[inspired by the Darkhallow Cowl vs Ethniu thread]

In GP, Cowl gave Nemesis to Lea, weakening Winter at a critical time.

In DB, Cowl never intended to successfully complete a Darkhallow - DB turned out pretty much exactly as Cowl intended. That's why he was able to escape the collapsing Darkhallow; he'd planned it out ahead of time.

The result? The White Council was very severely weakened, but the Red Court also overextended itself, expecting Edinburgh to fall ... setting things up for Changes.

WN also went mostly as Cowl intended -- that plan seems precisely designed to get Harry to stop it. Harry's chivalrous streak is pretty well known, as is his working outside the Council's traditional scope and with mortal authorities; if they really intended a plan based on attacking non-Council-member magical women to succeed, Chicago would be the absolute last place on the planet to try it.

But at the very end, Harry did something Cowl didn't plan for - working with Lara to get out. I think he probably expected Harry to escape through the NN. Lara wasn't meant to survive - the White Court leadership was intended to be totally destroyed, ending it as a relevant political force. (Instead, it's actually probably stronger in practice since now united under Lara).

Cowl's long-term goal is to weaken all the existing supernatural power structures, break the Accords, call in the Outsiders - and then betray them. Per WOJ, the highest levels of magic can rewrite reality. With the Outsiders weakening the fabric of reality, Cowl will do that: end death, give himself godlike powers, and then kick the Outsiders back Outside.

IMO Cowl has very intentionally not killed Harry. To Cowl, Harry is kind of an "ace in the hole" to ensure that the "betray the Outsiders" part of the plan doesn't go wrong - without ever being consciously helping Cowl, he'll fight to get the Outsiders out of reality.

I don't think he even knew what a star born was let alone that he was one.

Yeah, exactly. His status still seems to have had some effect vs HWWBehind, but I think it was in some way "awakened" by the events of Changes/Ghost Story and what he learned, so that by CD he can resist HWWBefore's mental attack, strike back, and get its Name (whereas he needed Lash's help to partially resist a similar attack in WN).

EDIT: typo, Behind/Before

Harry used to be "just a thug" in magical combat; I think that's not quite so true since about Changes - see the falling rocks Way trick in the Erlking's Hall fight, and Lea's compliment on mixing fire and ice. In the final fight with Ascher/Lasciel in SG, she was putting out more raw power due to Hellfire, but Harry won by redirecting that power.

It easily could, especially as Lord Raith's protection is described in similar terms - if the Outsiders gave him a shield, they might have left a "backdoor" for their own power.

But I'm not sure the dark energy would even have needed to get around the protection directly, just give Harry the power he'd need to do it indirectly.

Harry saw with the keys that Lord Raith isn't immune to magically-caused physical harm, so being telekinetically bashed enough would eventually run him out of healing energy and kill him.

Lash and Lasciel are not illusions. They certainly present themselves as female. They probably self identify as female even without a body.

Dresdenverse angels seem to be loosely on the Catholic model which as I understand it (and I am not a theologian) do not really have gender as we would define it.

I am not sure how much of what we see of them is "put on" to interact with humans vs inherent.

Lash (vs Lasciel) is a slightly different case as she is not a true angel but an imprint/shadow in Dresden's brain so probably is more "human-influenced". Lash probably is female but I am not so sure about Lasciel proper.

Jim did say he's a master at planning... Also he's a risk taker for sure.  Willing to become part mortal was a big risk.  So his plan may have blown up in his face, but I think weighed the odds, and went for it.

Yeah, foresight is kind of Odin's thing. DF has lots of other cosmologies involved, and fate isn't as strong as it is in Norse myth, but I don't think it was just luck either.

He's an expert healer, and he was able to use the "old ways" against Shagnasty. 

He actually wasn't - Shagnasty points out he can't, and LtW replies "Not going to bind or banish you, old ghost. Just going to kick your ass up between your ears."

LtW beats him with shapechanging combat, not by exorcising him. LtW is from a Great Lakes-area Native American group; he's not Dine/Navajo (the culture naagloshii come from).