ParanetOnline
The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: dspringer1 on May 08, 2019, 05:09:23 PM
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We left skin game with the fate of Murphy somewhat up in the air.
* She is clearly NOT going to be a knight of the cross - or at least the odds are a lot lower than they were prior to Skin Game
* She is clearly seriously injured and will have a long recovery -- and her final physical condition will be noticably "less combat effective" than previously was the state.
* Dresden and Murphy are dating seriously
* Next book is Mirror Mirror, which is unlikely to involve This Murphy to any extent.
So what Role with this character play in the remaining 8+ books?
* Clearly Murphy will be a trusted confidant and adviser. She is already playing that role in both Cold Days and Skin Game
* Clearly Murphy will not be a cop or part of SI. That ship has sailed and is not going to come back.
* I would not be surprised if Dresden has some revelation about murphy in Mirror-Mirror.
Possibilities (with highest probability options on the top)
* Murphy will become/continue as one of the top national/world leaders in the paranet -- and take the lead in integrating the Paranet efforts with that of the White Council. She becomes a politically powerful figure. [moderate probability - evidence is that she has already been doing this, jim has already foreshadowed that paranet will be more important, who else is will situated to do this?]
* Dresden gets the cup to heal Murphy, restoring her her full physical abilities and/or some other magical means of achieving same outcome. Becomes Dresden's full partner in his business and in life. [moderate probability, but the outcome will not be a return to the Murphy of Cold Days. There will be some significant changes in her life].
* Murphy will become the support spouse for Dresden - take care of the home, family, advice, detective partner, support - basically Charity with cop skills added on. [Low probability, although real possibility in the post injury environment]
* Murphy will work for the government supernatural agency [very low probability -- just not seeing it as Murphy would see it as betraying confidences with Dresden ]
* Murphy dies [very low probability - if only because it would not appreciably add to the story, at least in the next few books]
Other possibilities?
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We left skin game with the fate of Murphy somewhat up in the air....
* Next book is Mirror Mirror, which is unlikely to involve This Murphy to any extent.
The next book is Peace Talks (#16). Mirror Mirror is the book after that (#17).
That said, it has been my long-held WAG that Murphy will at some point take Gard up on her offer to become a Valkyrie. I don't know when or how, but I pretty firmly believe it. Perhaps in PT she will still be too banged up to fight and she will go Valkyrie to be able to ride into battle with Harry and crew?
Also, if you didn't know or haven't read it, Jim gifted us with a short story for Christmas, set on Christmas Eve AFTER Peace Talks. You can find it on his website: http://www.jim-butcher.com/posts/2018/new-short-story-christmas-eve
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We left skin game with the fate of Murphy somewhat up in the air.
* She is clearly NOT going to be a knight of the cross - or at least the odds are a lot lower than they were prior to Skin Game
* She is clearly seriously injured and will have a long recovery -- and her final physical condition will be noticably "less combat effective" than previously was the state.
* Dresden and Murphy are dating seriously
* Next book is Mirror Mirror, which is unlikely to involve This Murphy to any extent.
So what Role with this character play in the remaining 8+ books?
* Clearly Murphy will be a trusted confidant and adviser. She is already playing that role in both Cold Days and Skin Game
* Clearly Murphy will not be a cop or part of SI. That ship has sailed and is not going to come back.
* I would not be surprised if Dresden has some revelation about murphy in Mirror-Mirror.
Possibilities (with highest probability options on the top)
* Murphy will become/continue as one of the top national/world leaders in the paranet -- and take the lead in integrating the Paranet efforts with that of the White Council. She becomes a politically powerful figure. [moderate probability - evidence is that she has already been doing this, jim has already foreshadowed that paranet will be more important, who else is will situated to do this?]
* Dresden gets the cup to heal Murphy, restoring her her full physical abilities and/or some other magical means of achieving same outcome. Becomes Dresden's full partner in his business and in life. [moderate probability, but the outcome will not be a return to the Murphy of Cold Days. There will be some significant changes in her life].
* Murphy will become the support spouse for Dresden - take care of the home, family, advice, detective partner, support - basically Charity with cop skills added on. [Low probability, although real possibility in the post injury environment]
* Murphy will work for the government supernatural agency [very low probability -- just not seeing it as Murphy would see it as betraying confidences with Dresden ]
* Murphy dies [very low probability - if only because it would not appreciably add to the story, at least in the next few books]
Other possibilities?
Well, first, I don't think Murphy's physical condition is nearly as bad as many keep saying. Dresden says that she can get back to 90% eventually. That just won't be by Peace Talks. I think by Mirror, Mirror or Body Slam she'll be in fine condition. She didn't get Michael Carpentered and won't require a cane just to move around. And 90% of Karrin Murphy is like 300% of most people.
Second, I've always pictured Murphy working as a supernatural consultant for vanilla law enforcement. I've said for years that she'd end up working with Tilly, basically taking on Dresden's role from Storm Front, but for the FBI. Lots of ex-cops go into consulting. Hell, she could end up apprenticing for Vince Graver (though I doubt it).
Third, Murphy will never become anything supernatural at this point. It would totally undermine her entire character if she has to deal with being mortal and get a get-out-of-mortality-free card.
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Murphy will become/continue as one of the top national/world leaders in the paranet -- and take the lead in integrating the Paranet efforts with that of the White Council. She becomes a politically powerful figure. [moderate probability - evidence is that she has already been doing this, jim has already foreshadowed that paranet will be more important, who else is will situated to do this?]
This seems extraordinarily unlikely. Murphy isn't even a member of the Paranet or the White Council--what makes her more qualified for this than, say, Harry? Or Elaine, or Luccio, or Ramirez, or other wizard-level talents with ties to the Paranet and who can demonstrate the advantages of integrating the two organizations. If Murphy just came in and fixed everything after these guys spent years trying, it would feel extremely unrealistic.
If Murphy is in charge of organizing and integrating different organizations, it should be integrating supernatural factions with mortal law enforcement. That's where her experience is, not with White Council politics.
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What if she becomes a private investigator? She could be Harry's partner, running the business and working with Harry on the spooky stuff.
Or she could work with that other PI guy. (I forgot his name) or Nick Angel.
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The next book is Peace Talks (#16). Mirror Mirror is the book after that (#17).
You are correct. I should have said the next book where Murphy is likely to be able to participate would be Mirror Mirror. We left Skin Game with her having months of recovery and I understand peace talks is just a few weeks at most after the end of Skin Game. It is hard for her to take any role while bedridden.
Well, first, I don't think Murphy's physical condition is nearly as bad as many keep saying. Dresden says that she can get back to 90% eventually. That just won't be by Peace Talks. I think by Mirror, Mirror or Body Slam she'll be in fine condition. She didn't get Michael Carpentered and won't require a cane just to move around. And 90% of Karrin Murphy is like 300% of most people.
But 90% is sufficient to take her out of the supernatural combat role that she has played in. That 10% is the difference between dying and living in that game.
Second, I've always pictured Murphy working as a supernatural consultant for vanilla law enforcement. I've said for years that she'd end up working with Tilly, basically taking on Dresden's role from Storm Front, but for the FBI. Lots of ex-cops go into consulting. Hell, she could end up apprenticing for Vince Graver (though I doubt it).
If Murphy is in charge of organizing and integrating different organizations, it should be integrating supernatural factions with mortal law enforcement. That's where her experience is, not with White Council politics.
Very true - and a real possibility. But a lot of the secrets she knows are just that - secrets that she would be very uncomfortable sharing even though the government would really like to know them. Not sure she will be comfortable taking on the role with divided loyalties.
Third, Murphy will never become anything supernatural at this point. It would totally undermine her entire character if she has to deal with being mortal and get a get-out-of-mortality-free card.
Probably correct.
This seems extraordinarily unlikely. Murphy isn't even a member of the Paranet or the White Council--what makes her more qualified for this than, say, Harry? Or Elaine, or Luccio, or Ramirez, or other wizard-level talents with ties to the Paranet and who can demonstrate the advantages of integrating the two organizations. If Murphy just came in and fixed everything after these guys spent years trying, it would feel extremely unrealistic.
I would argue that Murphy has already been coordinating Paranet actions across the country. Based on events in Afterwards and Cold Days, it is pretty clear that Murphy is a big player in the Paranet - and that Chicago has been playing a major role in the national Paranet response to the Formor. Sure she is not a wizard and has no magical talent. But she does the job -- and it is not as if the White Council is going to respect the magical talents of anyone in the paranet. They are all feeble talents in their eyes.
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Well Peace Talks she won't play much of a role I don't think. She will be recovering from surgery. Then in Mirror Mirror we will probably see a lot of the alternate Murphy (if she's still alive). So that will be two books without much of Prime Karren.
It's difficult to predict what will happen. If Jim wants her to be a more background character, she is fine as she is now. However if he wants her to be fighting alongside Dresden, it becomes more and more unrealistic as the threats get bigger and bigger while she's is only getting weaker and weaker with age, and injuries.
So if she's going to fight alongside him she will either need a Sword, or some kind of power up which I think Jim said she's not gonna get another boost so I don't really know. I think it's possible she will die, and be raised by the Valkyrie to join the ranks of Odin, and his soldiers.
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We left skin game with the fate of Murphy somewhat up in the air.
* She is clearly NOT going to be a knight of the cross - or at least the odds are a lot lower than they were prior to Skin Game
* She is clearly seriously injured and will have a long recovery -- and her final physical condition will be noticably "less combat effective" than previously was the state.
* Dresden and Murphy are dating seriously
* Next book is Mirror Mirror, which is unlikely to involve This Murphy to any extent.
So what Role with this character play in the remaining 8+ books?
* Clearly Murphy will be a trusted confidant and adviser. She is already playing that role in both Cold Days and Skin Game
* Clearly Murphy will not be a cop or part of SI. That ship has sailed and is not going to come back.
* I would not be surprised if Dresden has some revelation about murphy in Mirror-Mirror.
Possibilities (with highest probability options on the top)
* Murphy will become/continue as one of the top national/world leaders in the paranet -- and take the lead in integrating the Paranet efforts with that of the White Council. She becomes a politically powerful figure. [moderate probability - evidence is that she has already been doing this, jim has already foreshadowed that paranet will be more important, who else is will situated to do this?]
* Dresden gets the cup to heal Murphy, restoring her her full physical abilities and/or some other magical means of achieving same outcome. Becomes Dresden's full partner in his business and in life. [moderate probability, but the outcome will not be a return to the Murphy of Cold Days. There will be some significant changes in her life].
* Murphy will become the support spouse for Dresden - take care of the home, family, advice, detective partner, support - basically Charity with cop skills added on. [Low probability, although real possibility in the post injury environment]
* Murphy will work for the government supernatural agency [very low probability -- just not seeing it as Murphy would see it as betraying confidences with Dresden ]
* Murphy dies [very low probability - if only because it would not appreciably add to the story, at least in the next few books]
Other possibilities?
We need to make a few assumptions.
1. The entire series is no more than 25 books including the 3 books final trilogy..
2. There is no plans to create a spin off series base on Murphy or making Murphy appear prominently in other spin off series of Dresden like the one featuring Maggi as the protagonist.
3. JB is still that lazy writer that we know.
Assuming the 3 above assumptions held true, Murphy can only stay on the background either as someone like Charity or as a consultant for the paranet. Even if JB intended to grant Murphy a powerup, giving that to Murphy at such a late stage is too abrupt andd feels like forcing it too much. The only reason why I do not think that JB will kill Murphy off or remove her from circulation entirely because of his habbit as a lazy writer. JB do not write new material or discard old writing materials so lightly. He tends to recycle them. Butters is the best example. Butters is suppose to be a throw off character but do to JB's tendency to use what is already there, this throw off character is develop untill now.
If the above 3 assumptions no longer held true, then the possibilty of Murphy getting a power up or being killed off would grow exponentially.
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I would argue that Murphy has already been coordinating Paranet actions across the country. Based on events in Afterwards and Cold Days, it is pretty clear that Murphy is a big player in the Paranet - and that Chicago has been playing a major role in the national Paranet response to the Formor.
I had not gotten that impression at all. She seemed to be coordinating actions, yes, but I had thought she was a leader of the Chicago Alliance (https://dresdenfiles.fandom.com/wiki/Chicago_Alliance). She was working with the Paranet, yes, but not notably more so than other organizations like the Alphas, the White Court, and Marcone's people. In the meeting we saw in Ghost Story, the Paranet was represented by Abby, not Murphy.
Sure she is not a wizard and has no magical talent. But she does the job -- and it is not as if the White Council is going to respect the magical talents of anyone in the paranet. They are all feeble talents in their eyes.
...Harry is a feeble talent? Elaine? Luccio? Ramirez? Of all the people I listed, only Elaine is not known to be a wizard-level talent, and I'd gotten the impression that Ramirez, at least, suspected by this point that she was faking.
Once again, how is Murphy, a vanilla mortal with some connection to the Paranet but no connection to the White Council beyond Harry and no expressed interest in working with the White Council beyond Harry, a better choice for bringing the Paranet and the White Council together than the four people I brought up--all of whom are wizard-level talents, all of whom have seen the advantages of the White Council working with the Paranet, three of whom are members of the White Council, three of whom are actively working with the Paranet, two of whom are founding members of the Paranet, and two of whom have been actively lobbying to get the White Council to work with the Paranet on a grander scale? Because I'm not seeing it.
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Once again, how is Murphy, a vanilla mortal with some connection to the Paranet but no connection to the White Council beyond Harry and no expressed interest in working with the White Council beyond Harry, a better choice for bringing the Paranet and the White Council together than the four people I brought up--all of whom are wizard-level talents, all of whom have seen the advantages of the White Council working with the Paranet, three of whom are members of the White Council, three of whom are actively working with the Paranet, two of whom are founding members of the Paranet, and two of whom have been actively lobbying to get the White Council to work with the Paranet on a grander scale? Because I'm not seeing it.
There's a big difference between combat ability and connections and organization. Murphy is one of a handful of characters who has experience leading a complex organization. Dresden states outright that she's seen more action than most Wardens had before the war. She's smart.
And, most importantly, Elaine, Luccio, Ramirez, and most of the White Council are busy managing the White Council and the Fomor incursion. Elaine is helping with the Paranet, but she's actively combating supernatural threats. She's a weapon; she doesn't have time to handle the bureaucratic stuff that comes with running an organization. What we see from Murphy in Ghost Story is, indeed, her running the meeting for the Chicago Alliance. But she's rattling off orders, and everyone there is following them. And, for the most part, they're competent directions, from what we can see. She's negotiating, making deals, issuing threats, and basically holding onto Chicago mostly through stubbornness and a whole lot of preventative planning.
