@kbrizzle,

See my other response to your post about Justin vs Simon as a candidate. Just wanted to add that while the fact that Simon being older would explain how strong he was...Harry honestly had no idea just how powerful Eb or even Leah was. He even said that Eb had only hit him in practice rounds. Now I think for the drama of the scene, that exposition by Harry was necessary. However we must remember that Eb blew the top of El Castillio with a word, and also caused Krakatoa, Tunguska etc. Seriously, had Eb hit Harry properly Harry would have died. Especially as some punk in training, let alone by the time he gets to Dead Beat. Leah slaughtered two Lord of the Outer Night in a moment. They were taken off guard, but I really think Harry had never properly dueled either of them and so his claim was misleading. Not to mention that while Harry may have fought Justin in earnest, he lost twice and we have no idea how he won the third round. Harry doesn't even talk about it. So I find a lot of Harry's earlier power rankings more than a little dubious. In saying that, Cowl is still likely seriously strong. JB wrote that scene to showcase Cowl so I imagine he was trying to show him a serious threat. So he may be stronger than the others, in fact we have almost never seen him go all out on assault. Every time he has been defeated it was almost just dumb luck while he was distracted.

Morriswalters, even if he were on fire he could have thrown a death curse. Harry has made it clear that it is extremely unwise to kill a wizard unless you do it so quickly and effectively that they cannot formulate a spell OR they are so disconnected from reality to believe that death doesn't hold for them (Grevane). Even if Justin was burning (the man who first taught Harry how to block pain, mind you) I think he could still have pulled off a death curse through sheer will.

As for Simon - apart from the fact that he was a far more powerful and experienced combat Wizard than Harry, and the fact his specialty was Earth magic (and a bunch of other reasons) - it just makes more sense. There are more arguments for Justin, than Simon. As for the Darkhallow, remember that in Dead Beat Cowl makes it clear he is only doing it to stop the other Necromancers, that he believes Kemmler was a madman and that he and the other Heirs of Kemmler have been searching for Kemmler's books for sometime now. I also believe, even if Cowl is Justin and had Bob all that time, he wasn't yet mad enough to become a dark god let alone deal with Evil Bob. Not only that, as I said earlier there were still many pieces to the puzzle for that Ascension that hadn't been found until Dead Beat (not just the Word of Kemmler).

It is logical that Justin was stronger - he is older. Harry is 16, Justin may have been anywhere between 50 and 70 (remember, wizards age slow). Justin was a Wardern. Out of however many White Council wizards, there are only approximately (+/- 10%) 200 Wardens. Not a damn lot, which is why they would only choose the strongest, most skilled Wizards (assuming they have the talent for Evocations). The oldest Wardens are between 100 and 200 years old (if Luccio and Morgan are anything to go by; remember when it comes to Wizards age tends to denote seniority). So likely not many older than them. Justin as a senior Warden (trained by one of the strongest Wizards in the world, Simon Pietrovitch) is not going to be some slouch. If Harry is top-40 at 25 (!), even for a prodigy he still is not going to surpass everyone. Justin has had plenty of time to grow and get strong, magically speaking. So assuming Harry is stronger than 2/3 of the Wardens, there are still going to be a fair few stronger - the old guard. Of which Justin was likely one. So is Justin going to be number 200, or is he going to be somewhere near the top? I think it is pretty obvious.

Justin doesn't have to be super powerful to be more powerful than Harry. Now while several Wizards have commented on Harry's magical muscle (point of order: it would help if they mentioned how they calculated magical muscle), it especially looks good because he is so young. But despite all his muscle, he isn't good at using it. Especially in the earlier books, Harry mentions this several times. So at 16, he is going to have awful energy efficiency. Which compared to a highly trained wizard soldier/police, who has been around and gathering power for several decades (think of how much better Harry is at magical combat after only 2 decades) even a 16 year old prodigy with some help from Leah (which remember, was just Dumbo's feather) is going to be nowhere near Justin's power. Think Mayweather vs 16 year old. It isn't a contest, even if the kid is naturally talented.

Just because he lived with Eb does not mean he really understood what Eb's limits where - he was only just learning the basics then (the equivalent of completing his final years of highschool). He may have some understanding about magic limits in general, but time and time again he is astonished and surprised by some part of magic that he had no idea about or didn't believe was possible.

