I think Jim said that Twelve Months will be about Harry dating Lara, and having to survive attempts on his life. Do you think any of these attempts will actually be done by wizards of the White Council?I doubt it. The Council is filthy rich and cowardly, much better to hire disposable assassins. Sure, it's Harry Dresden they're going after, so any one assassin won't be cheap, but still.
I doubt it. The Council is filthy rich and cowardly, much better to hire disposable assassins. Sure, it's Harry Dresden they're going after, so any one assassin won't be cheap, but still.
The Genoskwa will certainly try though and white council involvement is not necessary for that. He will almost certainly underestimate Harry though.
Why? He's seen just about every powerup Harry has at his disposal, unless he takes to carrying the spearhead regularly.Because he is full of his own superiority.
Why? He's seen just about every powerup Harry has at his disposal, unless he takes to carrying the spearhead regularly.
I don’t think the white council will make any real attempt night now. If the white council tried openly Harry can reasonably ask his liege for help or just bring it into her attention and that will backfire for the white council.Underestimating Harry wouldn't really matter too much since his preferred MO is going in under a veil and twisting heads off and he's fast enough to just speedblitz Harry in a confrontation.
The Genoskwa will certainly try though and white council involvement is not necessary for that. He will almost certainly underestimate Harry though.
Underestimating Harry wouldn't really matter too much since his preferred MO is going in under a veil and twisting heads off and he's fast enough to just speedblitz Harry in a confrontation.Harry was warned by river shoulders and toot and his crew were very effective against veiled opponents.
Underestimating Harry wouldn't really matter too much since his preferred MO is going in under a veil and twisting heads off and he's fast enough to just speedblitz Harry in a confrontation.
I'd like to think that even if Harry didn't know what was coming, his magical senses would give him a last second warning, and he'd throw up a shield at the last moment. He's supposed to grow at least a little in every book. Since Changes it's mostly been him getting stronger with the WK Mantle. I'm hopeful that his magic will begin to improve after some of what was said in BG.A few pixie bodyguards will detect any visible attacker.
I don't see the WC attempting to kill Harry unless he does something major to piss them off. I think they kicked him off the WC was to neutralize his growing influence/power on the WC. They see him as useful against common enemies. He has defeated many common enemies. He is still feared and that he could go to the dark side. He is considered a loose cannon.
Of course, it made sense, from Morgan’s narrow and single-minded point of view. A wizard had killed someone. I was a wizard who had already been convicted of killing another with magic, even if the self-defense clause had kept me from being executed. Cops looked for people who had already committed crimes before they started looking for other culprits. Morgan was just another kind of cop, as far as I was concerned.
But some of the other wizards had thought I deserved lenience, and there was a precedent for using lethal magic in self-defense against the black arts. I’d been put on a kind of horrible probation instead, with any further infraction against the Laws punishable by immediate summary judgement. But I’d also been sixteen, and legally a minor, which meant I had to go someplace—preferably where the Council could keep an eye on me and where I could learn better control of my powers.
I agree that a question is whether the Turtlenecks qualify as human. As we know, they don't seem to consider the White Court vampires as human, even though they are very nearly human.I would say instead that that all shows there's a current of WC thought that such an exception exists, but there's serious pushback against it (hence why Harry was on harsh probation and not cleared; the hardliners needed to be appeased).
But, there definitely is a self-defense exception to the First Law. Given that, I cannot see how opposing armies in actual combat situations would not be considered within that exception.
Here's Storm Front:
Butcher, Jim. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) (p. 75). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Summer Knight:
Butcher, Jim. Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (p. 39). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I think Jim said that Twelve Months will be about Harry dating Lara, and having to survive attempts on his life. Do you think any of these attempts will actually be done by wizards of the White Council?oh they'll try. No doubt through oblique or expendable means... I mean, who else was navigating the ways to try to send stuff from the NN side into his apartment?🤔🧐 Someone amongst them has already tried..
at point 1 no. Killing people in battle is not self defense, you can flee. The real question is do think those servitors are human.
Which would be desertion in battle, after the Senior Councilors present ordered him to fight, with Eb even specifying no quarter. But sure, he could have theoretically done that, even though it would have presumably been a catch-22 death sentence on different grounds.Molly’s word is difficult to deny but the white councils definition of human is probably somewhat opportunistic.
We have Molly's POV that the turtlenecks' minds aren't human anymore as far back as Bombshells, but the Council might not have made that kind of detailed assessment, and they're not going to take her word on it at this point.
In changes Ebenezer used the blackstaf to kill a lot of human mercenaries during battle. That was black magic and Harry was shocked.
If wizards were allowed to use magic in battle the whole dresdenverse would be quite different. If the servitors were really humans Harry had to find another solution or simply had to leave his people to die. Veil and slip away. That is how listen to winds people probably died. That is how it works.
The seven laws are not about morality or good and evil. Not directly as we see them in this universe anyway.
And we never have seen self defense as a reason someone did not break the law. Harry was convicted.
Ebenezar turned toward the walls from which the soldiers were firing. Hits thumped into his robes, but seemed to do little but stir the fabric and then fall at his feet. The old man said, mostly to himself, “You took the wrong contract, boys.” Then he swept the Blackstaff from left to right, murmured a word, and ripped the life from a hundred men. They just . . . died. There was absolutely nothing to mark their deaths. No sign of pain. No struggle. No convulsion of muscles. No reaction at all. One moment they were firing wildly down at us—and the next, they simply— Dropped. Dead. The old man turned to the other wall, and I saw two or three of the brighter soldiers throw their guns down and run. I don’t know if they made it, but the old man swept the Blackstaff through the air again, and the gunmen on that side of the field dropped dead where they stood. My godmother watched it happen, and bounced and clapped her hands some more, as delighted as a child at the circus. I stared for a second, shocked. Ebenezar had just shattered the First Law of Magic: Thou shalt not kill. He had used magic to directly end the life of another human being—nearly two hundred times. I mean, yes, I had known what his office allowed him to do. . . . But there was a big difference between appreciating a fact and seeing that terrible truth in motion. The Blackstaff itself pulsed and shimmered with shadowy power, and I got the sudden sense that the thing was alive, that it knew its purpose and wanted nothing more than to be used, as often and as spectacularly as possible. I also saw veins of venomous black begin to ooze their way over the old man’s hand, reaching up slowly, spreading to his wrist. He grimaced and held his left forearm with his right hand for a moment, then looked over his shoulder and said, “All right!”
He didn't technically break the Laws though. If he had, they would have executed him, not kicked him out. They know he acted because he had to. They needed an excuse, and created one. If he had fled instead, they would have probably kicked him out for abandoning his fellow White Council members in battle.I agree, killing with magic had nothing to do with kicking him out, they wanted to do that beforethe battle began in Peace Talks. There are other forces at work here, the irony is someone might think he is safer out of the Council all together than part of it..
Here's the passage from Changes where Harry sees McCoy cut loose:Harry knew about the blackstaf at that point but if Harry had done the same there without blackstaf and with all the council wizards there he would have been dead.
Butcher, Jim. Changes (The Dresden Files, Book 12) (pp. 396-397). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Harry certainly views it as a violation -- a shattering no less -- of the First Law. So, perhaps Arjan has a point. One certainly could interpret the passage that way; one could also interpret it as shock that McCoy would attack so casually and easily -- just ripping the life from 200 hundred mercs in an instant.
If I wanted to play lawyer here -- and I do -- I'd say that we can't know from Harry's point of view whether McCoy actually violated the law, or whether Harry just thinks he does. As Harry points out, legally speaking McCoy's office trumps the law.