Finally, what makes you think the Paranet is going to trust the White Council? The same White Council that's been ignoring the hell out of them while they're getting snatched off the streets in broad daylight? Luccio would NEVER be trusted by most in the Paranet. You've already seen how most of the lesser talents reacted to Harry in White Night. Imagine a Warden (or most wizards, I'd imagine) they didn't already know trying to organize them. They'd be met with distrust instantly.
Murphy's a great choice to manage the Paranet. She's got the experience and the knowledge to lead an organization like that. Most importantly, I think the members would actually trust her judgment, for the most part, because she has demonstrated that she actually gives a damn about them at every opportunity.
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...Harry is a feeble talent? Elaine? Luccio? Ramirez? Of all the people I listed, only Elaine is not known to be a wizard-level talent, and I'd gotten the impression that Ramirez, at least, suspected by this point that she was faking.
Harry, Luccio, and Ramirez aren't part of the Paranet. They may work with it, but the Paranet is basically the JV version of the White Council.
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There's a big difference between combat ability and connections and organization. Murphy is one of a handful of characters who has experience leading a complex organization.
Along with Luccio.
Dresden states outright that she's seen more action than most Wardens had before the war. She's smart.
But given that the war has been going on for a decade or so at this point, that's no longer relevant. And I hope you're not claiming that she's the only smart person involved with the Paranet/White Council.
And, most importantly, Elaine, Luccio, Ramirez, and most of the White Council are busy managing the White Council and the Fomor incursion.
Elaine is working with the Paranet (in fact, she's leading it) and Ramirez is explicitly coordinating with the Paranet. And while we don't know what Luccio is doing, last we heard she was explicitly advocating that the White Council should use the Paranet as a resource for dealing with problems.
Elaine is helping with the Paranet, but she's actively combating supernatural threats. She's a weapon; she doesn't have time to handle the bureaucratic stuff that comes with running an organization.
No. Elaine is essentially the Paranet's directer/CEO. We have WoJ on this.
What we see from Murphy in Ghost Story is, indeed, her running the meeting for the Chicago Alliance. But she's rattling off orders, and everyone there is following them. And, for the most part, they're competent directions, from what we can see. She's negotiating, making deals, issuing threats, and basically holding onto Chicago mostly through stubbornness and a whole lot of preventative planning.
Yes. Because she is in charge of the Chicago Alliance. She is not in charge of the Paranet or any portion of the White Council. And she's good at it (probably. Chicago seems to be in a whole lot of trouble currently, but there's no evidence anyone could do better with the resources available, so...). That doesn't give her any sort of standing to convince the White Council of anything, since they don't seem to care about Chicago enough to replace the Warden that's supposed to be there.
Finally, what makes you think the Paranet is going to trust the White Council?
The part where it is the job of whoever is convincing them to work with the White Council to overcome this? Seriously, this is implied by the question under debate: "Who will convince the Paranet and White Council to work together? Murphy or [people I listed]?" If the Paranet doesn't trust the White Council, then the premise is invalid.
The same White Council that's been ignoring the hell out of them while they're getting snatched off the streets in broad daylight?
Ramirez has explicitly been working with them, and I'd be shocked if the younger wardens under his command, as well as the wardens that used to be under Harry's command weren't doing the same.
Luccio would NEVER be trusted by most in the Paranet. You've already seen how most of the lesser talents reacted to Harry in White Night.
And Harry came up with the Paranet partially as a way to counter that.
Imagine a Warden (or most wizards, I'd imagine) they didn't already know trying to organize them. They'd be met with distrust instantly.
You, mean, the way Harry already organized them into the Paranet? They don't need more organizing, they need to start coordinating with the White Council as an organization, rather than just individual members.
Murphy's a great choice to manage the Paranet. She's got the experience and the knowledge to lead an organization like that.
A few points here:
1) Murphy may in fact have the skills necessary to manage a continent-spanning organization like the Paranet, but she doesn't have experience in doing so. The biggest thing she organized before Ghost Story was a police department. And during Ghost Story, we saw her managing a city-wide organization, and having problems due to trust issues on both sides. Admittedly, a lot of the problems were due to Murphy's personal issues, but it's not a ringing endorsement.
2) Murphy does not have the skills or the connections to deal with the White Council, which is kind of necessary when the original claim was that Murphy would "take the lead in integrating the Paranet efforts with that of the White Council."
Most importantly, I think the members would actually trust her judgment, for the most part, because she has demonstrated that she actually gives a damn about them at every opportunity.
...That's nice. So has Harry. And have most of the members even heard of Murphy? She's pretty Chicago-focussed.
Harry, Luccio, and Ramirez aren't part of the Paranet. They may work with it, but the Paranet is basically the JV version of the White Council.
Harry is a founding member of the Paranet--the whole thing was his idea.
And Murphy is neither a member of the Paranet nor a member of the White Council, so she is twice as unqualified to integrate the two.
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Look, practically speaking, to integrate the Paranet and the White Council, you need:
1) Someone who's high-level in the Paranet to agree and help convince other members.
2) Someone who's high-level in the White Council to agree and convince other members.
3) Evidence that it benefits the Paranet.
4) Evidence it benefits the White Council.
5) Someone to coordinate all these things, and make sure the Paranet and the White Council are talking to each other.
I think that Harry is the best suited to be the person from point 5. He has an in with Elaine, who can fulfill point 1, as well as helping with that himself. He has an in with Luccio, who can fulfill point 2, as well as helping with that himself when it comes to younger wardens (or getting Ramirez to help with that part). He and Ramirez (who is involved because of Harry) both fulfill points 3 and 4.
Now let's look at Murphy. She may qualify for point 1, even if she's not actually a member of the Paranet. However, she distrusts the White Council, so I'm not sure why she would be the one to convince the Paranet to trust them. She cannot fulfill point 2. Her only way of fulfilling points 3 or 4 is through Harry, or through Ramirez due to Harry.
Murphy's qualified for a lot of things: She seems to have good organizational skills, and can successfully coordinate different factions. But she doesn't have the resources she would need to integrate these two factions.
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Totally agree that the Paranet needs champions within the White Council - Rameriz, Lucio, and Harry fill that role.
However, what we are talking about is the Paranet's own internal leadership - aka who works with that champion. In that sense, I think Murphy has to be one of their top 3 leaders, if not their defacto leader today. Elaine would also be one of those leaders, but she lacks the contacts Murphy has. Elaine's power would be an asset, but she is actively hiding that power so it will probably not end up being decisive leadership wise in the short run.
The Paranet was forced to organize and develop some form of national structure in response to the Formor. Based on actions in Ghost Story, Murphy was being briefed on Paranet crises across the nation, and coordinating national Paranet responses to those crises. She is likely known to all the local paranet leaders and seen as the go-to person to get help. She was also the person who represented paranet interests with both Marcone (chicago specific mostly) and the White court (national) and the knights of the cross (worldwide).
Also keep in mind, Murphy has PERSONAL and RESPECTED relationships with all the key White council members (Harry, Lucio, Ramerez), knows Elaine, Lara Raithe, Marcone, both the Knights of the Cross and the Winter Lady. Who else in the Paranet has this level of high level contacts in the supernatural world.
Now you could argue that the White Council should provide that leadership, but the fact is that they do not want to do this and probably would not do a good job because of that fact. The paranet is much more likely to end up formal White Council ally rather than a subset of the Council itself. That might change over time, but ally is the best they can hope for in the next few years.
Do not get me wrong. Paranet will always be a mostly decentralized local organization and each community will have their own local leaders. Leading the Paranet will be like herding kittens. But the fact is clear that the Paranet needs a national leadership an (based on the books), Murphy is probably the best candidate for that role.
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Assuming that Murphy doesn't die in Peace Talks, the problem in Mirror Mirror is Harry gets pulled into Alt-Harry's reality. Alt-Harry starts going down the wrong path after a decision he makes in Grave Peril. Remember the scene in Summer Knight when Harry finally let Murphy in on his world and gives her the inside dirt on how the White Council was trying to sell him out to the vampires? That might never happen in the Alt-Harry universe. We don't even know if Murphy fully comes back the psychic mauling she received in Grave Peril in Alt-Harry's reality. It's possible that even if Murphy wasn't broken by that experience, the trust and friendship that started to be rebuilt in Summer Knight never happened at all. In Alt-Harry land Murphy might still be working for the Chicago PD and she will probably think of Alt-Harry, and therefore our Harry, as a big time bad guy. I won't be surprised if the first time Murphy sees Harry in Mirror Mirror she draws a gun on him.
I'm not sure what Harry could learn about Alt-Murphy that would help him with the Murphy he knows, though I suppose Jim might think of something. More to the point, I doubt that whatever happens to Alt-Murphy in Mirror Mirror will be much of an indicator of where the main universe character will go in future books.
Seeing as Peace Talks takes place several months the events in Skin Game I expect Murphy will probably be doing a lot of PT in order to heal to the degree that she can. I don't see her as being more than a sounding board for Harry in Peace Talks. I assume Harry will talk to Murphy because it would be weird if he didn't, but we may not get a really good indicator of where her character will go in future books. What might happen is we will hear Murphy wondering what her future role should be, perhaps hinting at a couple of possibilities.
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However, what we are talking about is the Paranet's own internal leadership - aka who works with that champion.
Elaine.
In that sense, I think Murphy has to be one of their top 3 leaders, if not their defacto leader today.
I did not get that sense at all. I got the sense that Murphy was the go-to person for organizing Chicago's defenses, and that a certain amount of big-picture information got shared as a result of that, but it honestly never occurred to me that Murphy could be in charge of more than that.
Could you please provide quotes that support your position? I'd re-read the relevant scenes myself, but I don't have access to my books right now.
Elaine would also be one of those leaders, but she lacks the contacts Murphy has.
What contacts outside of Chicago does Murphy have that Elaine doesn't? (I'm not counting any contact that Elaine technically doesn't have but whom Harry can easily put her in touch with--Murphy got the majority of her supernatural contacts by doing exactly that.)
Elaine's power would be an asset, but she is actively hiding that power so it will probably not end up being decisive leadership wise in the short run.
Um. How to put this... The Paranet is an organization based around supporting a specific group of people, namely magic-users who are not a part of the White Council. Elaine is a member of this group. Murphy is not. I see no universe where this does not matter. Murphy may be able to do the job despite this, but I don't see why she would be chosen over Elaine. It's like if a women's rights organization appointed a man to be in charge even though there's a woman who's just as competent.
Her magical strength may also help with convincing the White Council to respect her, but you are right that she is hiding it, so it is less likely to come into play directly. (Indirectly, it lets her accomplish things that would benefit the White Council, and they can see what she accomplishes.)
The Paranet was forced to organize and develop some form of national structure in response to the Formor.
Now you could argue that the White Council should provide that leadership, but the fact is that they do not want to do this and probably would not do a good job because of that fact. The paranet is much more likely to end up formal White Council ally rather than a subset of the Council itself. That might change over time, but ally is the best they can hope for in the next few years.
Do not get me wrong. Paranet will always be a mostly decentralized local organization and each community will have their own local leaders. Leading the Paranet will be like herding kittens. But the fact is clear that the Paranet needs a national leadership an (based on the books), Murphy is probably the best candidate for that role.
Okay. I'm seeing what the problem is now. You and I just have really different conceptions of what the Paranet is. I believe that the Paranet has been a national organization from its conception, and that, in fact, coordinating local groups to deal with more wide-spread issues was the reason it was formed. I believe this based on Harry's explanation to Elaine in White Night when he told her he wanted to form it--that it was to deal with problems like the attempted genocide of low-level magic users, which had taken so long to stop precisely because the only organized groups of low-level magic users were local, rather than national (or international).
Because of this, and because of the fact that we have a WoJ that Elaine is the Paranet's CEO, I believe that Elaine is already filling the role that you want Murphy to fill. As such, what I perceive you saying is "Elaine is completely incompetent and must be replaced immediately by Murphy, who is just so much better that she can single-handedly accomplish in months what several other people, who have far more resources and advantages when it comes to solving this issue, have been attempting to do for years." I object to this. It makes several characters incompetent for no good reason, and butchers their characterization in doing so.
However, it is now apparent that you are not saying this--you're just arguing from a different (wrong) premise. If the Paranet had never been formed, and low-level magic users were still at the level of organization that we saw in White Night (mostly local groups, some communication between them but it's sporadic and unreliable) then I would agree that Murphy would be a good person to organize them. The Murphy we see in Ghost Story and Cold Days would be a very good person to organize something like the Paranet, only with more vanilla mortals in it as well. The problem is, the Paranet has already been formed, and already does the things you thing that Murphy would organize it to do.
Based on actions in Ghost Story, Murphy was being briefed on Paranet crises across the nation, and coordinating national Paranet responses to those crises.
I agree that she was informed of crisises across the nation, but I don't recall her organizing national responses. I had thought that it was the same kind of thing as Harry being briefed about warlocks in Australia--not his area of jurisdiction, but he's a local leader, so he gets information about the more dangerous threats.
She is likely known to all the local paranet leaders and seen as the go-to person to get help.
Oh, definitely. She's definitely the local go-to person--I just don't see her as being anything more.
She was also the person who represented paranet interests with both Marcone (chicago specific mostly)
Yes.
and the White court (national)
Only because Harry was dead. Her only links to the White Council are through Harry.
and the knights of the cross (worldwide).
Since when? I see no evidence of her having contact with Sanya, and she specifically isn't the point of contact for the Church, because it's explicitly noted that St. Mary's is a good place to send people to keep them safe from Murphy when she's getting too overzealous about killing kids who were essentially brainwashed.
And she's not acting as a Knight, either: she's not picking up the Sword, or giving either of the Swords to others, and she is explicitly acting against the values of the Knights with the whole Fitz thing.
Also keep in mind, Murphy has PERSONAL and RESPECTED relationships with all the key White council members (Harry, Lucio, Ramerez), knows Elaine, Lara Raithe, Marcone, both the Knights of the Cross and the Winter Lady. Who else in the Paranet has this level of high level contacts in the supernatural world.
Harry. Who is not explicitly part of the Paranet, but is, as its co-founder, closer than Murphy. Most of these contacts, in fact, Murphy only got in the first place because of Harry. Furthermore, I have seen no evidence that Murphy has a personal relationship with either Luccio or Lara Raith; and her relationship with Molly seemed to be fairly adversarial even before the Winter Lady thing.
