First law and were creatures.

[vultur]

See... that doesn't make any sense because the Laws have nothing to do with morality.

I'm not talking about morality, I'm talking about belief shaping how your magic works... I don't think WCVs inherently 'count', but if you *believe* they do the effect on your soul via killing them with magic might be the same.

"Classic" werewolves are just human magic practitioners. So they definitely count as human inherently; I'm just not sure whether killing one you believed was a natural wolf would stain your soul.

I cannot help but think that if there /were/ a solid line in the sand drawn between things that are killable and things that aren't, all wizards including Harry would know of it.

I doubt that; Kumori's actions in DB seem to seriously raise questions about the blanket prohibition of necromancy. I think the Council tends to steer well clear of messy issues and gray areas, and I doubt they encourage looking into them. (Also see: why nobody else ever animated a zombie T-rex).

As for whether the council comes after you, I think that has to do more with whether a wizard killed "one of us" or not.  It seems like the Council is pretty xenophobic.  Anything not human is not a person and a-ok to kill

Mostly, although I don't think it's xenophobia as such -- that implies the attitude is irrational. Thomas is a very unusual exception -- the vast majority of non-human intelligent creatures in the DV seem to be amoral, alien and dangerous to humanity at best. Toot-toot is also an exception, apparently, but he's *personally loyal to Harry* -- I'm not sure whether he's actually inherently any 'nicer' than any other fae. He seems pretty happy

(click to show/hide)

about being Winter

in Changes, and he kind of laughs about Slade's torture, so he's relatively amoral as well.

The Council's position about one-strike warlocks like Harry after Justin or Molly in PG is a lot shakier than their position toward nonhuman intelligences. If anything, given that they seem to claim some sort of protection of humanity, and given the levels of supernatural predation Harry suggests in DB, they're arguably not hitting the ghouls and vampires

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well, until Changes

and such as hard as they should be -- I've argued for a while that if they really *believed* their protecting-humanity rhetoric rather than just used it as an excuse for why the survival of the Council in its current form is absolutely necessary, they'd be a lot more proactive against supernatural predators. Given the situation we see in WN, where a pretty major operation *actually aimed at the WC itself long-term* would probably have been missed by 'normal' (=Not Harry) White Council Wardens till too late... I'm not convinced they provide any meaningful protection against them at all. So Listens-to-Wind's idea that the fall of the Council would mean humanity taken over by predators seems a bit questionable in light of this and his Senior Council position. (And if we're really to accept potentially tens to hundreds of thousands of deaths *per year* from supernatural predators in the US alone, in what sense are they not --already-- taken over? How many supernatural predators *are* there anyway?)

[BumblingBear]

The Council's position about one-strike warlocks like Harry after Justin or Molly in PG is a lot shakier than their position toward nonhuman intelligences. If anything, given that they seem to claim some sort of protection of humanity, and given the levels of supernatural predation Harry suggests in DB, they're arguably not hitting the ghouls and vampires

(click to show/hide)

well, until Changes

and such as hard as they should be -- I've argued for a while that if they really *believed* their protecting-humanity rhetoric rather than just used it as an excuse for why the survival of the Council in its current form is absolutely necessary, they'd be a lot more proactive against supernatural predators. Given the situation we see in WN, where a pretty major operation *actually aimed at the WC itself long-term* would probably have been missed by 'normal' (=Not Harry) White Council Wardens till too late... I'm not convinced they provide any meaningful protection against them at all. So Listens-to-Wind's idea that the fall of the Council would mean humanity taken over by predators seems a bit questionable in light of this and his Senior Council position. (And if we're really to accept potentially tens to hundreds of thousands of deaths *per year* from supernatural predators in the US alone, in what sense are they not --already-- taken over? How many supernatural predators *are* there anyway?)

We're going off on a rather large rabbit trail here but it's an /interesting/ rabbit trail so I will play too.

I think the only real meaningful service to humanity that the council gives is policing and killing warlocks.

