What does the White Council Do?

[dspringer1]

I have read all the books and short stories and listened to a few of the forums, but I have to admit that I have only a hazy idea what the White Council actually does

There are some hints
1) They have a financial arm that trades in the stock market, manages investments
2) They have the wardens that enforce the laws of magic and defend the white council/wizards  (collective security)
3) They find and train powerful practitioners in the art of Wizardry
4) They have alliances, mostly with smaller powers who they protect. They have diplomatic relations with all the significant supernatural powers and are members of the unseelee accords. 
5) They are located worldwide, but the center of their power is Europe.  They are fairly strong in North America, much weaker elsewhere.   Less about physical territory and more about spheres of influence
6) Pyramid watching - although what purpose that services.

#3 is clearly the center of the their purpose, but #2 is also pretty high up.   But judging by Harry's life, the White Council has very little impact on the day to day lives of Wizards and relatively little impact on the supernatural balance in their community.    Harry upsets the balance (in a good way), but he is clearly an outsider in this respect. 

But none of the above really speaks to what role the White Council has in the larger supernatural community.   Maybe they are just a supernatural nation defending their own interests, but there is always this undercurrent that they (should) serve some larger purpose (humanity perhaps).   Certainly they are one of the very few powers (and probably the only powerful one) that acts to some extent out of a sense of human morality.   The other supernatural nations are all either very focused on their personal interests or predators or both.   I suspect it was no coincidence that the first nation targeted by the outsider attack was the White Council. 

Which leads to my next question - how much purpose did the original Merlin try to embed into the White Council -- and how far has the current White Council fallen short from that original vision?

And my last question - what allies did Merlin have (like Odin) that are still around - but no longer tied to the White Council's current agenda.  Harry is going to need to gather strength for the final battles.  Odin is one arrow in his quiver, but he needs more.    Given another future book involves professional wrestler who are ex-gods, that might be another way Harry gathers powerful champions for that pivotal fight based on the outcome of that book.    And Thomas is gaining reputation and power in the White Court -- which means he might eventually bring the White Court on Harry's side as well in the end days.  Perhaps bigfoot will play a role as well

[g33k]

I would argue that #3 is their main activity (gets the majority of wizardly attention), but not a main goal.

I think their main goal is the intertwining twosome of 1. protecting humanity by 2. suppressing sorcerors.  They train wizards simply to fill their own ranks with the strongest, and to keep them from turning to black magic.

Everything else is in support of that twofold goal, and/or the simple consequence of what they are -- humans, individuals with individual interests, long-lived wizards, being active members of the supernatural world, signatories of the Accords, and so on.
 
Edit:  also, don't overlook the sheer bulk of bureaucratic inertia that is the simple act of being the White Council; "being the WC" is probably takes up more WC time (in hours of wizards' attention) than any other single thing they (the wizards performing WC duties) do.  Wizard Peabody certainly didn't overlook it.

[Bad Alias]

On what are y'all basing your estimation that the WC spends so much time on training? Based on Carlos, let's say an apprenticeship is 15 years. How many apprentices would a wizard have to have before they spent a majority of time on 3? Let's say it takes them 5 years to find an apprentice if they're out there looking. So let's say ten apprentices. Do we know of any wizard who has had more than two apprentices?

I'd say the main purpose of the Council is enforcing the Laws of Magic. I base this on things like the conversation between Harry and Luccio in White Night about it.

[Mira]

On what are y'all basing your estimation that the WC spends so much time on training? Based on Carlos, let's say an apprenticeship is 15 years. How many apprentices would a wizard have to have before they spent a majority of time on 3? Let's say it takes them 5 years to find an apprentice if they're out there looking. So let's say ten apprentices. Do we know of any wizard who has had more than two apprentices?

I'd say the main purpose of the Council is enforcing the Laws of Magic. I base this on things like the conversation between Harry and Luccio in White Night about it.

That is the problem, remember in Proven Guilty when the Korean kid got the chop, the Merlin explained to Harry that there were too many kids with talent and not enough wizards to train them...
So they go warlock and get the chop... Part of the reason being the penalty is so harsh if the wizard makes a mistake with his or her charge, they both get the chop, most just do not want to take the risk...

[dspringer1]

I think we can safely say that being on the White Council gives you access to a lot of wizard training and knowledge, well beyond what you get from simply apprenticeship.   Certainly Harry has gotten access to many reference books and sources that the common want-to-be-wizard would never have a chance to acquire.  Harry has also received advanced training, although a lot of that was specific to the Wardens.   But I suspect whatever role you play in the WC involves some specialized training. 

[Avernite]

That is the problem, remember in Proven Guilty when the Korean kid got the chop, the Merlin explained to Harry that there were too many kids with talent and not enough wizards to train them...
So they go warlock and get the chop... Part of the reason being the penalty is so harsh if the wizard makes a mistake with his or her charge, they both get the chop, most just do not want to take the risk...

Eh, so far as I can tell that's only when the apprentice has previously broken the Laws. If you take them as apprentice before they do, there's no Doom to consider.

[g33k]

On what are y'all basing your estimation that the WC spends so much time on training?...Do we know of any wizard who has had more than two apprentices?...

Hmm.  This is a good point.

That I recall, the only wizard in the books with more was Kemmler, who had at least 3 (I suspect he had more, but sacrificed them as pawns during one of the White Council assaults).

