Why wizards can't use electronics:
Disclaimer: The Dresden Files belong to Lionsgate and originally aired on Syfy. Based on the books by Jim Butcher.
In the novels and confirmed in the Dresden Files episodes Soul Beneficiary, Rules of Engagement, Storm Front and What about Bob? As well as a deleted scene on the DVD set Harry Dresden cannot use electronics.
Now we shall find out why.
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Why wizards can't use electronics:
Wizards use and manipulate energies around them. They also produce a special sort of energy that most would call magick. It was a sort of electromagnetic, psychokinetic hodgepodge of power. As a result electronics and most modern technology will short out or stop functioning properly around a wizard, particularly if that wizard was angry.
Harry Dresden did not own a television set and did not own a microwave for this reason. The last time he had a television that could work around him he couldn't have been more than eleven-years-old. Some wizards don't cause so many problems with technology but the more powerful a wizard you are, the worse it is. The more energy you produce, the less likely you're going to get a laptop to work properly or a mobile cellular phone, or even a microwave oven.
For years Harry Dresden had lived very primitively for someone functioning in a modern American city. He used a gas stove for all his cooking. Most of his lighting was candle light (though he did have a few electric lamps). His car was an old Jeep lacking in any modern accoutrements. He made do though and he was quite comfortable for a wizard. Who wouldn't sacrifice technology for power beyond mortal comprehension?
Dresden sleepily climbed out of bed in his loft bed room. He wore a tattered old shirt and he wasn't quite shaved. He had dark brown hair and large brown eyes. He stood about six and a half feet tall.
He groggily pushed open the door to the old bootlegger room that served as a lab for all of magical work.
Bob was the wizard's 'assistant'. Well, technically his slave though Dresden neer really liked to see him as such. Bob was the soul of a deceased sorcerer, formerly by the name of Hrothbert of Bainbridge. He was bound to his own skull for crimes against the High Council of wizards and it was believed he may well spend eternity like that.
Bob had white hair and aqua eyes. He was pale and stood about six feet tall, making him a few inches shorter than Harry Dresden. At his wrists were manacle bracelets with sigils carved in them to reinforce the binding which held him to his skull. He wore a dark black suit of late Victorian style that was timeless enough to be considered somewhat contemporary. He looked to be in his mid-fifties.
Bob's left hand was raised as he scrolled in the air with his fingertip the alchemic sigils and symbols for a magical formula.
'Morning, Bob.' Dresden said in a groggy haze.
'Good morning, Harry.' Bob said. 'I'm working on something that you might appreciate.'
Dresden didn't like the sound of that. 'The last time you were working on something I might appreciate it took three months for my eyebrows to grow back.'
Bob snorted. 'That's because you tried to cut corners. I told you to follow my instructions exactly. Do you see what I am working on?' The ghost stepped back to admire his own handiwork.
'No. What is it?'
'Well, if applied correctly, you would have a charm that theoretically should prevent magical feedback misdirection.'
Dresden just looked at the old ghost blankly.
Bob sighed in exasperation and rolled his pale aqua eyes. 'This should, theoretically, enable you to use modern technology.
'Theoretically?' Dresden asked with a skeptical tone.
'Worst case scenario is you blow up your kitchen again.'
Dresden narrowed his eyes at Bob.
'Harry, I am ninety percent sure this will work. Believe me.'
'All right. Let's give it a shot…'
The process was painstaking but Harry managed to resist all temptation to try taking short cuts with the spell. He followed it exactly the way Bob had written it. Soon he had a small amulet made from a copper disc enscribed with a ward for restraining wild magical forces, particularly his own excessive magical charge.
'Now, to test it.' Bob said.
'There's only one way to find out.' Dresden said.
Lieutenant Murphy stood with her arms folded, watching as Dresden slowly edged his way toward her office desktop computer. 'Dresden, I swear if you break it you're paying for the repairs.' Though Murphy still played the skeptic about magick she was willing to admit that technology did have a strange way of dying horrible deaths around Dresden.
Harry slowly edges his way to the computer and finally pressed his finger against the button. The computer made a small noise and then started to boot up as it would if Murphy had pressed it.
Murphy raised an eyebrow.
Dresden looked like an excited child. 'It worked!' He laughed in delight. 'Murphy, it works!'
Murphy looked disinterested. 'That's great, Dresden. Congratulations. You just joined the twenty-first century… finally.'
