The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Was Ascher telling the truth?
LordDresden2:
--- Quote from: Arjan on December 09, 2017, 06:46:08 AM ---But a state does not hide. It claims territory and authority over people in a clear visible way. Terrorist organisations and criminal gangs hide.
--- End quote ---
Doesn't matter. If you've go the power, you get to set the rules.
LordDresden2:
--- Quote from: wardenferry419 on December 11, 2017, 12:19:26 AM ---Good point, but maybe duplicate and adapt some of its functions.
--- End quote ---
It's a potential part of the solution, but by itself it isn't enough, and could even make things worse.
Imagine you're a kid/young adult (age anywhere from 10 to 20) who had discovered your talent, and that other magical talents exist, but that's all you know. So you go looking for information, and you find the Paranet. Fine.
How do you know you can trust it? It's one more Internet-based data source among countless other occult, supernatural, and scientific sites.
The bad guys are likely to set up their own real-looking 'occult mutual help associations', too. Should our hypothetical youth trust the Paranet, the Metanet, the Magenet, or the Psinet? They're all going to have some stuff in common, but how does he or she know that only the Paranet is giving it all straight?
It's a variation on the same old hypothetical I've cited several times over the years: a new talent discovers two textbooks. One is Elementary Magic by Ebenezar McCoy. One is Introduction to Magic by Professor Relmmek. Both purport to be basic textbooks for the beginning talent.
How does our uninformed talent know he should trust McCoy and burn the Relmmek book? McCoy's book starts out with the Seven Laws at the beginning, but how does the new talent know that that's the straight dope, or not?
The problem has no ready solution. The same problem applies to the Paranet.
LordDresden2:
--- Quote from: Mr. Death on December 11, 2017, 08:59:41 PM ---Because she was a warlock.
The paranetters are not warlocks.
That's what it boils down to. The Wardens might be fanatical, but they're fanatical about killing warlocks, not just lopping the heads off any minor practitioner they can get away with.
They don't have a quota. There isn't some "results" leader board they have to keep up on that's going to make them want to kill more people.
--- End quote ---
But that doesn't make them much less terrifying to the rest of the magical world. That fear is quite understandable. Power is scary, at the best of times, and the Wardens have a bunch of it, both magical and political/social.
Also, the Wardens look like the bad guys to the uninformed talents. How can you be the good guys when you behead 10 year olds for breaking rules they never heard of? They are most or less the good guys, but they don't look that way to the outsiders and the uniformed.
The Wardens and the well-informed in the DV know why the good guys sometimes behead 10 year olds, but not nearly all the minor talents know it. Of those who do know, a lot of them aren't going to want to believe it.
--- Quote ---
In fact, Harry makes it explicitly clear in White Night that the people who make up the Paranet are explicitly under the protection of the White Council. They have a hotline that minor talents can call to get people like Harry to show up. Half the plot of White Night was framing the Wardens because otherwise the minor talents would have been able to call them for protection.
--- End quote ---
This is part of why the Council needs a better PR operation, for everyone's sake. Even the Paranetters fear the Wardens, it was very easy to frame them because everybody is already scared of them. That fear is not entirely justified...but it's not 100% unjustified, either. The Wardens have a deserved reputation for ruthlessness. They're not as ruthless and indifferent as people think they are, but they are ruthless enough to make people nervous around them.
Arjan:
--- Quote from: Mr. Death on December 11, 2017, 11:42:41 PM ---But there are reports -- Dresden makes mention of making them. Morgan must have someone he has to report to, otherwise why wouldn't he have just summarily executed Dresden in the first book?
--- End quote ---
Because his personal ethics did not support that. Harry was surprised as well. Nothing would have stopped him as nothing had stopped his earlier and later abuse of power.
--- Quote ---You're making some pretty stern pronouncements about their procedures, but we don't even see their procedures. You're assuming there's no oversight at all, when there is evidence -- like I said, Dresden makes reports -- that there is.
--- End quote ---
You can put whatever you like in those reports. The wardens are fundamentally understaffed.
--- Quote ---There's a White Council hotline that minor talents and even normals can call. Even before the Paranet.
And a lot of potential White Council members could come from the minor talents. It's in the White Council's best interests to have good relationships with groups like the Paranet because they are actively harmed by having a bad relationship with them.
--- End quote ---
One would think so. Mark that even if there is a trial there is no defense and the accused is not allowed to understand the trial or say anything. That does not promote trust in the judicial system in any way.
--- Quote ---Again, it's notable that the start of the plot in White Night is specifically framing the Wardens so that the victims don't go to the White Council for help -- i.e., if Vittorio and Madrigal hadn't gone out of the way to stop them, the minor talents could have scuttled the whole plot by calling on the White Council.
--- End quote ---
It is notable how easy that is and nobody gets the idea of noticing the white council about it in any way. They do not know about any channel to do that safely.
--- Quote ---That wouldn't be the case if the Wardens were a group that would kill minor talents just because they could get away with it.
--- End quote ---
They are not. It is just that if one of the wardens decides to kill a minor talent because it suits him or he needs someone to carry the blame or he really thinks he is guilty but does not have the time for consulting others or for whatever reason there is not much people can do about it and no real chance to get a complaint taken seriously unless you know someone.
And not just because he can get away with it. Few people kill just because they can get away with it but there is clearly a culture of killing warlocks in stead of giving them a trial because that is simpler and less time consuming. The warden on the phone when Harry called in proven guilty even thought they did not do hearings anymore.
Mark also Bob’s reaction when Harry gets a mantle in dead beat. Bob is being Bob of course but those jokes carry truth.
wardenferry419:
As Billy Joel sang "It's a matter of trust." Who do you trust, the experienced and reliable warden/cop or the teenaged warlock/punk that says the warden was mean to me? One has done his duty for awhile and the other ignorantly thinks they know everything.
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