The Dresden Files/Characters/Unfazed Everymen and Badass Normals

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Susan Rodriguez

A reporter for the Midwestern Arcane, a trashy tabloid that doesn't deserve a journalist as good as she is. She will put herself at an extraordinary amount of risk to get the scoop on some genuine weirdness, and constantly pesters Harry for leads. Harry's girlfriend until the Red Court got their hands on her..

Gentleman Johnny Marcone

"One day, probably soon, you'll get yourself killed thanks to that irrational set of compulsions you call a conscience, long before my name tops your list. I needn't lift a finger. Giving you information seems an excellent way to accelerate that process. It will also tax the resources of my enemies. And . . . I believe I have no objection to contributing against any organization that would victimize children so."

The boss of the Chicago criminal underground, he's not quite as unpopular with the cops as one might expect since he runs his operation with the minimum of bloodshed and the maximum of profit. He's smart enough that he generally tries to keep Harry on his side, but isn't averse to working against him when necessary. Harry hates his guts, but has still probably done him more good than harm overall.

  • Abnormal Ammo: Uses an anti-ward musket ball in Even Hand
  • Affably Evil
  • Ambiguously Evil: Sometimes it's hard to tell if he's a Type I Anti-Villain or a particularly hard-core Anti-Hero.
  • Arch Enemy: He believes himself to be this for Harry Dresden. He had stated in his monologue of "Even Hand" that someday he and Harry will face each other for one final time and has been preparing armament to ensure his victory. It's difficult to decide which is more impressive: that Harry can destroy the strongest mob boss in the nation or that Marcone can kill one of the deadliest wizards on the planet.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: Even when he's not surrounded by God knows how many bodyguards this is seriously one guy you do not want to mess with.
  • Badass Normal: He once managed to keep a knife hidden from FBI agents, then pull it out and throw it through a rope while hanging upside down in the dark, and another time ripped a Fallen Angel in half with a machine gun.

Say what you want about Marcone, but he has balls that drag on the ground when he walks.

  • Badass Nickname: Gentleman Johnny Marcone. It says something about the man that he makes the nickname "Gentleman" Badass.
  • Berserk Button: It's hard to find something that will set Marcone off, but if he even thinks you're threatening children, and especially Amanda Beckit, a.k.a. "Persephone", he will murder you until you die. He outright says in Changes that part of the reason why he is helping Harry against the Red Court is because they are hurting children.
  • Big Damn Heroes: He's needed to be rescued a couple of times now. On the flip side, he's also been one to show up at the last second with a rescue squad (usually Hendricks and Gard) a couple of times as well.
  • Clasp Your Hands If You Deceive: He does the finger-steepling thing quite a bit, as his character design is based on David Xanatos.
  • Crazy Prepared: This is the man who puts extra light and thin doors at dramatic entry points to reduce shrapnel. Not to mention having both technological and magical defenses installed in multiple safe houses.
  • Dead Little Sister: He will do anything to try to make up for the fact that a little girl took a bullet meant for him and has been in a coma ever since.
  • Diabolical Mastermind
  • Deadpan Snarker: his narration of Even Hand.

Mag entered in the manner so many of these self-absorbed supernatural cretins seem to adore. He blasted the door into a cloud of flying splinters with what I presumed was magic.
For God’s sake.
At least the vampires would call for an appointment.

