A new threat to Dresden (later) WAG

[TheCuriousFan]

Carlos is gifted, but I just don't think he can hang with Harry.  Remember that we always see things from Harry's perspective, but not from others.  As Jim describes is (if memory serves) Harry is pretty frightening to those who've seen him in action.  Harry respects what Carlos can do, but I suspect Carlos is terrified of what he's seen Harry do.  I doubt he'd be confident going into a fight with Harry, especially if he ever seen him throw around a soulfire spell.  Skill is great but sometimes overwhelming force is just better.

It's driven by the moments in BG and the WoJs about how he's the guy to take Harry down if it comes to a fight.

[groinkick]

It's driven by the moments in BG and the WoJs about how he's the guy to take Harry down if it comes to a fight.

Well that sucks.  Superman has lost his mojo.  Do you remember when Jim said that?

[TheCuriousFan]

Well that sucks.  Superman has lost his mojo.  Do you remember when Jim said that?

Matt: The Devil's in the details, right. So this next question is from Charles too. Harry is becoming a balance point of forces, summer fire and winter knight, hellfire and soulfire. Is this typical for wizards or has it given Harry capabilities beyond on the norm?

Jim: It depends on the wizard. Every wizard that is out there is like a professional athlete. But saying that there's a lots of different kinds of professional athletes and the flyweight boxer is a much different athlete than the sumo wrestler is a much different athlete than the pole vaulter is a much different athlete than the long distance runner. Wizards are like that and what you're good at as a wizard is something that tends to be based upon the talents you're born with. So like your really good specialties as a wizard, people who are really good at certain things, they were just that was their proclivity they were born with, it was their natural tendency. That sort of breaks the wizards down into general categories. This wizard is really good at finding information, this wizard is really good at working with energy and forces which means he can blow people up and burn them down really well, this wizard over here is really good at enchantment and making really cool items, this wizard does something else completely different, this wizard is brilliant at working with entities from different realms and so on. Again I use the professional athletes a lot because it's just so useful when you go back to "who is the more powerful athlete? Is it the PGA player who makes berjillions of dollars getting paid to play golf? Is it the NFL center who is the most powerful man in professional sports?" It's all a very different sort of thing, it's all very confusing.

Matt: That begs the question.

Jim: So Harry is not, what Harry's really good at, what Harry's really good at as an athlete he's a weightlifter. He is really good at moving big heavy things and getting things done. He's strong he's resilient he's extremely capable at things he does and if you just try to go head to head with him it's not going to go well for you. Which is why he gets defeated by people with more sqwab, more skill. The weightlifter doesn't do so well against the Olympic fencer in fencing. It doesn't go so well, so Harry's constantly trying to find ways to bring conflicts into his area of strength. Now he is /very/ strong as a wizard, if you just try and arm wrestle him magically he's gonna beat 99% of the wizard on planet Earth because that's who he is, that's the talent he was born with, he was born with lots of magical muscle. But that said, there's wizards that are more experienced than him, that are smarter than him and there's some that are stronger than him and there's lots and lots of them that are just better than him because they have more experience because they've been alive for centuries and he hasn't. So Dresden is formidable among wizards but he's always been a medium splash in the pond because even though he's as strong as, he's in Ebenezar's weight class for example but he can't beat Ebenezar in a straight up fight it's just not gonna happen. And as a result he is looked as a very powerful wizard by people who don't know a lot about what wizards do. So other people from outside the White Council look at him and go "wow he's a powerful wizard" while everybody in the White Council goes *puts palm on head* "oh god that kid is so strong and he doesn't know a goddamn thing". And that is kind of their perspective of Dresden, he's that one ten year old who accidentally got to be six foot five and two hundred pounds for whatever reason his genetics did that. I mean, he's that kid so everybody and so all the other kids are like "he's so great" and all the adults are like "I'm terrified of this individual" and that's sort of the way he lives. But you know he's like one of the most powerful wizards on planet Earth or anything, I mean he's strong, he's in a class where if you want to fight him you better bring friends but at the same time he's real limited in what he can do, that sort of backs him off in terms of the scale of beings of centuries and millennia he's interesting, he might become something cool one day.

Matt: That's a great way to explain it. The athlete analogy really helps.

Jim: Yeah it sort of makes it simple.

-----

Matt: Will Harry get another get another big spell in his repertoire besides forzare and ventas servitas?

