The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers

Salic Law and Harry's Understanding of Magic Genetics

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CallSmith:
I've not doubt this topic has already been covered in pretty great detail somewhere, (seeing as the book came out eleven years ago) but on a binge reading through the series I noticed a plot hole between Proven Guilty and White Night.

In Proven Guilty, when Dresden is in an elevator with Murphy and she asks him how many kids he wants he thinks about how any kids he would have would inherit all kinds of problems through him. The way he discusses it could be taken as either meaning just his enemies, or it could mean his magic and his enemies, or some variation thereof. It's not explicitly stated that his children would not have magic.

In White Night when Harry is explaining magical inheritance to Murphy (In the Blue Beetle on the way to kill the Skavis, after nearly melting Molly's face off.) Murphy says that Harry said that magic is inherited, Harry says "Salic Law" to suggest matrilineal (Forum isn't recognizing this as a word, I know Harry says he's chauvinistic but that's a bit much lol) descent. He uses his inheriting his magic from his mother as an example, and looks at Molly to imply to remind the reader that Molly inherited hers from Charity. It is also a driving point of the villains' plan that killing off twenty+ weak practitioners would cripple magical growth in the Post-War world. Something that everyone's actions suggest would eventually be true.

Now I have not read past White Night, but I have an addiction to TvTropes that has spoiled some things for me so don't feel bad to show me how this gets fixed later if it does, but i feel like this is a pretty big plot hole in Harry's understanding of magic, which could be explained by that if he wasn't using logic a lot in this book.

The Plot hole is as follows

1.) Harry doesn't seem to have the consideration that any children he had with Murphy or Susan, or any other normal mortal would be a normal mortal.
2.) The White Council is an egalitarian organization that has had such connections throughout the world for at least 5 millennia (Judging from the Wiki's page on the Oblivion War.)
2a.) This includes a probably equal period of time interacting with the Sidhe Courts who are led by females of incredible power
2b.) That the Council is egalitarian and inclusive can be judged from the composition of the Senior Council at the time of Summer Night a Chinese Woman, a Middle-Eastern man, an African-American woman, a Great Lakes Native American man, a Russian of non-specified background man, and a French man who is said to speak for the minor nations and is later replaced by a Greek Man speaking for the same nations.
2c.) Just of the people on the Senior Council we have 3 different people that are part of or related to cultures that have practiced matrilineal or matrilocal social systems (Great Lakes Native Americans, Several minorities in China, and Greek)
3.) Despite magic apparently being passed from mother to child, and magic users having connections across the globe, and through realms for thousands of years the Senior Council at first appearance looks very much like one would expect given who created it, when it was created, and where it was a created. (Clarification it looks like a white male American created a 'diverse' ruling body. Since I am also all of those things I'm not critiquing it just pointing it out.)
4.) So despite magic apparently being passed through the mother, and it being common knowledge that this is so, the Council can't seem to keep track of young wizards who keep becoming warlocks because no one is there to teach them.
5.) Thomas can't use magic, maybe it's canceled out by WC Demon but it seems like something that should be explored. (Maybe the wizard whose talent was all things genealogy geek got taken out early because Outsiders.)
6.) Despite taking a pretty big ravaging in the past century, and apparently knowing for a long time that magic is passed through mother to child, the Senior Council and the White Council behave primarily like our modern American society does, white man is in charge, men are more common than women in power, but there is some movement to diversify and chauvinistic tendencies are going away.
7.) Despite transitioning from this patriarchal system, while losing a lot of population, there's no "Female magic users have a DUTY to have a ton of magic using kids" movement that we see.

I'm in no way criticizing Mr. Butcher or anything here. I'm just a guy, with a degree who really likes these books and enjoys over thinking and analyzing them if anyone else wants to join in.

Mr. Death:
The thing is, there's already way too many wizard kids for the White Council to handle. They're not going to have some conceive-a-thon to make more when half the ones that are already out there end up at the wrong end of a Warden's sword because the Council couldn't get to them on time.

In White Night, the idea wasn't that killing 20-ish practitioners would cripple the magical world. It was that the actions in Chicago were a proof of concept that they could get away with it on a world-wide scale.

Magic being passed on through the mother is a tendency, not a hard and fast rule. Nowhere is it stated that a wizard mother will always have a wizard kid, nor is it stated that a wizard can only come from a magically talented mother.

(click to show/hide)Harry's grandmother was not a wizard, for instance. Sometimes it might skip a generation, or a parent with a small talent has a kid with a big talent (see AAAA Wizardry, where a woman who's a sensitive and nothing else has a daughter with a much stronger gift).

Sometimes it just happens out of nowhere.

Thomas can, in fact use magic -- he works up a tracking spell in "Backup" -- he just doesn't have the same kind of talent that Harry does.

This has been discussed before. Word of Jim has suggested that Molly has a talent while Daniel does not because Charity still had some of her magic while she was pregnant with the former, while it had faded almost entirely when she was carrying the latter.

The closest we've ever come to a real conclusion is the idea that it's not so much whether the mother is a wizard as it's whether she has exposure to magic while pregnant.

And, again, sometime it just happens.

Arjan:
Thomas can use magic as shown in the short story Backup, he just is not as good as Harry and did not spend much effort training.

He can do a tracking spell though.

wardenferry419:
Magic seems to be part genetics and part skill. People with the genetic tendency may chose to develop the skill part or not.
As for the diversity aspects, I am not touching that one. Mainly because I am a white male as well.

morriswalters:
Jim Butcher has a degree in English.  Not genetics.  The book isn't even close to being a model of the real world.  And he gives as many straight answers as do the Faries.

If the Dresdenverse reflects the real world, and given that we have basically bred ourselves to 7.5 billion in a little over a hundred years, the WC doesn't need to encourage anyone to breed.  There are certainly millions of little as yet discovered wizards, even assuming that the wizards are just the smallest percentage of the total population on Planet Dresden.

Sounds really cool until you run the numbers.  Kind of like the stain caused by Black Magic.

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