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raises hand* Sorry to interrupt but, it's a "kangaroo court" an idiom? I had never heard of it. I imagine for context that it is a mock court, something for appearances, but I am intrigued.
Would the modern WC -- with the lessons learned -- use the luxury of time & resources (they had in prior decades) to "catch those babies", if they had such luxuries today? No telling, I think.
To be clear, I mean specifically the Whamp-mojo kind of "enthrallment," not just the normal "honeymoon phase" hot-new-romance "they're enthralled with their new lover" kind.
Unless Papa Raith took pains not to enthrall her, the things we have seen tend to suggest that Maggie would inevitably have become enthralled... And we have little-to-no evidence tht Raith would have been motivated not to.
If not, how the hell not? Per WoJ, she was having "lots of awesome vampire sex" which seems to make an enthrallment a pretty foregone conclusion! Had she figured out some magical "solution" that Raith (who was (at the time) the strongest Whampire in the world, & at the height of his prowess!) somehow couldn't bypass??!?
But then if (as frankly seems nigh-inevitable) she was enthralled... how did she break free? She didn't meet & fall in love with Malcolm until later! And letting one of your thralls run free is a real "n00b error" that I cannot see from Raith (at that point (q.v. "strongest Whampire in the world" and "at the height of his prowess") in his life). I actually do have an idea, here: it was Lea. We know that Maggie was already "LaFey" and with an extensive suite of Fae info/contacts (presumably including Lea). And Lea's specialty was "inspiring mortals... to their eventual doom" per WoJ; it's "how she made her bones" in Winter & got to be the powerhouse we see in the books. Presumably Lea had the power to "inspire" Maggie to break free (I'm sure Lea's power beats Papa Raith's).
If I discover that I am under the loup-garou curse, and I don't take any precautions and I'm careless about the moon phase and so forth, then yeah, I'm at fault if the monster kills someone. Not as much at fault as I would be if I shot them with a pistol, but in that scenario I would not be innocent. A WV who wants to be 'good' has the same challenge.
I believe that WC vampires can change who they are and bring their demons under control otherwise the conversation that Harry had with Uriel in GS makes no sense.Harry is still trying to make an excuse for Thomas and kind of taking the blame for it. While Uriel isn't unsympathetic of the plight of Thomas, he doesn't come off the fact that Thomas does have choices.
“It’s hard for the half-born,” Uriel observed in a quiet, neutral tone. “What did you call him?” I asked. Belligerently. Which probably wasn’t really bright, but Thomas was my brother. I didn’t like the thought of anyone judging him. “The scions of mortals and immortals,” Uriel said, unperturbed. “Halflings, half-bloods, half-born. The mortal road is difficult enough without adding a share of our burdens to it as well.” I grunted. “That skinwalker got hold of him a while back. It broke something in him.” “The naagloshii feel a need to prove that every creature they meet is as flawed and prone to darkness as they themselves proved to be,” Uriel said. “It…gives them some measure of false peace, I think, to lie to themselves like that.” “You sound like you feel sorry for them,” I said, my voice hard. “I feel sorry for all the pain they have, and more so for all that they inflict on others. Your brother offers ample explanation for my feelings.” “What that thing did to Thomas. How is that different from what the Fallen did to me?” “He didn’t die as a result,” Uriel said bluntly. “He still has choice.” He added, in a softer voice, “What the naagloshii did to him was not your fault.”
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 560). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
From this, I get that it's harder for the WC, but if they still have choice, then they can be redeemed in some fashion. Where there's life, there's hope, even for a WC vampire.
He's not gone full Lloyd Slate, no. We still don't know how good or bad a person Lloyd was before he became Winter Knight, so it's kind of hard to judge how much of that was the mantle and how much was Lloyd being Lloyd.
But he did kill a sapient being pretty casually to make a point in Cold Days (at the grand ball). Granted, that's the Winter way...but still...
I do not remember Mab ordering Harry to kill Molly. Did she explicitly said that? In my mind she adviced Harry to do so.
This is super relevant because Mab ordering Harry to kill Molly would break the deal that made Harry the WK.
I think the key word is just that. What Shagnasty revealed to Thomas was that his 'friendly neighborhood vampire' approach was an illusion, that inside, he was still what he was, and that he had been that all along. His relationship with Harry, and his attitude, have returned to more or less what they were before, but now the presence of that demon has been revealed, it's been revealed that Thomas is a danger to mortals around him, that the demonic part of him likes being a predator, it's always there.
Thomas had been telling himself, before, that maybe he could change, stop being what he is, Shagnasty took that illusion away. Now he continues to try to be decent, to be safe...but the menace is never far away.
JB had to go back to at least a similar relationship to what they had before, if Thomas had kept on as he was in the immediate aftermath of the Shagnasty affair, well...that story only goes one place and it gets there fairly quickly. If they had gone down that road, Harry, or someone, would have had to terminate Thomas, or else he'd have become a full-on enemy and the brother-relationship would just be gone.
But the danger that Thomas represents, the nastiness that is the White Court with the facade torn aside, now it's out there. I think part of what JB was doing, in Turn Coat, was 'deconstructing' the then-popular idea of the Romantic Tragic Vampire, both with Thomas and his victims, and with the interaction of Lara and Madeline.
A WV that kills in that state might regret it afterward. I'm sure Thomas would have been wracked with horror and guilt if he had eaten Molly. But though he might weep over her grave (assuming someone didn't immediately kill him for it), Molly would be no less dead.
"Then talk to me," I said, urgently. "Thomas, Jesus Christ. This is not you."
"Yes, it is," he spat, the words a blended hiss. "That's what it taught me, Harry. At the end of the day, I'm just an empty place that needs to be filled." He shook his head. "I didn't want to kill those girls. But I did it. I killed them, over and over, and I loved how it felt. When I think back on the memory of it, it doesn't make me horrified." He sneered. "It just makes me hard."
And even with Harry, they're right a lot of the time, as we've been seeing.
Over time, Harry reluctantly came to the realization that the Council's hard-line attitude about warlocks is probably a necessity. Another time (I think it was in Changes), he finds himself musing about the necessity of keeping some magical knowledge secret, and then thinks with a start that he's 'turning into his teachers'.
There's a slight but important nuance here. I don't think true love hurts Skavis or Malvora but leads to or inspires things that do.
I mean... something similar is true for anyone strong or well-trained.
I'm no John Wick, but if I seriously snapped, facing someone untrained, I could kill them in just a few seconds. Anyone with a gun & a lost temper can do it even faster. Murphy talks about it with Harry, once or twice, likening her training as aikidoka to Harry's as a wizard; the danger that they both are, the training and discipline they both need.
In PT, Eb would have killed Harry, if Harry hadn't been piloting a Faerie Exosuit.