Funny / Death Masks

• Harry's Suspiciously Specific Denial in the opening while participating in the Larry Fowler show:
  Harry: (narrating) The noise [of the audience] made me flinch in my seat up on the stage, and I felt a trickle of sweat slide down over my ribs, beneath my white dress shirt and my jacket. I briefly considered running away screaming. It isn't like I have stage fright or anything, see. Because I don't. It was just really hot up there. I licked my lips and checked all the fire exits, just to be safe. No telling when you might need to make a speedy exit.
• This Brutal Honesty exchange between Larry Fowler and Harry that has the audience understandably laughing, this time with him rather than at him:
  Larry: And why are you here today?
  Harry: Because I'm broke and your producer is paying double my standard fee.
• Ortega's appearance. A centuries old vampire, appearing on a TV show to dispel all magical incidents as hoaxes. Harry lampshades the irony.
  • And of course, Hypocritical Humour:
  Ortega: Why, with a few minutes' effort and the right setting, I am certain that I could convince anyone in this room that I was a vampire myself
• A slapstick Mood Whiplash moment shortly after the above. In a highly tense verbal standoff between Harry and Ortega, Harry's raging emotions causes his Walking Techbane mode to go into overdrive... which promptly results in clueless technicians trying to replace the tech that starts to break down around him, culminating a spotlight dropping on Mortimer's head.
• In what doubles as a Heartwarming Moment, the scene when the Archive notices Mister, cries "Kitty!" and goes to pet him. Living repository of all humanity's knowledge? Maybe. Seven year old? Without a doubt.
  • The funny part about it wasn't so much what Ivy did, but more Kincaid's reaction:
    Kincaid: Now, that's just creepy.
• Harry's reaction to Molly's strategically shredded school uniform and facial piercings:
  I had a vague memory of being that ridiculous at one time. Let he who hath never worn parachute pants cast the first stone.
• The entire conversation that follows is pretty funny, too.
  Molly: Ohhhh. Those are fun-time handcuffs, not bad-time handcuffs. I gotcha.
  Harry: No! And how the hell would you know about fun-time handcuffs anyway? You're like ten.
  Molly: [snorts] Fourteen.
  Harry: Whatever, too young.
  Molly: Internet. Expanding the frontiers of adolescent knowledge.
  Harry: God, I'm old.
  • Molly then goes for her backpack and produces a ring with a bunch of small keys and starts trying them in the lock of Harry's cuffs.
    Molly: So give me the juicy details. You can say 'bleep' instead of the fun words if you want.
    Harry: Where the bleep did you get a bunch of cuff keys?
    Molly: Think about this one. Do you really want to know?
    Harry: [sighs] No. Probably not.
  • Not to mention the bit where Molly tells him she overheard Charity saying Harry and Susan were a hot item. An incredulous Harry asks her if her mother really said that, to which Molly nonchalantly admits that Charity actually used words like "fornication", "sin", "infantile depravity", and "moral bankruptcy" instead.
    Molly: So, are you?
    Harry: Morally bankrupt?
    Molly: A hot item with Susan.
  • The conversation gets serious for a moment when, after a bit of prodding, Molly manages to get Harry to explain that Susan's incomplete vampirization gives her impulse-control problems where strong emotions can make her succumb to her Horror Hunger and attack people and drink their blood, which would make her into a full Red Court vampire. Molly reads between the lines and the serious mood just evaporates:
    Molly: God, that's sad. You want to be with her but the sex part-
    Harry: Ewg. You are far too young to say that word.
    Molly: [eyes shine with mirth] What word? Sex?
    Harry: [covers his ears] Gah.
  • And the punchline:
    Molly: (...) But the bleep part would make her lose control.
    Harry: Basically. Yeah.
    Molly: Why don't you tie her up?
    Harry: [just STARES at her for a second]
    Molly: [lifts her eyebrows expectantly]
    Harry: W-What?
    Molly: It's only practical. And hey, you've already got the handcuffs. If she can't move while the two of you are bleeping, she can't drink your blood, right?
    Harry: [gets up and goes for the exit] This conversation has become way too bleeping disturbing.
  • This is a bit of twisted humor, but there's also the Brick Joke when ten chapters later Harry actually has to put Molly's idea in practice, and lacking any other options, he resorts to bondage sex so Susan could take the edge off her Horror Hunger.
  • Related to this, there's an anecdote among the fandom about how Jim Butcher once watched an interview where Laurell K. Hamilton of Anita Blake fame commented something along the lines of "you can't write a plot-relevant bondage scene" and he took it as an implicit challenge.
  • This also becomes kind of Hilarious in Hindsight after Changes, pretty much all of which could never have happened if Harry hadn't gotten Susan pregnant, which in turn happened because of this conversation. Way to plant ideas in Harry's head, Molly!
