The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers

Who runs the White Council?

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Bad Alias:
Jim watched Babylon 5. https://www.reddit.com/r/dresdenfiles/comments/6ltrjg/suggestion_one_of_jim_butchers_favorite_shows/. It's a series where the obvious villains are good guys and the obvious good guys turn out to be villains. This clip is from season 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5xhucIJK8k. I think it's more along the lines of what G'Kar was saying. People's motivations and character are not what they seem. The Merlin's a good guy, Ebenezer, the paragon of virtue, is an assassin, LtW is Black Council, Cristos is a political mastermind trying to destroy the Black Council, etc. Ebenezer is an example of someone not being what he seems. The rest is purely speculation for illustration of what could be.

There's also a Grey Council in B5. B5 is in my top 2 all time great TV series. A lot of that might be because it was so groundbreaking when it came out. It was the first long running TV series I've ever seen where nearly every episode was important. I think there's only one episode that doesn't play into the larger story arc.

Yuillegan:
I agree that there is lots of Babylon 5 stuff that Jim uses. But considering his sheer amount of other influences, it's hard to guess which bits he has swapped in and out.

Personally, I doubt LtW is a villain. I wondered about it earlier but the latest books gave him ample opportunity to be the bad guy and he wasn't. No, I think River wouldn't trust him either if he were a villain. Jim LOVES the Bigfoot stuff. Basically, River is the Bigfoot version of Michael Carpenter.

Rashid, on the other hand, might just be somewhat more Grey. Eb isn't bad just complicated. Hence why he set up a Grey Council. The Merlin...is a very difficult character to pin down. I suspect he is attempting to try and do good but is actually just ruining things. He is almost certainly not Black Council or Cowl. He has his own Council, and while we haven't seen him do much fighting, Cowl's style seems much more aggressive. The Merlin, by his own nature, seems defensive (master of Wards and defensive magic, master of communication and air magic). If Harry had dueled him in Dead Beat, Harry would be dead or wound up so tight he might as well be. Ancient Mai and Martha Liberty are the two that are most interesting to watch, considering how quiet they both are. Cristos seems to just be a fool, an ambitious fool but a fool nonetheless. BG did not paint him as a particularly special character.


--- Quote from: TheCuriousFan on September 30, 2020, 08:35:01 AM ---And there's option number four: that his antagonism vis-a-vis Harry is feigned for some reason.

--- End quote ---
Well, that could lean into any of the first three options I think. But I think his antagonism is real enough. It seems to be he hates Ebenezar enough and Harry is Eb's apprentice.


--- Quote from: Arjan on September 30, 2020, 09:33:39 AM ---Or key positions within the white council and a majority of the senior council are secretly taken over by Nemesis and Harry has to fight against them. That is what the gatekeeper meant when he talked about Harry confronting the council in the future.

--- End quote ---
Possibly...the limits of Nemesis keep getting more and more confusing. It seems like a possession from the way it's presented in BG. Yet at the same time, it also seems to have potentially had more than one host at once (there is some crossover between hosts in Cold Days etc). Whether they are nemfected, or have been, or are merely puppets or even allies of it is mostly impossible to tell at this point. We shall see.

Griffyn612:
Do we have a transcript yet of what he said? I'd like to see the exact wording.

Yuillegan:
No, but here is the link: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/jim-butcher/register.

You can watch the replay easily enough. I can't remember where he says it exactly but you can increase playback speed if you want to get through it quickly enough.

Bad Alias:

--- Quote from: Yuillegan on October 02, 2020, 04:12:05 AM ---I agree that there is lots of Babylon 5 stuff that Jim uses.
--- End quote ---
I'm more saying that it's analogous to what G'Kar said than Jim took it from that.


--- Quote from: Yuillegan on October 02, 2020, 04:12:05 AM ---Rashid, on the other hand, might just be somewhat more Grey. Eb isn't bad just complicated. Hence why he set up a Grey Council. The Merlin...is a very difficult character to pin down. I suspect he is attempting to try and do good but is actually just ruining things. He is almost certainly not Black Council or Cowl. He has his own Council, and while we haven't seen him do much fighting, Cowl's style seems much more aggressive. The Merlin, by his own nature, seems defensive (master of Wards and defensive magic, master of communication and air magic). If Harry had dueled him in Dead Beat, Harry would be dead or wound up so tight he might as well be. Ancient Mai and Martha Liberty are the two that are most interesting to watch, considering how quiet they both are. Cristos seems to just be a fool, an ambitious fool but a fool nonetheless. BG did not paint him as a particularly special character.

--- End quote ---
And Jim's saying not everyone is as they seem. I'd have a hard time accepting LtW as a villain, but what do we really know about him? River might just have a blind spot for him and only see the young man he trained so long ago. We've seen Eb do that with Harry.


--- Quote from: Griffyn612 on October 02, 2020, 04:40:57 AM ---Do we have a transcript yet of what he said? I'd like to see the exact wording.

--- End quote ---
It's not exact, but.
Q: How much time did the Merlin spend swearing when he learned Harry had returned?
A:[Stammering]I'm not going to answer that because you'll see later as we go on. Um. Does anyone really think that whoever's in charge of the White Council is really what he looks like? So we'll see more about that as we move along."

It's 34:55 of the video.

I do think that the Merlin might not be as anti-Harry as we think. I do think he doesn't like him and is endlessly frustrated with Harry for going left when he should have gone right.

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