What is a “Destroyer”?

[SerScot]

So, I’m at TC in my current re-read and I just re-read Morgan’s Microfiction.  Is a “destroyer” something specific or is that just how any horror born of Nemsis is referred to.  Why would Morgan make a promise to protect MaggieSr’s son.  Was it limited to Harry would Morgan’s attitude toward Thomas have changed had he knew Thomas’s parantage.

Discuss.

Here’s a link to the “MicroFiction”:

https://www.jim-butcher.com/posts/2020/morgan-microfiction-rpg-art-and-more

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Harry is a Starborn, with the potential to be a Saviour or a Destroyer

[SerScot]

Harry is a Starborn, with the potential to be a Saviour or a Destroyer

That seems overly simple. 

[g33k]

That seems overly simple.

Ant that, in turn, seems like Harry.   

[morriswalters]

It could be a reference to Shiva or the Thor in Marvel.  It's at least in the realm of the possible that we seen glances of him at various times. In particular when the Curse in triggered in Changes and Harry looses two minutes. Also during his berserk rages such as when Murphy is killed and he uses lightning.

[Mira]

It could be a reference to Shiva or the Thor in Marvel.  It's at least in the realm of the possible that we seen glances of him at various times. In particular when the Curse in triggered in Changes and Harry looses two minutes. Also during his berserk rages such as when Murphy is killed and he uses lightning.

Still too simple, yeah a powerful wizard having an emotional violent reaction to his beloved being senselessly killed before his eyes can do a lot of damage.... You might even call him a destroyer, but is he?  He can destroy, true, but I think your example is a poor one because of the context.  To be a true destroyer in my opinion, it takes planning..  It is more like damage verses collateral damage, a destroyer will plan to flatten that hospital, verses someone trying to take out a missile site and a hospital is accidentally destroyed on the process.. Either way the hospital is screwed, but in the first case it was done deliberately by a destroyer, and the other was done accidentally by some capable of destroying, but isn't a destroyer.

[g33k]

Still too simple, yeah a powerful wizard having an emotional violent reaction to his beloved being senselessly killed before his eyes can do a lot of damage.... You might even call him a destroyer, but is he?  He can destroy, true, but I think your example is a poor one because of the context.  To be a true destroyer in my opinion, it takes planning..  It is more like damage verses collateral damage, a destroyer will plan to flatten that hospital, verses someone trying to take out a missile site and a hospital is accidentally destroyed on the process.. Either way the hospital is screwed, but in the first case it was done deliberately by a destroyer, and the other was done accidentally by some capable of destroying, but isn't a destroyer.

I think a Destroyer has to be a Starborn.
With the right impetus, any wizard in the grip of rage & despair might Open the Outer Gates.
A Starborn... who knows?
Maybe they can open the Outer Gates such that nobody can close them again, or summon all the Walkers at once, or summon ranks above even the Wakers, or...?

We don't know much about the Starborn; only that they wield power over the Outsiders that other wizards cannot.
Limits to Starborn power?  No clue...

We saw in Changes, how Harry cold-bloodedly used Molly -- used her love for him -- to guilt her into a violently self-destructive spiral; if Harry's plan (for her to assist his suicide) had succeeded, Molly would have died, or gone full-warlock.  After the fact (in Ghost Story and in Cold Days) he realized how wrong -- how evil -- that was.  But he knew before that, when he asked her; he just wouldn't/couldn't allow himself to look the facts in the face, because he "needed" her to do that.

We saw him ready willing & able to do murder after Rudy shot Murphy; only the KotC's (all of them together!) saved him (I still think this is evidence of Denarian influence on Harry).

So yeah, I think if Harry "snaps," and brings all his power to bear, and if the Starborn thing can leverage the way I suspect... Harry would be capable of making the Harry-Prime universe one that simply has to get Pruned (by Uriel etc).

Destroyer enuf 4 me !
 

[Mira]

We saw in Changes, how Harry cold-bloodedly used Molly -- used her love for him -- to guilt her into a violently self-destructive spiral; if Harry's plan (for her to assist his suicide) had succeeded, Molly would have died, or gone full-warlock.  After the fact (in Ghost Story and in Cold Days) he realized how wrong -- how evil -- that was.  But he knew before that, when he asked her; he just wouldn't/couldn't allow himself to look the facts in the face, because he "needed" her to do that.

You gotta look at the context though, I am not saying what Harry did wasn't wrong, but he also wasn't in his right mind, "and it is all your fault".  Let us not forget that one of the Fallen had screwed with his head, that is why Uriel was able to attempt to set him straight in Ghost Story.  Was he all that different from someone suffering from a painful terminal illness asking a loved one to put him out of his misery? And yeah, that loved one often complies and pays a price.  Harry asked Molly because she was the only one who could.  He asked her because he feared that Mab would turn him into a monster, a destroyer, it was Uriel's seven words that negated that.. Also Molly was no child when she assisted Harry, she was an adult able to make her own decisions. 

