[BG spoilers] A defense and requiem for my favorite character . . .

[kat7]

Belatedly . . .

“I approached the Merlin, catching him unawares, kissing him long and hard.”

How . . . how did we get . . . how are we here? 

“Shagnasty, well that speaks for itself

WOMP.

We will see murphy in memory form in Twelve Months I do not doubt like we have Malcolm, very likely to see her physically in Mirror, Mirror.

I hope so!!!

I wish there was a tag that made things invisible to Jim . . . ? <no-see-jim>My new biggest fear is that, if Harry does end up running around Battle Ground again via time travel, he will have to ensure that Murphy does die for some aggravating greater-good preserve-the-timeline reason.

I'm not saying I expect that (too much of a Susan do-over) . . . but I fear it immensely.</no-see-jim>

So no job, losing step to the supernatural group, no powerup to work with, there really wasn't a place for [Murphy] anymore that was in the main part of the story. She was just slowing Harry down.

Now, I'm a big Care Bear, but I don't necessarily need Murphy "in the action" to have a valid place "in the story." As I see it, she has a unique relationship to Harry: She loves him (but has never idolized him)--she fully trusts him (after enough rounds of the broken/repaired-trust dance) but she's not afraid to call him out when he is wrong--and she really knows him (from back when he was "human" with way fewer asterisks). Especially while he's grappling with the mantle, that makes Murphy a key early-warning person who can say, "Hey, does Harry seem off?" or "Harry, stop!" That's a major loss.

Plus--she doesn't have any competing loyalties to people or causes (outside general protection of the innocent). Like, sure, Michael, Butters, Thomas will show up for Harry, but he's not first with them (they have families, lovers). And others who help Harry (Mab, Lara) are doing so for their own purposes. But Harry's pretty much first with Murphy, and that's because she loves him--and he knows that.

So that's an even more major loss--especially for someone with Harry's past and his need to attach/anchor. (I've always loved the scene where Murphy says to him something like "and you could never do [a] casual [relationship]."--because she's recognizing this very essential, frankly vulnerable aspect of Harry, but without knocking it.)

Anyway I found their relationship interesting of itself, and I was super invested in seeing it continue to evolve as they dealt with Murphy's disability, Harry's still newly-minted fatherhood, winter mantle, etc., in addition to world-saving and any number of stressors/surprises.

And . . . I haven't totally given up yet . . . !

[bigdangmoose]

See, here's the thing about their relationship. It was all based on their teamwork. Harry and Susan started with them getting to know each other and it bloomed from there. Harry and Murphy bloomed from fighting together, fighting each other and fighting monsters. It's the trope that shows like Bones and Castle did. Two people who work together but one hates the other even though they know how much they need the other to get the job done. They have nothing else in common. Wear the other down, keep flirting, boom they love each other. The fans eat it up and cheer.

That's pretty much what we got with Harry and Murphy. Murphy didn't like Harry but he got results. Then Harry showed some trust and helped her to do her job. They worked together a lot but did little else together. Harry started having feelings, started wearing her down. She admitted her feelings but job came first, anything more between them would be bad. She lost her job, part of the commonality they had together. She decided to accept him to keep what they/she had. Only help she can give is to fight beside him. Needs to fight beside him because she loves him and wants to keep what they have together going.

Yeeaaahhhhh, didn't really want it to end for her, but it I did see it coming back in SG and really saw it in PT. Luckily we have Twelve Months to see Harry deal with his bottled up emotions and memories.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

The one foe Murphy couldn’t overcome.

Looking up at the chocolate on the highest shelf,
Karrin said “bugger I can’t get it myself”
Looking round for a chair,
She found none to spare,
And said “If Harry mocks me, too bad for his health”

The top shelf, Murphy’s lofty arch enemy the one she could never beat.

