The Barabbas curse

[seanham]

Personally, I do not have a huge vendetta against Jim for killing Murphy. I see it as a reminder that anyone can be killed by a moral with a gun—even super-powerful people like Eb or The Merlin. At the end of the day, humans are humans and can be killed just as easily by an angry titan or a dumb cop who went insane (or by a powerful curse that influenced said, dumb cop).

[forumghost]

I mean Murphy life has pretty much been a downward spiral for most of the series. Frankly her luck should have run out years ago.

And people complaining that Jim appears 'disinterested' in the relationship between the two should really look at Harry's dating history- literally every relationship he's in ends 1-2 books after it forms. It's just kinda how Harry's life goes.

[Mira]

She had literally just blown up a giant, and died fighting to save innocent people.....  Her death may have been senseless but she had a heroic death, which is exactly why she was taken up by the Valkyrie.   

That's the thing to be mad about...  A senseless death.

 There was nothing heroic about getting shot in the neck by a paranoid careless cop after the fight was over.  She was taken up by the Valkyrie because of the "sum" of her life, not for the manner of her death.

Yes, she blew up a giant just before, but she wasn't killed while doing it.
Yes, she had save many people just before she died,  but her death in of itself, saved no one.

[Snark Knight]

Could be that Dresden is able to Flip Uriel's gift on it's head and use Hellfire instead of Soulfire if he gets mad enough.

Given the "two sides of the same coin" explanation of the relationship between soulfire and hellfire, I find that suggestion highly likely.

With Rudolph seeming shocked at having pulled the trigger, I do wonder if something nudged him. Not sure if it was the Barrabus curse - Lasciel or Anduriel breaking the rules again to whisper "fire" into his head are also candidates.

I've never been sure Michael was right in attributing the events of DM to Shiro taking on the curse to spare Harry, though. He died of being massively tortured and then infected with the superplague, not some bizarre coincidence. It also seems like entropy curses kill pretty immediately, and sacrificing himself to that would have violated his promise not to die for 24 hours.

I kind of think Michael was just wrong about it being "a death that cannot be avoided". I think it just looks like that if you're a Knight with no access to counter-magic, but Harry's heavy wards on the house were enough to reduce impossible to merely difficult. The Walker's entropy curse one book later seemed to be described as an even more potent curse, and Harry could counter that with massive effort to redirect it or sufficient preparation to reflect it.

[Mira]

I kind of think Michael was just wrong about it being "a death that cannot be avoided". I think it just looks like that if you're a Knight with no access to counter-magic, but Harry's heavy wards on the house were enough to reduce impossible to merely difficult. The Walker's entropy curse one book later seemed to be described as an even more potent curse, and Harry could counter that with massive effort to redirect it or sufficient preparation to reflect it.

  In my opinion, what Michael meant was that the sacrifice of an innocent was needed for others to live.  Jesus was innocent, but Barabbas was not, yet the crowd chose him over Jesus.  Harry isn't a bad man, but he bears some sin upon his soul, Shiro was an innocent.  Shiro chose to take Harry's place so that others might live and not die of the plague.  Nic knows Harry's role in the future, his plan was to take him out, he didn't care if he took more people with him or not. 

[groinkick]

Given the "two sides of the same coin" explanation of the relationship between soulfire and hellfire, I find that suggestion highly likely.

With Rudolph seeming shocked at having pulled the trigger, I do wonder if something nudged him. Not sure if it was the Barrabus curse - Lasciel or Anduriel breaking the rules again to whisper "fire" into his head are also candidates.

I've never been sure Michael was right in attributing the events of DM to Shiro taking on the curse to spare Harry, though. He died of being massively tortured and then infected with the superplague, not some bizarre coincidence. It also seems like entropy curses kill pretty immediately, and sacrificing himself to that would have violated his promise not to die for 24 hours.

I kind of think Michael was just wrong about it being "a death that cannot be avoided". I think it just looks like that if you're a Knight with no access to counter-magic, but Harry's heavy wards on the house were enough to reduce impossible to merely difficult. The Walker's entropy curse one book later seemed to be described as an even more potent curse, and Harry could counter that with massive effort to redirect it or sufficient preparation to reflect it.

