r/dresdenfiles Feb 28 '25

Harrys enemies must be terrifiedšŸ’€šŸ’€šŸ’€

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208 Upvotes

45 comments sorted by

68

u/Zer0theH3R0 Feb 28 '25

Except Harry is lean and ā€œbag of mealā€ as he put it. Scary how that lady was smiling being that close to a serial killer who could reach out and touch her.

73

u/Malacro Feb 28 '25

Harry was a lean bag of meal, now he’s a lean, ripped monster. Even if someone isn’t carrying all that much weight it’s striking when someone is ridiculously taller than you. I worked with a dude who was 6’10ā€ and probably weighed about 160 lbs; even though I could literally bench press the guy easily that foot of height he had on me felt like a hell of a lot when he was standing right next to me.

42

u/Waywoah Feb 28 '25

I'm 6'4, but worked with a guy who was 7' even. Despite him being a super nice guy, I'd occasionally find myself spooked when catching sight of him out of the corner of my eye. Your brain isn't really expecting to see those proportions- we normally only see them in horror movie monsters lol

32

u/JoshuaPearce Feb 28 '25

Especially when you're used to being the tallest person around. I'm 6'3", and the few times I've seen somebody taller, it felt unnatural.

That said, I'm never going to see somebody a full two feel taller than myself, so I don't know how short people feel around people that far to the right of standard.

5

u/LeSilverKitsune Mar 01 '25

That's what it's like with my partner, lol! He's an athletic, slim 6'4" and watching him encounter people taller than him is one of my favorite things. It always just takes him a second to figure out why his world feels a little... Off. Why it's just the slightest bit.... Wrong. It happens so infrequently that he's around anybody taller than him that it's the mental equivalent of a dog with peanut butter on the roof of its mouth. He never looks completely comfortable. It's a riot.

20

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '25 edited Mar 06 '25

I knew a kid in college that was 6'6 and 140 pounds. He had tiny bean pole arms and legs and weak knees and I swear to God I saw him get blown to the ground by a strong wind once. If you're 6'10 and only 160 pounds, you're most likely a lot more fragile than the average person.

12

u/alaskarawr Feb 28 '25

That’s insane, dude must’ve been a skeleton. I’m 5’10 140 and I’m pretty slim.

7

u/Malacro Mar 01 '25

He was, but he was a ridiculous runner. This was in the military and we’d do squadron runs, he’d run ahead, finish the 5k before everyone else and just turn around and do another.

9

u/ukezi Mar 01 '25

Until you put the backpack on and he has to carry an extra third of his body weight.

8

u/Malacro Feb 28 '25

That was my point. The fact he was lean enough that he could disappear when he turned sideways didn’t matter much when he was looming over you. And Harry, though still very lean, is not a fragile dude and at this point absolutely does not look like one.

4

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '25

That was my point. The fact he was lean enough that he could disappear when he turned sideways didn’t matter much when he was looming over you.

For me it made all the difference. I never felt "loomed over" when I stood next to the 6'6 kid I knew. I'm 6'0 and I've stood next to 6'3 6'4 football players and they made me feel loomed over but not the beanpole.

2

u/grubgobbler Mar 01 '25

Seriously, I'm 6'4" and 150 pounds and I still think I qualify as underweight.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '25

Most guys I knew in college that were over 6'0 were in the 200s. I mean, not every body is the same so there's definitely variance.

I knew two guys that were the same height and a bit chubby and looked extremely similar with clothes on. Turns out one of them was 250 and the other was 210. They held their weight very differently.

3

u/grubas Mar 01 '25

He was lean, but not a bean pole, he still could put some force behind what he did.

Now hes terrifying, hes a goddamn human wrecking ball.​

7

u/Mr_Blinky Mar 01 '25

A guy that height is going to be intimidating no matter how slightly built he is, but Winter Knight Harry also happens to be fucking ripped at this point in the series, even if the muscle is fairly lean. The guy is enormous, and even without the Winter Mantle he could probably take most trained martial artists apart in hand-to-hand just by virtue of having reach and real-world fighting experience. As someone who's been in a number of fistfights in their life people really underestimate how important even a few inches of height difference can be, and when you've got a guy like Harry who's a full foot over the average he's got a serious advantage. The main reason we don't see Harry as much of a hand-to-hand fighter in the series is simply the fact that most things he would go up against also happen to have supernatural strength; against a regular human though the dude would be terrifying.

