How is the Western Regional Commander the junior of the Eastern Regional Commander? Harry was appointed as a regional commander when he got his cloak. Ramirez got the job as the "other regional commander in America" sometime after the second to last chapter of Dead Beat. Carlos has been a warden longer. Carlos probably has more points under any system based on superiors' evaluations.
Not what I meant. Carlos isn't Harry's junior perhaps in the White Council wardens (although I would point out that amoungst Wizards, and most of the supernatural community, seniority and age go hand in hand). Harry is the more experienced Wizard, and even amongst wardens of the same rank there is always unofficial ranking, which like most jobs tends to go to the most experienced and/or most respected person. Langtry likes Ramirez, but I think both he and harry hardly rank compared to what remains of the old guard. Beyond that though is the fact Harry is the more powerful person - not just magically but politically and personally. He commands a great deal of respect amongst the various powers, and represents a number of powerful individuals (and their "organizations"). Carlos by comparison is a well-liked, unofficial poster boy for the younger wardens. It doesn't even come close. It will be interesting to see how the Council treats him now that he is both Winter Knight, and the Warden of Demonreach. Carlos might have tacit authority, but commanding Harry would be like being the captain of a local men's basketball team when Labron James joins the team. The head of the club might have made you the captain, but leadership and power are more tenuous than titles would like them to be.
Harry is the Warden as opposed to a warden, but the Council, maybe even Senior Council, seems to be largely in the dark on that. So it's a toss up as to who is senior under whatever tie breaker the Council uses.
That's why Carlos is in charge instead of Harry.
I suspect that the fact that almost only the Senior Council know about the Warden position with any depth is that that island and it's purpose were covered up. The power of the position lead to the creation of the wardens (that much is implied), but the original role seems to be far more intense and important than the current emulation. If that position is reintegrated fully...who knows. Considering the first Warden (and warden) was the Original Merlin (Emrys), I suspect that it's likely a former Senior Council role that was done away with. But I am just guessing here.
1. Harry would be a terrible choice because there's bad blood between him and just about everyone else, and Harry's a hot head.
Yes he is. I am not saying that Harry should be the head of security in this situation. But had Harry not died and come back, I think that assuming the Peace Talks were still held in Chicago I believe that security of the talks would have been under Harry's purview (being that he
was the Eastern regional commander). I agree that Harry's particular position and tendencies make him a bad candidate but it's no less true that had his tenure not been interrupted he would have been the one in charge.
2. If anyone was worried about offending Harry by putting someone else in charge of something in his territory, using Carlos, the person Harry asked to be in charge of security at the last official Council activity in Chicago, and the excuse that Harry is in a unique position to serve as the liaison to Winter would be enough to satisfy the protocol droids.
I think he used Carlos because he himself was being an advocate for the person on trial. Kinda hard to be impartial... I honestly don't think anyone would care about offending Harry, before or after his death (assuming he didn't want to kill them after - he has a pretty high chance of killing his enemies after all). This will be Harry's first official Council event since his death if I'm not mistaken, he hasn't been fully reintegrated. Not to mention his enormous conflict of interest, as he is now the Winter Knight. The fact they haven't revoked his membership is very interesting. I suspect that they will ask him to be a spy in Winter, and an advocate for them.
Former Captain of the Wardens, Senior Council Member Blackstaff McCoy, is going to be on the ground there, so I don't think the SC is going to be to worried about the young hotheads going off half cocked. It also pays to note that Carlos is one of the oldest wardens, not counting any who may or may not have been pulled out of retirement, because almost all of the active wardens were killed off in Dead Beat. At this point, the old guard can't be more than 50 or so. Probably less. I want to say the number of wardens was around 300 last time the number came up, but I'm not sure.
I suspect that they are including Harry only because A) it is happening in Chicago, B) It's Mab's talks and C) McCoy and the Gatekeeper would definitely have requested his inclusion. Carlos is one of the oldest warden's by mode, but he is still young. There are probably still at least 50 or 60 old guard above him. So he is hardly one of the oldest when he isn't even in the top 20 oldest out of maybe 200-300 wardens. He doesn't even make top 50.
Being a part-time artist takes up way more time than one weekend a year.
During the 363 days out of the year he isn't having the worst weekend of the year?
If you're going off that old stick about each book being "Harry Dresden's worst weekend of the year", I would rethink your position. That was about the how each book was set-up, and was Jim's attitude in the early series. But it hardly counts for Harry's life in the later series, much of which is not shown in the books. From teaching Molly to training wardens before Changes, and afterwards he was Dead for several months, then in physical rehab/Winter Knight training for several more, then Winter Knight missions and then spends most of his time on Demonreach under effectively house arrest only to then go on a heist in the Greek Underworld for the literal Holy Grail. You tell me where his free time is.
The pattern of the old books is gone, that was part of the point of Changes. Harry isn't the wizard gumshoe guy solving murder mysteries. He is the guy trying to save the world now.
Stallings was said to be quite competent, so I'm not so sure it's going to be worse off without Murphy. Murphy hadn't been the one fighting turf wars since Proven Guilty. Honestly, S.I. might be better off. Even accepting your premise, that doesn't mean they aren't going to get all the weird cases in search of a scape goat dumped in their lap anyway. It's been around in one form or another for at least 40 years. It's still going to be a valuable source of information.
