Agreed, to an extent the servitors had given up their free will to the Fomor, and I suspect in the Dresdenverse Free Will is the indicator of humanity.

Then it comes down to in the case of the Turtlenecks, did they volunteer for it?  In which case their plight is the consequence of their own free choices.  However even so, once the choice is made and the physical and other changes happens, is the Turtleneck still human?  The same holds true even if it wasn't a free choice.  Take Mab, at some point in her life she was human, or perhaps maybe a changling with the free choice to chose her path..  Most would argue that now she is 99.99% fae and .01% human, if she is killed by magic this Halloween, did the wizard who did it violate the First Law of Magic?

I think the Council isolated Harry so that either someone else can get rid of him for them, or they can squash him without a trial or political maneuvering if and when they feel the need to do so.

That may be true, but why is it that they won't tell Harry what task he was bred to do, by them I might add.  I still think Margaret put a huge monkey wrench in their plans when she chose Malcolm as the father.  That totally screwed up their calculations.  It could have been the White Council that ordered the murder of Malcolm and accounted for the stupid manner that young Harry was treated at the time.

Harry used fire magic to kill some Fomor servitors.  Personally, I don't see how those guys can be considered as fully human any longer, but that's how Jim wrote it; so, it is what it is.

Yes, and it was written that way to underline that the charges against Harry were trumped up to convict in a kangaroo court.  However the White Council also knows that many others of it's members killed Fomor servitors with magic and didn't want to execute them.. So they altered the sentence.

The closest Harry will ever become to being a monster was when he was bent upon killing Rudy, but decided not to.

Agreed, plus he takes full responsibility for losing it for a moment.

Lara may want an alliance with Mab to kill off the last of the Black Court, which appears to have reformed under Drakul instead of Junior, who may be on the verge of making a better Black Court Vampire in his image. Harry has of course antecedents on killing off Vampire Courts.

Which gave him confidence to match his will with Drakul's will..

If Drakul estranged from the Black Court due to the ‘inferior’ Black Court vamps created by Junior was Lord Raiths protector then he was also the leaker of their weaknesses to the White Court to remove the weak embarrassments created by Junior. With the Word of Kemmler and Wizard recruits, Drakul may now be in the position to refine Juniors original design grounds enough for him to end the alliance with the White Court. Imagine a new type of Black Court Vampire more like Drakul, not rotting corpses, without the weakness to sunlight, garlic, holy water etc and powerful magic users. Mini Drakul’s under his command.

His current close aids are the Black Court Vamps of the old school, but they still seem to be suseptable to the usual,  as we saw when Toot gave her a garlic implant.

Drakul was a Member of the Accords, which prohibited him from attacking other Members without cause, he reneged on that in BG so he has no compunctions now against attacking the White Court now, lifting his protection from Lord Raith and pitting Black against White. Hence Lara is cosying up to Mab.

He's the one protecting Lord Raith?  I don't remember that in the books, is it a WOJ?

Why Mab so wants an alliance with the White Court.

Page 111-112 Battle Ground;

The Black Court had been all but exterminated, thanks to a really underhanded move by Lara's people a century and change back.  The only ones who were still alive--well, who continued to exist--were the oldest, wiliest, and most powerful of their kind.  These vampires were old-school, the real deal, nightmares of the Old World.  A Black Court vampire was a match for any dozen counterparts in the Red or White Court.

Yet, Lara's people all but wiped them out, underhanded move, but that fits the White Court's M.O.
Point is, her people did defeat them once, could this be the real reason why Mab wants the alliance between the White Court and the Winter Court, what's more a star born Winter Knight, to cover her flank against Drakul, a star born and the Black Court?

Which leads to another thought, one I think we've all had.. Wills, is mere will what sets a star born apart from mere mortals? 

Yeah, lots has been said about how if it hadn't been for Toot, Mavra would have had Harry.. Maybe, but for a microsecond, will against will, it was a draw between Harry and Drakul.  Drakul laughs it off, but...
pages 117- 118

Drakul's black-hole eyes swept back to me, and suddenly I was being crushed to the ground by the weight of the universe itself.  The very thought that I could have done something against a power like that was laughable---but I'd felt this kind of raw, universe-binding will before, in Chichen Itza.  Drakul, whatever he was, had considerably more personal power than the Lords of the Outer Night had ever managed to show me.  But I had hoisted those Red Court losers by their own petard,when everything was said and done.  I would be damned if I rolled over for Dracula's famous dad.  I ground my teeth and fought back against the power crushing me, not with my muscles but with my mind.  I pictured Drakul's will as a great, dark hand pressing me down--and mine as my own hand, rising to force it away.  I poured my will into the image, a couple of decades of disciplinw, experience, and focus,investing it with power, with reality with life.
   Gasping, one inch at a time, I lifted my hand until my right palm faced Drakul and steadied.  I couldn't stand--but I got an elbow underneath me and snarled silent defiance up at him, my right hand raised against his power.

