Could Maggie have taken up a Coin?

[Mr. Death]

It takes effort on the part of the person to use that outside energy.  Yeah, the energy is there to be drawn on, but using it takes concentration and focus and effort that come from the character.  Think back to Fool Moon, at one point Harry is so exhausted that he can barely manage to hex a small security camera.

He's not inside a circle, there's plenty of magical energy around.  Another Wizard, fresh to fight, could have hexed the camera, or melted it with a blast of flame, or the like.  But Harry was so tired that he couldn't make the magic flow.  He even worries he might have overstrained his talent and done permanent damage.

Since then, he's built up his endurance and can throw a lot more magic, but it still takes effort and focus from him to manipulate external magical energy.

None of that says or confirms that it's referring to his ability to use /outside/ forces, just that he's having trouble using any forces at all.

You say he's exhausted. That tends to mean he's lacking in /internal/ energy. He's worried that he's lost his magic, not that he's lost the ability to use outside magic.

Yes, wizards /can/ draw in power from outside. But they also use power that's generated from themselves. What do you think Harry's doing when he throws together a spell from inside a circle?

But there's no reason to think that these are the same thing.  JB has said that everybody has at least a little ability to use magic, so it's not the ability to manipulate the energy that is different in people like Harry, it's their ability to handle large amounts in a highly skilled way.

Yes, it is. Look at Butters: He has learned a lot about magic, but he cannot command power like Harry does. The best he can do -- after a couple years with Bob -- is build things for Bob to power and manipulate.

There is absolutely a difference in the ability to manipulate the energy.

[groinkick]

None of that says or confirms that it's referring to his ability to use /outside/ forces, just that he's having trouble using any forces at all.

You say he's exhausted. That tends to mean he's lacking in /internal/ energy. He's worried that he's lost his magic, not that he's lost the ability to use outside magic.

Yes, wizards /can/ draw in power from outside. But they also use power that's generated from themselves. What do you think Harry's doing when he throws together a spell from inside a circle?
Yes, it is. Look at Butters: He has learned a lot about magic, but he cannot command power like Harry does. The best he can do -- after a couple years with Bob -- is build things for Bob to power and manipulate.

There is absolutely a difference in the ability to manipulate the energy.

What goes on in the books, and what Jim says can lead to some confusion.  I think he said something like a wizard will need some of his own power which allows him to tap into power from the never never which flows through him for his spells.  I think that's why dark magic corrupts you, it has to go through your body...  The Blackstaff seems to prevent this.

[LordDresden2]

None of that says or confirms that it's referring to his ability to use /outside/ forces, just that he's having trouble using any forces at all.

You say he's exhausted. That tends to mean he's lacking in /internal/ energy. He's worried that he's lost his magic, not that he's lost the ability to use outside magic.

That's not implied.  Either one fits the statement equally well.  Harry could have used up some inner 'reserve' of energy, yes, but he could just as easily be exhausted from manipulating outside energy.  The overall trend of the series text is that most magical power, in humans, involves outside energies, except for death curses.

Yes, wizards /can/ draw in power from outside. But they also use power that's generated from themselves. What do you think Harry's doing when he throws together a spell from inside a circle?

Harry usually can't throw a spell from inside a circle.  When he does, the implication is that he's using what energy is there inside the circle.

Remember Aurora's circle.  Harry was basically helpless inside it, the only thing he could throw was his death curse.  Aurora did consider this last a potential problem, but otherwise Harry was more or less magically neutralized.

We saw this in action when Nicodemus trapped Harry, Ivy, Kincaid, etc. in a big circle, too.  Because it was a big circle, there was quite a bit of energy in it, but Harry muses that once that energy is all used up, he's 'just a guy with a gun'.  Unless, of course, he threw a death curse.

[LordDresden2]

Look at Butters: He has learned a lot about magic, but he cannot command power like Harry does. The best he can do -- after a couple years with Bob -- is build things for Bob to power and manipulate.

There is absolutely a difference in the ability to manipulate the energy.

That's what I said.  Most people have only a tiny ability to manipulate external magical energy, like Butters.  What makes people like Harry different is their ability to manipulate large amounts of it.

But it remains to be established that the internal life energy is the same thing.  You don't have to reach out to it, it's YOU, and you're it.  So there's at least a good chance it follows different rules.

[LordDresden2]

What goes on in the books, and what Jim says can lead to some confusion.  I think he said something like a wizard will need some of his own power which allows him to tap into power from the never never which flows through him for his spells.  I think that's why dark magic corrupts you, it has to go through your body...  The Blackstaff seems to prevent this.

