Was just struck by the idea that Lara is known outside of the magic world and she’s publicly engaged to Harry Dresden, that weirdo crank from the Larry Fowler show
Lara this super rich politically connected individual. What does she say if she’s asked how she and Harry met?? Oh he’s friends with my brother??
What does Harry say if some random vanilla normie manages to get past his 10 deep secret body guard crew?? Oh we used to work together? Making porn???
At BEST I think Lara Raith marrying Harry Dresden Professional Wizard is the equivalent of when Lana Del Rey married that airboat tour guide in Louisiana. At WORST?? Who knows. Somewhere in the Dresden verse there has to be a Reddit thread about Harry where someone still remembers the rumors that he worked for Gentleman Johnnie Marcone.
The trashy exploitive true crime “”documentary”” on Netflix about Lara and Harry would be amazing
"I sometimes think I might be about to explode at the prospect of all the marvelous opportunities that have been opening to me."
"As long as you don't do it in my car."
The Dresden Files | Jim Butcher
❤︎❤︎❤︎
Thank you, @notsodirtynatasha, for always being there for me. And also for introducing this series to me! You're amazing.
no new drawings today but i fixed this sketch up a lot more, and it took me like an hour so it counts. the relationship between lara and thomas is so fascinating to me. what if i was a monster. what if i helped raise you but you were my brother and also i knew our dad would probably kill you before you reached adulthood. and then what if you lived?? and we were both monsters?? what if i watched you struggle to not be a monster, knowing your efforts were doomed and maybe hurting you?? idk idk. two weeks and change till ‘twelve months’ comes out!!
Harry: "So now that I'm marrying into the Raiths, I get access to the family loot right?"
Lara: "I suppose a little indulgence would be permissible. Just remember to use a proxy for purchasing weapons and substances not legal in Illinois; and if you go shopping for a judge or congressman, buying will be cheaper in the long-term than renting."
~~Later~~
Lara: "What in the white God's name is a 'glamdring,' and why did you need the original prop?"
With Twelve Months in the "preparing to drop" phase, I've been thinking a lot about what morality means in the Dresden Files.
I feel like within the books, and likely unintentionally, there is a tension between two broad models of morality.
On the one hand is prescriptive, deontological model of ethics and morality we get implied by the White Council. They have specific rules, specific categories. They divide the world between human and non-human. They give special rights to humans. They have little willingness to tolerate any transgression of the rules. We see it in how Ramirez and Ebenezer increasingly treat Dresden as the "other" and the "threat" even though they both know that he is trying to fight a battle that the Council itself is both unwilling and incapable of fighting. And we see it in Dresden. And Dresden himself seeks suicide - and while pushed was vitally capable of being pushed - after taking the Winter Mantle because it transforms him from "Human" to "Monster".
On the other hand is a more consequentialist, utilitarian model that is often implied by Dresden himself in conflict with his deontological White Council background. In the first book, Dresden is abusing the grey-space in the rules, and straining against them to do what he believes to be necessary to do what is "right". We see this when he has grace for Susan - on the precipice of becoming a Red Court Vampire for so long. We see this when he accepts Thomas as his bother, and Molly as his apprentice and later as the Winter Lady. We see this when he plays the part the rules require to control the Wild Hunt. We see it when he strains against Winter in himself. At each turn, he exists in a system of rules, but discards those rules to do that which is correct.
And that brings me to Lara. The books - the main ones - are from Harry's perspective. And Harry is caught between these two systems of morality. But when it comes to Lara, he seems to retreat behind the former. Often, he is draconian in his treatment of her. He intentionally "others" her to make his life easier.
Harry knows, for a fact, that White Court Vamparism is a form of demonic parasitism. But with his bother, he sees the man bound to the demon, while with Lara only sees the demon.
Harry knows that the White Council will summarily execute children if they break laws of magic to which they were never initiated. Yet, when Lara tries to construct consensual structures by which she and her kind can feed, he calls her a monster.
When Lara hires fully aware and competent mercenaries and feeds only upon those who will never recover from their injuries - effectively using them as organ donors to save the lives of herself and her family, who these men were hired under the understanding they are risking their lives to protect these people - she is "monstrous". But if those men died in combat that would just be the job, and Harry wouldn't think twice about a doctor using a donated organ.
