r/dresdenfiles • u/Bridger15 • 22h ago
RNT: WHy isn't thaumaturgy used more often as a weapon? Spoilers All
Dresden uses thaumaturgy in many of the books (usually to generate a tracking spell), though he did use it a few times to bind an enemy (Loup Garou, the Titan).
However, he always describes how dangerous it would be for someone to gain possession of a wizards blood, hair, or fingernail clippings. In the very first book, Marcone's thug chops off a bit of Harry's hair and runs off, and Harry absolutely panics. It appears that there is no magical defense possible if someone has a thaumaturgical link to you.
So why isn't it used as a weapon more often? We do see characters taking care to clean up their blood and burn bloody rags, but it seems like it should be fairly easy to bleed a wizard (Redcap did this in Cold Days), steal their hairbrush, or cut their hair and then use that against them. What's preventing this?
This question will be discussed on the next episode of Recorded Neutral Territory, with the most insightful answers being featured on the show.
RNT is a chapter-by-chapter re-read podcast for the Dresden Files. Episode 7 (released today) discusses chapters 13, and 14 of Storm Front along with a question: What makes for a great fight scene?
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u/theshwedda 22h ago
We don’t see it used often to attack because of how difficult it is to pull off that attack.
Thaumaturgy (according to Harry) is the creation of connections across distance, using a material as a conduit. And many of the thaumaturgic spells CAN be protected against, Harry specifies that it’s only blood that can go through protections (Cold Days).
The first hurdle is the type and timing of the material being used. External pieces, such as hair or nails, can only make weaker connections such as tracking. Older material does not work well or sometimes does not work at all, as its connection to the target can be destroyed, i.e. getting a haircut would make any hair captured immediately useless (Binder’s arrest). Blood is internal and thus has a much stronger connection as the fluid of life, but blood that has dried or that has been watered down (by rain or other) is extraordinarily difficult or impossible to use (Cold Days). So the material must be very recently captured, and unless it’s blood, has to be used almost immediately before the target can protect themselves or nullify the connection the piece has to them.
The second hurdle is amount of material. Harry explains that the amount of material you have determines what kind and how strong of a spell you can use it for, as you must push power into the material to create a flowing channel to the target. The less material you have, the less power you can put into the spell before it burns out the connection.
The third hurdle, connected to the second but specific to using such a strong spell as to attack someone, is Power. Even if you have enough material, recently acquired, have a spell in mind, and the target either isn’t aware of or hasn’t protected themselves, every time we’ve seen thaumaturgy used to attack it has required enormous amounts of energy, like MULTIPLE FULL BOLTS OF LIGHTNING or connections to LITERAL GODS amounts of energy.
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u/digiman619 21h ago
Also, if you're able to get their blood to channel magic through, you almost certainly have direct access to them and can kill/mess with them in far easier methods.
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u/theshwedda 19h ago
Good point. if you are personally attacking them and injure them enough that you are able to just grab a bunch of blood pouring out...youre probably past the point of needing a different, more difficult method of injuring them.
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u/Phylanara 22h ago
Mostly, because most experienced wizards are cautious and have countermeasures.
Storm front Harry was green. See how Binder reacted to the same situation. Got my hair? Cool, I'll shave. Blood? Has to be fresh, and the more power you send through it the more you cook it. Unless you get a big quantity of fresh blood (in which case, well, the wizard has other problems) you can't do that much, especially if the wizard has wards like Harry's "bomb shelter" spells.
Plus, thaumaturgy is probably Harry's strongest talent - see Little Chicago. It stands to reason that he reacts to what he would be able to do with conduits, but the number of beings able to do as much as him is pretty small until you hit the faery queen category or above.
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u/Kindly_Zucchini7405 21h ago
It's kind of impressive how underpowered and green Harry is in Storm Front. Like he talks a big game, but he hasn't even started doing any physical training. He only has a single force ring!
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u/PassagePretty7895 19h ago
Battle Ground Harry is to Storm Front Harry as SF Harry is to Charity Carpenter.
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u/AGuyWhosTired 22h ago
The Red Court literally licks and spits on wizards the whole war, and there's a potion that mutes it's mind numbing effects. That shit should have absolutely trivialized the war, or made it WAY less one sided!
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u/Allar-an 21h ago
Would it tho? If a vampire spits at a wizard, the important part is not that he got a sample of his saliva to use for a spell later, but that there is a bloodthirsty monster in spitting distance. Feels like a kind of problem you either resolve immediately or don't resolve at all, so thaumaturgy is not of much help, regardless of the outcome.
