Who is the most evil character in the Dresdenverse?

[LordDresden2]

I took them lifting the Doom as indicating that he had obtained some degree of trust, at least to the extent that he counted as an official representative.

I do wonder whether the war would have started had Harry been lured into it before the Doom was lifted, or if the Council would have got away with saying "nope, he's not really one of us" the way they tried to in SK.

They probably wouldn't have tried it if Harry was likely to be repudiated, because he would be repudiated and they'd have to go through the whole charade again.  They LaFortier/Langtry faction tried to repudiate him, in Summer Knight, for that matter.

[LordDresden2]

Yeah, that's kinda what happens when you let the fricking faeries write the goddamn rulebook.

What 'let'?  I don't know that Mab was offering any other options.

[wardenferry419]

Appeasement is never a solution; it is only a delay.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Appeasement is never a solution; it is only a delay.

Viewing it as "appeasement" is most of the problem.

The Red Court and the White Council have maintained a stable peace for four or five centuries.  That's evidence enough that they can continue to do so.

[wardenferry419]

It is not a stable peace if one side is plotting the best time to attack the other side. Humans are vamp food; noone who is hungry likes it when their food gets the ability to fight back.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

It is not a stable peace if one side is plotting the best time to attack the other side.

It is if they have the slightest bit of sense about their assessment of the other side.

On one side, we have the Red Court knowing about the White Council for four or five hundred years, and taking all that time building up their forces to a point where even the most hardline of them think starting a war is a reasonable exercise.

On the other, we have Luccio in Changes noting that the Council has twice the combat strength it did before the disaster in DB.  Which took them about five years.

The Council can stay ahead of any rational Red Court threat indefinitely with a much lower growth rate than they demonstrate themselves capable of.  Therefore, stable.

Humans are vamp food; noone who is hungry likes it when their food gets the ability to fight back.

The most important datapoint we have here is Harry's conversation with Butters at the start of Dead Beat, which establishes that disappearances among humans in the DV are exactly the same as in reality.  Harry thinks that is supernatural predation because he is not in a position to make the comparison, but the DV is shown to have crime, and abusive families, and generally the same reasons real people disappear.  The message that conveys is that supernatural predation kills negligible numbers of people.  All supernatural predation, of which the Red Court are a subset.

Which doesn't mean they are friendly kittens.  But it does mean that for the White Council to spend time and enemy spent hunting them, compared to addressing much much bigger problems (the failure mode of not catching powerful warlocks early and firmly, for example, being on record as organising a world war), is gross negligence.

[wardenferry419]

Maybe I over-simplify things; but, I believe the best way to end a war is to kill the enemy. It ain't nice but it would seem to be effective. Peace is not two guys sitting in a room, sharpening knifes and cleaning guns. And that is about where the RCV amd WC stood with each other.

[Rasins]

Honestly, we don't know where the WC was in War prep.  We know they weren't prepared nearly enough.  It could have been a Rampire thing entirely.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Maybe I over-simplify things; but, I believe the best way to end a war is to kill the enemy. It ain't nice but it would seem to be effective.

Growing up next to a conflict that that sort of attitude had been prolonging for centuries has made me extremely unsympathetic to that as a position, and to fiction which presents it as an acceptable solution.

[forumghost]

Growing up next to a conflict that that sort of attitude had been prolonging for centuries has made me extremely unsympathetic to that as a position, and to fiction which presents it as an acceptable solution.

Which is not unreasonable when talking about human conflict. But this is the Red Court. They literally can only exist, thrive, and propogate through murder and slavery.

That is why they need to be wiped out- the very nature of their existence is at war with Human kind.

[LordDresden2]

Appeasement is never a solution; it is only a delay.

To be fair, it's more complicated than that.  You can find instances in history where appeasement worked, when the appeased power had limited or tangential aims, and wasn't just looking for an excuse or planning to go all out anyway.

But no, there was no 'off' option on the Red War.

[LordDresden2]

Viewing it as "appeasement" is most of the problem.

The Red Court and the White Council have maintained a stable peace for four or five centuries.  That's evidence enough that they can continue to do so.

Yes, they could do so, if both parties desired it.  But the Red Court intended war no matter what, they were simply looking for a way to pretend to be the aggrieved party.  Under those conditions, there was no peace option.  There was a 'delay hostilities' option, and if the Council was using that time to prepare, it might even be a defensible option.  But there's no evidence that the Peabody-influenced Senior Council would have even realized the difference.

[LordDresden2]

Honestly, we don't know where the WC was in War prep.  We know they weren't prepared nearly enough.  It could have been a Rampire thing entirely.

We have a pretty good idea that they weren't preparing at all.  The whole thing appears to have caught most of the Senior Council by surprise, probably they didn't even realize the problem had been brewing up.  It's the old 'the water gets gradually warmer' thing, the frog doesn't realizes it's in trouble until it's too late to get out.

Even without Peabody, the Council leadership had gotten complacent, used to the status quo.  Add in Peabody's (if he was the only one) manipulations and you have a White Council caught totally off-guard, completely absorbed in its own business and internal power struggles.

[Arjan]

Regardless how weak the council really was it was looking weak and it was acting weak and that attracts vultures. The red court was expanding and states can only expand by looking for victims, that is how states expanded in the past and supernatural states are old school.

That behaviour between states had become somewhat less prevalent lately because war has become more and more expensive in all respects and bigger states don’t let smaller states get away with it but it still happens if states can get away with it. It used to be quite normal. And the supernatural world is old style.

If the red court did not fight the white council in the past it simply meant the circumstances were different. They probably did not meet each other that often or the red court had other things to do. Their social structure was certainly one that was more geared for war than the council’s

[wardenferry419]

Growing up next to a conflict that that sort of attitude had been prolonging for centuries has made me extremely unsympathetic to that as a position, and to fiction which presents it as an acceptable solution.

You have my sympathies for your experiences; but, I tend to be a less-than-subtle and often expeditious in my thinking.