They might still get the weird cases, but I am sure they won't be investigated thoroughly like they were when Murphy was in-charge. They are basically the clean up crew, "Hey man see that weird burnt skeleton that has fangs and isn't human but is human sized? Please make that look more like a regular murder case" "No worries Chief, probably just a weird gang thing or terrorists". No weirdness to see here!
All that said, that response is a dodge of my question of if you were a warden in a city of millions, would you want S.I. to keep you in the loop? I ask that question because the answer is an obvious "yes." Harry doesn't have to keep his p.i. business to be kept in the loop, but he does have to offer something of value in return.
But the thing is - Harry hasn't been a warden in Chicago since Changes, and really he wasn't doing much warden stuff in that book. And now that he is back, I don't think he'll have much time to go back to his old routine. So the question you ask is somewhat redundant. Besides, as I said before he can get information on the bigger problems he deals with from better sources like, I don't know, Mab and Kringle? You see where I am going here? He is moving into the majors now - so having his old little league team come and support him (especially when there are so few of the original crew from those days still there) is kinda ridiculous. Not to mention if the White Council falls there won't be anyone doing any wardening at all, and so presumably the masquerade will have fallen or be falling and all hell will be breaking loose. How much time will Dresden have then?
To be honest, I think there is a bit of "golden-age" Dresden Files going on (and you're not the only one thinking it). Harry, and the story by extension, are not what they once were. The evolution from Wizard cross Dirty Harry into Wizard/Superhero and the case files going from literal detective case files (of a sort) to the journal entries of a legend in the making has happened. It was always going to happen. This was part of Jim's plan. It's no surprise either because Jim has told us since day one that he had a big apocalyptic trilogy planned. The series had to build up to that somehow. Dresden isn't going back to his roots for a long-time, maybe ever. We have to accept that and move on. Perhaps some fans will stop reading, but others will celebrate and new fans might join up. I for one want to see where the series is going, and am excited about it. I can always read the earlier cases if I am feeling a bit nostalgic. But better that Jim grows the series organically and logically rather than just going back to what worked for the sake of it, or worse for fan service.
Yes. I don't think all the other parties we see meeting in GS are just going to quit fighting the good fight if Marcone cuts ties with their "Chicago Alliance." Maybe they loose out on Castle Dresden, but Harry doesn't need that. But if the BFS/Chicago Alliance/whatever does collapse and go away, that's a reason why Harry should re-open his office, not a reason that he shouldn't.
I could see Harry not reopening his business. I just think it would be a really dumb move from an in universe perspective. It's a good way to have information show up on your door step. It's also a good way to launder his diamond money, but I doubt that will even come up in the books. He may or may not need more money than the money from the diamonds and his warden pay depending on how much he can get for the diamonds and a bunch of other factors we have little to no information on. As such, I'd want a good in universe explanation of why he's not doing it. (Just as a side note, the last in text job Harry had as Harry Dresden, P.I. was one month before Changes).
I didn't say that the members of the Brighter Future Society would just stop fighting. They will likely just splinter off into their own factional group, as is often the case (unless they all die). But at that point unless everything calms down Harry will be too busy saving the world to go back to being his old self. The world will need Harry Dresden the superhero more than Harry Dresden the PI. There is strong evidence that the series won't calm down, that it will in fact get more wild. Hell, the blurb of Battle Grounds says the world changes forever. It would be a shirking of duty for Harry to bury his head in the sand and go back to his old life while the world is on fire around him, and completely out of character. Not to mention, if the world is burning down would there even BE any cops or clients to help him?
Per the conversation with Morgan about the job at the end of DB, Ramirez is also a regional commander, responsible for the west coast. He must have declined the Council trying to get him to manage both regions at once.
As for SI, I'm not too sure where they're going to stand on supernatural civilian vigilantes now that Harry is back in town. It probably depends how humanoid the creatures in question are, and exactly how clued the SI cops are. I don't get the impression Stallings knows as much as Rawlins, let alone on par with Murphy when she was in charge. Although the FBI building being gutted and the Fomor acting more openly probably should have forced Stallings to learn more than he knew as of Changes & Aftermath. I wouldn't count on SI being OK with exterminating things like whampires or technically-human turtlenecks, though. And executing a warlock was still something Murphy was really bothered by as of PG - I really wouldn't count on most of the rest of SI looking the other way for that.
True enough, it would depend on how humanoid the creatures were. But it could also go the other way i.e. SI might retreat deeper into disbelief and ignorance rather than working harder to find out the truth. Aside from it getting the previous heads of SI fired and police from other units chucked into exile, the supernatural tends to make mortals retreat into delusion (which is really just an allegory for anything people don't understand well). It wouldn't surprise me for SI to work harder at making things look more normal as a response, because confronting the awful truth that there may be a big hidden world - a demimonde - out there would be too terrifying for most of them to contemplate. To some extent, the mortals already do that. Even the White Council when faced with an invisible new threat (the "black council") refused to acknowledge the conspiracy. There is a lot of precedent that says that SI might bury their heads. But even if they did look into it more, likely they would be shut down or Stallings fired, unless they did it very quietly. My guess is they just do their best not to rock the boat.
And I agree - even if they were available and Harry was to go back to full-time being a warden (big ifs), whose to say that the current version of SI would be as helpful as the old one (if not antagonistic).
