There's also the semi-apprentice trying to create a cage with runes powerful enough to contain a Loup Garou.
There's also the semi-apprentice trying to create a cage with runes powerful enough to contain a Loup Garou.
There's also the semi-apprentice trying to create a cage with runes powerful enough to contain a Loup Garou.
I say if nothing else, this qualifies since Harry himself recognizes this was his fault.
Likewise, it's been a while since I read FM but, IIRC, he also held not telling Murphy about the Loup Garou earlier as something against himself since it resulted in Murphy not trusting him and then the police trying to hold the Loup Garou before it ended in predictable carnage.
If I remember correctly Kim wasn't totally honest with Harry as to why she wanted this circle to start with. Also the knowledge of how to make such a thing comes very close to breaking the rules that he lives under as a wizard and he had just recently had gotten the Doom removed from his head. He also told her she didn't have the kind of juice to make such a thing.. He also warned her as to how dangerous it was to play with such a thing, since they not only hold Loops but also could
hold summoned demons.. Her answer was it was mostly hypothetical... She never directly told him
about the Loop.
So I didn't know that it was one night shy of being full when a young woman sat down across from me in McAnally's pub and asked me to tell her all about something that could get her killed.He goes on to warn her not to mess with it, even the knowledge is dangerous. Page 2 she totally lies to him...
"No," I said. "Absolutely not." I folded the piece of paper, with the drawings of three concentric rings of spidery symbols, and slid it back over the polished oak-wood table."
"Look, Harry," Kim said, "I'm not using this for anything serious, I promise. I'm not trying any summoning or binding. It's an academic interest only.
"You're sure?" I asked her. "This is just you trying to scratch an itch?"
"Cross my heart," she said, doing so...
I studied her face for a moment. "If I read the symbols correctly, it's a third wall. Built to withhold creatures of the flesh and the spirit. Neither mortal nor spirit but somewhere in-between."
"What kind of creatures are like that?"
I shrugged. "None," I said, and officially, it was true. The White Council of wizards did not allow the discussion of demons that could be called to earth, beings of spirit that could gather flesh to themselves. Usually a spirit circle was enough to stop all but the most powerful demons or Elder Things of the outer reaches of the Nevernever. But this third circle was built to stop things that could transcend those kinds of boundaries. It was a cage for demonic demigods and archangels.
"You strength's go nothing to do with it." I said. "You don't have the training. You don't have the knowledge
To say nothing of what the White Council would think of a nonwizard toying with major summoning circles. The White Council didn't take chances with things like that. They just acted, decisively, and they weren't always particular about people's lives and safety when they did it.
I think you can still lay some fault on Harry because Harry's reaction was just, "Don't do it and I'm not going to help you do it safely."
As the whole idea of abstinence-only education has shown, that's a laughably bad way to keep someone from doing something. Harry could have inquired more about why she was interested in it, especially since she did seem determined to look deeper with or without him.
I think you can still lay some fault on Harry because Harry's reaction was just, "Don't do it and I'm not going to help you do it safely."
As the whole idea of abstinence-only education has shown, that's a laughably bad way to keep someone from doing something. Harry could have inquired more about why she was interested in it, especially since she did seem determined to look deeper with or without him.
Maybe. Maybe not. We don't really know what Harry's told them about the dangers out there. Harry wasn't prepared for the skinwalker, so I have a hard time imagining he could have sufficiently prepared the Alphas.Well, evidently Billy thought so.
The bottom line is that the case of Kirby is a weak argument for Harry's withholding of information being harmful.
“I mean that for years, I’ve been willing to help you, even though you could barely ever tell me what was actually happening. You’ve played everything close to the chest. And I know you had your reasons for that.” He stopped walking and looked up at me calmly. “Kirby’s dead. Maybe Andi, too.”
My conscience wouldn’t let me meet his gaze, even for an instant. “I know.”
He nodded. “So. If I’d had this conversation with you sooner, maybe they wouldn’t be. Maybe if we’d had a better idea about what’s actually going on in the world, it would have changed how we approached things. They follow my lead, Harry. I have a responsibility to make sure that I do everything in my power to make them aware and safe.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I can see your point.”
“Then if you want my help, things are going to change. I’m not charging ahead blindfolded again. Not ever.”
He thought it might have made a difference. I just don't see how it would have. The problem is we don't really know that much about how and what the Alphas do. It's mentioned repeatedly how hard it is to impress the dangers of the world on the young, so I'm not sure Harry could have changed anything by informing the Alphas that there are great and terrible powers out there.
I would have insisted on full disclosure if I were Billy too. I'm not a "no questions asked" kind of guy if I'm helping someone do something. It doesn't even have to be a dangerous something.
If Kirby had known, for instance, that Harry was being pursued by something on the Skinwalker's level, he might have been a bit more cautious rather than strolling back talking on a cell phone that lit up his face and made him a target.
Maybe. Maybe not. We don't really know what Harry's told them about the dangers out there. Harry wasn't prepared for the skinwalker, so I have a hard time imagining he could have sufficiently prepared the Alphas.
The bottom line is that the case of Kirby is a weak argument for Harry's withholding of information being harmful.
Well, evidently Billy thought so.
1. The second Sells/Beckitt victim, the prostitute... Jenny? The one he meets at the airport. She's the only one Harry may have been able to intervene for, and even then, he pulls a classic sitcom mistake and schedules two dates at the same time. So he was in the process of attempting to help her when the storm broke and she got a bad case of heart...explosion. Maybe, if he had told her that her heart was in danger of exploding out of her chest, she may have taken it more seriously and come to him earlier for help. But I chalk it up to a case of missed opportunity rather than withholding information.
2. Kim. I can go either way on this one. It's not really Harry's fault because he was deceived.
3. Susan. Nope, Susan made her own bed. She picked up the Idiot Ball and ran with it. What she did was way more dangerous than even what war correspondents do when they report from the field; it's very rare that you see a reporter go to an ISIS party to chase down a story about a day in the life of a terrorist.
4. Summer Knight... nothing comes to mind. The only people involved are either clued in, or, in Murphy's case, get clued in.
5. Death Masks... nothing on this one. The only death I can recall is Shiro, and he knew more than Harry (including that he was going to die).
6. Blood Rites... there's an argument to be made about the actresses on set. I think Harry could have outright told the producer (Genosa? I can't remember) that there WAS a curse, but I think he kept it vaguer than necessary. But I can go either way on this one.
7. Dead Beat... he clues Butters in pretty well. No, I don't think there's anyone he kept anything from (unless you count Luccio?) who got hurt because of it.
8. Proven Guilty. This time, it happened to Harry. If Molly had gone to him with what she knew about her magic, Proven Guilty pretty much doesn't happen. Ditto Thomas shadowing Harry all over town instead of being up front with him.
9. White Night. Nothing comes to mind. Harry's pretty up front with the Ordo. The only thing he held back at first was Beckitt's criminal past, and that didn't affect much.
10. Small Favor. Again, it was done to Harry with his blasting rod (which I've always thought was an unnecessarily macho term for "wand.") Harry lays out his cards pretty openly. Michael's the one who got hurt, but not because Harry didn't say "Hey, watch out for Ak-47s."
11. Turn Coat. Nope. Nada.
12. Changes. Again, this happened TO Harry. If Susan had told him they'd had a daughter, Harry would've made it his business to incinerate anyone who looked at her the wrong way. There's an argument to be made that he shouldn't have brought Molly along (and we all saw the consequences there). And Susan... Harry manipulated her at the altar. He telepathically told Susan that Martin's knife couldn't hurt her because of her Fae armor, but knew it was a lie (since the blade was steel). He convinced her to kill Martin, knowing she'd drain him and turn, all so he could kill the Red Court.
13. Ghost Story. Nothing comes to mind.
14. Cold Days. Molly, maybe? Not really, though. He doesn't withhold much of anything from her.
15. Skin Game. The only one who's hurt is Murphy, and she went in with open eyes.
He thought it might have made a difference. I just don't see how it would have. The problem is we don't really know that much about how and what the Alphas do. It's mentioned repeatedly how hard it is to impress the dangers of the world on the young, so I'm not sure Harry could have changed anything by informing the Alphas that there are great and terrible powers out there.Look, it's Harry's, he owns it. He led it to them and it killed them. They couldn't make an informed choice because he kept them in the dark. It isn't that they might not die but rather that they didn't fully understand the risks. And this is true in all the early books, with Kim Delaney and Susan. Both were foolish, but it's one thing to be foolish and another to be ignorant and foolish. Turn Coat is the last time it's an issue. So I'll call it three times, to speak to the OP's point.
I would have insisted on full disclosure if I were Billy too. I'm not a "no questions asked" kind of guy if I'm helping someone do something. It doesn't even have to be a dangerous something.
Look, it's Harry's, he owns it. He led it to them and it killed them. They couldn't make an informed choice because he kept them in the dark. It isn't that they might not die but rather that they didn't fully understand the risks. And this is true in all the early books, with Kim Delaney and Susan. Both were foolish, but it's one thing to be foolish and another to be ignorant and foolish. Turn Coat is the last time it's an issue. So I'll call it three times, to speak to the OP's point.
Look, it's Harry's, he owns it.
He led it to them and it killed them.
They couldn't make an informed choice because he kept them in the dark.
It isn't that they might not die but rather that they didn't fully understand the risks.
And this is true in all the early books, with Kim Delaney and Susan. Both were foolish, but it's one thing to be foolish and another to be ignorant and foolish.
I made a simple declarative statement. Guilt has nothing to do with it. Harry sought refuge, by doing so he caused Kirby to be killed. Pure cause and effect.
Here is the conversation in Fool Moon, paperback page -5 6...
Kim has just asked Harry several questions behind the theory of holding circles and how they work, she has drawn a picture of it. He answers her about the first two rings, then she asks about using a third... He asks her if she copied it right..
Let's back up to the first page... He is speaking of a full moon, then what Kim has shown him..
He goes on to warn her not to mess with it, even the knowledge is dangerous. Page 2 she totally lies to him...
Page 3 Harry asks her again....
He answers some of her questions and she eagerly takes notes until we get to the third inner circle..
Harry realizes there is something fishy a foot...
pages 5-6
Harry stops giving her straight answers to her further questions and continues to warn her... She insists that she is strong enough to activate such a circle... He answers page 6
He goes on to tell her even if she did, he'd still warn her against it because if she made a mistake, it could hurt a lot of people... Then she gets pissed and stalks off... Then on page 8
Harry adds talking to himself now...
1] Kim never told Harry the truth..
2] That it was for a Loop never entered his mind, until he talked to Bob Harry had doubts that they
even existed
3] He thought he was helping her keep her head by not giving her anymore information, just knowing it was dangerous...
4] He had no idea that she was going to try and attempt it even without all the information she needed... He really thought she had more sense...
Harry blames himself, but honestly if she wasn't willing to tell him the truth, what else could he have done but what he did do?
Mr Death
See above, he did question her closely and she blew him off, and out and out lied to him... Consider how different it could have turned out, if she had told him the truth about the Loop and what had happened... If I know our Harry, he would have jumped up without finishing his steak and insisted that he be taken to the subject that so badly needed containing and do the circle himself.. However given those determined that the Loop get out, it still might not have been enough..
Harry feels guilty for just about everything bad that happens to the people around him, regardless of whether he's actually at fault. Given this, Harry's guilt does not appear to be an accurate indicator of whether or not Harry's actually responsible for something.I never said anything about guilt. I said Harry was responsible for Kirby dying. This is pure cause and effect. The original response contained Billy's statement to Harry and as such can't be clarified. This is precisely what Billy is telling Harry. Harry, you're not giving me enough information to do what it is I do. Which is to assess the risk to his pack.
I'll go book by book to jog my memory.
1. The second Sells/Beckitt victim, the prostitute... Jenny? The one he meets at the airport. She's the only one Harry may have been able to intervene for, and even then, he pulls a classic sitcom mistake and schedules two dates at the same time. So he was in the process of attempting to help her when the storm broke and she got a bad case of heart...explosion. Maybe, if he had told her that her heart was in danger of exploding out of her chest, she may have taken it more seriously and come to him earlier for help. But I chalk it up to a case of missed opportunity rather than withholding information.
2. Kim. I can go either way on this one. It's not really Harry's fault because he was deceived.
3. Susan. Nope, Susan made her own bed. She picked up the Idiot Ball and ran with it. What she did was way more dangerous than even what war correspondents do when they report from the field; it's very rare that you see a reporter go to an ISIS party to chase down a story about a day in the life of a terrorist.
4. Summer Knight... nothing comes to mind. The only people involved are either clued in, or, in Murphy's case, get clued in.
5. Death Masks... nothing on this one. The only death I can recall is Shiro, and he knew more than Harry (including that he was going to die).
6. Blood Rites... there's an argument to be made about the actresses on set. I think Harry could have outright told the producer (Genosa? I can't remember) that there WAS a curse, but I think he kept it vaguer than necessary. But I can go either way on this one.
7. Dead Beat... he clues Butters in pretty well. No, I don't think there's anyone he kept anything from (unless you count Luccio?) who got hurt because of it.
8. Proven Guilty. This time, it happened to Harry. If Molly had gone to him with what she knew about her magic, Proven Guilty pretty much doesn't happen. Ditto Thomas shadowing Harry all over town instead of being up front with him.
9. White Night. Nothing comes to mind. Harry's pretty up front with the Ordo. The only thing he held back at first was Beckitt's criminal past, and that didn't affect much.
10. Small Favor. Again, it was done to Harry with his blasting rod (which I've always thought was an unnecessarily macho term for "wand.") Harry lays out his cards pretty openly. Michael's the one who got hurt, but not because Harry didn't say "Hey, watch out for Ak-47s."
11. Turn Coat. Nope. Nada.
12. Changes. Again, this happened TO Harry. If Susan had told him they'd had a daughter, Harry would've made it his business to incinerate anyone who looked at her the wrong way. There's an argument to be made that he shouldn't have brought Molly along (and we all saw the consequences there). And Susan... Harry manipulated her at the altar. He telepathically told Susan that Martin's knife couldn't hurt her because of her Fae armor, but knew it was a lie (since the blade was steel). He convinced her to kill Martin, knowing she'd drain him and turn, all so he could kill the Red Court.
13. Ghost Story. Nothing comes to mind.
14. Cold Days. Molly, maybe? Not really, though. He doesn't withhold much of anything from her.
15. Skin Game. The only one who's hurt is Murphy, and she went in with open eyes.
So I think there are only a few across the whole series. Maybe there are some examples in the short stories, but I don't recall most of them in great detail.