  • The Don
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: For the ridiculously accomplished, Physical God-backed first vanilla human Signatory of the Unseelie Accords who has tangoed with wizards, Denarians, ghouls, and vampires, he is still looked upon as an average mortal by some.
  • Enemy Mine
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Marcone is willing to take a profit from any single vice you can name... except those which involve the exploitation of children. The defining moment of this trope may have been the opening scene of Even Hand, where he personally sees to the execution of a pimp who sold children and a drug dealer who sold to minors.
  • The Fettered
  • Friendly Enemy
  • Friend to All Children: His first rule. To Harry's annoyance, since it means he can't just dismiss the guy as a mustache-twirling villain.
  • Genre Savvy: After the first time failed, Marcone never threatened Harry again and had accepted with saintly tolerance Harry's insults and property destruction. This seems bizarre for The Don at first sight, until one realizes that he must have recognized that Harry always came out not only alive, but victorious over and over again against enemies several magnitudes stronger than him (and Marcone). As per "Even Hand," Marcone has been implementing precautions into all his buildings specifically to destroy Harry.
  • Green Eyes: Harry's usual description is "money-colored." Murphy calls them the color of "dead grass." Noticeably, in a flashback, his eyes are a more healthy-looking "bright, grass-green."
  • I Know Your True Name: Actually we don't. In his narration of Even Hand, he mentions the fact John Marcone is not his real name. We'll learn more about this in Mirror Mirror, which involves alternate universes.
  • Johnny McCoolname: But see above.
  • Knife Nut: He always seems to have several lying around.
  • Lesser of Two Evils: It's frequently pointed out that, yes, he's a leader of organized crime, but his standards keep the levels of collateral damage much lower than they would be without him.
  • The Mafia
  • Major Injury Underreaction: "Even Hand" ended with his arm broken, several ribs bruised or cracked, and lacerations all over his body. He barely reacted, killed the dark wizard, and went out to a nice restaurant after a quick check-in with his private doctor.
  • Morality Pet: "Persephone," the girl who was put into a coma by a drive-by hit on Marcone when he was younger. Harry outright says that this is the entire reason why Marcone tightly controls the streets and doesn't hesitate to kill criminals who hurt innocents. To a certain extent this applies to all children (for instance, his protectiveness towards The Archive), as does his Berserk Button.
  • Mysterious Backer: Mostly since, as the name itself implies, he's a pragmatic, but ruthless gangster.
  • Noble Demon
  • Not Distracted by the Sexy: He is the only human so far who not only is completely unmoved by White Court glamour, but he managed to pierce through the veils of Lara at their first encounter, finding her shadow government "amusing."
  • Neighbourhood Friendly Gangsters: His modus operandi reduces the amount of collateral damage and civilian casualties in Chicago's criminal underworld.
  • Papa Wolf: summed up when Harry makes a probing threat against Persephone:

I'll kill you. If you so much as breathe in her direction, I'll kill you, Dresden. Myself.

  • Pragmatic Villainy.
  • The Stoic: In Death Masks, the fact that he blinks once is implied by Harry to be a massive tell for him.
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: For Dresden. He is sure that one day he and Dresden would face each other one last time. And he is not certain that he would be the one left standing.
  • Vetinari Job Security: He's a crime lord who makes a profit off any vice trade you care to name, but he's infinitely better than any of the alternatives. Harry at one point tells him someday he won't be the lesser evil, but until then, it seems everyone is relieved Marcone's running the Outfit and keeping the collateral damage down.
  • What Beautiful Eyes!: He has Green Eyes, which suggest extreme materialism (being the color of worn dollar bills).

Hendricks

Marcone's chief bodyguard/enforcer.

Helen Beckitt

Justine

Thomas Raith's long-time girlfriend and primary food source. After he almost killed her in Blood Rites, she was in a wheelchair for a while, got out of it, her previously dark hair turned white, and, ironically, she and Thomas could no longer touch since love burns White Court vampires. Largely due to this last characteristic, she is now Lara Raith's personal assistant, since Lara prefers to have an assistant that none of her family members can turn into a thrall.

She brayed out a sharp laugh. 'There is no out of here. This is the larder. The Christmas turkey doesn't get up and walk away.'

  • The Power of Love: protects her from the White Court vampires. Lara being Lara, she realized that this was a very helpful trait in someone who would need to work around them. In Ghost Story, she figures out a way to avoid this: sleep with others to remove the protection, then lay with Thomas. Rinse and repeat.
  • Silk Hiding Steel:Definitely becomes this in Even Hand,even getting Marcone to underestimate her.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: With Thomas Raith.
  • Sickeningly Sweethearts: Word of God reveals that she and post-Turn Coat Thomas are like this in private.
  • Talkative Loon: Justine is certifiably insane, but Thomas' routine "feeding" helps her keep her sanity. When separated from him in Grave Peril, she rapidly slips into madness.
    • Subverted in White Night, where it's revealed that she's just faking so the rest of the White Court will leave her alone, and is actually stable now.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Volunteered to work as Lara's assistant to feed Thomas (and thus Harry, and thus the White Council) information on the Court's activities. However, she really takes on in Even Hand, where she infiltrates the stronghold of Mag, a powerful Fomor sorcerer, frees his slaves, and steals his bank account information, and then manages to get Marcone to kill Mag.
  • White-Haired Pretty Girl

Waldo Butters

"Polka will never die!"

