The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
Law Breaking Vs Black Magic [Spoilers for everything]
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: peregrine on November 29, 2013, 05:44:47 PM ---I don't know that you can say that what Kumori did was necessarily keeping the soul bound to his dying body. It seems to me that what she did was use her necromancy to stop the body from dying in the first place, so that the soul never left.
--- End quote ---
That gets into how you define dying; am I misremembering how the paramedic guy describes it ?
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Serack on November 29, 2013, 05:33:22 PM ---Dude, that quote fits into this whole paradigm for me like a foot in a shoe.
--- End quote ---
I'm not sure I read it as intended as a reliable statement of a moral absolute in the DV, though.
I mean, it is coming from Harry, and Harry has strong issues with pretty much all forms of authority, and actively rejects any suggestion of being involved in anything that could be described as political - to the extent that it surprises him in DB when it's pointed out how he's seen by other Council members (during the scene of Luccio trying to convince him to become a Warden) and it surprises him when other Wardens are nervous of him in TC. Harry's perpetually willing to use his power for (what seem to him to be) good ends, and perpetually reluctant to actually examine how and when he does so; I don't think Jim means that to be an unquestioned good - from the loa asking him to think about why he does what he does in DM, to the more reflective scenes he has in GS, and instances like realising how taller entities looming over you feels in CD, I am inclined to hope that Harry actually thinking through when and where he is or should be willing to use his power is a direction the
series is going.
--- Quote ---Actually the 7 laws kinda do indicate that the mechanism matters.
--- End quote ---
To an extent. They have some degree of overlap, not by WoJ exact, with uses of wizard-magic that
cause corruption. I'm not seeing that corruption as being treated in the books as definitive of evil, though; Harry's no less upset about Kim Delaney being killed in non-Lawbreaking ways than about any of the victims of the heartripper spell in SF.
--- Quote --- And Harry's "ye shall know them by their fruits" paraphrase helps reinforce that they have the right idea.
--- End quote ---
Maybe i am misremembering, but I thought that was specifically about results and motives. Not about the point I am trying to get at here, which is means.
--- Quote ---Of course my whole point is that it isn't the laws themselves that make it black, but rather that it's black so they made a law against it,
--- End quote ---
Against which we have, iirc, Luccio in TC on the Laws and the Council being for keeping wizards from being drawn into mortal-world political conflicts and to restrain their power; to my mind that creates reasonable doubt about the a priori inherent evilness of any use of power they forbid.
--- Quote --- It might not be inherently evil, however it is profoundly reality warping. People die, their souls leave their body, the world continues turning... Except when some necromancer comes along and says, newp I don't want it to happen that way, and I'm going to rewrite reality so that this soul is forced to stay within this dead body and have it get revived.
--- End quote ---
I'm not seeing how that is qualitatively distinct from the ways in which all DV magic is to some extent rewriting reality in accordance with the caster's will.
--- Quote ---Perhaps this isn't a bad thing, but it certainly is HUGE, and probably puts significant stress on the necromancer's humanity because they are playing "god" with mortal souls on a level that is disturbing and maybe even dangerous.
--- End quote ---
More so than, say, any doctor making any difficult medical decision that affects how long someone can stay alive, or prevent them from dying when they otherwise would ?
--- Quote ---Which is kinda Harry's point when he rejected her arguments.
--- End quote ---
Oh, I entirely agree it's Harry's point, I just think the text intends us to question that point.
peregrine:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on November 29, 2013, 05:52:34 PM ---That gets into how you define dying; am I misremembering how the paramedic guy describes it ?
--- End quote ---
The quote that sticks out in my mind is that "He wasn't allowed to die." which can mean either physically or spiritually, to me.
Serack:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on November 29, 2013, 06:10:31 PM ---I'm not seeing how that is qualitatively distinct from the ways in which all DV magic is to some extent rewriting reality in accordance with the caster's will.
--- End quote ---
Then apparently you completely missed the concluding section of the OP of this topic. "Vs a Mortal Matters"
And I also feel that my OP already sufficently addresses:
--- Quote ---More so than, say, any doctor making any difficult medical decision that affects how long someone can stay alive, or prevent them from dying when they otherwise would?
--- End quote ---
But I'll reiterate: Doing it with magic is using your mind and will to reshape reality. Reality pushes back, and reshapes your mind in turn. When your magic F's with a mortal soul, the pushback is all the more relevant to your own soul/will/mind.
Mundane efforts to do similar things might have their own consequences, but even Dr. House was already a megalomaniac before he decided he could play god in the operating room, and since magic wasn't involved, the consequences to his soul were also mundane.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Serack on November 29, 2013, 06:42:38 PM ---Then apparently you completely missed the concluding section of the OP of this topic. "Vs a Mortal Matters"
But I'll reiterate: Doing it with magic is using your mind and will to reshape reality. Reality pushes back, and reshapes your mind in turn. When your magic F's with a mortal soul, the pushback is all the more relevant to your own soul/will/mind.
--- End quote ---
I may be missing your point, but I am not sure I am seeing your point there as connecting on to the question I am raising.
I am accepting that there is a difference in the DV at the practical-magical level between killing a person with wizard-magic and killing them with a sword or a gun, in that one corrupts the soul in objectively measurable ways and the other does not.
I am not seeing that the text of the DF intends us to regard this as exactly equivalent to the moral distinction (if any) between killing a person with wizard-magic and killing them with a sword or gun, in terms of which is more evil an act.
I am also not seeing that the text of the DF establishes that use of the distinct, and consistently described as different, force that is necromancy/Black Court vampire magic, behaves the same way as misused wizard-magic in the matter of corruption of the caster. I am not by any means arguing that using a death-aspected force to kill is any less evil than misusing a life-aspected force to kill on a moral level, but the text seems compatible with a reading that using a death-aspected force to raise a tyrannosaur, or prevent a mortally injured gangster from dying, does not necessarily generate the same corruptive effects as using a life-aspected force against its nature by killing with it.
And I am making the argument that, given the premise that the Laws were specifically set up to limit the power of wizards, any law that specifically says "Do not use this form of power" cannot be safely automatically assumed to have the justification "Because it is corrupting" or "Because using it is a crime against human free will", rather than simply "Because wizards should not have too much power".
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