The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Has Carlos sided with the merlin against Harry
Mira:
--- Quote ---The Council became antagonistic to Harry when he used a political move to save Molly. Until he got on Langtry's bad side there, Harry was a rising star. He had emerged from the Doom, been promoted to the Wardens and then to the Warden in charge of North America. He wasn't even required to report to any of the three Senior Council members living there.
--- End quote ---
Yes, but not quite, more politics, remember in Summer Knight there was that faction of the Sr. Council that wanted to have him busted back to apprentice. They refused to see that Bianca's party in Grave Peril was basically a set up by the Red Court to make trouble. Harry realized that and wasn't going to go, but was forced to when he lost Michael's Holy Sword, and it was further complicated by Susan forging the invitation so she could go and get a scoop.. Both sides were willing to make him the scapegoat for the start of their war. Those who were against him, didn't trust him because of who his mother was, they also couldn't believe a boy of his tender years could have knocked off a powerful former Warden like Justin without black magic.. They had voted to condemn instead of placing him under the Doom and they sure as heck didn't believe he deserved to be made a full wizard at 16. So that faction wasn't hard to convince that Harry deserved to be booted out of the White Council, or put under the sentence of death.
LordDresden2:
--- Quote from: vincentric on July 01, 2024, 03:40:43 PM ---If you saw one of the most promising talents of the past century who is also a Starborn, walking close to the darkness, would you try a calm and reasoned intercession or would you bully, threaten and ostracize him even though he has not done any dark acts?
--- End quote ---
But Harry has committed more than a few dark acts. Usually in the service of a good cause, with his back to the wall, but it still happened. And a lot of what we know Harry to have done in a good cause could easily look like dark acts from another perspective.
Given the Council's overall attitudes about black magic, and their experience with Kemmler, I suspect the anti-Harry crowd's preference would be 'kill him now, while it's still relatively easy and not too many innocent bystanders get caught up in it'. My guess is that the 'ostrasize and warn' approach is the result of a compromise between Harry's Council enemies, who want him dead today, and his allies, who aren't sure or still have some faith in him. I suspect there's a large swath of 'not sure'.
--- Quote ---
As Mira said, this is all about politics. Langtry feels threatened by Harry and doesn't like the direction that he thinks Harry would lead or influence the Council toward. He now has the best of both worlds as he sees it. Harry is a Council outcast, and he can still use Harry by exploiting his incapability to refuse to do the right thing.
--- End quote ---
Probably there's some truth in that. Langtry would see that as 'being smart', though I suspect that deep down, he'd still prefer Harry dead. From Langtry's POV, it's better to kill potential warlocks early, before they can do more damage.
Remember how high the stakes are. Kemmler, for ex, was the single largest cause of World War One. Between the fighting itself, and the influenza plague it accelerated, and the nasty aftermath all over eastern Europe and Asia and other places, that adds up to (depending on how you count it) tens to hundreds of millions dead. If you count the USSR as a side-effect of WWI, that adds more millions of victims dead in the gulags and the intentional mass starvations. Plus he was apparently prevented from Darkhallowing himself to Mab-level by a narrow margin.
I don't agree with Langtry and the Council's actions, but I have no trouble understanding them. If I didn't have 'inside' information about Harry, I might agree with Langtry.
Mira:
--- Quote ---Given the Council's overall attitudes about black magic, and their experience with Kemmler, I suspect the anti-Harry crowd's preference would be 'kill him now, while it's still relatively easy and not too many innocent bystanders get caught up in it'. My guess is that the 'ostrasize and warn' approach is the result of a compromise between Harry's Council enemies, who want him dead today, and his allies, who aren't sure or still have some faith in him. I suspect there's a large swath of 'not sure'.
--- End quote ---
The time to have done that though was back during the events of Summer Knight. Harry had some powerful members of the Sr Council backing him, but if the Merlin wanted to push it, he may have succeeded. That attempt failed, in part because I believe they underestimated Harry. The irony of all of this is Harry has never planned his path, with him it just seem to happen..
Gaining the loyalty of the Wee Folk, thus an army? Shocking Mab and scaring the hell out of the White Council, planned? No, Harry just repaying them in pizza and freeing many of them held in bondage by the White Court, now he has their loyalty.
Warden of Demonreach? We are just beginning to learn what that means... Planned? Hell no, Harry didn't even have a clue that the place had a Warden,or needed a Warden, why it needed one, or that his little ceremony would make him one, he just wanted to protect Morgan.
