The Dresden Files > DFRPG
Law Talk
Melendwyr:
You're not supposed to seek out information or power from beyond the Outer Gates. No one ever said anything about seeking out information about topic.
You'd have to learn something about the Outer Gates, and what's beyond them, simply to know whether or not you're breaking the Seventh Law.
Tedronai:
Knowing that the Seventh Law of Magic forbids seeking knowledge from beyond the Outer Gates is itself knowledge of the Outer Gates and knowledge that something exists beyond them. That is knowledge 'of beyond the Outer Gates'.
If that's all it took to break the Law, then the entire Council, and every lesser Practitioner they ever cautioned against breaking the Laws, would be Lawbreakers.
Thankfully, that's not knowledge 'sought beyond the Outer Gates', so the Wardens don't have to go around decapitating each other until the last one gets the dubious honour of decapitating themself.
bobjob:
The Last Warden.
JGray:
I find myself wondering if the laws, when it comes down to it, aren't basically all about free will. Every law boils down to that. Harry didn't seem concerned with killing Lord Raith's thrall bodyguards, for example. Nor Marva's renfields (beyond the shame that it had to be done in the first place). In both those cases, they were humans who were so torn apart psychically they no longer had free will. Nor did they have any hope of recovery.
So... if the first law about killing someone? Or about using magic to end someone's ability to use free will?
solbergb:
I lean toward the idea that the First, Second and Fourth are about free will, and probably necromancy too...it's the part that enslaves souls that seems problematic. The time travel, outer gates are more likely about not destroying the universe even when it's tempting to solve problems that way. Invading thoughts might be a free will thing, or might be more of the "wizards really like privacy" along the lines of "It's bad luck to kill wizards, and we invented a death curse technique we teach even apprentices just to drive that home".
Of course I also have a theory that the lawbreaking powers in DFRPG are enforced by various factions in the universe, with the divine/diabolic covering the free-will side of the equation, the enemies of outsiders (for spoiler reasons I won't be more specific) enforcing that law and maybe the white council itself running massive rituals to enforce the third law, plus time travel. But I could be completely wrong :) It's an idea I'd be likely to play with if I was running a DFRPG game, until JB's future books illuminate more of the cosmos.
It's ok to deprive mortals of free will with stuff entirely made by mortals. Shoot a mortal with a gun made by mortals and all the decisions that went into ending that mortal's life were pretty much a sum of all choices made. Things get fuzzier when a Renfield shoots a mortal or when a conjured sword slashes a throat, but I see this as a limitation of those enforcing the laws of magic more than the principle of the thing. At some point it becomes an act of will to use magic to deprive a mortal of free will and the "enforcers" punish/reward the practitioner with a permanent change in their own ability to make choices. You become more like the Fey, unable to act except according to your "nature" instead of having the full range of free will you had before.
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