History Literature / ProvenGuilty

Dark magic is afoot in Chicago. Harry Dresden, now a Warden of the White Council, finds himself dealing with the politics of the magical world, learning where the mercurian Summer Court stands in the war between the White Council and the vampires, and investigating a series of attacks by creatures that feed on fear.

* ArmorIsUseless: A very strange case, especially considering Jim Butcher's interest in medieval fighting. When attempting to flee from the Winter Court, Harry and the rest take off their armor because it's starting to weigh them down while they're trying to get away. Considering that there isn't ''that'' much distance to the portal out, it would take more time to strip off all of their armor then they would gain back in speed by not wearing it. But then it gets jaw-droppingly worse. They don't want to leave the armor behind, so they elect to carry it instead. It is MUCH more encumbering to carry armor in your hands or in a backpack then to simply wear it as the weight distributes across your shoulders and entire body while worn.

** In another ''Summer Knight'' CallBack, Harry dumps ice cold water on [[spoiler:Molly]] when she tries to convince him to have sex with her, just like he dumped it on himself when Maeve did the same.

** Harry further guesses that someone booked Madrigal Riath to Splattercon specifically so he'd take the fall for the phages' actions. [[spoiler:Right on cue, the Eldest Fetch shows up, killing Crane's assistant. We later learn Eldest Fetch is to Mab what the Eldest Gruff is to Titania - a favored enforcer. Furthermore the form the Fetch picked was from Madrigal's own films]].

* LeftHanging: Harry never does figure out [[spoiler:who ran the Beetle off the road]], at least not in this book.

** PlayedForLaughs when [[spoiler:Molly starts to panic over Harry bringing her back to her family home and moving back in with her parents so that she can learn better maturity]].

---> And then the fucking phone rang about a foot from my ear.

** ''Dead Beat'' was the first time that Harry ''consciously'' decided to end two peoples' lives - the Corpsetaker and Quintus Cassius - with all other times Harry had killed someone prior to this point being in self-defense (more or less). While both deaths were treated as awesome and satisfying in the moment, this book shows that Harry is [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone understandably horrified and sickened with himself]] over having ''ended the lives of two people''. Granted, as both were {{Asshole Victim}}s, he's not ''as'' up set about it as he would be if he had killed two innocent people, but as in RealLife, he's still guilt-ridden over it to the point of having nightmares. As most people in the modern age are taught to have at least some general respect for the sanctity of life, Harry's [=PTSD=] over this is perfectly understandable.

* RiddleForTheAges: [[spoiler:Who, precisely, are the other beings trapped in Mab's garden/prison? Harry never finds out, and Butcher has no plans to explain them further.[[note]]However, he did reveal their identities in a AMA Reddit Q&A in 2018; the couple are Vlad Tepes and his lover [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor who wanted never to be parted]], the cardinal is Cardinal Richelieu (who had to pay the piper at some point) the spider in the web is Anansi (oh, and he ''will'' escape at one point and get his revenge on Mab), and two of the three ladies standing back to back are women who were burned at the stake as witches, but whom Mab rescued and turned into living crystal[[/note]]]]

* WhamLine: Harry [[spoiler:(to Charity):]] How long has it been since you've used your magic?

* NinetyPercentOfYourBrain: This is the first instance of mentioning that Lasciel inhabits, as Harry states, "...the ninety percent of the brain humans don't use." Harry then mentions [[SelfDeprecation in his case, it's probably 95 percent]].

** [[spoiler:Charity Carpenter]] also turns out to be quite capable with a hammer, which is extremely helpful against the ColdIron-hating faerie.

* BatmanGambit: It is never truly said whether [[spoiler:The Gatekeeper Rashid, Faery Queens Lily and Maeve or Mab, or God[[note]] though since He works InMysteriousWays, it's possible that the answer is "all of the above"[[/note]] ]] started the events in motion to help save [[spoiler:Molly, Harry, and the members of the Senior Council]] but the plan works out perfectly in the end. See GambitPileUp for more.

* BigBad: [[spoiler: Eldest Fetch, or “the Scarecrow,” who is behind all of the killings and kidnaps Molly. However, the Scarecrow is simply [[TheHeavy an enforcer for Winter]], and whoever actually sent him is left ambiguous. Mab and Maeve are the most likely suspects, both with the assumed goal of distracting the forces of Winter so that Summer could help the White Council. See GambitPileup below]].

