Also, why the adamant stance that Fair Folk lack free will? Certainly, I'd argue that there's plenty of evidence - even if it's not stated explicitly - that though they're quite strongly ruled by binding agreements and the like, they ARE able to decide for themselves what they want to do, so long as it's not contrary to their very nature. Not unlike people, really.
I mean, if you call out for a Seelie Noble, for example, without their True Name, they might decide that they're not interested, and refuse. And to quote the rulebook, "There is no guarantee the summoned entity
will behave how you want it to. You will have to bargain with the entity to achieve your desires."
Think about it. How can something lacking free will have the ability to bargain for itself?
Well, I personally don't think Free Will makes any sense. We're just biological machines after all. I suppose one could define free will as "making decisions internally unbounded by certain external coercion" but that's pretty murky water (there's a lot of gray area even with something like that). However, it is important in the setting and the game, and they define it...after a fashion, with Refresh and Fate Points, so when I speak of being X has Free Will in the Dresdenverse, that's what I personally mean. The setting rather defines humans as being pretty special in this regard, which does smack one as some sort of
Fantastic Racism, however as part of the Game System it is a nice way to empower Pure Mortals so it has merits in that regard.
In any case, "free will" isn't a needed part of most ethical systems. Torturing,* killing, mind controlling, transforming, and so forth faeries, godlings, spirits, etc is still bad. There's nothing ethically special about humans there. And yeah, if you are mean to any random thing that crosses your path, eventually you'll probably piss off someone powerful who is friends with them (or their lord or whatever). Morgan does have something of a point in the first book about what Harry does to Toot Toot...it isn't a particularly nice thing to do to someone....though, with how Faeries like Toot Toot are, I wouldn't say it is cruel either (it's just unfriendly, probably).
*Remember, torturing is bad, but torturing with magic doesn't break any Law for what it is worth.
In the Dresdenverse, breaking the Laws of Magic (if you're a mortal spellcaster) has a special significance, above and beyond that of a normal mortal breaking a Law. (1 and 7 can both be broken by a non-spellcaster.)
All I was pointing out was that breaking those Laws, even if you weren't a spellcaster, should be reflected by some change in the character. (Changing an Aspect would seem to be the way to go here.)
Well, Let's see, we can break One easily. Two can be done by barbaric surgical practices (but it is most often done in a nice way with reconstructive surgery, replacement limbs, etc), and we're advancing here all the time. Three we are on the tip of breaking and at least in a gray area with studies of the mind involving fMRIs and such. Four we've been breaking for probably thousands of years...enthralling is pretty easy for most people; give someone minimum food and water, significant physical labor, and toss in some propaganda and niceness. It's a pretty proven strategy. Five...medicine has been working on that for years, and we have greatly improved the ability to bring someone back after their heartbeat and breathing have disappeared. What was death 10 or 20 years ago, isn't necessarily death now. Not entirely the same thing as creating zombies, but certainly it would be a gray area by the Law, I think. We're also working on greatly extending the human lifespan, and that too would also at least be a gray area (confounding mortality). Now, Six is currently theoretically impossible to achieve. As for Seven, that just requires research, apparently, so anyone can do that and actually Break a Law, unlike the other things.
I think we've already seen some people possibly missing the point of that post. But Drachasor, I think you've got a really brilliant idea there. Essentially, as I see it, people are confounding two sets of laws. The legal laws that the White Council enforces; and the natural laws resulting from the pseudo physics governing magic. In the novels Dresden has repeatedly stressed that Magic is governed by physical rules such as the rule of equal and opposite reactions. So, while I can take a gun and kill someone, accept that it was necessary, and move on, that is not possible with magic. If I use magic to kill myself the very nature of magic will force a change in my mind equal to the change that my mind created in the world. The White Council, in an attempt to prevent wizards from descending into dark magic (i.e. those forms of magic which can pervert a mage's very nature and destroy their free will), was formed so as to constrain wizards' power. This is clear from Listens to Wind's (it might be Ebeneezar's, I can't remember clearly) speech about how the White Council wasn't formed to promote justice but to constrain power
Yeah, that's how I see it. The Council just enacted the Laws of Magic to reflect the Physical Laws of Magic where doing certain things with magic stains your soul.