• When Nicodemus busts down the door to the room Harry and Valmont are in, the thief interrupts his attempt to banter by shooting him in the chest. Nicodemus' response is to be annoyed someone is interrupting him, and starts berating her for ignoring "certain proprieties." Her response is to keep shooting him, and finally Nicodemus just shuts up and waves his arm in a "move along" gesture for her to hurry up and get it over with.
  A girl after my own heart, Anna Valmont had a quick reply. She shot him some more.
  • Just as funny is the fact that Nicodemus is clearly shocked at first, and actually opens his coat to stare at the wound in a 'did she really just shoot me?' fashion. Apparently in 2000 years no one's ever taken the initiative and tried to kill him before he's finished making introductions. Young people today...
• When Harry is kidnapped by the Denarian, Shiro comes to his rescue, opening up the negotiations by slicing up 3 mooks, knocking Deidre to the ground and putting a sword to her throat in the space of about 2 seconds. Harry's delirious (due to having been kept in a cold storage room for several hours AFTER getting the crap beat out of him) reaction to Shiro's badass entrance? He starts singing the Underdog theme tune.
  Harry: Speed of lightning! Roar of thunder! Fighting all who rob or plunder! Underdog!
  Nicodemus: Be silent.
  Harry: You sure? 'Cause I could do Mighty Mouse instead. Underdog had that whole substance-abuse problem anyway.
• The "Asteroid Dresden" Brick Joke at the end had me literally rolling with laughter for a good couple minutes.
• Harry summons an oracle spirit... into a Cabbage Patch doll. She is not pleased.
  • Not to mention that said Cabbage Patch doll is given, among other things, tobacco as an offering!
• Harry's first conversation with the Russian Knight of the Cross Sanya, who remains an atheist despite Archangel Michael descending from Heaven to give him his sword. After Harry pokes holes in both this excuse and after Sanya amends that he may be agnostic, Sanya proposes that perhaps he’s insane and this is a hallucination. Harry begins to laugh hysterically in response, probably mirroring the reader.
  • When Shiro comes in, he swiftly deduces the reason behind the laughter. Its not just Harry who finds it funny.
• When Harry and Susan go to Michael's house, she comments on how his lawn is green in the middle of February. Harry's response?
  Harry: Sod works in mysterious ways.
• And we can't forget Thomas showing up to Harry's duel with Ortega wearing a Buffy the Vampire Slayer T-shirt.
  • This becomes Hilarious in Hindsight if you're listening to the audiobook and remember who's doing the narration.
    • And even funnier when you consider that Thomas contacted Susan and Martin to take down Ortega.
• Black comedy, but Harry's treatment of Cassius is followed up by smashing the motel room phone, then dropping a quarter in front of him and telling him there's a payphone across the parking lot...past a bunch of broken glass. Even Michael and Sanya think it's Actually Pretty Funny that Harry didn't give him enough change for the phone call.
• Harry's use of a plastic wind-up duck to interrogate Valmont. It Makes Sense in Context.
• Molly getting Sanya in on her prank calling. Imagine this phrase spoken by a large black man in a heavy Russian accent:
  Sanya: Excuse me sir. Do you happen to have Prince Albert in a can? Molly, they hung up again.
  • Made funnier by the fact that Sanya clearly had no clue what he was saying or doing.
• Harry wakes up in the morgue with gunshot wounds with Butters standing over him and begins screaming that he's not dead. Once they reassure him that he knows, he calms down slightly.
  Harry: [thinking] I'm going to need an armed escort to get to Hell.
  • Made even funnier when in Skin Game Harry does in fact get an armed escort into the Greek version of Hell. With plans on being paid to do it, even.
• Harry calls the Carpenter house, and gets Molly instead of Charity (like he feared). He can tell just from her voice that she's grown up some.
  Molly: Yep! The breast fairy came to visit and everything!
  Harry: [narrating] It took me a moment to realize she hadn't been talking literally about the Faerie. Sometimes I hate my life.
  • Note that Harry definitely says "the" faerie, not "a" faerie, implying that perhaps there is an actual, 'literal' faerie out there who grants ample bosoms to budding young women.
• "You suck. You suck diseased moose wang, Marcone."
• The Running Gag: "What happened to your coat?"
• Harry and Marcone are watching Michael throw down with Nicodemus on top of a train. Michael has already told them not to distract him.
  Marcone: You know what I think?
  Harry: You think we should shoot Nicodemus in the back at the first opportunity and let Michael dismember him.
  Marcone: Yes.
  Harry: [draws his gun] Okay.
• The Archive provides Kincaid with a note stating that he’s acting as her proxy for Harry and Ortega's meeting. The note is written in crayon.
• When Harry references Spider-Man and Nicodemus doesn't get it, Harry muses that he must be a DC Comics fan. While the line is funny enough as it is, it also brings up a hilarious mental image of Big Bad Nicodemus enjoying comic books.

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