So do we know what actually got Karrin relegated to Special Investigations? Is it the events of the short story that takes place before Storm Front? I always thought that was maybe something more that helped her better acclimate to the spooky side once she was there. Or was it just some mundane cop BS because she didn’t get promoted from SI, she was promoted TO SI?
I like to think she got transferred simply because her competence as a tiny woman pissed people off. Nothing supernatural. Hell, I bet most of the upper management has zero knowledge of what SA/Black Cats actually deal with.
I think Rick had something to do with it too. They both lived and worked in Chicago and IIRC he wasn't always a FED. I don't think Rick did or said anything, but I bet the higher ups saw his trajectory and after their divorce she got put on the back burner. They didn't want to promote her b/c they liked Rick more so they pushed her into SI. Since she's competent she rose through the ranks in SI pretty quick but that's where the upwards trend stopped.
That's all head canon though.
That may have played a small role in it, but I think it's much simpler. Murph was a recently promoted Lt because she was a hard charger and very good at her job. The massively corrupt Chicago political machine sent her a small test (asked her to do something she didn't agree with) to see if she would play ball, and when she didn't do it she got relegated to SI because she couldn't be controlled.
I could totally see that too. Probably a bit of mine and more yours if I was to come up with multiple reasons.
I think this is supported by by the little moments and how she's treated by a few others from the CPD. Karrin is very much the kind of person who is there to get the job done and not to make friends. I feel like it's practically guaranteed that she stepped on a lot of toes to get things done and a lot of people (especially men) failed to see the real motivation behind her actions, which is to protect and serve her city. Instead they just see a stubborn, egotistical bitch who doesn't play nice with others.
A lot of people fail to look beyond the surface level and just take things at face value.
Yep. She was honest with integrity.
Weird how many cops aren't and the ones who are seem to get a dose of "being promoted to SI".
I always thought she wanted it. SI was the successor of the "Black Cat Files" which her father worked, so I think she wanted to be in charge of SI. No idea how she made that happen, but if she did want a position. Nobody else wanted I doubt it was hard. Also it has been hinted at that she has friends in high places who might have assisted.
Yeah but doesn’t Momma Murphy say in Blood Rites that Karrin never knew that her dad was in charge of the Black Cat Case files?
I always assumed that she looked up her dad’s files once she was on the force or heard stories from cops who knew him
Chapter 1 of Fool Moon: "She was a real professional, one who had fought and clawed her way up the ranks to become full lieutenant. She’d made enemies along the way, and one of them had seen to it that she was put in charge of Special Investigations soon after."
I think I remember something about her getting shunted there because she refused to pretend the weird stuff wasn't happening at all, but I can't find where that was said so I could be mixing things up.
No official reason but foul play is likely...
He disappeared after book 1-3 somewhere, but commissioner Fairweather is mentioned as part of her problems early on...
Fairweather see?
As can be pointed out in many aspects tho, Jim overhauled his story a bit when he went back to it after college. So not sure if this is relegated to just outside of fae purview or changed altogether to something less than supernatural and more in the know.
🤔 after all, placing Murphy as head of S.I when you know she's more than aware of the real supernatural is a power move if your intention is to give S.I real clout to make a difference where it really matters.
I thought it was to do with the time acceleration at the end of Proven Guilty, causing her to be missing during a disaster(hotel attacks) she was supposed to be in charge of.
Nah, op's talking about what got her put in SI in the first place, since most of the SI team are in there cause they pissed off the wrong person
Thx
That led to her demotion and loss of command of SI.
Her father was in the precursor to special investigations. Black cat files..
I have a feeling she would have ended up there eventually.
Her being a legacy (her dad being a cop) allowed her to promote to detective. But being a tiny female, no matter how kick ass is a major set back. I suspect she got in someone’s face a few too many times and they just threw her away (Special Investigations)
She's described as not playing the petty politics game well. Also, her dad likely did the same thing and pissed a lot of people off.
I don't think we have specific situational details, but it's made pretty clear that she struggled with gender discrimination her whole career. Particularly as she began to move up the ladder - my impression was that plenty of the brass was fine with women being police officers as long as they focused on being meter maids and things like that - but Murphy started to "climb the ladder" and no doubt took "career advancement" opportunities from men who also wanted them, and they resented that. I assume it just built up over time until finally someone just said, "Ok, we'll ship her to SI and we'll be rid of her soon."
