You know, that's an aspect of that whole affair that I had never really considered before.  I agree that Peabody probably couldn't produce major changes in older Wizards' behavior, but Staci's affair with Harry does present odd questions.

Staci herself commented afterward that as commander of the Wardens, it was not really wise for her to be carrying on an affair with a subordinate, surging hormones or not.  Did they keep the whole thing secret?  I never saw much sign of that.

Yet did nobody observe that this might be a questionable breach of discipline?  Granted the Council might not have any formal, official rules about such things, but it's hard not to see somebody thinking this was at least unwise or was a bad optic.  Esp. with Harry's tendency to make up his own rules.  I could easily see some other Warden muttering that "Dresden gets away with it because he's ****ing the Captain."  Bad for overall morale, even if the suspicion is false.

Flipside, those of the high echelons who distrust Harry would likely be freaked out by his being the Captain's bedmate, too.  "Has Dresden suborned the commander of our police force?!"

Mira's right about this aspect of things, that whole situation looks funny.

That's a good question.  But then again, it's an equally good question whether my hypothesis is true or not, considering that whether or not the Council was more 'relaxed' before Kemmler, they visibly were chop-happy by the 1990s and after.

We don't fully know the answer to how Harry survived.

To be fair, they almost did kill him.  He came very close, several times, and it was partly the fact that Ebenezar is a high-ranking Council member himself, and a few of the other high-rankers were at least prepared to listen, that saved him.  Harry being a starborn may have been part of the equation, too.  The Council clearly knows more about starborns than Harry has been told, some Councillors may have considered his starborn status to make him valuable enough to take a risk with.

But we just don't have enough information to say for sure.   

Which is why given the Merlin's admitted prejudice against talented kids who screw up because dark magic is easier and they don't know better, he shouldn't have been the one to soul gaze the Korean kid.  Because the Merlin believes that trying to rehab these kids is a waste of time and dangerous, he'd only see the worst and nothing redeeming about the kid.  Why Harry didn't argue that point?  At least request that he, himself, also gaze the Korean kid or another more neutral minded wizard do it.  The outcome might have still been the same, but the process would have perhaps been seen as a bit more fair.

I have seen that as a fan theory... do not recall seeing a WoJ to that effect, however.

If you can find your cite, I'd be grateful!

OK, I'm not really angry, but this quote from Peace Talks just might derail several ideas that I and other readers have been discussing the past week or two.  More than that, it confuses Jim's narrative.  Jim probably has it all worked out so it will make sense, but I still find it annoying.  So without further delay, here is what Ebenezar said to Harry in Peace Talks about what it means to be Starborn.

Ebenezar - "Every couple or three generations, the stars lineup just right, and what amounts to a spotlight plays over the earth for a few hours.  Any child born within that light-"
Harry -      "Is starborn. I get it. What does it mean?"
Ebenezar - "Power against the Outsiders.  Among other things, that their minds can't be magically tainted by contact with anything from Outside.  Which means.."

Which means to me, why the hell was Morgan, the Merlin and anyone else on the White Council; who knows about Nemesis and what it means to be starborn, afraid that Harry was "molded to be a creature of Nemesis."?  That last quote is from Morgan's Microfiction.

Didn't they know that Harry is starborn?  Rereading Morgan's Microfiction for the umptieth time, he doesn't say anything about Harry being starborn, so I suppose it's possible Morgan didn't know.  But Morgan should have known that that possibility existed, unless he didn't know anything about being starborn.

Let me stop for a moment and say why Morgan should have known that Harry might be starborn.  Morgan states that he failed to keep his promise to Margaret to protect her child.  So Margaret LeFay contacted Morgan when she was pregnant.  I doubt it was a face to face meeting because the Wardens had been ordered to arrest Margaret on site and Morgan was a stickler for following orders, but I digress.  The possibility of being starborn only happens once every 666 years.  You would think that the higher ups in the White Council would be hyper aware of this date.  Do you see the issue here and the problems it might create?