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To be clear: I don't think any one person can integrate the Paranet and the White Council on their own, and I feel that if someone did, it would undermine the efforts of all the people who have been trying for years.
Furthermore, I believe the people who have been trying for years to integrate the two should and will be the ones with the most pivotal role in succeeding, rather than having someone completely new come in and solve the problem easily.
Those people who I view as having been working on the problem most already are, in order of most work done: Harry, Elaine and Luccio, and Ramirez.
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If any contact, coordination or even integration between the paranet and the White council is ever going to go anywhere, Elaine surely cannot be the one who does it. In the eyes of the White council incumbant leaders, Elaine is a missing warlock. I do not think Elaine would dare to get in contact with white council in any capacity, let alone coordinating with them on a regulat basis. The more she gtet into contact with the white council the greater chances she will get caught. Unless the paranet is going to be completely isolated from the white council, there must be someone who need to get into contact with the council on a regular basis and develop the relationship between the 2 organizations. This person may not be Murphy, but it can't be Elaine.
Harry, Luccio and Ramirez are high level arcane talents and best use elsewhere. They can be summon to help the paranet in case of a crisis, but it will be a huge waste of talent to let them manage and coordinate with the paranet on a day to day basis. Besides, Harry, Luccio and Ramirez already has their affiliation. They are all White council members. None of them are suitable to held an official leadership role in the paranet unless the paranet is willing to become a vassal organization under the council instead of being an independant ally. It is true that Murphy don't have the magical talent to be considered as a minor practicianer, but many of the paranet talents are so minor it might as well be non existent, so Murphy not having a magical talent is not that much of a deal. From this consideration, making Murphy the official leader is better than say making Luccio or Ramirez the official leader. Harry is even worse. Not only he is member of the white council, he is also the winter knight. The paranet is a loose organization, it don't need a super power to leads it unless the paranet wants to draw fire to itself. Note I say official leader, not spiritual leader. Harry, Ramirez, Luccio, Elaine will always be the spiritual leader of paranet. Their big brothers and big sisters, their behind the scene backer, but putting either one of them on the official seat as the leader of the paranet will cause more harm than good. Well, unless the paranet grow into a real power on it's own. If the paranet can do that, having Elaine or Harry as the leader will be good, but for now the paranet is not a power yet.
As Murphy only coordinating locally in Chicago. Well, It wouldn't surprise me if Chicago become the centre of paranet itself. If the paranet ever going to have a central HQ, it will be either in Chicago or in L.A. where Elaine is currently operating. Chicago is the paranet birthplace after all. In this case, being the local head in Chicago is in fact a good indicator for Murphy if anyone is going to become the official leader of the paranet. I consider Chicago is better than L.A. since Baron Marcone one of the freeholding lord of the unceli accord and Lara Wraith de facto leader of the white court is also stationed in Chicago. Keep your friends close and your enemies Closer so to speak.
For me, Murphy may or may not be the head leader of the paranet, but she is at least the top management. If the paranet is a company and Elaine is the CEO, Murphy is at least head of human resources which in many companies is considered second in command.
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f any contact, coordination or even integration between the paranet and the White council is ever going to go anywhere, Elaine surely cannot be the one who does it. In the eyes of the White council incumbant leaders, Elaine is a missing warlock.
No she isn't. No one except Harry even knows that Justin had another apprentice, much less who it is. In the eyes of the Council, Elaine is a minor talent coordinating other minor talents, who also happens to be more effective than her apparent power level would suggest.
I do not think Elaine would dare to get in contact with white council in any capacity, let alone coordinating with them on a regulat basis. The more she gtet into contact with the white council the greater chances she will get caught. Unless the paranet is going to be completely isolated from the white council, there must be someone who need to get into contact with the council on a regular basis and develop the relationship between the 2 organizations. This person may not be Murphy, but it can't be Elaine.
I would agree with you, except that in Cold Case it is made explicit that she is coordinating with Ramirez. So at this point I figure that Elaine is less afraid of White Council contact, probably figuring that after all this time no one is going to spontaneously realize that she was Justin's apprentice when they don't even know that such a person ever existed.
Harry, Luccio and Ramirez are high level arcane talents and best use elsewhere. They can be summon to help the paranet in case of a crisis, but it will be a huge waste of talent to let them manage and coordinate with the paranet on a day to day basis.
Run the Paranet, maybe, but I think any of them would be reasonably well-suited to being the contact point between the Paranet and the White Council (admittedly, Harry has some problems in this regard, but he also has the strongest claim on the position, so I figure it cancels out).
Besides, Harry, Luccio and Ramirez already has their affiliation. They are all White council members. None of them are suitable to held an official leadership role in the paranet unless the paranet is willing to become a vassal organization under the council instead of being an independant ally.
Okay, now I'm just confused. I keep saying "Elaine is the head of the Paranet already. What they really need is someone to facilitate communication between the two. Murphy is not the right person for that." I'm not sure how Ramirez's, Luccio's, and Harry's affiliation with the White Council would be a problem for that. (Also, Harry is at least as affiliated with the Paranet as the White Council, given that he founded it. Clearly you can have multiple political affiliations, because Harry is affiliated with both the White Council and the Winter Court, and no one's come up to him and said "sorry, you can't do that.")
It is true that Murphy don't have the magical talent to be considered as a minor practicianer, but many of the paranet talents are so minor it might as well be non existent, so Murphy not having a magical talent is not that much of a deal.
Maybe? I don't think so, but I suppose it's possible that Jim feels differently.
From this consideration, making Murphy the official leader is better than say making Luccio or Ramirez the official leader. Harry is even worse. Not only he is member of the white council, he is also the winter knight. The paranet is a loose organization, it don't need a super power to leads it unless the paranet wants to draw fire to itself.
See above about the leader thing. Also, it could certainly use powerful forces supporting it--that's why it coordinates with wizards and the White Court.
Harry, Ramirez, Luccio, Elaine will always be the spiritual leader of paranet.
Ramirez and Luccio aren't spiritual leaders of the Paranet--they're not even part of the Paranet! They are explicitly White Council wizards who feel that the White Council would benefit from working more closely with the Paranet.
Their big brothers and big sisters, their behind the scene backer, but putting either one of them on the official seat as the leader of the paranet will cause more harm than good. Well, unless the paranet grow into a real power on it's own. If the paranet can do that, having Elaine or Harry as the leader will be good, but for now the paranet is not a power yet.
Elaine is already the official leader of the Paranet. I just spend a chunk of my last post explaining that. And it clearly isn't doing more harm than good, because the Paranet seems to be doing quite well for itself.
As Murphy only coordinating locally in Chicago. Well, It wouldn't surprise me if Chicago become the centre of paranet itself. If the paranet ever going to have a central HQ, it will be either in Chicago or in L.A. where Elaine is currently operating. Chicago is the paranet birthplace after all. In this case, being the local head in Chicago is in fact a good indicator for Murphy if anyone is going to become the official leader of the paranet.
I believe that headquarters is in L.A. Harry may be the co-founder and former go-to heavy weight, but Elaine was the one doing most of the day-to-day organization, from what I understood. Also, Ramirez seems to have taken Harry's place at least temporarily as wizard-on-call, and he's based out of L.A.
For me, Murphy may or may not be the head leader of the paranet, but she is at least the top management. If the paranet is a company and Elaine is the CEO, Murphy is at least head of human resources which in many companies is considered second in command.
No. Because if Murphy were part of the Paranet, much less high up in the command structure, then there would not have needed to be a separate Paranet representative at the meeting we saw, and yet there clearly was one. This meeting consisted of: a representative of the White Court, a representative of the Paranet, a representative of Marcone (unless he arrived early and then left before the meeting--I don't have my book to check), other sundry people concerned with Chicago's defense (including Will Borden and Daniel Carpenter), and Murphy. This is also, to my knowledge, the only time we have ever seen Murphy interacting with the Paranet. It provides as much evidence of her being high up in the Paranet's command structure as her being high up in the White Court's command structure--less, actually, since we've at least seen her interacting with the White Court more than once.
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Because of this, and because of the fact that we have a WoJ that Elaine is the Paranet's CEO, I believe that Elaine is already filling the role that you want Murphy to fill. As such, what I perceive you saying is "Elaine is completely incompetent and must be replaced immediately by Murphy, who is just so much better that she can single-handedly accomplish in months what several other people, who have far more resources and advantages when it comes to solving this issue, have been attempting to do for years." I object to this. It makes several characters incompetent for no good reason, and butchers their characterization in doing so.
However, it is now apparent that you are not saying this--you're just arguing from a different (wrong) premise. If the Paranet had never been formed, and low-level magic users were still at the level of organization that we saw in White Night (mostly local groups, some communication between them but it's sporadic and unreliable) then I would agree that Murphy would be a good person to organize them. The Murphy we see in Ghost Story and Cold Days would be a very good person to organize something like the Paranet, only with more vanilla mortals in it as well. The problem is, the Paranet has already been formed, and already does the things you thing that Murphy would organize it to do.
I have not seen the WoJ, so cannot speak to what it said. But your statement above is not consistent with what we saw in the books.
• Paranet up to the events in changes is a decentralized help network, providing advice and ability to get assistant from Harry or other key leader
• Paranet in Ghost Story has evolved into a defensive organization, spreading news of attacks and encouraging people to behave defensively. Murphy is clearly directing where some of the military forces are being directed, including where to call in Ramirez or white court hit teams.
• In no way was the paranet EVER described as some centralized organization. It has always been described as a series of city/town focused groups with some central coordination. Remember, the paranet was created on the back of the existing social structure for minor practitioners – aka a lot of local organizations. You can argue that this structure changed dramatically with the formor. Not sure I buy that, but if you do then you do.
I am not saying that Murphy is the ONLY one who can lead the paranet. To be honest, I am not sure the paranet would ever have “one” leader. The org screams “committee” to me. But Murphy is the most likely candidate for the “chair” simply because she is very well known, she already has a personal relationship with all the key people, she IS a heroic figure to the lay members of the paranet and is well situated to represent their interests.
It is true she is not a practitioner, but not sure that is a big deal given the org is likely run by committee. Given that many practitioners have very little power, I doubt magical power has much bearing in the authority any individual has within the Paranet. I could easily see the Paranet including a number of individuals that are not practitioners, but are useful/supernaturally aware. After all, their common interest is awareness of the supernatural and vulnerability to the supernatural. However, if the organization defines itself as Magical Practitioners, then there is no chance of Murphy being a leader.
I suspect Elaine can be a highly effective leader as well – and she may very run the Paranet’s national organization. I do agree that Elaine would not be considered a warlock UNLESS she was associated with Justine. Not joining the White Council is not against the laws of magic. But Elaine’s fear of this will keep her from taking a very public role with the White Council.
What contacts outside of Chicago does Murphy have that Elaine doesn't?
White Court, Marcone, Odin’s people, White Council, Knights of the Cross, Supernatural part of the Church, Winter Lady, Billy Borden and the Alphas – all of which are at least significant players at the power level Paranet operates in. Most are freaky scary at the level the paranet operates.
It is not that Elaine cannot find out people’s phone numbers or get an introduction. My point is that Murphy is well known and respected by these individuals. Elaine can develop that relationship as well – but I doubt she has that today. And Chicago seems to be where all the external help is coordinated from – so Chicago is important. In all fairness, Elaine probably has a lot more contacts with the individual Paranet organizations. I suspect Elaine has more power within the paranet itself. But I was not addressing that question, but the question of who would make a good public leader of the paranet.
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No she isn't. No one except Harry even knows that Justin had another apprentice, much less who it is. In the eyes of the Council, Elaine is a minor talent coordinating other minor talents, who also happens to be more effective than her apparent power level would suggest.
I would agree with you, except that in Cold Case it is made explicit that she is coordinating with Ramirez. So at this point I figure that Elaine is less afraid of White Council contact, probably figuring that after all this time no one is going to spontaneously realize that she was Justin's apprentice when they don't even know that such a person ever existed.
Run the Paranet, maybe, but I think any of them would be reasonably well-suited to being the contact point between the Paranet and the White Council (admittedly, Harry has some problems in this regard, but he also has the strongest claim on the position, so I figure it cancels out).
Okay, now I'm just confused. I keep saying "Elaine is the head of the Paranet already. What they really need is someone to facilitate communication between the two. Murphy is not the right person for that." I'm not sure how Ramirez's, Luccio's, and Harry's affiliation with the White Council would be a problem for that. (Also, Harry is at least as affiliated with the Paranet as the White Council, given that he founded it. Clearly you can have multiple political affiliations, because Harry is affiliated with both the White Council and the Winter Court, and no one's come up to him and said "sorry, you can't do that.")
Maybe? I don't think so, but I suppose it's possible that Jim feels differently.
See above about the leader thing. Also, it could certainly use powerful forces supporting it--that's why it coordinates with wizards and the White Court.
Ramirez and Luccio aren't spiritual leaders of the Paranet--they're not even part of the Paranet! They are explicitly White Council wizards who feel that the White Council would benefit from working more closely with the Paranet.
Elaine is already the official leader of the Paranet. I just spend a chunk of my last post explaining that. And it clearly isn't doing more harm than good, because the Paranet seems to be doing quite well for itself.
I believe that headquarters is in L.A. Harry may be the co-founder and former go-to heavy weight, but Elaine was the one doing most of the day-to-day organization, from what I understood. Also, Ramirez seems to have taken Harry's place at least temporarily as wizard-on-call, and he's based out of L.A.
No. Because if Murphy were part of the Paranet, much less high up in the command structure, then there would not have needed to be a separate Paranet representative at the meeting we saw, and yet there clearly was one. This meeting consisted of: a representative of the White Court, a representative of the Paranet, a representative of Marcone (unless he arrived early and then left before the meeting--I don't have my book to check), other sundry people concerned with Chicago's defense (including Will Borden and Daniel Carpenter), and Murphy. This is also, to my knowledge, the only time we have ever seen Murphy interacting with the Paranet. It provides as much evidence of her being high up in the Paranet's command structure as her being high up in the White Court's command structure--less, actually, since we've at least seen her interacting with the White Court more than once.
Hoping that the council won't ever found out Elaine's little secret is asking a bit too much. The council are wizards after all, and gathering intelligence is one of their main bread and butter.
If Elaine stay ananomous and hide amongst the masses it is one thing, but if she appears as the head honcho of a major organization, the council is bound to dig up her background, especially if this organization is about to engage in an alliance with the council.