Winter Knight? If he could have avoided that one, he would have, but he had to save his daughter, and in the process wiped out the whole Red Court, something the White Council had failed to do in their war or wars with them.. Point being, Harry now has the Winter Court at his back on top of everything else.
So now the White Council has booted him out of the Council, which is a rather feeble gesture considering the three things I just rattled off, oh yeah, one more thing, with the exception of the Holy Grail, Harry is also now holder of the Artifacts. So short of assassination, if they can convince Eb to murder his grandson, there isn't a heck of a lot they can do.
g33k:
--- Quote from: vincentric on July 01, 2024, 12:05:35 AM ---The problem is the White Council has selective memory where Harry is concerned.
No one can deny that many of Harry's exploits look shady from an outside view. But they don't give him credit for the bright ones or the times that he does the right thing when it might have been wiser to step aside.
Yes, he started the war with the Red Court (Though it was more that he gave them a pretext to put their plans in motion.), but he did it to save innocents from slavery and death. He resolved the war between Winter and Summer. He stood with the KotC as the Denarians tried to start anew Black Death. He stopped Kimmler's heirs. He again stood with the KotC to prevent the corruption of the Archive. He uncovered the traitor within the Council. He destroyed the Red Court. He dealt the deciding blow to Ethniu. These are the things that they know about but give no credit for. Saving the world in Cold Days and being literally on the side of the angels (Multiple casual interactions with Archangel Uriel come to mind.) would be more to his good but they don't know about those beyond what Harry's reported.
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The thing is: it's not the White Council's job to extend trust, to look for more-charitable explanations, to hope for the best. They do not allow themselves to mind-probe motivations & intentions.
They go by actions and likely intentions.
Their job is to find and stop sorcerors before they do too much damage.
Picking one of your examples:
Harry showed up with Sue, heroically rescued a bunch of wardens, and went on to heroically prevent any of the Kemmlerites from finishing the Darkhallow.
But of course EvilHarry(tm) would do exactly that: EvilHarry wouldn't want any of the other Kemmlerites to become a protogod of death-fueled vengeance. Note that all the other Kemmlerites were also equally-avid about stoppying anyone (but themselves) from succeeding, just like Harry was!
But Harry showed up to that party riding a 66-million-year-old necromantic monster. You don't get that sort of power in moments (I mean, Harry literally did... but so far as the Council is concerned, you can't... so obviously Harry didn't). What Harry did -- riding in on Sue -- proved to the council beyond all reasonable doubt that he had been secretly-studying Black Magic (to wit, Necromancy) for many years; in effect, showing that he was likely a disciple of one of Kemmler's disciples, and every bit as dangerous as any of Kemmler's disciples themselves!
Mira:
--- Quote ---Harry showed up with Sue, heroically rescued a bunch of wardens, and went on to heroically prevent any of the Kemmlerites from finishing the Darkhallow.
--- End quote ---
Harry did, he rationalized that he wasn't doing anything wrong technically because Sue wasn't human. Oh, let's not forget that he was aided in doing that by a fallen angel.. But how could they have know that? Did he even get called on the carpet to be questioned about it? No.. However did the White Council have a better answer for Cowl and Company? They didn't seem to did they.
--- Quote ---But Harry showed up to that party riding a 66-million-year-old necromantic monster. You don't get that sort of power in moments (I mean, Harry literally did... but so far as the Council is concerned, you can't... so obviously Harry didn't). What Harry did -- riding in on Sue -- proved to the council beyond all reasonable doubt that he had been secretly-studying Black Magic (to wit, Necromancy) for many years; in effect, showing that he was likely a disciple of one of Kemmler's disciples, and every bit as dangerous as any of Kemmler's disciples themselves!
--- End quote ---
Maybe, but they kept him on as a Warden for some time after that.. In fact wasn't that part of the paperwork that Rashid was going to fill out to get him reinstated in Cold Days? Can't remember if reinstating his Warden status was part of that or not.. Maybe he lost that when he became Winter Knight...
--- Quote ---Their job is to find and stop sorcerors before they do too much damage.
--- End quote ---
Well, if that's what they really think Harry is, then they blew that one BIG TIME! :o They are ALL guilty of enabling and aiding one of the most dangerous sorcerers in the modern era and should immediately chop off their own heads, beginning with the Merlin! ::)
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