonder, my host, if the black magic is coming from an actual threat or a child that knows no better--not that the Council would care, of course" and have Harry spend a few minutes trying and mostly failing to deny it. Then I would move the conversation where Harry tells Michael about Lasciel to before Michael leaves, when he says he trusts Harry to protect his family, and have Harry add a line about how it's hard to justify ignoring Lash completely when drawing on her is occasionally the only way to save innocent lives. I'd also have Harry put more stress on the fact that when he and Rawlings (sp?) are captured, he can't let Rawlings get killed. I'd also move Harry's conversation with Ebenezer about the Black Council to the beginning of the book.

...On second thought, I do see what you mean. I'm just so used to reading fanfiction and coming up with my own ideas for it (even if I never write them) that I rewrote some stuff in my head. That said, I don't think there would need to be any particularly major changes for this to work.

[Kindler]

I agree with morriswalters that the end of the book can't change unless the preceding fortysomething chapters were overhauled; at the very least, Arctis Tor and onward would need to be altered fundamentally. If Molly goes on the run with Harry, then Charity should die getting her away from Eldest Fetch, for instance, and both the Council and Lasciel would need to have a much more significant presence in the book. I mean, without, for example, Harry witnessing Charity sacrifice her life (or something equally troubling) to preserve Molly's life, do you think he'd actually use a Denarian's power to save Michael's daughter? He already feels too ashamed of himself to even speak to Michael, and that's just from having a Shadow. I think that the way things were written, Harry taking Molly as his apprentice while remaining with the Council is the only ending that really makes sense, otherwise it'd just be drama for drama's sake.

All of this aside, it's something that could have happened at one point or another in the story, but I don't think it would've been better. Denarian Harry just wouldn't be terribly interesting to me. The only ongoing element that I'd like to see from that perspective is a deeper look into Nicodemus's plan (when taking Denarian Harry down its logical plot). But that would necessarily eliminate or reduce the importance of the other ongoing plots—the Red Court war, the Black Council and White Council politics, Harry's relationship with Thomas, the Alphas, Murphy... if Harry's on the run, Chicago isn't really a viable setting anymore, and that would be too big of a change, I think.

That said, nadia.skylark, if that's the kind of plot you're into, then check out the Alex Verus series by Benedict Jacka, if you haven't already. He's one of a handful of urban fantasy writers who I read regularly; though he does take some cues from Jim Butcher (and gives him a hat tip in Book One), it's very much its own tone, style, and cast, with a lead protagonist that's simultaneously outmatched and completely overpowered.

And there's nothing wrong with fan fiction. I never wrote or read much of it myself, but it's a way for a lot of writers to learn how to write. It's like disassembling someone's Lego set to build something yourself, which can be very helpful.

Though it did give us *shudder* Fifty Shades of Grey, for which I will never forgive the FanFic community.

[nadia.skylark]

at the very least, Arctis Tor and onward would need to be altered fundamentally. If Molly goes on the run with Harry, then Charity should die getting her away from Eldest Fetch, for instance, and both the Council and Lasciel would need to have a much more significant presence in the book. I mean, without, for example, Harry witnessing Charity sacrifice her life (or something equally troubling) to preserve Molly's life, do you think he'd actually use a Denarian's power to save Michael's daughter? He already feels too ashamed of himself to even speak to Michael, and that's just from having a Shadow.

This would be a great addition!

Denarian Harry just wouldn't be terribly interesting to me. The only ongoing element that I'd like to see from that perspective is a deeper look into Nicodemus's plan (when taking Denarian Harry down its logical plot). But that would necessarily eliminate or reduce the importance of the other ongoing plots—the Red Court war, the Black Council and White Council politics, Harry's relationship with Thomas, the Alphas, Murphy... if Harry's on the run, Chicago isn't really a viable setting anymore, and that would be too big of a change, I think.

Not necessarily. I believe I proposed two theories where Harry gets a lot more involved with the war with the Red Court, either by hiding in South America and working with the Fellowship or by making a bargain with Lily and contributing to the war that way. In either case, you could have covert Council interaction through his allies, and then have Harry brought back into dealing with Black Council infiltration via Morgan (either Morgan decides to die by blowing up as much of the Red Court as he can manage and runs into Harry that way, or he runs into Harry when he goes to cash in his favor from Summer). In addition, I proposed a theory where Thomas still has sporadic contact with Harry, and Harry goes back to Chicago to deal with the plot of White Night and ends up bonding with Demonreach much earlier, at which point he can live there at least part time. It would put Harry somewhat in the same position Molly was in Ghost Story, where Carlos knows he's there but pretends not to, so you could explore more of the way the Council is fragmenting. It would also involve moving a lot of the post-Changes character development and interaction earlier, which I think works well--having all of it happening when it does in the books means we don't get to see it explored as much as I would like, because so much else is happening. Harry could also get more involved with Red Court and Black Council things purely through the Denarian angle, since Nicodemus has indicated that he's against both.

That said, nadia.skylark, if that's the kind of plot you're into, then check out the Alex Verus series by Benedict Jacka, if you haven't already. He's one of a handful of urban fantasy writers who I read regularly; though he does take some cues from Jim Butcher (and gives him a hat tip in Book One), it's very much its own tone, style, and cast, with a lead protagonist that's simultaneously outmatched and completely overpowered.

I've read it, and it's awesome!