Jim: Probably. I mean, he's always coming up with new ones or trying new things. Those are the ones that are like his basics, you know, spells that wizards learn to be able to do them fast enough and reliably enough to do them one some slobbering monster is coming to chew your face off. Most wizards only know three or four things that they can just do off the top of their head. The ones who are in combat a lot, the three or four things that they know are really useful and can be applied to a lot of things, like Dresden's stuff. Other people can throw a bolt of fire or something but that's all they really bothered to learn with combat, because honestly what more do you need to do besides set somebody on fire to win a fight most of the time?

Matt: It's effective most of the time.

Jim: Yeah if you can set somebody on fire you're pretty good. If you can just look at somebody and speak a word to set them on fire you're doing okay. As fights go, you're probably better off than 99%. But the heavy combat wizards, they'll go up to a dozen or even a couple of dozen spells and Dresden will get there eventually, it just takes time. You've got to learn, you've got to practice and you've got to have a superhuman amount of discipline to keep making yourself go when you've already been doing it for a century and a half. But that's something Dresden will learn but for the time being he's got his three or four things he can do off the top of his head. He can make things stop and he can make things go, that's really what he does.

Matt: That'll solve 99% of things right. Another question about magic from Kevin. Hi Jim, I've always enjoyed how you've used elemental magic in the Dresden Files, especially how the forest people and Ebenezar and Listens-To-Wind use earth and water magic. I was wondering what advanced air and fire magic would look like if it was used by the forest people or other powerful wizards? Thanks again hope you and Fenris and Brutus are doing well.

Jim: Fenris is doing great *camera pans to Fenris snoozing on Jim's lap*. He's not impressed with you guys though, he's just sleeping through this whole thing. Advanced air magic would look like what Yoshimo does, she's like really really good at air so she does like the wushu/wuxia fighting and that's what advanced air magic looks like, stuff like that. Plus meteorological stuff, weather stuff is almost all air magic, air and fire. Advanced fire magic, weather would be one of them because you need a lot of fire if you really want to change weather around and then actually Dresden is a pretty advanced fire guy, of all the things he does he does fire pretty good. Everyone in the council goes "yeah he can burn stuff" like that but, but yeah it's a different story, there's a very different mindset of magic if your main magic is water. Your mindset a very different one from all the rest of them, you can have basically the same attitude about air, about earth, about fire, but if you're working with water it's a much more complicated art and you can mess yourself up a lot worse so it takes a different attitude to really wade into it. And that's why Ramirez is so different from Dresden, Ramirez is a highly talented water mage and he is the guy to take Dresden apart if there's ever a need because he's the Olympic fencer that'd be going up against Dresden the weightlifter and if Dresden tries to fence with him it's not gonna go well.

[groinkick]

Ramirez is a highly talented water mage and he is the guy to take Dresden apart if there's ever a need because he's the Olympic fencer that'd be going up against Dresden the weightlifter and if Dresden tries to fence with him it's not gonna go well.

It's interesting the way that he worded it.  "He is the guy to take Dresden apart if there's ever a need".  So I may be looking into this wrong but it almost sounds like he's saying that Carlos has been tapped by the Council to be the one to go after Harry.  The "if there's ever a need" makes it sound like an in story statement rather than a Jim Butcher statement. 

"he's the Olympic fencer that'd be going up against Dresden the weightlifter and if Dresden tries to fence with him it's not gonna go well".  So this to me sounds like if Harry tried to square off with him in a purely magical contest.  Harry has shown in multiple fights that he is a street fighter.  A down and dirty type fighter...  Does what he has to, to survive.  When he used his fists and feet against He Who Walks Before, when he fought dirty against Fix, using iron.  Using words to make Nicodemus so angry he messes up. 

So yes I could see Carlos being a problem for Dresden, but I also see Dresden having more street smarts when it comes to fighting, and surviving.  Carlos's particular style of magic matches up well in a fight vs Harry, but as the books have shown, magic is only part of winning.

[Yuillegan]

Modify*

Apologies, put the wrong comment here.

Interesting that Carlos would be the "right man" to defeat Dresden. I do feel Jim has been foreshadowing a faceoff between them for some time. That said, I agree that Dresden isn't going to win by being better at magic or even at using guns etc. He will win because he won't fight fair. Carlos is a bit more of a "fair fight" kinda guy.

[K.L.O.E.]

It's interesting the way that he worded it.  "He is the guy to take Dresden apart if there's ever a need".  So I may be looking into this wrong but it almost sounds like he's saying that Carlos has been tapped by the Council to be the one to go after Harry.  The "if there's ever a need" makes it sound like an in story statement rather than a Jim Butcher statement. 

