Awesome / Ghost Story

For the Dresden Files novel:

• Simply, the premise of the book: Even being dead and only having a very small chance of escaping from being Deader than Dead will not stop Harry Dresden from protecting his city and his loved ones.
• One for Harry, Molly, and Lea at the same time: about half-way in, Molly is fighting a losing battle against Fomor servitors, then Ghost!Harry possesses her body to dish out some heavy pain, and just as he is being overwhelmed, too, Molly casts an illusion of The Cavalry, forcing the attackers to flee. And then, it turns out that they have both been manipulated by Lea as part of her Training from Hell.
• Harry leading a platoon of insane killer ghosts to storm the Omaha Beach protected by Bob's Nazi Evil Twin. That’s effing all.
  • Here’s a quote anyway, just to give a taste: "The enemy fought at first, and those who did died swiftly. As more and more hideous things dealt with the wolfwaffen, their morale faltered and they began to run. Those that did died horribly. And, toward the end, overwhelmed by terror, a handful of the enemy could only stand, staring in horror, and screaming high and piteously. Those last few died indescribably."
• Molly fighting a flying zombie worm aboard Enterprise, complete with a crew of Molly lookalikes wearing uniform miniskirts. Also The Kirk!Molly fights The Spock!Molly over a Self-Destruct Mechanism (and The Kirk wins, of course).
  • Don't forget about the highly recognizable fighting soundtrack playing as this occurs.
  • Dresden also compliments Molly on how weird her brain is.
• During a meeting between Murphy and her various allies, their White Court contact learns that Murphy is now custodian of two of the Swords. She makes Murphy an offer so that the White Court won't "learn" about this: let her feed on Murphy. Murphy presents her counter-offer: a Pistol-Whipping, followed by smashing her face against her coffee table, and leveling a gun at her and promising to kill her if anyone from the White Court so much as blinks at the Swords. Needless to say, the vampire agrees with the terms. The icing on the cake is Harry and Sir Stuart's commentary at the end:
  Sir Stuart: Oh, my. I can see why you'd come to her for assistance.
  Harry: Damn skippy.
• We've always known Bob was a powerful spiritual entity, and he did a damned good showing while shielding Murphy from the Red King in Changes, but in Ghost Story, we see what he can do in a spirit-on-spirit struggle when a trio of ghostly predators are trying to eat Harry alive. They get massacred by Bob, who pounds them into ectoplasmic mush with about as much effort as Ferrovax dropping Harry or Eldest Gruff killing Magog.
  • Which also ups the awesome factor when Harry goes toe to toe with Bob's Evil Twin.
    • Bob's Evil Twin, who was composed primarily of the knowledge of destruction and death magic collected by the incarnation of Bob that worked for one of the worst dark wizards in history. This means that while Bob may have more knowledge/power, Evil Bob had more combat oriented knowledge/power, which arguably makes Evil Bob much stronger in the ass-kicking department than Dresden-Bob, which ups the awesome factor again.
  • Bob's Big Damn Heroes moment where he holds off Evil Bob via Weak, but Skilled, and screws over his plans via an epic combination of Batman Gambit and Schmuck Bait, and then escaping unharmed.
• Mortimer Lindquist's Big Damn Heroes moment as he comes at Corpsetaker with all the wraiths that she had left behind in the pit with him, complete with Pre-Asskicking One-Liner:
  Mortimer: But it seems to me, you half-wit, that you probably shouldn’t have left a freaking ectomancer a pit full of wraiths to play with.
  • He withstands an entire day of spiritual torture, along with physical torture (implied to be electrical torture and being cut by razor blades) but Corpsetaker fails to break him.
  • Ghost Story will forever be remembered as "The Book Where Mort Got Dangerous".
• The ending, where Harry tells Mab herself that his soul is his own. The Winter Queen can hurt him, but she will never own him, and he's taking care of the job his way. The delivery, coupled with the sheer obstinate defiance that is Harry Dresden's trademark, makes it the most epic telling-off since Harry sending Mavra scurrying away in Dead Beat.
  • Complete with Badass Boast about just what he'll be up to as the Winter Knight:
    Harry: I will be the Winter Knight. I will be the most terrifying Knight the Sidhe Courts have ever known. I will send your enemies down in defeat and make your power grow. But I do it my way. On my terms. When you give me the task, I’ll decide how it gets done — and you’ll stay out of the way and let me work. And that’s how it’s going to be.
  • Oh, and bear in mind that, unlike most Badass Boasts, Harry isn't standing dramatically while he delivers this. He does a Badass Boast and tells Mab how it's going to be... while his head's still laying in her lap.
• When Lea can't tell Harry who killed him, she says this:
  Lea: Your killer was but the proxy of another being, and one mightier and more dangerous than he.
  • It's badass because Harry set up his own murder with Kincaid before making the deal with Mab. Kincaid, a centuries old, half-human and half something very badass assassin also known as The Hellhound, is less badass than the mortal who's probably only in his mid-30s. To paraphrase Pulp Fiction, Kincaid is a race car in the red, while Harry is a mushroom cloud-laying motherfucker.
    • What's so awesome about it is that it actually works on two levels. Kincaid is someone Harry knows, someone for whom his death is but one of many, and someone who was the proxy of someone more powerful than he. Harry, who hired Kincaid is that same person for The Shadow, possibly the true Lasciel (who in turn is most likely working on behalf of Lucifer). Proxies within proxies within proxies. So there's a mushroom cloud-laying motherfucker laying out more mushroom clouds, motherfucker.