So, what JB actually said when discussing Senior Council power sources was that they each have hidden deals/power sources that they don't tell each other about. Which makes a lot of sense, considering they have had centuries to accumulate power. But they arn't just "in case of emergency". Harry being the White Knight doesn't just stop when he doesn't need it. The same would apply. Which is not to say they don't have hidden nukes for when the shit hits the fan, but JB was answering a question about hidden power sources.

What I think about Senior Council displays of magic is irrelevant; it is Harry who found them incredible. The Merlin and the Gatekeeper stopping an army of Outsiders and Ramps with a single ward was considered amazing. The Merlin communicating his battle plan and restoring order in a split second was considered exceptional. Ebenezar's entire list of achievements (Krakatoa, Tunguska, killing Ortega with a satellite etc not to mention with a word destroying the top of El Castille at Chichen Itza and wiping out those mercenaries). La Fortier (I think) using illusion magic on an entire nation (that one was from JB). Simon's Death Curse leveling the Red Court's army at Archangel. Listen's-to-Wind duel with the Shagnasty (and he could have gone harder). Hannah Ascher's most incredible piece of magic was protecting herself from Fire in the Underworld. Followed up by her blowtorch spell. Not exactly in the same league.

Well, even if Justin never taught Harry offensive magic, that would have made Harry even weaker. Perhaps Leah taught him a lesson or two, perhaps not. But he had literally never fought anyone with magic before. Strangely enough though, even if Harry says that he worked out how to fight HWWBH pretty quickly. Either way Harry was still in a load of trouble.

Lots of assumptions, not a lot of proof. We do not know how Harry and Justin dueled or if Justin would have even fought Harry and smashed at his shield. But if we follow your theory, Justin is injured by Harry's surprise attack. Why doesn't he use his Warden blade or shoot him or use a magical device on him? Why not control the fire himself? Justin was skilled enough to do such a thing (remember how he sets his hand ablaze) yet Harry's magic overwhelmed him? As I said before - if Justin wanted to win that duel, he should have. The only real possibility is that he never intended to win in the first place, with all the implications that come with that. 

I believe it is the running theory that Cowl was responsible for the Hexenwulf belts.

Con, isn't it possible that after a 14 years he might be interested to see how powerful and dangerous his former student has become? Remember, Dresden casts a sizeable shadow at this point. While he is testing Dresden out, the interaction was not unlike that between an old teacher and former pupil.

I'm pretty sure that Corpsetaker died when Harry killed him, and he just stuck around due to the whole "death is a spectrum" thing.

Thank you Nadia, I am glad the point I am trying to make isn't getting completely lost.

Mira - If it helps, from the perspective of a Mortal with no supernatural awareness (in the Dresdenverse) death seems very final. You are gone when your brain gives up. And we can only speculate and use the knowledge we have to guess at What Comes Next. But as readers, we know differently. Like anyone with awareness of the supernatural in the DV, we know that there are many different afterlife realms (Heaven, the Greek Underworld, Hell, Gehenna etc).

So when the Corpsetaker died (in Luccio's body) the body experienced the scientific process of death. Corpsetaker's spirit left that body and went Between rather than straight to What Comes Next. The difference between being dead and gone. We don't know why or how. And yes, the final dissolution of the Corpsetaker into What Comes Next did come at Mort's hand in Ghost Story. But Death is a process, not an ending. That is clear in our universe, and in Dresden's. You can see in the DV that a person's Spirit/Soul leaves the Mortal/Material plane and goes into the Spirit part of the Nevernever (I define Between as slightly different than the regular Nevernever as it must be much further from Dresden's world than say a place like Faerie, where the rules are mostly the same). Beyond even that, there is the after-after life (Heaven and Hell etc). Which again, does not mean the Corpsetaker stops existing. Far from it, the Corpsetaker now has to deal with being in wherever it went (presumably Hell). Which is not to say it couldn't come back either. Rare, but not impossible. Food for thought.

Cozarkian - I will create another thread to expound on the whole Summer/Bad Guys connections. Yes I had considered that the Corpsetaker must have had some knowledge to stop him/herself passing on fully. I think you are essentially right, the act of using the Death Curse at all might have precluded the Corpsetaker from being able to survive as a spirit in Between. Kemmler may have thrown a Death Curse - believe that there is a theory floating around that his Death Curse was the Tsar Bomba explosion. However, it may also not have been as I believe JB said that the White Council put a magic lock on him (like Eb did to Mavra) so that he couldn't use magic, and they cut him up and burned him. This was how he wasn't able to cheat death again presumably, though of course we don't know that he isn't active from beyond the grave...