Um, he warned both Kim and Susan as best he could, let's not forget some information Harry isn't at liberty to share... Let's be fair here, did Kim tell Harry why she really wanted the plans? No... When Harry mentioned that such a circle was only used to contain the likes of archangels and demigods, did she say who or what she was trying to contain? NO! Her answer was sheer stupidity about Harry thinking she isn't strong enough to build such a circle.. Even if Harry had given her ALL the information it is doubtful that she could have pulled it off under pressure...
Susan, what more could Harry have told her? All she cared about was getting a story so she blew off Harry's warnings about the party and who was there, hell he didn't want to go it was so dangerous... After witnessing the run in with the Loop, and the Frog Demon in Storm Front you'd think she'd trust Harry's word when he says something is just too dangerous for mere vanilla mortals to come up against... The smart thing would have been to trust his word and use common sense... When someone tells you not to touch the red hot stove, don't touch it or you might get badly burned... She was, and Kim paid with her life.. Both had pretty informed choices to make and they made them, they chose to disregard Harry's warnings. It's like a mine field with signs that say, "DO NOT GO INTO THE MINE FIELD, DANGER!!!!" You know mines can kill, you know they can rip off arms and legs etc.... You've been told by an explosives expert that these are very powerful mines easily triggered and they can reduce you to a red stain in the dirt... But you've never seen this yourself, and though this person is an expert, he has to be over protective, just how dangerous can they really be? You make your informed choice and take a walk in the marked field... You may get lucky and not trip anything, does that make the warnings wrong? Or you step on one and are reduced to red goo... You made an informed choice, what more information could the explosive expert have given you to keep you out of that damn field?
He should had taken more proactive action. The only excuse Harry has to explain this mistake is youth and inexperience. If it is Morgan, Kim would have been interrogated at sword point.
Now you understand why the white council is so intolerant. You mess with something above your pay grade, and they come down at you like a ton of bricks, your reasons and excuses be damm. And Harry is officially a wizard of the white council.
He should had taken more proactive action. The only excuse Harry has to explain this mistake is youth and inexperience. If it is Morgan, Kim would have been interrogated at sword point.
I never said anything about guilt. I said Harry was responsible for Kirby dying. This is pure cause and effect.
The point is Susan should have known about the supernatural at all. This is all started when Harry advertise himself as a wizard in the yellow pages. He open the Pandora's box right there. There is a reason why the white council looks poorly about Harry in this matter.
It may look innocent at the start, but Harry's advertisement draws amateurs into the the game of supernaturals. All because Harry can't maintain secrecy at the start and fail to fully clued in people when secrecy fails.
They don't know about the white council. They don't know that supernaturals has factions as powerful as nations and maybe even more.
They don't know that Harry himself is a relatively small fry when the bigger picture is at play.
They see the pond but they don't know how deep it is, and Harry is the one who introduce them to the pond.
About what? Harry wasn't a Warden at that time, and just asking about the ring isn't forbidden.. He asks her again and again why she wants the information, she answers in the hypothetical... When he realizes that she is trying to lead him into forbidden classified information open only to certified wizards only to be used in the most special of cases he shuts down the information.. He has no authority to either hold her or assault her to find out why she wants the information. Up until that point he had no clue that there was a Loop loose upon the world that she was trying to contain... If it is anyone's fault it is Kim's for thinking just because she can ride a bicycle she fly a jet without any training.. It is about her ego her response to Harry's warnings is, you think I am not strong enough to make one. She is pissed because Harry is roughly her age and he is a full wizard where as she isn't even an apprentice... That says to me she thinks she has something to prove, not that she is really concerned about anyone's safety... It's her decision to go back and try to make the circle without all the information she needs, and she gets herself killed.. She also has some idea if not fully aware of what she is trying to contain when Harry warns her about the dangers.. Yet she elects to say nothing to him... She doesn't want any realhelp from him, no, she is out to prove something that was beyond her and it got her killed... There is no proactive against that...
They train soldiers so that they pay attention to orders without thinking and practice their responses to the situations that they expect to see in the field. What they try not to do is let inexperienced people into situations that could kill them with out the knowledge they need to stay alive. Run through your mind about the type of things Jim has Harry do to Molly that runs along this vain when he acquires Molly as an apprentice. If he was going to bring Kim or Susan into his realm, he incurred an obligation to give them them that knowledge.
The point is Susan should have known about the supernatural at all. This is all started when Harry advertise himself as a wizard in the yellow pages. He open the Pandora's box right there. There is a reason why the white council looks poorly about Harry in this matter. It may look innocent at the start, but Harry's advertisement draws amateurs into the the game of supernaturals. All because Harry can't maintain secrecy at the start and fail to fully clued in people when secrecy fails.
They train soldiers so that they pay attention to orders without thinking and practice their responses to the situations that they expect to see in the field. What they try not to do is let inexperienced people into situations that could kill them with out the knowledge they need to stay alive. Run through your mind about the type of things Jim has Harry do to Molly that runs along this vain when he acquires Molly as an apprentice. If he was going to bring Kim or Susan into his realm, he incurred an obligation to give them them that knowledge.
About what? Harry wasn't a Warden at that time, and just asking about the ring isn't forbidden.. He asks her again and again why she wants the information, she answers in the hypothetical... When he realizes that she is trying to lead him into forbidden classified information open only to certified wizards only to be used in the most special of cases he shuts down the information.. He has no authority to either hold her or assault her to find out why she wants the information. Up until that point he had no clue that there was a Loop loose upon the world that she was trying to contain... If it is anyone's fault it is Kim's for thinking just because she can ride a bicycle she fly a jet without any training.. It is about her ego her response to Harry's warnings is, you think I am not strong enough to make one. She is pissed because Harry is roughly her age and he is a full wizard where as she isn't even an apprentice... That says to me she thinks she has something to prove, not that she is really concerned about anyone's safety... It's her decision to go back and try to make the circle without all the information she needs, and she gets herself killed.. She also has some idea if not fully aware of what she is trying to contain when Harry warns her about the dangers.. Yet she elects to say nothing to him... She doesn't want any realhelp from him, no, she is out to prove something that was beyond her and it got her killed... There is no proactive against that...
What proactive action would you have him take? Remember, he's not a Warden--he has no authority to actually do anything to her.
1) You said that Harry "owns it." I assumed you meant that Harry feels guilty/responsible for what happened.
2) No, the Skinwalker was responsible for Kirby dying. It was the one who chose to take the job against Harry, to follow Harry, and to kill Kirby. Harry gave it the opportunity to kill Kirby by going to Will's house, but Harry is not responsible for Kirby's death any more than Will is for calling him for help.
There's no evidence of that. I had always believed that both Susan and Kim found Harry because they already believed in the supernatural.
Nope. Susan was already a paranormal reporter when she met Harry, and Kim met the Loup Garou (I forget his name) independently of Harry. None of that is on him.
And they don't need to to avoid the dangers they get into.
In both cases, Harry explicitly warns them that he's not sure he can handle the issue, actually.
See above regarding: Nope.
This.
o answer the original question, I think only once has Harry's withholding of information actually gotten people hurt. In this formulation, I take withholding to mean the willful and deliberate denial of information to others Harry is not trying to hurt. There are times when Harry hasn't shared information quickly enough either because it didn't occur to him or he just got the information too late, but never has his denial of information to people lead to injury with the exception of the Storm Front example from earlier. There are times when he was unable to impress the danger of certain situations onto people (Kim and Susan, mostly), but I see that as entirely their fault.
I am not sure about Kim Deloney, but Susan is definitely drawn into the supernatural via Harry. She saw his advertisement and come to interview Harry. She trick Harry into a soulgaze and thus confirm the existence of the supernatural. She wouldn't have found Harry if not for the advertisement. She would not have trick Harry into a soulgaze if Harry did not proclaim in the advertisement that he is a real wizard.
I would agree with this.
Did you actually read my response? Because I explicitly said that Susan was already involved in the supernatural world (albeit in a limited capacity) because she was a paranormal reporter. This is why she came to interview Harry. Harry, therefore, cannot be held responsible for her interacting with the supernatural world, because doing so was a natural hazard of her job, and she took that job before she ever knew Harry existed.
In this you are wrong. Susan has never touch the real supernatural stuff until she met Harry. What her tabloid covers are mostly BS. Scrap that, it is all BS. Susan would not get any othentic supernatural news from any other source aside from Harry.
She's specifically going around investigating supernatural stuff. The laws of probability show that at some point, she's going to run into the real thing, regardless of whether Harry is advertising as a wizard or not.
Some examples of her getting involved investigating supernatural stuff unrelated to Harry:
-She was investigating three-eye before Harry even realized that it was a magical drug.
-I believe that part of the reason she asked Harry out on a date was that she was also investigating the magical murders happening in Storm Front.
-She started investigating the werewolf murders independently and parallel to Harry.
If Harry weren't around, she would still be investigating all these things, and things like them.
I don't remember she investigate the 3 eye drug, but even if she does, I don't remember she gotten anywhere. The only time she has any contact with the matter is when she visits Harry in his apartment.
She heard about the serial murder case in book 2, but she would never gotten into anything until Harry call her for help.
Susan can never find the supernatural, because before she and Hary actually soulgaze, I doubt she really believes in the supernatural. She is just a tabloid reporter trying to find sensational news. Therefore, even her investigations over the 3 eye drug and the serial murder case in book 2 is prompted by her encounter with Harry, otherwise it wouldn't cross her mind that this things are truly supernatural in origin.
She was part of the occult community of Chicago, and a young woman who Harry Dresden helped teach to control her magical talent.Perhaps apprentice is too strong a word.
Dresden feels incredibly guilty over her death, and very responsible for not giving her enough data to make an informed decision.[2] There are many parallels between her situation and Susan Rodriguez's later on. The early mistake with Delaney and Rodriguez undoubtedly made it so that he now has a more honest and open relationship with his later apprentice, Molly Carpenter.(reference needed)I wish I had read this before I responded. I would have quoted it then as it is simpler then what I wrote.
The shapeshifter is a force of nature. While he delivered the blow, Harry was the cause.
And Jim through the way he writes Harry, seems to feel the same way.
Harry is a lightning rod and he owes it to everyone around him to explain the danger of standing near him in lightning storms.
Yes, she hadn't gotten anywhere. This is because A) She was focussing on Harry, which she wouldn't do if Harry wasn't involved; and B) Harry wrapped up the three-eye thing extremely quickly.
If Harry wasn't involved (and if he wasn't advertising as a wizard, he wouldn't be involved with police cases either) then the whole thing would have taken longer, and Susan would have been exploring different avenues--for example, poking around those connected to the victims of Victor Sells, like, say, Bianca.
(Also, if Harry wasn't involved, a lot more people would have died.)
Really? I'd figure reporter tactic 101 would be to start talking to police officers and following them around, and I somehow don't think the FBI hexenwolves would take well to that.
Susan seems to have been following SI's cases in the first few books, so as long as SI was getting supernatural cases, Susan had a high chance of stumbling into something genuinely supernatural.
Really? Because the book says that Harry's soulgaze of Susan showed that she was driven by a passion to find the truth, and between that and the fact that she's explicitly stated to be a good reporter who would be well-respected if not for the supernatural stuff, I had always thought that it was clear that Susan only got into paranormal reporting because she believed in the supernatural.
Why is it Harry's fault instead of the fault of Kirby, Will, Morgan, or whoever hired the Skinwalker?I want you to attempt to see the difference between guilt and responsibility. The Skinwalker is guilty of murder, Harry was the reason that Kirby got murdered. The first is a crime, the second a failing. The only penalty for the second is the death of your friends. I gave you a direct quote from Billy that states this explicitly.
He nodded. “So. If I’d had this conversation with you sooner, maybe they wouldn’t be. Maybe if we’d had a better idea about what’s actually going on in the world, it would have changed how we approached things. They follow my lead, Harry. I(Billy) have a responsibility to make sure that I do everything in my power to make them aware and safe.”Note that Billy doesn't say he can keep them alive, merely that he gives them the best chance at doing so.
The shapeshifter is a force of nature. While he delivered the blow, Harry was the cause. He didn't go looking for the pack, he went looking for Harry. And Jim through the way he writes Harry, seems to feel the same way. In Cold Front in a bid to reduce possible collateral damage, he breaks in to Butters apartment to steal Bob rather then knocking and saying please. Harry is a lightning rod and he owes it to everyone around him to explain the danger of standing near him in lightning storms. After Turn Coat he's figured this out and all his allies are clued in.
I'd like it noted that I feel uncomfortable with the claim that Harry owes it to people around him to explain everything, and I have a gut feeling that it's wrong. However, it's after 2am here, so I cannot find the words to explain why I feel that way. I may come back to this after I've gotten some sleep.Same here, but whether or not Harry "owes" it to people to explain everything is a silly argument as you are trying to point out. For one thing, I am almost though my first cup of coffee, anyway most of the time he cannot explain everything because he himself doesn't know everything at that moment... He could try to explain to Billy and company about the Skinwalker, but they don't have
Yes, she hadn't gotten anywhere. This is because A) She was focussing on Harry, which she wouldn't do if Harry wasn't involved; and B) Harry wrapped up the three-eye thing extremely quickly.
I am not sure about Kim Deloney, but Susan is definitely drawn into the supernatural via Harry. She saw his advertisement and come to interview Harry. She trick Harry into a soulgaze and thus confirm the existence of the supernatural. She wouldn't have found Harry if not for the advertisement. She would not have trick Harry into a soulgaze if Harry did not proclaim in the advertisement that he is a real wizard.
Hold it, you are blaming the potential victim for the crime.. Yes, Harry was the target, but his friends were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.. That doesn't make it his fault, they chose to be with him. Yes, he may feel some responsibility but that doesn't make it rational, which pushed him to do they type of thing he did to try an protect Butters.I quoted Billy and what he thought about it, not Harry.
I quoted Billy and what he thought about it, not Harry.
I want you to attempt to see the difference between guilt and responsibility.
re·spon·si·ble
adjective
being the primary cause of something and so able to be blamed or credited for it.
"the gene was responsible for a rare type of eye cancer"
synonyms: accountable, answerable, to blame
antonyms: guiltless
I quoted Billy and what he thought about it, not Harry.
3b) Harry was incapable of sharing any information from the time he used his Sight on the Skinwalker until he had recovered in Will's guest room
"What is it?" Billy asked quietly.