Shiro was also dying of cancer and didn't have long to begin with.  He probably would have saved Harry anyways, but he also didn't want Harry to think that he was completely throwing himself away for him. 

It would be nice to know how exactly the curse works though.

[CrusherJen]

I think Jim is underestimating how angry people are at Murphy going out the way she did on top of his sudden disinterest the relationship he spent 17 books building between Harry and Karin before what happened in BG given you can go look on TvTropes and under brokenbase https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/BrokenBase/OtherMedia under the lit selection and it's not wrong with friends and family that also walked for good or want to punch Jim in the face. It spells nothing good going forward with Dresden that wants he readers to suffer the most while reading and thinking they are going to come back for another go around is dumb. I have wonder if anyone pulled him a side and ask if he thought it through because of what it might cost him

I don't think Jim is writing for the readers, more like he's trying to write stories the way he wants to. But you've got a point about reactions-- there are some epic rants on Archive of Our Own from some very pissed-off people over Murphy's death. I'm not sure how much the "keep reading" advice is going to mollify them.

Unless things truly start to go downhill, I'm in this for the long haul. I'd prefer to read the stories Butcher wants to tell, organically, rather than something crafted to reader expectations. And I'm way too curious about what comes next to give up now. But not everybody will feel the same. I kind of doubt the sales figures will go down too much because of this, but time will tell.

[Phygers]

I don't think Jim is writing for the readers, more like he's trying to write stories the way he wants to. But you've got a point about reactions-- there are some epic rants on Archive of Our Own from some very pissed-off people over Murphy's death. I'm not sure how much the "keep reading" advice is going to mollify them.

Unless things truly start to go downhill, I'm in this for the long haul. I'd prefer to read the stories Butcher wants to tell, organically, rather than something crafted to reader expectations. And I'm way too curious about what comes next to give up now. But not everybody will feel the same. I kind of doubt the sales figures will go down too much because of this, but time will tell.

There's also the fact that if it was Molly or Lara ,Mab or other people favorite's had been killed in what some feel was a ham fisted way that Murphy was most of the fan base I think would not be so accepting of their death they way everyone seems to be okay with Karrin being killed and there would be more backlash toward Butcher

[CrusherJen]

There's also the fact that if it was Molly or Lara ,Mab or other people favorite's had been killed in what some feel was a ham fisted way that Murphy was most of the fan base I think would not be so accepting of their death they way everyone seems to be okay with Karrin being killed and there would be more backlash toward Butcher

I think anyone might be upset if their favorite side character died, especially in an unexpected way. And I know Murphy wasn't that popular around here. I'm just not sure other character deaths would cause more of a fan-riot than Karrin's... except for Mister and Mouse, of course. (They can't die. We'll never let them die.)

And I wouldn't say everyone's okay with it either-- I know Murphy wasn't that popular, but she did have fans, and like I've said, I've seen some epic rants and backlash from them. I don't know if that's a huge part of the fanbase or not, since my fandom hang-outs are a pretty small sample of the total picture.

I'm not 100% sure how I feel about it yet. Murphy's been around since book one, and she became a major source of support for Harry... not to mention the relationship-tease that went on for so many books. Jim decided the character needed to be gone, for some purpose we don't know about yet. I guess I'm suspending judgement until we see how that plays out in future books... I think Jim's got a plan, and from what I've seen so far, I'm willing to wait to find out what it is.

But I can't say I'm not a little troubled by how it came across on the page. Apparently it was a deliberate narrative choice to have Murphy "accidentally" killed, but it did feel a bit ham-fisted to me. Other important characters' deaths (Shiro, Morgan, Susan) felt like natural consequences of the storyline. For me, this seemed more abrupt, like, "well, the plot says it's gonna happen now, so here it is, boom." Maybe that's because there were so many other things going on that there wasn't time for Harry to really deal with it, and we'll get more resolution in Twelve Months, or in future novels. (Or maybe it's because I read both books really fast-- I devoured each in less than a day. I want to re-read both when I have more time to appreciate all the details.) I guess I just expected something different in such a major character's death scene, something bigger and more meaningful. :shrug: YMMV.

