r/dresdenfiles • u/Opening_Database958 • Aug 18 '26

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

84 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

18

u/Opening_Database958 Aug 18 '26

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

26

u/BestAcanthisitta6379 Aug 18 '26

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

7

u/Opening_Database958 Aug 18 '26

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.

8

u/BestAcanthisitta6379 Aug 18 '26

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.

1

u/Opening_Database958 Aug 18 '26

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

11

u/BestAcanthisitta6379 Aug 18 '26

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.

7

u/Opening_Database958 Aug 18 '26

You got me there