"I don't know," I said. "But it is real bad."
I stared toward the knot of officers around Kirby's corpse. "I didn't mean for this to happen."
"Kirby was an adult, Dresden," Billy said. "He knew what could happen. He chose to be here."
I hadn't known what the skinwalker was before, beyond something awlful, but that didn't change anything.Harry hadn't withheld any information before hand, he told Billy it was something very, very bad, no clue as to what it was he saw, except bad. So bad it made him catatonic for over eighty minutes after seeing it with his sight... Billy knew that and still agreed to call his pack in..
"You didn't know it was going to come down like that, man. We all owe you our lives, Harry, I'm glad we got the chance to be there for you."
Here's the definition I found on google:1) Yes. The Skinwalker murdered Kirby, he could hang or go to hell.
Also, could you please respond to the points I have made in response to this claim? I'll list the major ones:
1) the Skinwalker is responsible for its own actions
2) there are several people (the person who sent the Skinwalker, Billy, and Kirby) who are at least as responsible as Harry
3) Harry's actions regarding the sharing or not sharing of information about the supernatural world would not have made a difference, so therefore his lack of sharing information cannot be what makes him responsible
3a) A general briefing about the supernatural world would not have included Skinwalkers, and for good reason
3b) Harry was incapable of sharing any information from the time he used his Sight on the Skinwalker until he had recovered in Will's guest room
And I responded by saying that Will was speaking from a place of ignorance, and admitted that. Therefore, he could not know whether the information Harry might have given him would have made a difference.
“Billy,” I said quietly. “This isn’t stuff you can unlearn. Right now, you’re insulated from the worst of what goes on because you’re . . . I don’t want to be insulting, but you’re a bunch of amateurs without enough of a clue to be a real threat to anyone.”Obviously if he has been shielding then from the worst they can't of had any idea that something like the Skinwalker was a possibility. And if that isn't clear then there is this.
His eyes darkened. “Insulated from the worst?” he asked in a quiet, dangerous voice. “Tell that to Kirby. Tell that to Andi.”
I couldn’t treat him like a child anymore. Will was ignorant of the supernatural world beyond the fairly minor threats that lurked around the University of Chicago. He and the other werewolves had been kids who learned one really neat magic trick, almost ten years before. I hadn’t shared more with them, and the paranormal community in general is careful about what they say to strangers. He had, at best, only a vague idea of the scope of supernatural affairs in general, and he had not the first clue about how hot the water really was around me right now.
1) Yes. The Skinwalker murdered Kirby, he could hang or go to hell.
2) True. So?
3) Billy disagrees. Since you can't read the future or JB's mind just how would you know that? And it is here that we find the crux of the problem.
3a) Again you can't know that, since JB hasn't told you. Billy assumes that in general more information is better, possibly not in specifics, but for judging the level of danger that is possible even if never encountered. Since Billy makes it clear that he won't work with Harry if Harry isn't more open, then we can assume that Harry tells Billy enough to satisfy the conditions that Billy laid down..
As for Kirby, I just don't think that any amount of information would have helped him against a skinwalker in that scenario. He knew that he was going up against something both powerful and dangerous--I can't think how specifics would have stopped him getting ambushed. Furthermore, even if Harry had given the Alphas a briefing about the supernatural world (like the one he gave them after Kirby's death) earlier, it almost certainly wouldn't have contained information about the skinwalker, because 1) as I recall, Harry didn't know much about them himself; 2) they're extremely rare, and Harry had no reason to expect anyone to run into them; and 3) there are very good reasons not to talk about them, because being afraid of them actually makes them stronger.
He might have been more cautious. But A) he knew something super-bad might be out there already, because Will and Georgina had seen the state that Harry arrived in; and B) so long as he was out patrolling at all, the Skinwalker would have got him--it's just too good.
QuoteMaybe. Maybe not. We don't really know what Harry's told them about the dangers out there. Harry wasn't prepared for the skinwalker, so I have a hard time imagining he could have sufficiently prepared the Alphas.
The bottom line is that the case of Kirby is a weak argument for Harry's withholding of information being harmful.
This.
Also, I'd like to add that textual evidence has been cited establishing that Harry knew nothing about Skinwalkers until after Kirby was killed by one, so even if Harry had given Will an exhaustive list of every supernatural creature he knew of, it still wouldn't have told Will anything about Skinwalkers.QuoteThey couldn't make an informed choice because he kept them in the dark.An informed choice about what? Fighting monsters generally? Well, Harry may not have given them all the information, but they've been doing it long enough at this point that I think it's safe to assume that they've made a reasonably informed decision regarding whether they want to keep doing that. The fact that Harry was followed? Well, it would have been helpful if he'd shared more information about that, but given that he was barely conscious and hardly capable of stringing two words together, I don't see how he could have managed it. Skinwalkers in particular? Well, talking about them makes them stronger, plus they seem fairly obscure, and Harry had no reason to expect that anyone he knew would ever run into them, so I think that falls under the category of "can't be reasonably foreseen."
Yes, but Billy was quite explicitly coming from a place of ignorance. For all he knew, these things were as common as faeries, and with similar weaknesses.
And I responded by saying that Will was speaking from a place of ignorance, and admitted that. Therefore, he could not know whether the information Harry might have given him would have made a difference.
3b)Read that line back to yourself and say. "That is a failure ofplanningbeing unable to see the future on Harry's part."
And how should he have planned for it?
Harry is a lightning rod and he owes it to everyone around him to explain the danger of standing near him in lightning storms.
@Morris: I always took the last sentence of that quote to be about the political situation more than the "how dangerous some entities are" side of it. I also think Billy knows more than Dresden thinks Billy knows, or at least he did in the earlier books.
Use a scale for threat level. I know people always make fun of things like the terror alert level colors or the DragonBallZ thing where they have the power reader "it's over 9,000!" stuff, but a shorthand for how bad is the monster/how bad is the situation is probably a really good idea.
2. Harry caused Kirby's death in Turn Coat. But for Harry going to Billy's, Kirby wouldn't have been involved. Harry being the "but-for" cause does not make him responsible, either legally or morally. Legally, being the cause in fact if necessary but not sufficient for culpability. I'd say it is the same for morally, but morality is infinitely debatable. That, however, has nothing to do with whether or not Kirby died because Harry withheld information from Billy. I agree with the arguments that he did not and don't think I've seen an argument other than "Billy said so" on the other side.
“Billy,” I said quietly. “This isn’t stuff you can unlearn. Right now, you’re insulated from the worst of what goes on because you’re . . . I don’t want to be insulting, but you’re a bunch of amateurs without enough of a clue to be a real threat to anyone.”
His eyes darkened. “Insulated from the worst?” he asked in a quiet, dangerous voice. “Tell that to Kirby. Tell that to Andi.”
Obviously if he has been shielding then from the worst they can't of had any idea that something like the Skinwalker was a possibility. And if that isn't clear then there is this.
Quote
I pointed a finger at him. "I don't want it. I don't wantto drag you into what's going on/ I don't want you walking into more danger and getting hurt." I sighed. "But. . .there is a lot at stake, and I think I may need your help."
1) First, that it claims that Harry is the reason for all the nasty stuff happening around him. Whether Harry were around or not, the problems of Storm Front, Fool Moon, Summer Knight, Death Masks, part of Blood Rites, Dead Beat (probably), possibly Proven Guilty (depending on what people's motivations were--we just don't know yet), Turn Coat (although it wouldn't have happened in Chicago), and possibly Cold Days, would still have happened. And most of them would have happened in the same place. So how is Harry considered responsible for bringing down all that trouble onto people?
2)"Everyone around him" is too broad a category. Harry does not owe it to the entire city of Chicago to tell them about the supernatural world. You could as easily claim that Harry owes it to everyone around him to go live as a hermit and never get close to anyone, because trouble might find him and hurt those around him. It's just unreasonable.It is, but like he learned from Will, if someone is willing to put his or her life on the line, they deserve the complete skinny on as to why...
This would probably work, except that I tend to think that Harry was too catatonic to be expected to remember it in order to tell Will at the time. Other people may interpret his level of non-functionality differently, however.
"What was that thing?"
"I'm not certain," I answered, breathing hard. Georgia was coming along behind us dragging my staff in her jaws. "But if it is what I think it is, things just got a lot worse."
Billy looked up at me, Kirby's blood all over his face and hands. "What is it Harry?"
"A Native American nightmare," I said. I looked at him gravely, "A skinwalker."
The point is Susan should have known about the supernatural at all. This is all started when Harry advertise himself as a wizard in the yellow pages. He open the Pandora's box right there. There is a reason why the white council looks poorly about Harry in this matter. It may look innocent at the start, but Harry's advertisement draws amateurs into the the game of supernaturals.
You could as easily claim that Harry owes it to everyone around him to go live as a hermit and never get close to anyone, because trouble might find him and hurt those around him.
To me, the issue is not that Harry is in any way culpable in Kirby's death, but that, by refusing to share information, Harry allowed the possibility that other Alphas would get killed due to the lack of information. It's a hypothetical concern that was only really brought home to Will and Harry when Kirby died. For example, if the Alpha's had gotten into a fight with a Denarian and one of them had died, there's a good chance Harry would have had some culpability, because he had a bunch of information about Denarians that might have helped, but up until this point he hasn't shared it. This isn't true with the Skinwalker, of course, but it makes the possibilities clear.
To me, the issue is not that Harry is in any way culpable in Kirby's death, but that, by refusing to share information, Harry allowed the possibility that other Alphas would get killed due to the lack of information. It's a hypothetical concern that was only really brought home to Will and Harry when Kirby died. For example, if the Alpha's had gotten into a fight with a Denarian and one of them had died, there's a good chance Harry would have had some culpability, because he had a bunch of information about Denarians that might have helped, but up until this point he hasn't shared it. This isn't true with the Skinwalker, of course, but it makes the possibilities clear.
To me, the issue is not that Harry is in any way culpable in Kirby's death, but that, by refusing to share information, Harry allowed the possibility that other Alphas would get killed due to the lack of information. It's a hypothetical concern that was only really brought home to Will and Harry when Kirby died. For example, if the Alpha's had gotten into a fight with a Denarian and one of them had died, there's a good chance Harry would have had some culpability, because he had a bunch of information about Denarians that might have helped, but up until this point he hasn't shared it. This isn't true with the Skinwalker, of course, but it makes the possibilities clear.
Wolfeyes raises a good point arguing that Jim wants us to believe it is Harry's fault, not just in this case, but in all of them, that harm has come because he didn't share information. I don't believe he is ever told it's not his fault. He does repeatedly bring up the point that people have been hurt by him not informing them. He is often called out for blaming himself in general.
He could have said something. But only something vague.
And he did. "This is bad. Really bad."
Even if Harry had said to them, "There are things in the supernatural realm that can tear a werewolf apart... tear a PACK of werewolves apart. And one of them is here in town, right now, hunting the neighborhood," I don't think ti would have disuaded them.
In the case of Kirby, the narrative doesn't challenge Billy's response to Kirby's death (contrasted to how the narrative challenged Butter in Skin Game). Billy is the one challenging Harry and is framed in justified in expecting Harry to share more information. Harry might not be the cause but there's culpability, otherwise Harry would have no reason to change how he does things.
I've figured out why I object to it. My problem is two-fold:You seem to have packed a lot of stuff in there; some of it unpacks, but lots of it overlaps...
1) First, that it claims that Harry is the reason for all the nasty stuff happening around him. Whether Harry were around or not, the problems of Storm Front, Fool Moon, Summer Knight, Death Masks, part of Blood Rites, Dead Beat (probably), possibly Proven Guilty (depending on what people's motivations were--we just don't know yet), Turn Coat (although it wouldn't have happened in Chicago), and possibly Cold Days, would still have happened. And most of them would have happened in the same place. So how is Harry considered responsible for bringing down all that trouble onto people?
@Morris: I always took the last sentence of that quote to be about the political situation more than the "how dangerous some entities are" side of it. I also think Billy knows more than Dresden thinks Billy knows, or at least he did in the earlier books.Your right in part. But it doesn't really matter. The Senior Council could wipe the floor with the Alphas and not break a sweat. They are as much as an existential threat as the skinwalker. But by this point Jim has made his point about how Harry treats his allies.
What bemuses me is that everyone seems to want Harry to be guilty of a crime if he bears the responsibility. And it doesn't work that way. Harry's made a choice to live the way he does and he assumes the responsibility and his moral ground. He quotes Stan Lee often enough.
1. Susan was deeply enough involved in the supernatural to trick Harry into a soulgaze. Only after that did she focus on Harry as her best avenue into the supernatural world. She would have found another way as is shown by Valmont in Skin Game talking about how easy it was. If Harry didn't advertise, but did consult, she would have found him anyway. If he didn't consult with the police, she would have likely doggedly pursued a supernatural entity that wasn't as keen as Harry was on getting attention. It's actually good for Harry because it helps his business. Almost any other entity would have killed/eaten her for the attention.
2. Harry caused Kirby's death in Turn Coat. But for Harry going to Billy's, Kirby wouldn't have been involved. Harry being the "but-for" cause does not make him responsible, either legally or morally. Legally, being the cause in fact if necessary but not sufficient for culpability. I'd say it is the same for morally, but morality is infinitely debatable. That, however, has nothing to do with whether or not Kirby died because Harry withheld information from Billy. I agree with the arguments that he did not and don't think I've seen an argument other than "Billy said so" on the other side.
BUT, he's the most-visible, most-obvious Supernatural in town. It... kinda makes sense that every Darth Bathrobe who visits has just gotta go poke him with a stick. Just, y'know... to see. And that makes him a "lightning rod."
Many people is involve in the supernatural world, at least pheriferally. Most members of SI for example. Most of them isn't dead. The only one confirm to died after involving himself too deeply in the supernatural world by himself is Jack Murphy. Heck, most of SI does not even get hurt that much.
Most people who get into the supernatural world via Harry however, is either dead or suffer considerable losses. That should say something.
Will clearly tells him it isn't his fault...
It... kinda makes sense that every Darth Bathrobe who visits has just gotta go poke him with a stick.
What bemuses me is that everyone seems to want Harry to be guilty of a crime if he bears the responsibility. ... He quotes Stan Lee often enough.
Most of them isn't dead.
Most people who get into the supernatural world via Harry however, is either dead or suffer considerable losses.