** At the climax. [[spoiler:Wizard Samuel Peabody is back, dutifully helping keep track of all sorts of data.]]

** Harry Further guesses that someone booked Madrigal to Splattercon specifically so he'd take the fall for the Phages' actions. [[spoiler:Right on cue, the Eldest Fetch shows up, killing Crane's assistant. We later learn Eldest Fetch is to Mab what the Eldest Gruff is to Titania - a favored enforcer. Furthermore the form the Fetch picked was from Madrigal's own films]].

* ColdBloodedTorture: This is the simplified way of saying [[spoiler:what has befallen Lloyd Slate. Pun included.]]
** Also subverted--[[spoiler: rather than merely torturing Slate's body, Mab is torturing his mind by putting him through an endless cycle of pain and comfort.]]

** [[spoiler:Molly's friends she reprogrammed]] will endure a long road to some recovery but may never fully come back to who they were.

* EverybodyKnewAlready: Turns out that [[spoiler:Harry's been living in fear of Michael finding out about [[FallenAngel Lasciel's shadow]] for no reason — he already knew.]]

* GambitPileup: The plot is initially presented as an investigation by Harry into attacks by the phages against the horror movie convention, but it rapidly becomes much more complex when Thomas starts acting secretive and tailing Harry around town, then the [[TheFairFolk Sidhe]] Ladies start plucking strings, and it gets even muddier when Madrigal Raith gets involved, planning to [[spoiler:sell Harry on Ebay for profit]]. By the end of the book, it looks like Lily has manipulated [[spoiler:Harry into going into Arctis Tor]], while Maeve [[spoiler:first also manipulated Harry into Arctis Tor and then slowed down time in the region to trap the armies of Winter so Summer could be free to come to the White Council's defense]], and it is hinted that [[spoiler:the entire thing might have been arranged by Mab]]. Then at the trial at the very end of the book it appears [[spoiler:the entire bloody thing either was planned by, or at least was understood by, the Gatekeeper.]] And to top it all off, at the very, very end of the trial, [[spoiler:Michael shows up, having saved Luccio, Ebenazar, and the rest of the Senior Council, alongside the Summer Court intervening in a battle between the Council and the Red Court, saving the day]], which may mean that [[spoiler:[[InMysteriousWays ''everything was planned by God.'']]]] And the Black Council was apparently involved at one level or another, somewhere, and the Denarians make a small cameo somewhere in this screwball of a mess. Just as planned.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Langtry is presented as a {{Jerkass}} who seems cold and uncaring about the fate of the young man executed at the beginning of the novel. However, as he notes, the boy had already murdered and {{Mind Rape}}d several people, including ''his own family,'' and there was nothing left of him to save. While the kid is certainly a TragicVillain, Langtry (who's been dealing with this kind of thing for a few hundred years) isn't wrong that there was nothing else they could have done.

** There is the famous instance where Harry fights a [[Franchise/{{Alien}} xenomorph]], including quoting from the movie with "Get away from her, you ''bitch!''" [[spoiler:as he proceeds to roast and smash the beast repeatedly until it is turned into chunky salsa. Moments later, however, he learns the "her" he was rescuing has bled out and died, and he is left to wonder if he wasted the chance to save her because he was indulging in blasting the monster repeatedly instead, and in turn whether that enjoyment had something to do with Lasciel's shadow's influence on him]].

** He has another one later in the same book, when he realizes that [[spoiler:his outmaneuvering of the Merlin in trying to save Molly's life has actually resulted in forcing the Merlin to have her KILLED, both because the Council can't have one of its regional commanders kept busy with an apprentice during a war, and to show that he still has more power than one young upstart wizard/warden.]]
** Charity suffers from one [[spoiler:learning Molly has violated one of the Laws of Magic and would likely die, that's assuming she is rescued from ''Mab's'' personal spies and assassins, who have kidnapped Molly.]]

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: The White Council is genuinely unnerved by the fact [[spoiler:the Red Court attacked both Summer and Winter domains and neither side is reacting with movements to destroy the Red Court for this massive smack to the face]].

-->'''Harry:''' How about a little fire, Scarecrow?

* [[RageAgainstTheAuthor Rage Against The Director]]: When the BigBad fetch attacks at the Full Moon Garage, it takes the form of the Scarecrow, a ''Pumpkinhead''-Expy from director Darby Crane's horror films. One of the targets it attacks is Crane himself [[spoiler:aka Madrigal Raith]], and it scares the living crap out of him.

* RedHerring: Harry realizes [[spoiler:Madrigal Raith was set up to be this with the fetches, to make it look like he might have called them to feast upon the fear they spread]].

