The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers

Harry Is Growing Up

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--- Quote from: LordDresden2 on January 29, 2018, 04:23:08 AM ---The thing is, sometimes that backfires too.  There are times when people really are better off not knowing, and times when they need to know.

For example, Harry didn't tell Murphy the truth about the Council or how the supernatural world worked until Grave Peril.  He was afraid telling her would get her hurt or killed.

Was he right to keep her in the dark?  He might well have been, at that time.  By the time he did tell her, Murphy had experienced her encounter with the loup garou that changed her outlook radically.  Before that, she was a lot less realistic about her options.

Imagine Harry tells the Karrin of the first two books that there exists an organization that maintains squads of killers, who consider themselves entitled to enter Chicago any time they want, cut the heads off of children and teenagers at their own discretion, that he knows their names and of some specific cases, never reported it, and she has to leave them alone and not I interfere with it.

Do you think the Murphy of those days could have stood to do it, or to accept that there really are people and individuals whom she has to treat as above the law?  Or would she have done what she considered her duty (in the eyes of the law, it would[/] be her duty) and arrest Harry and try to go after the Wardens and expose/stop them?

If the later, stop and think what probably happens to her, to Harry, to the Murphy family, to others.  The least bad outcome would be Murphy goes to prison on some framed up charge, and gets to be a cop behind bars.  It could be far worse.

Even as late as Grave Peril, she freaks out when Harry tells her he was present for the beheading of a warlock in Chicago, part of her wanted to go after them, and by then she had learned from hard experience that the supernatural was bigger than the law.

Likewise Susan.  Harry held very little back from her, and what he told her led her to seek out more, and ended up destroying her.  Susan would have been far better off if she'd never learned of the supernatural at all.

When to inform people, and when to keep them in the dark, is a hard choice and doesn't have easy answers.

--- End quote ---
Very true, though Harry's stance these day (by WOJ) is more and more that, regardless of what he thinks the outcome might be (good or bad), he has decided to stop making those Choices FOR other people.  That's not to say he wont keep a Secret when necessary.  But nowadys he's more likely to simply tell then he has a secret (or at least not hide it) and ask them to Trust him.  Or he will tell them enough for them to make an Informed Choice.  Or, as he did with Molly and Vadderung that time, he'll tell them when it's something they need to figure out on their own.

It's the treatment he's begun to Demand from the most powerful entities in the Universe (Mothers, Archangels, etc), and he's at least self-aware enough these days to realize he needs to do the same for those around him.

LordDresden2:

--- Quote from: Quantus on January 29, 2018, 02:54:14 PM ---Very true, though Harry's stance these day (by WOJ) is more and more that, regardless of what he thinks the outcome might be (good or bad), he has decided to stop making those Choices FOR other people.  That's not to say he wont keep a Secret when necessary.  But nowadys he's more likely to simply tell then he has a secret (or at least not hide it) and ask them to Trust him.  Or he will tell them enough for them to make an Informed Choice.  Or, as he did with Molly and Vadderung that time, he'll tell them when it's something they need to figure out on their own.

It's the treatment he's begun to Demand from the most powerful entities in the Universe (Mothers, Archangels, etc), and he's at least self-aware enough these days to realize he needs to do the same for those around him.

--- End quote ---

But that doesn't mean situations won't arise where he has to make a choice to keep someone in the dark, too.  Harry's getting better at arranging matters so he can avoid the nastiest choices, but there's no guarantee he can keep it up.

wardenferry419:
Sometimes a secret needs to be kept. I don't recall Harry telling Murphy that he spoke with her father.

dspringer1:
Agree with free will and respect for wardens role, although he still sees the flaws in wardens. 

I would argue that he is much less likely to accept the surface explanation for why people/beings do what they do.  He understands that people hide their true motivations, that there are levels of plots, and that great powers influence the actions of individuals without their knowledge. 

He also recognizes that the consequences of his actions are also far more than the obvious.   Does not mean he will avoid doing something right, but he thinks carefully now how to minimize unintended consequences. 

raidem:
I'm going to apply Amber to this thread. 

Amber is a family group of royals that do not trust each other and are loathe to share their secrets with each other even when they need to. They often have plots to one-up the other. When they do share information with each other, it is often done only on a trading basis. You give me one piece of information, I'll give you this other.  So, I see a strong semblance of "keep secrets," "don't trust" in play with Harry at first.  And like many of you, he has outgrown those things to the better with experience.

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