Alyrium Denryle wrote:
Molly has that refined touch to the exclusion of having any real talent for Evocation. She can do things like build wards, veils, and thaumaturgy very well but she can barely create a shield to hold back snowballs. maybe she will develop it to the point that it is functional with regimented discipline, but that is not today.
Dresden on the other hand can pick up a car and throw it, call up the flaming spirits of the dead, melt the earth in large swaths, but cannot hex his way out of a set of handcuffs without killing himself. This is probably just a function of age though. It is largely mentioned that it is the much older wizards that have a talent for finely controlled magic, through experience and training, and they can use that training to gain considerable power through economy and efficiency in their use of what mystic might they have.
There's a correction here. White Night and Small Favour establishes that Molly pyschic senses are too delicate to withstand combat, not her refined skill for evocation. There's the question of whether further training could overcome this defect, allowing her to defend herself in combat. Dresden noted originally in Summer Knight that not everyone in the White Council were capable of the quick evocation neccesary to be a combat wizard.
Dresden himself claims in Storm Front that his skill in evocation is poor, yet, by Grave Peril, he can summon up wave after wave of fire and burn the Velvet Room down. And Bianca and etc.
Also, one should note that the car bit was initially done with the assist of HellFire.
BTW, found the quote in Blackout. According to Thomas Raith, EVERYONE can do magic, although not everyone can be good at it.
Also, dark magic used to kill leaves a much more significant "trace" in the aura, one that Bob believes would had been detected by Dresden. One wonders what the signifiance of the "electric thrill" in a practionier is, ditto to the "deep ocean" feel of Michael power.
Let him land on any Lyran world to taste firsthand the wrath of peace loving people thwarted by the myopic greed of a few miserly old farts- Katrina Steiner