Quote Originally Posted by tomandtish View Post
It does show physics, but is more luck on the bad guy's part than an actual thought-out plan.

Spoiler: Spoiler from Blood Rites, edited down
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“I’ve been admiring you for some time now, Dresden,” came Mavra’s voice. “I’ve seen you stop bullets with your power. I’ve seen you stop knives and claws and fangs.” She made a gesture with her hand. “And so I simply must know how well you will fare against your own weapon of choice.”

And two Renfields stepped out into the doorway, blocking my view of Mavra. Each of them held a long metal device in their hands, and each of them wore something that bulged out above their shoulders, gleaming shapes of rounded metal. A blue starter flame flickered at the end of the devices they held, and it hit me all at once what was happening. Both of the Renfields lifted their flamethrowers and filled the cramped little hallway with fire.

...Fire coughed uncertainly from the mouths of the flamethrowers, spattering the hall along the floors, walls, and ceiling, where it clung in globs of what had to be a mix of gasoline or some other accelerant, and petroleum jelly—homemade napalm. The air went from cold to roasting-hot, even from the aborted discharge of fire, sucking the wind from my lungs.

.... I caught it on the shield, but I had never intended it to stop heat. It was primarily a defense against kinetic energy, and while I had used it to handle everything from bullets to runaway elevator cars in my career as a wizard, it just wasn’t all that good at stopping the transfer of intense heat. The napalm-jelly splattered against the invisible shield, gallons of it, and the fire clung to it in white-hot glee. Its mindless fury seeped through the shield and flowed onto me. It hurt. Oh, God, it hurt. The fingers of my left hand were the first to feel it, and then my palm and wrist, all in the space of a second.


So my read on this was..

Spoiler
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She's throwing fire at him because she's never seen him block it although she's seen him use it a lot (hence her comment). She may also be wondering if it can wrap around the shield. The fact that the HEAT gets through even though the flame doesn't seems a lucky break on her part rather than a specifically thought out strategy.



Again, a good example of physics though.

My take on it was that she had observed him enough to get an understanding of how his shield could block an impact well, but that it wasn't designed for a sustained onslaught.