History Literature / BattleGround2020

* EveryoneHasStandards: Even [[AffablyEvil Lara]] is not a little horrified that Mab intends to [[spoiler: have her and Harry marry immediately]]. Yes, she'd planned a binding alliance beforehand and had long since expressed an interest in Harry. However, [[spoiler: Murphy's barely cold]], and out of respect for Harry [[spoiler: and his grief]], she consequently argues to have it deferred for a year.

* GreaterScopeVillain: [[spoiler: Drakul]] briefly shows up to smack around Harry and the other Wardens, make it clear he was only aiding Ethniu's attack ForTheEvulz, and hint at larger plans in the works, before leaving.

* WorthyOpponent: A flame giant from Muspelheim identifies Harry as such, asking him who he is so he may have the honour of knowing who he will be trying to kill.

* TeleportSpam: [[spoiler: Drakul's]] favourite tactic, which River Shoulders stops - though that doesn't help very much.

* UngratefulBastard: The White Council [[spoiler: banishes Harry from their organization, strips him of his Warden status, and enacts a bunch of draconian laws that make him a keeper of TheMasquerade as well as subject to random searches. Carlos is taken aback when Harry just says, "No, we're not going to do that."]]
** Harry and Murphy save Rudolph - '''again''' - and [[spoiler:Murphy gets a bullet for her trouble.]]

* BigBad: [[spoiler: Justine]]. Or rather, [[spoiler: Nemesis a.k.a. He-Who-Walks-Beside in Justine's body]].
* BigBadassBattleSequence: ''The entire book'' functions as this, with only brief moments in between action sequences.

* BloodKnight: '''The Einherjaren'''. By Odin's beard, the Einherjaren. They laugh raucously during the fighting, and when [[spoiler:the Jotnar show up]], they're positively ecstatic and gleefully charge into the fray en masse.

* ChekhovsGun: The mysterious disappearance of Thorned Namshiel's coin in ''Literature/SmallFavor'' is finally explained - [[spoiler: Marcone had it, and has, in fact, been a renegade Denarian ever since]]. Even ''Mab'' didn't know.

* DidNotThinkThisThrough: King Corb gradually comes to note he may be on the other end of this when it becomes increasingly clear that Ethniu has a WeHaveReserves attitude to his troops and fully believes that the US army will slaughter the Formor when they arrive. The goal is purely to kill as many humans as possible in as little amount of time as they have left.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Rudolph's RecklessGunUsage gets brought up early on. Murphy later talks about basic gun safety with the volunteer fighters, stating that rule one is "Don't point your weapon at something you don't want dead." [[spoiler:Murphy winds up dying as a direct result of Rudy's piss-poor trigger discipline when he has a pistol aimed at her.]]

* NeckSnap: Ethniu [[spoiler: tries to kill Marcone with one of these. Thanks to Thorned Namshiel's coin, it doesn't take.]]
* NobleDemon: Marcone letting nearby civilians into the BFS castle when they need protection, after Harry demands he ''act'' like the Lord of Chicago, and fights beside Harry to defeat Ethniu.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: [[spoiler: King Corb flees in terror when Ethniu comes, reaching DirtyCoward levels when he runs over his own troops in the process.]]

* ExactWords: Dresden needs to convince everyone that he doesn't have [[spoiler:the Eye of Balor]], but as a member of Mab's court he's not supposed to explicitly lie. So instead he says he doesn't know where it is. This is technically true in that he doesn't know it's exact location (because he gave it to an ally to hide and ordered the ally not to tell Dresden where it was), and if everyone present then assumes Dresden doesn't possess it at all, that's their problem.

* ShoutOut: Wouldn’t be a Dresden book without ‘em.
** The Juggernaut from ''ComicBook/XMen'' gets mentioned a few times in comparison to the heavy hitters on the field.
** Harry notes the Fomor have [[Film/ClashOfTheTitans released the kraken.]]
** Harry’s unasked for callsign is ComicBook/BoosterGold. He complains.
** At the end of the book, Harry references ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' when he quips:
--> "I'm the hero Chicago needs, not the one it swiped on Tinder."

* DirtyCoward: Rudy, per the usual. Though King Corb also qualifies [[spoiler: particularly after Ethniu's defeat where he is seen slaughtering a path through his own men to flee into the lake.]]

* DirtyCoward: Rudy, per the usual.

* ExactWords: Dresden needs to convince everyone that he doesn't have [[spoiler:The Eye of Balor]], but as a member of Mab's court he's not supposed to explicitly lie. So instead he says he doesn't know where it is. This is technically true in that he doesn't know it's exact location (because he gave it to an ally to hide and ordered the ally not to tell Dresden where it was), and if everyone present then assumes Dresden doesn't possess it at all, that's their problem.

