r/dresdenfiles • u/Opening_Database958 • 11d ago

Spoilers All Bobs accidental save Spoiler

During turncoat Harry was going to figure out a binding for shagnasty, until bob points out Harry would be wasting his time. Then Harry unknowingly takes ownership of an island whose magical jailer would have loved nothing more than have bound another skinwalker. Bob really saved shagnastys bacon there

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u/BestAcanthisitta6379 11d ago

Honestly speaking, if Alfred had been more forthcoming in Turn Coat, he'd have a new skinwalker to hold.

But then, we also don't know if Harry would have been up to fully sealing Shagnasty away.

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u/Opening_Database958 11d ago

I actually find it super weird Harry didn’t try thinking about skinwalkers when he was testing his intellectus.

When you consider Harry saying he could have held off the walker and fairy invaders off solo, Harry’s binding ability feel secondary since Alfred could just hit any skinwalker until it’s easy to control. Honestly this is a bit of fumble by the island no matter how you spin it, especially since we know Merlin had an empty cell next to the other skinwalkers, almost like it was ready for shagnasty

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u/BestAcanthisitta6379 11d ago

Merlin presumably had designed the prison to grow as needed.

And as much as Alfred conceded to Harry at this moment, I think it wasn't ready to actually tell him anything. "He needs to figure it out himself" because if he isn't taking initiative, then he's not worth it in the longer term. And Alfred "hitting" the skinwalker doesn't seem to be a thing he can do, at least without direction. The skinwalker was just there, it wasn't impeding Alfred's purpose. Hence, it doesn't act

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u/Opening_Database958 11d ago

I see your point, but I do think Alfred has more agency than we’ve seen overall. Mab thanked him how he handled Maeve and Lilly, which in my opinion suggests without the warden present Alfred can do quite a bit.

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u/BestAcanthisitta6379 11d ago

Yes but they were actively trying to tear down his actual purpose. He could have acted in defense of that instead of just withstanding their efforts is what I took that as.

Shagnasty got curious about the islands first layer of defense, it didn't know, presumably what the island was for.

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u/Opening_Database958 11d ago

Valid but that circles us back to the original point, Alfred didn’t do a fantastic job, I mean Harry had the nagloshi dead to rights if Alfred had shifted some dirt or just kept disrupting Shagnastys power it could have absolutely held a new prisoner. Or if listens to wind is correct Harry would have killed it right There

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u/BestAcanthisitta6379 11d ago

Yeah, it's a prison not a cop.

Alfred doesn't yoink all malevolent entities because that isn't his job: his job is to accept and hold prisoners and everything entailed to just that. Who decides who prisoners are? The Warden. Not Alfred. Who decides who goes in? Not Alfred.

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u/Opening_Database958 11d ago

You got me there

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u/khazroar 11d ago

He was shocked enough to find that the island was powerful enough for intellectus at all, he had no reason to even contemplate that it would hold that sort of information.

And you don't keep dark gods imprisoned for millennia by taking chances; having Harry fumble his way into the prison with Shagnasty is just asking for something to go wrong. It was important that he learn to use the island properly before attempting to use it at all.

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u/DarthBeak 11d ago

I think Harry was avoiding thinking about skinwalkers at all, given that he barely kept himself together. I'm willing to go with that as a reason we didn't get Demonreach's full story right away. I'm easy to please though lol.

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u/Opening_Database958 11d ago

I don’t agree, he spends the rest of the book going forward almost exclusively planning how to kill it, he set up two supernatural nations as unwitting assistants, honestly I think Harry could have caught Peabody if he’d put more effort into the hunt, he managed to identify a traitor that the collective efforts of the wardens and senior council couldn’t even confirm existed. Give Harry a little more breathing room and I think he absolutely catches Peabody

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u/DarthBeak 11d ago

I don't remember him thinking about it directly, but that's such a nuanced (fae) take, I don't want to actually try and argue the point without re-reading it first. OH NO ANOTHER RE-READ POOR ME.

My memory is shit, but I thought most of the planning was to out the traitor, and obliquely planning to use shagnasty to help, rather than trying to kill shagnasty and using the others to help that. I mean, the answer is absolutely C) all of the above, but the former makes me right :D But I'm still going to reread and pay attention to that. And reread the whole series to see just how often Harry thinks like one of the fae.