Harry has this supreme arrogance when it comes to Lara. He proactively chooses to read her actions in the worst possible light. And this is especially damning when you contrast his treatment of Lara with how he treats Ebenezer or Thomas.
In the case of Ebenezer, the man himself claims responsibility the Krakatoa volcanic explosion. That event alone killed at least 36,000 people in the immediate aftermath while the subsequent volcanic winter lead to crop failures and shortages in various locations around the globe. And Harry is shaken by this. Yet, because it's within the rules of the White Council - and even more so because it's his grandfather and the man who raised him - he can forgive that?
He never calls Ebenezer a monster. We don't know how many people Lara has killed to stay alive since 1883, but if it's less than 270 a year since then, she'd still have killed fewer people - never mind fewer innocent people - than Ebenezer. And that's assuming the Blackstaff hasn't killed innocent people since, which we know he has. Ebenezer claims at least 100 innocent victims at Casaverde, and he says there have been at least a dozen other times he's played hatchet man at scale.
And then there is the fact that Ebenezer tried to kill Thomas, his own grandson. And all Harry feels is sadness. Not anger or blame or any kind of outrage that he would strive to kill Thomas for nothing more or less than being a White Court Vampire. Just sadness. At least when Lara wanted to kill Thomas, it was to spare him the slow and painful death she was certain was in store for him. For Ebenezer though? Just Thomas's existence was reason enough. On the one hand Lara, who has moved heaven and earth to protect Thomas, and on the other Ebenezer whose first and only impulse was to kill him, and who would have killed Harry to do it.
And speaking of Thomas, we see someone who is in so many ways a mirror of Lara. He's a White Court vampire. Hell, he was feeding on women - even if taking sips - without their consent as a hair stylist, and using the emotions he conjured in them to make them return again and again. How is that meaningfully different than Lara having sex with people to the same end, so long as it is consensual? Yet, when Lara says there are those who would choose to be used, Harry spits at the idea. Never mind his own brother's twisted relationship with Justine, one founded in that same supernaturally questionable consent structure. It is Lara who is evil.
And Thomas is every bit the murder machine Lara is - he is frequently paralleled with her in battle. He conducts clandestine acts. He was in part responsible for Susan Rodriguez's tragic fate, literally pushing her to the Red Court Vampires in exchange for Justine's safety!
And Thomas's love? His seemingly un-White-Court behaviour? It almost started a war between the White Court and the Svartalves, killing a personal friend of Harry's in the process. And yet, Thomas isn't forgiven, because he cannot be forgiven when Harry refuses to blame him to begin with. Two of the strongest and most stable and trustworthy members of the Accords were set at each other's throats as part of a plan to destroy creation, and Thomas permitted himself to be a pawn to that out of his need to have Justine and their unborn child "safe".
But when Lara sacrifices people she is vilest evil. When she questions whether she can save her brother because of the risk of that war, Harry questions her love for Thomas! When Lara allowed a partial plan to go ahead and kill a number of low-power magic users so that she could stop far more evil members of the White Court taking over, when she made the decision to do what was required to keep the White Court from entering the war against the White Council and to prevent a tyrannical White Court from coming into power? She was a monster.
At every turn, Harry is othering her. He is choosing to treat her with less mercy and grace. Even when she, time and again, chooses the softer and kinder and weaker option, the more peaceful option, the option which allows some coexistence Harry will ascribe to her the most vile of motivations.
I see people talk about her speech at the end of White Night.
"And I love peace, wizard. I love talking. Laughing. Relaxing. I will kill your folk with peace, wizard. I will strangle them with it. And they will thank me while I do."
And they ascribe such vile intentions. Never mind that this is a direct response to Harry threatening to murder Lara in her own home after they have just saved each other's lives. Never mind that this is literally no different to what the White Council intends as their ultimate end goal - the eradication of all other supernatural beings, which is inherent in their laws of magic and their attitudes towards working with or dealing with anyone who isn't a Wizard.
But what does this actually mean? But, more importantly, what has Lara done?
Lara advocates for consent. She advocates for contractualism. She has no intention of letting herself or those who she leads just die to convenience Harry and his lot. But she actively purged her most dangerous factions and actors. The moment she truly understood the entire picture, she usurped her father. And she fantasized for centuries about killing her most ravenous and callous cousins. She keeps her word. She has a moral code. Hell, she celebrated Dresden's happiness with Murphy and empathized with his loss!