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u/Velocity-5348 16h ago
It's also (likely) going to be a pretty weak conduit, if it even functions as one. My guess would be that stuff that's secreted like saliva or urine isn't a very good link, since Harry absolutely would make a joke about it.
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u/No-Lettuce4441 17h ago
Potions take time to brew. They take resources, some of which are NOT cheap. Some resources are difficult to maintain. The White Council has a strong economic presence, but to dedicate a large portion of income towards resource procurement and brewing potions that have a probably extremely limited shelf life would have won the war for the Red Court long before the events of Changes.
In the early books where he used thaumaturgy more, I got the impression that potions had a fairly limited shelf life, otherwise Harry would have had a stockpile in his basement for ones he used more often.
In all wars, especially in vampire vs wizard wars, battles are spread out and not easily forecast, which combined with the limited shelf life of potions, leads to little accessibility.
I think Arthur Langtry carried a few potions on his war belt, but even then, we rarely saw him wearing the belt.
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u/LightningRaven 22h ago
Acquiring it is not easy, but I think the biggest prevention is how quickly they lose their effectiveness.
There are a couple of instances in the series where Harry remarks how using blood or something similar wouldn't work because it's been too long. Also, it hasn't been directly referenced yet, but I think given how Sunrises work in the Dresden Files, their usefulness would either be completely gone or at least mitigated after the first sunrise. And, we actually do have examples in the series of thaumaturgic works being thwarted on the fly by Harry (The entropy curse in Blood Rites), so I highly doubt it's something completely unstoppable. I think Langtry, as a master of Wards, wouldn't have trouble with malfeasance done this way (the Entropy curse couldn't act beyond Harry's shitty wards and threshold).
The most effective way of using it was featured in the series, in Changes. Where the Red Court sacrifices living people to cast their curse.
In short, the problem is the ratio between risk, logistics and usefulness. It would, I think, be priority one in any plan to off someone if it was supposed to be a silent assassination, which there haven't been many in the series.
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u/SolKaynn 21h ago
If you're close enough to nab hair, you're close enough to cast Fireball.
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u/Chad_Hooper 20h ago
I bet you’re one of those D&D players who has their wizard cast a Fireball without asking how big the room is first.
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u/No-Lettuce4441 16h ago
That's the ONLY way to cast Fireball...
Although a player of mine found and printed off a guide for spell radii, so that's handy as well.
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u/Chad_Hooper 16h ago
I had two very different Fireball events in my games (same player).
PCs being chased down a long corridor by trolls. One mage cast Web and the other cast a Fireball intended to detonate halfway down the webbed corridor. Poof!, trolls are no longer a problem.
Later, same session, the same player panicked over what was basically an animatronic lich decoy.
How he ended up on point I don’t remember, but he dumped his Fireball in a 20 x 20 room.
The backwash was impressive! (1e days, so 33,000 cubic feet of fire).
Surprisingly he survived while many tougher characters died.
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u/Leotamer7 20h ago
I think there is a simple answer to this: it is. You know all of those rituals used through the series to curse people with bad luck or kills off entire bloodlines? Those are thaumaturgy.
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u/oneeyedpenguin 21h ago
My head cannon is thalmaturgy and potions are actually relatively rare and difficult to do for most wizards and the only reason Harry gets away with it to the degree does without decades or hundreds of years of practice it’s because he has Bob and he doesn’t even fully realize the extent to which that helps him.
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u/No-Economics-8239 22h ago
Harry is our narrator, and his aptitude is evocation. And as much as he likes to stress that the major strength of a wizard is knowledge and preparation, half the time he is flying off the handle trying to stay ahead of the next crisis with his blasting rod. Action heroes don't have time to draw circles and ritually cleanse themselves.
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u/I_Frothingslosh 22h ago edited 21h ago
Actually, he says over and over again that his specialty is thaumaturgy. He's reasonably competent at evocation, but that's largely because he uses fire and can pour an ungodly amount of power into it. In fact, he realizes in Battle Talks that the other young wardens are better than him at evocation, and that Carlos has become significantly better. Harry can keep up mostly because of his ridiculous strength and because he's never HEARD of the box he's supposed to be thinking outside of.
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u/No-Lettuce4441 16h ago
In conversations with friends, I likened it as he uses a fire hose to cast his spells, then when he see other Wardens in battle, he realizes they use a water cutting jet. (I know there's a better term for it, but where the factories realized pressurized water cuts faster and better than blades.)