Susan could possibly involve herself in the supernatural by herself. But without Harry's help, she is unlikely to enter into the deep end of the pool. Even if she eventually gets there, it wouldn't be that fast and if she did manage to end up in the deep end of the pool by her own skill and wit , she'll be a different person than her version in book 3.
Actually, most of the situations he's involved in, he involved himself rather than getting "poked with a stick." And a lot of what happened also happened due to the location or due to Marcone (so if Harry was in a different city, it wouldn't be happening around him). So once again, I don't see how he's a "lightning rod." If anything, he's more of a storm chaser.
Actually, most of the vanilla mortals we see involved in the supernatural world are in situations like being eaten by vampires, having made bad deals with faeries, getting killed by denarians, getting killed by vampires, or getting killed by necromancers, getting killed by faeries.
By those standards, Harry's friends are doing quite well.
With the exception of those people who make deals with the fae, the rest you mention are not people who get involve with the supernatural world. They are downright victims. The supernatural get involve with them, not the other way around. Normal vanilla mortals are not very likely to bump into vampires on a daily basis, and even those who pokes around searching won't find the supernatural so easily. To suspect, to heard something, to realize the existence of the supernatural is not that difficult. To truly has an encounter with one however is not that simple, especially the high level powerhouse like a vampire Baron.
You're wrong.
Does he? His statement is equivocal as to whose at fault. It's definitely not someone checking Harry like Michael does in Skin Game or Murphy does in White Night. I think it's a good point. I don't agree with the conclusion, but I respect it.
"Kirby was an adult, Dresden," Billy said. "He knew what could happen. He chose to be here."There is nothing equivocal about that statement.. Kirby chose to put himself in harm's way.. He was an adult making adult choices.. He had chosen to be part of the pack as a werewolf long before he met Harry..
So even one have contact with a supernatural like Bianca, it is not that easy to actually enter the game. This is especially true during the early part of the series. The supernatural world is still peaceful at the time, and even the war with the red court is unlikely to start so early if not for Harry triggering it. Under such a peaceful times, the supernaturals tends to hide more. Later part of the series, especially after the red court is wiped and the appearance of the fomor resulted in the loosening of the veil of secrecy, but that is far from book 3. If Susan could survive until book 12 on her own, she'll would become a different person.
I don't think so. Book 1 for example. Even if Murphy know that Bianca is a vampire, she can tore the mask open. Bianca also does not go around sucking Murphy's blood just because Murphy is annoying her. Unless someone truly touch her bottom line, the likes of Bianca will play via mortal means. Using money and political pressure to handle matters.
So even one have contact with a supernatural like Bianca, it is not that easy to actually enter the game. This is especially true during the early part of the series. The supernatural world is still peaceful at the time, and even the war with the red court is unlikely to start so early if not for Harry triggering it. Under such a peaceful times, the supernaturals tends to hide more. Later part of the series, especially after the red court is wiped and the appearance of the fomor resulted in the loosening of the veil of secrecy, but that is far from book 3. If Susan could survive until book 12 on her own, she'll would become a different person.
That is because Murphy is a police officer. It is explicitly stated that the supernatural world goes out of its way to avoid involving mortal authorities.
I agree with Mira's response here. I'd also like to add that I flat-out don't believe that if someone goes looking for vampires and gets reasonably close to them, that a vampire isn't going to eat them. Vampires, after all, need to eat, so there's no reason not to multitask and get rid of threats to the masquerade while doing so. I'd also like to note that the Churchmice involved themselves with the supernatural via stealing a magic artifact (and according to Skin Game, they were originally hired by Nicodemus) and got killed by Denarians (mostly) for their trouble. Also, you're forgetting all the minor practitioners, many or most of whom were almost certainly vanilla mortals before they went looking for the supernatural and learned a few tricks--and then got targeted by vampires as a result. Face it, the Alpha's before Harry gave them a full explanation of the supernatural world were way better off than the Ordo Lebes before Harry got involved with them.
po
Susan for example. She is a reporter. She is looking for a scoop. The only she could keep getting into othentic supernatural news is if someone direct her into it. Without someone like Harry, she can only snoop around randomly. The likelihood she'll actually get into deep water is if she truly has rotten luck. Gotten strike by lighting on a clear day kind of rotten luck. It is possible, but unlikely.
3. If Harry Flippin' Dresden, Big Bad Brother Harry, as Butters calls him—the guy who the Alphas saw take down an entire group of Fae cavalry with one spell, a guy they've personally witnessed take on a pack of Hexenwulves AND a loup-garou, a guy with a reputation for being tough, competent, and extremely powerful (relative to them)—if THAT guy came to me, desperately calculating prime numbers to maintain his grip on his sanity, white as a sheet, telling me that he needed a dark, quiet place for an hour and a half before he was stable enough to function, and that whatever was after him was "really bad," my first response wouldn't be "Let's post two guards several dozen yards away from any kind of protection." It would be "Everyone come into my apartment; we're going to keep watch through the windows and guard ourselves behind a threshold, because something terrifying and powerful enough to send the most badass person we've ever met into gibbering madness is coming, and it's pretty obvious we should do whatever we can to protect ourselves without engaging it.""At what point do you think the Alphas could have done anything, had the Skin Walker wanted all of them dead? In a bunch or one by one, it would have made zero difference.
@Morris: I always took the last sentence of that quote to be about the political situation more than the "how dangerous some entities are" side of it. I also think Billy knows more than Dresden thinks Billy knows, or at least he did in the earlier books.The whole point of the attack was about Council politics and Peabody's attempt to cover his mistakes to maintain his position as a mole in the White Council. Things that Dresden had withheld from his Mushrooms(the Alphas). They knew almost nothing of the Council or the fact that that there was an overarching plot in the works to destroy the Council by a traitor. Which is, if I may say, several orders of magnitude above any threat the Alphas had been exposed to by that point.
My things with Kirby are that
1. when the Alphas actually engaged the Skinwalker immediately after Kirby got his throat ripped out and Andi was beaten, they successfully drove it off. They didn't beat it, or hurt it, but they put it at a temporary disadvantage long enough for it to not see enough profit in continuing the engagement. So I don't think the Alphas were defenseless. Kirby just picked up the Idiot Ball. It was like he was the character in a ghost story going to investigate the strange noise in the attic by climbing up the stairs backwards with a flashlight that keeps turning off.
2. Kirby was standing watch on the other side of the parking lot, dozens of yards away from any help. He was standing under a streetlight, as a human rather than a wolf, holding a brightly lit cellphone in his hand. He wasn't ready for a surprise attack, even though the guy was supposed to be standing watch. Dresden recognizes the danger Kirby's in, and runs out to call him back when the Skinwalker gets him.
3. If Harry Flippin' Dresden, Big Bad Brother Harry, as Butters calls him—the guy who the Alphas saw take down an entire group of Fae cavalry with one spell, a guy they've personally witnessed take on a pack of Hexenwulves AND a loup-garou, a guy with a reputation for being tough, competent, and extremely powerful (relative to them)—if THAT guy came to me, desperately calculating prime numbers to maintain his grip on his sanity, white as a sheet, telling me that he needed a dark, quiet place for an hour and a half before he was stable enough to function, and that whatever was after him was "really bad," my first response wouldn't be "Let's post two guards several dozen yards away from any kind of protection." It would be "Everyone come into my apartment; we're going to keep watch through the windows and guard ourselves behind a threshold, because something terrifying and powerful enough to send the most badass person we've ever met into gibbering madness is coming, and it's pretty obvious we should do whatever we can to protect ourselves without engaging it."
I mean, shouldn't Billy or Georgia have been smart enough to think, "Hey, maybe this thing could reduce us to insanity too?" And shouldn't Kirby have thought, "Hey, I not only have better senses as a wolf, but I'm faster, stronger, and harder to kill, so I should probably stay as a wolf while I know something dangerous is around?"
Yes, Harry led the skinwalker to the area. But a couple of things about that. 1. Harry didn't have much of a choice. There was, quite literally, nowhere else to go. He couldn't have made it back to his apartment where a threshold would have protected him in the state he was in. He couldn't hide in a crowd of people, because there would be too much noise or light for him to do what he had to. Billy's place was the only one that would be both safe and quiet enough for him to recover. And 2. They don't take Harry's warning seriously enough. Applying even an ounce of genre savviness would have been enough for the Alphas to have escaped without permanent injury.
Maybe you can argue that Harry should have given Billy the rundown on the greater supernatural world, but I don't think it would've done them any good. They already knew there were things like the Loup Garou out there that they couldn't handle. They knew that there were WolfWeres like Tera West that were old and powerful enough to train humans to turn into wolves, so they had to know that the supernatural was bigger, weirder, and more dangerous than they thought. And when you have the guy who sets the bar for humanity's stand against the Spooky Things in the Night come to you and tell you that something really bad is coming, you take all the steps you can to make sure that you and yours stay alive.
In the case of Susan and Kim Harry either makes too much or too little information available. In Susan's case she is a victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect, she over estimates her competence, Harry would have done better to involve her more and make her aware of the hazards and the mechanics of how the supernatural world works, like the privileges of guests for example. In Kim's case if he wasn't going to help he should have never drawn the circle on the piece of paper, the same piece that triggers Murphy's attack.
What Harry could have done with Susan--which after learning better, he does with Murphy--is recognize that she wasn't to going to listen to advice that amounted to leave the supernatural alone because it's too dangerous. Since she was never going to be sensible, he probably should have clued her enough that she understood that she needed to drastically change how she approached the supernatural.Exactly. Susan's case was too little info. He should have fed her more.
Exactly. Susan's case was too little info. He should have fed her more.I thought Kim already had the diagram when she came to Harry.
Kim Delaney was the exact opposite. Too much info. Without the diagram she couldn't have done Jack.
Susan knew the supernatural was dangerous -- that's why she goes to the party with holy water and a gun. But she thought she could handle it because Harry didn't really detail how dangerous it would be, i.e., that if she was caught with a fake invitation she wouldn't just be kicked out, she'd be eaten or worse.
I thought Kim already had the diagram when she came to Harry.I stand corrected. Then instead it is too little.
I had done the right thing. Keeping that kind of information out of Kim’s hands had been the right decision. I had been protecting her from danger she didn’t, couldn’t, fully appreciate.Where have we heard this before?
I had done the right thing—even if she had trusted me to provide answers for her, as I had in the past, when teaching her to contain and control her modest magical talents. Even if she had trusted me to show her the answers she needed, to be her guide through the darkness.
I’d done the right thing.
Dammit.
I don't think so. Book 1 for example. Even if Murphy know that Bianca is a vampire, she can tore the mask open. Bianca also does not go around sucking Murphy's blood just because Murphy is annoying her. Unless someone truly touch her bottom line, the likes of Bianca will play via mortal means. Using money and political pressure to handle matters.
So even one have contact with a supernatural like Bianca, it is not that easy to actually enter the game. This is especially true during the early part of the series. The supernatural world is still peaceful at the time, and even the war with the red court is unlikely to start so early if not for Harry triggering it. Under such a peaceful times, the supernaturals tends to hide more. Later part of the series, especially after the red court is wiped and the appearance of the fomor resulted in the loosening of the veil of secrecy, but that is far from book 3. If Susan could survive until book 12 on her own, she'll would become a different person.
Really? page 35 Turn Coat...There is nothing equivocal about that statement.. Kirby chose to put himself in harm's way.. He was an adult making adult choices.. He had chosen to be part of the pack as a werewolf long before he met Harry..
Harry: I'm sorry.
Billy: [Shrugs. Portion you quoted].
The whole point of the attack was about Council politics and Peabody's attempt to cover his mistakes to maintain his position as a mole in the White Council. Things that Dresden had withheld from his Mushrooms(the Alphas). They knew almost nothing of the Council or the fact that that there was an overarching plot in the works to destroy the Council by a traitor. Which is, if I may say, several orders of magnitude above any threat the Alphas had been exposed to by that point.
In the case of Susan and Kim Harry either makes too much or too little information available. In Susan's case she is a victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect, she over estimates her competence, Harry would have done better to involve her more and make her aware of the hazards and the mechanics of how the supernatural world works, like the privileges of guests for example. In Kim's case if he wasn't going to help he should have never drawn the circle on the piece of paper, the same piece that triggers Murphy's attack.
First of all he didn't know until he saw her at the party that she had stolen then forged, then crashed the party.. Harry very clearly warns her, "they are vampires, they eat people..." He wasn't going to go because he felt it was too dangerous for him.Missing the point. It doesn't matter that Harry didn't know what she was going to do. Harry told her a pretty bare bones assessment "they are vampires, they eat people," which she didn't take seriously. He could have told her more that would have made her more wary about the situation.
She was hot to trot about the scoop and she handled the Loop etc...She "handled" it by waiting in the van and then doing nothing but hold the camera while Harry killed it.
Yeah, she'd seen a few Dracula movies and perhaps read the book so she was prepared... How much information beyond "they eat people" do you need?Lots of things can eat people. I know bears eat people, but I still go hiking in the woods. There's a lot more to vampires than "they eat people," and honestly putting it like that just doesn't get across the real horror of them.
Susan is a smart girl, she never asked, "what do you mean they eat people? How do they do that?" No, she was too focused on the scoop, the exclusive...Right, and Harry -- who knows how intrepid a reporter she is -- does nothing to further inform her.
Susan for example. She is a reporter. She is looking for a scoop. The only she could keep getting into othentic supernatural news is if someone direct her into it. Without someone like Harry, she can only snoop around randomly. The likelihood she'll actually get into deep water is if she truly has rotten luck. Gotten strike by lighting on a clear day kind of rotten luck. It is possible, but unlikely.
The average vampire will only see her as just another bag of blood and there is plenty of blood bag out there. The poor, the homeless, the desperate. why should they target her?
1. when the Alphas actually engaged the Skinwalker immediately after Kirby got his throat ripped out and Andi was beaten, they successfully drove it off. They didn't beat it, or hurt it, but they put it at a temporary disadvantage long enough for it to not see enough profit in continuing the engagement. So I don't think the Alphas were defenseless.
If Harry Flippin' Dresden, Big Bad Brother Harry, as Butters calls him—the guy who the Alphas saw take down an entire group of Fae cavalry with one spell, a guy they've personally witnessed take on a pack of Hexenwulves AND a loup-garou, a guy with a reputation for being tough, competent, and extremely powerful (relative to them)—if THAT guy came to me, desperately calculating prime numbers to maintain his grip on his sanity, white as a sheet, telling me that he needed a dark, quiet place for an hour and a half before he was stable enough to function, and that whatever was after him was "really bad," my first response wouldn't be "Let's post two guards several dozen yards away from any kind of protection." It would be "Everyone come into my apartment; we're going to keep watch through the windows and guard ourselves behind a threshold, because something terrifying and powerful enough to send the most badass person we've ever met into gibbering madness is coming, and it's pretty obvious we should do whatever we can to protect ourselves without engaging it."