That's how ritual magic works, too.  You get something Powerful to send energy to you, so you can throw spells as if you were a Wizard (at least in terms of raw power, not necessarily skill).

[Mr. Death]

Harry usually can't throw a spell from inside a circle.  When he does, the implication is that he's using what energy is there inside the circle.

Every single time he makes a tracking spell, he puts himself inside a circle.

He regularly refers to putting yourself inside a circle as a normal part of thaumaturgy, to keep outside power from interfering.

Remember Aurora's circle.  Harry was basically helpless inside it, the only thing he could throw was his death curse.  Aurora did consider this last a potential problem, but otherwise Harry was more or less magically neutralized.

No, that's not at all what that was about.

It wasn't that Harry could only cast his death curse in there. It was that if they broke the circle to kill him, then he'd be able to cast his Death Curse without it being blocked by the circle.

It wasn't at all about what power was available to him, it was about there being a barrier between him and Aurora that would have to come down for them to execute him.

Elaine caught Slate's wrist and said, "Wait."
Aurora gave Elaine a sharp and angry look. "What are you
doing?"
"Protecting you," Elaine said. "If you let Slate kill him, he'll break
the circle around Dresden."
Aurora looked from Elaine to me and back. "And?"
"Elaine!" I snarled.
She regarded me with flat eyes. "And you'll leave yourself open
to his death curse. He'll take you with him. Or make you wish he
had."

We saw this in action when Nicodemus trapped Harry, Ivy, Kincaid, etc. in a big circle, too.  Because it was a big circle, there was quite a bit of energy in it, but Harry muses that once that energy is all used up, he's 'just a guy with a gun'.  Unless, of course, he threw a death curse.

Harry says "usually" when you do a spell you draw in power from outside. Not that that's the only source except for a Death Curse.

Granted, the rest of that passage appears to support you. But there is still the fact that Harry quite often creates his spells from inside a circle.

[LordDresden2]

Every single time he makes a tracking spell, he puts himself inside a circle.

He regularly refers to putting yourself inside a circle as a normal part of thaumaturgy, to keep outside power from interfering.

But you still have the energy you bring into the circle with yourself for the spell, too.  Harry's tracking spells, for ex, don't require much juice, they're more about skill.

We also don't know for sure if your own circle can't be selectively permeable, but that's speculative.  Still, the fact that the tracking spell itself can work through circle suggests they might be.

I have no doubt there are sources of power other than the outside energies and the life-force itself.  In fact we know they exist, such as the power behind the entropy curse, or the spell on Mickey Malone.

But what Harry and the other Wizards mostly use is that natural outside life-force flow.

[Griffyn612]

Every single time he makes a tracking spell, he puts himself inside a circle.

He regularly refers to putting yourself inside a circle as a normal part of thaumaturgy, to keep outside power from interfering.

I thought he made tracking spells in small circles in front of him, rather than around him.  But I could be mistaken.

[LordDresden2]

Here's another indication that most magic comes from outside:  JB's explanation of the 'thorn manacles'.

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,21772.msg947671.html#msg947671

As far as how the thorn manacles work:
Essentially what it does is when a wizard’s drawing the magic in, the thorn manacles divert it to somewhere else. Wizards have to give a little bit of energy from inside themselves, but mostly that’s to pull it in from the outside. And the thorn manacles take that and go, “Nope, ok, we’re shunting it out into the Nevernever and you don’t get to use it.”

The pain is just a result of the energy that is going by and going elsewhere, it’s inefficiency of transfer, if you want to put it in engineering terms. That’s really nerdy, so I won’t do that.

Which hints to me that a death curse might also work even if a Wizard was thorn-manacled. 

[Kindler]

I thought he made tracking spells in small circles in front of him, rather than around him.  But I could be mistaken.

He was inside the circle with the windup duck, I know that much. "Thus do I strike another blow for anarchy," or some such line that followed. Also pretty sure he was inside the circle in Proven Guilty when he put up the Play-Doh web.

[Griffyn612]

He was inside the circle with the windup duck, I know that much. "Thus do I strike another blow for anarchy," or some such line that followed. Also pretty sure he was inside the circle in Proven Guilty when he put up the Play-Doh web.

That may be the case. The one instance I was recalling was the FM spell to track Tera and the kids at the beginning, but he clearly states he drew it around him.

I got out the lump of chalk I always keep in my duster pocket, and the circular plastic dome compass that rides a strip of velcro on my dashboard, then squatted down, my voluminous coat spreading out over my legs and ankles. I drew a rough circle upon the asphalt around me with the chalk.