The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
noblehunter:
It's easy to say Harry should have done more given how badly Kim's attempt at building a circle went. Harry himself seems to come to that conclusion. How he could have known or what exactly he should have done is a more difficult question.
I don't remember Fool Moon very well but I assume a dead body shows up shortly after his meeting with Kim. The corpse in the hand is more pressing than a dozen in the bushes, as it were.
Mira:
My point Morris is a child doesn't understand that a hot stove can burn them. You can tell them, HOT! DON'T TOUCH! However they still won't understand the concept or get the connection between touching the hot stove and getting a burnt hand or finger. You can explain about the flames inside, and they won't understand.. You cannot put their finger on the stove so they experience the burn, that hurts the kid and can get you arrested.. All of the above Harry was trying to do with Kim, who like the child had no experience either with such summoning circles, the type of monsters they are meant to contain, or that it was forbidden to talk about them..
Now one can put a barrier around the hot stove or take the child out of the room to prevent them getting hurt.. But kids have a mind of their own, they may throw a tantrum and stomp away because in their mind you are being unreasonable. Then when your back is turned sneak in and touch that stove and burn themselves..
When Harry wouldn't go any further in his explanation trying to warn Kim at the same time how dangerous it was, and since she didn't have the training or the experience to pull it off a lot of people could get hurt. She threw a tantrum and stomped off, went back to MacFinn and tried to make the circle anyway, and she died for it.. My point is sometimes in spite of your best efforts your child is going to burn it's finger anyway... In spite of Harry's best efforts at warning, Kim went back to do the circle.. See, she had no clue about Loops and what danger she put herself in..
--- Quote ---On vampire venom. Early in Death Masks Harry cooks up a potion to counteract vampire venom. Unless contradicted by someone, that would be before Bondage playtime at Harry's place. Add to that a convenient rope to hold and ogre, and romance advice from a 14 year old on bondage games early on. In a tree house of all places. So to the question, was it foreseeable, I would have to put down money on the yes line.
--- End quote ---
However he was also exhausted and injured at the time, doubt he could have gone down to the attic to get it. As Dina points out, since Harry isn't a real lover boy, it is doubtful that he keeps a drawer of condoms at his bedside... Susan the other consenting adult is this scene would know if she was on the pill or using some other form of birth control.. If she wasn't, her option was, no condom, no sex... As simple as that... So either she really believed that she could get away with a one night stand without getting pregnant, or she really didn't care. So either neither of them can be held fully responsible because of their, mental, emotional, and physical conditions or both were down right careless and irresponsible, BOTH not just Harry or just Susan, BOTH.
Bad Alias:
--- Quote from: Mira on March 17, 2020, 07:02:25 AM ---I am not even sure it can be called "instructing.."
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I was talking about his previous interactions with her.
@Morris: "Hey I found this thing I'm going to play with. I have no idea what it is." [Hands over picture of a loaded gun]. "That's a gun. It's used for killing. Don't play with it, ever. You can use it once you've been trained." "F*** you!" That's basically the conversation Harry and Kim had.
Kim was one of several people Harry "coached through the difficult period surrounding the discovery of their innate magical talents." Harry had previously taught her "to contain and control her modest magical talents." As we learn in Proven Guilty, not doing that can be very dangerous.
Was it foreseeable when Harry met Kim that she would come across a loup garou, a ruined greater magical circle, refuse to explain the situation to Harry, ignore his warnings, and get herself killed? No. It was not.
Harry didn't tell her anything she couldn't have figured out from Macfinn. She already knew what the circle was for. To contain Macfinn.
It was foreseeable once she showed him the greater circle that she was messing with something she shouldn't be messing with. At that point, Harry's responsibility is to dissuade her from messing with it anymore. That she lies to him and ignores him isn't his fault. It's hers. If she had told him the truth, he would have helped. Even if Macfinn swore her to secrecy, she could have told Harry enough to let him know what was going on, if not precisely who, without betraying any confidences. Because she lied, it was not foreseeable that she was trying to contain a dangerous entity that was already present. What Harry foresaw was that she was going to try some dangerous summoning. He foresaw that if he didn't tell her how to activate the circle, she wouldn't try. He foresaw that if he did tell her how, and she tried, she would fail and death would likely result.
Maybe Macfinn lied to Kim. But if that's the case, after talking to Harry, she should have run for the hills instead of helping him.
--- Quote from: morriswalters on March 17, 2020, 02:31:45 PM ---Jim essentially tells you what will happen when Harry ends up locked in with Susan. Molly tells you how, Harry tells you why when he mentions the potion. It's priceless. It's why I love the Dresden Files.
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But was it foreseeable that Susan would be pushed to her limits and locked up with Harry after he had been thoroughly tortured in a situation in which he could stop her from just killing him?
Jim's always telegraphing what's going to happen and it's often entirely predictable for the genre savvy reader. That's different from foreseeable from the character's point of view. We're basically told Harry's not dead in the first chapter of Ghost Story, we know more books are coming, and that the books are most likely Harry's journals. It was easy for us to predict he's going to make it back to the land of the living somehow.
So far, it seems to me that the "Harry is responsible camp" position is that what he's responsible for is not being a hermit who hides himself away from everyone because there isn't a situation in which he can participate in the world and not have negative consequences. "Harry shouldn't have ever helped Kim." "Harry shouldn't have been in a relationship with Susan." I haven't seen any realistic suggestions of what Harry should have done once the dangerous situation became apparent. You can't always talk someone out of doing something dangerous and stupid, and that's not your fault.
Mira:
--- Quote ---So far, it seems to me that the "Harry is responsible camp" position is that what he's responsible for is not being a hermit who hides himself away from everyone because there isn't a situation in which he can participate in the world and not have negative consequences. "Harry shouldn't have ever helped Kim." "Harry shouldn't have been in a relationship with Susan." I haven't seen any realistic suggestions of what Harry should have done once the dangerous situation became apparent. You can't always talk someone out of doing something dangerous and stupid, and that's not your fault.
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Very true, there are three camps, those of us that screw up once in a while and take the blame for it. Then there are those of us who screw up and never take responsibility and are quick to blame others and make excuses... Then there are those of up who are always beating ourselves up when things go wrong, even when it isn't our fault or worse yet, nobody's fault... Harry falls into that last group most of the time.
Dina:
I've been reading the last posts (since my previous one) and I will do a summary
@Mira, I still donīt like the children metaphores.
--- Quote from: morriswalters on March 17, 2020, 10:57:03 AM ---I call that foreseeable, since, well, he foresaw it.
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That one is cheating, because that quote is from the files, written long after, with hindsight. The rest, yes, he predicted Kim wanted to do something dangerous and took the measures he thought would prevent that. Not telling how to do the dangerous thing. For taking one instant the oven comparison, Harry refused to tell her how to turn on the oven. It was a logical choice from his POV.
I won't say more about this because the others said it quite well :)
My last comment about rampire venom was not about the scene with Harry but about how Susan (if she knew she was able to bear a child) could have foreseen a moment when she loose control and have unprotected sex (and yes, there was a risk to kill the man. But she has been taking all the precautions she could, meditating and all that). Taking anticonception measures would have been logical.
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