The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
Arjan:
--- Quote from: morriswalters on March 21, 2020, 11:16:48 AM ---@Avernite
The point about the Korean kid was a distraction and I shouldn't have used it. My apologies. Kim is responsible for her death. Harry's responsibility falls around not recognizing that his knowledge is much more dangerous than Calculus. Either commit fully when you choose to train someone, or stay in your tower.
--- End quote ---
Too late for that when they had dinner. At that moment after the first wrong choices it was either fully commit or let her die.
Mira:
--- Quote from: morriswalters on March 21, 2020, 11:16:48 AM ---@Avernite
The point about the Korean kid was a distraction and I shouldn't have used it. My apologies. Kim is responsible for her death. Harry's responsibility falls around not recognizing that his knowledge is much more dangerous than Calculus. Either commit fully when you choose to train someone, or stay in your tower.
--- End quote ---
I think he does know that his knowledge is much more dangerous than calculus. That is why he he stopped giving her information once he realized she was going to use it. The thing is we know nothing about the relationship Harry and Kim had before this. She was a friend, but there are the people you know, and the people you are very close with. He gave her pointers from time to
time, he called her his sometime apprentice, but it is doubtful their relationship was that close. The
evidence for that, is her lies, if she was close to Harry at all, whether just as a friend or as a sometime student, she would have known he would have busted a gut to try and help her, even back then.
Agreed, Harry could have handled it better, but would it have changed the outcome? The person responsible is Kim because she lied. Or take it back further, the real ones responsible were the ones who sabotaged MacFinn's circle in the first place. She was in the movement that MacFinn was the champion/benefactor of, now how did he know about her talent? And how did she know what he was? That has never been made clear. Did she over sell her talent to him? Did she tell him that she knew a guy who could help, but MacFinn didn't want anyone else brought in? Either way, this whole thing reeks of pre-planning. Again the one responsible for her own demise, is Kim, she may have lied to MacFinn about what her capabilities were, she lied to herself about her capabilities, and she lied to Harry from beginning to end. Her choices.
Don't dismiss the fact that Harry was hungry, he said he didn't have much work, he might not have eaten for a day or two. Not a huge excuse, but it makes him vulnerable, one doesn't think clearly when one is hungry. When Kim is lying though her teeth she avoids his eyes... Okay, Harry isn't disturbed by that, wizards and people with talent don't like slip into soul gazes.. However at the same time, if Kim was hiding something, which she was, the last thing she wanted was a soul gaze.
Harry is being condemned because he withheld vital information... That would be bad, except he was up front about it, when he realized it wasn't an academic exercise, he refused to tell her more and warned her strongly against it. She then had the option of coming clean and telling him why she needed it. That gave him the option on whether or not to tell her everything, or insist on going with her. It is all about choices.
--- Quote ---His fourth possible approach was lure her in with more information, make it clear to her why she is not up for the task (a little training should do the trick) and offer to help her.
--- End quote ---
I think he did make that clear, but he also lacked the knowledge that Kim had, the moon when it rose would be full and a horrible monster would be free to kill if it wasn't contained. She never tells him about that, talk about withholding important information, if anyone is guilty of that, it is Kim! Instead she plays on another weakness of Harry's. "You think I'm not strong enough to pull this off..." Kim is a woman, we know how messed up Harry is with them, in Storm Front Murphy is pissed because he still opens doors for women.. Harry is conflicted because on one hand he is old school gentleman, protective of women, on the other hand he knows a lot of strong women and respects them as such.. My point, this muddies the waters, another trick she tries to pull to get information from him. He doesn't fall for it and again tells her up front she isn't at the level yet to pull such a circle off. Then she stomps off before the argument or conversation goes any further.. Enter Murphy, emergency, no chance for Harry to ponder on what Kim was up to or to go after her to see what she was really up to..
Kim was doomed the moment she agreed to help MacFinn knowing she didn't have the knowledge or training to pull off the kind of circle he needed. Even if she was successful in her deception of Harry and he gave her all the information she wanted, that still wouldn't change the basic fact that she lacked training and full knowledge. She might have gotten lucky and it worked, we'd have a different book. But chances are because of lack of training, the circle still would have failed..