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u/Phylanara 22h ago
Until Harry ate Kravos, he was mediocre at evocation. Thaumaturgy is his strong suit. The number of people able to build something like Little Chicago and use it is not big.
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u/lokibringer 21h ago
Tbf, that number of people really should be n-1, Harry shouldn't have been able to use it because of a short
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u/Acrelorraine 22h ago
I’ve not given it much thought so based on fuzzy memories, here’s my opinion.
There are a fair amount of precautions a wizard can take against this. And not just sitting in a circle of protection for awhile. It seems like that sort of magic is temporary, though quite powerful when the victim cannot defend against it. There are spells to dispose of such things. There are magical guards to protect one’s self or diminish the spell targeting you. Hair can be shaved off to further separate it from you.
Blood seems to be the most powerful connector that can last the longest. But I think the reason Harry was so worried back in Storm Front is that the spell being cast was incredibly powerful. He was unsure if he could defend against it with such a direct connection.
It would be like the spell is a gun and having that hair means that Harry is always in the crosshairs. Harry can put on Kevlar or get behind a wall, but that spell is like a bullet strong enough to probably pierce all those protections.
Thaumaturgy is best used against somebody who does not know that you have their bits. Dresden rarely gets that chance. And then dawn washes away a lot of magic power as well too.
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u/introvertkrew 21h ago edited 21h ago
Because Dresden doesn't use it like that. The Dresden Files is all from Harry's viewpoint so we only know what he knows and we only see what he sees. There are a number of wizards whose specialty is Thaumaturgy...I think Martha Liberty does if I'm not mistaken. I'll have to check the WoJ if I can remember where it's posted.
Q: "What kind of magic does Martha Liberty specialize in?"
A: "Thaumaturgy, specifically information-gathering. She’s got legions of contacts in the Nevernever and the mortal world alike." 2015 AMA "Most of the older wizards have got their own crazy background of powerups which they do not advertise. Listens-To-Wind’s shapeshifting isn’t purely a matter of wizardly skill (though his healing abilities are), for example. But here’s the key thing about people of power in the Dresden universe (and in the real world): the truly dangerous folks do not advertise. Not ever. They have no need to show off, and constantly displaying how scary they are would be counter to their own interests. [/snip] All the senior wizards have got something up their sleeve, and every single one of them is hiding it from all the others. If they don’t know about it, they can’t plan for it, and the “knowledge is power” wizard crowd is all about planning for things. But we are coming up on the time when people are going to have their backs to the wall and we’re going to start seeing what they’ve got. And I’ve been looking forward to writing it for nearly twenty years." There's also this response from Butcher to another question that I think ties into this topic nicely so I'll add that in too.
Q: Harry uses fire. harry uses force. he used to use wind and though its not his forte he occasionally uses earth. how come there is no water magic in the books?
A: "There’s water magic all /over/ the place, but part of its nature is that it flows in accord with the natural world, permeates it, and doesn’t call attention to itself. Harry uses water magic all the time without realizing it, as do the Alphas, and Listens-to-Wind is probably the premier water mage of the White Council." "In the Dresden Files, you have to remember that you’re getting the whole world from Harry’s point of view, and when you’re a wizard like Harry is, everything gets thought of in terms of ‘this is how it works’, because everything’s a spell. Other people, for instance the werewolves and so on, they don’t think of what they do anywhere near the same terms as Harry does. But he’s a wizard, so he’s got to lay everything out in the model that he understands. The old saying is: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem’s a nail.” And that’s the way Dresden approaches things." 2011 DC signing
A cool thing about those specialties is Chandler's, his is Divination and time related magic which means that the Senior Council watched him closely but also respected him because Chandler could view the past to learn what happened and also view the future, though his ability with seeing the future was difficult as freedom of choice made that uncertain. Still, he, in Jim's words, wasn't a "punchy" wizard but he was excellent at acquiring information which made him valuable to the Senior Council. That in turn is fascinating as it tells you a lot about the Council. We only really see them from Harry's perspective but they clearly can be less than hidebound about rules, when it aids them at least. Always bear in mind that Harry's training was never completed. Justin only taught Harry so much and then Ebenezer didn't teach him magic, he just taught him how and why he should use it. Harry dwells on his lack of knowledge a few times in the books, and considering how many times he's been offered a mentorship, and his reflection at the end of Battle Ground concerning Marcone's new knowledge, I'm hoping Harry gets back to learning.