* RiddleForTheAges: [[spoiler:Who, precisely, are the other beings trapped in Mab's garden/prison? Harry never finds out, and Butcher has no plans to explain them further. [[note]]However, he did reveal their identities in a AMA reddit Q&A in 2018; the couple are Vlad Tepes and his lover who wanted never to be parted, the cardinal is Cardinal Richelieu (who had to pay the piper at some point) the spider in the web is Anansi, and two of the three ladies standing back to back are women who were burned at the stake as witches, but whom Mab rescued and turned into living crystal[[/note]]]]

* {{Squick}}: In-Universe. Harry and Murphy have a little moment of this when they discuss the fact Murphy's second ex-husband, FBI Agent Rick, is now married to and sleeping with Murphy's ''youngest sister''.

** Though it's actually used as a plot point... since none of the people in the group were particularly scared of Bucky, that's ''why'' it was such a wimp.

* HollywoodTactics: A very strange case, especially considering Jim Butcher's interest in medieval fighting. When attempting to flee from the Winter Court, Harry and the rest take off their armor because it's starting to weigh them down while they're trying to get away. Considering that there isn't ''that'' much distance to the portal out, it would take more time to strip off all of their armor then they would gain back in speed by not wearing it. But then it gets jaw-droppingly worse. They don't want to leave the armor behind, so they elect to carry it instead. It is MUCH more encumbering to carry armor in your hands or in a backpack then to simply wear it as the weight distributes across your shoulders and entire body while worn.

* HollywoodTactics: A very strange case, especially considering Jim Butcher's interest in medieval fighting. When attempting to flee from the Winter Court, Harry and the rest take off their armor because it's starting to weigh them down while they're trying to get away. Considering that there isn't ''that'' much distance to the portal out, it would take more time to strip off all of their armor then they would gain back in speed by not wearing it. But then it gets jaw-droppingly worse. They don't want to leave the armor behind, so they elect to carry it instead. It is MUCH more encumbering to carry armor in your hands or in a backpack then to simply wear it, as the weight distributes across your shoulders and entire body if you wear it.

** The book starts with Harry attending the the execution of a young warlock by the White Council. [[spoiler: Near the end, Harry saves Molly from being executed by the White Council in the exact same spot.]]

* NotWhatItLooksLike: Harry does try to explain away [[spoiler:a teenage Molly walking out of his hotel room's shower in nothing but a towel, but Charity never gave him the chance and slugs him.]] It doesn't help that [[spoiler: Molly]] probably wanted it to be exactly what it looked like.

* TakeThat: Several of the forms the fetches take are snarked at by Harry,
-->"That was [[LawyerFriendlyCameo Bucky the Murder Doll]]."\\
"Kind of a wimp."\\
"Must have been the runt of the litter."\\
"Personally, I never understood how anyone could have found that thing frightening to begin with."

-->'''Harry''': [[{{Understatement}} Crap.]]

--->'''Harry:''' How about a little fire, Scarecrow?

-->"And then the fucking phone rang about a foot from my ear."

-->Stupid damned streetlights, getting all blurry like that.

-->''I started to get annoyed, but was struck by the disturbing thought that if I did, I would be coming down on the same side of the situation as Charity, which might be one of the signs of the apocalypse.''

"Personally. I never understood how anyone could have found that thing frightening to begin with."

** Harry himself worries that he might be this when he neglects checking on civilians so that he can beat up a Xenomorph.

** Lily is willing [[spoiler:to sacrifice Harry and his friends in their rescue attempt of Molly, all to hope Harry would use Summer Fire on Mab's Wellspring, pissing off every Winter Fae.]]
** When Harry cites the evil in [[spoiler: Molly's choice to bind her friends' will and alter their minds,]] she repeatedly tried to claim she did nothing wrong. It takes a few times for the depth of what "nothing wrong" really meant and how wrong she really went.
* WeNeedADistraction: [[spoiler: Lily wants to send help to the White Council and pay the Red Court back for its injury in the previous book. But with Mab keeping her forces on the border between both Faerie Courts, neither Lily nor Titania dare make a move to remove even one soldier. So, Lily plans to get Harry]] to be a distraction and draw the attention of the Winter army.

* WorthIt: Murphy considers going with Harry to help save [[spoiler: Molly]] worth any professional repercussions she will face because of vanishing for an entire day.