But, time and again, we are told she is a monster. That she is the other. Because this is Harry's world view, we are imbibing it. But it is just that: because she is Other, she is suspect. Because Harry sees her as Other, she is a monster. Harry's own grandfather has murdered tens of thousands as collateral damage. Harry's own brother threw Susan to be tortured to death by the Red Court and almost started a civil war on the precipice of an invasion to save Justine. Hell, Harry himself broke Molly by using his position of power and trust to have her assist in his suicide against her will - manipulated her emotions to make her the instrument of his death. But it is Lara who is the monster. These others are allowed to leave bodies in their wake and break people's souls, and they shall be forgiven or not reckoned with. But not Lara.
Lara is only a "monster" because the prescriptive dogma of the White Council says so, and because Harry hides behind that like a moral coward whenever he is faced with a real test of his worldview. She is only a monster because she is the "other" and its is easier for Harry (and given we see the world through his POV, the reader as well) to paint this Other as a monster than to actually sit down and ask himself tough questions about right and wrong, about free will, and about what it means for morality when two different types of being literally cannot coexist or even worse what it means when their coexistence is possible but personally something he is not fond of, even if it means other people engaging in their own lives consensually and with eyes as open as possible.
Lara isn't a monster. Lara is a person afflicted by a condition, and it is only Harry's intolerance and unwillingness to dig deep and finally draw his own lines unequivocally that makes him cast her as a monster.
Trying to read the ending of White Night from Lara's perspective is interesting. Even though she's clearly capable of forming meaningful friendships with humans on an individual level (see: Arturo), she still viewed the mass of faceless humanity as herd animals. She recognizes the Skavis's actions as monstrous, but she distanced herself from it. She could rest easy knowing it was for the greater good of her and her family, and therefore mankind as a whole, to expose their plan and destroy House Skavis. Until Dresden called her out, she probably never really considered the human cost of her scheming. It's just not the way of her kind.
But he did, and hearing about the broken families brought out a twinge of regret and, dare I say, empathy. She knows what it's like to lose family members to white Court schemes. That's the story of her entire life. She agreed to all of his demands because she thought it was right. She had to take a moment to consider his demand for the faeries, but she also decided that was right. Remember, Harry is like the only person ever to treat the little folk like people. She genuinely didn't see a problem with any of this until he called her out.
And up until that point, things were going well. When he dropped the banter and got serious, she listened because respects Dresden. She might even like him. He's interesting. A reliable enemy. A playful opponent. She expected to go back to their banter now that he had established boundaries.
But Harry had to go a step further. He had to get in that last little dig. With that mouthwash comment, he showed her that he didn't see her as an equal, he saw her as scum. He was repulsed by her. Can you imagine what sort of warped complexes Daddy Raith instilled in her? Lara is often shown as more insecure than she lets on, and that dehumanization... that angered her. He went too far, so she snapped back.
Of course she said that whole "strangle with peace" spiel. She was furious. She was hurt. She had offered an olive branch and he spat in her face and called her a cheap whore.
Lara is probably my favorite character now that we understand her better and it really adds to the earlier books to see the nuance that Harry just doesn't catch.
Here's Part two of my read review on Twelve Months. Here's part one.
I hope I linked that right.
“And like that, the rain stopped. The lightning stopped. The thunder stopped.
The silence was deafening.” pg. 434 Cool
“I took a deep breath and looked around.
Fitz was staring at me, his face pale, his eyes wide and bright.
Matias looked like he might be in a state of mild shock.
Bear was watching me steadily, her face inscrutable.
I walked over to the battlements and watched people run.
I felt awful.
That I’d scared them that much. Most of them were just folks.
But if I hadn’t, they’d have been right in the middle of it.” pg. 435 Poor Harry doesn’t like being mean and a bad guy
“Black Court elders. Drakul’s personal guard. The ones who had killed my friends in the Wardens. Wild Bill. Yoshimo. Chandler.” pg. 436 Oh do we know that Chandler got killed
“Then I raised my voice and called out over the battlements, “Okay, you evil bastards. You wanna start trouble in my home? Come and get some.” pg. 436 LET’S GO!!
“The fire streaked toward me - and stopped cold at the line of the battlements.” pg. 438 Cool!
“Something hissed past my face, close enough to stir some of my hair as I dropped back.” pg. 438 Too close
“Bear was frowning at me. “You want them inside.”
