Author Topic: Peace talks excerpt indications  (Read 44923 times)

Offline Regenbogen

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #135 on: April 10, 2020, 11:21:37 AM »
When doing magic, you have to believe that what you are doing is right or justified. Maybe the "greasy feel" is, that one feels the evil intention behind the magic, not the magic itself.

Offline Mira

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #136 on: April 10, 2020, 01:45:04 PM »
When doing magic, you have to believe that what you are doing is right or justified. Maybe the "greasy feel" is, that one feels the evil intention behind the magic, not the magic itself.

That could be, it was in his battle with Cowl, where he talks about the greasy feel of black magic, he felt some of that about Cowl, however he said in their battle it was straight up, Cowl wasn't using black magic.

Offline Avernite

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #137 on: April 10, 2020, 05:56:15 PM »
Violation of the Laws does not equal black magic. Jim has said the Laws were set up specifically to limit power.


Dark magic has a qualitative difference. Dresden talks about this often, such as in Blood Rites when he feels the Malacchio. I don't have the ebook on hand so I can't do a direct quote but he says (paraphrasing) that he had always assumed that there wasn't really any truly evil magic, that it all came from the same place. But the Malacchio (Evil Eye - often associated with the Fomor fyi) that Lord Raith was using (powered by He Who Walks Behind supposedly) was of a different quality, something fundamentally wrong and evil.

Also, whilst the half-vamps are not mortal in the strictest sense, they are more mortal than Thomas. Food for thought, considering how many of them died to. And Harry murdered Susan on an Altar of Blood Sacrifice in front of her daughter, whilst also completing the ritual in doing so. And you're telling me it isn't black magic...

Half vamps were hit in their vamp half, though, not their human half. Even if their human half had lost the ability to live without the vampire.

And yes, Harry killed (not murdered) Susan. He did so with a knife, though, not with magic. Harry has straight-up-murdered RCV's with magic, though, and that never seemed like black magic to anyone (or he would've been kicked to the curb for murdering Bianca with magic to kick off the war).

So, to sum up, I think Harry used an evil ritual, but it was not black magic, and he used it for a good purpose.

Offline Bad Alias

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #138 on: April 10, 2020, 05:57:56 PM »
In the books Mab tells Harry that if he accepts the job of Winter Knight, that she'll forgive out the remaining favors that he owes.
Not in Changes when Harry actually makes the deal with Mab. We're warned in Changes that fairy deals are tricky. You may think you're agreeing to one thing when you're actually agreeing to something else.

I think that's an unwarranted expansion of the term black magic; sure it was death-fuelled, but no actual humans were murdered by magic there (they were murdered for magic).

So I believe it didn't technically violate any of the Laws.
It's implied that human sacrifice to fuel magic is a violation of the laws of magic in Dead Beat when Butters asks Harry about Corpsetaker's murder of the professor from the museum.

Offline Dina

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #139 on: April 10, 2020, 11:26:59 PM »
Not in Changes when Harry actually makes the deal with Mab. We're warned in Changes that fairy deals are tricky. You may think you're agreeing to one thing when you're actually agreeing to something else.
Precisely

It's implied that human sacrifice to fuel magic is a violation of the laws of magic in Dead Beat when Butters asks Harry about Corpsetaker's murder of the professor from the museum.
Yes, but I don't think there is a problem if the ultimate goal of the ritual is to kill monsters. Also, perhaps a technicality can be claimed, as Harry did not set the ritual himself.
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Offline Yuillegan

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #140 on: April 11, 2020, 01:51:06 AM »
Didymos - yeah the barbed wire spell was black magic. There have been several other instances Harry has encountered truly dark magic, mostly when involved with Outsiders, the Black Council and Black Court Vampires.

Mira - I think what he said was that Cowl's magic wasn't fully dark (like Corpsetaker's for instance), but had elements of dark in it, just like Harry's own.

Half vamps were hit in their vamp half, though, not their human half. Even if their human half had lost the ability to live without the vampire.

