Can we see Rudy take up a sword

[Mira]

Two KotC's -- the only two Swords with wielders! -- are there in one scene, one fight...
taking the field against Harry Dresden.

Fight against?  Or acting to stop and save Harry from himself in the emotion of the moment.   What Butters and Sanya did was no different from what you see in a sporting event when a player feels he was done dirty and wants to fight the guy who did it.  His teammates will do whatever they can to stop him from doing it. Why? If he gets kicked out of the game or a severe penalty it hurts the whole team and there is a good chance they will lose.  Now is that really fighting against their teammate?  Or is it an aggressive way of saving a teammate from himself?  I say it's the latter.  Harry was out of his mind with grief and anger after Rudy murdered Murphy before his eyes.. An angry out of control [understandably Harry was in that moment] isn't easy to hold back, almost impossible to stop, but they managed.  The influence of Lasciel?  Doubtful, more likely just plain grief and anger at what he had just witnessed.  Also let's not forget that Rudy had been on both his and Murphy's case for sometime, so very easy for Harry to jump to the conclusion that Rudy did this deliberately, maybe trying to kill him, but Murphy got in the way and died for it.  Fighting against?  No, just doing their best to prevent a critical member of their team from being thrown out of the game and thus making matters way worse for their team.

[Snark Knight]

Fight against?  Or acting to stop and save Harry from himself in the emotion of the moment.

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.

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.

My read on the scene was something powerful and knowledgeable, probably one or both of the Fallen, manipulated Rudy's mind and snarled Harry up from using his power for anything defensive for a few seconds.  But they were counting on the Winter mantle to take care of driving him to the actual revenge murder part.

Could saving Rudy for a future purpose have been another dimension of the Knight's purpose?  I think they were mostly there to counter the Fallen cheating to manipulate Harry into murder, but I guess a dual objective is possible.  I'd still be surprised if any future purpose Rudy was spared for is a knighthood of his own, though.  He's basically the Gollum of TDF - best I can see is doing some accidental good, then tripping into a (metaphorical) volcano.

[Dina]

Fight against?  Or acting to stop and save Harry from himself in the emotion of the moment.   What Butters and Sanya did was no different from what you see in a sporting event when a player feels he was done dirty and wants to fight the guy who did it.  His teammates will do whatever they can to stop him from doing it. Why? If he gets kicked out of the game or a severe penalty it hurts the whole team and there is a good chance they will lose.  Now is that really fighting against their teammate?  Or is it an aggressive way of saving a teammate from himself?  I say it's the latter.  Harry was out of his mind with grief and anger after Rudy murdered Murphy before his eyes.. An angry out of control [understandably Harry was in that moment] isn't easy to hold back, almost impossible to stop, but they managed.  The influence of Lasciel?  Doubtful, more likely just plain grief and anger at what he had just witnessed.  Also let's not forget that Rudy had been on both his and Murphy's case for sometime, so very easy for Harry to jump to the conclusion that Rudy did this deliberately, maybe trying to kill him, but Murphy got in the way and died for it.  Fighting against?  No, just doing their best to prevent a critical member of their team from being thrown out of the game and thus making matters way worse for their team.

I agree with all this, Mira.

[g33k]

  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 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.

[Mira]

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.

Under normal circumstances I would agree, however the murder of and dying in his arms of the woman he loved, wasn't normal.  Harry's reaction actually was a very normal human one, extreme emotion, grief, anger, shock, freeze, flight, or fight.  There was no thought process in his reaction, it was simply reaction.  It was Harry, reacting as a normal human, except Harry isn't a normal human, he is a powerful wizard and Winter Knight.

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 hints more-than-gently at Denarian influence.

No, it was simply that it took that kind of power to stop a powerful wizard/Winter Knight who was in that moment a very upset human being who was reacting with understandably extreme grief and anger.  When Murphy died, Harry simply lost it, nothing more, but when a powerful wizard/Winter Knight loses it, it takes the likes of two Holy Knights to first stop him from harming anyone in his state, then calm him.  You see it at a football game, if a three hundred pound lineman loses it because a guy on the other team got in a cheap shot, it takes several other linemen to stop him, then calm him.  It isn't something you normally see a quarterback or one of the smaller backs do, they just aren't physically strong enough to hold him back in that moment

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.

It wasn't angels that stopped Harry in that moment, it was his very human friends who stopped him, true they were better equipped, but in the end it was his very human friends risking injury to stop their very upset, but powerful and dangerous friend from doing something he'd regret later, and in the end harm their cause.

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

I don't think so either, in the end Rudy is an emotionally unstable person who is also in plain English, an asshole.