Making contact with Ramirez on a personal basis is one thing. Interacting with the council as an organization is another thing entirely. Ramirez is young and rather tolerant, shown by the way he slack off when the order to catch Molly comes up, but if the paranet is going to ally with the council as an organization, Elaine won't be dealing with Ramirez only but with the likes of Morgan and Langtry.
Even her relationship with Ramirez is on shaky ground because their relationship is based on a lie. Elaine is still hiding her powers after all, even if Ramirez has some incling, Elaine and Ramirez has not handle this issue openly and clear the air to my knowledge.
In my opinion, as long as Elaine stay as the head honcho of the paranet, any formal alliance between the paranet and the council is pretty much impossible. Having some contacts and back door dealings with more tolerant individual members of the council is as much as the paranet could go. In such a case, a official contact person aka embassador is rather unnescesary.
Also I want to emphasize that Murphy's vanilla status is very unlikely to effect anything if she wanted to join the paranet, assuming she is not a member already. If we want to be frank about it, when it comes to common ground, the average practicianer on the paranet has a lot more in common with a vanilla mortal compare to a wizard level talent like Ramirez.
With minor practicianers living amongst the common folk and with most of them still young and has their friends and family around, I will be the first to disbelieve if you tell me that there is no vanilla mortals within the membership of the paranet. Well, As long as the vanilla mortal is not in denial land like Rudolph. I suspect that the paranet has develop from an organization of minor practicianers into an organization of everyone who is clued in on the supernatural world. People like members of SI, Mickey Mallone, Agent Tilly and so on. Charity, Butters, Michael probably is a member as well. It will be stupid not to join the paranet if you are clued in. The information spread on the paranet could save your lives after all, and if I am a minor practicianer I would have recommend my friends and family to join too, so long as they can handle it and not go insane like Rudolph.
As for Harry. He is trusted by the paranet, that is true. but even though he is a member of the council, he is not trusted by the council's current leadership. He is the winter knight and warden of demonreach. If he acted as the go between the paranet and the council, it could possibly worsen the problem. The council fears him. Which such circumstance, It won't be clear if the paranet wanted to ally with the council or wanted to intimidate them instead?
Luccio is captain of the wardens. She is practically the council's grand Marshal. Asking her to act as a go between is a bit much.
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But your statement above is not consistent with what we saw in the books.
It's consistent with what I saw. You appear to have seen something else.
Paranet up to the events in changes is a decentralized help network, providing advice and ability to get assistant from Harry or other key leader
The Paranet, as I understood it, was designed to create a centralized network to coordinate a group of people that have been notably decentralized up until that point.
Paranet in Ghost Story has evolved into a defensive organization, spreading news of attacks and encouraging people to behave defensively. Murphy is clearly directing where some of the military forces are being directed, including where to call in Ramirez or white court hit teams.
As I understood it, the Paranet was always a defensive organization, and what changed is their level of coordination with other groups. Murphy was (maybe) directing where Ramirez and White Court hit teams went, but I don't see how that makes her in charge of the Paranet--neither of those people/groups belong to the Paranet.
In no way was the paranet EVER described as some centralized organization. It has always been described as a series of city/town focused groups with some central coordination. Remember, the paranet was created on the back of the existing social structure for minor practitioners – aka a lot of local organizations. You can argue that this structure changed dramatically with the formor. Not sure I buy that, but if you do then you do.
I'm arguing that the point of the Paranet has always been to centralize a bunch of unrelated groups, and that it has been moving toward that continuously.
I am not saying that Murphy is the ONLY one who can lead the paranet.
Oh, good.
To be honest, I am not sure the paranet would ever have “one” leader. The org screams “committee” to me.
Makes sense to me.
But Murphy is the most likely candidate for the “chair” simply because she is very well known, she already has a personal relationship with all the key people, she IS a heroic figure to the lay members of the paranet and is well situated to represent their interests.
This doesn't make sense to me, because as I understand it, Murphy is in the position of "valued and trusted ally." And allies of an organization, no matter how valued and trusted, don't suddenly end up in charge of that organization without either some sort of takeover, or a lot of people thinking that there's some sort of takeover.
Wasn't someone arguing earlier that no member of the White Council could end up in charge for precisely this reason?
It is true she is not a practitioner, but not sure that is a big deal given the org is likely run by committee. Given that many practitioners have very little power, I doubt magical power has much bearing in the authority any individual has within the Paranet. I could easily see the Paranet including a number of individuals that are not practitioners, but are useful/supernaturally aware. After all, their common interest is awareness of the supernatural and vulnerability to the supernatural. However, if the organization defines itself as Magical Practitioners, then there is no chance of Murphy being a leader.
This seems to be another case of different understandings. I have always understood the Paranet to define itself as an organization of magical practitioners. I could see this maybe changing due to the war against the Fomor, but I feel like we'd need to see that change well in advance of Murphy being put in charge.
I suspect Elaine can be a highly effective leader as well – and she may very run the Paranet’s national organization. I do agree that Elaine would not be considered a warlock UNLESS she was associated with Justine. Not joining the White Council is not against the laws of magic. But Elaine’s fear of this will keep her from taking a very public role with the White Council.
I, on the other hand, see Elaine's fear having waned significantly, since she has at this point been working with Ramirez for years, and seems quite comfortable with it. Also, Harry at least doesn't see this as being a problem, given that he was advocating that the White Council work with the Paranet since sometime before Changes, and he's well aware of Elaine's issues.
White Court, Marcone, Odin’s people, White Council, Knights of the Cross, Supernatural part of the Church, Winter Lady, Billy Borden and the Alphas
No, no, maybe, no, no, no, no, and no. Did I not specifically say that I wasn't counting contacts through Harry and Harry's actions? (Also, we know that Elaine has contacts with at least the White Court and the White Council, because we've seen it in the books. And Molly doesn't have a huge reason to like Murphy--their relationship in Ghost Story was fairly adversarial, and their interaction in Cold Days mostly consisted of her getting politely kicked out of her own apartment so that the person she was in love with could have a conversation with Murphy (who is her rival in that department). She may be polite about working with Murphy at need, but I don't see them having much of a relationship outside of "we're mostly on the same side and both like Harry.")
Also, what does having outside contacts have to do with being the leader of the Paranet? I've been meaning to ask this. At best, it would make one a good ambassador to those organizations, or someone who coordinates between them. And Murphy would be a very bad coordinator/ambassador to the White Council, because her connection to them is extremely tenuous (she's met Luccio all of once and has maybe worked with Ramirez off screen) and explicitly doesn't trust them.
It is not that Elaine cannot find out people’s phone numbers or get an introduction. My point is that Murphy is well known and respected by these individuals. Elaine can develop that relationship as well – but I doubt she has that today.
Maybe. But see above regarding what this has to do with running the Paranet. If you're looking for someone with the contacts to coordinate between different powerful groups, then that's Harry way more than it's ever Murphy. Seriously, name one supernatural contact that a) Murphy did not get through Harry and b) does not know/respect Harry as much or more than Murphy. And that's not counting the contacts that Harry has that Murphy doesn't.
And Chicago seems to be where all the external help is coordinated from – so Chicago is important.
Maybe. Or maybe it's just that we only see Chicago, and meetings like this are taking place in a bunch of different cities. We don't know.
In all fairness, Elaine probably has a lot more contacts with the individual Paranet organizations. I suspect Elaine has more power within the paranet itself. But I was not addressing that question, but the question of who would make a good public leader of the paranet.
So what you're saying is that Elaine should be the head of the shadow government of the Paranet, while Murphy serves the purpose of puppet leader/public face for the purposes of working with other organizations. You know, I can actually see that working really well--except that I think Murphy would probably object. She might get talked into it, though, so who knows?
Hoping that the council won't ever found out Elaine's little secret is asking a bit too much. The council are wizards after all, and gathering intelligence is one of their main bread and butter.
If Elaine stay ananomous and hide amongst the masses it is one thing, but if she appears as the head honcho of a major organization, the council is bound to dig up her background, especially if this organization is about to engage in an alliance with the council.
Maybe. On the other hand, the people who actually know about the Justin thing appear to all be either dead or Harry, so...
(there might be some members of the Summer Court left, but probably not many given how faeries don't share information, and given that they would all have been involved in the battle above Chicago (and some of them we saw die on screen there) and then been involved in a war with the Red Court (even if they didn't fight in too many battles) and then involved in the Demonreach incident, not to mention that they've had more than ten years to get themselves killed in other ways, I feel like "they're all dead" is probably a safer assumption than "they're alive and just waiting to convince the White Council to make a trade for information, even though the White Council has no reason to assume that the Summer Court in particular would have information.")
Making contact with Ramirez on a personal basis is one thing. Interacting with the council as an organization is another thing entirely. Ramirez is young and rather tolerant, shown by the way he slack off when the order to catch Molly comes up, but if the paranet is going to ally with the council as an organization, Elaine won't be dealing with Ramirez only but with the likes of Morgan and Langtry.
Maybe. But not very often, I don't think, and working with someone for years puts one at far greater risk than having a few formal meetings with people. Also, having Ramirez say "this person's on our side. She's had plenty of chances to screw us over and lead us into traps, but instead has been nothing but helpful" is probably going to ratchet down suspicion.
Even her relationship with Ramirez is on shaky ground because their relationship is based on a lie. Elaine is still hiding her powers after all, even if Ramirez has some incling, Elaine and Ramirez has not handle this issue openly and clear the air to my knowledge.
Meh. Even if Ramirez does work out that she's hiding her power, that's hardly going to lead to the assumption that she's a warlock--it's more likely to lead to the assumption that she didn't want to get drafted like Harry did. And as you pointed out, Ramirez is fairly tolerant, and he's had years to see that Elaine is interested in helping rather than working against the White Council.
In my opinion, as long as Elaine stay as the head honcho of the paranet, any formal alliance between the paranet and the council is pretty much impossible. Having some contacts and back door dealings with more tolerant individual members of the council is as much as the paranet could go. In such a case, a official contact person aka embassador is rather unnescesary.
So what you're saying is that Elaine needs to be thrown out of her position. Personally, I feel that this is a disservice to her character, but I suppose I can get behind the Paranet not formally working with the White Council until after Elaine is proven to be a bad guy, if that's what ends up happening to her. So long as she's not thrown out for incompetence/inability to get over her issues.
Also I want to emphasize that Murphy's vanilla status is very unlikely to effect anything if she wanted to join the paranet, assuming she is not a member already. If we want to be frank about it, when it comes to common ground, the average practicianer on the paranet has a lot more in common with a vanilla mortal compare to a wizard level talent like Ramirez.
Her vanilla status is important to the Paranet insomuch as she really ought to be a member before she ends up running it, and to my knowledge the Paranet is an organization of magical practitioner.
Her vanilla status is more relevant to her interactions with the White Council, however, because as you pointed out, someone who wants to get the Paranet to work with the White Council is going to have to deal with Langtry and people like him, and those people are far less likely to respect/work with her due to her lack of magical talent.
With minor practicianers living amongst the common folk and with most of them still young and has their friends and family around, I will be the first to disbelieve if you tell me that there is no vanilla mortals within the membership of the paranet. Well, As long as the vanilla mortal is not in denial land like Rudolph. I suspect that the paranet has develop from an organization of minor practicianers into an organization of everyone who is clued in on the supernatural world. People like members of SI, Mickey Mallone, Agent Tilly and so on. Charity, Butters, Michael probably is a member as well. It will be stupid not to join the paranet if you are clued in. The information spread on the paranet could save your lives after all, and if I am a minor practicianer I would have recommend my friends and family to join too, so long as they can handle it and not go insane like Rudolph.
You may suspect and disbelieve all you like. The fact is, canon has stated that the Paranet is an organization of magical practitioners, and while that might have changed, we need to see that in the books before we accept it as incontrovertible truth.
Also, are you forgetting the Venatory Umbrorum? That's another organization of clued-in people, and one that explicitly accepts vanilla mortals. Furthermore, it's better connected than the Paranet because it's already an acknowledged ally of the White Council. Why should everyone and their cousin suddenly be part of the Paranet when nobody has felt the need to join the Venatori Umbrorum in all this time?
As for Harry. He is trusted by the paranet, that is true. but even though he is a member of the council, he is not trusted by the council's current leadership. He is the winter knight and warden of demonreach. If he acted as the go between the paranet and the council, it could possibly worsen the problem. The council fears him. Which such circumstance, It won't be clear if the paranet wanted to ally with the council or wanted to intimidate them instead?
Luccio is captain of the wardens. She is practically the council's grand Marshal. Asking her to act as a go between is a bit much.
Okay. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding with what I am trying to say, which I will now attempt to clear up.
For the Paranet to start officially working with the White Council, you need people in three positions:
1) You need the head/one of the people running the Paranet to be in favor of the idea.
2) You need someone who can effectively lobby the White Council into agreeing.
3) You need someone who knows both these people and can act as a go-between/support for both sides.
For position 1, I have been advocating for Elaine. She is one of the founders, she is in the position of CEO, and she's in favor of working with the White Council (as seen by her working with Ramirez and based on the fact that the Paranet was formed in response to a failure of minor practitioners to work with the White Council resulting in far too many deaths).
For position 2, I feel that Luccio would be best, since we know she's in favor of the idea, she's lobbying for it already, and she's the captain of the Wardens. Ramirez could also work or help Luccio with this. A distant third would be McCoy, if Harry convinces him to do so.
For position 3, either Harry or Ramirez could work. I feel that Harry would be better, except that he is generally mistrusted by a bunch of people in the White Council. I think that this will change, though, and based on the people claiming that Harry will end up as the Blackstaff or the Merlin, I'm not alone in that.
I do not feel that any one person can do all three jobs, and frankly it's better if no one tries to do two. And yet people keep arguing either as if I'm advocating one person for three/two jobs or as if they think one person should do it all. I just don't get it.
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It's consistent with what I saw. You appear to have seen something else.
The Paranet, as I understood it, was designed to create a centralized network to coordinate a group of people that have been notably decentralized up until that point.
As I understood it, the Paranet was [/I]always[/I] a defensive organization, and what changed is their level of coordination with other groups. Murphy was (maybe) directing where Ramirez and White Court hit teams went, but I don't see how that makes her in charge of the Paranet--neither of those people/groups belong to the Paranet.
I'm arguing that the point of the Paranet has always been to centralize a bunch of unrelated groups, and that it has been moving toward that continuously.
Oh, good.
Makes sense to me.
This doesn't make sense to me, because as I understand it, Murphy is in the position of "valued and trusted ally." And allies of an organization, no matter how valued and trusted, don't suddenly end up in charge of that organization without either some sort of takeover, or a lot of people thinking that there's some sort of takeover.
