The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers

When Did Karrin Learn of the White Council?

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Mr. Death:

--- Quote from: Bad Alias on July 03, 2019, 05:07:45 PM ---1. I get that, but she doesn't say anything until the Wal-Mart scene? And even then her reaction doesn't indicate whether or not she knew of the White Council's existence. Harry's inner monologue makes it look like he thought she didn't know anything about it.

2. He specifically avoids the issue, at least in Chapter 2. "I don't talk to regular people about the White Council. It just isn't done." He also doesn't explain why researching how to kill with magic is a bad idea. He just says "you don't understand." That's the whole reason the conflict between Murphy and Harry makes sense to me in Storm Front. Harry keeps lying to Murphy because he hasn't told her about the White Council in order to protect her, which actually gets her poisoned by a giant scorpion.

There is always the possibility that Murphy notices Harry's White Council comment and locks onto it. She then starts poking around and figures out all sorts of things about it and Harry's relationship with the Council. Who and what Harry is isn't exactly secret in the "community," and unlike Susan, Murphy is there to protect them (mostly), where Susan is there to expose them. So, people might be a lot more willing to talk to Murphy. I'm having trouble placing when it starts, but Murphy is pretty well known in the community. Susan is lurking around S.I. all the way back in Storm Front. I'm sure her reputation in the community exploded at the end of Fool Moon. By White Night, Abby knows who she is on sight. Murphy figuring out at least the framework of what the White Council is and it's relationship with Harry would explain the drastic improvements in their relationship. (Outside of Jim just moving away from the p.i./cop frenemies trope). Murphy understands Dresden and why he has been holding back.

I guess that's my theory of what happened until someone comes along and punches holes in it or has a better idea.

--- End quote ---
Fair enough, I was misremembering.

I would also posit that, it's only logical to conclude there is some overriding framework for wizards, if only because the first thing anyone is going to think of on meeting a wizard named "Harry" is "Potter." Or on the logic of, "OK, someone clearly taught him these things, and he's clearly not the only one, so there must be something keeping them in check."

Basically, there's a lot of reasons for someone who knows Harry personally and knows he's a wizard to conclude there's some sort of organization around wizards, even if you don't know its structure or even its name.

KurtinStGeorge:
Murphy must have discovered more than we were told about in the first couple of books.  Remember at the beginning of Fool Moon when she came in to talk to Harry at Mac's just after Kim had left the table.  Murphy picked up the crumpled note that contained Kim's drawing of the summoning circle and placed it in her coat pocket.

Now we could surmise that while Murphy had been checking out the werewolf murder scene she had Carmichael tail Harry, so that is how she knew where he was, except Harry wasn't even a little surprised to see her there.  This means Murphy had been to Mac's before; probably with Harry, but we didn't see her there in Storm Front, did we?  So perhaps sometime Harry invites Murphy to have a beer.  It could have happened before Storm Front.  By the start of Fool Moon Murphy was casually gathering information on Harry when she picked up the drawing.  She didn't have a specific reason to do so, but she held onto that drawing.  I wouldn't be surprised if part of Murphy's backstory is going to McAnally's when Harry wasn't there and talking to Mac or some of his patrons to see if she could learn anything, either about Harry or the supernatural world in general.

I doubt Murphy would have learned very much, but she could have heard about the White Council or at least about a governing body for people like Harry.  The things Murphy might have picked up about Harry could have been both reassuring and disturbing.  All it would have taken is one person to say something like, "I don't know him very well; nobody does really, but Harry is a good guy.  He tries to help people in the community.  Of course the powers that be don't like him very much and Harry can be a real scary guy at times.  There are rumors that he was involved in some very nasty business before he came to Chicago."  If Murphy pushed for more information she might get a response that went something like this, "I really can't talk about this Lt. Murphy, but there are rules we all have to live by, and there are people who enforce those rules.  When I said 'The powers that be', that's who I was referring to."

It's also possible if Murphy dug out any information, it was far more fragmentary than what I described in the paragraph above, but after seeing people's hearts blasted out from the inside, being attacked by a giant magical scorpion and having Harry refuse to give her the full story of what happened, I'd be surprised if Murphy hadn't been trying to gain more knowledge about Harry and the magical world in general.

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