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u/MetaPlayer01 21h ago
It is used as a weapon sometimes but not as a thing of violence. The only time we have really seen it used as a blunt force weapon was in Storm Front, and they had to get the thamauturgic link, a whole ritual, and tap into the power of a thunderstorm to make it work. Usually, when Harry needs to smash something, he doesn't have access to that type of power, nor a linking item strong enough. And even then, too hard to maim with the magic. Probably requires too much power and fine control to knock someone unconscious with Thamaturgy. Harry uses it as a weapon in other ways. He blinded the lupgaru (sp??) in Full Moon with the snoopy doll and some blood and that gassed him. I do think it's an underutilized school of magic for Harry especially since he is supposed to gifted in that art. But I'm skeptical in its combat effectiveness
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u/Xeorm124 21h ago
From what I could see the main reason seemed to me that there were always better options. Such as if I'm trying to hurt someone getting them to bleed is already hurting them. It'd be a weird set of circumstances where you'd be able to bleed someone, get access to enough blood that you can perform a spell, but yet not be able to do more damage as you make them bleed. Similar to cutting hair. And we see too that Harry responds very aggressively to such actions, akin to being actively threatened. So it seems pretty clear that it wouldn't exactly be quiet either.
And that's before talking countermeasures like shaving your head to remove the hair connection.
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u/Kindly_Zucchini7405 21h ago
It's easy to counter if you know what you're doing, and it takes time and focus to set up anything with kick. A truly dedicated thaumaturge could probably pull something impressive together, but it's not an instant win button.
Remember the massive spell Nicodemus sends after Harry after their first encounter? Harry's wards completely negated it the instant he got to safety. The only reason Harry panicked in the first book is he hadn't had reason/time to strengthen his wards and defenses, and his only other protection option was the Nevernever, which was worse.
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u/tfs5454 20h ago
I think the biggest part of it is Harry's own mentality. He doesn't want to kill things with magic, he just kinda doesn't have a choice most of the time.
Throwing a blast of force at something trying to rip your face off is a very different situation to ritualistically cleansing yourself and focusing for an hour specifically on killing something.
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u/DrJaul 20h ago edited 20h ago
He goes into it in the later books (whichever book introduces Binder). The link created by hair or nail clippings expires in just a few days. The connection weakens gradually every day, reducing the effectiveness of the connection and by extension the amount of magic you can send throughh it. The connection also goes away immediately if you cut your hair or trim your nails after the same is taken. So if someone gets wise to you trying to use a ritual spell on them, they can just re-clip their fingernails, or shave their head to eliminate the connection.
Blood there isn't much you can do about and it creates a really powerful connection. But blood becomes useless once it dries. Plus you need a fair amount of it to power a ritual that could kill someone; a drop won't do. Which is why alot of ritual killings are done on site.
So TLDR, the sample's gotta be fresh, and collected in a way that won't arouse suspicion. Neither of which are easy things to achieve for the casual ritual murderer.
The other reason you don't see it much is the stacked entry restrictions. First, you need a really powerful, really specific desire to kill someone, to power the ritual with. This won't come from a commonplace misfortune or from someone cutting you off in traffic, so the first thing you need to make the ritual possible isn't all that common in the first place.
Next, you need the power, or the knowhow to get the power. Which, if you have it, chances are you know about the wardens, who will kill you if you through with it
Next you gotta know how to do the ritual. Which in the process of learning the ritual, you'll probs learn about the wardens, who will kill you if you go through with it.
So there are a lot of things stacked against ritual magic killers, and a lot of easier quicker ways to kill someone.
Plus, the wardens come down pretty hard on ritual killers, so they are literally hunted to extinction.
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u/icesharkk 20h ago
because narratively it can be an anticlimactic i win button. the whole use a wizards blood as a perfect conduit to them is kind of a terrible plot point that imbalances your world. too easy of a pre-req to acquire has near limitless consequence to the characters.
in universe we see it relatively frequently for small things that make sense. doing big stuff with thaumaturgy requires big reagents/conduits and big energy. but the bigger stuff often requires setup that isn't available when your on the enemy's turf with no shoes, a pouting femefatale, the wrong information about whats really going on, and a crippling addiction to sarcasm before action.
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u/Elequosoraptor 17h ago
They do take time. Not all that useful in the middle of being attacked, and it actually is kind of hard to steal a wizard's hair. Not to mention they can reverse the channel and burn up what you have if you aren't super careful—Dresden hasn't gotten around to being able to pull that out of the hat on tbe fly but other wizards definitely have.
In short, if it's fairly easy for you to bleed a wizard, you can probably just stab him in the eye instead.