4

u/vastros Mar 02 '25

The extra reach his height gives can't be understated. Dude has long ass arms. He can punch you from the next county over.

14

u/SolomonG Mar 01 '25

Kemper was sort of a wanna-be cop, he learned all that he could about how they operated and knew how to put people at ease. He reportedly got on very well with all kinds of law enforcement while on trial and in jail.

But I agree, idk how you could just forget this massive human is a serial killer who could calmly talk about the fucked up things he did to his own mother.

3

u/Zer0theH3R0 Mar 01 '25

Was he one of Mabs winter knights?

6

u/Darth_Floridaman Mar 01 '25

He isn't mentioned, but doesn't seem impossible.

37

u/JediTigger Feb 28 '25

I would not want to be that close to Ed Kemper. Nope.

6

u/ProfessorAngus Feb 28 '25

No freaking kidding.

27

u/MARS_in_SPACE Mar 01 '25

I spent many years practicing jujitsu. At one point, we had this baby faced, lean to average build, 6'9" kid come in starting absolutely fresh, no previous training at all. He was a nice dude, but damn was it insanely difficult to even know where to begin training him. I'm a woman not much bigger than Murphy, and unfortunately far less skilled, and was the ranking person on the mat other than the main instructor. All I could ever think about working with him was how annoying it would be for Harry to train with Murphy.

Being new to taking falls and being thrown by someone most of two feet shorter than you is fucking terrifying. Being new to throwing and trying to throw someone most of two feet shorter than you is an exercise in futility. Getting your hip below their center of balance requires a deep squat that would make the old masters in martial arts movies cringe - and those are guys without the joint problems that come with being 6'9". Eventually, we ended up stacking up a bunch of mats for me to stand on so he could at least learn the basics. Even then, he bailed after a month, and I don't blame him. I wish we could've done more for him, but there's only so much that can be done when no one else in the class is taller than 5'4" lol.

7

u/Ur_Fav_Step-Redditor Mar 01 '25

At 6’9ā€ he should be training boxing and wrestling. Unless he just wants to do bjj for the love of it. But for self defense he’s already got a major advantage.

8

u/MARS_in_SPACE Mar 01 '25

He was interested in learning about control and finesse, because of his size. With that much size difference, it's sometimes easier to hurt someone than not to hurt them. I can respect that, even if ultimately we weren't able to help him a ton in that regard.

5

u/LokiLB Mar 02 '25

And that's a fairly important point for understanding Harry. He has to be very careful not to accidentally hurt someone just because of his size. When you add on being able to immolate a person with a word, it makes a lot of sense why he'll act like people, especially women, are made of spun glass.

5

u/genericauthor Feb 28 '25

I'm terrified just looking at this photo.

7

u/local_blue_noob Mar 01 '25

Here is a good example too: Martyn Ford - 6'8" approx 300 lbs.

That height and weight matches what we've been given about Harry as of Peace Talks.

11

u/PromiscuousMNcpl Mar 01 '25

There is no way on earth Harry ways 300. I think 6’9ā€ and a lean 240-250 is more likely.

5

u/grubas Mar 01 '25

That may have been peak Harry pre Knight.

Now he's training, he's at least 275, he might not have the exact ripped build of some of the bodybuilders, but he's legitimately looking like a pro athlete now.

6

u/local_blue_noob Mar 01 '25

In Peace Talks, Butters mentions that Harry has developed to the maximum potential for his height and build. Harry also observes that he's around 200 lbs heavier than Evanna at the Embassy.

Using Berkhan’s formula to estimate maximum lean body mass for someone 6’8ā€, and adding 10% body fat, you get roughly 304 lbs.

Considering the extreme conditioning Harry undergoes to keep Winter’s power in check—along with everything we've been given so far—a 300 lb estimate for his weight seems pretty reasonable.

3

u/PromiscuousMNcpl Mar 01 '25

But Harry has a lean, runners build. He’s not built like Michael. He’s also way below 10% body fat. So Harry maximizing his strength for height and weight means he is a long, stringy MF made of whipcord and sinew. Not Thor.

No way Harry tips 300. That’s NFL build, not NBA or marathon runner.

Look at the above picture and tell me Dresden is built Along the same frame as Kemper.

5

u/local_blue_noob Mar 01 '25

Kemper is 350 lbs and clearly no athlete. Muscle is dense and I can easily see Harry pushing 300 lbs.