%%%%Having the redirect like this screws up the indexing at the bottom of the page. Is there any way to fix this?

* BrokenMasquerade: [[spoiler: Subverted in that the government arrives and blames it on a massive terrorist attack that caused hallucinations via chemical weapons. The people of Chicago don't really believe it and plenty know the truth but are willing to go along with it anyway - though as Marcone points out, this will only be superficial, during the day. [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge At night is a very different story.]]

* ExactWords: Dresden needs to convince everyone that he doesn't have [[spoiler:The Eye of Balor]], but as a member of Mab's court he's not supposed to explicitly lie. So instead he says he doesn't know where it is. This is technically true intuit he doesn't know it's exact location (because he gave it to an ally to hide and ordered the ally not to tell Dresden where it was), and if everyone present then assumes Dresden doesn't possess it at all, that's their problem.

** Combined with ShutUpHannibal (or ShutUpKirk depending on how you view [[spoiler: the White Council]]). [[spoiler: Harry tells Carlos that the White Council has lost its moral authority, that the people of Chicago need him, that he ''doesn't'' have any intention of stopping what he wants, that he's the Winter Knight, and he just put down a Titan. He's no longer afraid of them and has no intention of following their rules. Carlos is left with no response.]]

** Harry tries and fails to do one to a fire giant. Not that Harry's list of deeds isn't impressive, it just fails because the fire giant does one better.

* BittersweetEnding: ''Hoo boy''. [[spoiler: Ethniu has been defeated and bound beneath Demonreach and the Fomor have been driven out of Chicago. Harry, Maggie, the Carpenters, the Knights and a lot of other good people managed to make it out in one piece, the Eye of Balor has been sealed beneath Demonreach and Harry has his old lab back, though now with the BFS castle on top of it. Murphy, Hendricks, Wild Bill and Yoshimo are all dead, as are 60,000 other people. Chandler is missing and presumed dead, and Wild Bill and Yoshimo have been taken by Black Court vampires and likely turned. Harry has been stripped of his status by the [[UngratefulBastard White Council]] and is once again facing a possible death sentence. And we find out that not only was Justine behind the assassination attempt on Etri, but she is possessed by Nemesis, who is actually another Walker, He Who Walks Beside.]]

* BrokenMasquerade: [[spoiler: Subverted in that the government arrives and blames it on a massive terrorist attack that caused hallucinations via chemical weapons. The people of Chicago don't really believe it and plenty know the truth but are willing to go along with it anyway.]]

* EveryoneHasStandards: Even [[AffablyEvil Lara]] is not a little horrified that Mab intends to [[spoiler: have her and Harry marry immediately]] - while she'd planned it beforehand, [[spoiler: Murphy's barely cold]], and out of respect for Harry [[spoiler: and his grief]], she consequently argues to have it deferred for a year.

* HypercompetentSidekick: Listen is this to Corb’s PointyHairedBoss, making reasonable suggestions and pointing out logical flaws with Corb’s suggestions. Ethniu even points this out and prefers Listen’s advice and company to Corb’s, which is the highest of praise considering her opinion of mortals.

* TheMenInBlack / CreatureHunterOrganization: It turns out that there's a division of the Library of Congress which is supposed to 'learn' about magical creatures. Even major supernatural powers think they're dangerous.

* MoralityChain: [[spoiler: Murphy]] to Harry, even from beyond the grave. This prevents Harry from murdering [[spoiler: Rudolph outright despite the failed attempts of both Butters and Sanya to get through to him.]]

* NoSell: Ethniu spends most of her screentime protected by her Titanic Bronze armor and the fact that she is an order of magnitude more powerful than any supernatural being we have seen so far....but perhaps the most unfair awesome-to-nope instance is when she is completely unphased by [[spoiler: Listens-to-Wind's orbital tactical grizzly strike]].

* PrecisionFStrike: From ''Michael'', of all people, after Harry's informed that he's now [[spoiler: outcast from the Council and that if he doesn't toe the line, the Blackstaff will be sent to kill him]]. It then evolves into a ClusterFBomb. Since it was delivered at [[spoiler: Karrin's grave]], you can't really blame him, though.

** Harry’s unasked for callsign is ComicBook/BoosterGold.

* TeleportSpam: [[spoiler: Drakul's]] favourite tactic, one that [[spoiler: Marcone, wielding Thorned Namshiel, copies]].

* BloodKnight: '''The Einherjaren'''. By Odin's beard, the the Einherjaren. They laugh raucously during the fighting, and when [[spoiler:the Jotnar show up]], they're positively ecstatic and gleefully charge into the fray en masse.