And yes, Harry killed (not murdered) Susan. He did so with a knife, though, not with magic. Harry has straight-up-murdered RCV's with magic, though, and that never seemed like black magic to anyone (or he would've been kicked to the curb for murdering Bianca with magic to kick off the war).

So, to sum up, I think Harry used an evil ritual, but it was not black magic, and he used it for a good purpose.

So if you hit a person with your car, and they get injured but in the end infection kills them in the hospital - are you less responsible than if they had died right there on the road? Harry may have only intended to kill Vampires, but by killing the vampire half of the St Giles half-vamps, he still ended up killing mortals.

I think you missed the point of Jim's quote...the consequences are cosmic in nature. Just because the White Council might not think something is a violation, doesn't meant he universe doesn't. Killing someone has consequences, both mortal and supernatural, whether magic is used or not. And should you use magic (including ritual) the consequences upon you will come from the universe - the black magic corruption is one consequence, and I suspect that getting your just desserts (the whole what goes around comes around thing that Michael talks about) is another.

The quote I gave is in response to a question about how it doesn't seem to matter how many Fae you kill with magic. Jim's answer first says "It hardly seems fair, doesn't it?" and then the rest of the quote about how magic morality works. So Harry killing Bianca with magic has consequences, just not necessarily all from the White Council - although I would remind you they were prepared to throw him to the wolves several times over it.
 
Also, there is another quote by Jim about how intentions matter but the ends matter more - especially when it comes to magic. You might of course disagree with that, but that's how his book universe works.

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But if the substance of the consequences of the act itself does not have its own inherent quality of good or evil, then how can the /intentions/ behind it determine a similar quality?  “Really, I was only trying to provide a better quality of life for my family and my employees.  It wasn’t my intention to destroy that particular species of flower in the rain forest that cures cancer.”  “I was just trying to give those Injuns some blankets.  It wasn’t my intention to expose them to smallpox and wipe out hundreds of thousands of innocent people.”  “I just wanted to get that book finished while working two jobs and finishing a brutal semester of grad school.  It wasn’t my intention to screw up the name of Bianca’s personal assistant whose death had motivated her to go all power hungry to get revenge on Harry.”

There’s some old chestnut about good itentions serving as base level gradiant on an expressway that goes somewhere, but I can’t remember the specifics right now.  :)  While I agree that the /intentions/ of the person taking action are not without significance, they carry far less weight than the /consequences/ of that action.

“I meant to shoot him in the leg and wound him, not hit the femoral artery and kill him, so I should not be considered guilty of murder,” is not something that stands up in a court of law /or/ in any serious moral or ethical evaluation.  You had the weapon.  You knew it was potentially lethal, even if you did attempt to use it in a less than fully lethal fashion.  (Or if you DIDN’T know that, you were a freaking idiot playing with people’s lives, something really no less excuseable.)  But you chose to employ the weapon anyway.  The consequences of those actions are /yours/, your doing, regardless of how innocent your intentions may have been.

Similarly, if you meant to drill that ^@#%er through the eyes, if you had every intention of murdering him outright, but you shot him in the hand and he survived with minor injuries, again the consequences overshadow your intentions.  You might have made a stupid or morally queestionable choice, but it isn’t like anyone *died* or anything.  He’s fine (at least in the long term), you’re fine, and there are fewer repercussions–regardless of your hideous intentions.

The exercise of power and the necessity to consider the fallout from your actions isn’t something limited to wizards and gods.  Fictional people like Harry and Molly just provide more colorful examples.

As for violating the laws of magic themselves turning you good or evil, well.  :)  There’s something to be said on either side of the argument, in the strictest sense, though one side of the argument is definitely less incorrect than the other.  But it’s going to take me several more books to lay it out, so there’s no sense in ruining the fun. :)

Jim

Bad Alias is correct in that human sacrifice as part of a magic ritual counts as black magic, both to the White Council and the universe.

Dina - the ultimate goal of the ritual is to kill. It doesn't care who. That's still evil. The quote I previously showed to Avernite starts with this:
Quote
"Note also the killing law only applies to Humans.
You can kill as many faeries as you want with magic.
"

Bingo.  It hardly seems fair, does it?