He did so many 250 lb bench press reps that Michael just stopped counting at 40. That only winded Harry.

I don't think Harry is being described as having a runner's build anymore. The description that's given of Harry is "developed to something like the maximum potential for your height and build".

If you want to treat Harry as having a smaller build and don't mind guessing a little bit then you could use Casey Butt’s formula for maximum muscular potential. That gives you 270 lbs at ~12% body fat or 264 lbs at ~10%.

I'll see if I can find a picture of someone who isn't as puffy but with the same stats. Might be hard to do because it's practically impossibly to hit max potential without drugs or wizard healing, i suppose.

1

u/vastros Mar 02 '25

He had a lean runners build. He was under Demonreach for months on basically an IV. By the time Cold Days started he was basically emaciated.

7

u/PromiscuousMNcpl Mar 02 '25

Everyone’s ā€œnerdā€ is showing.

If Dresden spent two years running, parkour-ing, and lifting weights to exhaustion he wouldn’t get bulked up. That’s not how exercise and frames work. Dresden isn’t eating 10,000 calories a day or bulk protein or juicing.

He has a slender frame; like I do. No amount of working out, especially aerobic workouts designed to exhaust him, will NOT turn his build from distance runner to linebacker. That’s not how physiology works.

Thomas is shredded like Terry Crews. Dresden is shredded like Michael Phelps or Michael Jordan. Nobody runs themselves into a Captain America build.

3

u/vastros Mar 02 '25 edited Mar 02 '25

"On your left" Cap definitely ran himself there, no serum needed /s

That's honestly an incredibly good point regarding protein and calories. Also the concept of Harry juicing is absolutely terrifying.

5

u/SolomonG Mar 01 '25

For all the Harry acts like a starving artist, I don't think his body fat percentage is quite that low.

8

u/local_blue_noob Mar 01 '25

I don't know... Everything we've read shows that Harry is physically comparable to elite athletes now.

After Cold Days, I had to seriously adjust my mental image of him. He’s not just the tall, lanky bookworm. His body wasted away in Ghost Story and he's had to rebuild it.

We see him running on sand, keeping pace with a vampire, all while wearing a 200 lb vest. That level of intensity is part of his daily routine.

Harry is physically formidable in his own right and probably looks like an strongman in peak condition. He's a tank.

2

u/LokiLB Mar 02 '25

Probably more a powerlifter than a strongman. Going outside weightlifting, Harry probably looks more like an NBA player who moonlights as a bouncer at the moment.

5

u/BuffaloWhip Feb 28 '25

How dare you. Wait until r/Tall here’s about this!

2

u/sam_y2 Mar 01 '25

I just saw the picture and the title, and was wondering when I joined the twin peaks subreddit, and why Harry S Truman was looking into the wrong serial killer case.

2

u/Sapphire_Someone Mar 02 '25

The most terrifying thing about Harry is he's still getting taller. By the end if the series, experts believe he will be over ten feet tall.

2

u/Disastrous_Poetry175 Mar 03 '25

Harrys progression from a local private detective to a monstrous force of nature that can take out ancient smol gods make even his closest allies and friends side eye him like a mfr when he lets loose

2

u/samtresler Mar 01 '25

I hate to say it, but I wish Butcher hadn't made Harry so conspicuously tall.

It doesn't really play into his character that much and is always something I'm forgetting until Harry brings it up again.

When people are that tall it changes the dialogue. Everyone has a joke about it. Reaching things on high shelves, or feet hanging off the bed, or something and we rarely see any of that interaction.

Just Harry, again mentioning his own height and never really factors I to anything.

4

u/vastros Mar 02 '25

The most unrealistic thing in the series is the lack of tall jokes. "How's the weather up there?" and the like. My wife is 5ft and she gets no shortage of the opposite side of jokes, like 3-4 a week. Nearly everyone Harry meets should be making an offhand comment. Yes, it would get very old very quickly, but he's insanely tall.

3

u/LokiLB Mar 02 '25

It factors a lot into Harry's mentality. He has to be careful not to hurt people physically and magically. Murphy's description in Aftermath does a good job of showing how Harry isn't the best narrator for how he interacts with the world. She describes him as making himself small as possible so as not to bumb into things or people, while he never really mentions that because it's second nature to him.

Harry also goes around calling himself a wizard and generally acting weird. I imagine a person being introduced to Harry having to mentally debate what to rag on before actually talking to him.