Wasn't someone arguing earlier that no member of the White Council could end up in charge for precisely this reason?
This seems to be another case of different understandings. I have always understood the Paranet to define itself as an organization of magical practitioners. I could see this maybe changing due to the war against the Fomor, but I feel like we'd need to see that change well in advance of Murphy being put in charge.
I, on the other hand, see Elaine's fear having waned significantly, since she has at this point been working with Ramirez for years, and seems quite comfortable with it. Also, Harry at least doesn't see this as being a problem, given that he was advocating that the White Council work with the Paranet since sometime before Changes, and he's well aware of Elaine's issues.
No, no, maybe, no, no, no, no, and no. Did I not specifically say that I wasn't counting contacts through Harry and Harry's actions? (Also, we know that Elaine has contacts with at least the White Court and the White Council, because we've seen it in the books. And Molly doesn't have a huge reason to like Murphy--their relationship in Ghost Story was fairly adversarial, and their interaction in Cold Days mostly consisted of her getting politely kicked out of her own apartment so that the person she was in love with could have a conversation with Murphy (who is her rival in that department). She may be polite about working with Murphy at need, but I don't see them having much of a relationship outside of "we're mostly on the same side and both like Harry.")
Also, what does having outside contacts have to do with being the leader of the Paranet? I've been meaning to ask this. At best, it would make one a good ambassador to those organizations, or someone who coordinates between them. And Murphy would be a very bad coordinator/ambassador to the White Council, because her connection to them is extremely tenuous (she's met Luccio all of once and has maybe worked with Ramirez off screen) and explicitly doesn't trust them.
Maybe. But see above regarding what this has to do with running the Paranet. If you're looking for someone with the contacts to coordinate between different powerful groups, then that's Harry way more than it's ever Murphy. Seriously, name one supernatural contact that a) Murphy did not get through Harry and b) does not know/respect Harry as much or more than Murphy. And that's not counting the contacts that Harry has that Murphy doesn't.
Maybe. Or maybe it's just that we only see Chicago, and meetings like this are taking place in a bunch of different cities. We don't know.
So what you're saying is that Elaine should be the head of the shadow government of the Paranet, while Murphy serves the purpose of puppet leader/public face for the purposes of working with other organizations. You know, I can actually see that working really well--except that I think Murphy would probably object. She might get talked into it, though, so who knows?
Maybe. On the other hand, the people who actually know about the Justin thing appear to all be either dead or Harry, so...
(there might be some members of the Summer Court left, but probably not many given how faeries don't share information, and given that they would all have been involved in the battle above Chicago (and some of them we saw die on screen there) and then been involved in a war with the Red Court (even if they didn't fight in too many battles) and then involved in the Demonreach incident, not to mention that they've had more than ten years to get themselves killed in other ways, I feel like "they're all dead" is probably a safer assumption than "they're alive and just waiting to convince the White Council to make a trade for information, even though the White Council has no reason to assume that the Summer Court in particular would have information.")
Maybe. But not very often, I don't think, and working with someone for years puts one at far greater risk than having a few formal meetings with people. Also, having Ramirez say "this person's on our side. She's had plenty of chances to screw us over and lead us into traps, but instead has been nothing but helpful" is probably going to ratchet down suspicion.
Meh. Even if Ramirez does work out that she's hiding her power, that's hardly going to lead to the assumption that she's a warlock--it's more likely to lead to the assumption that she didn't want to get drafted like Harry did. And as you pointed out, Ramirez is fairly tolerant, and he's had years to see that Elaine is interested in helping rather than working against the White Council.
So what you're saying is that Elaine needs to be thrown out of her position. Personally, I feel that this is a disservice to her character, but I suppose I can get behind the Paranet not formally working with the White Council until after Elaine is proven to be a bad guy, if that's what ends up happening to her. So long as she's not thrown out for incompetence/inability to get over her issues.
Her vanilla status is important to the Paranet insomuch as she really ought to be a member before she ends up running it, and to my knowledge the Paranet is an organization of magical practitioner.
Her vanilla status is more relevant to her interactions with the White Council, however, because as you pointed out, someone who wants to get the Paranet to work with the White Council is going to have to deal with Langtry and people like him, and those people are far less likely to respect/work with her due to her lack of magical talent.
You may suspect and disbelieve all you like. The fact is, canon has stated that the Paranet is an organization of magical practitioners, and while that might have changed, we need to see that in the books before we accept it as incontrovertible truth.
Also, are you forgetting the Venatory Umbrorum? That's another organization of clued-in people, and one that explicitly accepts vanilla mortals. Furthermore, it's better connected than the Paranet because it's already an acknowledged ally of the White Council. Why should everyone and their cousin suddenly be part of the Paranet when nobody has felt the need to join the Venatori Umbrorum in all this time?
Okay. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding with what I am trying to say, which I will now attempt to clear up.
For the Paranet to start officially working with the White Council, you need people in three positions:
1) You need the head/one of the people running the Paranet to be in favor of the idea.
2) You need someone who can effectively lobby the White Council into agreeing.
3) You need someone who knows both these people and can act as a go-between/support for both sides.
For position 1, I have been advocating for Elaine. She is one of the founders, she is in the position of CEO, and she's in favor of working with the White Council (as seen by her working with Ramirez and based on the fact that the Paranet was formed in response to a failure of minor practitioners to work with the White Council resulting in far too many deaths).
For position 2, I feel that Luccio would be best, since we know she's in favor of the idea, she's lobbying for it already, and she's the captain of the Wardens. Ramirez could also work or help Luccio with this. A distant third would be McCoy, if Harry convinces him to do so.
For position 3, either Harry or Ramirez could work. I feel that Harry would be better, except that he is generally mistrusted by a bunch of people in the White Council. I think that this will change, though, and based on the people claiming that Harry will end up as the Blackstaff or the Merlin, I'm not alone in that.
I do not feel that any one person can do all three jobs, and frankly it's better if no one tries to do two. And yet people keep arguing either as if I'm advocating one person for three/two jobs or as if they think one person should do it all. I just don't get it.
For one thing, I don't think Elaine is in favor of having anything to do with the white council. Yes, she has contact with Ramirez, but that is rather unavoidable. Ramirez is the local warden after all, and Elaine can't be seen purposely avoiding Ramirez less she'll raise suspicion.
Another point is the fact that Elaine is hiding her wizard level talent is a big problem in itself, even if her ascociation with Harry and Justin was never discovered. The council let those below wizard level go relatively free, but anyone with wizard level talents is never allow to be non member of the council else there would have been several wizard organizations aside from the council by now.
Also, having wizard level talent is one thing, but having the skill and knowledge of a qualified wizard is another thing entirely. Maybe Elaine can hide that she studies magic under Justin, though I doubt even that is possible. But if the fact that she lied about her talent levels is discovered, finding out that she is also skilled and knowledgable won't be too far of a stretch, and then the question: "Who is her teacher?" will come up. Things will go downhill from there.
Elaine could hide her power level from Ramirez because she is older and more expirience, but hiding her power levels from senior wizards like EB or Langtry will be nai impossible. Heck, I doubt Elaine could fooled Luccio for that matter.
In a world where magic exist, hoping that your secrets will stay save by assuming all witnesses is dead is not feasible. There are spirits that lived in multiple dimensions of time, There are powers with intelectus that could know everything about you if they just think about it. Who knows what else is there?
Note I do not say that Elaine can't be leader of paranet. I am just saying that if Elaine is the leader, the strategy to build a formal alliance with the white council cannot be done, which may not be a bad thing.
BTW: where exactly it is specified that the paranet is a practicianer only organization? Or where exactly it is specified that Murphy is an ally of the paranet instead of a member? I seem not to remember any of that.
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I find this conversation about the Paranet and whether Murphy could be considered one of its leaders and the differences between Elaine and Murphy to be a very interesting one with good points made on both sides. However, I have problems trying to figure out either Murphy or Elaine's path going forward.
Murphy's future is difficult to predict because her injuries left her in limbo at the end of Skin Game. Long-term, she has enough inside supernatural knowledge and information sources to act as some kind of coordinator or possibly even a spymaster. She may be associated with the paranet, but I see any future role Murphy might play going forward as being wider and perhaps more freelance.
More importantly, I don't feel I have a solid grasp on Murphy's character like I did before Changes. In Ghost Story Murphy was pretty hard core. Without hesitation she was ready to kill people she saw as a threat. Granted, Murphy thought Harry had been murdered and she was a leader of a faction fighting a nasty street war against the Fomor, but she had gone from upholder of the law to hardcore vigilante in a matter of months. All of that seemed to change in Cold Days. What, Harry being alive suddenly takes Murphy from being Tank Girl psycho back to being regular Murphy again? I don't want to get into her actions in Skin Game. Too much ink has already been spilled over whether Murphy made a mistake anyone could have been suckered into vs her own arrogance and self-importance led her to fall for Nicodemus' trap. The point is, I think Jim has some "splainin to do" in regards to where Murphy is psychologically. I think her personal issues have to be worked through before I could see her as as a leader, ambassador (No she's not ambassador material. Throw that idea out the window now.) or consultant for the paranet or anyone else. I got the impression that Murphy went through an arc that brought her back to sanity prior to Harry's return in Cold Days. If that's the case I really think Jim needs to tell us about that so we can better understand this character.
The problem I have with Elaine is much simpler. She not just hiding her abilities and history from the Ramirez and White Council. She's hiding things from Harry. This was clearly hinted at in White Night. I'm not saying Elaine has gone full "Red lightsaber" because I don't have enough information to make that call yet, but it's a possibility that she was responsible for Nemfecting Aurora and has been lying to Harry about Justin and how she was enthralled by him since Summer Knight.
Those suspicions aside, Elaine is clearly in a better position than Murphy to be considered a leader or one of the key leaders of the paranet. However, she is not in any position to openly meet with or negotiate with higher ups in the White Council. I seriously doubt she would want to even meet with Luccio.
The paranet itself is not a centralized organization. There's no HQ. There's no hierarchy or clearly defined chain of command. It's more like an underground resistance movement or even a loosely affiliated terrorist organization. There are cells within different cities. Different people may be seen as a leader to a particular cell or within a particular city. At one time Murphy may have even been thought of as one of those leaders. It's not like someone in Houston, Texas is going to know that Murphy is a vanilla mortal. Another more likely possibility that when Murphy sends information to a member of the paranet in Houston, the recipient doesn't know the exact identity of the sender, they would just know if the information came from a trusted source. So how could anyone hold Murphy's vanilla mortal status against her if they don't know exactly who was helping them? Should the paranet ever become more formalized and structured, then Murphy being seen as a full member might become problematic, but she could still be some type of consultant. However, I don't see how the paranet ever reaches that level of organization except in a time of peace and safety, in which case would Murphy even want to be involved with it? There's no reliable way to answer that question.
P.S. Now that I think about it, there really is no such thing as "a full member of the paranet." There's no sign up sheet with rules and stated group objectives. There's no tests to take to prove one is worthy to join. Finally, there's no organization to judge a person's merit to join it. Take the guy who sends Butters information that he claims help track supernatural activity through statistics he gathered on the internet. Just because he's aware of supernatural activity doesn't mean he has anymore magical ability than Murphy does. Some people may participate in the paranet as a matter of survival while others just want to help because they see it as the right thing to do.
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KSG- Great points on Murphy and Elaine.
I'd only add that whatever we discover about each of them, it will be something that will hit Harry like a ton of bricks, right where it hurts.
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For one thing, I don't think Elaine is in favor of having anything to do with the white council. Yes, she has contact with Ramirez, but that is rather unavoidable. Ramirez is the local warden after all, and Elaine can't be seen purposely avoiding Ramirez less she'll raise suspicion.
I'm reasonably confident that Elaine would greatly prefer not to have anything to do with the White Court, also. But Elaine has demonstrated repeatedly that she is far more practical than Harry, so I don't see this being an actual impediment given the state of things (if the Fomor weren't around, it would be a different story).
Another point is the fact that Elaine is hiding her wizard level talent is a big problem in itself, even if her ascociation with Harry and Justin was never discovered. The council let those below wizard level go relatively free, but anyone with wizard level talents is never allow to be non member of the council else there would have been several wizard organizations aside from the council by now.
Also, having wizard level talent is one thing, but having the skill and knowledge of a qualified wizard is another thing entirely. Maybe Elaine can hide that she studies magic under Justin, though I doubt even that is possible. But if the fact that she lied about her talent levels is discovered, finding out that she is also skilled and knowledgable won't be too far of a stretch, and then the question: "Who is her teacher?" will come up. Things will go downhill from there.
Elaine could hide her power level from Ramirez because she is older and more expirience, but hiding her power levels from senior wizards like EB or Langtry will be nai impossible. Heck, I doubt Elaine could fooled Luccio for that matter.
In a world where magic exist, hoping that your secrets will stay save by assuming all witnesses is dead is not feasible. There are spirits that lived in multiple dimensions of time, There are powers with intelectus that could know everything about you if they just think about it. Who knows what else is there?
I think the real issue here is "how much effort is anyone going to put toward digging up her secrets?" If Elaine's story is "I got chased/targeted by a nastybad thing, ran into Aurora, and she agreed to protect and teach me in exchange for getting her own pet wizard" and then tells (most of) the truth from Summer Knight onward, then it may technically be possible to disprove it...but I don't think anyone's going to expend that amount of effort when there are so many bigger and more urgent issues to deal with. Elaine has spent years proving herself to a trusted and respected member of the Council (Ramirez). In the presence of far higher priorities and the absence of overtly suspicious behavior, my contention is that the White Council is not going to waste too many resources digging into her story.
BTW: where exactly it is specified that the paranet is a practicianer only organization? Or where exactly it is specified that Murphy is an ally of the paranet instead of a member? I seem not to remember any of that.
I had been operating under the impression that it was specified at the end of White Night, when the Paranet was formed. It rather belatedly occurs to me, however, that since I haven't had access to this book in nearly a year, I may be misremembering. There is supporting evidence, however, in that every Paranet incident we've heard of outside of information-gathering (which they seem to do for their allies in return for other help, as well as for themselves) involves a minor practitioner.
And if the Paranet is specifically a group of magical practitioners, which I believe it is, then Murphy by definition not a member.