If Harry had refused the sandwich and refused to tell her anything, that still wouldn't have changed things. MacFinn's circle was still broken, he'd be loose, she still most likely would have died anyway trying to fix it.. The whole series is about the choices people make and how they change things or don't.
g33k:
--- Quote from: Mira on March 21, 2020, 12:57:06 PM --- ... The thing is we know nothing about the relationship Harry and Kim had before this ... He gave her pointers from time to time, he called her his sometime apprentice, but it is doubtful their relationship was that close ...
--- End quote ---
"Sometime apprentice" is a lot more than "pointers from time to time." I think (don't have Fool Moon to hand, to find the bit to quote) that Harry had said Kim didn't have enough power to be a White Council wizard.
But I'm pretty certain you're right, they weren't "close," Kim didn't know Harry.
--- Quote from: Mira on March 21, 2020, 12:57:06 PM --- ... Agreed, Harry could have handled it better, but would it have changed the outcome? The person responsible is Kim because she lied.
--- End quote ---
I think many of the people arguing this point fall into the same trap that Harry does: Harry does his guilt-fest thing, "It's all my fault." Some agree with Harry, in the end it IS his fault as the responsible party, the informed party, the mentor-role. Some disagree, pointing out that Kim was a full adult, responsible for herself, and clearly had ENOUGH information that she should have known what she proposed doing was stupid.
The "trap" is to put 100% of the blame on one person or the other: HIS fault and not hers, or HER fault and not his.
In reality, it was a clusterfuck. A LOT of people screwed up, including Harry and Kim, but
--- Quote ---...the ones who sabotaged MacFinn's circle ...
--- End quote ---
them too; and MacFinn (who wanted his convenient basement circle, instead of the inconvenient travel to isolation), and Tera West (who thought she could manage him), etc etc etc.
In the end, in a "the buck stops here" way, Kim is the person who owns the responsibility for her own actions. But her choices were limited by her information, and Harry intentionally kept critical information out of her hands: he cannot be held blameless.
Bad Alias:
--- Quote from: Arjan on March 21, 2020, 09:10:22 AM ---And only Harry giving her enough information to trust him and let her really understand her own limitations would have achieved that.
--- End quote ---
Just giving her a lot of information wouldn't have made her trust Harry. Later in the series, Harry comments on Molly's overconfidence and how he was overconfident early in his training. Information alone isn't enough to curb overconfidence due to inexperience. Trust in/Respect for authority is the only thing that can temper that overconfidence. (I mean, also experience).
I assume we're all subject matter experts in our respective fields (or maybe I'm overestimating some of your ages). I've had friends and family who completely ignore me or argue with me in my specific area of expertise. Sometimes people refuse to listen to subject matter experts. That's on them. It's not the experts fault if people refuse to listen.
I've also had the other extreme where people just want me to make a decision for them when my job is to advise and guide.
--- Quote from: g33k on March 21, 2020, 06:46:56 PM ---The "trap" is to put 100% of the blame on one person or the other: HIS fault and not hers, or HER fault and not his.
...
But her choices were limited by her information, and Harry intentionally kept critical information out of her hands: he cannot be held blameless.
--- End quote ---
How much blame would you put on Harry? There is a concept in the common law tradition that if someone is less than 50% at fault for an accident, and the other party is greater than 50% at fault, then the person who is greater than 50% at fault is legally responsible. Over the years, the concept has gotten more complicated in some jurisdictions. (Google "comparative liability" or "comparative negligence" and "contributory negligence" if interested in the concepts). I'm not saying that a 49/51 split is appropriate for moral responsibility, but at a certain point, if one's contribution is small enough, one is not responsible. Personally, I think Harry is at fault somewhere between epsilon and .1%.
What critical information did Harry keep from her and how would it have changed the situation? Both have to be true before Harry can be at fault.
--- Quote from: morriswalters on March 21, 2020, 11:16:48 AM ---Either commit fully when you choose to train someone, or stay in your tower.
--- End quote ---
I think this is a false dilemma, but I agree it's the closest thing to offering a solution. I think the only thing Harry could have done by Chapter 1 of Fool Moon to stop Kim was to physically stop her. He could have killed her, put a sleep spell on her, reported her to the wardens, put her in the hospital, kidnapper her, etc. Thinking on that, the most elegant solution would have been to agree to show her how to empower a greater circle by putting her in one.