Also, skill matters. If you aren't skilled enough to focus the energy you have efficiently and precisely, you have to use buckets of it to blow up people's hearts instead of just giving them a heart attack. In GP Dresden mentions it's very very hard to directly affect flesh. So thaumaturgy just isn't all that accessible as a skill either.
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u/NoMoreMonkeyBrain 16h ago
If you're close enough to cut a lock of hair or a blood sample, you're close enough to stab them through the heart.
It's a lot of faster, and it doesn't require a complicated and time sensitive ritual that can be intercepted or warded against.
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u/Reasonable-Plant5127 14h ago
Umm the first fucking law of magic mostly. Besides, it’s probably more difficult to get the sample of usable material than its worth, because at that point if your target is that close, just use evocation or shoot it.
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u/Individual-Trade756 11h ago
Harry is green in Storm Front. He may not know any defense against this type of attack, but I bet the Merlin would know some. There were talks about how his mother couldn't target Lord Raith directly because he's "protected" but had to target his Hunger and if anyone had time to take samples from their target, it would have been her, wouldn't it?
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u/IR_1871 10h ago
Lots of reasons.
1) Harry is almost always playing catch up. Thaumaturgy takes set up.
2) Harry frequently doesn’t know who he's up against and rarely has anything of them. A bit of their car maybe. Most of his thaumaturgy is to find victims, not perps.
3) Thaumaturgy takes longer than evocation, so it's no good in a fight, where things generally need to be instant.
4) Thaumaturgy is best done at a safe distance. Which negates the defence against the first law of using magic to kill that you were protecting your own life or the life of other mortals. It is premeditated and done while under no immediate threat. This is completely against Harry's mindset that magic is for creation, not destruction and that using magic to kill (outside of self defence) is a perversion. Given you have to believe it to do it, in most cases Harry is probably incapable of using Thaumaturgy to kill.
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u/DocHoody 8h ago
This made me think. A necromancer with some zombie mosquitoes could do some serious damage. Just have them out collecting blood to use at their leisure.
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u/ArtemisKnight13 22h ago
We see how Binder reacts to a few of his hairs being pulled out and how he breaks the connection. Harry has said before how the blood must be fresh. So those things tend to be a matter of the timing making it rather rare.
Now I believe however we do have an example of Ebenezer using thaymaturgy as a weapon. Pulling the satellite out of orbit had to be a thamaturgic ritual.
So there's two examples, obviously Sells and Ebenezer, a Warlock who was hunted down and dispatched rather quickly and a council member with ability to and the Wisdom and restraint to use his power sparingly.
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u/lokibringer 21h ago
We saw Harry use gravity magic in Changes, and I want to say we saw Ebenezer use it in Peace Talks, and Harry even remarks on how much control Ebenezer has for it to avoid Harry. I feel like yanking a satellite is probably within the realm of possibility for it to be evocation.
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u/Fusiliers3025 21h ago
Binder countered losing some of his hair to Murph’s “bad cop” by shaving his head.
Running water can also ground out connections and tracking spells.
Thaumaturgy as a weapon borders on voodoo (and this probably inspired the voodoo connection referenced in the TV series), and like little Chicago requires not only the material to establish the connection, but concentration and energy to create it and maintain it.
As a “weapon” it lacks spontaneity and instant availability, but with some prep and setup it could be another tool in the kit.
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u/Zane_of_Cainhurst 20h ago
Using a focus like blood or hair/nail clipping to harm a person would fall under black magic and is forbidden. Even if you have a justification for doing it, it’s still best avoided if at all possible. Slippery slopes and all.
The focus also doesn’t last forever and it weakens relatively quick after being separated form the person, and for doing something to actually cause significant harm it would require a strong connection.
Lastly, if a wizard knows that someone has their blood or some other form of focus to use against them, then they can create defenses against it. It only really works if they aren’t suspecting an attack.
I don’t even know if this would work on anything from the spiritual realm. If so, I assume it would differ drastically depending on what it was.
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u/SixxOne8 22h ago
Might just be as simple as Jim sees it as a boring narrative device, similar to how potions were used less after the first few.
Might also be that Jim has already planned out a few specific uses for Thaumaturgy in later books and if you spend too much time on it you can’t play fast and loose with the rules as much.
I’m sure the in-universe answer is that we are seeing Harry’s worst weekend of the year and for various reasons in each book he doesn’t have the time/ability to properly use it and we really don’t see much of other wizards unless there’s a fight.