The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Murphy in Peace Talks (WoJ spoilers)
Mr. Death:
--- Quote from: DonBugen on August 15, 2017, 07:32:35 PM ---Maybe it would be out of character for Captain America to suddenly turn, but Murph is no Captain America. She’s already made a lot of very questionable choices, and is in the position of trying to grab every straw she can in order to protect Chicago, her main driving goal. She’s already made the wrong choice for the right reasons at least twice since Harry’s return, and she isn’t the same person she was back in Changes. I’m afraid for her. I don’t think she has the same fortitude of will right now to be able to withstand temptation the way that Dresden did with the coin, and she’s extremely vulnerable.
--- End quote ---
My point wasn't that Murphy was as incorruptible as Captain America is supposed to be and shared his character traits.
It's that Murphy betraying Dresden, or grabbing any of the ill-gotten power she might be offered, is just as out of character and makes just as little sense as Captain America turning out to be Hydra all along is.
Of all the characters around Harry, she is singularly the least likely to even consider such a thing.
Murphy isn't stupid. Every single example she'd have of power being offered to someone, she's seen exactly how much it can destroy that person, and she remembers that.
She's seen literally people in her own line of work who were a lot like her at one point be corrupted and destroyed by ill-gotten power in Fool Moon, so she's disinclined to take power like that in a general sense.
She has seen first hand what the Denarii do to people (and has been both indirectly affected by it via Dresden and directly affected by it via getting her arse kicked). So she's not going to take a coin. And, more to the point, she wasn't present at any point that Namshiel's coin might have disappeared.
She's seen what Winter has done to Harry, so she's not going to take power from Faeries.
She's already been offered a job at Monoc, and she turned it down.
The most benign offer she's gotten, the Swords, she turned down -- and when she did take it up again, it went extremely bad for her, personally.
So, again, Murphy taking some offer of power would be grossly out of character given everything we've seen of her so far.
You're right that the temptation of ill-gotten power is a continuous theme of the series -- for Harry. He's the one who keeps getting the offers. He's the one who keeps having the inner turmoil over those offers. He's the one who we get to see mulling over whether he's a monster yet or not.
So what would the series gain by trying to duplicate that with a character we don't see into the head of? "I'm struggling with the temptation of dark power" is Harry's thing. Murphy's thing is to be the mortal viewpoint. Shoehorning some kind of evil power to her wouldn't add to the series. It'd only take away a crucial aspect of the setting.
DonBugen:
How do you feel about Murph from Ghost Story onward, with her working in Marcone’s organization, allying with the White Court, and trying to fight the darkness in a far more desperate situation than she’s ever been in before? Most of what you mention is pre-Ghost Story Murphy. Do you feel that she’s really the same person?
True, I don’t see her flat-out betraying and trying to kill Harry. But I can see her suddenly motivated to completely turn against his wishes and sabotage a mission all in a vain attempt to keep him safe. Oh, wait – that’s already happened.
Nobody just suddenly starts dressing in black and cackling maniacally. The road to hell is a gentle, gradual slope, and I think that Karrin’s story has always been one of slow self-destruction. It’s started long before Changes, but everything afterward really kicked things into high gear. Dresden’s fear of what would happen to her if her shield was taken away seems to be happening. What’s book 20 going to look like?
EDIT: Let me just say that I hope you’re right. I really do want Murph to be Dresden’s strong, stalwart companion; the one who’s by his side through thick and thin, the vanilla mortal with the guts and smarts to take on anything that comes to her. But I guess I’m getting cynical, and I just doubt it could last.
Mr. Death:
--- Quote from: DonBugen on August 15, 2017, 07:57:09 PM ---How do you feel about Murph from Ghost Story onward, with her working in Marcone’s organization, allying with the White Court, and trying to fight the darkness in a far more desperate situation than she’s ever been in before? Most of what you mention is pre-Ghost Story Murphy. Do you feel that she’s really the same person?
--- End quote ---
Post Ghost Story, the offer from Monoc is almost certainly still there.
She hasn't taken it.
She's had plenty of opportunity to seek out more offers since then -- see the White Court and Marcone -- and she's still against it.
--- Quote ---True, I don’t see her flat-out betraying and trying to kill Harry. But I can see her suddenly motivated to completely turn against his wishes and sabotage a mission all in a vain attempt to keep him safe. Oh, wait – that’s already happened.
--- End quote ---
I honestly do not know to what you could be referring.
--- Quote ---Nobody just suddenly starts dressing in black and cackling maniacally. The road to hell is a gentle, gradual slope, and I think that Karrin’s story has always been one of slow self-destruction. It’s started long before Changes, but everything afterward really kicked things into high gear. Dresden’s fear of what would happen to her if her shield was taken away seems to be happening. What’s book 20 going to look like?
