Could the Blackstaff Cure a Warlock of Corruption?

[groinkick]

Yep. now you wanna uselessly cross over arguments here or what huh? don't like my idea? isn't that a shame....

Yeah that was kinda rude.  Sorry bout that.

[Arjan]

Eh....  Permission under duress might make it legal under the Laws of Magic. 

Knowing the white council it is probably a grey area you can get away with if you have the right connections but strictly speaking if the alternative is chopping your head off it is always under duress.

But I don't know that, if you know that it's under duress, you wouldn't get the taint. 

The taint and the laws are different things. There is some correlation but that is all.

And giving permission under duress doesn't mean that the warlock wouldn't be trying to resist it all the same, getting that conflict and psychological trauma anyways.

Now, if for some reason a warlock did seriously repent and want help, and thus cooperate and consent to that, things would probably go easier for everyone involved.

I think there are several seperate things here that interact and influence each other but are not identical.

The taint will pressure the warlock to do more things that produce even more taint so removing that will make healing possible but the psychological damage will still be there just like killing people with the blackstaff will not give you the taint but can still result in normal psychological damage. Just removing the taint would not damage someone. Replacing it with positive energy might even help someone but that is outside the capabilities of the white council as well. Mouse can do it.

[Wizard Sibelis]

Yeah that was kinda rude.  Sorry bout that.

apology accepted.

[vultur]

Such a process will surely be lengthy and draining on the wizard's energy (And mental health)

I doubt it, once the Blackstaff learned how to do it. Mind magic doesn't seem to be inherently super slow or exhausting - the Corpsetaker could do it against Harry pretty quickly in DB, the big mental battle in GS didn't take that much real-world time, etc.

There are a lot of warlocks compared to the number of Wardens, but there's only like 300 Wardens worldwide at best. I don't think the number is really that large in absolute terms.

And you wouldn't necessarily have to do it every time. They could still execute the really scary (eg Kemmlerites) and/or overtly malicious (eg Victor Sells) types. Just having the option for people who did black magic without knowing about the Laws and for not-obviously-evil purposes (like Molly in PG) would probably help the Wardens' relations with the less-powerful practitioners (and thus access to information) a ton.

I mean the issue with that is that if you start meddling with peoples brain-meats to 'cure' them they wind up like Molly's friends as their subconscious tries to overcome the brainwashing, likely driving this hypothetical Warlock even more insane then the Black Magic would have done.

I doubt it. It doesn't seem like mind magic has to inherently drive its targets crazy, Molly just didn't know what she was doing.

I mean Mab is willing to do it to Harry in Small Favor, and she definitely expects to recruit Harry as Winter Knight at that point (she says flat out something like "you will kneel at my feet and ask for the mantle"). So if she expected the results to be long-term incapacitating, she wouldn't do it.

OK, that was short-term, but Peabody was manipulating the Senior Council and Wardens for years (and with malicious intent, unlike the Mab example) and they didn't all go nuts -- in fact, there weren't any obvious symptoms. If they started showing mind-magic symptoms, the whole plot would have been exposed way sooner.

Harry does say something in PG implying that mind magic inherently works that way, yeah, but we know from GS (and DB) that at that point Harry didn't really know anything about mind magic. And anyway, at that point he's worried about convincing Molly that this is A Really Bad Idea.

[Quantus]

To the OP:  There are two possibilities, and Im not sure how much either of them are proven.

1) The act of Performing the psychic surgery on a person might itself be Black Magic, so trying to cure it would be Tainting. I think this would only be a danger if they were trying it on an unwilling Warlock, as opposed to surgery on a willing target (like the Council had to do a bunch after TC). Same way the Mental Break-in training they started was not tainting the whole Council, because they were never truly breaking into an unwilling target.

2)The Blackstaff item itself can Cure a Warlock.  This is very possible, but only if the Blackstaff is actually sucking out the taint (as it appeared to me in Changes) rather than blocking it's initial infecting.  After that the question is whether the blackstaff can turn that power to another target or if it only works on the Bonded wielder. 

[Mira]

    The way I understand it the purpose of the blackstaff is to protect the wielder from the black magic he or she is performing.. In other words it prevents the user from becoming a warlock..  In a way it is a bit of a "cheat" enabling the use of black magic, it also levels the playing field against a warlock or sorcerer by enabling the use of black magic..   That is why the wielder is selected with such great care, integrity is everything because of the temptation this posses for the wielder..  So can it cure a warlock?  No, unless you call killing one a cure...

[Kindler]

I don't think the black magic taint is the only thing that pushes warlocks over the edge; as others have pointed out, there's a psychological component. I haven't had a cigarette in ten years, but I still want one right now, and there is no physical component to that addiction.

It would require much, much more beyond removing the taint. They would have to fundamentally change who they are as a person, becoming someone who isn't willing to use magic to bend others to their will (or kill them, or whatever), and not just by realizing that it's wrong. Molly hasn't used black magic for years, but she still comes awful close to hitting Luccio in Turn Coat, saying something like "I wanted to make her understand." Molly knows it's wrong (morally and legally) to do that, but she still feels the urge, though she thankfully recognized it and stopped it.

Now imagine some good-intentioned talent went on a Fixing Spree to clean up the drug problem in a rehabilitation clinic. They go from room to room and screw with everyone's heads to remove their psychological dependencies. They keep doing that for a month straight before they're caught by the White Council—say they clear two hundred addicts of their addictions. Removing the taint from this do-gooder goes well, but they still want to help, right? To circumvent that, they either need to voluntarily not use magic in that way, through some kind of extended support group, psychological help, or whatever. Or, someone has to go into their head and mess around until they no longer want to use magic for that purpose. How could they do that without attacking their initial motivation, which was the desire to help those less fortunate? Wouldn't that make them a fundamentally worse person?

