... the A.I. gave me this:
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<SNIP>
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This wasn't in the copy of Battleground that I read ...

Classic AI hallucination:  include a light dusting of genuine references, but placed in incorrect contexts for a surreal result.

... It was a warning, Harry took it as a warning, Harry was ashamed and didn't forget.  In other words a strong warning, and then Harry went on to try and redeem himself.  That's the point ...

No; the point is that Angels don't do that.

They do not "step in" that way, not even to "warn:"  not with an unambiguous Angelic-caliber "thou shalt not," not to influence mortals' free will.

That the Sword did burn Harry can only be a "warning" that a Spookyside "bad actor" is acting upon Harry; that his free will isn't entirely his own.  A free-willed mortal choice does not get an Angelic response or intervention.

... Or very realistic, between his adrenalin and the Winter Knight's mantle Harry wasn't going to come to his senses that easily or quickly after seeing his beloved murdered and bleeding out in his arms.

Hypothetically, the WK-mantle influence may indeed be sufficient to get a KotC/Angelic intervention.

...

Maybe...

But ...

1/ But also, nope -- Harry already made that choice, and now has to live with the consequences.  When he chose to take on the WK-mantle, Harry chose chose to eventually become a monster.  The Angels (once again) do not intervene/warn when mortals have made their choice.  You might argue that some mortal may have been "tricked" into taking up a Knight-mantle without understanding how it could mess with their head; but Harry knew it would happen, fully accepted that it would (as it turns out, he has a slim chance not to become a monster!).

2/ But also, why both(all) of the Knights?  We really don't see more than one KotC stepping into a fight for "just any" supernatural threat; and as "threats" go, a faerie Knight isn't exactly top-tier!  The most-obvious answer to "why are all the KotC's in that fight?" is "because they are fighting the KotC-archfoe, the Denarians."

= = =

I want to reiterate, here, that my "Denarian Hypothesis" here is actually my #2 choice, not my #1.

I think "it was just the WK-Mantle (with no Denarians) that triggered/enabled the Sword to act" is a better argument.  .. but also, I think there is a decent argument -- with supporting Dresdenverse lore -- to make a solid case for a Denarian Shadow to be involved.

  Yeah, I read that way more in the save Harry from himself sense - "against" is not really applicable.  The faithsaber burned him to *warn* him, after all.

Yes... exactly!  The faithsaber's angelic powers activated.

Again and again, we see Uriel explaining that purely-mortal actions and purely-mortal choices do not give the Angels any scope to act.

Nicodemus' cadre of "Squires" shot up Michael's house, broke in, grabbed Charity, put Uriel's mortal form at risk (with no Grace to save him!), while a bunch of literal guardian Angels stood by and did ... nothing.  Because the Squires were all mortals, acting with enough "Free Will" to be beyond Angelic intervention.

If it were just "Harry being Harry" -- mortal, fallible, flawed -- the Angel wouldn't have given Harry the slightest bit of discomfort.  The Angels don't stop mortals from mortally screwing-up.  The pain was a clear demonstration that, justified as his rage may have been, it wasn't just Harry being Harry; Harry was being influenced.

... I'm not sure I buy the part about intense anger indicating Harry still has a shadow attached to him after all, either.  He got a lot colder than when Lash was torqueing his temper, real quickly.  Seems more Winter mantle behaviour...

TBH, I agree with you.  Harry's symptoms were more "Wintery" than "Hellish," and we know the Knights might have a particular interest in opposing the Denarians... but they'll stand against pretty much any/every supernatural threat.

An enraged Winterknight certainly qualifies (and justifies the Angelic action)!

I  consider the "Lasciel's Shadow" theory a 2nd-choice to the "Winter Mantle" one, but also:  why not both?  I'm quite certain Lasciel knows how Faerie and Winter and Knightmantles work, and her Shadow likely knows how to work with "cold wintery rage."  Deception isn't "second nature" to the Fallen, it's their first nature!

And, I repeat a critical point:  not one but two KotC's, 100% of the Swords in-play, were came to stop Harry; who was, in the end, merely a Knight of Faerie.  Any one KotC could likely have stopped the Winterknight.  Both of them taking the field?  That hints more-than-gently at Denarian influence.

So (despite it being my "second choice" here) I find the Shadow not at all a distant second!

... My read on the scene was something powerful and knowledgeable, probably one or both of the Fallen, manipulated Rudy's mind ...

I don't think malign influence upon Rudy allows Angels to act to stop Harry.  I point again to the Squires invading Michael's home:  those Squires certainly were under Nicodemus & Anduriel's influence; but the Angels still permitted the attack on Michael's home, and for Charity to be abducted.

But honestly, my take on Rudy was that he was indeed "just being Rudy:" cowardly, panicked, deep in denial about the existence of magic, stressed to the edge of sanity because he's experiencing magic with his own senses and still refuses to believe.  And really crappy trigger discipline.

We've seen all of this before from Rudy.  And yes, this is perhaps the worst we've ever seen it... but then, the situation is the worst he has ever seen:  an actual supernatural army is invading Chicago!

I don't think it takes the whispers of a Shadow (or other supernatural influence) to explain any of shitty things Rudy does.

... We already have hints that Harry is one of the legendary Starborn ...

I'm pretty sure we have more than "hints" of this!
I think it's an established part of the canon.
 

  If murdered, who murdered Malcolm Dresden?  I know about ten more questions follow that.

My bet is that it was Lea (or maybe Mab) -- he died with a peaceful smile, so it was someone who brought images of Margaret with them.  Mab passed (at least for a while) as human (Ms. Sommerset) to the very-clued-in and very-suspicious Harry Dresden; so we know she can sustain such deceptions for a while.

Yes, the Shadow did in my opinion, the Shadow was Lasciel in Harry's head...

The Shadow wasn't actual Lasciel, nor Lasciel's presence.

It was a construct; built by Lasciel, but then independent & disconnected from the Fallen angel.
 

... We are told that Bonnie has all of Lasciel's knowlege, and Harry's as well ...

Yeah, about that, too...

Absolutely not all of Lasciel's -- not a literal Fallen Angel -- maybe all of the Shadow's knowlege.

But I don't recall ever seeing a definitive "...all of..." statement:  a lot of the knowledge, sure.
But if Jim took (for example) biology/DNA as the model, Bonnie will have a largely-randomized half-from-Lash and half-from-Harry (Lash probably was able to organize which "half").

But I'm pretty sure Bonea won't suddenly become (for example) Harry's Guide to the Starborn Phenomenon; I do expect she'll have some highly-pertninent Starborn-relevant info, though!