The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
Law Breaking Vs Black Magic [Spoilers for everything]
Serack:
--- Quote from: cass on December 01, 2013, 03:34:17 AM ---IIRC, there was also at one point a WoJ that the level of belief in magic for a wizard is such that they'd be flabbergasted if they attempted a familiar spell and it didn't work (in the same way that vanilla mortals would be shocked if they dropped an object and it didn't fall). That the reason magic works for them is that this is how they believe the world should work on a fundamental level.
Which might help explain why killing with magic is bad: the wizard believes on a very deep level that that whatever/whoever they're killing isn't supposed to be alive.
--- End quote ---
I can't remember this WoJ (not surprising, you've been around a LOT longer than I have :) ) but this is a great paradigm for why snuffing a life by dropping a building on someone with magic is more significant than doing it with a gun.
huangjimmy108:
--- Quote from: Serack on December 03, 2013, 01:25:10 AM ---I can't remember this WoJ (not surprising, you've been around a LOT longer than I have :) ) but this is a great paradigm for why snuffing a life by dropping a building on someone with magic is more significant than doing it with a gun.
--- End quote ---
This raises another question.
Sure, a wizard dropping a building with the express purpose to kill someone is bad (Cosmically tainting), but what if a wizard is hired to demolish an empty building. Without the knowledge of the wizard, someone else uses that opportunity to kill their enemy by placing their victim inside that building. What kind of karmic balanced are to be levied in that case?
A case similar to this happened in GP. When Harry unleash his great fire spell at Bianca's party, he is targeting vampires. Unfortunately, several human were caught in the crossfire. So far, we did not see any taint happened on Harry for that act. I mean, Harry seems to remain sane enough after that.
This challenges the assumption that only consequences matters. I think intentions matters as well and both intentions and consequences both carries their own weight and functions independantly from each other. You intends bad but your act did no lasting harm, you got a little tainted. You don't intend harm but the act cause major harm, you got tainted. You intends harm and you succeeded, express way to worlockdom.
peregrine:
It's not that only consequences matter, it's just that consequences matter MORE.
123456789blaaa:
--- Quote from: Serack on December 03, 2013, 01:25:10 AM ---I can't remember this WoJ (not surprising, you've been around a LOT longer than I have :) ) but this is a great paradigm for why snuffing a life by dropping a building on someone with magic is more significant than doing it with a gun.
--- End quote ---
I recall Harry saying it in the books as well.
The problem is that this doesn't explain why doing other horrible things doesn't corrupt you as well. You're going to have a hard time convincing me that (for example) slowly ripping someone's eyes out to get information has less of an impact on the wizards mind then blowing their head off with a fireball.
You can also kill lots of beings without souls/Free Will and you won't get corrupted either (at least not in the black magic sense). Given how similar and friendly Little Folk are to humans, it seems strange to me that killing them doesn't warp your mind just as much as killing a human. Maybe you could make a argument for a Red Court vamp or ghoul or whatever but the Little Folk? Or an angel? ???
I'm not saying it's completely wrong but I think there's something else causing the corruption as well. I'm partial to the RPG theory that the first few Laws are based around Free Will and the last few are just "wrong" in the sense of "Things That Man Was Not Meant To Do".
King Ash:
--- Quote from: huangjimmy108 on December 03, 2013, 02:06:25 AM ---This raises another question.
Sure, a wizard dropping a building with the express purpose to kill someone is bad (Cosmically tainting), but what if a wizard is hired to demolish an empty building. Without the knowledge of the wizard, someone else uses that opportunity to kill their enemy by placing their victim inside that building. What kind of karmic balanced are to be levied in that case?
A case similar to this happened in GP. When Harry unleash his great fire spell at Bianca's party, he is targeting vampires. Unfortunately, several human were caught in the crossfire. So far, we did not see any taint happened on Harry for that act. I mean, Harry seems to remain sane enough after that.
This challenges the assumption that only consequences matters. I think intentions matters as well and both intentions and consequences both carries their own weight and functions independantly from each other. You intends bad but your act did no lasting harm, you got a little tainted. You don't intend harm but the act cause major harm, you got tainted. You intends harm and you succeeded, express way to worlockdom.
--- End quote ---
We don't actually know if Harry killed these people, or if the vampires had killed them prior to his spell.
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