No, the title of this thread isn’t a joke or an attempt at a clever play on words. I’m am quite serious when say there are no continuity errors in the Dresden Files novels, many of us just think there are. Let me also state that the idea that various discrepancies of the descriptions of things, names and events; particularly in Peace Talks, that have been pointed out by many readers, are not due to poor editing or the failure of the Beta readers to point out these discrepancies to Jim. Let me put it another way, these things aren’t bugs in the story telling, they’re a feature. My guess is I am not the only reader to have figured this out, just the first to put it in writing on this forum. For all I know someone on Reddit has already laid this all out. Also, I’m not claiming Jim has been perfect, that he hasn’t made any mistakes. He’s human after all. It’s just that the vast majority of any mistakes; and any deliberate retcons, are covered by what Jim has actually been doing.
The big clue that most of us missed; including myself, was in Skin Game. It’s so obvious I can’t believe it took me this long to figure it out. I’ll just quote directly from chapter 14, but skip the dialog and edit the scene a bit. It’s the one where Harry is dreaming. No, not the sex fantasy part of it.
“…as I caught up to the action that was happening in the dream, it would roar off in a different direction… The whole while, I was conscious of several other Harry Dresdens in the dream, all of them operating a little ways off from me, doing their own confusion dance in parallel to mine…..
Harry then talks to Molly and they discover that they are somehow communicating with each other over a vast distance while both of them are dreaming. At this point Harry sees himself in his old car, the Blue Beetle, with Molly sitting beside him. After the dialog ends this happens.
“… I was suddenly driving in a small herd of Blue Beetles, all of them filled with slightly different versions of Harry Dresden and Molly Carpenter. I had to slalom the VW through them….. The traffic got worse and worse and more confusing, and then there was a loud screech of tires and twisting metal, a bright light, and a sensation of tumbling and falling in an exaggerated graceful slow motion.”
The first part of the dream sequence that I quoted uses the word parallel in it. I don’t think that’s an accident. This is the part of the clue that seals the deal for me. The second part of the dream sequence; the part where all the different Harry and Molly’s are coming together and there’s a crash, that’s telling us that things are coming to a head. Harry can’t understand this, but we can because we know that a confrontation is coming up with a Harry from a radically different universe in Mirror Mirror. The evidence that this dream isn’t a dream at all, but our Harry’s universe coming in close proximity to the other universes, is the fact that Harry and Molly’s communication with one another is real. They aren’t dreaming. That means the things Harry perceives in what he thinks is a dream are also real.
So, to put it plainly, the Dresden Files are occurring in multiple parallel universes, at the same time. In the ones where Harry sees “slightly different versions of Harry Dresden and Molly Carpenter,” the same major events have occurred. Harry has wiped out the Red Court, the Fomor have risen up from the deep and are at war with the White Council and other various supernatural powers, Harry isn’t trusted by most of the White Council, Harry’s relationship with his boss Mab, is strained at the best of times and Harry’s relationship with John Marcone appears to be near the point of breaking into outright hostility. I could list several other points of congruence, but I’m sure you get the general idea.
In at least one parallel world, Mort Lindquist has purchased, and lives in a home with a particular architectural style, while in another parallel universe Mort lives in a different neighborhood in a home with a different architecture style. In either universe Harry knows Mort’s address and their interactions with one another are identical or nearly so. In one parallel universe the Churchmice stole the Shroud of Turin for John Marcone, but Nicodemus and company stole the shroud and murdered two members of the Churchmice before Marcone could take delivery. In another parallel universe the Churchmice were contracted by Nicodemus to steal the Shroud of Turin, but Marcone offered them more money so they headed to Chicago and Nicodemus murdered two of them in return. In at least one universe the Chicago anti-Fomor alliance calls themselves The Brighter Future Society while in another universe they call their alliance The Better Future Society. In at least one of the worlds with a Better Future Society, Harry had never been to Marcone’s castle in the flesh before Peace Talks, because the meeting between Marcone and Mab that took place in Skin Game occurred at a different Marcone property or possibly at Mac’s or even Arctis Tor. It doesn’t matter where that meeting took place, as long as it wasn’t at the castle and it was a place that Harry could discover and go to. I could go on, but you’re probably getting worn out by now.
I think you can see how Jim making the story flow through multiple parallel universes also neatly explains likely retcons, such as Harry’s ability to use a wind spell to literally fly up from the lower floor of Victor Sells home to the second floor and make a nice landing in Storm Front, to Harry saying in a later book that flying spells are extremely dangerous and a thing he learned to avoid after trying to create a flying broom. In one universe Harry can fly, at least a little.
Finally, I said that parallel universes can cover most mistakes, but I didn’t say they could cover every mistake. I don’t know if this final example I will pull from Peace Talks is a mistake, but it appears to me that even a parallel universe doesn’t entirely fix its problems. Ramirez used a dot of magical ink to track Harry to the Raith Estate. While it’s possible that in one universe Harry and Ramirez shook hands instead of bumping fists; and this allowed Carlos the ability stick the ink spot on Harry’s wrist, in either universe Butters should have washed the dot away when he cleaned and debrided the wounds on Harry’s hands. I’m not saying it’s impossible to find an explanation that makes the magical ink stick and not be noticed by Butters; and do so in both universes, but the more complicated the explanation the less believable it becomes.
One minor thing to note. While it’s possible we will see some evidence to back up my analysis in Battle Ground, I don’t expect to be fully vindicated until Mirror Mirror comes out.
