Best Big Bad So Far.......
Jim has explored a pretty decent variety of mystic phenomena so far in his first four books, vampires, werewolves, demons, fairies to name but a few.
What has been the most frightening to you and why?
For me it was the loup garou in Fool Moon. Complete and total animal with no bit of humanity left to be reasoned with. The vampire is the obvious choice to me. They are demons but the werewolf is a human out of control so that to me is more frightening. It should be capable of logic and reason but is so overpowered by the animal they have become that they are helpless. Helplessness is more terrifying than the unknown. With the unknown there is still hope. Experiencing helplessness with the known threat there is no hope left and that is pretty gosh darn scary.
Best Big Bad
The Sidhe are too human to scare me that much. In the same way that the vampires, while in their human form aren't terribly scary. It is when they remove their human masks that they become truly horrific.
For me, with the werewolves, it is uncontrollable animalism that is frightening. There is no reasoning with this creature. It is nature at it's worst, big, dangerous and the ultimate predator.
It's not a mental anguish like the Nightmare or a foe you can outsmart, like the wizard in Storm Front. Even in Summer Knight, Harry has a lot of people out to get him but they're all foes we know he can beat. In Fool Moon, we don't know that he can win and he knows it too but he does it anyway. That's why the werewolves are so scary for me.
Re: Best Big Bad
Oh - the werewolves are scary -- I didn't say they weren't -
Just that I think Harry's godmother has some tricks up her sleeves and she's got a tendancy to talk around Harry's tired, worn-out brain to make him agree to something he probably knows he shouldn't agree to b/c it'll get him into some deep trouble later -- She kind of corners him into making deals of necessity - pretty scary stuff --
Guess my point is, just b/c you can't kill something doesn't mean you can't beat it -- the werewolves are scary, but they operate on instinct - which can be dangerous -- maybe I'm saying that all of these 'foes' are dangerous in their own way -- Harry's godmother is just as dangerous as the werewolves under the right circumstances...
Re: Best Big Bad
"Harry's godmother is just as dangerous as the werewolves under the right circumstances..."
Actually I think Lea is a bigger threat to Harry. The werewolves can kill Harry and then he'll be dead whereas the Sidhe can do things to him worse than death. They can control him physically and make him harm himself and others. They can take away his free will and he ends up damning himself because he has no other alternative.
Being killed by a werewolf is actually the more merciful death but I'd still prefer the fairies as the werewolves are just so scary. For me it just comes down to basic human instincts. Big hairy (not Harry ;-) ) beast = danger. Pretty woman with cool hair and funny eyes not so big a threat. With something humanlike there's always the dim hope that we can reason with it, that we can reach it somehow and everything will be ok. With an animal we know there is no such hope. So basically, for me, the reason the werewolves are so scary is that being stalked by one amounts to hopelessness. With the fairies there is still the belief that things can be ok even if it is impossible.
Bob - Spirit of Air
Posts: 182
(11/26/03 19:28) Reply
Re: Best Big Bad
Re-opening the 'Big Bad' discussion -
*trying to remember all of them* -
Storm Front - Victor 'Shadowman'
Fool Moon - the wolves
Grave Peril - the 'get you in your dreams' guy (can't recall his name, sorry)
Summer Knight - The Faerie princess chick -
Death Masks - The Red Court, no?
Re: Best Big Bad
Loup-garou. DEFINETLY the biggest bad. Fool Moon was the first Dresden File I read (mainly b/c it was werewolf related AND the only one there) and when I got to the part with the loup-garou in the police station - scary stuff. I wouldn't want to face down one without Harry's blasting rod, that's for sure.
......second biggest bad, the Denarians. 'Specially Nicodemus.
"The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done." - George Carlin
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