The Laws of Magic don’t necessarily match up to the actual universal guidelines to how the universal power known as “magic” behaves.
I have bolded the question that was asked to Jim that preceded his answer about how magic lines up. Just because you don't make a gun doesn't mean when you shoot and kill someone, you're any less guilty.

Offline AClone

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #141 on: April 11, 2020, 03:23:34 AM »
Not in Changes when Harry actually makes the deal with Mab. We're warned in Changes that fairy deals are tricky. You may think you're agreeing to one thing when you're actually agreeing to something else.
When Mab made the original offer in Summer Knight, she said that taking the job would eliminate the favors owed. When she asked him again in Dead Beat, she made it clear not only that the terms hadn't changed, but that the offer was still open after Harry refused a second time. She even said that she would give him extra on top.

"Accept my offer, and I will forgive your debt and answer all of your questions freely."

In Changes, Harry was accepting a standing offer. Mab didn't make a new offer, though Harry asked for one qualification.

The point being that if Jim himself said that the remaining debt was forgiven, that he was neither lying nor misremembering.

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It's implied that human sacrifice to fuel magic is a violation of the laws of magic in Dead Beat when Butters asks Harry about Corpsetaker's murder of the professor from the museum.

When they are talking about Anthropomancy? That passage says nothing about either a ritual, or a death being used to power it. The person is killed (apparently because they have to be freshly dead), then the practitioner pulls out the victim's guts uses Anthropomancy to read them.

If the question is whether Harry could be prosecuted for performing the ritual, that's a non starter. It's obvious that the White Council's laws and procedures are selectively enforced--as evinced by the fact that no one looked for Molly after Harry was "gone".

In Harry's case, his action served to rid the White Council of the Red Court, permanently and entirely. The Red Court was a huge, ongoing problem for the WC. I doubt that Harry's biggest detractors, even the Merlin, would have any interest in prosecuting him for saving their tails.

Offline CrusherJen

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #142 on: April 11, 2020, 03:39:48 AM »
I'm torn on the sacrifice in Changes.

The ritual itself is the blackest of magics. But Harry was able to subvert it, to take out a great source of evil in the world. And Susan was a willing sacrifice. She was willing to die to save her daughter's life-- and with the vampire side of her taking over, in a way, she was already dying. The reason Harry had to kill her was because she couldn't do it herself.

So while Harry undoubtedly accrued some stain of black magic from triggering that spell, I wonder if he might have received less than the total amount, due to mitigating circumstances. It was, in some way, an act of love... and I don't have the books handy at the moment, but I remember someone (Uriel?) telling Harry that if he acted out of love, he wouldn't completely lose his way.

I could be wrong, but that's my (half-formed) take.
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Offline Dina

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #143 on: April 11, 2020, 05:25:07 AM »
I was talking about the WC consequences of Harry killing Susan in a ritual. About the consequences for his soul, I am sure there are many but more or less on the same line as CrusherJen, I think there are things that soften the deal. Particularly Susan willingness. I am sure that is important.
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There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be. Someone has stolen a book (Terry Pratchett)

Offline Mira

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #144 on: April 11, 2020, 06:18:05 AM »
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So if you hit a person with your car, and they get injured but in the end infection kills them in the hospital - are you less responsible than if they had died right there on the road? Harry may have only intended to kill Vampires, but by killing the vampire half of the St Giles half-vamps, he still ended up killing mortals.
That analogy doesn't work  because it is more like someone deliberately steps out in front of your car and you cannot avoid hitting them. It is regrettable that the person died, but you cannot be held responsible for it because it was unavoidable.  Harry didn't half turn these people, he isn't responsible for that, the vampires are.  He didn't make the generational spell, the Red King did.   The Red King wanted to kill Eb by killing little Maggie starting a chain reaction, Maggie, Harry, then Eb..  All Harry did was reverse that spell when he cut the throat of the youngest vampire who used to be Susan..  With her the rest of the vampires died, the older half turned humans died of what they used to call "natural causes," or old age.   If Harry is responsible for that, he is also responsible for a lot of them becoming full living humans once more,  is that also black magic?