The actual reason is that people in the Dresdenverse seem to be chronically allergic to acknowledging the supernatural and write off any incidents involving it even when they really shouldn't.
Because SI regularly deals with stuff them should get them national attention (e.g. the Storm Front case had a serial killer who ripped out the hearts of his victims). No way would someone investigating that stuff be unimportant.
This post sums it up pretty well
Something that's always confused me about the setup the series has is SI being this dead end job where you're not going anywhere, while also upholding the Masquerade, such as Murphy being forced to come up with normal explanations for shit. Which, sure, okay, but--They still do stuff like stopping cults, though, right? Like with Kravos, they break into and stop a Satanic cult trying to sacrifice children in the middle of Chicago, right? Even if the mentions of the actual demon are removed, that still happened, no? And even if no one believes in werewolves, most of a police department was murdered by something and a day later there was footage of Murphy killing something any survivors would recognize.Even if trolls get called serial killers, someone is still murdering children that cross a bridge in Chicago, and Murphy is still the one stopping them?How is this a low profile dead-end job? Especially when there are apparently powerful people up in the government that know about the supernatural? After the third time Murphy's boss calls IA to fuck with her, you'd figure her boss's boss would tell them to cut that shit out, whether because she's a local hero or because his boss got word from someone even higher to stop that shit.
Even if trolls are just child-murdering serial killers, vampires just a drug cartel, and so on and so forth, SI is pretty regularly handling some pretty major shit, as police departments go, and even if the higher ups disliked her, its hard to imagine the Chicago public doing so. Does the news just think 'Local cop raids human-sacrificing death cult, saves many' is a boring story? Murphy's career is an action hero series, even if you file the supernatural off--she's an martial arts and sharpshooting tournament winner with a laundry list of taking down high profile serial killers.
Jim seems to think that if Murphy's bosses think she's uppity, there's nothing she can do--one mistake and she's bumped down to sergeant, a second and she's fired. Unless Unions, particularly Police Unions, don't exist in the Dresden Files, this is not the case. Especially in Changes, the book where she actually got fired--a ludicrous idea to begin with, when we've seen Police Union lawyers go to bat and let people get away with utterly disgusting amounts of shit. Can you imagine one of them picking up Murphy's case in that book?
Lawyer: So you were woken up in the middle of the night due to that terrorist bombing, spent the day chasing leads until one of your associates, the one who seemingly got bombed, was brought in as a suspect/witness, at which point Agent Tilly says you came to the FBI building as a character witness, and where there when the building was, uh...attacked by foreign spec ops terrorist organization seemingly connected to the Mexican and South American cartels, at which point you assisted in the conflict and safely led many of the survivors to safety. This brings us late into the day when you seemingly disappeared and could not be contacted until the next morning, because of course, this all happened in a single day. Where were you, might I ask?
Murphy: I crashed; I'd been up for nearly twenty hours with barely any sleep, so next thing I knew after the fighting was over, it was morning.
Lawyer: That's actually a completely reasonable explanation--not as cool as it would be if you'd, say, somehow gotten to South America to do battle with vampiric gods using a holy sword on the steps of a Mayan pyrimid, but that'd be crazy, I don't even know why I said that. I don't think there'll be any issues in this case, though. Although, I tried to contact you the last couple of days and you were slow to respond.
Murphy: Sorry about that--my best friend was assassinated the day after the incident. Then, the day after that, my friend's wife was kidnapped by that new international human-trafficking terrorist organization and I had to console him.
Lawyer: Oh, I heard about that. I also heard that SI found everyone involved and rescued them. I believe you were mentioned as being at the scene with the rescued civilians?
Murphy: A coincidence.
Lawyer: Right.
Lawyer, to himself: I'm about to end this man's whole career. I'm not entirely sure who's, yet, but whoever thought firing this woman was a good idea is fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked.
How do we know this ever happened? Her dad worked in the precursor to SI, so she might have willingly joined the division to follow in his footsteps. Or she was just put there normally. It's not like everyone there is an "exile."
So do we know what actually got Karrin relegated to Special Investigations? Is it the events of the short story that takes place before Storm Front?
Yes.
I don't know that it's spelled out, but I think her experience with Dresden on the bridge when she was a rookie gave her a big dose of the strange side of the street. She didn't seem to pretend that she was seeing things. And her continued interaction with Dresden likely made her an outcast of sorts on the main force.