"Drachasor, I think you've got a really brilliant idea there. Essentially, as I see it, people are confounding two sets of laws. The legal laws that the White Council enforces; and the natural laws resulting from the pseudo physics governing magic. In the novels Dresden has repeatedly stressed that Magic is governed by physical rules such as the rule of equal and opposite reactions. So, while I can take a gun and kill someone, accept that it was necessary, and move on, that is not possible with magic.
I disagree. I think that any act of violence will change the person who commits it (in this limited way ONLY do I very slightly buy into the slippery slope idea, which mostly I think is BS). In a magic-rich universe, there are so very many opportunities to change the slope into a cliff and jump off (sponsored magic, demons, Kremmler-stuff, etc. etc.) that the law against killing sort of assumes (my thoughts) that such a person is beginning what will probably be a 1-relatively fast change into 2-something really really dangerous and thus all those beheadings are seen as pre-emptive strikes.
If I use magic to kill myself the very nature of magic will force a change in my mind equal to the change that my mind created in the world. The White Council, in an attempt to prevent wizards from descending into dark magic (i.e. those forms of magic which can pervert a mage's very nature and destroy their free will"
I'm not getting this...
Dian