I mean, shouldn't Billy or Georgia have been smart enough to think, "Hey, maybe this thing could reduce us to insanity too?" And shouldn't Kirby have thought, "Hey, I not only have better senses as a wolf, but I'm faster, stronger, and harder to kill, so I should probably stay as a wolf while I know something dangerous is around?"
Yes, Harry led the skinwalker to the area. But a couple of things about that. 1. Harry didn't have much of a choice. There was, quite literally, nowhere else to go. He couldn't have made it back to his apartment where a threshold would have protected him in the state he was in. He couldn't hide in a crowd of people, because there would be too much noise or light for him to do what he had to. Billy's place was the only one that would be both safe and quiet enough for him to recover. And 2. They don't take Harry's warning seriously enough. Applying even an ounce of genre savviness would have been enough for the Alphas to have escaped without permanent injury.
Maybe you can argue that Harry should have given Billy the rundown on the greater supernatural world, but I don't think it would've done them any good. They already knew there were things like the Loup Garou out there that they couldn't handle. They knew that there were WolfWeres like Tera West that were old and powerful enough to train humans to turn into wolves, so they had to know that the supernatural was bigger, weirder, and more dangerous than they thought. And when you have the guy who sets the bar for humanity's stand against the Spooky Things in the Night come to you and tell you that something really bad is coming, you take all the steps you can to make sure that you and yours stay alive.
In Susan's case she is a victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect, she over estimates her competence, Harry would have done better to involve her more and make her aware of the hazards and the mechanics of how the supernatural world works, like the privileges of guests for example.
In Kim's case if he wasn't going to help he should have never drawn the circle on the piece of paper, the same piece that triggers Murphy's attack.
What Harry could have done with Susan--which after learning better, he does with Murphy--is recognize that she wasn't to going to listen to advice that amounted to leave the supernatural alone because it's too dangerous. Since she was never going to be sensible, he probably should have clued her enough that she understood that she needed to drastically change how she approached the supernatural.
But she thought she could handle it because Harry didn't really detail how dangerous it would be, i.e., that if she was caught with a fake invitation she wouldn't just be kicked out, she'd be eaten or worse.
Using Bianca as an example, Murphy questioning her about the death of a prostitute is nothing like Susan trying to expose Bianca as a vampire to the general public. The reason Bianca doesn't kill Murphy is because that sort of thing is likely lead to a mob burning the scary monster.
The way I see it is that these people, not the Alphas, acknowledge Harry as an expert who knows what he's talking about while they don't. They ask him questions and then ignore his answers. It infuriates me when people do this with me.
@Morris: I really think Kim is completely at fault. She had no idea what she was doing. Harry would have been completely irresponsible to tell her all about a greater summoning circle she wasn't prepared for, but was clearly planning on using. She could have unleashed some horrible elder thing on the third largest city in America. She could easily have told Harry what was going on. MacFinn could definitely afford his rates. If all the good guys had been straight with Harry in Fool Moon, Harry would have had the case wrapped up in 24 hours without much danger. Of course that would have made a terrible story.
Missing the point. It doesn't matter that Harry didn't know what she was going to do. Harry told her a pretty bare bones assessment "they are vampires, they eat people," which she didn't take seriously. He could have told her more that would have made her more wary about the situation.
She "handled" it by waiting in the van and then doing nothing but hold the camera while Harry killed it.
Lots of things can eat people. I know bears eat people, but I still go hiking in the woods.
I thought that didn't draw it, but rather that Kim brought the paper with the circle on it with her.Asked and answered.
Harry told her a pretty bare bones assessment "they are vampires, they eat people," which she didn't take seriously. He could have told her more that would have made her more wary about the situation.
@Bad Alias
Let's approach this from a different direction. What purpose does Kirby's death serve in the story? The only thing that occurs is the opportunity for Billy and Harry to have that talk. Will effectively says, if we can die helping you than you need to tell us why we should help. We're owed that for what we might have to give. I'll discuss it further if we can agree on that point.
@nadia.skylark [Objection!] Asked and answered.
Missing the point. It doesn't matter that Harry didn't know what she was going to do. Harry told her a pretty bare bones assessment "they are vampires, they eat people," which she didn't take seriously. He could have told her more that would have made her more wary about the situation.
I just don't see how Harry better informing the Alphas of the wider world of supernatural creatures or politics would have helped in this situation.Nothing was ever going to make this any better, that should be obvious from the attack at Raith Manor. However the question is answered directly in the text.
He nodded. “So. If I’d had this conversation with you sooner, maybe they wouldn’t be. Maybe if we’d had a better idea about what’s actually going on in the world, it would have changed how we approached things. They follow my lead, Harry. I have a responsibility to make sure that I do everything in my power to make them aware and safe.”And Jim throws a little irony around later when he throws out this little snippet.
“As far as the Council is concerned, the U.S. Wardens are a bunch of mushrooms.”
“Eh?”
“Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit.”
Missing the point. It doesn't matter that Harry didn't know what she was going to do. Harry told her a pretty bare bones assessment "they are vampires, they eat people," which she didn't take seriously. He could have told her more that would have made her more wary about the situation
She "handled" it by waiting in the van and then doing nothing but hold the camera while Harry killed it.She didn't exactly wait in the van, she took a video of it remember? Of Harry killing it if I remember correctly.. She said she had handled it, in her mind she had, it doesn't matter in her mind that she had gotten it all out of perspective, and the fact that if Harry hadn't been able to kill it she could very well have been toast..
I just don't see how Harry better informing the Alphas of the wider world of supernatural creatures or politics would have helped in this situation.
Nothing was ever going to make this any better, that should be obvious from the attack at Raith Manor. However the question is answered directly in the text.
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He nodded. “So. If I’d had this conversation with you sooner, maybe they wouldn’t be. Maybe if we’d had a better idea about what’s actually going on in the world, it would have changed how we approached things. They follow my lead, Harry. I have a responsibility to make sure that I do everything in my power to make them aware and safe.”
And Jim throws a little irony around later when he throws out this little snippet.
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@Morris: What, precisely, does that quote answer? It's reasons why Billy thinks he should be fully informed. He's not really even asking that Harry inform the Alphas of everything, only their leader. He's also stating that changing past actions could have, but not necessarily would have, changed the outcome. And as you said, what happened at the Raith mansion is pretty strong evidence that Harry could not have adequately prepared them for the attack.
All of the above is in the text... Saying that Harry owes them more information doesn't mean he blames him for Kirby's death... All Will is saying they have proven with Kirby's death that they are willing to lay it all on the line for him, and that the least Harry can do is give them all the information he has...
I’d been careful to control what information he and the Alphas had gotten from me, in an effort to protect them. And it had worked—for a while.This seems fairly straightforward.
But now things were different. Kirby’s death had seen to that.
I think it should be pretty clear that it isn't all in the text because you say the text says 1, I say it says 0, and Morris says it says -1. Either two of us are idiots, or there is room for interpretation.I volunteer as the idiot.
I read Will's statement as Harry shouldn't be the one deciding for them whether or not they should be informed and take on the danger and responsibility of knowing.
... How about instead, we take everyone's position, average them, and agree that I'm right? ;)
@Mira
The point of bringing up the attack at Raith Manor is to point out that once Harry had led the skinwalker to the Alphas, that someone would die if the skinwalker wanted them dead. The Alphas had not a chance in hell. This is the nature of Harry's failure. Harry as written, believed in two contradictory things, that he could protect them by keeping them in the dark and that he could use them without this eventually happening.
1. Kirby died because Harry withheld information.No, Harry had with held nothing, all he knew was it was big, bad, and so ugly it made him catatonic, he conveyed that information, the pack still backed him..
2. The skinwalker was going to kill Kirby no matter what Harry didMost likely, only difference Kirby would have known what killed him when it did..
I don't understand how anyone can agree with both statements. (I agree with statement two, mostly. The skinwalker killed Kirby as a message; therefore, it could have killed a different Alpha because Harry did something that lead to different results, but the skinwalker was definitely going to kill an Alpha if Harry went to Will's place).
I read the quote, mostly because I can't see how fully briefing Billy would have changed anything, as either Harry illogically blaming his withholding of information for Kirby's death or simply stating that Billy wasn't going to follow blindly because Kirby died. Kirby's death cements the seriousness of Will's role as leader for Will.
No one has demonstrated how Harry briefing Billy on the wider world of the supernatural could have saved Kirby. Until someone does that, I'm going to remain obstinate in my position that Harry's withholding of information did not get Kirby killed. I'll go so far as to say it is hypothetically possible, but that's it until someone can at least give me a hypothetical.
Even if in the text Billy said "Kirby is dead because you withheld information from us," and Dresden said "That is correct," I would still say "what" because, as you said, the skinwalker was going to kill whoever it wanted anyway.
How about instead, we take everyone's position, average them, and agree that I'm right? ;)
"What is it?" Billy asked quietly.
"I don't know," I said. "But it is real bad." I glanced at Georgia.
"How long was I down?"
She checked her watch./ "Eighty-two minutes."
Billy looked up at me, Kirby's blood all over his face and hand.Then on page 35
"What is it, Harry?"
"A Native American nightmare," I said, I looked at him grimly, "A skinwalker."
"What are you going to do?"
"Find out why it's here," I said. "There's Council business afoot. Christ, I didn't mean to bring you into this." I stared toward the knot of officers around Kirby's corpse. "I didn't mean for this to happen."
"Kirby was an adult, Desden,"Billy said. "He knew what could happen. He chose to be here."
Which was the truth. But it didn't help. Kirby was still dead.I hadn't known what a skinwalker was before, beyond something awlful, but that didn't change things..
I sighed. "I'm sorry."
He shrugged. "Kirby knew the risks. He'd rather have died than stand by and do nothing..
I nodded. "It's part of something bigger I cannot talk about everything that is going on.
1. Kirby died because Harry withheld information.Yeah I'm having trouble with people seeing this point. :'(
2. The skinwalker was going to kill Kirby no matter what Harry did.
Maybe if we’d had a better idea about what’s actually going on in the world, it would have changed how we approached things.
They say one of the hallmarks of a good compromise is that nobody is really satisfied with the outcome.Particularly when you consider that the White God, by capricious whim can devastate a dearly held theory and crush all your dreams.
Ergo: nobody is "right."
No, Harry had with held nothing, all he knew was it was big, bad, and so ugly it made him catatonic, he conveyed that information, the pack still backed him..
Mira
The attack at Raith Manor reflects the attack on the Alphas. The point, to me, is to show this isn't about how Kirby could be saved. It's about showing that Harry's strategy isn't working. See below.
1)The first belief was that there was safety in ignorance.
2)The second that he could involve them without exposing them to what he said he was trying to protect them from.
From that stand point it is ALL Will's fault that Kirby died... He is the one who called his pack to fight even though Harry was unable to give him any more information than he did about what they were up against... End of story...
Harry denies them the ability to exercise informed consent. It isn't about changing the outcome, it's about Wills right to make his own judgement about what is best for his pack and how best to move.
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Okay, I see what you're saying and agree with your conclusion about Harry wrongly denying them informed consent. It's a little trickier than "informed consent" because I think, in the DF, people are incapable of making an informed decision about gaining knowledge.The devil is in the details, but I think we are in the same Church, but in different pews.
Saying that Harry is responsible for the death of Kirby is a bit like saying he is also responsible for HWWB killing the gas station attendant when Harry was 16....I don't think that at any point in this exchange that I said anything about Harry's feelings one way or the other. Your first statement is comparing apples and oranges. Harry has no secrets to keep at that point. And in the books there are multiple layers of responsibility for everything that happens. In this case the primary culprit is the skinwalker.
I agree with @nadia, Mira & Bad Alias - Harry’s lack of sharing knowledge has not yet been the sole reason anyone dies in the series so far. In each of the deaths, there is definitely more culpability from the victims (less so in Kirby’s case granted) or the perpetrators. If anything, Harry’s withholding info is a smaller piece of the mosiac that explains the deaths of the 3 people being discussed, but it is in no way the sole or most important piece.
That Harry feels it is does not make it so - as has been pointed out by Michael, Harry (like the WC) is sometimes arrogant to the point of idiocy. Just because Harry could have theoretically prevented something (with 20/20 hindsight), he feels like he should have done so & blames himself for not doing it. This is not rational....
The bottom line was I was strapped for cash. I’d been eating ramen noodles and soup for too many weeks. The steaks Mac had prepared smelled like heaven, even from across the room. My belly protested again, growling its neolithic craving for charred meat.
But I couldn’t just go and eat the dinner without giving Kim the information she wanted. It’s not that I’ve never welshed on a deal, but I’ve never done it with anyone human—and definitely not with someone who looked up to me.
“Save it,” I told her. “You’re sitting on a tiger cage, Kim.” I thumped a finger on the paper for emphasis. “And you wouldn’t need it if you weren’t planning on trying to stick a tiger in there.”
I had done the right thing—even if she had trusted me to provide answers for her, as I had in the past, when teaching her to contain and control her modest magical talents. Even if she had trusted me to show her the answers she needed, to be her guide through the darkness.Obviously he doesn't really think he's done the right thing. So he knows she will attempt it. Obviously she has some idea about how to empower the circle since he has been working with her. Major f****p.
I’d done the right thing.
Dammit.
My stomach was soured. I didn’t want any more of Mac’s delicious meal, steak or no steak. I didn’t feel like I’d earned it.
And I abruptly understood Kim Delaney’s request. She had to have known Harley MacFinn, maybe through her environmental activism. She must have learned of his curse, and wanted to help him. When I had refused to help her, she had attempted to re-create the greater summoning circle upstairs in the bedroom, to hold in MacFinn once the moon rose. As I had warned her would happen, she had failed. She hadn’t had the knowledge necessary to understand how such a construct would function, and consequently, she hadn’t been able to make it work.So he had misgivings at Mac's and surprise, surprise, she dies. So McFinn killed her, because the FBI agents destroyed his circle, because she made a bad choice, because she knew just enough to get her killed, and Harry could have said show me your problem and if I can I will help. Break any of those links in the chain and Kim doesn't die. Harry was the last man standing who could have changed the outcome once the events were moving. Harry's moral failure is in assuming responsibility for helping her, and then not doing so.