I think DonBugen and Nadia have pretty much covered what I was going to say in response, Cozarkian.

I can concede that it would have been perhaps neater to say "wrong" rather than "lies", as it leaves less room for ambiguity and I think you can see that Jim in his quote is covering that. Mab only knows what she thinks she knows, but beings like Uriel know absolute Truth. There is a significant difference. And that Mother Summer quote that Morriswalters found reinforces that. Beings with Intellectus (especially of their size of Intellectus) are on the Cosmic level. Also Angels don't lie unless they are Fallen - so even if Uriel wasn't speaking, it couldn't have been another Angel filing in. And it certainly wouldn't have been a Mortal/Soul from Purgatory - I suspect that would go against everything they are trying to do. Lying is a Sin - especially by Immortals (remember how angry Uriel gets when he discusses one of the Fallen lying?) It compromises Free Will.


As to why it was important that JB skipped that scene, I was highlighting that just because something happens explicitly in the books that could be a hint at interference by the Big Players, does not necessarily make it so. Mostly when something of that nature occurs, it happens off-screen or JB highlights it massively on screen. Which is not to say those instances of internal dialogue are not instances of the Big Players interfering, but I found it less likely because of such examples as the Ghost Story/Changes inconsistency.

An interesting theory, but I think Cozarkian is correct about that WOJ. I think DonBugen also touches on the fact that JB is an award-winning, best selling novelist who is quite well educated on writing. Chances are (and if you think back to every book/poem/script etc analysis you may ever have done) that he will follow certain conventions of story writing for maximum effect. He may subvert them as well for gain, but the reason they are conventions is because they work.

So unless there is a really powerful reason for him to not use certain story-telling conventions, he probably will. In fact, he often does. There are some really great Dresden Files analysis' out there, and there is a mountain of info about story crafting that Jim himself has written. So I tend to use that as a base when constructing my own theories. And give JB some credit, his reveals are normally pretty good. I am sure when the time comes it will be a really good one regardless of who Cowl actually is.

And to answer your theory of what might happen, peregrine, if Dresden did recognise this background wizard at a Council summit as being Cowl (like the Wizard with the Curly mustache) - I think Harry being his normal level-headed self, would attempt to murder Cowl on the spot. And then settle for binding him when everyone had tried to restrain him. However, I would assume that the Cowl in your theory would have been preparing for such a thing (a la Emperor Palpatine), and turn it on Dresden somehow - perhaps even violently. But that's just my thinking.

Morris,

I think that is a plausible alternative to how Justin came to posses the Spirit of Intellect. However, I think inferring Justin was cautious to use Bob relies on information we don't actually have - namely why Justin took the Spirit and why it didn't kill him. Remember, Evil Bob nearly killed Harry just by giving Harry power he couldn't deal with. We don't know when the suppression of Evil Bob took place, but we can reasonably guess it was while Justin had him. Mostly I base this on the idea that because Bob is mostly the same Bob with Butters because Butters saw him as he was while Harry owned him, Harry likely saw a less "Evil" Bob when he was introduced to the Spirit otherwise Bob wouldn't have been who he was to Harry. Why else would Harry have rescued him from the ruins of Justin's house? The Harry we know rescues good people and friends.

An excellent point is how Bob survived the fire, I can only imagine that as the place was being destroyed by Harry's spell, he went to retrieve Bob. And at this point must have assumed Justin was out for the count.

I can see how you got to that thought, my bad. I wasn't trying to imply that Harry killed Justin with mundane methods rather than magical ones. I was trying to make the point that I don't think he would have succeeded at killing Justin with magical means generally, and so something is unusual and doesn't add up about the duel. The trial is a strong indicator that both A) someone actually died, and B) that is was Harry's magic that was responsible. Which is why I think most likely Harry DID kill Justin, but Justin came back (somehow). The council obviously have magical forensics, JB has discussed this a few times, so I am sure they could work out whether someone had actually been killed. It would be harsh even for the White Council to execute someone on the possibility they might have murdered someone. Did the Council ask this question? When was that I don't recall?

Thank you, I have been mulling this over for some time and I think I even made a stab at writing it down once. But the most recent discussion on Justin's survival energized me a lot so I ended up finally putting it all down.