--- End quote ---
I don't see this at all. In Skin Game, she's the most psychologically together that we've seen her since Changes. She doesn't act like or at all appear to be someone who's on some kind of slippery slope to hell. She's giving advice about faith to Butters, she's supporting Harry, joking with him, and even when she's in a hospital bed she's smiling and laughing with him.
Does any of that sound like someone who's about to fall into darkness?
DonBugen:
Her actions in Skin Game are why I'm suspicious, specifically because of her mental state in Ghost Story and Cold Days. I dunno - maybe she did a lot of healing since Cold Days. But she went from being frightened that Harry would fall to being dead certain that he would not despite evidence to the contrary, went from not wanting a relationship with Dresden to falling all over him, and went from being very internally troubled and conflicted to being the sudden voice of reason. I dunno, it's certainly possible. And I do agree - if you take what she says at face value, she'd never be a traitor, ever.
By the way, what I was referencing was how she attacked Nick with the sword, despite Harry telling her not to. She could have shot him. She could have attacked Big, Tall and Stinky. She could have called his bluff. But instead she chose to go the route that would have ensured the sword's destruction and Harry's or Michael's death, completely sabotaging the mission, all because she listened to her fears and did what felt was the only thing she could do at the time to protect him.
Mr. Death:
--- Quote from: DonBugen on August 15, 2017, 08:29:54 PM ---Her actions in Skin Game are why I'm suspicious, specifically because of her mental state in Ghost Story and Cold Days. I dunno - maybe she did a lot of healing since Cold Days. But she went from being frightened that Harry would fall to being dead certain that he would not despite evidence to the contrary, went from not wanting a relationship with Dresden to falling all over him, and went from being very internally troubled and conflicted to being the sudden voice of reason. I dunno, it's certainly possible. And I do agree - if you take what she says at face value, she'd never be a traitor, ever.
--- End quote ---
The events of Cold Days explain the change. Karrin is wary of Harry, yes -- when he first comes back from the dead and she hasn't seen him in a year.
Then he spends the whole book being Harry. In that, she sees that he's not the monster he or she feared he is. He has some, shall we say, growing pains to deal with as far as the Mantle goes, but he proves repeatedly throughout the book that he is still Harry Dresden.
Seriously, just because Murphy's opening dialogues with Dresden in the book have her wary doesn't mean she's that way the whole book. She doesn't exactly push him away when he promises to do things to her that will have the neighbors complaining.
I'd suggest rereading Cold Days. She's the "voice of reason" to Harry himself there in a few places, and the things you're describing as a change between CD and SG are things that were present in CD in the first place.
--- Quote ---By the way, what I was referencing was how she attacked Nick with the sword, despite Harry telling her not to. She could have shot him. She could have attacked Big, Tall and Stinky. She could have called his bluff. But instead she chose to go the route that would have ensured the sword's destruction and Harry's or Michael's death, completely sabotaging the mission, all because she listened to her fears and did what felt was the only thing she could do at the time to protect him.
--- End quote ---
Harry was the one who asked her if she was going to bring the Sword in the first place, and suggested she should bring it along.
Attacking Big, Tall and Stinky exposes her back to Nicodemus, at which point, hey, she's dead before she makes it to the big guy. Plus, the big guy is holding Harry in his hand. That's going to make it next to impossible for her to strike him effectively, and if she attacks him, there is nothing stopping him from just casually crushing Harry anyway.
Shooting Nicodemus does nothing, as we've seen numerous times before. The last time we saw him shot with anything less than an AK, his reaction was literally to roll his hand with a "get on with it" gesture because the only thing the gunshots did was muss his outfit.
Calling a hostage-taker's bluff is among the least intelligent things to do in a hostage situation.
And besides, it wasn't a bluff. Nicodemus might say it was a "ploy," but he outright admits that he wasn't sure if the Sword was in play. You can't say the entire thing was a ploy if the one thing it's supposedly a ploy for might not even be there. Saying it was a ploy is Nicodemus's excuse, and he explicitly likens it to the fiction that Harry really was pursuing Butters.
Which is to say it was bullshit, pure and simple. Nicodemus absolutely would have killed Harry and used Harry's own breaking of the agreement as justification if Murphy hadn't stepped in.
Seriously, what exactly is the sequence of events if Murphy doesn't act? Do you really think Nicodemus is going to go, "Oh, nevermind, put Harry down, let's get on with business"?
As I recall, Harry doesn't tell her not to attack Nicodemus with the Sword. He tries to tell her not to execute him with the Sword, but that's only after she's won their initial exchange.
Really, if you want to look at someone "completely sabotaging" the mission, that person's name is Waldo Butters. Without him acting on his misplaced fears -- and outright rejecting the things Murphy herself told him about how they can trust Dresden -- Karrin would not have been put into a situation in which there were no good options.
She ended up against an opponent that was out of her weight class, and who was able to outmaneuver her, and she lost badly. That is by no means the same thing as "completely sabotaging" the mission.
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