[Wicked Woodpecker of West]

Overall I have some problems with whole Murphy's story in PT/BG and with the way her character arc ended for now.
Because while I believe we'll see her as Einhernjar in BAT (I doubt we'll see her earlier - but there will be alt-Murphy from Darth Dresden world, and probably past!Murphy in Time Travel - with those two and Olympian and Dragons books only one left behind till BAT - I doubt Butcher would return her to story earlier. Unless Odin is in fact also the Dragon, the frenemy of Ferrovax, and the Dragon Dresden will have to kill in book 21 I think will be Odin and not Sean Connery.) I think Jim wasted few opportunities to delve bit more in her character.

And having more time between SG and PT, extra story for Harry to Winter Knight around, and Murphy being unable to follow, could be interesting. Especially since I consider her stubborn attitude to be a little bit unhealthy and worthy of unraveling a bit (AND then killing her in BG, because well there was no way Murphy would stay out of this one). As I value valor/courage, I think it's twin sister temperance - ergo virtue of abstaining from action and enduring inevitable is often playing second pair of violins because it's less flashy and less cool.

I also condier all this Valhalla schtick bit problematic, especially as Butcher seems to present - maybe to fool us - as almost happy ending at least in spiritual terms. I have problem with that because well I do not see Murphy as warrior, I see her as a cop, and as vindicator, but not someone fighting for sake of how cool it is - like berserkers of Valhalla. And many many Einhernjaren were by all chances terrible, terrible men from Murphy's perspective. Pillagers, warlords, arsonists, robbers, rapers. Now of course as long you have courage to do your job, that does not matter for Odin - he trains Einhernjaren to fight off Apocalypse not to replace Knights of the Cross - but still - like let's say how would Murphy reacted assuming her soul is intact (there's this theory Einhernjaren are just ghost powering their old meatsuits but somehow I doubt) to get a job a Sir Baron Marcone bodyguard in dystopian Chicago of 2525?

I must say I'm kinda Lord of the Rings guy, so while I get epic battles are cool, somehow I'd wish bit of this Tolkienian perspective - that you know not really it's not. In Battle Ground even in darkest moments of this battle - cool factor is always on in my perspective. So as we gonna finally delve more in  Harry's trauma in TM, this chance for Murphy is missing. There was this moment of her unravelling after Fidellachius destruction which was quite cool - but there was sort of no follow up, and she return to holding her guard high and cards close to heart.

On the other hand, I always suspected that losing Murphy would be the thing that flips Harry "dark"--and yes, he freaked out, but no, (with an assist) he didn't flip. That was a refreshing anti-trope. Of course Rudolph's still out there . . .

In my opinion it was most tropey as you can go. Good character is hot for vengeance but his friends stops him before he turned to dark side.
I mean if Dresden killed Rudolph (maybe soulgazing him for extra creepy factor) and Knights came too late, and Dresden would still well not be monster but himself, and get realisation bit too late - that could be oh so interesting. (Especially if knights knew but were unable to stop Dresden).

On my first read, Murphy's death and Harry's response, as well as the memorial service, felt REALLY . . . rushed? Unexplored? I understand Harry couldn't stop to process, but we can hear his whole internal monologue, and thoughts of Murphy seemed to fade away almost insultingly soon after she herself did. Especially when Harry said, "it would hurt, but I would heal"--I get the stoicism, but that just felt SO abrupt and rather out of character? I'm quite worried about the "chilling effect" of Winter on Harry . . .

I mean we see in his monologue he sort of pushed thoughts about Murphy into well more subconcious part of brain. They emerge bit for bit, but he conciously avoid thinking about her in battle, and well he's a wizard - even hotheaded building burner he has better control of this thought streams than 99,9 % of mankind.

I hope Twelve Months allows Harry to investigate his father’s death and his adoption by Justin, it would allow him to deal better with more recent trauma like the loss of Murphy, and the Wardens, and the folk in his banner. To properly assess his future, Harry needs to know his past.

