The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers

What does the White Council Do?

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morriswalters:
1,2,4.
Like Harry, wizards like secrets. However the Council does have a data store of some type, it pops up a couple of times in text.  Also the Council has published books when it has had a reason to.  Certainly Eb has, it's mentioned as a training resource, by Harry. So did wizard Peabody.

ticonderouga:
In theory I think that the council's purpose was to:
1. Enforce the Laws of Magic
2. Defend the mortal world from supernatural threats
3. Find and train new wizards

The first two of these have been mostly relagated to the wardens, in practice the rest of the council pretty much just tries to keep up appearances and protect themselves against the other supernatural nations.

Avernite:
I think, based on the Pratchett, model, we're missing Merlin's first purpose:
Prevent open conflict between wizards (especially spilling over into the normal world). After all, the plural of Wizard is War.

g33k:

--- Quote from: KurtinStGeorge on June 13, 2019, 07:06:14 PM --- I'm not certain we can say the White Council is very strong in North America.  They have four wardens and Harry hasn't been doing his job as such for a couple of years.  They almost certainly don't have much of a presence in Mexico as the more southern parts of Mexico were Red Court territory.
--- End quote ---
I think the WC as a whole was pretty reduced by the war vs the Ramps, and the Wardens especially, of course.  I'm not sure that NorthAmerican wizards suffered any more (or less) than wizards elsewhere; but I don't know that they didn't get different exposure/effect, either.

The Red's old territories in Latin America became a (supernatural) power-vacuum, one that the WC was unable to exploit because they remained so short-staffed from the wars.   The last comments I recollect were that the power-struggles continued; but the Fomor seem to particularly be aiming at that sort of chaotic situation & power-vacuums, so they may be big in Latin America now...?


--- Quote from: KurtinStGeorge on June 13, 2019, 07:06:14 PM --- ... As far as training goes, it wasn't clear when Harry was at Luccio's bootcamp if any of the apprentices had a specific teacher.  Could the White Council have taken on the role of teacher to a large number of students rather than relying on the old system of individual teacher and student pairs?
--- End quote ---
I think those were apprentice Wardens, and not an exemplar of how other non-Wardent wizards' apprentices might generally be taught.

IIRC, the "boot camp" model was a new-ish endeavor to fill the WC & Wardens combat-ready ranks faster than their old-fashioned methods were doing.

I would presume that they got some general training before their combat proclivities were clear, and we know nothing of their introductory "grade-school" training.  Maybe they were on an ordinary 1:1 apprentice:master track, before their master decided they would make good soldiers & gave them over to the Wardens' newfangled bootcamp.

We really don't know.
 

noblehunter:
I think the White Council defends the mortal world to protect themselves rather than because it's one of its missions. Any power making significant inroads into the mortal world would threaten the WC's resources (infrastructure and recruits) and make long term survival chancy. Harry is an exception for going out of his way to help vanilla mortals. I don't think a WC oriented towards defending the mortal world would be quite so isolated from it.

My take on the actual purposes:
1. Enforce the Laws
2. Mutual protection (like squashing warlocks)
3. Train new Wizards (to keep them from becoming warlocks)
4. Settle disputes among wizards (so they don't turn to black magic to get one over on their rivals)

The rest of what they do is more or less derived from these. Worth nothing that the 0th purpose, like all institutions, is to maintain its own existence.

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