The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Harry's use of Black Magic
Bad Alias:
According to Jim, that definitely counts as killing with magic. The exact scenario he uses in the WoJ is pushing someone off a building with a gust of magically generated wind.
Mira:
--- Quote from: segaily on January 30, 2020, 02:58:30 AM ---I would say a killing a Denarian directly with his magic would count as black magic. I can not remember if Harry has actually done that however. For example he used wind to push a falling Denarian into the Denarian magic barrier. The magic barrier killed them not directly Harry's wind magic so that would not be black Magic.
--- End quote ---
I think there is a real gray area here. Has Harry killed Denarians using his magic? Yes, but in a battle where it is killed or be killed. Is that really considered killing by using black magic? He used his magic to bring down a ton of molten rocks on Hannah Asher who was trying to kill him at the time.. He didn't directly kill her with his magic, but her death was the result of it and it was self defense.
Bad Alias:
This is basically everything Jim says about violating the laws of magic that I can find on https://wordof.jim-butcher.com/.
--- Quote ---The Laws of Magic don’t necessarily match up to the actual universal guidelines to how the universal power known as “magic” behaves.
The consequences for breaking the Laws of Magic don’t all come from people wearing grey cloaks.
And none of it necessarily has anything to do with what is Right or Wrong.
Which exist. It’s finding where they start or stop existing that’s the hard part.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---But if the substance of the consequences of the act itself does not have its own inherent quality of good or evil, then how can the /intentions/ behind it determine a similar quality? “Really, I was only trying to provide a better quality of life for my family and my employees. It wasn’t my intention to destroy that particular species of flower in the rain forest that cures cancer.” “I was just trying to give those Injuns some blankets. It wasn’t my intention to expose them to smallpox and wipe out hundreds of thousands of innocent people.” “I just wanted to get that book finished while working two jobs and finishing a brutal semester of grad school. It wasn’t my intention to screw up the name of Bianca’s personal assistant whose death had motivated her to go all power hungry to get revenge on Harry.”
There’s some old chestnut about good itentions serving as base level gradiant on an expressway that goes somewhere, but I can’t remember the specifics right now. :) While I agree that the /intentions/ of the person taking action are not without significance, they carry far less weight than the /consequences/ of that action.
“I meant to shoot him in the leg and wound him, not hit the femoral artery and kill him, so I should not be considered guilty of murder,” is not something that stands up in a court of law /or/ in any serious moral or ethical evaluation. You had the weapon. You knew it was potentially lethal, even if you did attempt to use it in a less than fully lethal fashion. (Or if you DIDN’T know that, you were a freaking idiot playing with people’s lives, something really no less excuseable.) But you chose to employ the weapon anyway. The consequences of those actions are /yours/, your doing, regardless of how innocent your intentions may have been.
Similarly, if you meant to drill that ^@#%er through the eyes, if you had every intention of murdering him outright, but you shot him in the hand and he survived with minor injuries, again the consequences overshadow your intentions. You might have made a stupid or morally queestionable choice, but it isn’t like anyone *died* or anything. He’s fine (at least in the long term), you’re fine, and there are fewer repercussions–regardless of your hideous intentions.
The exercise of power and the necessity to consider the fallout from your actions isn’t something limited to wizards and gods. Fictional people like Harry and Molly just provide more colorful examples.
As for violating the laws of magic themselves turning you good or evil, well. :) There’s something to be said on either side of the argument, in the strictest sense, though one side of the argument is definitely less incorrect than the other. But it’s going to take me several more books to lay it out, so there’s no sense in ruining the fun. :)
--- End quote ---
The WoJ I remember isn't on there, I can't find it on there, or it doesn't exist. It might have been one of those "Jim said this, turns out Jim never said that" things that do come up on here a lot.
Mira:
Seems to me what Harry does follows very closely with what the WOJ says..
g33k:
--- Quote from: Mira on January 30, 2020, 04:14:04 AM --- ... He used his magic to bring down a ton of molten rocks on Hannah Asher who was trying to kill him at the time.. He didn't directly kill her with his magic, but her death was the result of it and it was self defense.
--- End quote ---
Technically, it was Hannah's deadly magic; Harry was just redirecting it away from himself.
I'm not sure how much that technicality counts, but it's something. Maybe.
Also, I'm quite sure the Wardens don't feel they have jurisdiction over the inside of Hades' vault. Whether there's some megalomaniacal black-magic-y cackling madness inching closer because of Harry's action... I guess that remains to be seen.
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