I don't think Harry, or anyone, takes on full responsibility for someone for giving them the basics to keep them from accidental harm. Kim was one of the many Harry "coached" through the initial stages of coming into their magic. What the story says about her leaves me unclear as to whether she was more than them or the same. It implies more, but states the same. There's a lot of information, almost all of it concerning the nature/extent of their relationship, that could change my analysis. But I'm not going to blame Harry for teaching someone to control their power enough to not "set the curtains on fire," as I think he says in one of the earlier books, for what that person does later with that control when he refuses to teach them combat magic, necromancy, or whatever.
On the point of limiting information causing harm, I can't fathom why the White Council doesn't publicize the existence of the Seven Laws and that they get enforced. Put enough information with it for practitioners to realize that whoever the source is knows what they're talking about. These so-called wise men really should be able to make it known without compromising the Council's security.
Mira:
--- Quote ---In the end, in a "the buck stops here" way, Kim is the person who owns the responsibility for her own actions. But her choices were limited by her information, and Harry intentionally kept critical information out of her hands: he cannot be held blameless.
--- End quote ---
What blows that one out of the water though, is he made no secret that he wasn't going to tell her what she wanted to know. That is a lot different than letting her go off thinking she had all she needed not knowing he left stuff out. He can be held blameless in that he got pulled into this and the fact for whatever reason Kim not only lied to him but kept really vital information from him.. Like Harry, I have to have this and here is why.....
--- Quote ---Just giving her a lot of information wouldn't have made her trust Harry. Later in the series, Harry comments on Molly's overconfidence and how he was overconfident early in his training. Information alone isn't enough to curb overconfidence due to inexperience. Trust in/Respect for authority is the only thing that can temper that overconfidence. (I mean, also experience).
--- End quote ---
Yeah, no amount of information would have dissuade her from her mission, and yeah, she was way over confident that she could pull it off.
--- Quote ---I think this is a false dilemma, but I agree it's the closest thing to offering a solution. I think the only thing Harry could have done by Chapter 1 of Fool Moon to stop Kim was to physically stop her. He could have killed her, put a sleep spell on her, reported her to the wardens, put her in the hospital, kidnapper her, etc. Thinking on that, the most elegant solution would have been to agree to show her how to empower a greater circle by putting her in one.
--- End quote ---
He wouldn't have been able to do that either because Murphy was on scene shortly after Kim left. They were in Mac's place, which also made it difficult.
--- Quote ---What critical information did Harry keep from her and how would it have changed the situation? Both have to be true before Harry can be at fault.
--- End quote ---
He didn't leave any out, he was up front that he wasn't going to tell her anymore and why.. Now if he had kept from her that he withheld information that would be different.
--- Quote ---I don't think Harry, or anyone, takes on full responsibility for someone for giving them the basics to keep them from accidental harm. Kim was one of the many Harry "coached" through the initial stages of coming into their magic. What the story says about her leaves me unclear as to whether she was more than them or the same. It implies more, but states the same. There's a lot of information, almost all of it concerning the nature/extent of their relationship, that could change my analysis. But I'm not going to blame Harry for teaching someone to control their power enough to not "set the curtains on fire," as I think he says in one of the earlier books, for what that person does later with that control when he refuses to teach them combat magic, necromancy, or whatever.
--- End quote ---
Goes back to what Father Forthill says about knowing what is in someone's head and foretell what they are going to do.
--- Quote ---On the point of limiting information causing harm, I can't fathom why the White Council doesn't publicize the existence of the Seven Laws and that they get enforced. Put enough information with it for practitioners to realize that whoever the source is knows what they're talking about. These so-called wise men really should be able to make it known without compromising the Council's security.
--- End quote ---
Which had a lot to do with Harry not going further than he did.
--- Quote ---In the end, in a "the buck stops here" way, Kim is the person who owns the responsibility for her own actions. But her choices were limited by her information, and Harry intentionally kept critical information out of her hands: he cannot be held blameless.
--- End quote ---
No, he did not, he was limited because she refused to give him information, critical information, i.e. about MacFinn, what he was, and what had happened to his circle.. If she had done that, it may have turned out totally different.
At the end of the exchange Harry felt he had done the right thing as set down by the White Council about such circles and based on his own knowledge of them, as much for Kim's own safety as he knew it as anything else. His decision was ALLbased on the information he had been given by Kim. She lied to him and withheld critical information from him that would have totally altered the decision he made. End of story..
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version