MacFinn had killed her. Kim was dead because I had refused to share my knowledge with her, because I hadn’t given her my help. I had been so secure in my knowledge and wisdom; withholding such secrets from her had been the action of a concerned and reasoned adult speaking to an overeager child. I couldn’t believe my own arrogance, the utter confidence with which I had condemned her to death.
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And I abruptly understood Kim Delaney’s request. She had to have known Harley MacFinn, maybe through her environmental activism. She must have learned of his curse, and wanted to help him. When I had refused to help her, she had attempted to re-create the greater summoning circle upstairs in the bedroom, to hold in MacFinn once the moon rose. As I had warned her would happen, she had failed. She hadn’t had the knowledge necessary to understand how such a construct would function, and consequently, she hadn’t been able to make it work.
MacFinn had killed her. Kim was dead because I had refused to share my knowledge with her, because I hadn’t given her my help. I had been so secure in my knowledge and wisdom; withholding such secrets from her had been the action of a concerned and reasoned adult speaking to an overeager child. I couldn’t believe my own arrogance, the utter confidence with which I had condemned her to death.
So he had misgivings at Mac's and surprise, surprise, she dies. So McFinn killed her, because the FBI agents destroyed his circle, because she made a bad choice, because she knew just enough to get her killed, and Harry could have said show me your problem and if I can I will help. Break any of those links in the chain and Kim doesn't die. Harry was the last man standing who could have changed the outcome once the events were moving. Harry's moral failure is in assuming responsibility for helping her, and then not doing so.
@Mira
I made that comparison to show that in a fight that Harry and the werewolves were outmatched. There was no defense possible. In the book the only one who gets close is Listens To Wind. The devil is in the details, but I think we are in the same Church, but in different pews.
[1.] In the book the only one who gets close is Listens To Wind. ... [2.] I think we are in the same Church, but in different pews.
1. I'd say Harry got close on the island. 2. That's clever. I like it and will steal it at the first opportunity.Feel free, I stole it from someone else.
Kim heard Harry say, you aren't able to and shouldn't do this. Because it was important to her she attempted to do so irregardless. But she was evidently unable to correctly judge her level of knowledge. This is why humans under the age of 30 typically pay more for car insurance. Harry had assumed the role of teacher to help her when she came into her magic. He failed in the obligation he assumed. As a moral agent he has to accept that he has failed. One purpose of guilt and remorse is to keep you from repeating those failures.
What would your moral ground be like if you left a gun out where a child could get it, with no more protection for the child then your assertion to the child that the gun was dangerous and they should leave it be? If you hesitate before you answer, don't have kids. They have no agency, they can't be responsible. Children die every year because parents fail to understand this.
You will probably not agree with me when I assert that Kim had no agency in this matter. She simply wasn't experienced enough with magic to gauge her capabilities. This will arise again when he takes on Molly as an apprentice. In Turn Coat Molly will attempt to use mind magic on Luccio. And it is only because Morgan chooses to take that knowledge to the grave that Molly and Harry don't lose their heads. And Molly knew she was under the Doom of Damocles. In other words Harry and the Council put the gun on the table and told her not to touch it.
Kim heard Harry say, you aren't able to and shouldn't do this. Because it was important to her she attempted to do so irregardless. But she was evidently unable to correctly judge her level of knowledge. This is why humans under the age of 30 typically pay more for car insurance. Harry had assumed the role of teacher to help her when she came into her magic. He failed in the obligation he assumed. As a moral agent he has to accept that he has failed. One purpose of guilt and remorse is to keep you from repeating those failures.
Kim freely made a decision to do something that her ‘teacher’ disagreed with - she is an adult & nearly Harry’s age, so I don’t agree at all that she has no agency.... I mean isn’t it Kim’s fault for doing this??I'm not assessing fault. Were I, in the story, it would be the FBI agents. What I keep suggesting is that Harry bears a moral responsibility for what happens. He chose to teach Kim some things about magic. Nobody made him. We are told that magic is dangerous. Had he not taught Kim anything about magic she couldn't have done anything. And had he said nothing about the diagram on the paper, she couldn't have tried to use it.
Your argument is that Harry should’ve somehow known that Kim was going to defy him with disastrous consequences & that he should interfere with a freely made decision by another who doesn’t really want his help beyond a few “theoretical” questions.I'll make a stronger statement, the text tells you he doesn't believe her.
“And you wouldn’t need it if you weren’t planning on trying to stick a tiger in there.”
If your answer is that yes he should’ve abrogated her free will because he feels like she is in danger - note how Murphy responds every time he does this - it is her decision to be involved & not Harry’s. Harry also keeps a fair amount of secrets from Murphy, especially in the early books.Not telling her what the diagram represents, is not abrogating her free will.
I mean if you want to use Gun safety as an analogy, then Harry was absolutely cooperative, when Kim was asking things like "How does gunpowder work?" or "What does the hammer do?" But when Kim asked him "Btw, hypothetically, how would I switch off the safety?" At which point he said (fairly reasonably) "Yeah no, I'm not telling you that, you don't know how not to shoot yourself."What I asked was what Moral obligation did Harry incur for someone he had chosen to help learn about magic? I gather from the answers to this point the answer is he incurred no obligation at all. So that pretty much is that.
Then Kim went out, bought a gun, and shot herself.
All Harry told her was 'this is what each part of the Circle is for'. Given that she'd obviously copied it from Macfinn's place, she knew that (at least generally). Nothing that Harry told her that day would have aided her in using it (which is why he feels guilty- because 'maybe if I'd told her how to perform this advanced brain-surgery procedure she'd have done it right, despite her being a year-one Med student').
TLDR: Kim killed herself because of her own Ego and her refusal to talk to Harry about what she was doing properly, despite it being obviously beyond her experience. Harry blames himself because he has a guilt complex, in particular with regards to women being hurt (Thanks Elaine)
"Don't make me choose, Harry." Her voice softened, if not her eyes or her face. "Please."
I thought about it. I could bring everything to her. That's what she was asking - not half the story, not part of the information. She wanted it all. She wanted all the pieces in front of her so she could puzzle them together and bring the bad guys in. She didn't want to work the puzzle knowing that I was keeping some of the pieces in my pocket.
What could it hurt? Linda Randall had called me earlier that evening. She had planned on coming to me, to talk to me. She was going to give me some information and someone had shut her up before she could.
I saw two problems with telling Murphy that. One, she would start thinking like a cop. It would not be hard to find out that Linda wasn't exactly a high-fidelity piece of equipment. That she had numerous lovers on both sides of the fence. What if she and I were closer than I was admitting? What if I'd used magic to kill her lovers in a fit of jealous rage and then waited for another storm to kill her, too? It sounded plausible, workable, a crime of passion - Murphy had to know that the DA would have a hell of a time proving magic as a murder weapon, but if it had been a gun instead, it would have flown.
The second problem, and the one that worried me a lot more, was that there were already three people dead. And if I hadn't gotten lucky and creative, there would have been two more dead people, back at my apartment. I still didn't know who the bad guy was. Telling Murphy what little more I knew wouldn't give her any helpful information. It would only make her ask more questions, and she wanted answers.
If the voice in the shadows knew that Murphy was heading the investigation to find him, and was on the right track, he would have no qualms about killing her, too. And there was nothing she could do to protect herself against it. She might have been formidable to your average criminal, but all the aikido in the world wouldn't do her any good against a demon.
Then, too, there was the White Council. Men like Morgan and his superiors, secure in their own power, arrogant and considering themselves above the authority of any laws but their own, wouldn't hesitate to remove one police lieutenant who had discovered the secret world of the White Council.
I looked at the bloodstained sheets and thought of Linda's corpse. I thought of Murphy's office, and what it would look like with her sprawled on the floor, her heart torn from her chest, or her throat torn out by some creeping thing from beyond.
"Sorry, Murph," I said. My voice came out in a rasping whisper. "I wish I could help you. I don't know anything useful." I didn't try to look up at her, and I didn't try to hide that I was lying.
What would your moral ground be like if you left a gun out where a child could get it, with no more protection for the child then your assertion to the child that the gun was dangerous and they should leave it be? If you hesitate before you answer, don't have kids. They have no agency, they can't be responsible. Children die every year because parents fail to understand this.
I'm not assessing fault. Were I, in the story, it would be the FBI agents. What I keep suggesting is that Harry bears a moral responsibility for what happens.
Molly knows better but she does so anyway. So if a threat of a death penalty and Harry's constant carping doesn't stop her why would anything stop Kim, who compared to Molly is a kindergartner?
In philosophy, moral responsibility is the status of morally deserving praise, blame, reward, or punishment for an act or omission performed or neglected in accordance with one's moral obligations.[1][2] Deciding what (if anything) counts as "morally obligatory" is a principal concern of ethics.
Culpability, or being culpable, is a measure of the degree to which an agent, such as a person, can be held morally or legally responsible for action and inaction. It has been noted that the word, culpability, "ordinarily has normative force, for in nonlegal English, a person is culpable only if he is justly to blame for his conduct".[1] Culpability therefore marks the dividing line between moral evil, like murder, for which someone may be held legally responsible and a randomly occurring event, like earthquakes, for which no human can be held responsible.
Guilt is a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realizes—accurately or not—that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated a universal moral standard and bear significant responsibility for that violation.[1] Guilt is closely related to the concept of remorse.
A large part of the reason that children can't be considered responsible is actually their lack of physical brain development. They literally lack the equipment for the kind of decision-making that adults do. This, obviously, is not true of Kim.In order.
Can you please define how you are using the words "fault"/"guilt" and "responsibility"? Because you appear to be using them to mean different things, but the definition I found and posted says they're synonyms. As a result, I am not understanding what you are saying when you treat them as having different meanings.
I'm reasonably certain that the books explicitly say that black magic is addictive. As such, Molly's actions can in no way be compared to Kim's, since Molly is acting as an addict with her drug and Kim is not.
Moral agency is an individual's ability to make moral judgments based on some notion of right and wrong and to be held accountable for these actions.[1] A moral agent is "a being who is capable of acting with reference to right and wrong."[2]If she's an addict then she must not be capable of doing the right thing.
It's an easy out to rate Molly as an addict. You, are in effect removing her agency, her ability to act as a moral agent.
If she's an addict then she must not be capable of doing the right thing.
I'm late to this discussion, so if someone has already mentioned this incident, I apologize, but it seems to me there is one time when Harry withholding information has led to someone getting hurt and it's in Storm Front and it's not Linda Randall.
So Harry trying to protect Murphy led to her treating him as a suspect. It led to Murphy searching Harry's office because she didn't have the information she needed and I'm certain you will all remember, it led to Murphy getting stung by Victor Sells ever growing scorpion construct or demon. (Whatever it was.)
Now it could be argued that Murphy sometimes makes questionable to bad decisions, but I see that more in Fool Moon than in Storm Front. Murphy's view of supernatural world in Storm Front is like someone looking through a keyhole rather than a nice large window and Harry tries to keep it that way; and though Harry does it mostly to protect Murphy, it backfires instead.
I brought up the addiction thing specifically in response to your claim that, since Molly violated the terms of her parole even though the consequence of doing so was death, then no consequence would be sufficient to prevent Kim from doing what she did. However, this is comparing apples to oranges. Molly is a recovering addict falling off the wagon. Kim is a college student who decides to shoplift because she doesn't want to admit to her parents that she needs money. The situations are not at all the same, and consequences that the addict will ignore can and frequently will be enough to prevent the college student from doing things.
Murphy's view of supernatural world in Storm Front is like someone looking through a keyhole rather than a nice large window and Harry tries to keep it that way; and though Harry does it mostly to protect Murphy, it backfires instead.Harry does this over and over. He's protecting Murphy. He's protecting Kim. He's protecting Molly. Can you see an ongoing pattern in what Harry is doing.
Harry does this over and over. He's protecting Murphy. He's protecting Kim. He's protecting Molly. Can you see an ongoing pattern in what Harry is doing.He was protecting all of Chicago too.
Harry does this over and over. He's protecting Murphy. He's protecting Kim. He's protecting Molly. Can you see an ongoing pattern in what Harry is doing.
You made her curious about what you could do, and nurtured that curiosity with silence.And.
I stood there with my mouth open for a second. "That...that isn't...what I did."I creatively edited those quotes. What he does in Changes is the one time the trope is turned upside down. He gets her to use Black Magic to wipe his mind so that Mab won't know he caused his own death. Thus according to your addiction theory, giving heroin to a heroin addict. Bails on her, violating her probation. And gets her shot and mind f****d at Chichen Itza. If there is a clear example that Harry has hurt someone, this is it. Anyway, as usual, it's been fun. Thanks.
Mab leaned closer to me and said, "That is precisely what you did," she said.
However, remember Mab's words to Harry after the fight on Demonreach in Cold Days. Quoting Mab.
Quote
You made her curious about what you could do, and nurtured that curiosity with silence.
And.
Quote
I stood there with my mouth open for a second. "That...that isn't...what I did."
Mab leaned closer to me and said, "That is precisely what you did," she said.
I creatively edited those quotes. What he does in Changes is the one time the trope is turned upside down. He gets her to use Black Magic to wipe his mind so that Mab won't know he caused his own death. Thus according to your addiction theory, giving heroin to a heroin addict. Bails on her, violating her probation. And gets her shot and mind f****d at Chichen Itza. If there is a clear example that Harry has hurt someone, this is it. Anyway, as usual, it's been fun. Thanks.
The passages I quoted would have been better had they been longer, I was lazy.
With all due respect, do not be lazy about your quotes.. Give page numbers as well as book titles, context is very important... Not saying you are doing this, but quotes without context or edited can be easily twisted one way or another... At least by giving the page number, oh and saying it is hard back or paperback as well because the pages don't always line up, gives the rest of us to go back and read for ourselves... It enhances the debate and give both sides of it better grounds to support or refute..
Major downside of ebooks/audiobooks. Much more difficult to direct people to the right spot for quotes.
No. Harry is protecting them.
However, remember Mab's words to Harry after the fight on Demonreach in Cold Days. Quoting Mab.QuoteYou made her curious about what you could do, and nurtured that curiosity with silence.And.QuoteI stood there with my mouth open for a second. "That...that isn't...what I did."
Mab leaned closer to me and said, "That is precisely what you did," she said.