I hope he will investigate like ANYTHING. Because since Grave Peril years between books are passing, and he's doing jackshit to uncover grander conspiracy. I mean he mentioned few times in BG some grander scheme around him and trying to connect the dots - problem is we have not seen him doing that. And YEARS are passing. If people on Dresden Files groups can create theories in this regard - so can bloody Dresden But nope. He just live from one catastrophe to another waiting till Cowl/Black Council/Mavra/Outsiders drop another piece of info on his lap in some epic conflict. P.I. Wizard, my ass.

Hey, two things I want to point out. With some of us fans, it wasn't Murphy hate. It was Murphy fatigue. She was it every book. The only break for the character was in DB. If she had taken more time off instead of being a workaholic, maybe we wouldn't have had fatigue of her.

This can be it.

Murphy’s new status as a follower of Odin

>Follower
>Follower

Look we all know Vadderung, assuming he will survive past BAT will have about 10 times as bad time trying to force Murphy to follow him, than Mab had with Dresden. She's gonna be nightmare for him, mind my words.

I think that more or less is the problem Jim ultimately had with her.  As a cop as a foil for the P.I. Harry, she was perfect.  When she got booted off the police force he had a hard time getting her to fit anywhere.  He had turned her into a moralizing five foot nothing wonder woman, which didn't add a whole lot to the books.

I mean there were interesting dark way to explore such characters, but ulimately Jim is well not that dark of a writer. He'll rather kill a character, than push it really into darkness, unless it's straight up villain. I think in a way it's simmilar with Thomas who also was sort of killed in Battle Ground. I mean we get really dark in quite gutwrenching way with him in Turn Coat, but it basically passed in a next book when he was needed for team!Dresden this darkness was basically gone, then we get solving his true love by more powerful force of threesomes, and in book 14 he's ally again. (Sure it ended with Justine's nemfection but that fabular aspect - not character development).

Elaine is still breathing which makes her a possible villain.  I don't think Jim can do homoerotic, but it might be interesting. His only foray into the subject was  awkward. Mab was virtual, the real Harry was back broke in Chi Town during the brief but torrid live stream. But she may yet be toast anyway.

Twice now we were warned about terrible possibility of Mab's dying and Molly becoming Winter Queen. So now I'm quite certain it's going to happen.

I just don't see how Murphy has been a foil for Murphy. I really think she was more like Harry than different from him. Butters (before he became a Jedi), Michael, Marcone, Nicodemus, and maybe even Carlos are all better foils for different aspects of Harry's character than Murphy was. I'm not big on literary analysis, so I could be missing something. I prefer a more Watsonian approach.

Yeah, they are both sort of Chaotic Good, stubborn, with tendencies to vigilantism. Murphy is maybe bit less anti-authoritarian and more vindictive, but still she will choose own brand of work and justice almost each time.
They clashed in books 1-3 precisely because they were quite simmilar.

Oh and one difference is - it's always Harry keeping secrets at least for a time because of his paranoia, which turns Murphy paranoid of him at early stages.

but I'm starting to think her trying to make the transition, failing, and then dying as she takes the field would have made a better end to her character arc than her never really trying in the first place.

I wholeheartedly agree. An I mean not even necessarily failing - simply in Battle Ground it was only thing she could done, at the moment. Big enough to smash all plans of control, Paranetting and other things like that. Battle to big for even changed Murphy to do anything more than try fighting.

I'm still undecided on whether her trying and succeeding would have been a better or worse story choice than what we got. It probably would depend entirely on the execution.

I really think that this one book after Skin Game that would push their relationship bit further, and allow her to deal emotionally with disability and breaking the sword, would be good - of course if written good. It could also push their romance more from rehabilitation/honeymoon stage to something else in PT/BG, like for instance just first thing that cames to my mind - well how to live together, they both have their lives somehow fixed, Dresden is now single father - I mean I'd really like to see some scenes with Karrin and Maggie, I mean if relationship was to develop she'd have to sort of become stepmother in some way what next.

(And there's also potential for Maggie being still terribly traumatized - because really she's too fine adjusted in what we've seen. Jim has too soft heart for a kids.)