• Daniel's knife fight with Aristedes. A normal human boy lacking the faith powers of his father and the magic of his sister goes toe to toe with a magically fast sorcerer — he loses, but that doesn't detract from the fact that it took balls and the fact that he actually hurt the guy.
  • Also, Butters' anatomy lesson during the same fight via Wrench Whack to knee:
  "That sound you just heard was your lateral collateral ligament and anterior cruciate ligamate tearing free of the joint. It's also possible that your patella or tibia was fractured. Get rid of the knife, or I start on your cranium."
  • Harry's epic Dare to Be Badass speech to Fitz.
• Harry's He's Back! moment when he finally works out how to do magic in ghost form.
  • An even better moment would be Harry fully figuring out his abilities. Capped off by Sir Stuart's gun in his hand transforming into his magic staff.
• "Be." Harry gathers all of his magic to allow himself to manifest, which only works for the ghosts who are either insane or insanely motivated. Whether Harry is a lunatic or just incredibly determined, it works.
  • Given that it's Harry, the answer is almost certainly both.
• One for Captain Jack: he lies to Harry about three of his friends being fated to die. Sure, they're in danger, but only in the sense that they're Harry's friends so of course they're in danger. And then when Uriel calls him on it, he hangs up on the Archangel. Also a Funny Moment.
• And one for Uriel, with his seven whispered words of truth.
  Uriel: Lies. Mab cannot change who you are.
  • And another: the entire book is basically him pulling a Batman Gambit on (amongst others) Harry, Mort, Molly, Demonreach, and Mab.
• The moment — the exact, specific moment — when young Harry stops being a scared, helpless teenager and starts being Harry Blackstone Copperfield Motherfucking Dresden:
  That wasn't right.
  It.
  Wasn't.
  Right.
  • And then he decides to do something about it.
  • There was even a building on fire and everything!
  • And that moment is accompanied by the first time Fuego is used in all its glory, and that first time blows up a gas station and incinerates the physical form of an unspeakable Eldritch Abomination without even having a staff or blasting rod to focus it.
  • And while Harry didn't do any real damage, he severely and permanently scarred the ego of the Sadistic monster who Would Hurt a Child, who’s one of the beings that Physical Gods fear, yet the same child with zero combat experience and already injured physically and emotionally, owns him with nothing by the righteous fury and creativity of a sixteen year old wizard apprentice.
    • Oh plus, he was defeated by little magic, and an exploding gas station, which while pretty deadly, is also very ordinary, and not even the worst things Muggles have come up with. And the monster had just mocked ordinary mortals, so no wonder he was holding a grudge, because he had been throughly embarassed and had his words shoved through where he deserved it.
• A servitor is approaching a weakened Molly, whose illusions have all been disbelieved. Harry taps into her and casts a wall of fire in front of the servitor, who assumes that it's just another illusion and walks right into it, and promptly gets roasted. Harry reminds everyone that, for the most part, he sucks at subtle stuff like holomancy.
  Harry: I am, however, reasonably good with fire.
• During his fight with Evil Bob, Harry has what could be described as a Face Realization. He remembers that all throughout his life, he has been averting the He Who Fights Monsters trope. Time and time again, he had battled evil without becoming it. Sure, he may have stepped over the line at the very end, but as he puts it:
  Harry: "One mistake at the end of my life couldn't erase all the times I had stood unmoved at the edge of the abyss and made snide remarks at its expense. They could kill me, but they couldn't have me. I was my own."
  • This gives him a Heroic Second Wind, and doubles as both a Heartwarming Moment and Foreshadowing for the end of the book.
• The fact that Harry, as a sixteen-year-old wizard, caught off his guard when Justin throws force at him, is able to spread it out like a sail and move with it. He may be Unskilled, but Strong in relation to almost every wizard we see, but it pays to remember: Even then, he is, and has always been, still pretty skilled.
• Fitz's Moment of Awesome, acknowledged as such by Harry:
  "When I faced my old master, I did it with newly made staff and blasting rod in hand, with the ancient forces of the universe at my call, and with words of power on my tongue. Fitz had more courage than I had as a child. He went to face his demons with no weapons at all."
  • Then Fitz proceeds to destroy the Mind Control of the Evil Mentor, comes close and looks him in the eye, and walks away from him. The cruel old man ends up completely broken from that. Months of physical, magical, and psychological abuse Aristedes had laid out didn't break Fitz, but Fitz destroyed him by doing nothing. As Harry taught Irwin Pounder, bullies are finished when you stand up to them, and the bitter old warlock was no different.
• The moment when Harry suggests the Fomor don't know fear, and Sir Stewart corrects him.
  Sir Stewart: Nay, lad. Perhaps they were innocent of it once, but they proved quick learners when they raised their hands against this house.
• Harry sees an Angel of Death hanging about Father Forthill and immediately tell her her services are not required and if she tries to take Forthill they will throw down. It transpires he doesn't understand the Angel's purpose and would stand no chance as the Angel automatically knows his true name but it's still a badass moment.
  • Possibly even more awesome is the real reason she's there: He's spent a lifetime fighting the darkness, and there are beings who would want to prey on his soul while it's vulnerable and in transition. She promises that Lucifer himself couldn't get his hands on Forthill, even if he were to try.

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