So, you're saying that Harry was trying to protect Molly by not telling her about magic? That's not right. Harry wasn't around when Molly was learning about her magic because he was explicitly avoiding Michael due to the whole Lasciel situation. Protecting Molly didn't factor into it.Read Chapter 15 of Death Masks. At this point Molly is fourteen. If you don't understand why I chose those quotes, with that context, me telling you will not provide any clarity. Harry will pick up the coin at the end of the book and not be around Molly again until Proven Guilty.
I lifted a hand. “Don’t apologize. Maybe I’m the one who let you down. Maybe I should have taught you better.” I petted Mouse’s head gently, looking away from her. “It doesn’t matter at the moment. People have died because I’ve been trying to save Morgan’s life. Thomas might still die. And now, if we do manage to save Morgan’s crusty old ass, he’s going to report that you’ve violated your parole. The Council will kill you. And me.”Now contrast this against what he asks of her in Changes as revealed in Ghost Story.
She stared at me helplessly. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Get caught,” I said quietly. “Jesus Christ, kid. I trusted you.”
I wouldn't argue that Harry hasn't hurt people. Harry is arguably a murderer. He has killed a lot of people and not people. My argument is very specific. Harry withholding information hasn't hurt anyone (in the short term because we can't predict long term effects) with the exception of not telling Murphy about the White Council and the Doom in Storm Front.They asked for page numbers and chapters, I supplied them.
What he did in Changes doesn't really matter to that point.
I don't see the point of citing page numbers. There are so many different versions of the books it's basically pointless. I use fbreader, in which the page numbers are determined by the font the user selects.
To be honest, I believe that Harry is correct in keeping info from people on the lower rungs of power in the DV.There an old saying, you can't be a little bit pregnant. Either tell everything you know or tell nothing at all. Harry straddles the fence, and that just makes you sore.
To be honest, I believe that Harry is correct in keeping info from people on the lower rungs of power in the DV. It is not his fault that they (Susan, Kim etc) are independent & proud - they certainly deserve most of the blame for explicitly doing things Harry tells them not to - & they pay for it. They do this because being a go-getter in the mortal world has worked out for them, but the supernatural world plays by different rules where one’s power level generally unlocks appropriately dangerous knowledge. Kim & Susan don’t understand this - Murphy is more situationally aware from her police work & I don’t recall Molly getting hurt from Harry withholding info (he hurts her unintentionally). Blaming Harry for this removes his agency, not theirs.
Most of the arguments I’ve read in this thread seem to focus on Harry not going out of his way to explain the rules & dangers of the supernatural world appropriately to the noob ladies in his life, but I disagree - no one is forcing Kim to build a circle that Harry would have trouble with or Susan to come to Bianca’s shindig where Harry is unsure he’ll make it out alive -they made these decisions with his express disapproval. Additionally I don’t think for a second that if Harry turned them down, they wouldn’t have looked elsewhere (more dangerous places) for that info which might’ve worked out even worse for them. I don’t understand the commenters who think that without Harry, Kim & Susan wouldn’t have figured out a way to dabble in the supernatural world. They are smart, dogged & connected enough to make this happen regardless of Harry - he just made it easier since he’s a good person.
It’s kinda like abortion or teen sex - whether you agree or disagree about the morality of the acts, it’s not going to dissuade the determined from going through with it even if they’re aware of the dangers.
I wouldn't argue that Harry hasn't hurt people. Harry is arguably a murderer. He has killed a lot of people and not people. My argument is very specific. Harry withholding information hasn't hurt anyone (in the short term because we can't predict long term effects) with the exception of not telling Murphy about the White Council and the Doom in Storm Front.Harry has killed people, but that doesn't make him a murderer, no more than a soldier under most circumstances is a murder in war. Harry doesn't deliberately kill innocents.
There will never be a point, where you can definitively say Harry withholding X led to Y. If that is your argument, it's unimpeachable. You can impeach the reason that he uses for withholding information, by looking at outcomes against the times he's used it. He trying to protect Kim. She dies. He's trying to protect Susan, he ends up cutting her throat. He tries to protect the Alphas, Kirby gets killed Andi almost so. As a strategy it appears to not work very well.
There an old saying, you can't be a little bit pregnant. Either tell everything you know or tell nothing at all. Harry straddles the fence, and that just makes you sore.
[1.] They asked for page numbers and chapters, I supplied them.
[2.] There will never be a point, where you can definitively say Harry withholding X led to Y. If that is your argument, it's unimpeachable. [3]. You can impeach the reason that he uses for withholding information, by looking at outcomes against the times he's used it. He trying to protect Kim. She dies. He's trying to protect Susan, he ends up cutting her throat. He tries to protect the Alphas, Kirby gets killed Andi almost so. As a strategy it appears to not work very well. [4.] There an old saying, you can't be a little bit pregnant. Either tell everything you know or tell nothing at all. Harry straddles the fence, and that just makes you sore.
[a.] Harry has killed people, but that doesn't make him a murderer, no more than a soldier under most circumstances is a murder in war. [b.] Harry doesn't deliberately kill innocents.
1. That was more of a response to the conversation about page numbers than to you answering the question. Also an explanation of why I'm never giving anyone page numbers.Mea Culpa. My apologies for being harsh.
a. Murder is the [1.] unlawful killing of [2.] another [3.] human being [4.] with malice aforethought, expressed or implied. 1. Harry killed Cassius. 2. Cassius is not Harry. 3. Cassius is a human being. 4. Harry meant the action that killed Cassius. I'm aware this isn't a full explication of my case, but figured it was best to leave it simple and see which points you don't agree with instead of typing up a couple of weeks of law school classes for no reason.
b. The innocence or guilt of the person killed is irrelevant.
I disagree, so would a jury in many cases...
A technically maybe, but Mouse killed Cassius, not Harry... On Harry's orders perhaps, but Harry was on his back,bleeding, about to pass out, Cassius was in the process of killing him rather painfully and slowly, would have too, when Butters and Mouse came in to save the day. And it was Butters who sicced Mouse on Cassius.. You might call that murder, but it sounds more like self defense or at the very least justified homicide..Nor was it premeditated. Don't know about law school but if I was sitting on a jury, that is how I'd see it.
Cassius froze in place in sudden terror, his eyes very wide. He stared at me.
For a second there was total silence.
"I gave you a chance," I told him, my voice quiet.
Quintus Cassius's liver-spotted face went pale with horrified comprehension. "Wait."
"Mouse," I said. "Kill him."
Cassius was not in the process of doing anything. He had been defeated. Mouse had him under control.
Let’s go through the events here - the ‘victim’ (Cassius) had just spent the last few minutes cutting the ‘murderer’s’ chest open & was just about to kill him when he was interrupted by a 3rd party (Butters). The victim then breaks the 3rd party’s nose & tries to kill him with the same knife. The murderer’s dog is able to intervene & kill the ‘victim’ while protecting its master.
[1.] There is no way to prove that Cassius wouldn’t have been able to get back to up & finish what he’d started - perhaps he would’ve been able to get the drop on Mouse (unlikely) or [2.] perhaps he would re-attempt this at a later date, given that’s exactly what Cassius was doing here (after the events of DM).
We only know that Harry gave the order to Mouse to kill Cassius because he expressly tells us so, why would he do this in a hypothetical court of law where he is being ‘accused’ of murder?
[1.] All of Harry’s ‘murders’ would probably count as justifiable homicides ([2.] especially if he could get a Sidhe lawyer) - [3.] including that of Corpsetaker in DB. [4.] Like Harry tells Sarissa in CD, the only 2 people he’s killed in cold blood were Susan & Lloyd Slate. [5.] Given that Susan’s body likely vanished after the Ramps were exterminated as a species, I doubt any mortal authority would be able to prove anything there (no body, almost impossible to prove the crime) & [6.] Lloyd Slate was murdered in the NN - well out of any mortal police’s jurisdiction & in full compliance/ being forced to do it by the ruler of that nation (Mab).
[1.] So I really don’t agree with the assessments of Harry being a ‘murderer’ according to American law. [2.] The legal definition of murder is just that, a legal definition - extenuating circumstances are always considered in such cases.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justifiable_homicide
American law wasn't written with dark magic in mind. Murder as a crime exists because we define it as such, the killings in question don't fit in any legal system that doesn't include magic.Mortal law claims jurisdiction over everything except "acts of God." No other supernatural agency is exempted.
a. Murder is the [1.] unlawful killing of ...
... This is where I thought the argument would be for Cassius's death, and Slate's if I had remembered that one. Harry is a Warden of the White Council at this point. He has lawful authority to execute this guy, and probably a duty to, according to the White Council. I'm sure the prosecutor's office in Chicago would disagree. Vehemently. This is the reason I said it is arguable that Harry is a murderer...
... If you agree that Harry is subject to the law of Illinois and that the paragraph I quoted happened, then Harry is a murderer...
I think the question that determines if Harry is a murderer is whether or not he is subject to mortal law when acting on behalf of a supernatural nation.
Reductio ad absurdum. White vampire kills boy/girl in court, and claims death by orgasm. Authorities can't prove different. Vampire shoots bird at judge and goes on vacation somewhere warm. You can claim jurisdiction but you have to prove the crime.Oh, I'm sure the murder couldn't be proven by mortals! Even if somebody matched the wounds on Cassius to a casting of Mouse's jaws, Harry's extensive wounding from being tortured would have a jury saying "Good doggy!" and "Not Guilty" (probably in that order).
I think you have captured the essence of the matter.
Which laws apply?
Given the mortal laws ignorance, I'd argue that they do NOT apply. How can the law apply to matters it does not acknowledge and therefore explicitly does not address?
Does the law mandate how cold Mab's ice may become? Does it hold Kringle responsible for Equal Opportunity Gift-giving? Does it impose any controls upon Denarians? Or upon wizards?
Yes, mortal law does claim jurisdiction; and by strict (and thus ignorant) interpretation of said law... Harry has committed murder.
But I would argue that in this situation, mortal law is so ignorant as to be irrelevant.
The failing of mortal law isn't that it doesn't foresee a Cassius like situation. That sort of thing happens all the time, and that's why I'm certain Harry's actions do not constitute the legal concept of self defense and do constitute murder. The problem is that Harry, having defeated his opponent, can't hand him off to the authorities because the authorities can't handle a warlock. Not that the Council could, either. That's why the Council has the death penalty for every breach of the Seven Laws.
While thinking of an alternative definition of murder, other than a legal one, I looked to some religious texts and could come up with an argument that Harry didn't commit murder, but instead he fulfilled a duty to protect others when he killed Cassius. I'm not going into detail because it's a "Forbidden Discussion Item."
who is to say he still didn't still fear for his life?
[1.] The problem is magic. You either have undetectable crimes or crimes with incomprehensible motives. [2.] And however you define murder, a jury decides if murder actually occurs. [3.] The definition is not the fact.
INSTRUCTIONS OF THE COURT
Accusation
The state accuses the defendant of having committed the offense of murder. Specifically, the accusation is that the defendant intentionally or knowingly caused the death of Quintus Cassius by commanding the defendant’s dog to break the neck of Quintus Cassius.
Relevant Statutes
A person commits an offense if the person intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual.
To prove that the defendant is guilty of murder, the state must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, two elements. The elements are that—
1. the defendant caused the death of an individual; and
2. the defendant did this intentionally or knowingly.
A person causes the death of another if, but for the person’s conduct, the death of the other would not have occurred.
Burden of Proof
The state must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, the accusation of murder.
Definitions
Intentionally Causing the Death of an Individual
A person intentionally causes the death of an individual if the person has the conscious objective or desire to cause that death.
Knowingly Causing the Death of an Individual
A person knowingly causes the death of an individual if the person is aware that his conduct is reasonably certain to cause that death.
Application of Law to Facts
You must determine whether the state has proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, two elements. The elements are that—
1. the defendant, in Cook County, Illinois, on or about October 31, 20XX, caused the death of Quintus Cassius by commanding the defendant’s dog to break the neck of Quintus Cassius; and
2. the defendant did this either intentionally or knowingly.
You must all agree on elements 1 and 2 listed above.
If you all agree the state has failed to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, one or both of elements 1 and 2 listed above, you must find the defendant “not guilty.”
If you all agree the state has proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, each of the two elements listed above, you must next consider whether the defendant’s use of force was made in self-defense.
Self-Defense
You have heard evidence that, when the defendant intentionally or knowingly caused the death of Quintus Cassius by commanding the defendant’s dog to break the neck of Quintus Cassius, he believed his use of force was necessary to defend himself against Quintus Cassius’s use of unlawful deadly force.
Relevant Statutes
A person’s use of deadly force against another that would otherwise constitute the crime of murder is not a criminal offense if the person reasonably believed the force used was immediately necessary to protect the person against the other’s use of unlawful deadly force.
Self-defense does not cover conduct in response to verbal provocation alone. The defendant must have reasonably believed the other person had done more than verbally provoke the defendant.
Burden of Proof
The defendant is not required to prove self-defense. Rather, the state must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that self-defense does not apply to the defendant’s conduct.
Definitions
Reasonable Belief
“Reasonable belief” means a belief that an ordinary and prudent person would have held in the same circumstances as the defendant.
Deadly Force
“Deadly force” means force that is intended or known by the person using it to cause death or serious bodily injury or force that in the manner of its use or intended use is capable of causing death or serious bodily injury.
Application of Law to Facts
If you have found that the state has proved the offense beyond a reasonable doubt, you must next decide whether the state has proved that the defendant’s conduct was not justified by self-defense.
To decide the issue of self-defense, you must determine whether the state has proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, one of the following two elements. The elements are that—
1. the defendant did not believe his conduct was immediately necessary to protect himself against Quintus Cassius’s use of unlawful deadly force; or
2. the defendant’s belief was not reasonable.
You must all agree that the state has proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, either element 1 or 2 listed above. You need not agree on which of these elements the state has proved.
If you find that the state has failed to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, either element 1 or 2 listed above, you must find the defendant “not guilty.”
If you all agree the state has proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, each of the elements of the offense of murder, and you all agree the state has proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, either element 1 or 2 listed above, you must find the defendant “guilty.”
... because it's a "Forbidden Discussion Item."
(And back to Proven Guilty, under Illinois law, I'm pretty sure Harry would be guilty as an accomplice in murdering that warlock kid, but I do not have experience in Illinois accomplice liability laws).
Or would that have been considered an execution lawfully carried out by another government, under the authority of it's governing body?