"he's the Olympic fencer that'd be going up against Dresden the weightlifter and if Dresden tries to fence with him it's not gonna go well".  So this to me sounds like if Harry tried to square off with him in a purely magical contest.  Harry has shown in multiple fights that he is a street fighter.  A down and dirty type fighter...  Does what he has to, to survive.  When he used his fists and feet against He Who Walks Before, when he fought dirty against Fix, using iron.  Using words to make Nicodemus so angry he messes up. 

So yes I could see Carlos being a problem for Dresden, but I also see Dresden having more street smarts when it comes to fighting, and surviving.  Carlos's particular style of magic matches up well in a fight vs Harry, but as the books have shown, magic is only part of winning.

1 v 1 I could see Carlos taking Harry, but the fight would never be 1v1. Anywhere in Chicago Harry's allies intervene and unless Carlos gets Harry to Summer's Domain in the Never-never Winter would get involved as it's a direct attack from an Accorded Nation.

There's also the question of what happens of what happens if they get into close quarters or a fight on the move. Carlos' injuries vs the amplified mobility, strength, and aggression from the Winter mantle is not a fight Carlos will win.

The more I think of it this is not a great fight for Carlos past the opening few rounds, the longer it goes on the greater the odds of Harry coming up with an Indy ploy or getting into hand to hand range and then it's over.

[Mira]

Depends when it happens, Carlos is a wizard, thus his body will recover eventually.

[vincentric]

Yes, Carlos would be able to take Dresden in a fight, if he sets it up well. If he can get to his range or take Harry off guard then he could win quickly. Any type of extended fight will favor Harry though. It's not pretty when that sumo wrestler catches the fencer.

[Mira]

Yes, Carlos would be able to take Dresden in a fight, if he sets it up well. If he can get to his range or take Harry off guard then he could win quickly. Any type of extended fight will favor Harry though. It's not pretty when that sumo wrestler catches the fencer.

Yeah, he can sit on him.... Meanwhile he might bleed to death as the fencer dances around him and jabs a bit here, cuts a bit there, drop by drop, it all adds up.

[BrainFireBob]

One of my favorite moments in the series is when Cowl confronts Harry and says "Let's see what has the Wardens so concerned about you" and the has Harry hit him with a car and run away without an instant's hesitation.

Cowl found his answer out in the most perfect way imaginable.

"So we shoot him."

[heidi_storage]

"So we shoot him."

This is one reason I like the Dresden books better than the Harry Potter books (along with the fact that Rowling doesn't really bother to work out how magic "works"). In the Potter books, Muggles are just completely laughable and can only hurt, say, little wizard children. You cannot have characters like Murphy, who are nonmagical but savvy and dangerous, and there is no recognition of the fact that plain ol' humans can be awfully scary, beyond mention of Muggle attempts to kill witches in the past.

[KurtinStGeorge]

I think Anastacia Luccio would be the logical candidate. When she was in Tombstone, she mentioned that Eb was head of the wardens at that time. She has the experience, even if her new body isn't ideal for magiking.

Bingo!  My thoughts exactly.  Plus, the Blackstaff would most likely give Luccio the firepower she would need to make up for her new body.

 

[TheCuriousFan]

This is one reason I like the Dresden books better than the Harry Potter books (along with the fact that Rowling doesn't really bother to work out how magic "works"). In the Potter books, Muggles are just completely laughable and can only hurt, say, little wizard children. You cannot have characters like Murphy, who are nonmagical but savvy and dangerous, and there is no recognition of the fact that plain ol' humans can be awfully scary, beyond mention of Muggle attempts to kill witches in the past.

What the Harry Potter wizards lack in impressive looking duel scenes they make up for in infiltration and subversion hax, muggles are pretty much a non-issue to them.

Whereas in Dresden stuff the Fomor forget that they can kill 250 million or more Americans by hexing the right 9 substations in favour of trying to manually carve through Chicago and all the accorded nations at the same time.

[morriswalters]

Jim talks and talks and talks.  But he doesn't say anything.  Unless something changes and it becomes the Carlos Files the conclusion is forgone.  But I'd love to see that fight.

The Blackstaff should be returned to Mother Winter. Nobody including Eb should be able to murder with impunity.

[TheCuriousFan]

Jim talks and talks and talks.  But he doesn't say anything.  Unless something changes and it becomes the Carlos Files the conclusion is forgone.  But I'd love to see that fight.

The Blackstaff should be returned to Mother Winter. Nobody including Eb should be able to murder with impunity.

He can always beat up Harry in a non-lethal fashion.