The Dresden Files/Ghost Story: Difference between revisions

* [[Broken Bird]]: Molly.

* [[Cast From Hit Points]]: It is revealed that just about every ability a ghost can have (other than simply existing and traveling) is fueled by memory. Ghosts are composed of the memories of the person they were before. Use up all the memories and it is bye-bye. {{spoiler|Harry comes dangerously close to this without realizing it.}}

* [[Creepy Child]]: Inez, the spirit of a little girl in the Graceland cemetery who Harry meets. She is generally friendlier and more polite than most versions of creepy kids, but she is still unsettling, not the least because she died a couple of centuries ago and has an extensive amount of knowledge about spirits and shades, and is convinced by long experience that Harry will become "a monster."

** {{spoiler|It is implied that Inez is actually Mab, talking through a conduit because she couldn't come in person, what with being occupied as part of Harry's life support on Demonreach.}}

* [[Deconstruction]]: This book deconstructs Harry's genocide of the Red Court in the previous book. They were a major political and financial power, and now that they've suddenly disappeared, there is a vacuum ready to be filled by new enemies.

** Molly confirms this when talking to {{spoiler|Harry's spirit. It turns out that there were numerous threats which had previously given Chicago a wide berth, based purely on the reputation of its resident wizard. Now that he's gone, the city's pretty much going to hell. Molly has been attempting to deliberately set herself up as [[The Dreaded]] through the persona of the Rag Lady, but it's a long, slow process, and the emotional toll it's taking on her is intense.}}

* [[Don't Fear the Reaper]]: Dresden meets an Angel of Death {{spoiler|standing over Father Forthill}}. She's pleasant enough and is there to act as a soul's bodyguard on its final journey. She's even nice enough to ignore Dresden's various threats since, Dresden being Dresden and all, he doesn't realize until halfway through the conversation that she could utterly destroy him with a passing thought.

* [[Disney Death]]: {{spoiler|Harry, apparently.}}

* [[Kill It With Fire]]: In ''Ghost Story'', Harry points out that the reason he uses fire is because it is universally useful. Even intangibles like ghosts recoil from fire as they have a hard time separating their memory of fire and flame from their current existence. Harry also points out that even though something might be invulnerable to death from burning, they almost always still feel pain from it and can be stalled with it.

{{quote| '''Harry''': "Fire '''burns'''."}}

* [[Must Make Amends]]: Harry Dresden to an extent when he realises the effects of his actions. Easier said than done since {{spoiler|he happens to be dead}}.

* [[Nervous Wreck]]: Molly Carpenter becomes one in ''Ghost Story'', following {{spoiler|Harry's apparent death in the previous book and her own attempt to fill in his shoes as the magic defender of Chicago}}.

* [[Nothing Is the Same Anymore]]: By the end of the ''Changes''/''Ghost Story'' arc, you would be hard pressed to find anything about Harry's day-to-day life that has not irrevocably, well, changed.

* [[Schedule Slip]]: ''Ghost Story'' was originally scheduled for release in April 2011, before being delayed until July 2011.

{{quote| Said Jim (paraphrased): “It came down to, readers could either get a half-assed story in April, or a full-assed one in July!”}}

* [[Spot the Thread]]: In ''Ghost Story'', to sneak into the den of a [[The Fagin|sorcerer]] and rescue his [[Oliver Twist|band of thieving street urchins]], {{spoiler|[[Took a Level In Badass|Butters]] and Daniel Carpenter disguise themselves as Wardens in order to put the sorcerer off his guard. It very nearly works... until the sorcerer points out that neither of them carries the trademark enchanted swords a Warden usually has. [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] In that because Luccio is incapable of making new swords none of the Wardens since Harry have swords. But because the swords are so associated with the Wardens [[Bald of Evil|Baldy]] wouldn't have known anyway and Butters big mistake was hesitating when he could have made up a believable story.}}

* [[Spring Is Late]]: Chicago sees regular snowfall well into ''May'' {{spoiler|due to the fact that Queen Mab herself is in the city, keeping Harry's body [[Incredibly Lame Pun|warm]].}}

* [[Unfinished Business]]: ''Ghost Story''. {{spoiler|Harry finding out who killed him is actually not that important. Saving his friends one last time might not have been that important either; the book's [[Big Bad]] quite possibly would have been stopped without Harry's intervention. However, it ''was'' important to him that he make sure his loved ones were OK and say goodbye properly to Molly. And he had to go through the entire book to put Uriel's scale-balancing advice in the proper context.}}

* [[Unreliable Narrator]]: Happens once again, when it turns out that {{spoiler|Harry arranged for his own death with Kincaid before accepting the mantle of the Winter Knight, then had Molly erase his memory of it.}}

* [[Wham Line]]: {{spoiler|"They've been like that ever since they killed you."}}

* [[You Can See Me]]: It comes as a surprise to {{spoiler|Dresden}} that Butters and Lea can see him. He's also surprised when he comes across someone else who can hear him.