** Murphy and Thomas hold the line at the entrance to the steeple when Charity and Harry race up it to rescue [[spoiler: Molly.]]
** Later, Harry and Thomas hold the line as Murphy and Charity help [[spoiler: Molly to escape from [=NeverNever=].]]

* TemporalParadox: Messing with the currents of time can cause this, so it is one reason the Senior Council has a law against it. [[spoiler:[[ForWantOfANail Rashid gets around this by giving tiny hints to nudge things in a different direction.]]]] As Bob explains, if a car was going to be stolen, [[spoiler: Rashid]] could not tell the owner to move to protect it via a message from the future or this will cause a paradox. He ''can'' however suggest that it is moved from the street to a garage. It will still be stolen but the results, such as in the former case that the car owner is shot and killed in a mugging for the car and in the latter is knocked out and not otherwise harmed, can vary wildly.
* ToBeLawfulOrGood: Murphy faces the dilemma once again. [[spoiler:On the morning of her needing to take over the [=SplatterCon=] attack case, due to other men being taken out in the previous attack, Murphy agrees to help Harry rescue Molly, knowing it could end poorly with her if she is gone too long. So she picks Good, namely because legally, they don't recognize magic or jaunts into Fairyland on rescue missions as reasonable excuses for leaving her post unannounced.]]

* {{Pride}}: [[spoiler:Charity]] suffers this vice. Because of her past experiences with magic nearly led her to either be threatened by a Warden or killed by an evil dragon, she considers magic nothing but trouble and refuses to accept that Molly could have done something good with it. Her pride and stern belief drove her to push [[spoiler:Molly to give it up, which made the equally prideful Molly refuse and try to prove her mother wrong by helping people but only ends up harming two people. While Molly does relent, it takes Molly citing the Parable of Talents to make her mother see just how bad she is acting.]]

* LoopholeAbuse: Harry, rather wisely for him, [[spoiler:gets around the conscription binding Lily and Fix from helping ''him'' by selling the debt to ''Charity'' and have her call in the debt that Lily now owes ''Charity.'' So long as Harry is a third party helping Charity in her quest and not the person directly asking for help, Lily and Fix are free to help her]].
* LovedINotHonorMore: As Michael is about to leave on a mission from the Home Office, his daughter returns for the first time in months. It is obvious he would love to be with her, to try and mend the rift between Charity and Molly, but cannot forsake this mission and so asks Harry to help as he can in this matter in his stead.
* MamaBear: Charity Carpenter more than fits this trope. [[spoiler:She ''storms the gates of Winter Faerie Capital itself'' to get her daughter back.]]
* MercyKill: Merlin believes, on some level, killing Warlocks is this as the good person they once were was gone and could not come back after tasting the pleasures of Evil Magic. There is nothing left but a monster in human guise.

** Michael postulates [[spoiler:Harry is on a mission as well. Michael's actions just as equally saved Harry from coming to blows with the Merlin. And as being a parent causes all kinds of CharacterDevelopment in a person, perhaps God is hoping Harry will develop into a stronger, wiser, more capable person by being a teacher and foster parent to Molly]].

** [[spoiler:Charity has a small one when her daughter uses the [[ComesGreatResponsibility Parable of Talents]] against her as to why she should keep her magic because she could do so much good with her power. Charity, who was a practitioner but gave up her magic, realizes she is the third servant who just buried his bag and did nothing with it, and she gave up her own chance to do good in the world with magic but chose to hide it from everyone, including Michael]].
* TheNicknamer: Harry being this is no surprise, but in this book Molly takes a turn also, tagging her littlest sister Hope "Hobbit" on the spot. Her other sister Alicia objects to Molly's pet name for her (Leech).
* NotMeThisTime: [[spoiler: Madrigal Raith]] is not the one who summoned the phobopages or cause the trouble at the convention. He was set up to take the fall though.

** Near the start of the book, when Harry is talking about the White Council's dispensing justice on a Warlock, and just how far this young man went and how incapable the police currently are in detaining such a man, Murphy is shocked and angered. After a minute, she wonders if this is how ''civilians'' see her and police when the police must act in the best course but the civilians lack all information.
** Harry realizes [[spoiler:Molly's infatuation is based in part in how similar their relationship is to Molly's parents. Michael/Harry saved Charity/Molly from an evil group the lady got herself entangled with and not fully understanding the risks of their choices.]]

* HeroWorshipper: Molly full stop for Harry. It is because she worshiped him so much she [[spoiler:kept her magic a secret from everyone, save her mother.]] As Harry puts it, if he was a rocker, she wouldn't want to show her skills by just being able to play the scales and nothing else. She wanted to do something grand.

