Hey Mr. Death, I just want to start with saying this: I’m totally cool if this is just a debate back and forth. But I’m a little concerned that I might be hitting a nerve or be pushing too far. No need to turn a friendly debate into an argument. If I’m coming across as a jerk or something, let me know and I’ll walk away. No big deal.
Anyways, to answer your questions:
And, again: Is instant violence the kind of response that the rightful custodian of the Swords should have? Depends. Michael knew that Harry was the keeper of the sword of Faith in the same time period that he knew that he had touched a coin and was under a Fallen’s influence. Yet Michael never stepped in and took the sword from him. I think that Michael defers to the judgment of higher powers rather than his own, and I don’t think that the servants of TWG are as swayed by momentary actions as much as the heart and choice of the individual. They also have a different perspective than the average mortal.
Why would Butcher copy and paste the same exact things again? What in that paragraph applies to Bob but doesn't apply to the Swords? Good point. You may be right.
Tell me what text in the books indicates Murphy is "manipulating" him. Tell me what text in the books indicates that Harry should have the Swords in that time and place. Of course, you know that it never explicitly says that Harry should have had the swords in the text of the book. The only one who can determine who *should* have the swords is TWG, and we only see his will as expressed through his servants. Uriel can be trusted to reflect his master’s will; Michael, to a lesser extent – he
is human, after all. But it is to be noted that both Michael and Uriel both act with faith and trust in Harry, and so far that faith and trust has not been misplaced. Harry’s actions, while out of character, are completely in character of someone under the power of the Winter Mantle. The only thing out of character are the choices that Harry makes.
As for manipulating, I feel like you’re taking this in the “HAHAHA, I have you now!” kind of sneaky dark manipulation. Murph knows that Harry wants and values her trust and loyalty. She makes it very clear that she’s willing to give it IF Harry goes along with her requests. She doesn’t sit down calmly with Harry and say, “Hey, I’m worried that you have these two things, can I maybe hang on to them for you?” No, she specifically states that her actions will all depend on how Harry responds to her. That’s a kind of manipulation. Harry makes his decision knowing that he will win or lose Karrin’s trust by agreeing or disagreeing with her. She even poses that question directly to Dresden right before he submits – if you want my trust, you have to give me trust.
Mab shows Harry later on how everything he’s ever done with Molly can all be seen as him manipulating her into being completely indebted and beholden to him. And it’s both true and false. Harry never
intended to manipulate Molly, but the result of his actions and choices was that Molly was in that situation.
You're acting like Murphy is making some kind of power play, when that's not the case. I’m saying that she’s doing her best to protect everyone she knows by limiting the amount of damage Harry could do. And she’s using her trust and loyalty as the lever to get Dresden to listen to her. Yeah, if my WAG is correct then it could also be some sort of dark play to get the swords in custody and destroy one in a totally legit manner, but that’s a WAG.
That the two exchanges happen more than a year apart and that Harry's mindset and control of the Mantle are in very different places is not a matter of opinion. They're observable, explicit fact. Very true.
Michael did not see Harry nearly pound Murphy's head into the wall. Michael did not see Harry having to mentally hold back from viciously raping his daughter. Michael did not see Harry agreeing to "watch the world burn" to get what he wants. Nope. But for the first two, I do believe that Michael would see them as Harry learning restraint with the Winter Mantle. He directly addresses the last one in Skin Game, and acknowledges that he doesn’t know if he would do any differently.
Michael soulgazed Harry more than a decade ago. A lot has changed in Harry's life since then. True, but remember that the soulgaze is a view of a person’s fundamental self, and Harry has stated more than once that if a person has changed drastically since them they would trigger a new soulgaze.
Tell me how putting her trust in Harry is "letting fear and doubts" guide her. Because she’s
not trusting Harry. She doesn’t trust that he won’t turn evil – she doesn’t get that until Skin Game. At this point, she’s just at the ‘wait and see’ stage. She gives Harry a limited amount of trust IF he also surrenders these articles of power to her.
If my wife said that she trusted me to go out with my friends, but only if two really pretty friends aren’t along, then it’s clear that she
doesn’t trust me not to get up to any shenanigans.
That's all Murphy was doing. You cannot ignore that Harry is working through a lot of dark stuff in Cold Days. Agree with all of these things, and also with what Murph was doing. I swear, sometimes it sounds to me like we’re making the same argument. However, I do think that Karrin’s making the wrong decision here. Is it easier to make the right decision if your friends tell you that they have faith in you and believe in you, or is it easier if they treat you like you could turn into a monster at any point? Skin Game Karrin has a different opinion on the matter than Cold Days Karrin, and came to that conclusion seemingly independent of rampaging Dresden.
Butters sighed. “I see what you did there.”
“I don’t think you do,” she said. “It’s about choices, Waldo. About faith. You have an array of facts in front of you that can fit any of several truths. You have to choose what you’re going to allow to drive your decisions about how to deal with those facts.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can let fear be what motivates you,” Karrin said. “Maybe you’re right; maybe Dresden is being turned into a monster against his knowledge and will. Maybe one day he’ll be something that kills us all. You’re not wrong. That kind of thing can happen; it scares me, too.”
“Then why are you arguing with me?”
Karrin paused for a time before answering. “Because fear is a terrible, insidious thing, Waldo. It taints and stains everything it touches. If you let fear start driving some of your decisions, sooner or later it will drive them all. I decided that I’m not going to be the kind of person who lives her life in fear of her friends turning into monsters.”
“What, just like that?”
“It took me a long, long time to get there,” she said. “But at the end of the day, I would rather have faith in the people I care about than allow my fears to change them, in my own eyes, if nowhere else. I guess maybe you don’t see what’s happening with Harry here.”
“What?” Butters asked.
“This is what it looks like when someone’s fighting for his soul,” she said. “He needs his friends to believe in him. The fastest way for us to help us make him into a monster is to look at him like he is one.”
I’m not ignoring that Dresden’s going through some really dark stuff. I know how close he is to violence. I know that he relies on his friends to point him in the right direction. But he also relies on them to believe in him. I know you keep telling me to “reread Cold Days” or “reread Skin Game” – I know these books; it’s not inexperience that’s giving me this viewpoint, despite the large difference in our postcounts on this online forum. And Karrin taking the swords and Bob at this point is a clear display that she just doesn’t have faith in him to not turn bad at some point in the future. It’s as simple as that.
Karrin is who she has always appeared to Dresden to be when he’s seen her with the Sight: tattered, torn, worn by the world, but trying to do the right thing. I don’t hold it against her that she makes this decision; anyone else might do the same. But I’m not going to look at it and say that she’s doing something good for Dresden, because she’s not. She loves and cares for him, but she has a duty to protect others, and that comes first.
