Toot-Toot

Spoiler-light. Toot's scenes do not contain meaningful spoilers and there is no full-spoiler section.

---

In a sentence

A palm-sized dewdrop faerie that Harry Dresden summons with a chalk circle and bribes with pizza in chapter eight, who promptly volunteers to lead the rest of the Little Folk in a citywide reconnaissance operation in exchange for more pizza, and who is the comic, weirdly competent secret weapon of the back half of the book.

Who he is in the story

Faeries in the Dresden Files world come in many flavors and Toot is one of the smallest — about five inches tall, all wings and bravado. Harry calls a class of these tiny fae the Little Folk; they live in the cracks of the city, see almost everything, and will work for an astonishing range of bribes if you know what to offer.

In chapter eight Harry needs eyes on the lake house and the Sells family and does not have the time or resources to scout in person. He chalks a containment circle on the floor of his lab, summons Toot-Toot specifically (they have done business before), and offers a pepperoni pizza in exchange for surveillance. Toot accepts with a salute that nearly knocks the thimble off his head, organizes a small army of other Little Folk, and returns with more useful information than any human informant could have produced in the same time.

Toot is back in chapter fourteen with a fresh report and back in chapter twenty-one as the eyes on the lake house in the run-up to the climax. The character is comic relief that is also load-bearing intelligence. Both of those are intentional.

What he's like

Squeaky-voiced bravado and comic martial pomp. He is proud of his improvised armor, his improvised rank ("Major-General" is his self-styled title in later books and is on its way to existing in this one), and his improvised tactical doctrine, which mostly consists of getting more Little Folk involved and demanding more pizza. He is literal-minded but shrewd in a faerie way — quick to bargain, quicker to honor a deal once struck, deeply alert to circles and containment and Names.

Underneath the comedy is a real loyalty. Once Harry has fed him and respected him as a being rather than treating him as an object to be commanded, Toot returns the courtesy in full. The series builds a long history out of this; Storm Front is the moment Harry first understands the asset he has been ignoring.

What he wants

Pizza. Specifically hot pizza. Specifically pizza paid in before the work is done, which is non-negotiable on his side and an article of faerie etiquette on Harry's. Beyond that: respect, recognition, the chance to lead other Little Folk in a thing that looks impressive. The fact that those are reasonable wants is part of the joke and part of the lesson.

What he fears / hides

Iron. Cold iron is dangerous to faeries in this world and Toot is careful around it; the book lets you sense that without belaboring it. Beyond iron, the usual faerie vulnerabilities — being commanded by a wizard who knows his Name, being trapped in a circle drawn correctly, being on the wrong side of an unpaid bargain. Toot trusts Harry on all three of these in Storm Front, and that trust is exactly the reason the relationship will keep working across the series.

Key relationships

• Harry Dresden — patron, paymaster, "Wizard Dresden" (Toot's preferred form of address), and increasingly an actual ally. The relationship that begins in chapter eight is the seed of every faerie-side asset Harry has across the series.
• The Little Folk — Toot self-styles as their captain and the book lets him have it. The other Little Folk seem genuinely to follow him; they also seem to find him slightly ridiculous, which is correct.
• Bob — they share lab scenes. They are friends-of-Harry, not friends-with-each-other. They heckle.

What he looks like

Roughly five inches tall, wiry-quick, dragonfly-proportioned. Four iridescent gossamer wings blurring at a hummingbird-fast flicker. Lightly luminous skin with a faint moss-green and rose iridescence. Bright wide eyes that catch every light. A small grin he has not stopped wearing since the first pizza was offered.

The armor is the joke and the pride. Cobbled from human detritus: a soda-can breastplate (red-and-silver), a bottle-cap shield, foil pauldrons cut from gum-wrappers, a thimble helm worn with the dent in the brass as a battle honor. Safety-pin buckles. A string-and-fishing-line belt. He wields a sewing-needle spear that is taller than he is and that he salutes with constantly. When the Little Folk gather around him they appear as a small cloud of firefly-bright pinpoints in the dim air.

For your book club

• Toot is comic relief that turns out to be tactical infrastructure. Where else in Storm Front does Butcher use a comedy element to do serious narrative work?
• The pizza bribe is the most consequential negotiation in the book that does not involve Marcone or the Council. Why does it work? What would have happened if Harry had tried to compel Toot instead?
• Faerie courtesy is real currency in the Dresden Files. Track the moments Harry observes faerie etiquette in this book and the moments he ignores it. Does the book reward etiquette and punish disrespect?
• Storm Front establishes Harry's relationship with the Little Folk in a single short subplot. Is that the right amount of investment for what it pays off — both here and across the series?

Aliases

The following names and references in the book all point to this character. Use any of these as link anchors back to this page.

• Toot-Toot (canonical — the most common form)
• Toot-toot
• Toot