** Molly's justification for [[spoiler: Mind Raping her friends and bending their wills to her demands, in order to get them off drugs and protect a developing fetus]].

* FullNameUltimatum: Though not yelled when Michael sees Molly for the first time in several weeks and finds her hair pink and she has visible tattoos and piercings, he says in a hushed voice, "Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter."
* GambitPileup: The plot is initially presented as an investigation by Harry into attacks by the phages against the horror movie convention, but it rapidly becomes much more complex when Thomas starts acting secretive and tails Harry around town, then the [[TheFairFolk Sidhe]] Ladies start plucking strings, and it gets even muddier when Madrigal Raith gets involved, planning to [[spoiler:sell Harry on Ebay for profit]]. By the end of the book, it looks like Lily manipulates [[spoiler:Harry into going into Arctis Tor]], while Maeve manipulated [[spoiler:Harry into Arctis Tor and slowed down time in the region to trap the armies of Winter so Summer could attack]], and it is hinted that [[spoiler:the entire thing might have been arranged by Mab]], and then at the trial at the very end of the book it appears [[spoiler:the entire bloody thing was planned by the Gatekeeper.]] And to top it all off, at the very, very end of the trial, [[spoiler:Michael shows up, having saved Luccio, Ebenazar, and the rest of the Senior Council, alongside the Summer Court intervening in a battle between the Council and the Red Court, saving the day]], which may mean that [[spoiler:[[InMysteriousWays ''everything was planned by God.'']]]] And the Black Council was apparently involved at one level or another, somewhere, and the Denarians make a small cameo somewhere in this screwball of a mess. Just as planned.

** The Merlin notes that several of the surviving victims of the Warlock they executed at the start of the book, of the two dozen mind he altered, ''three'' might eventually regain their sanity.
** [[spoiler:Molly's friends she reprogrammed]] will endure a long road to some recovery but never fully coming back to who they were.

* DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu: Harry did. [[spoiler:When he puts Summer Fire into Mab's fountain, ''her entire army'' on the border of Summer and Winter senses it and comes roaring after him with vengeance on its mind]].
* DistractedFromDeath: [[spoiler:Harry's trying to save a girl from a phobophage, but gets carried away attacking it and, when he turns round to check on the girl, she's bled to death.]]

* EverybodyKnewAlready: Turns out that [[spoiler:Harry's been living in fear of Michael finding out about [[FallenAngel Lasciel]] for no reason.]]

** However, Harry was able to pull this back on Maeve. In exchange for coming to a meeting, she wanted to know when Harry last felt "flesh, strange and new to your hand, lay quivering beneath" him? When was the last time he "could taste some little lovelies' cries?" Harry notes that would be [[Literature/SummerKnight when he killed Aurora.]] And her body, sliced by cold iron lay beneath him as she died surprised and confused.

* FalseInnocenceTrick: As much as one can call [[spoiler:Leanansidhe]] "innocent" the imprisoned person plays the part of a person in need, knowing Harry would likely help the person be free. [[spoiler:If not for Lea fighting from the inside and telling Harry off, Harry would have.]]

* FormerTeenRebel: Charity states she was abit of a rebel from her upper-crust family in her youth, and [[spoiler:even was practitioner in her younger days, a weak one, but she did get in with a bad crowd and it nearly led her to be eaten by a dragon. She walks away from that life after Michael saved her.]]

** Also subverted--[[spoiler: rather than outright torturing Slate's body, Mab is torturing his mind by putting him through an endless cycle of pain and comfort.]]

** Speaking badly of Thomas's StarCrossedLover Justine is a good way to make him angry. [[spoiler:He kneecaps his cousin Madrigal Raith for it.]]

** At the beginning of the book, Ebenezar asks Harry if he wants to go have some lunch; Harry, still holding his old mentor's BrokenPedastal revelation against him, refuses. At the end of the book, Harry's the one giving the invitation in a form of reconciliation, and Ebenezar gladly accepts.

** Given Charity's protectiveness, harming her children pisses her off. Also Harry just being near her is a big issue.

** Basically a superpower of the Knights of the Cross. Harry [[InvokedTrope invokes]] it [[GenreSavvy intentionally]] to try and save [[spoiler:Molly's life]]. [[spoiler:It works]].

''Proven Guilty'' is book #8 in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles''. Now has its own [[ShoutOut/ProvenGuilty Shout Out]] page.

[[TheOneWith The one with]] Harry's new job and all the movie monsters.