Quote from the story:

"The Venatori Umbrorum were a secret society of their own, steeped in the occult, quietly working against the supernatural forces that threatened humanity.  "

"the Thule Society was more or less a long-time foe, using their resources to attempt to use supernatural powers to their own benefit"

Kemmler, and Grevane were members of this Thule Society.  Luccio knew who they were as well, which makes me wonder something.  As commander of the Wardens it's almost certain that Eb knows about them too, and yet he lets Harry call them the Black Council and didn't share with him who the Thule Society is...  I guess it's possible he believed them destroyed, but seems unlikely.  He's too smart to believe they are completely gone, so why not tell Harry?  Perhaps he hasn't connected that the Thule Society is the Black Council?  Again, seems unlikely he wouldn't make the connection.

Anyways what do you think?  Maybe the Black Council is not the Thule Society but it seems likely to me.


Don't know if this is of importance because of the timeline issues:

The Thule Society (/ˈtuːlə/; German: Thule-Gesellschaft), originally the Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum ("Study Group for Germanic Antiquity"), was a German occultist and völkisch group in Munich right after World War I, named after a mythical northern country from Greek legend.

They are tied to Nazi's and Kemmler was supposed to be involved with the both world wars.

It's not likely that the Thule Society is the Black Council per se.  There may be extensive overlap in terms of membership, but the Thule Society isn't likely to be any great secret to the Council.  The Thule Society were indeed tied up in the foundation of the Nazi movement, too.  They aren't a secret as such, they're even publically known to exist, or have existed.

We don't even know what the Black Council is.  It's just a name Harry and Eb apply to their mysterious enemies, they could as easily have named them the Brotherhood of the Wombat, either name would be as good as the other for an unknown group.  (Though the phrase 'black council' is so natural that it's obvious other people use it, Morgan had heard it used as he revealed in Turn Coat, so has the Merlin.)

There's a body called the Circle, that's their own name for themselves, but all we know about them is that they exist, and that information comes through Madrigal Raith and his teammates.  Harry tends to assume that 'the Circle' is what he and Eb call the Black Council, but he can't be sure.

Maybe it is just my jaded side but I would say that true love happens more readily with the young. Experience tends to complicate simplicity.

Actually, I would say the opposite.

The real thing requires some knowledge of who the other person really is.  Some experience of that person.  I would say you'll find the real thing far more often among old married couples who have been together for 30 years than 22 year old newlyweds who can't keep their hands off each other.

What young people 'feel' is usually not the real thing.  The real thing is not even exactly a feeling.  It's rarely passionate, though it can be.  It's more about what you give than what you get.  It can require that you give up the other person just readily as it can keep you together.  Often it's something that is as much about treasuring the other person's flaws as their virtues.

It's got nothing at all to do with what Madison Avenue peddles.

Harry and Lara are mutually blackmailing each other into a peaceful stalemate.  Pretty sure that both see the other as potentially useful, but extremely dangerous.

Absolutely.  Though I suspect the stalemate may be ending.  More and more people know that Lara is the real White Queen.  Either Lord Raith is going to break her control and become dangerous on his own again at some point, or the pretense will cease to be useful for Lara.  What happens then depends on what happens then.

Jim has occasionally given out information that turned out to be false or premature. 

Even the author doesn't always know for sure what's coming up later.  Details change, the story works better if you change 'x', or 'y' sounded good when you first think of it but turned out to be a turkey when it's on the page, etc.  Or the author expects A but when he thinks through the implications of what has gone before, he realizes that A no longer makes sense, and swtiches to C.

Also, I rate the 'canonicity' of a writer's comments based on the circumstances.  For ex, everything else being equal, I would rate a comment from JB on the board here as more 'likely' to bear out over time than a verbal statement in answer to a question at a gathering.  Why?  Because when you type a post you think about it more as you write, while a verbal comment may be more likely to be 'off the cuff', and JB (or anyone else) might think half an hour later: "Hey, I just realized I said something back there that implies 'x' and 'x' isn't so."

Right after Cold Days came out I read an interview Jim did; which unfortunately I can longer find, in which he described a rather funny conversation Harry would have with Michael; which Michael wouldn't find funny, about Molly being the Winter Lady.  Harry would tell Michael that he would have to cut Molly some slack when he saw Molly wearing a very tight fitting and suggestive outfit because she was now the Queen of slutty faeries. Apparently Molly would be dressing to fit the image.  This would strain Harry and Michael's relationship and we could look forward to learning more about this complication in the next book. 

I could live without that happening, honestly.

I wouldn't call Lara Raith exactly a villain...   She is more of a predator than a villain in my opinion..

As I noted once a long time ago, we should ask Anna Ashe for her analysis of Lara's nature...but we can't.

Even her predatory nature only goes so far.  From the POV of a rabbit, a wolf is a villain.  It doesn't make much difference from the rabbit's POV if the wolf is not 'evil' in the larger scheme of things, any more than it matter from the wolf's POV that the bear that stole its kill is not 'evil'.  It's still a threat to be dealt with, it's an enemy because of what it is.  The prey isn't safe until the predator is neutralized.

Lara arranged for the deaths of Anna Ashe and the other minor practitioners (albeit indirectly) not out of hunger, but because it made sense as a move in the Game. 

The Supernatural "war" going on is going on in such a way that the normies don't seem to notice.