Given how long a wizard's (potential) lifespan, they would indeed need many apprentices, if they are to spend "most" of their time on training.

That said, 15 years per is a hefty chunk of time, and it appears to be a relatively time-intensive process, so I expect they do more apprentice-oriented stuff than anything else, for the duration of the apprenticeship.  But yeah... 2 apprentices = 30 years, and for a 300-year-old wizard that's only 10% of their life...
 

[KurtinStGeorge]

I'm not certain we can say the White Council is very strong in North America.  They have four wardens and Harry hasn't been doing his job as such for a couple of years.  They almost certainly don't have much of a presence in Mexico as the more southern parts of Mexico were Red Court territory.

As far as training goes, it wasn't clear when Harry was at Luccio's bootcamp if any of the apprentices had a specific teacher.  Could the White Council have taken on the role of teacher to a large number of students rather than relying on the old system of individual teacher and student pairs?

[g33k]

I'd say the main purpose of the Council is enforcing the Laws of Magic. I base this on things like the conversation between Harry and Luccio in White Night about it.

Well, that's what the Wardens do.  Listen to a couple of Google engineers talking shop, you'd think "engineering" is all about software; but a couple of General Motors engineers would have you thinking it's about hardware; etc...

[Bad Alias]

Well, that's what the Wardens do.  Listen to a couple of Google engineers talking shop, you'd think "engineering" is all about software; but a couple of General Motors engineers would have you thinking it's about hardware; etc...

That's a good point, but the conversation has a lot to do with how it's all the Council does vis a vis wizards. There's also the conversation about it between Harry and the Merlin at the end of Chapter 1 of Proven Guilty. I read it as enforcing the laws of magic were always Harry's job and they are especially so now that he is a warden.

@KurtinStGeorge: I think that was a war time special. Harry does mention that a lot of the younger warden's, like Carlos, aren't really that great because they've had a narrow training.

@dspringer1: What makes you say that? Harry doesn't have much additional knowledge outside of his apprenticeship from the Council. I don't know of any special advanced training Harry has received. He has given special training to young wardens. Both at Luccio's boot camp and in AAAA Wizardry. There is mention of reports and wards being circulated during the war with the Red Court.

I think the OP question is a good one because we don't spend a lot of time dealing with the Council. Harry is probably the worst wizard to learn details of the Council from because he avoids it as best he can.

[morriswalters]

1,2,4.
Like Harry, wizards like secrets. However the Council does have a data store of some type, it pops up a couple of times in text.  Also the Council has published books when it has had a reason to.  Certainly Eb has, it's mentioned as a training resource, by Harry. So did wizard Peabody.

[ticonderouga]

In theory I think that the council's purpose was to:
1. Enforce the Laws of Magic
2. Defend the mortal world from supernatural threats
3. Find and train new wizards

The first two of these have been mostly relagated to the wardens, in practice the rest of the council pretty much just tries to keep up appearances and protect themselves against the other supernatural nations.

[Avernite]

I think, based on the Pratchett, model, we're missing Merlin's first purpose:
Prevent open conflict between wizards (especially spilling over into the normal world). After all, the plural of Wizard is War.

[g33k]

I'm not certain we can say the White Council is very strong in North America.  They have four wardens and Harry hasn't been doing his job as such for a couple of years.  They almost certainly don't have much of a presence in Mexico as the more southern parts of Mexico were Red Court territory.

I think the WC as a whole was pretty reduced by the war vs the Ramps, and the Wardens especially, of course.  I'm not sure that NorthAmerican wizards suffered any more (or less) than wizards elsewhere; but I don't know that they didn't get different exposure/effect, either.

The Red's old territories in Latin America became a (supernatural) power-vacuum, one that the WC was unable to exploit because they remained so short-staffed from the wars.   The last comments I recollect were that the power-struggles continued; but the Fomor seem to particularly be aiming at that sort of chaotic situation & power-vacuums, so they may be big in Latin America now...?

... As far as training goes, it wasn't clear when Harry was at Luccio's bootcamp if any of the apprentices had a specific teacher.  Could the White Council have taken on the role of teacher to a large number of students rather than relying on the old system of individual teacher and student pairs?

I think those were apprentice Wardens, and not an exemplar of how other non-Wardent wizards' apprentices might generally be taught.

IIRC, the "boot camp" model was a new-ish endeavor to fill the WC & Wardens combat-ready ranks faster than their old-fashioned methods were doing.

I would presume that they got some general training before their combat proclivities were clear, and we know nothing of their introductory "grade-school" training.  Maybe they were on an ordinary 1:1 apprentice:master track, before their master decided they would make good soldiers & gave them over to the Wardens' newfangled bootcamp.

We really don't know.
 

[noblehunter]

I think the White Council defends the mortal world to protect themselves rather than because it's one of its missions. Any power making significant inroads into the mortal world would threaten the WC's resources (infrastructure and recruits) and make long term survival chancy. Harry is an exception for going out of his way to help vanilla mortals. I don't think a WC oriented towards defending the mortal world would be quite so isolated from it.

My take on the actual purposes:
1. Enforce the Laws
2. Mutual protection (like squashing warlocks)
3. Train new Wizards (to keep them from becoming warlocks)
4. Settle disputes among wizards (so they don't turn to black magic to get one over on their rivals)

The rest of what they do is more or less derived from these. Worth nothing that the 0th purpose, like all institutions, is to maintain its own existence.