Morgan should have been able to put two and two together and realized what Margaret was doing or at least suspected she was trying to create a starborn child.  Even if Morgan didn't find out about Margaret's death until a few days after it occurred, he should have wanted to establish the time of her death and Harry's birth.  Unless Morgan didn't know anything about being starborn or perhaps he had heard the term, but didn't know what it meant.  So under this scenario, Morgan knew about Nemesis but didn't know anything about people who are starborn.  I suppose that is possible, but it seems a bit weak to me.

What about the Merlin and others on the senior Council?  What is their excuse?  Surely, when they heard that Margaret LeFey had died while giving birth, they should have been asking what day she died and what time it was.  Shouldn't they have a calendar with the date and time for people who are going to be starborn marked off?  Wouldn't they have been checking the birthdate and time of birth of anyone showing enough magical talent
to be admitted to the Council, so they would know if that person was starborn?  We know that Ebenezar and Listen's to Winds know that Harry is starborn.  They can't be the only one's on the Council who knows this. 

Unless, they do know, but only Ebenezar knows that being starborn insures protection against Outsiders.  If that was the case, why didn't Ebenzar just tell the members of the Senior Council that Harry couldn't be tainted by Nemesis?  I understand that wizards don't like revealing secrets, but this idea borders on the ridiculous.

Other potential problems with this passage: 

Is Elaine starborn or not?  Because if she is, that kills the OP and a big chunk of a thread I started about Elaine being nemfected.  On the positive side, it might explain why Jim hasn't given us a straight yes or no answer to Elaine's starborn status.  So, I could still be right.

Was the White Council trying to create their own starborn?  Because, if Eb and maybe LTW are the only ones on the White Council who knows what being starborn means, it kills that idea.  It would also kill the idea I had that Harry being a destroyer is related to him being starborn.  I think this is highly unlikely, so if the Council wanted their own starborn, was that Elaine?  Did they fail or did they succeed?  We don't know.

Aside from knowing the date and time someone was born, is their another way to detect that someone is starborn?  Lea, Mab, Lash and I assume Odin/Vadderung know when Harry was born.  How did the Erl King in Cold Days and Drakul in Battleground know that Harry is starborn?  For that matter, how did Mavra know?  She specifically told one of the other Black Court vamps that Drakul got to eat anyone who is starborn.  Is there some supernatural data broker selling information on who is starborn or is there something in Harry's aura that clues them in?  A bit off track, but if it is something in Harry's aura that clues-in the characters mentioned above, can Bob see it?  Would Bob know what it means? 

Getting back to Elaine, if being starborn is something that can be detected with supernatural powers, Titania must know if Elaine is starborn, because she would be able to detect it.  You would think that those in the White Council who are in-the-know about what being starborn means would want to create their own starborn detector.  Times and dates of birth can be fudged or simply mistaken. 

I'm trying to create a narrative where all of this makes sense, but it's a bit difficult.  Most of the Senior Council doesn't know that Harry is starborn.
I refuse to believe that, at least for now.  So, the Senior Council knows that Harry is starborn, but for some unknown reason think he might be vulnerable to Nemesis.  Being a destroyer that Morgan feared might be related to Harry being starborn, but it might be something else.  A lot of supernatural heavyweights and at least one supernatural middleweight know that Harry is starborn, but we aren't exactly sure how all of them got this information.  Elaine might also be starborn, but she might not be one.  If Elaine is starborn, then she can't be nemfected, unless there is a exception that can allow Nemesis to posses someone who is starborn.  While this would explain why Morgan and the Senior Council feared and still fear Harry, it completely violates what Ebenezar told Harry in the long quote above.



     

   

If he did, he never mentioned it.. So we can't be sure.

Since the ones who panic have been vanilla humans, it is safe to bet they never saw magical power in the raw before, and it would scare the hell out of them.  However soul gazes with Marcone and a couple of other people have not produced panic, in the case of Marcone, I think he scared Harry more than the other way around.  As for the others, they were reassured, even comforted by what they saw.
I doubt that Harry is marked like an animal or is owned by the Outsiders.