“Come on” I said. “They’re Black Court. Why do you think I invited them in? “Come and get some’ wasn’t an accident.”
Bear’s frown turned into a fierce grin. “You think you can handle them?”
“Time I get done with them, we’ll need a lot of mops,” I said darkly. “This is my house.” pg. 441 Oh Harry has a plan
“Then there was a single, rasping, inhuman howl, instantly echoed by dozens of yowling ghoul battle cries, and my enemies came for me.” pg. 441 Oh no
“At one point in my career, holding a shield and a wind evocation at the same time would have been a challenge. At one point this year, it would have been impossible. If they’d come a month sooner, things might have gone a lot differently.
But I’d just needed time.
And work.
And rest.
And friends.
Healing isn’t the work of a moment. I still had a way to go.
But I was better now.
More than that, I’d been teaching.
I was better now.” pg. 443 Yay! And is Harry doing two spells at once? If he is that’s really cool
“I don’t know if I’ve made mention of how much I dislike ghouls” pg. 444 Yep
“Fiero, fiero, fiero!” Fitz shrieked, and blazing bolts of white-hot flame leapt” pg. 444 Go Fitz!
“Lara’s face twisted into a snarl as the sound of the horn washed over her, but it didn’t slow her down. She blurred into motion and hit the stunned ghouls from behind, blades flashing. She went for spines and necks, single, supernaturally powerful slashes, and the wavy blades carved their way through bone and flesh like cutting through so much Jell-O.” pg. 445 Go Lara
“My allies had arrived.
Waldo Butters, Knight of the Cross” pg. 446 Butters!
“On either side of him marched Daniel Carpenter and Father Forthill” pg. 446 Daniel and Father Forthill!
“Behind them and on their flanks came the forms of Will and the Alphas” pg. 447 The alphas!
“My people went in on the other side of the castle,” Lara said quietly. “My sisters, Freydis and Gard.”
“I was surprised to hear about Gard,” I said. “What’s Marcone’s bodyguard doing here?”
“Representing his displeasure at the presence of belligerents in his territory.” Lara said. “Besides. Valkyries get annoyed when they aren’t allowed to take the field from time to time.” pg. 447 Marcone mention! And glad that Gard gets to go out a wreck havoc
“Carlos Ramirez emerged from behind a veil of magical energy.” pg. 448 Ramirez is here
“Ramirez had just cut his he strings” pg. 448 Go Ramirez
“It was Mavra. Black Court vampire of old acquaintance. And she was smiling.” pg. 449 Oh no!
“And then, at my will, the enchanted, obdurate stone of the second floor, that entire portion of the second floor, tons and tons of runes-etched rock, slammed down more swiftly than a blinking eyelid, like a vast, and ancient sledgehammer coming down on three doomed cockroaches.
It was messy as hell.
Black ichor, thick and sticky as tar, sprayed everywhere in a fine mist.
And that was that.” pg. 450 Cool!
“Cleanup was gonna take a lot of mops.” pg. 451 So many buckets
“Maggie came pelting up the stairs alongside Mouse, flung herself at me, and proceeded to climb me until she had her skinny arms around my neck.
I spent a while hugging her while Mouse pranced happily around us, making huffing sounds of pleasure.
“That was so loud,” Maggie said. “I was scared.”
“Me, too punkin,” I said quietly.
“You got the bad guys?” she asked.
“They came to mess with my little girl,” I told her. “Wasn’t even close.”
“Did you cheat?” she asked.
“As much as possible,” I said.
“Good,” she replied, and squeezed extra tight.
“Urk,” I said. “Ack.”
She giggled but loosened her grip, and I hugged her some more.” pg. 452 Aww
“You did fine,” I said. “First fight, you kept it together, only hit the bad guys, and helped out when I really needed it. You survived. That means you won.” pg. 452 Yep
“The seidrmadr’s been doing this his whole life. He hasn’t even been teaching you for a year yet.” pg. 452 Yep
“My man,” I said approvingly. He held up his fist, and we bumped knuckles firmly.” pg. 453 Fist bump!
“I kind of like being the distraction,” he said. “Way less cardio involved.” pg. 453 Ha
“Ramirez smiled. “I haven’t really gotten to work with one of the Knights of the Sword. It was a pleasure, Sir Waldo.” pg. 453
“Can we do a movie night after?”