I'm just wondering how Jim killing Murphy is going to hurt his fan base and yes he pleased the Murph-haters, but was it worth the cost I wonder have had a lot friends that are not happy and feel like Butcher wasted their time and money for 17 books only to get a giant middle finger.

I mean if someone consider 17 books waste of time, because on one characters arc ending on note that dissapointed them - that someone really need to cool down.

I guess one has to look at it as Gard did, the whole of her life, but I wouldn't call it death with dignity..

I mean gunshot to the neck is way more dignified than being smashed by flaming axe size of Milwaukee in my book, but that's me.
But generally I think this death was very much contrieved - and unless it was someones dark deed twisting fate (I mean within story not like Jim) then I am dissapointed. Not even because she died by mortal and weak one to boot - but because it feels just non-organic.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

I really hoped that Murphy would die by a freshly killed Jotun falling on her rather than something like death by Rudy, once it became apparent she had been marked for death.

[Wicked Woodpecker of West]

I really hoped that Murphy would die by a freshly killed Jotun falling on her rather than something like death by Rudy, once it became apparent she had been marked for death.

I think I remember you making such "prophecies" when youtube trailer appeared.

"Totally worth it" - huh?

[Mira]

I mean there were interesting dark way to explore such characters, but ulimately Jim is well not that dark of a writer. He'll rather kill a character, than push it really into darkness, unless it's straight up villain. I think in a way it's simmilar with Thomas who also was sort of killed in Battle Ground. I mean we get really dark in quite gutwrenching way with him in Turn Coat, but it basically passed in a next book when he was needed for team!Dresden this darkness was basically gone, then we get solving his true love by more powerful force of threesomes, and in book 14 he's ally again. (Sure it ended with Justine's nemfection but that fabular aspect - not character development).

I totally agree as to the end of Turn Coat, we suddenly have Thomas after the rinse and repeat, torture by the Skinwalker, then feeding and killing of countless young women, now enjoying it.  He says that Lara was right, humans are kine, he asks the Harry the very dark question as to what does he see when he sees a person? Paraphrasing most of it, but Harry says a person, Thomas says he sees merely a food source.  The next time we see Thomas in Changes I believe, it was like none of that ever happened.  It would have been more interesting to see Harry coming to grips with that, which he hadn't as of the end of Turn Coat, verses Thomas back to his old self.  Who knows? Maybe a Neminfection had something to do with Thomas's seeming recovery?  If Thomas was a total predator, I doubt he could have gotten as far as he did with Evanna without being suspect.

[Wicked Woodpecker of West]

If Thomas was Nemfected and did it as part of a plan, but was hurt too much and was not able to use his Awesome Walker Powers before getting stuck in coffin, I'd way way prefer it.

Basically rather than one Justine make it live five people influenced by bilocating Walker - making this Xanatos Gambit more believable.

[Mira]

If Thomas was Nemfected and did it as part of a plan, but was hurt too much and was not able to use his Awesome Walker Powers before getting stuck in coffin, I'd way way prefer it.

Basically rather than one Justine make it live five people influenced by bilocating Walker - making this Xanatos Gambit more believable.

If he is.  Harry never caught on,nor apparently Alfred when Harry put Thomas away in a cell. Then again, if this is true,it meshes perfectly with Harry's fears of would have happened if he hadn't caught on to the fact that Justine was infected/possessed by HWWBs.  It could have been very bad if infected Justine was inside the defense shield and awakens Thomas also infected.  So the idea of an infected Thomas seems far fetched, yet again, at the end of Turn Coat, Thomas says,"I killed them, over and over, and I loved how it felt."  He also tells Harry that he isn't going to turn into some rampaging serial killer, because that is stupid, he'd get caught.  However that doesn't change how he feels, so what was the miracle cure between Turn Coat and Changes?  Just Justine and true love?  Or was something else going on?