[morriswalters]

You don't ask your friends to lie for you.  You don't use other peoples children to do what you can't do  yourself. Most concisely in the case of the fictional character Harry Dresden you shut up an quit talking out of both sides of your mouth. Don't preach one thing and then do something else.  This is just what Butcher has Harry say about Eb when they  fall out in the early books.

[g33k]

You gotta look at the context though, I am not saying what Harry did wasn't wrong, but he also wasn't in his right mind...

You gotta look at the context, though, he already knew she was in love with him (i.e. willing to put his interests above her own (that being one of the key elements of "love")); and he was in a right-enough mind to come up with a plan to outmaneuver Mab and emotionally-manipulate a talented mind-mage.

... Also Molly was no child when she assisted Harry, she was an adult able to make her own decisions.

How old was she, really?  Legally an "adult" by mortal-law standards (I think), but
 (a) mortal law gives kids their "majority" when science tells us their brains (& judgement) aren't fully-formed; &
 (b) in other contexts, Harry has been very clear that he considers Molly "just a kid," barely past the pigtails-and-braces phase he recalls (and cites) so clearly.
So, Harry doesn't think of her as an adult... but he knowingly inflicts the kinds of emotional trauma that even adults will have trouble with.

[Mira]

You gotta look at the context, though, he already knew she was in love with him (i.e. willing to put his interests above her own (that being one of the key elements of "love")); and he was in a right-enough mind to come up with a plan to outmaneuver Mab and emotionally-manipulate a talented mind-mage.

You make it sound like Harry planned it all out.. His situation was desperate and he had few or no options.
Yes, he knew that she loved him, he also knew she was the only one able to and willing to block his mind.  Also Molly was an adult, she may not have known that doing this would hurt her as well, however I doubt that she'd think that she wouldn't pay a price for doing it.  She knew Harry's fears about becoming Mab's monster, and shared them. Neither thought through the consequences.

How old was she, really?  Legally an "adult" by mortal-law standards (I think), but
 (a) mortal law gives kids their "majority" when science tells us their brains (& judgement) aren't fully-formed; &
 (b) in other contexts, Harry has been very clear that he considers Molly "just a kid," barely past the pigtails-and-braces phase he recalls (and cites) so clearly.
So, Harry doesn't think of her as an adult... but he knowingly inflicts the kinds of emotional trauma that even adults will have trouble with.

It doesn't matter how Harry thinks of her, Molly wasn't a child, and in earlier books when she actually was a child she showed she was capable of some pretty mature thinking.  She has also shown that she is capable of some independent thinking as well.  I am thinking of the time in Turn Coat when she knowingly put both her head and Harry's head on the line by trying to go into Morgan's head and Luccio's as well. 

Harry also loves Molly I might add, and if he knew what asking her to do would have such a negative effect on her, he wouldn't have asked her to do it. 

[morriswalters]

I stared at her for a minute. Then I said, in a very quiet voice, “I always know when I’m being tempted to do something very, very wrong. I start sentences with phrases like, ‘I would never, ever do this—but.’ Or ‘I know this is wrong but.’ It’s the but that tips you off.”

I said, quietly. “And I feel like an utter bastard for asking this of you, grasshopper. But I don’t have anyone else to ask.”

Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 537). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[Mira]

  In that first quote from Turn Coat, if I remember correctly Molly had been trying to justify what she had done to Morgan, and that is how Harry answered her.  Because there was no justification for what she had done except she thought it was the right thing, she hadn't learned anything from what happened to her friends after she went into their minds.

As to the other, Harry had no one else to ask.

[g33k]

You make it sound like Harry planned it all out ...

Yes and no.
It was proximately Ariana -- and ultimately Martin, I think -- who had "planned it all out;" not Harry.

No blame attaches to Harry for all the F'ed-up steps like kidnapping a little girl, setting up a massive sacrificial rite at Chichen Itza, etc.

And yet...

The whole idea of becoming the Winter Knight, arranging his own death, and having Molly hide the memory of it... that was all Harry.  It was pushed toward the despairing side of things (i.e. suicide) by the Infernal whisper, but yes:  the plan was 100% Harry (just from his darker & more destructive impulses, without any of the optimism he usually has).  That part of it, yes:  Harry planned it all out.

The aftermath, where Molly spirals toward her own self-destruction?
Harry knew that (or something like it) would inevitably follow.  But he kept it at the back of his mind, and vague; he refused to look at it, refused to consider the consequences for Molly.  After all, then he'd be dead, so it wouldn't be his problem anymore!

And that too was part of his "planning it out."

[g33k]

... As to the other, Harry had no one else to ask.

That doesn't mean he was entitled to ask Molly, either.