Chicago medical examiner, polka enthusiast and geek extraordinaire. He was assigned to autopsy the corpses found after a fire, but since said fire was in fact the result of a wizardly temper tantrum, he got a vampire corpse, called it "humanlike, but definitely nonhuman" and consequently got stuck in a mental institution for observation for three months. This gave him a cheery disrespect for authority that helps him get along quite well with Harry. For tropes pertaining to Butters as a Knight of the Cross,click here.

  • Bunny Ears Lawyer: He may be a bit overfond of polka, but he's very good at remembering bits of random information and thinking about them logically, even when faced with a Zombie Apocalypse.
  • Chekhov's Gun: His one-man polka suit.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Harry taught him how to make a magic circle so Harry's magic wouldn't interfere with his technology. Later he draws a magic circle to prevent the undead armies from killing him and his drum.
  • The Coroner: The reason why he's a coroner despite being an excellent medic, is that he doesn't have the professional detachment needed to be one.

Butters hated seeing people in pain.

  • Cowardly Lion
  • Crazy Prepared/Properly Paranoid. In Changes, he is shot in the back. A few minutes later it is revealed that he put on a kevlar vest the minute he got the call, and brought garlic and chalk too.
  • Diagnosis From Dr. Badass:Does this to Aristides in Ghost Story
  • Future Badass: Well, Ghost Story is six months in the future.
  • Jewish and Nerdy - Self-described as such in-universe.
  • Jewish Mother - Mama Butters, from Bob's description, is capable of whipping up a massive Fancy Dinner for Jewish Holidays as Harry sees in Bob's 'apartment'. Also nags Butters about finding himself a Nice Jewish Girl if only he'd clean up. Bob fills in for her at times, complete with Yiddish accent, to Butters' dismay.
  • Let's Get Dangerous: He saved Harry's life by attacking Cassius.. And later, subdued a gunman with an improvised taser. Later on in Ghost Story he cripples Aristides by knowing exactly which bones to break
  • Lovable Coward: Deconstructed, then subverted.
  • The Medic: Although he says he finds it weird to operate on people who are still alive, Harry's acquaintance with him comes in handy when he, say, needs a bullet wound treated and doesn't want to intrude on the police's busy schedule.
  • Nerd Glasses
  • Non-Action Guy
  • Post-Modern Magik: In Ghost Story he rigs up a two-way radio for Harry to converse with the others. Bob the Skull observes that while Butters has no talent for magic himself, he probably understands magic theory better than Harry.
  • Shorter Means Smarter: He's very smart, and he's tiny, apparently -- when he curls up into a fetal position, Harry thinks he could probably fit in a grocery bag.
  • Survival Mantra: "POLKA WILL NEVER DIE!!"
  • Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: With Bob's help.
  • Took a Level in Badass: As of Ghost Story.
  • Unfazed Everyman

Malcolm Dresden

Harry's deceased father. Formerly a stage magician, he died when Harry was around six years old. Officially, he died because of a brain aneurism; some have hinted otherwise. We'll know sooner or later. His ghost made a brief, cryptic appearance in Dead Beat.

Daniel Carpenter

The second oldest of Michael and Charity's children, now a member of the Chicago Alliance.


Margaret "Maggie" Angelica Dresden

Harry's daughter by  Susan, concieved during Death Masks. Kidnapped by Arianna to be used in a sacrificial ritual, but saved by Harry.
  • The Cutie: was this until Arianna kidnapped her.
  • Break the Cutie: Compare the smiling photo to the broken-down wreck she is when Harry meets her (after narrowly securing her a reprieve)
  • Disappeared Dad: Harry
  • Happily Adopted: As of Ghost Story is now living with the Carpenters
  • Human Sacrifice: Arianna planned this for her, and after Arianna's plans fell through thanks to her death at Harry's hands, the Red King tried to do the same. She was saved, but it's pretty safe to say that she'll have scars for years to come.
  • Missing Mom: Susan.
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