[Phygers]

But I can't say I'm not a little troubled by how it came across on the page. Apparently it was a deliberate narrative choice to have Murphy "accidentally" killed, but it did feel a bit ham-fisted to me. Other important characters' deaths (Shiro, Morgan, Susan) felt like natural consequences of the storyline. For me, this seemed more abrupt, like, "well, the plot says it's gonna happen now, so here it is, boom." Maybe that's because there were so many other things going on that there wasn't time for Harry to really deal with it, and we'll get more resolution in Twelve Months, or in future novels.

The way Jim had Harry deal with it was dumb and the way after Butter snapped Harry out of the red mist and it was never really brought up again was also irritating. Then we get the Gard at the funeral give Murphy fans more of a slap in the face with the "Not until all memory of her is faded" BS kinda boils down to Murphy got the power up she needed but no she doesn't get to use it instead she gets put on a shelf.

We also get Mab forcing Harry and Lara together which didn't help how H and K fans felt I didn't like that entire scene with Harry regardless of Lara and Molly stopping him from saying something that would get him killed seamed out of character for Harry to with way that would tread on anybody's sore spot that a person you love is dead and he just swallow's all the back sass and back talk that normal comes from someone telling him what to do. I can see why and sort of agree with one my friends that it felt like a giant FU from Butcher toward Murph fans and I think Jim is still not really getting the full backlash from doing what he did given none of cons are open to where I feel he would get the most backlash from Murph fans given how much the Dresden Reddit and FB groups are anti-Murphy and have been for awhile so his view might be lacking the full picture but I guess time well tell

[Mira]

   For some time Murphy has been written unrealistically, she does things way above her weight class.  She is braver, smarter, and physically better than anyone else at fighting, she was the Hobbit of the Dresden Files.  That is until Skin Game, but even then in Peace Talks and Battle Ground, one minute she can hardly walk, the next she is taking down a Valkyrie, riding a motorcycle, and blasting a giant away with a rocket launcher she just happened to have on her.  The so called attraction for many of her fans was she was the one ordinary human that could bring Harry back to reality.. But she wasn't, it would have been realistic if she had died while killing the giant because her previous injuries limited her.  Having her get killed in such a stupid way was merely an excuse to then have Harry lose it.

[KurtinStGeorge]

According to a relatively recent interview, Jim decided Murphy had to die about ten years before Battle Ground came out, so maybe around 2010. That places that decision around the time when Jim was writing Changes, or perhaps within a year in either direction.  So Jim decided that Changes was going to be her peak and; rightly or wrongly, decided Murphy; or the relationship between her and Harry, would eventually become a drag on the series or on the journey Jim wanted to send Harry on.

IMO, the character of Karrin Murphy has largely been written in an indifferent manner since Changes and the short story Aftermath.  I don't want to reargue Ghost Story, but I felt that while it made sense that Harry's death, losing her job and the stress of fighting the Fomor as a vigilante might twist Karrin Murphy in unpredictable ways, something felt off about the way I expected her to act, and not in a good way.  (I've only reread Ghost Story once so I can't give you specific examples of what bothered me.) 

Cold Days was even worse.  I really thought Murphy was poorly written in that novel, and not because I was hoping she and Harry would finally hook up.  I've discussed this with Mira in more than one thread.  Jim has Murphy make a speech at Harry about how he has lost his way and how it could happen to anyone.  It was a straight up accusation rather than a conversation.  If any character had lost their way it had been Karin Murphy; and Molly of course, but Harry's apprentice isn't an issue here.  In any case, Murphy's accusation / speech pulled me right out novel.  If I had been watching a TV show or movie I would say it broke my suspension of belief.  Murphy turning Harry's advances down at the end of Cold Days was also something of a sore point, but not because I'm a KM / HD shipper.  To me it felt like Jim was just dragging the "will they - won't they" get together scenario out.  Jim might as well have killed Murphy off then. 

I don't want to go over Skin Game and Battle Ground, what really bothered me is something Jim said since then. (Thank you CuriousFan for already finding and posting this quote.)