Actually, why do you think that Murphy is a member of the Paranet? Does she actually have any connection to them besides a single meeting, at which members of several other factions were present? If any vanilla mortal was going to be a member of the Paranet, I would think that it would be Butters rather than Murphy (and if I did not hate Butters with a fierce and burning passion, I'd say that he's probably a good candidate to lobby for the Paranet as a strong and valuable organization).
Murphy's future is difficult to predict because her injuries left her in limbo at the end of Skin Game. Long-term, she has enough inside supernatural knowledge and information sources to act as some kind of coordinator or possibly even a spymaster. She may be associated with the paranet, but I see any future role Murphy might play going forward as being wider and perhaps more freelance.
More importantly, I don't feel I have a solid grasp on Murphy's character like I did before Changes. In Ghost Story Murphy was pretty hard core. Without hesitation she was ready to kill people she saw as a threat. Granted, Murphy thought Harry had been murdered and she was a leader of a faction fighting a nasty street war against the Fomor, but she had gone from upholder of the law to hardcore vigilante in a matter of months. All of that seemed to change in Cold Days. What, Harry being alive suddenly takes Murphy from being Tank Girl psycho back to being regular Murphy again? I don't want to get into her actions in Skin Game. Too much ink has already been spilled over whether Murphy made a mistake anyone could have been suckered into vs her own arrogance and self-importance led her to fall for Nicodemus' trap. The point is, I think Jim has some "splainin to do" in regards to where Murphy is psychologically. I think her personal issues have to be worked through before I could see her as as a leader, ambassador (No she's not ambassador material. Throw that idea out the window now.) or consultant for the paranet or anyone else. I got the impression that Murphy went through an arc that brought her back to sanity prior to Harry's return in Cold Days. If that's the case I really think Jim needs to tell us about that so we can better understand this character.
Yeah, Murphy is in a weird place as a character. I think that's probably why it's so easy to argue over her--she's reacting psychologically in ways that feel slightly off, and trying to interpret that results in wildly different understandings of her.
The problem I have with Elaine is much simpler. She not just hiding her abilities and history from the Ramirez and White Council. She's hiding things from Harry. This was clearly hinted at in White Night. I'm not saying Elaine has gone full "Red lightsaber" because I don't have enough information to make that call yet, but it's a possibility that she was responsible for Nemfecting Aurora and has been lying to Harry about Justin and how she was enthralled by him since Summer Knight.
Yeah, this is the real problem with Elaine. However, since I really love her character and the way she and Harry interact, I'm going to go back to being in denial until I have incontrovertible evidence of Elaine's betrayal.
Those suspicions aside, Elaine is clearly in a better position than Murphy to be considered a leader or one of the key leaders of the paranet. However, she is not in any position to openly meet with or negotiate with higher ups in the White Council. I seriously doubt she would want to even meet with Luccio.
I think that she could manage a couple of meetings, but I agree with you that it wouldn't work as a regular thing. That's why I've proposed Harry or Ramirez as a go-between.
The paranet itself is not a centralized organization. There's no HQ. There's no hierarchy or clearly defined chain of command. It's more like an underground resistance movement or even a loosely affiliated terrorist organization. There are cells within different cities. Different people may be seen as a leader to a particular cell or within a particular city. At one time Murphy may have even been thought of as one of those leaders. It's not like someone in Houston, Texas is going to know that Murphy is a vanilla mortal. Another more likely possibility that when Murphy sends information to a member of the paranet in Houston, the recipient doesn't know the exact identity of the sender, they would just know if the information came from a trusted source. So how could anyone hold Murphy's vanilla mortal status against her if they don't know exactly who was helping them? Should the paranet ever become more formalized and structured, then Murphy being seen as a full member might become problematic, but she could still be some type of consultant. However, I don't see how the paranet ever reaches that level of organization except in a time of peace and safety, in which case would Murphy even want to be involved with it? There's no reliable way to answer that question.
P.S. Now that I think about it, there really is no such thing as "a full member of the paranet." There's no sign up sheet with rules and stated group objectives. There's no tests to take to prove one is worthy to join. Finally, there's no organization to judge a person's merit to join it.
This is definitely what we see in the books. I tend to think of it as being more organized based on the WoJ about Elaine being the Paranet's CEO, since in my opinion an organization with a CEO-type leader has to have a fair amount of central organization--but I may be reading too much into it.
Take the guy who sends Butters information that he claims help track supernatural activity through statistics he gathered on the internet. Just because he's aware of supernatural activity doesn't mean he has anymore magical ability than Murphy does.
Maybe, but it's explicitly noted that minor talents can use cell phones and other technology--wizards are just too strong.
I'd only add that whatever we discover about each of them, it will be something that will hit Harry like a ton of bricks, right where it hurts.
True. I'm just hoping that we find out Murphy is the traitor, and Elaine gets to stay a good guy.
PS: While writing this post, I've realized that my tone in earlier posts might have been slightly more confrontational than necessary. Sorry about that. I find that I'm much more willing to admit that opposing viewpoints might be right when I don't feel like one of my favorite characters is being attacked in favor of a character I dislike--but that's no reason to disregard the possibility that other people might have legitimate reasons/evidence for their claims.
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I find this conversation about the Paranet and whether Murphy could be considered one of its leaders and the differences between Elaine and Murphy to be a very interesting one with good points made on both sides. However, I have problems trying to figure out either Murphy or Elaine's path going forward.
Murphy's future is difficult to predict because her injuries left her in limbo at the end of Skin Game. Long-term, she has enough inside supernatural knowledge and information sources to act as some kind of coordinator or possibly even a spymaster. She may be associated with the paranet, but I see any future role Murphy might play going forward as being wider and perhaps more freelance.
More importantly, I don't feel I have a solid grasp on Murphy's character like I did before Changes. In Ghost Story Murphy was pretty hard core. Without hesitation she was ready to kill people she saw as a threat. Granted, Murphy thought Harry had been murdered and she was a leader of a faction fighting a nasty street war against the Fomor, but she had gone from upholder of the law to hardcore vigilante in a matter of months. All of that seemed to change in Cold Days. What, Harry being alive suddenly takes Murphy from being Tank Girl psycho back to being regular Murphy again? I don't want to get into her actions in Skin Game. Too much ink has already been spilled over whether Murphy made a mistake anyone could have been suckered into vs her own arrogance and self-importance led her to fall for Nicodemus' trap. The point is, I think Jim has some "splainin to do" in regards to where Murphy is psychologically. I think her personal issues have to be worked through before I could see her as as a leader, ambassador (No she's not ambassador material. Throw that idea out the window now.) or consultant for the paranet or anyone else. I got the impression that Murphy went through an arc that brought her back to sanity prior to Harry's return in Cold Days. If that's the case I really think Jim needs to tell us about that so we can better understand this character.
The problem I have with Elaine is much simpler. She not just hiding her abilities and history from the Ramirez and White Council. She's hiding things from Harry. This was clearly hinted at in White Night. I'm not saying Elaine has gone full "Red lightsaber" because I don't have enough information to make that call yet, but it's a possibility that she was responsible for Nemfecting Aurora and has been lying to Harry about Justin and how she was enthralled by him since Summer Knight.
Those suspicions aside, Elaine is clearly in a better position than Murphy to be considered a leader or one of the key leaders of the paranet. However, she is not in any position to openly meet with or negotiate with higher ups in the White Council. I seriously doubt she would want to even meet with Luccio.
The paranet itself is not a centralized organization. There's no HQ. There's no hierarchy or clearly defined chain of command. It's more like an underground resistance movement or even a loosely affiliated terrorist organization. There are cells within different cities. Different people may be seen as a leader to a particular cell or within a particular city. At one time Murphy may have even been thought of as one of those leaders. It's not like someone in Houston, Texas is going to know that Murphy is a vanilla mortal. Another more likely possibility that when Murphy sends information to a member of the paranet in Houston, the recipient doesn't know the exact identity of the sender, they would just know if the information came from a trusted source. So how could anyone hold Murphy's vanilla mortal status against her if they don't know exactly who was helping them? Should the paranet ever become more formalized and structured, then Murphy being seen as a full member might become problematic, but she could still be some type of consultant. However, I don't see how the paranet ever reaches that level of organization except in a time of peace and safety, in which case would Murphy even want to be involved with it? There's no reliable way to answer that question.
P.S. Now that I think about it, there really is no such thing as "a full member of the paranet." There's no sign up sheet with rules and stated group objectives. There's no tests to take to prove one is worthy to join. Finally, there's no organization to judge a person's merit to join it. Take the guy who sends Butters information that he claims help track supernatural activity through statistics he gathered on the internet. Just because he's aware of supernatural activity doesn't mean he has anymore magical ability than Murphy does. Some people may participate in the paranet as a matter of survival while others just want to help because they see it as the right thing to do.
In my opinion, Murphy's character and it's changes from 12 up to book 15 are quite explainable.
After Harry's presume'd death in book 12, Murphy got hit hard. More importantly, in her opinion Harry is not dead because his body is not found. At that point Murphy is like a family of a soldier missing in action. Harry is missing, presumed dead but there is no body. There is no closure. She is hoping Harry is still alive, afraid he is truely dead and in denial. Unlik.All that plus all other external factors must have strain her badly. This would explain her hard line methods when Harry first appear in book 13. Murphy's condition is different from Molly. Molly knows what exactly happened to Harry. She knows Harry is dead because she help arrange it. Molly suffers from guilt. Murphy however, suffers from regret and uncertainty.
By the end of book 13, Murphy must have healled somewhat. By facing Harry's ghost and gaining the confirmation that Harry is truely dead, Murphy has gotten her closure. She is devastated, but she can now continue with her life. The end of GS, where Mortimer shielded Murphy while she is crying is the sign of her emotional recovery.
Just after Murphy accepted Harry's death and start to go on with her life, Harry returns from the dead. Molly has warning from Lea, Murphy get the full surprise package. From this alone, her innitial rather cold reception to Harry's return is understandable. It is hard enough for her to shift from believing Harry is still alive when Harry first died in book 12 into accepting that Harry is truely dead after she meet Harry's ghost in book 13. Now in book 14, she has to shift back from accepting Harry is dead to Harry is still alive again. It is a major emotional upheaval for her.
A shock though it was, it is after all a good news in the end. Once the shock is over, the fact that Harry is indeed not dead must be a major boon for Murphy emotionally which would explain why she gotten a lot better once book 15comes around.
In terms of character, all seems to be in order.
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In my opinion, Murphy's character and it's changes from 12 up to book 15 are quite explainable.
After Harry's presume'd death in book 12, Murphy got hit hard. More importantly, in her opinion Harry is not dead because his body is not found. At that point Murphy is like a family of a soldier missing in action. Harry is missing, presumed dead but there is no body. There is no closure. She is hoping Harry is still alive, afraid he is truely dead and in denial. Unlik.All that plus all other external factors must have strain her badly. This would explain her hard line methods when Harry first appear in book 13. Murphy's condition is different from Molly. Molly knows what exactly happened to Harry. She knows Harry is dead because she help arrange it. Molly suffers from guilt. Murphy however, suffers from regret and uncertainty.
By the end of book 13, Murphy must have healled somewhat. By facing Harry's ghost and gaining the confirmation that Harry is truely dead, Murphy has gotten her closure. She is devastated, but she can now continue with her life. The end of GS, where Mortimer shielded Murphy while she is crying is the sign of her emotional recovery.
Just after Murphy accepted Harry's death and start to go on with her life, Harry returns from the dead. Molly has warning from Lea, Murphy get the full surprise package. From this alone, her innitial rather cold reception to Harry's return is understandable. It is hard enough for her to shift from believing Harry is still alive when Harry first died in book 12 into accepting that Harry is truely dead after she meet Harry's ghost in book 13. Now in book 14, she has to shift back from accepting Harry is dead to Harry is still alive again. It is a major emotional upheaval for her.
A shock though it was, it is after all a good news in the end. Once the shock is over, the fact that Harry is indeed not dead must be a major boon for Murphy emotionally which would explain why she gotten a lot better once book 15comes around.
In terms of character, all seems to be in order.
I don't have an issue with her character transition from books 13 to 15, but I think there are major problems with her character transition from books 13 to 14. In book 13, she comes off as like the worst of her Fool Moon self, only without the law to rein her in. She also spends the whole book in denial about Harry's death, to the point where her entire character arc in that book is accepting that Harry's really dead. And then, in book 14 she goes from that to "oh, of course explosions mean Harry" (even though he's dead, and she spent the entire last book learning to accept that, and we have no reason to believe she has any information to the contrary) and being perfectly reasonable and accepting about everything (except for the scene where she blatantly and viciously emotionally manipulates Harry, but I accept that Jim didn't mean it to come off that way) and being fine with Harry explicitly keeping secrets? And all of this, without us ever seeing the transition stage? No, just no. The transition from books 12-13 worked. The transition from books 14-15 worked. The transition from books 13-15 worked. The transition from books 13-14...either we missed 1-3 books worth of character development from Murphy, or she's been gotten to badly.
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I don't have an issue with her character transition from books 13 to 15, but I think there are major problems with her character transition from books 13 to 14. In book 13, she comes off as like the worst of her Fool Moon self, only without the law to rein her in. She also spends the whole book in denial about Harry's death, to the point where her entire character arc in that book is accepting that Harry's really dead. And then, in book 14 she goes from that to "oh, of course explosions mean Harry" (even though he's dead, and she spent the entire last book learning to accept that, and we have no reason to believe she has any information to the contrary) and being perfectly reasonable and accepting about everything (except for the scene where she blatantly and viciously emotionally manipulates Harry, but I accept that Jim didn't mean it to come off that way) and being fine with Harry explicitly keeping secrets? And all of this, without us ever seeing the transition stage? No, just no. The transition from books 12-13 worked. The transition from books 14-15 worked. The transition from books 13-15 worked. The transition from books 13-14...either we missed 1-3 books worth of character development from Murphy, or she's been gotten to badly.
Truth is, until we see how it goes in Peace Talks we haven't a clue. Murphy has taken two severe blows, one to her body and another to her mind at the hands of Nic.. Both are recoverable.. Her body most likely will recover pretty well, she is healthy and in good condition.. True, she may never be 100%, but she can learn to deal with that.. Her mind and confidence might be another matter or rather a more difficult matter to calculate.. She was very confident of herself and how she felt about things going into her fight with Nic, first he goaded her into breaking a Holy Sword, then he proceeded to take her apart physically all the while whispering in her ear all kinds of things.. Now I know it turned out okay in the end.. She loves Harry and vice versa last we saw, and the Holy Sword got remade again and a new Knight named.. However the last time we saw Murphy she still was in her hospital bed and on pain meds.... She has rolled with a lot of bunches it is true, but has she taken one too many? Don't think we will know until she is up and around again.. So Murphy going forward? Anyone's guess.