With the vast majority of the world being "in the dark", several thousand warlocks running around, killing and doing just about anything they please would be chaos.

Additionally, after humanity all collectively became "clued in", there would be mass paranoia and panic since a dark practitioner doesn't look any different than Larry or Beth down the street.

What the White Council does  is enforce a loose code of ethics on high level magic practitioners.  This gives a level of credibility to those affiliated with the White Council.  In many ways, the Council is like an elite practitioner's union.  If a wizard is a member of the White Council, one can be reasonably sure that said wizard is not going to make your head explode for no good reason.

Other than that... it seems like Harry is one of the only wizards around who is actually fighting the good fight and protecting humanity.

Then again, our narrative is through Harry's eyes, and he has two issues:
1. A martyr complex
2. An overwhelming animosity towards the Council in general and it's leadership in particular.  Harry is still not all that high ranking despite his power.  I highly doubt he knows everything that the wardens do in the US, much less in the rest of the world.

I'm not an apologist for the council.  I think they're a bunch of selfish bastards who hoard power and influence for themselves.  That said, perhaps they are not the bastion against the dark they like to believe themselves to be, but they are at least a fairly powerful force that any alien power would have to get rid of first before making a blanket power play on the whole world.

[Drachasor]

I'm not talking about morality, I'm talking about belief shaping how your magic works... I don't think WCVs inherently 'count', but if you *believe* they do the effect on your soul via killing them with magic might be the same.

By the rules accidental killing counts (that's what it recommends, generally speaking*).  Killing non-humans like Fae on purpose doesn't seem to count even if you consider them close enough to people.  So personally I think an explanation that goes beyond belief makes the most sense.

*They seem to make an exception for Harry.

[BumblingBear]

By the rules accidental killing counts (that's what it recommends, generally speaking*).  Killing non-humans like Fae on purpose doesn't seem to count even if you consider them close enough to people.  So personally I think an explanation that goes belief makes the most sense.

*They seem to make an exception for Harry.

Hmmm.

I know it's probably a pipe dream but it would be really cool to get something official on this.

I know that it'll probably have to wait until the whole series is done, though.

[Bruce Coulson]

We have several sets of Laws.

Consider that Morgan was prepared to give Harry a hard time over summoning a minor Fae, despite the fact that (according to the RPG) such an act does not contravene any Law.  Nor has there ever been a suggestion that such an act could possibly impose the Lawbreaker power.

So.  We have the Laws as written (per the books), the Laws as enforced (per the books), and the Laws in the RPG.  There are some common areas of agreement (killing regular humans with Magic is Bad) but some areas where the Laws conflict and contradict.  (And the fact that in the books, the Laws of Magic; unlike the Unseelie Accords; do appear to have a spirit as well as a letter of the law.)

My opinion/take on this.  The basic Laws are generally understood statements of meta-physical reality; rules of thumb on what is bad for a mortal practitioner to start doing.  (Sort of like natural philosophy as opposed to Newtonian physics; you don't need to know the math behind gravity, or the Laws of Motion, to understand falling off a cliff is a Bad Idea.)  The Laws as enforced are White Council edicts.  They can be rigidly and narrowly interpreted when dealing with political outsiders or those who have angered the White Council.  Contrariwise, they can be broadly interpreted for political favorites or when the situation seems to require this.  (What would the White Council have done to Harry, had it not been clear that the Red Court was spoiling for a war and a casus belli?)  The Laws in any given game will fit the requirements of the group playing.

So, the White Council does have the right basic idea; enforcing the Laws of Magic.  However, over time this has been used as a means to gain and retain power over mortal practitioners, and the regard for the 'Laws of Magic' is as much political as it is a reflection of reality (crazed wizards doing whatever they can for power Would Be Bad).  Supporters of the current regime can argue that without the Council, things would be much worse, and who's going to stop all these warlocks if the Council collapses?  The opponents (if they dared to voice an opinion) would argue that the very perversion of the Laws to maintain power rather than protecting humanity reflects a darkness within the Council.  And both sides have some right.