Drakul smiled at Harry's efforts, one has to wonder though, what if Harry had put some soul fire behind it, or called upon the Spear of Destiny, what might have happened?  Then Drakul goes into his arrogance act and gives Harry a whole boatload of truths and half truths and perhaps some lies as well without really telling him anything as to why he was bred to be a star born,or what it means to be a star born, and what a poor ignorant fool he is with no style, or decorum, no gravitas.. If Harry had these things he would have seduced him into playing for his team.. Then just as Drakul is about to kill him, Harry uses all of the above to launch into a knock, knock joke, which confuses and delays Drakul until River and Listens get into position.  For a short while the three are doing okay until Mavra came on scene.  Now was it because Harry had no style that Drakul didn't seriously try to recruit him, or did Drakul realize that a guy who had resisted the Shadow of one of the Fallen, wasn't going to knuckle under to him whatever he promised?

Which brings us back to Mavra, and what Harry says to her back in Dead Beat.. Harry is warning her in the final chapter not to get to him through Murphy or his other vanilla friends.. Mavra laughs it off says he hasn't got that kind of power..

Page419

"This ever happens again," I said quietly.  "You try to get to me through other mortals again and I'll kill you."
Mavra's rotted lips turned up at one corner. "No, you won't," she said in her dusty voice.  "You don't have that kind of power."
"I can get it." I said.
"But you won't," she responded, mockery in her tone.  "It wouldn't be right."

Then Harry lists what power he can get potentially, everything from taking up a coin to becoming Mab's Winter Knight, this pisses Mavra off and Harry tells her to leave his town.  So what is the point of this? 

Well, Mavra knew at that point in time that Harry was a member of the White Council, that he was bound by the Laws of Magic.  So she was confident that he'd never be able to kill her because he was bound by doing the right thing, he wouldn't do what he'd need to do to kill her.  They were also standing by his grave that said, "He died doing the right thing.."  Well, Harry is no longer a member of the White Council, he isn't bound by those rules.  Could this be the real reason the Council voted him out?  Because they know from this time forward it will become necessary for Harry to break a lot of rules, so they are distancing themselves from him?  Harry can do what needs to be done, and because he is no longer a Council member their hands are clean.

Then on page 420 of Dead Beat, Malcolm says something that counters "Harry is now a monster,"  accusations that Carlos made at the end of Battle Ground..

I looked away from .  "I did things.  I made a deal I shouldn't have made.  I crossed a line."
"I Know," he said. "It only means what you think it means."
I looked up at him.  "What?"
"Harry, life isn't that simple.  There is such a thing as black and white.  Right and wrong.  But when you're in the thick of things, sometimes it is hard to tell.  You didn't do what you did for your own benefit.  You did it so that you could protect others.  That doesn't make it right---but it doesn't make you a monster,either. You still have free will.  You still get to choose what you will do and what you will become."

All of the above is spot on and why Harry is no monster.  Harry didn't do any of the stuff Carlos accused him of for his own benefit. Then we get to why Harry will never become a monster.  page 421 Dead Beat;

"As long as you believe you are responsible for your choices, you still are. You've got a good heart, son.  Listen to it."

The above is was the ingredient that made Margaret decide to conceive a star born with this man.. Malcolm's good heart, and Harry inherited it.  That is why Harry will never become a monster.
Margaret knew that, so do the Council, Harry will never become their monster to control, or anyone else's..


 

Certainly Cassius thought he could cast a death curse and Harry felt it hit. So no magic feather there.It's certainly open to discussion on what it means.  For me personally I take it as meaning that at the moments before his death that he will be alone fighting in some last ditch battle. But I am a romantic.

In terms of Cassius aging, his apparent age changed enough so that Harry did recognize him as who he was. So was it a magic feather???

But didn't Harry also note how old he looked?  Cassius's may have aged, but he was still Cassius, it wouldn't have been hard to know who he was.. No, no magic feather for this Dumbo.

Well, considering Cassius himself was dying alone, and as bitter and pissed as he was because he felt it was unfair that he couldn't get another coin, he wanted that for Harry as well..  And if you consider at the end of Changes, yes, Harry heard his voice echoing in his head, but the truth of the matter was, Harry was only "mostly dead," he fell into Mab's arms, heard her murmur "hush," was dragged to Demonreach on life support and had his soul walk about.  1] He didn't die. 2] He wasn't alone..  Maybe a wizard would feel any curse thrown by someone dying, magical talent or not.. However unless it is a magical practitioner of some sort, there is very little sting in it.

There is no way to destroy Molly Carpenter, nothing that could rid her of her humanity in short order.  Mab still has traces a thousand years after the fact. So unless it can be parsed differently it means kill the Winter Lady. And considering that Mab is planning for her death in battle this is a fraught statement. She effectively says that it may be better to  be without a Queen and a Lady.

If you're a Star Trek fanatic you can see some similarities between the episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and this.

Outside of the glowing eyes?  I really don't, crossing the galactic boundary, both Harry and Molly made that choice, Harry more overtly, Molly, less so, but she continued to train under "Auntie Lea."
Acquire godlike powers, some would say as wizards both had them before the mantles, so far neither is corrupted by them, it is a struggle though and been close.  One wants to stop the other because one believes that he or she is a god? Not yet... Struggle with their mantles is the closest to that show.. Oh and did you hear Captain Kirk at age 90 is in space!!! 

Now there's a word picture that I can go to bed on.  Rudolph craps Brimstone. Who knew?

He does appear to be possessed doesn't he?   Also crapping when you think you are about to be killed in an unpleasant way is a natural biological function....  It doesn't exactly give him the odor of sanctity when you think about it, so crapping brimstone fits....

I thought as much. But why would being burned by the sword produce the smell of sulphur?

Warning...