Oh, they've noticed it, they just don't understand what it is that they're seeing.  It's being chalked up to crime waves, gang violence, etc.

Hmmm I'm half and half on Murphy at the moment but to be honest, it started for me when she became "fun buddies" with a mass murdering mercenary. It seemed like such a hypocrisy.

For people who want to understand how Murphy's outlook has changed over the years, that incident at that time is actually high instructive.  It's not precisely hypocritical...because Karrin was no longer who she had been.

The first few books showed us a Karrin Murphy in denial.  She was willing to admit the reality of what she had seen and heard, that the supernatural was real.  She was also realistic enough to recognize that it was dangerous, to really recognize it, I mean, in her guts, which put her one up on Susan, who thought it was all a big game deep down.

But at the same time, she was in denial on two vital levels.  She would not admit to herself just how deeply the supernatural scared her, because Karrin was a person who needed control and the supernatural was uncontrollable.  She was smart enough to recognize that uncontrollability, but unable to admit to herself that she feared that.  Her fear tended to manifest as short temper and anger.

Related to that was her reliance on the Law as a comfort belief, almost verging on a religious tenet.  She desperately wanted to believe in the Law as something that applied to everyone, that protected everyone, that it could encompass the supernatural and that the supernatural could be handled within its framework..which was sheer, unadulterated nonsense.  But her fear and need for control and reliance on that comfort belief blocked her from admitting that to herself.

The big blow up came with Ron Carmichael's death, which was very nearly a direct consequence of this self-deception on Murphy's part.  After that came a period over a few books where the 'old Karrin' would periodically surface, and get knocked down by reality, and the 'new Karrin', humbler, more realistic, (and a maybe a little more broken) gradually supplanted her.

In Blood Rites, there's a scene where she and Harry meet Kincaid, that is key to understanding her transition.  She and Harry are about to engage in vigilante work, wiping out a scourge of Black Vampires...and their human thralls.  Now, to my knowledge, there's no law against destroying Black Vampires, since the legislators don't believe in them.  But killing their thralls, with planning beforehand...that's Murder One.  Think about that for a minute.

Karrin thought about it, and couldn't find a way out.  She couldn't protect the public from the vampires without going through the thralls, which meant committing first degree murder, by definition.  The law makes no exceptions for supernatural compulsions.  But if she doesn't do it the vampires are going to keep feeding and making new vampires and at least the theoretical potential for an exponential growth curve exists.  Mavra probably wouldn't do that, of course, but she could, and even if she didn't her scourge is going to cause tremendous pain, suffering and death.

Murphy had to work with a professional killer who impersonated an officer, because she couldn't do it on her own.  She had to engage in multiple major felonies.  She hated it, but couldn't find the loophole, because there was no loophole.  She even tells Harry about her inner battle.

Murphy: "I'm trying to adjust.  In my head, I think what we're doing is just about the only thing we responsibly can.  But I've been a peace officer since before I could drink, and this kind of cowboy thing feels...wrong.  It isn't what a good cop does."

Harry: "Depends on the cop, I think.  Mavra and her scourge are above the law, Murph, in every sense that matters.  The only way they're going to get stopped is if someone steps up and takes them down."

<skip a bit>

Murphy: The vampires aren't the problem.  I can fight that.  Glad to.  But there are going to be people around them, too.  I don't know if I can pull the trigger when there are going to be people around who could get hurt.  I signed on to protect them, not to trap them in a cross-fire."

Harry muses that there wasn't much he could say to that last.  Because there isn't.  There's no loophole and no way out for Karrin, unless she wants to turn around and walk away.  Even then, she'd be committing felonies by not preventing Harry and Kincaid from doing what she knew they intended to do (not that she could realistically stop them, the wheels were turning).

Nor is her reaction unreasonable.  A common first step down the road to corruption is rationalization of doing something you know you should not do.  That wasn't the case here, the necessity really was what it was, but the pattern of thought is similar.

Just before they struck, the Old Karrin put in a last desperate appearance.  She pointed out to Harry that she could arrange to have cops from all over the area descend on the lair of the scourge, hundreds of officers, heavily armed.  They could do it legally...but Harry had to point out what would really happen if they tried that.  She can't tell them the truth and if she lies and they cops go in blind, a bunch of good cops die or worse.  Further, even if the Law wins the day and wipes out Mavra's scourge and forces her to flee, the supernatural is going to hit back...and when they do, the 'victorious' cops are beyond screwed, and so are their families, their friends, etc.  They have neither the knowledge nor the resources to protect themselves.

(Which I suspect is one reason why a lot of the older Council members consider Harry's public stance and involvement with mortal authorities not just unwise, but immoral.)

She can be a cop, but to remain that at heart she must turn her back and walk away from the supernatural entirely, close her eyes.  She can fight to protect Chicago from the monsters...but to do so means she's no longer, at heart, really a cop.  Being a cop is just her cover, in that case, for her vigilante activities.  The conflict tears at who she is, and forces her to become someone else.  Blood Rites is when she makes that transition, after that the Old Karrin occasionally pops up, but never for long and less and less often.

The trip to Hawaii with Kincaid is hypocritical for the old Karrin.  It's not for the new one, because the new one isn't a cop anymore, not at heart.  It's also a sign that she's accepting that she's no longer who she was.  Of course, that's not all of it.  It's also about fighting her attraction to Harry and dealing with discovering that her ex-husband is now her brother-in-law and so forth.