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Jim needs to resolve exactly what he wants of Murphy. She seems to be a punching bag. Need some cheap sympathy, beat up Murphy. What I expect is that they will have sex and that Murphy will rather quickly get whacked. I'd love to be pleasantly surprised, but I'm not hopeful.
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BTW: where exactly it is specified that the paranet is a practicianer only organization? Or where exactly it is specified that Murphy is an ally of the paranet instead of a member? I seem not to remember any of that.
"The Paranet" is pretty loosely-defined. Furthermore, it's an ad-hoc association of very-very-many disparate groups. Every group was originally invited because it was a Talent-centric and/or magic-facing group, and each group defines its own membership.
In later stories, we see that the Paranet has grown beyond the original vision. It's not clear, for example, that Marcone's organization (at least the Accorded part(s) of it) IS "part of" the Paranet... but it's not clear that they are NOT, either.
But with such a disparate membership I can only expect (at least some) individuals without any magic; by the same token, I can imagine a member of the White Council who decides to work with a group of lower-level talents... and thus the WC Wizard becomes a member of the Paranet!
Rather than people being "allies of the Paranet" I would expect a group that joins to consist of Talents-and-their-allies. Those "allies" are defined by the group as part of the group, and thus they are part of the Paranet.
At least, mostly. Given the loose definitions, I don't expect ANY hard-and-fast universal rules apply... But "almost entirely" magical members seems fair, to me.
Elaine, as one of the founders of the Paranet, and NOT a WC wizard, is clearly eligible to be the boss, but might "delegate" most of the interface-with-the-WC duties to someone else, so as to avoid most of the contact with more-powerful wizards. She may be able to bat her eyes and get Ramirez to blink; she might even be able to get Arthur Langtry to presume she's weak, because he DOES tend toward arrogant assumptions. But I cannot see her pulling the wool over Eb's eyes. Eb, for example, will have heard a LOT about her in the process of reclaiming Harry and setting his feet on the right path...
Murphy, known to the Chicago coven, may well be "part" of their group, for purposes of joining the Paranet. And as a clued-in Mundane, with contacts on both the Straight and Spooky sides of the street, may be an ideal person to act as the de facto "VP of Operations" under the auspices of "CEO Elaine".
Last but not least... I expect there's Other Shit lurking in unexamined parts of the Paranet. White Council wizards? As noted above, yup. Sponsored magicians? Oh, yeah... with Faerie and Old God sponsors... sponsors from Hell (likely not Denarians, but who knows?) and maybe even Outsider sponsors (n.b. "sponsored magic" is kind of a DF RPG term, but it reflects ideas from the book -- someone with no/little/lesser talent who gets their magic (or their more potent magic) from a non-human "sponsor").
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"The Paranet" is pretty loosely-defined. Furthermore, it's an ad-hoc association of very-very-many disparate groups. Every group was originally invited because it was a Talent-centric and/or magic-facing group, and each group defines its own membership.
This.
It's not clear, for example, that Marcone's organization (at least the Accorded part(s) of it) IS "part of" the Paranet... but it's not clear that they are NOT, either.
I'd thought that they were shown as separate-but-allied pretty clearly, if only because I don't see Marcone being part of such an organization and not running it, and it's pretty clear that Marcone isn't running the Paranet.
But with such a disparate membership I can only expect (at least some) individuals without any magic; by the same token, I can imagine a member of the White Council who decides to work with a group of lower-level talents... and thus the WC Wizard becomes a member of the Paranet!
Rather than people being "allies of the Paranet" I would expect a group that joins to consist of Talents-and-their-allies. Those "allies" are defined by the group as part of the group, and thus they are part of the Paranet.
At least, mostly. Given the loose definitions, I don't expect ANY hard-and-fast universal rules apply... But "almost entirely" magical members seems fair, to me.
This makes sense. I'd probably divide allies vs ad-hoc members by saying that anyone part of their own distinct and separate group, with the exception of the White Council (exception made because Harry was one of the founders, and founded it partially to get rid of the "us-vs-them" mentality that minor practitioners had regarding the White Council) is an ally, whereas anyone without strong ties to a distinct group could be absorbed.
Eb, for example, will have heard a LOT about her in the process of reclaiming Harry and setting his feet on the right path...
I'm not convinced of that. One of the first things we hear about Elaine, even before we meet her, is Harry saying, "I don't talk about Elaine." And certainly, neither Elaine nor Harry act as if having her name heard by the wrong people in the White Council would blow her cover.
Actually, I'm not convinced that Harry talked to McCoy much about what happened at all, because I'm not convinced that McCoy ever thought that Harry was innocent. That is, I don't know if he ever really bought the self-defense thing. I think it's more likely that McCoy thought that Harry was in the same position as Molly was, in that he screwed up but was redeemable, and stepped in because Harry was his grandson. He probably wouldn't have said this to Harry, but probably would have given enough of a subconscious impression of distrust to discourage Harry (who already doesn't share things and dislikes talking about his emotions) from talking about it too much. This would also explain his initial hostility to McCoy when they meet in Summer Knight.
Murphy, known to the Chicago coven, may well be "part" of their group, for purposes of joining the Paranet. And as a clued-in Mundane, with contacts on both the Straight and Spooky sides of the street, may be an ideal person to act as the de facto "VP of Operations" under the auspices of "CEO Elaine".
This I can see. Murphy would make an awful ambassador/negotiator, but "VP of Operations" would be perfect for her.
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I'd thought that they were shown as separate-but-allied pretty clearly, if only because I don't see Marcone being part of such an organization and not running it, and it's pretty clear that Marcone isn't running the Paranet.
You may be right; they may be "merely" allies; as I said, it's not clear to me.
But I think Marcone would be ENTIRELY happy working closely with the Paranet as "part" of it, so long as he doesn't have to make any actual promises/etc (that he'd feel bound by); just working on a basis of implied/assumed membership. He'll get much more cooperation from them if they see him as "part of" their group. And the network of hundreds (or thousands?) of low-level talents is a magical-surveillance system he'd pay dearly to buy from Monoc... I think he'd put a fair degree of effort into keeping them happy, and might even make them promises he'd rather NOT make, to keep said access.
I'm not convinced of that. One of the first things we hear about Elaine, even before we meet her, is Harry saying, "I don't talk about Elaine." And certainly, neither Elaine nor Harry act as if having her name heard by the wrong people in the White Council would blow her cover.
Actually, I'm not convinced that Harry talked to McCoy much about what happened at all, because I'm not convinced that McCoy ever thought that Harry was innocent. That is, I don't know if he ever really bought the self-defense thing. I think it's more likely that McCoy thought that Harry was in the same position as Molly was, in that he screwed up but was redeemable, and stepped in because Harry was his grandson. He probably wouldn't have said this to Harry, but probably would have given enough of a subconscious impression of distrust to discourage Harry (who already doesn't share things and dislikes talking about his emotions) from talking about it too much. This would also explain his initial hostility to McCoy when they meet in Summer Knight.
(a) I suspect a confused/angry/heartsick/frightened teen might have spewed some of that in the process of decompressing. Just because Adult-Harry doesn't talk about Elaine, doesn't mean Teen-Harry never did to his trusted mentor and father-figure... the only man he calls "sir".
(b) If you are correct that the Blackstaff didn't think Harry was actually "innocent by reason of self-defense," I think it overwhelmingly-likely that he'd have used some normally-forbidden magic (because Blackstaff) to get a clearer idea of what had happened.
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(a) I suspect a confused/angry/heartsick/frightened teen might have spewed some of that in the process of decompressing. Just because Adult-Harry doesn't talk about Elaine, doesn't mean Teen-Harry never did to his trusted mentor and father-figure... the only man he calls "sir".
I actually tend to suspect the opposite. Throughout the books, it's been a sign of character development when he shares things with his allies and talks about his emotions. It wouldn't make much sense if his teenage self was more mature in this department than the Harry we see in the books.
Also, remember that he'd just been betrayed by a father-figure (and the woman he loved), and this has been implied to be the root of his trust issues. I would find it very odd if he were suddenly completely open and honest with his new father-figure.
(b) If you are correct that the Blackstaff didn't think Harry was actually "innocent by reason of self-defense," I think it overwhelmingly-likely that he'd have used some normally-forbidden magic (because Blackstaff) to get a clearer idea of what had happened.
Why? What would that accomplish? He knows Harry is redeemable because he soulgazed him. What else would he need forbidden magic to find out that mattered so much?
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I actually tend to suspect the opposite. Throughout the books, it's been a sign of character development when he shares things with his allies and talks about his emotions. It wouldn't make much sense if his teenage self was more mature in this department than the Harry we see in the books.
Also, remember that he'd just been betrayed by a father-figure (and the woman he loved), and this has been implied to be the root of his trust issues. I would find it very odd if he were suddenly completely open and honest with his new father-figure.
Oh, I agree that Harry wouldn't have "just" opened up. "New adult male authority figure? Cool, I'll spill ALL my heartache and self-doubt!" ... yeahNO.
But in time, as Eb proved trustworthy...
I don't think Harry ever saw Justin as much of a "father" figure, however: he had memories of Malcom, after all! Justin taught Harry to Shield by flinging baseballs at him. We presume many of Justin's "lessons" were similarly abusive... but that Eb's were not.
Eb earned from Harry a singular level of trust & respect.
Why? What would that accomplish? He knows Harry is redeemable because he soulgazed him. What else would he need forbidden magic to find out that mattered so much?
DuMorne had been a Warden; he was part of the team attacking Kemmler, part of the magical bomb-squad going into Kemmler's lab afterwards. This implies a pretty senior Warden, and a lot of WC trust.
But somehow, 20-30 years later, he was so dark a warlock as to summon HWWB to kill an escaping apprentice?
Eb himself had been a Warden; he'd have been intimately aware of what a huge issue this was.
The WTF must have been intense in the WC. The whole shitshow would merit as much information-gathering as possible... Is Justin really dead? Did Justin really summon one of the most-dangerous Outsiders known? Did Harry really defeat said Walker? WTF was going on at Justin's house??? What else -- besides the corruption of a senior Warden, the attempt(s) to take a promising apprentice down his corrupt path -- had gone seriously wrong, there?
I really cannot see Eb being satisfied just with knowing Harry was "redeemable," this issue is MUCH bigger than Harry in and of himself. Outsiders are an existential threat; and the WC's Blackstaff exists specifically to break the Laws, when and if such threats need to be met outside the Laws.
Edit: Also, I cannot honestly see how the WC wouldn't know of DuMorne's other apprentice. They investigated the events, and I cannot believe Harry would have been able to recount a credible lie (nor why he'd even have tried) that omitted Elaine's role in trying to help DuMorne enthrall Harry; he'd have still been shaken, and in accute mental/emotional distress; they would have been cross-examining him, discussing his likely death right there in front of him. This does not create the environment for Harry to tell a lie... especially one he'd see no need to tell! It's not like he thought he was protecting her!!! The WC dropped the "Elaine issue" simply because Harry was absolutely convinced that she died in the fire; his certainty of that was what convinced them.
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In my opinion, Murphy's character and it's changes from 12 up to book 15 are quite explainable.
After Harry's presumed death in book 12, Murphy got hit hard. More importantly, in her opinion Harry is not dead because his body is not found. At that point Murphy is like a family of a soldier missing in action. Harry is missing, presumed dead but there is no body. There is no closure. She is hoping Harry is still alive, afraid he is truely dead and in denial. Unlik.All that plus all other external factors must have strain her badly. This would explain her hard line methods when Harry first appear in book 13. Murphy's condition is different from Molly. Molly knows what exactly happened to Harry. She knows Harry is dead because she help arrange it. Molly suffers from guilt. Murphy however, suffers from regret and uncertainty.
By the end of book 13, Murphy must have healled somewhat. By facing Harry's ghost and gaining the confirmation that Harry is truely dead, Murphy has gotten her closure. She is devastated, but she can now continue with her life. The end of GS, where Mortimer shielded Murphy while she is crying is the sign of her emotional recovery.
Just after Murphy accepted Harry's death and start to go on with her life, Harry returns from the dead. Molly has warning from Lea, Murphy get the full surprise package. From this alone, her innitial rather cold reception to Harry's return is understandable. It is hard enough for her to shift from believing Harry is still alive when Harry first died in book 12 into accepting that Harry is truely dead after she meet Harry's ghost in book 13. Now in book 14, she has to shift back from accepting Harry is dead to Harry is still alive again. It is a major emotional upheaval for her.
A shock though it was, it is after all a good news in the end. Once the shock is over, the fact that Harry is indeed not dead must be a major boon for Murphy emotionally which would explain why she gotten a lot better once book 15comes around.
In terms of character, all seems to be in order.
Your explanation is pretty good, except the part I highlighted. The problem with your explanation isn't in book 13 (Ghost Story) and your explanation would be logical one except for what came later. The problem is Jim's writing about Harry and Murphy's first meeting in book 14 (Cold Days). First we have Butters having this conversation with Harry:
"It's more of a roller coaster, lately, but a good mind is flexible," Butters said. "I'll deal with it; don't worry." He worked for a moment more before adding, in a low murmur, "Unlike some other people."
"Eh?" I asked him.
Butters just looked up across the large apartment and then went back to work.
I followed the direction of his gaze.
Karrin sat curled up in a chair beside the fireplace, on the far side of the big apartment, her arms wrapped around her knees, her head leaning against the chair's back. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open a little. She was evidently asleep. The gentle snoring supported that theory.
"Oh," I said. "Uh. Yeah. She didn't seem to handle it real well when I was ghosting around. . . ."
"Understatement," Butters breathed. "She's been through a lot. And none of it made her a bit less prickly."
Thomas made a low sound of agreement.
"She's run most of her friends off," Butters said. "Never talks to cops anymore. Hasn't been speaking to her family. Just the Viking crew down at the BFS. I'm hanging in there. So is Molly. I guess maybe we both know that she's in a bad place."
So it's pretty clear that Murphy hasn't really healed at this point in time. Then a page or two later Murphy guilt trips Harry into giving back Bob and acknowledging that Karrin would keep the swords. While that conversation really annoyed some readers what I got out of it was this part:
"I'm not angry at you, Harry," she said. "I don't hate you. I don't think you've gone bad. A lot of people have fallen into the trap you did. People better than either of us."
"Uh," I said. "The evil-Queen-of-Faerie trap?"