The problem is obtaining a conviction. It's exactly like saying Victor Sells didn't murder anyone in Storm Front because a jury would never convict.If you can't put the case in front of a jury or if the jury refuses to convict, then to all intents and purposes he isn't guilty. Murder is a crime, what a jury decides is who committed the crime. And your speaking from God mode. They don't sit in a privileged position.
Linky?Do not discuss:
I don't think I've seen any explicit list of such, and my casual poking-around didn't find it here... :-P
Harry bears a moral responsibility for killing Cassius. Harry makes an extrajudicial decision that Cassius is too dangerous to live. He isn't even a warden at that point. He's a vigilante. And Harry's ethical position is established in canon. Jim has established the mortal authorities lack of ability to contain supernatural threats. In Fool Moon, and Changes, to name two. So you can classify the act as murder, but you have to ignore canon.
Victor Sells could never be convicted of murder because you can't connect him to the act. He wasn't there and to the mortal authorities magic doesn't exist.
Just to be sure, everybody does know that dogs can't be given a kill command? Right? Only Foo dogs of exceptional intelligence need apply.
... Why do you ignore that fact that with help Cassius had ambushed Harry? Then he tied him up with magical bonds and proceeded to carve him up with a knife desperate to get the coin he thought Harry carried? And he was also about to kill Harry? Harry knew it and actually prayed for a Holy Knight to come on scene to save him..
This is when Butters and Mouse showed up and saved him.. It wasn't cold blooded anything... Except maybe on the part of Cassius, he was cold bloodily carving up Harry, until Butters and Mouse came on the scene and subdued him..Yeah, this is a key point: Cassius had been subdued. He was not in a position to continue his assault on Harry, he was not a threat in that moment when Harry ordered Mouse to kill him.
Dogs can be given a kill command, it is an "attack" command... Mostly they are trained to go after the limbs and subdue until called off, but make no mistake a Mal or a German Shepherd can rip out someone's throat in seconds.
Oh HELL yeah. Unless a dog has been specifically trained to ONLY go after the limbs, to subdue... almost any adult dog over 30 lbs or so can (potentially) become a lethal threat.
Significant dog bites affect tens of millions of people globally each year.[3] It is estimated that 2% of the U.S. population, 4.5–4.7 million people, are bitten by dogs each year.[4] Most bites occur in children.[5] In the 1980s and 1990s, the U.S. averaged 17 fatalities per year, while in the 2000s this has increased to 26.[6] 77% of dog bites are from the pet of family or friends, and 50% of attacks occur on the dog owner's property.[6] Animal bites, most of which are from dogs, are the reason for 1% of visits to an emergency department in the United States.[5]There would probably be fewer fatalities and bites if people like your dog handler friend remembered that dogs are animals. Your friend would benefit from reading this.
Human activities may increase the risk of a dog bite as does age, height, and movement. The CDC and the American Veterinary Medical Association have published recommendations which encourage those that are around dogs to: not attempt to break up a dog fight[27]I am sensitive to this subject currently since I have two great grandchildren under 18 months whose parents don't really understand dogs. My wife was bitten because she ignored the first rule. Do not approach strange dogs. Carry on.
For the record Mouse wasn't trained as an attack dog. Not in the text. Mouse is smart. He can read and understand English.
There would probably be fewer fatalities and bites if people like your dog handler friend remembered that dogs are animals. Your friend would benefit from reading this.I didn't say she was my friend, I did say she is a dog handler, which means she knows very well what dogs are, what they capable of and can do.. She works a dog, to find human remains in all kinds of nasty situations.. Also to search for and save live people in all kinds of nasty situations and weathers... Have you ever tried to train dog to do such work? Have you actually worked a dog?
I am sensitive to this subject currently since I have two great grandchildren under 18 months whose parents don't really understand dogs. My wife was bitten because she ignored the first rule. Do not approach strange dogs. Carry on.Do you really understand dogs?
Do you really understand dogs?Well enough to never get bit. However that was a PSA. Mouse is a genius among dogs. Dogs can't process language like a human. Mouse can read. The point is that attack dogs don't work the way you apparently believe. Or perhaps I am mistaken.
Harry does this over and over. He's protecting Murphy. He's protecting Kim. He's protecting Molly. Can you see an ongoing pattern in what Harry is doing.
He practice as a real wizard openly and advertise himself in the yellow pages. This opens the pandora box. It provides a convenient avenue whereby vanilla mortals and unprepared practicianers the chance to access the more dangerous and deadly part of the supernatural world. Though we may argue that people like Susan can and probably will get into the dark and deep end of the supernatural world by themselves, Harry openly practicing as a real wizard makes matter a lot worse.
Harry gave partial information to amateurs. Though he warm them about the dangers afterwards, his conduct are likely to encourages the amateurs instead. For example: Harry explain the 3 layered circle to Kim, but he only explain the first and second circle and he lied to Kim about the 3rd circle. Harry told kim that the 3rd circle is gobbledygook. He show kim some of the stuff, hide the most interesting ones and then told her "Don't do this!"
We know how that kind of admonission tends to encourages the curious to do the exact opposite.
This is most prominently shown when it comes to Molly. The reason why Molly dabbles with magic and end up doing black magic is because the impression Harry made.
I am certain Charity done all she could to warn Molly about the dangers of magic, but we know how that turns out.
Harry involve amateurs in high level game.
Well enough to never get bit. However that was a PSA. Mouse is a genius among dogs. Dogs can't process language like a human. Mouse can read. The point is that attack dogs don't work the way you apparently believe. Or perhaps I am mistaken.
The dog does not attack out of fear or anger, the dog attacks because he has been commanded to. Attack dog training, if carried out properly is very useful in personal protection. However the dog should still use his own initiative, if situations arise where the handler has been injured and cannot give a command.
My apologies for having dragged us down this path. It isn't really germane to the topic at this point.
Harry bears a moral responsibility for killing Cassius. Harry makes an extrajudicial decision that Cassius is too dangerous to live. He isn't even a warden at that point. He's a vigilante. And Harry's ethical position is established in canon. Jim has established the mortal authorities lack of ability to contain supernatural threats. In Fool Moon, and Changes, to name two. So you can classify the act as murder, but you have to ignore canon.
Victor Sells could never be convicted of murder because you can't connect him to the act. He wasn't there and to the mortal authorities magic doesn't exist.
Just to be sure, everybody does know that dogs can't be given a kill command? Right? Only Foo dogs of exceptional intelligence need apply.
It wasn't cold blooded anything...
Not ignoring these!
Horrible crimes; torture, attempted murder, etc. Not even any of the ambiguity we're arguing about in Harry's case -- both the laws of the White Council, and the laws of Illinois, hold Cassius as criminal in these actions. (although as far as I understand it, not the Unseelie Accords -- Mab doesn't object to personal animosity even leading up to murder).
So, yeah -- Cassius was an awful person, and was doing awful things there. No argument.
Yeah, this is a key point: Cassius had been subdued. He was not in a position to continue his assault on Harry, he was not a threat in that moment when Harry ordered Mouse to kill him.
Killing somebody who is not a threat in the moment? That looks... an awful lot like murder. Even if the person "deserved" it.
A couple of key counter-questions:
- was Harry entitled to kill him anyway? Under WC law, yes he was: Luccio had Warden'ed him shortly before, so Harry's Grey Cloak entitled him to execute sorcerors, necromancers, and their allies, particularly with the Darkhallow ritual having begun.
- would Cassius have renewed murderous violence, and how soon? Preponderance of the evidence suggests that Cassius would indeed have renewed his violence, and done so as soon as he saw advantage; possibly as soon as Mouse was off him.
I would argue that, Harry being "cold-blooded" or not, Cassius was an immediate threat -- only momentarily neutralized, in a highly-unstable situation -- and the killing was in fact self-defense.
Nevertheless, the argument that Harry "committed murder" does have some merit, particularly if you ONLY consider it from the POV of local/mortal law. "But he started it!" isn't a defense, since Cassius (as noted) had been subdued, and was not a threat in the moment. AFAIK, mortal law has no coverage for the "cannot safely take the subdued perp to jail, must execute on the spot" situation.
Harry literally described his killing of Cassius and Corpsetaker as cold. Harry basically says that he is going to kill Cassius because he promised to kill him if he ever saw him again. Cassius knew that's what Harry meant. Harry didn't have to kill Cassius to stop him (in the short term, which is all that matters legally). Should Harry have killed Cassius even if it was murder? Yes. It was the right thing to do for a number of reasons. Mostly he had to stop someone from becoming a dark god.
I'm not ignoring the fact that police can't do anything about Cassius. I mentioned it. It doesn't make it not murder. What do you mean he isn't a warden? Do you mean he is killing Cassius because he said he would back in Death Masks, or that he isn't a warden yet? I'm not saying an act outside the law is necessarily immoral. Morality and legality intersect, but don't completely cover one another.My version of the timeline was incorrect, he was a warden by that point. The question your asking has a couple of answers. If you were a character inside the story who didn't sit in a position of privilege your answer should be no. As a reader you have access to God mode and as such, yes he is. However without the use of magic, there is no theory of the crime that fits. In a world where magic is not part of the common human experience, Victor Sells could not only never be convicted, he could never be charged.
Is Victor Sells a murderer?
I stated that Mouse is either a tool or an accomplice/co-conspirator/etc., so that doesn't really matter in my opinion.
The Dresden Files are not written in a third person omniscient point of view. I have demonstrated how their exists sufficient traditional evidence in the case of Harry and Cassius for a prosecutor to make a solid case that Harry murdered Cassius using typical, mundane, mortal evidence. Butters' testimony alone would be sufficient evidence for a conviction. (It also might be sufficient for jury nullification).I would love to hear a theory of the crime not using magic. Assuming that the police weren't too busy dealing with a Dark God wreaking havoc around the University. Why Harry, Butters, Cassius and a 200 pound killing machine broke and entered the Field Museum. How Cassius tortured Harry trying to steal a coin containing a fallen angel. Why Cassius doesn't exist record wise. What that funny book is all about. How Murphy is going to explain those pictures when the book ends up in the evidence locker and not in Marva's hand. And so on and so on.
Murphy was still a police officer at that time, how come she never arrested him?
For the same reason she agreed to go vampire hunting a book before this: because she's had it beaten into her by this point that, when it comes to the supernatural, sometimes the right thing to do is to break the law.
I would love to hear a theory of the crime not using magic. Assuming that the police weren't too busy dealing with a Dark God wreaking havoc around the University. Why Harry, Butters, Cassius and a 200 pound killing machine broke and entered the Field Museum. How Cassius tortured Harry trying to steal a coin containing a fallen angel. Why Cassius doesn't exist record wise.
[1.] You say the the reader isn't in a privileged position? That's an interesting statement.
[2.] As a child I was taught a maxim, a man is innocent until proven guilty. Now as a grown adult I know that is a fantasy. However it is the correct answer to your questions about murder and murderers. When you get to pick and choose, people get hung in trees and burned at the stake. [3.] I would love to hear a theory of the crime not using magic. Assuming that the police weren't too busy dealing with a Dark God wreaking havoc around the University. Why Harry, Butters, Cassius and a 200 pound killing machine broke and entered the Field Museum. How Cassius tortured Harry trying to steal a coin containing a fallen angel. Why Cassius doesn't exist record wise. What that funny book is all about. How Murphy is going to explain those pictures when the book ends up in the evidence locker and not in Marva's hand. And so on and so on.
PS This has nothing to do with the DF.(click to show/hide)
Plus, in many jurisdictions it's been abolished as a defense so if that is the case in Illinois Harry's lawyer couldn't even try to use it.
But would the police seek out Harry to check for a blood-match? Why???
I just don't see how/why the cops would connect the evidence to Harry.
And even if they DID connect the evidence to Harry -- that evidence points to HARRY being attacked, and Harry's dog defending him... "We the jury find that Mouse is a Good Boy. Oh, and Dresdem is a snarky asshole, but probably Not Guilty." That whole thing about "beyond a reasonable doubt" is gonna be a tough row for any prosecutor to hoe.
This qualifies as the weirdest conversation I've ever been involved in.
Edit
During the course of this book Harry commits enough crimes to do time counted in tens of years. He shoots Luccio's body in the back of the head without any certain knowledge that Corpstaker was really in there. He breaks in and steals a valuable artifact from the museum. He breaks in to an electronics store. He destroys some poor persons car in the process of dropping it on Cowl. And he kills Cassius. I think that covers most of the major crimes and misdemeanors.
2. Innocent until proven guilty is a legal fiction. (One I believe strongly in). It has everything to do with the legal consequences of facts and nothing to do with the existence of the facts. Mr. Ignatow was just as guilty before the evidence was found as he was after. The only difference is that he was presumed innocent, tried with insufficient evidence, acquitted, and jeopardy had therefore attached. The our justice system has more to do with preserving rights than determining the truth. We keep true information from jurors all the time. Not because it's unfairly prejudicial, but because it wasn't properly obtained. My point is that a fact remains true regardless of the outcome of a trial. Harry's actions and intents are facts. We have a word for that constellation of facts. That word is murder.The idea of murder is a social construction. Killing is killing. Ignatow's case demonstrates a hindsight fallacy. Nobody knew for certain what had happened, prior to the photographs being found. The defense and the prosecution told the jury the story of the crime as seen from two different viewpoints, and the jury ended up believing the defense. The photograph told the true story, but that was after the fact.
Harry's blood has shown up at multiple crime scenes, including the scene of his attempted suicide by murder. If police took samples, submitted them to a state lab for testing and cataloging, and kept proper chain of custody, they would likely question Dresden about Cassius' murder. But as long as no one talks, getting a conviction would be near impossible. If Dresden, Butters, Michael, or maybe Murphy talked (I still don't recall if he confessed to her), a prosecutor would have a case that would likely end up in front of a jury. I find prosecutors to be overzealous.
And Peace Talks still isn't done.
[1.] However unless Butters was willing to testify that wounded and incapacitated Harry gave Mouse the command to break Cassius's neck or if Harry confessed to ordering it... [2.] What do they have? [3.] Point being, if Mouse felt that Harry was wrong in telling him to kill Cassius, he wouldn't have done it... Clearly Mouse felt as long as Cassius lived he remained a threat to his master and killed him to defend him..
1. I was responding to the question of why the authorities would connect Dresden to the scene.
You're arguing with a point I didn't make, with a point I did make. My point is that the police have sufficient evidence to connect Dresden to the scene, and, without more, that's it.