The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Love Potion, Huge Violation of 3rd Law?
morriswalters:
--- Quote from: Mr. Death on August 07, 2018, 03:26:40 PM ---I dispute that it is "perfectly natural," because if it was natural, why would you need magic to get in? You don't need magic to share soul bits. But to get into a mind, you have to work a spell to get in.
--- End quote ---
Consider a soul gaze. You are forced into it. You can't control it through any act of yours. You can't initiate one, only a Wizard can. Is that natural? It seems pretty invasive.
--- Quote from: Mr. Death on August 07, 2018, 03:26:40 PM ---Erecting defenses doesn't necessarily mean there's a valid entry. If I wear a helmet, that doesn't mean that otherwise there's a "perfectly natural" way for things to get into my skull otherwise. Prison windows that have no latch or hinges to open nonetheless have bars in them -- does that mean without the bars, they're a "natural" entry?
--- End quote ---
We're quibbling over the word natural. A skull serves a purpose to protect the thing it surrounds. It exists because the thing inside of it can be damaged if it didn't. If there were no such threat they wouldn't have evolved. The phrase natural is a question begging term.
--- Quote from: Mr. Death on August 07, 2018, 03:48:17 PM ---And Harry's reaction when he learns Molly looked into him is instructive:
--- End quote ---
Not very, since in Changes he is pretty blase about her altering his mind. Just because he wanted to cheat Mab. If Micheal was ignorant of the risks, Harry certainly wasn't. Those who live in glass houses....
peregrine:
But all of those quotes from the game use the same terms. Breaking in, invasion, violating. For the house analogy, what if someone gives you the key? The key in this case being permission. Unlocks the door.
Arjan:
--- Quote from: morriswalters on August 07, 2018, 05:17:29 PM ---Not very, since in Changes he is pretty blase about her altering his mind. Just because he wanted to cheat Mab. If Micheal was ignorant of the risks, Harry certainly wasn't. Those who live in glass houses....
--- End quote ---
Harry, the guy who does not want to use his magic to heat his shower out of fear of becoming a warlock, was trying to teach the why use magic in stead of the how just like his mentor Ebenezer.
Of course Harry was not happy about it. Reading someones mind for danger might be something grey that Lucio did not worry too much about but Harry wanted to protect Molly from further temptation. Lucio undermined that.
And that came back to Lucio at Turncoat.
And it also shows that we have to be careful about what Harry and Morgan say about the laws, there are far more lenient interpretations available from their boss.
Mr. Death:
--- Quote from: Paviel on August 07, 2018, 03:50:48 PM ---The operative words seem to be "invasion" and "violation." You don't consent to an invasion or a violation.
Or to put it another way, if you do consent, it isn't an invasion or a violation.
--- End quote ---
"The act" seems to refer to entry into another's mind. If "the act" only referred to "invasion" and "violation," it would be redundant and unnecessary for it to, effectively, say, "an invasion is always a violent invasion."
--- Quote from: morriswalters on August 07, 2018, 05:17:29 PM ---Consider a soul gaze. You are forced into it. You can't control it through any act of yours. You can't initiate one, only a Wizard can. Is that natural? It seems pretty invasive.
--- End quote ---
I have considered it. See before, where I posit and argue that soul stuff is fundamentally different from mind stuff -- hell, people share and spread their souls around by accident. To my knowledge, nobody has been able to "accidentally" read someone else's mind.
--- Quote ---We're quibbling over the word natural. A skull serves a purpose to protect the thing it surrounds. It exists because the thing inside of it can be damaged if it didn't. If there were no such threat they wouldn't have evolved. The phrase natural is a question begging term.
--- End quote ---
I don't see how all of that doesn't also apply to the mind. The game text makes it pretty clear that there is a fundamental barrier there -- it serves a purpose to protect the thing it surrounds (the mind). It exists because the thing inside of it (the mind) can be damaged if it didn't.
--- Quote ---Not very, since in Changes he is pretty blase about her altering his mind. Just because he wanted to cheat Mab. If Micheal was ignorant of the risks, Harry certainly wasn't. Those who live in glass houses....
--- End quote ---
"Blasé" and "just because" are not terms I would use to characterize Harry having his apprentice blank out parts of his mind in pure desperation before he sells his soul to an evil faerie queen as a last resort before a mission that's only going to get more suicidal the longer it goes on.
He's not having her do it to forget a bad TV show he watched. He's doing it because he's going to kill himself. His alternative plan was literally joining up with a Fallen Angel from Hell. There is nothing "blasé" about that exchange. It's clearly presented as a last resort that he's only doing now because he feels there's no other choice.
--- Quote from: peregrine on August 07, 2018, 05:47:14 PM ---But all of those quotes from the game use the same terms. Breaking in, invasion, violating. For the house analogy, what if someone gives you the key? The key in this case being permission. Unlocks the door.
--- End quote ---
And yet it says "no matter how gentle," and establishes right off the bat that there is a fundamental barrier that exists between one mind and the next.
The text effectively equates "crossing" with "invasion." The section on Psychomancy itself begins:
--- Quote ---Practitioners that read and manipulate minds
are called psychomancers (or sometimes neuromancers).
Given that these acts violate the
Third and Fourth Laws of Magic, they may also
be called headless, thanks to the action of the
Wardens. Psychomancy is neither well documented
nor condoned, though it seems every
now and again some new wizard comes along
with a talent for it, trained or not. The Council
does its best to intercede as quickly as possible
in such cases.
--- End quote ---
No qualification there, no mention of "invasion." It just puts it plainly: Reading another's mind violates the Third Law.
The book describes reading dead folks' thoughts as grey but "mostly" safe, and that empathy is enhancing your own ability to perceive, not reading into someone else's head.
The only straight-up, no-grey, legal psychomancy the write-up mentions is doing it on yourself, for things like supercharging your brain, digging up your memory, etc., but adds it's very dangerous, noting, "Just because you’re doing it to yourself doesn’t make the act any less violent."
Wizard Sibelis:
--- Quote from: Paviel on August 07, 2018, 03:50:48 PM ---The operative words seem to be "invasion" and "violation." You don't consent to an invasion or a violation.
Or to put it another way, if you do consent, it isn't an invasion or a violation.
--- End quote ---
It's inaccurate anyway... Molly hears people cause thoughts are loud, she doesn't have to reach.. One of the reasons the game is not the books...
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