Awkward character who becomes unexpectedly awesome later on? Yes please.


Seriously, Butters kicked ass. Totally in-character, too- he's always been very interested in picking apart the vagaries of the magical world Harry, for the most part, takes for granted. He's a bit more action-hero than I'd have expected, but at least they didn't make him all buff- he's just great at the theory, and uses it to the best of his ability.

I also really liked the idea, briefly mentioned, that theoretically, ANYONE could do magic- it's just that only certain people have the senses that allow them to perceive energy. Teaching a blind person how to paint, and all that.

I liked seeing Bob as Butters' pal. Seeing his personality change a bit and all that. I did NOT like how the return of Evil Bob was handled- it doesn't make any sense! If Bob "cut off" a part of himself to get rid of Evil Bob forever, was Evil Bob just floating around this whole time? Why didn't Bob say at any point, "Er, Harry, just so you know, there's a malevolent version of me floating around out there, you might want to imprison it or destroy it or something."

I mean, we've seen SEVERAL times that spirits can be very fragile. All it would have taken was to bind Evil Bob to something and then leave it out in sunlight. Poof, gone.

Also, did I miss something, or was the Bob/Evil Bob fight never resolved? Harry just ran out there to fight Corpsetaker, we don't know what happened.


Liked seeing Mort again, and REALLY liked seeing him use some of his powers. It's easy to forget that, as powerful as Harry is, he can't do everything. It's cool seeing examples of masters of mind magic, shapechanging, necromancy, Baldy the Super-fast Sorcerer, and other things throughout the book that Harry just isn't particularly skilled at.


Molly... is interesting. I really liked her arc, but I feel like it might have been better if it was more stretched out. That is, if she had spent all of Ghost Story being creepy Ophelia-like, and then we find out next book that she had been going through Training-From-Hell with Lea.

Question: So... has Molly broken any Laws of Magic? I mean, she messed around with Harry's memories (at his request, but I don't think the Laws care about consent with that one). She's used illusions to make it look like someone has a gun, or a knife, resulting in deaths (though I guess the mutated henchmen don't count as human? Are they the only ones she's killing?) and whatever readers may think, Butcher has said that killing someone indirectly through magic still counts as killing.

But on the other hand, at one point she reassures Murphy that the magic she was about to do was "legal," so... I guess she cares about that.

With regards to the Doom of Damocles, I guess it's cut and dried- if Harry's dead, she doesn't have a sponsor, and must die as well. I guess there's no way for Ebeneezer to take her under his wing? Little odd.

In any case, I really liked seeing Molly. A little unhinged, superpowers, cool stuff.