Quote

The ritual itself is the blackest of magics. But Harry was able to subvert it, to take out a great source of evil in the world. And Susan was a willing sacrifice. She was willing to die to save her daughter's life-- and with the vampire side of her taking over, in a way, she was already dying. The reason Harry had to kill her was because she couldn't do it herself.

When Harry took her life she was no longer human, she was full vampire, if she wasn't, the spell reversal would never have worked.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2020, 06:20:34 AM by Mira »

Offline KurtinStGeorge

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #145 on: April 11, 2020, 07:45:13 AM »
I doubt that half-turned Red Court vamps were still considered to be in the same category as ordinary mortals.  I think the White Council might have placed half-turned Red Court vamps in the same category as White Court vampires, and with good reason.  Neither groups would age, making them theoretically immortal and they were both essentially humans with a demon inside of them.  OK, in the case of half-turned vamps it was an infection of the Red Court inside of them, but that almost amounts to the same thing.  Both groups had superhuman strength.  Of course, White Court vampires had more and greater supernatural powers because the demon inside of them was fully integrated within each individual WCV, but that doesn't change the fact that the half-turned Red Court vampires were qualitatively different from ordinary mortals.  Plus, before the ritual at Chicken Pizza there weren't any known examples of someone being freed from the blood thirst of the Red Court.  And let's not forget they were all one step away from becoming full fledged vampires. 

So my guess is that when Harry completed the ritual which destroyed the Red Court, the collateral deaths of the half-turned members of the Fellowship of St. Giles wasn't considered a violation of the laws of magic.     
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Offline g33k

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #146 on: April 11, 2020, 09:07:06 AM »
... He's probably got all the raw power he needs for the BAT, he just needs to learn how to use it for maximum advantage.

I don't think so.  Recall how Odin just flattened him in Changes, with raw willpower.  We've seen no hints that Harry is in that league.

Mother Winter did it, too, in Cold Days... And although he used Soulfire to break the binding, it took a herculean effort (and doesn't seem to have phased or inconvenienced MW at all; if she'd wanted to, she could have just killed him before he mustered himself).  It remains to be seen if MW actually taught him the general solution to that Immortals' trick (the Red King & LoON's tried it, too (Bob helped break that binding); and Mr. Ferro, at Bianca's party), as part of powering-up the WK for the Battle To Come.

Jim has stated that -- all the way through the Dresden Files -- he plans to keep Harry as a relatively small fish... growing, yes, but always swimming into deeper waters, never being the Big Fish.  So Harry's gonna get more power-ups as he gets closer to the BAT.
 

Offline Mira

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #147 on: April 11, 2020, 04:02:09 PM »
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So my guess is that when Harry completed the ritual which destroyed the Red Court, the collateral deaths of the half-turned members of the Fellowship of St. Giles wasn't considered a violation of the laws of magic.     

   The human life span if all goes well can run approximately a hundred years,  some may go to hundred and ten, very few perhaps to one hundred and twenty, a couple have claimed to live longer, but proof of their actual age is sketchy..  So any of the Fellowship who were beyond a hundred years of age were way past a normal life span for a human.. No, in my opinion they could no longer be considered human, at least not normal humans.

Offline Arjan

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #148 on: April 11, 2020, 04:35:58 PM »
   The human life span if all goes well can run approximately a hundred years,  some may go to hundred and ten, very few perhaps to one hundred and twenty, a couple have claimed to live longer, but proof of their actual age is sketchy..  So any of the Fellowship who were beyond a hundred years of age were way past a normal life span for a human.. No, in my opinion they could no longer be considered human, at least not normal humans.
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Offline Mira

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Re: Peace talks excerpt indications
« Reply #149 on: April 11, 2020, 05:10:08 PM »
Wizards?

Well, wizards are not normal are they? ::)   But do we know of any half turned wizards that belonged
to St Giles?