"Christ, Harry," Murphy said quietly. "No one just starts giggling and wearing black and signs up to become a villainous monster. How the hell do you think it happens?" She shook her head, her eyes pained. "It happens to people. Just people. They make questionable choices, for what might be very good reasons. They make choice after choice, and none of them is slaughtering roomfuls of saints, or murdering hundreds of baby seals, or rubber-room irrational. But it adds up. And then one day they look around and realize that they're so far over the line that they can't remember where it was."
I really wondered when I read that if Murphy wasn't referring to herself in the part I highlighted. She was in a pretty dark place emotionally in Ghost Story. We know she terminated two sorcerers with extreme prejudice before ghost Harry showed up in that book. I think there is more to Murphy's story that we haven't heard yet, and before we do it's difficult to know where her path may lead.
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"Christ, Harry," Murphy said quietly. "No one just starts giggling and wearing black and signs up to become a villainous monster. How the hell do you think it happens?" She shook her head, her eyes pained. "It happens to people. Just people. They make questionable choices, for what might be very good reasons. They make choice after choice, and none of them is slaughtering roomfuls of saints, or murdering hundreds of baby seals, or rubber-room irrational. But it adds up. And then one day they look around and realize that they're so far over the line that they can't remember where it was."
I really wondered when I read that if Murphy wasn't referring to herself in the part I highlighted. She was in a pretty dark place emotionally in Ghost Story. We know she terminated two sorcerers with extreme prejudice before ghost Harry showed up in that book. I think there is more to Murphy's story that we haven't heard yet, and before we do it's difficult to know where her path may lead.
It isn't new for her, the aftermath after Nightmare got into her head was she turned to the bottle. Understandable maybe, but she wouldn't let anyone help her that time either... Murphy may seem
very tough, but there is a brittle component to her personality, I repeat it wasn't just her body that Nic damaged...
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It isn't new for her, the aftermath after Nightmare got into her head was she turned to the bottle. Understandable maybe, but she wouldn't let anyone help her that time either... Murphy may seem
very tough, but there is a brittle component to her personality, I repeat it wasn't just her body that Nic damaged...
Agreed
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Oh, I agree that Harry wouldn't have "just" opened up. "New adult male authority figure? Cool, I'll spill ALL my heartache and self-doubt!" ... yeahNO.
But in time, as Eb proved trustworthy...
But by that point, why would the subject even come up? I mean, think about it: Harry and Ebenezer are both sitting at the breakfast table, maybe six months to a year after Justin's death, and Harry just spontaneously goes "Hey, sir, you know that thing where I murdered my teacher who was a warlock trying to enthrall me? Well, I also murdered my adopted sister who I was sleeping with, who was also trying to enthrall me...Why am I telling you this? No reason, just thought you ought to know..." It seems very unlikely.
I don't think Harry ever saw Justin as much of a "father" figure, however: he had memories of Malcom, after all!
What we saw of there relationship in Ghost Story indicates otherwise. Hell, in that book Harry's still trying to defend Justin, and its been decades!
DuMorne had been a Warden; he was part of the team attacking Kemmler, part of the magical bomb-squad going into Kemmler's lab afterwards. This implies a pretty senior Warden, and a lot of WC trust.
But somehow, 20-30 years later, he was so dark a warlock as to summon HWWB to kill an escaping apprentice?
Eb himself had been a Warden; he'd have been intimately aware of what a huge issue this was.
But the premise of this argument is that Ebenezer didn't believe that Justin was a warlock who set an Outsider on his apprentice.
The WTF must have been intense in the WC. The whole shitshow would merit as much information-gathering as possible... Is Justin really dead? Did Justin really summon one of the most-dangerous Outsiders known? Did Harry really defeat said Walker? WTF was going on at Justin's house??? What else -- besides the corruption of a senior Warden, the attempt(s) to take a promising apprentice down his corrupt path -- had gone seriously wrong, there?
I really cannot see Eb being satisfied just with knowing Harry was "redeemable," this issue is MUCH bigger than Harry in and of himself. Outsiders are an existential threat; and the WC's Blackstaff exists specifically to break the Laws, when and if such threats need to be met outside the Laws.
And if that kind of information had been found, you would think that the Council would know that Harry's self-defense claim was valid, rather than having a bunch of them still disbelieve it as of Summer Knight.
Edit: Also, I cannot honestly see how the WC wouldn't know of DuMorne's other apprentice. They investigated the events, and I cannot believe Harry would have been able to recount a credible lie (nor why he'd even have tried) that omitted Elaine's role in trying to help DuMorne enthrall Harry; he'd have still been shaken, and in accute mental/emotional distress; they would have been cross-examining him, discussing his likely death right there in front of him. This does not create the environment for Harry to tell a lie... especially one he'd see no need to tell! It's not like he thought he was protecting her!!! The WC dropped the "Elaine issue" simply because Harry was absolutely convinced that she died in the fire; his certainty of that was what convinced them.
Based on what Harry thinks of the White Council in the early books, and the fact that he must have had a reason to develop that opinion, I had always assumed that Harry's trial was similar to Harry Potter's from OotP, complete with leading questions to prevent Harry from defending himself and Harry's outburst of "But he was trying to murder me! He set a demon on me and--" "Preposterous! There is no way that..." etc. Which is not a good environment for acquiring all the details.
Also, I'm pretty sure that it says somewhere in Summer Knight that the Council doesn't know that Justin had a second apprentice--but I don't have access to the book right now, so I can't look it up.
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Your explanation is pretty good, except the part I highlighted. The problem with your explanation isn't in book 13 (Ghost Story) and your explanation would be logical one except for what came later. The problem is Jim's writing about Harry and Murphy's first meeting in book 14 (Cold Days). First we have Butters having this conversation with Harry:
"It's more of a roller coaster, lately, but a good mind is flexible," Butters said. "I'll deal with it; don't worry." He worked for a moment more before adding, in a low murmur, "Unlike some other people."
"Eh?" I asked him.
Butters just looked up across the large apartment and then went back to work.
I followed the direction of his gaze.
Karrin sat curled up in a chair beside the fireplace, on the far side of the big apartment, her arms wrapped around her knees, her head leaning against the chair's back. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open a little. She was evidently asleep. The gentle snoring supported that theory.
"Oh," I said. "Uh. Yeah. She didn't seem to handle it real well when I was ghosting around. . . ."
"Understatement," Butters breathed. "She's been through a lot. And none of it made her a bit less prickly."
Thomas made a low sound of agreement.
"She's run most of her friends off," Butters said. "Never talks to cops anymore. Hasn't been speaking to her family. Just the Viking crew down at the BFS. I'm hanging in there. So is Molly. I guess maybe we both know that she's in a bad place."
So it's pretty clear that Murphy hasn't really healed at this point in time. Then a page or two later Murphy guilt trips Harry into giving back Bob and acknowledging that Karrin would keep the swords. While that conversation really annoyed some readers what I got out of it was this part:
"I'm not angry at you, Harry," she said. "I don't hate you. I don't think you've gone bad. A lot of people have fallen into the trap you did. People better than either of us."
"Uh," I said. "The evil-Queen-of-Faerie trap?"
"Christ, Harry," Murphy said quietly. "No one just starts giggling and wearing black and signs up to become a villainous monster. How the hell do you think it happens?" She shook her head, her eyes pained. "It happens to people. Just people. They make questionable choices, for what might be very good reasons. They make choice after choice, and none of them is slaughtering roomfuls of saints, or murdering hundreds of baby seals, or rubber-room irrational. But it adds up. And then one day they look around and realize that they're so far over the line that they can't remember where it was."
I really wondered when I read that if Murphy wasn't referring to herself in the part I highlighted. She was in a pretty dark place emotionally in Ghost Story. We know she terminated two sorcerers with extreme prejudice before ghost Harry showed up in that book. I think there is more to Murphy's story that we haven't heard yet, and before we do it's difficult to know where her path may lead.
Why be confuse on where her path may lead? End of skin game has show us exactly where her path may lead. Well, at least in regards to her psycological and emotional health the signs are all good and clear. If we are talking about this issue at the end of book 13 or end of book 14, then yes, I must agree with you that Murphy is still in a bad place. End of skin game however, put an end to this issue. Unless future books show otherwise, I see no reason to assume negatively about Murphy's psycological condition.
About her condition after end of book 13. Well, I say at the end of book 13 Murphy has gotten her closure. She can start her road to recovery but she has not recovered yet. Harry's return in book 14however, though prove to be a shock, can be considered as Murphy taking a miracle Elixir in terms of her psycological and emotional illness. Her cold and rather prickly reaction at the beginning soons turns better and it is visible even during book 14, and to me that is very normal.
Psycological problems are like that. Before the problem is solved, the issue seems like a tall mountain blocking Heaven and earth. But once the problem is solved, the problem will disappear like morning fog.
This is not even unprecedented. Murphy suffers from the nightmare at the end of book 3. For the whole year between book 3 and book 4 she gotten nowhere and probably gotten worse. But once she conquers her fears and face the assassin in book 4, she recovers and recovers fast.
The same apply here. Once Harry's return from the dead is confirm true, what exactly is Murphy regreting? what exactly is her uncertainties?
Exactly nothing. Why should she be depressed and gloomy anymore? There is no reason for her to stay dark after that.
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I came to the conclusion that Murphy has some issues Harry isn't really aware of because sometimes he misses the obvious thing staring him in the face. There's a reason she landed in Special Investigations, and I don't think it's just because she's a girl in a boys' club, and the boys got mad. She probably did something that wasn't quite a fireable offense.
Her character always drove me nuts until I realized that. Her antagonistic relationship with Harry in Storm Front makes sense. It doesn't in Fool Moon, at all. After that, Murphy's pretty level for a while, but every time we see Murphy playing politics, she's making the most aggressive play that's guaranteed to piss people off who she might need in the future. Then there's her plot arc of trusting and not trusting Harry in Ghost Story/Cold Days/Skin Game. (The part of that arc that really annoy's me is Butters doing the same thing). It's rational in Ghost Story, at first. Then it's not but still understandable. Her hesitance to trust Harry in Cold Days makes sense, too. Her approach is still overly aggressive, as always. And then in Skin Game, she just completely trusts Harry even though he is being super secretive and working with a guy the Devil keeps at arms length. For reasons?
Murphy might lead the Bolshevik Muppet branch of a national organization, but she doesn't have the right temperament to lead any diverse national organization or deal successfully with an arrogant, stodgy, and powerful organization like the White Council, at least not in the long-term.
That doesn't mean that she won't lead the Paranet (which is a PARAnormal NETwork and therefore a loosely affiliated collection of disparate people and groups that isn't likely to have centralized leadership?) because people with skills handling one kind of situation are often thought to be competent in another completely different situation. "He's a war hero, of course he should lead us in a time of peace where economic policy should be our primary focus!"
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I came to the conclusion that Murphy has some issues Harry isn't really aware of because sometimes he misses the obvious thing staring him in the face. There's a reason she landed in Special Investigations, and I don't think it's just because she's a girl in a boys' club, and the boys got mad. She probably did something that wasn't quite a fireable offense.
Her character always drove me nuts until I realized that. Her antagonistic relationship with Harry in Storm Front makes sense. It doesn't in Fool Moon, at all. After that, Murphy's pretty level for a while, but every time we see Murphy playing politics, she's making the most aggressive play that's guaranteed to piss people off who she might need in the future. Then there's her plot arc of trusting and not trusting Harry in Ghost Story/Cold Days/Skin Game. (The part of that arc that really annoy's me is Butters doing the same thing). It's rational in Ghost Story, at first. Then it's not but still understandable. Her hesitance to trust Harry in Cold Days makes sense, too. Her approach is still overly aggressive, as always. And then in Skin Game, she just completely trusts Harry even though he is being super secretive and working with a guy the Devil keeps at arms length. For reasons?
Murphy might lead the Bolshevik Muppet branch of a national organization, but she doesn't have the right temperament to lead any diverse national organization or deal successfully with an arrogant, stodgy, and powerful organization like the White Council, at least not in the long-term.
That doesn't mean that she won't lead the Paranet (which is a PARAnormal NETwork and therefore a loosely affiliated collection of disparate people and groups that isn't likely to have centralized leadership?) because people with skills handling one kind of situation are often thought to be competent in another completely different situation. "He's a war hero, of course he should lead us in a time of peace where economic policy should be our primary focus!"
Because it is easier to believe something if it is something you wanted to be true in the firstplace.
Murphy probably wanted harry not to be dead very much. So much so that she could not trust her own judgement. This could explain why her innitial reaction upon meeting is the way it is. It is such a good news, it is almost too good to be true.
Fortunately, harry truely return. Once the surprise effect is over, adapting to such a good and happy news, something murphy originally wanted to begin with, should be simple and ought to happened quickly. This should explain why by skin game murphy is willing to trust harry that much. Tyr
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Why be confuse on where her path may lead? End of skin game has show us exactly where her path may lead. Well, at least in regards to her psycological and emotional health the signs are all good and clear. If we are talking about this issue at the end of book 13 or end of book 14, then yes, I must agree with you that Murphy is still in a bad place. End of skin game however, put an end to this issue. Unless future books show otherwise, I see no reason to assume negatively about Murphy's psycological condition.
Are they? I don't think we can assume anything, last time we saw her she was in a hospital bed on pain meds.. Yes, Harry kissed her and gave her a small fortune in diamonds, so yeah, at that moment she was in a happy place... But we've heard nothing one way or the other since then...
Her character always drove me nuts until I realized that. Her antagonistic relationship with Harry in Storm Front makes sense. It doesn't in Fool Moon, at all. After that, Murphy's pretty level for a while, but every time we see Murphy playing politics, she's making the most aggressive play that's guaranteed to piss people off who she might need in the future. Then there's her plot arc of trusting and not trusting Harry in Ghost Story/Cold Days/Skin Game. (The part of that arc that really annoy's me is Butters doing the same thing). It's rational in Ghost Story, at first. Then it's not but still understandable. Her hesitance to trust Harry in Cold Days makes sense, too. Her approach is still overly aggressive, as always. And then in Skin Game, she just completely trusts Harry even though he is being super secretive and working with a guy the Devil keeps at arms length. For reasons?
Did she? Like KurtinStGeorge I won't go down that rabbit hole again... Suffice it to say that her actions got a Holy Sword broken that day.. To quote Measter Aemon, "love is the death of duty.."
Bad for a man of the Night's Watch, and for a career policewomen as well, she might be retired or fired from the force but she still is one, in her heart.. It could have ramifications later on... Just saying..