I mean, to me, it's like cheat codes or game exploits. You know the option is always there, somewhere in the back of your head, and when faced with extreme difficulty, it starts to look a bit more tempting.

The way I see it, the only way to reform a warlock is for them to set aside their magic after removing the taint.

[Arjan]

    The way I understand it the purpose of the blackstaff is to protect the wielder from the black magic he or she is performing.. In other words it prevents the user from becoming a warlock..  In a way it is a bit of a "cheat" enabling the use of black magic, it also levels the playing field against a warlock or sorcerer by enabling the use of black magic..   That is why the wielder is selected with such great care, integrity is everything because of the temptation this posses for the wielder..  So can it cure a warlock?  No, unless you call killing one a cure...

Of course you can cure a warlock just as you cure a denarian. At the end it is just a matter of free will however difficult.

But at the end it is not very likely most of the time so the wardens just assume that it is not possible or too dangerous and as a working hypothesis it works even if they kill a few curable warlocks.

The knights always try to cure the denarians even when that is dangerous but they are more idealistic and maybe less practical than the white council.

[forumghost]

Of course you can cure a warlock just as you cure a denarian. At the end it is just a matter of free will however difficult.

But at the end it is not very likely most of the time so the wardens just assume that it is not possible or too dangerous and as a working hypothesis it works even if they kill a few curable warlocks.

The knights always try to cure the denarians even when that is dangerous but they are more idealistic and maybe less practical than the white council.

The main difference there is if the Knights talk you into setting down the Coin you don't still have the Shadow sitting in your head whispering sweet nothings in your ear, you need to physically pick up another Coin.

If you decide to go cold turkey on the Black Magic you still have the niggling voice in the back of your mind going "Surely a little peak into her head wouldn't hurt" or "Fuck all y'all, Imma burn down this entire building, IDGAF"

I mean don't get me wrong, the WC are assholes. But... yeah they kinda have a point. Both our examples of 'reformed' Warlocks (Harry and Molly) have fallen off the wagon repeatedly.

They just got smart enough to not get caught.

[Mira]

Of course you can cure a warlock just as you cure a denarian. At the end it is just a matter of free will however difficult.

But at the end it is not very likely most of the time so the wardens just assume that it is not possible or too dangerous and as a working hypothesis it works even if they kill a few curable warlocks.

The knights always try to cure the denarians even when that is dangerous but they are more idealistic and maybe less practical than the white council.

I believe the Merlin explained it, that once past a certain point, the cure rate is next to zero...  Harry was caught in time, though he has struggled with using the black and has been called a warlock even now...  Molly, I fear would in the end have lost her head because she had a bad habit of slipping back into messing with other people's brains..  So Mab did both her and Harry a favor preparing her to become Winter Lady, it saved her.   Waving the black staff at a warlock isn't an instant cure or a cure at all.. 

[Arjan]

The main difference there is if the Knights talk you into setting down the Coin you don't still have the Shadow sitting in your head whispering sweet nothings in your ear, you need to physically pick up another Coin.

Sanya was surely cured and he did it himself. Cassius however was not even after he lost his coin. Centuries of whispering are not erased that easily either.

If you decide to go cold turkey on the Black Magic you still have the niggling voice in the back of your mind going "Surely a little peak into her head wouldn't hurt" or "Fuck all y'all, Imma burn down this entire building, IDGAF"

Actually Harry does quite well even with the winter mantle adding to it with a similar voice. And Molly did quite well as well even with the war trauma and the white ciuncil hunting her.

It suggests that if you get them early and they really want you certainly can have an effect.

I mean don't get me wrong, the WC are assholes. But... yeah they kinda have a point. Both our examples of 'reformed' Warlocks (Harry and Molly) have fallen off the wagon repeatedly.

They just got smart enough to not get caught.

All of those falling of the wagon incidents have been discussed here and none of them have been conclusive. They were all open for discussion. And given the stress they are both under I think that is quite remarkable.

And nobody said it was easy but to deny it is possible in principle is denying free will in the dresdenverse.

[morriswalters]

My read of the Black Staff was that it was attempting to corrupt the user while it was being used.  Almost as if the staff had it's own existence.  I don't think it wants to cure anyone of anything.

[peregrine]

While Harry certainly thinks the staff has its own sentience, Jim has specifically said that it protects the user from the inherent corruption of Black Magic.

The Council would definitely not give the power to kill with magic to someone who holds a tool that makes them want to kill more people with magic.

I suppose it might not work for someone trying to cure someone because it doesn't want to do that.  But it's very specifically not actively corrupting anyone.

[Wizard Sibelis]

While Harry certainly thinks the staff has its own sentience, Jim has specifically said that it protects the user from the inherent corruption of Black Magic.

The Council would definitely not give the power to kill with magic to someone who holds a tool that makes them want to kill more people with magic.

I suppose it might not work for someone trying to cure someone because it doesn't want to do that.  But it's very specifically not actively corrupting anyone.

citation on that, Harry has made no monologues as to the nature of the Blackstaff.
They don't want to kill more btw, the tool does. It's been described specifically as an insulation against using the cosmic powers it's connected to. Same wording used by the Hexxenwolf belts, that connect to powers inherent in the spirit's of rage. It can be non sentient but connect to a form of such easily.

[peregrine]

Changes Chapter 46

The Blackstaff itself pulsed and shimmered with shadowy power, and I got the sudden sense that the thing was alive, that it knew its purpose and wanted nothing more than to be used, as often and as spectacularly as possible.