[Wicked Woodpecker of West]

Well in theory change happened between Changes and Cold Days, and what sort of ripped Thomas out of whampire life was Dresden's death.
In "Changes" he is theoretically on bad guy side still, he even is bit selfish and goes full to Dresden help after he realises he is threatened by curse as well.

[Telynn]

Well in theory change happened between Changes and Cold Days, and what sort of ripped Thomas out of whampire life was Dresden's death.
In "Changes" he is theoretically on bad guy side still, he even is bit selfish and goes full to Dresden help after he realises he is threatened by curse as well.

I also think he was trying to push Harry away.  He did kill to live, and he's trying to deal with it.  Maybe he even enjoyed it in the moment.  But I think his "I did it and I love it, that's what I am now." was hiding his pain at what he did.  I don't think he was as dark side as he was putting on.

[Wicked Woodpecker of West]

Could be - but even that deserved more resolution than we've got.

[Mira]

I also think he was trying to push Harry away.  He did kill to live, and he's trying to deal with it.  Maybe he even enjoyed it in the moment.  But I think his "I did it and I love it, that's what I am now." was hiding his pain at what he did.  I don't think he was as dark side as he was putting on.

But the thing is, one doesn't just get over it that quickly, or at least it should be interesting seeing how he worked it out.  In that sense, Eb is right, at the end of the day Thomas is a vampire, he has to do vampire things to live.  Thomas has tried to fight that for a good deal of his life.  Harry saw it in their soul gaze back in Blood Rites, hearing his mother's voice full of sadness and pity because Thomas was fighting so hard, but the demon was winning.  When Thomas broke off with the family and went to live with Harry for a year, nearly starved to death before he came up with the hair dresser solution.  Shaggy's rinse and repeat shattered all of that, when Harry saw Thomas later in the zoo, what remained was the pure predator, that is what he was trying to tell him, "you see a couple of young women, I see food..."  I don't think anything has changed in that aspect, Thomas just found another way of feeding, he doesn't want to kill Justine, he finds Evanna, who is made to order because he can get his fill without killing her.  Yes, Thomas was as darkside as he was letting on, Harry on the other hand has blinded himself to that fact..

[Bad Alias]

Well in theory change happened between Changes and Cold Days, and what sort of ripped Thomas out of whampire life was Dresden's death.
In "Changes" he is theoretically on bad guy side still, he even is bit selfish and goes full to Dresden help after he realises he is threatened by curse as well.

This.

I also think he was trying to push Harry away.  He did kill to live, and he's trying to deal with it.  Maybe he even enjoyed it in the moment.  But I think his "I did it and I love it, that's what I am now." was hiding his pain at what he did.  I don't think he was as dark side as he was putting on.

Also this.

[Shift8]

I personally have mixed feelings on Murphy's death

Things I liked:

--Killing the love interest always spices up a story, in a certain way. I always expect the main character and love interest to make it to the end together, fighting back to back or something....but if they die it has its own pleasures in being utterly horrifying and melodramatic.

--It gives Harry a Vengeance Angle, more so than he had. It makes it really personal, and given that she was in 17 books with him, it particularly well established. I love a good revenge.

--It actually did not feel contrived, I felt that the situation where it went down felt perfectly plausible.

--I like that Harry beat the living shit out of Rudolph and gave him what he deserved. A few mildly broken bones are about right.  Although to be honest I wish that he had made Rudolph do it on purpose so that Harry could have justifiably killed him on the spot because that would have been far more delicious.

--To be entirely Honest the whole Harry Lara thing is super hot. Lara is a good match for Harry. If they became the official pair of the books I would be totally fine with this. Or Harry gets married to Molly and Lara at the same time.

Things I did not like:

--Murphy was a super cool character and she was established over the course of the entire series. Their relationship had only just begun to be properly romantic and then it just ended. Its not just the romance angle. She was a staple character of the series and her being dead is going to leave a real hole in the books. I mean every book I read I am going to be like, "hey you remember that cop lady that was in the story for that first 17 books and then she just died?"