Q - "But now, that death, Murphy's death at the hand of a human seems to me to be very significant in terms of the series and had you always intended that that was going to be the case since you started thinking about it more seriously?"

A. - "What I really thought about it was "what's the /worst/ way for Murphy to die?" Not like the most painful or the most dramatic but the one that would be the worst for the people who loved and supported her. What is going to make the reader suffer the most to read and so it's like she can't die in battle she has to die and it's got to be to this weasel, she can't be taken straight-up because it's not who her character is but to be killed by this weasel sort of by accident almost, you know death by incompetence seems to be even worse *unintelligible*. I had a lot of fun planning that out and I know there's a lot of people who are really angry at me and to them I can say "well keep reading we'll see what happens".

Jim likes to say that he doesn't torture his characters, he tortures his readers, and I get what why he does this.  However, there's a time when torturing the readers makes sense because it's something that's a natural progression to the story.  My feeling is that when Jim first had Nicodemus beat the living crap out of Murphy and finally killed her off in Battle Ground, it felt more like the author had pushed events the way he wanted them to go rather than a natural progression of the story.  I felt Jim did this for a couple of reasons.  First, he wanted to torture his readers by breaking the expectations that many of them had that Murphy would or should become a KotC.  It felt to me that Jim was doing more than breaking expectations.  It came very close to feeling that Jim was giving those fans the middle finger.  Of course, the second reason is Jim had already decided a decade ago that he was going to kill off Murphy.

So, some fans are really P.O.'d about how one of their favorite characters has been treated (or written off) by the author and are thinking of quitting the series.  That's certainly their right.  While Jim doesn't work for us and we can't tell him how to write his stories, the reverse is also true.  It is always our choice to read what someone else writes.  I'm not a completist.  I've stopped reading several well regarded series because I lost interest in where the story was going or I felt the story or the writing went off the rails in a manner that is important to me.  I'm not at that point with the Dresden Files, at least not yet. 
 


   

[KurtinStGeorge]

Oh yea, I don't want to ignore the OP because initially I didn't think it was a bad idea, but on further contemplation I realized it has one huge flaw.  Could Nicodemus have used the Barabbas curse against Karrin Murphy?  Perhaps, but isn't everyone forgetting that the Knights have the option of taking the victim's place?  Both Knights were in the same city as the victim, if it really was the curse that caused Rudolph to shoot Murphy.  Wouldn't Sanya and Butters been given a warning about what was about to happen?  If they were told then they decided to not to make that sacrifice or even warn Karrin, assuming they found out early enough to do so.  On the other hand, if Sanya and Butters weren't forewarned that Nic was using the curse and in a future DF novel Nicodemus should mention that he was responsible for Murphy's death; aside from wanting revenge, wouldn't it be natural for Harry to wonder why Heaven left Murphy "hung out to dry"; make that "hung out to die." 

I think it would be a lose / lose scenario for Jim to have written it this way.  It would either make the Knights look cold blooded for writing Murphy off or the White God and his archangels look cold blooded for the same reason.  I don't think Jim's going for that effect, so even though at first glance the OP seems plausible, it don't think it will prove to be correct.       

[morriswalters]

While Jim doesn't work for us

He can do a happy dance celebrating that fact.  His review would look pitiful if I had to write it. His books have slipped from must buy to must read before owning.

And why waste a curse on Murphy? Have her sleep with Harry. Lara is doomed if they consummate the marriage.

[groinkick]

He can do a happy dance celebrating that fact.  His review would look pitiful if I had to write it. His books have slipped from must buy to must read before owning.

Peace Talks, and Battle Ground turned things around for me in the right direction.  After Changes things kind of got worse to me.  Ghost Story was my least enjoyed book, and Skin Game was ok, but not a favorite.  Same with Cold Days.  The big time off didn't help things.

PT, and BG felt better to me, and I'm really excited again how things are going.  Harry has his old place back with some big upgrades.  Finally get to see him with Lara which I thought he had better chemistry with than Murphy since...  Well since Lara came onto the scene.  Harry mentioned starting to work on his magic again...  So yeah I'm pretty excited about the future of the story.