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Monday:
Bob stood in amazement as he watched Harry come stumbling into the office with box after box full of electronic gizmos. In the boxes were a mobile cellular phone, a microwave oven, and a slightly out dated but still functional computer, but definitely not less than ten years old for all of it's antiquatedness. The computer was obviously a garage sale purchase but it seemed like it would function.
'Harry, how can you afford all of this?' Bob asked.
'The microwave and computer are from a garage sale. The phone is Murphy's old one. She let me have it, I just had to set up a new account with it.
The phone started ringing something that sounded, to Bob, only vaguely like music.
Out of habit Dresden put the phone to his ear without pressing anything. 'Hello.' It still rang.
Bob rolled his eyes. 'I can see where this is headed…'
Dresden stumbled over the box with the computer in it. The phone still ringing in his hand. 'Now how do I hook this thing up?
About six hours later the spaghetti mess that passed for wiring had been sorted out and Harry was naming the computer as the Windows program thing instructed him to do.
'Bob 2' is what he chose. He typed it in very slowly, pressing one key at a time with the pointer finger of his right hand.
Bob looked annoyed. 'Did you HAVE to name it after me?'
'Relax, Bob. It's not replacing you. I just figure it could help with business, you know. I just associate the name with something helpful.
That seemed to pacify Bob for now.
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Tuesday:
Dresden had figured out how to set up his computer and the high speed Internet connection had been established.
'Hey, Bob. I just got a message from some Nigerian Prince who says he needs my help.'
'Harry, I sincerely doubt that is a legitimate case…' Bob replied as he looked over Harry's shoulder.
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Wednesday:
Dresden had discovered both Twitter and Facebook. And his typing had improved somewhat. He had also chosen AC/DC's Hell's Bells for a ring tone on his phone. He was actually learning quite fast. He had even built a little 3D version of himself on the 3D chat and role playing game service called IMVU. He was very happy that the user name of HarryDresden hadn't been taken. He even made one for Bob though Bob couldn't actually use it under the user name of BobTheGhost, complete with a tiny skull.
Bob looked annoyed. 'Do you have to keep naming things after me? That doesn't even look like me! It looks like a pale twenty-year-old!'
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Thursday:
Dresden sat at his desk. He hadn't slept all night. He was eating a microwaved burrito for breakfast while typing at the keyboard with one hand. He had discovered World of Warcraft, AKA WOW and was now playing a mage.
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Friday:
Bob was trying in vain to get Harry away from the computer. 'Harry! Harry, will you listen to me? This is not healthy. Lieutenant Murphy has called you six times in the last hour.'
'Yeah? She's still using the old ground line. I can't reach it from here. She knows my cell phone number.' Harry said. He did not want to have to get up from his WOW game. His eyes were focused on the computer screen.
'Dresden, please, listen to me. This is an unhealthy fixation.' Bob said.
'Not now! I'm trying to get the tiny crimson Whelping.' Dresden said. 'I'm not paying four hundred gold for this thing.'
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Saturday:
Harry was so engrossed in his game that he did not seem to notice that in the real world a dragon was snarling as it stormed down the street that Harry's office was down. And there was the faint but dreadful groaning of a necromancer's army of ghoulish zombies in the distance. Perhaps Dresden mistook it as sounds from his video game considering there was the clashing and clashing of swords from wardens trying to fight off the zombies. Harry was typing very fast and sent out a Tweet on Twitter proclaiming 'Morgan smells like Goblin ass!!! LOL :-P !'
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Sunday:
On Sunday that same dragon that had been ravaging the city, under the nose of the very distracted Harry Dresden, came crashing into Harry Dresden's own office through the roof (the wards couldn't prevent that) and breathed fire right into the tower of the computer.
Dresden had been just about to obtain the crimson whelp he had been so desperately hoping to gain in WOW when this happened. 'That does it!' He snarled.
Harry reached out his hand and silently summoned his hockey stick / staff to him. He took aim and blasted the dragon across the room. In a fury the dragon grabbed at the charm Dresden was wearing that protected electronics from him and crushed it in it's claw.
He raised his staff to shield himself from the next blow and the dragon lunged for him again. After fifteen minutes of dodging for his life Harry managed to lure the dragon to the binding circle that had laid unused in his office for a different purpose.
The dragon was no match for Harry's banishing spell that sent it back to The Never Never.
Dresden then stepped out of his office and raised the palm of his hand and fire shot up, engulfing the small army of ghouls that were trudging around.
Dresden went back toward his lab, grumbling under his breath. When he got there he called out 'Bob! I need that formula again, the one for that charm that protects electronics against magick.'
Bob lied between his teeth. 'I am sorry, Harry. I seem to have forgotten it…'
The End.