“I’d be a fool to turn down an offer like that,” I said.” pg. 454 Aww
“We agreed mid-winter would be a better date symbolically. I suppose we’ll do invites at the end of the summer.” pg. 454 So the wedding still a go
“Gard says hello, by the way, Dresden. Says to tell you not to think she was there because Marcone likes you.”
“Oh no,” I said in a dull tone. “Not that.” pg. 455 Ha and come on Marcone likes Harry
“Will, who had been ready to start writing things down, said, “That’s it?”
I looked around the room and said, cautiously, “Yes.”
“Thank God.” Forthill sighed.” pg. 455 Yay no one died
“Not total,” I said quietly. “Mavra got away. She seemed pleased by it all.”
Ramirez made a growling sound. “Why does she keep surviving?”
“And he’s still got Wild Bill and Yoshimo,” I said quietly. “They aren’t chump sorcerers. They’re experienced battle wizards.” pg. 457 Yep
“Drakul is preparing for the next war,” Ramirez murmured.
The room was quiet for a long moment.
“And he seems to have his eye on you Dresden,” pg. 457 Oh no
“There’s going to be a lot of people afraid of you, Harry. But I’ll do what I can.” pg. 457 Poor Harry
“Celebrate life.” pg. 458 Yay!
“Butters brightened at that. “Hell, yeah!” he said. Then immediately said, “Sorry, Father.”
“Don’t be,” Forthill said, very seriously. “That’s a hell of a good idea.” pg. 458 Ha
“The rest of April was cool and rainy, but May came and went beautifully.” pg. 458 Months going by fast
“Then June came.” pg. 459 Already in June
“The anniversary of the Battle of Chicago.
And I woke up in a dark place again.” pg. 459 Oh no
“Pain is a fire. And twelve months isn’t long enough to heal from life’s most severe burns.
But, if you’re willing to work at it, it’s enough time to make a damned good start.” pg. 460 I like the call back from the first line in the book
“Pocket full of sunshine is awfully handy against Black Court vampires,” I said, “and plenty of other things that go bump in the night.” pg. 460 Pocket full of sunshine!
“It’s so easy,” he said, “how about you show me, great and mighty wizard?” pg. 461 Ha
“And I felt at peace with every one of those memories.
With a whisper of will, steady glow of sunlight inside between my palms.
I opened my eyes, and tears in them were not at all sad.
“Huh,” I said quietly. “How about that.”
Which is when I realized that peace and happiness aren’t the same thing. Not at all.
Happiness is peace in action.
And peace is happiness at rest.
And neither one has to be perfect to be real.” pg. 462 HARRY FOLDED A POCKET FULL OF SUNSHINE!!! We haven’t seen him do that since Grave Peril book three. It’s been fifteen books. He’s truly happy!
“A powder-blue Beetle was parked in front of the castle. It had a fresh paint job and looked to have been restored with a great deal of care and attention.” pg. 462 THE BLUE BEETLE!!! IT’S BACK IN ALL IT’S GLORY!
“And I went down to open the door for my brother and hugged him hard.” pg. 463 Aww
Final thoughts
Finally finished this book. It took several months but I did it. This book was cathartic and helped me with my grief regarding my coworker who gave me his copy of twelve months when it came out then passed away.
I loved that Thomas is a dad and that Harry is an uncle. I love that Harry can pocket sunshine! I love that Harry got the Blue Beetle back! I loved that Harry is healing. I’m still in denial about Murphy coming back. She’s coming back. She has too. Hopefully the wedding between Lara and Harry won’t happen. I get that this book humanized Lara but I still don’t fully like or trust her. I still remember what she did to her cousin. I liked Maggie and Bonea. I wish there were more scenes with them. I liked all the new and recurring characters. Bear was fun and I hope she sticks around. Having Fitz as an apprentice was nice and I like the different approach Harry has to Fitz and Molly. I wish we get more Marcone but I say that every time he’s not in a book. I hope he shows up in subsequent books more (Out law, Mister Petty, and Mirror Mirror) . I hope we get to see Thomas’s son again. I like that Carlos seems to be at least cordial to Harry. I’m still mad at him. I don’t like Lord Raith up and walking around. I don’t trust or respect Mab. I still remember the stone table. We had a bi Harry moment which brings our total up to 71!
Bingo time
Looks like I got a bingo! I light have used some creative liberties on @dresdenfilesbigbang bingo sheet but I got a bingo on my sheet and that's all the matters.
