You and I have a much different take. As of the time that the Gatekeeper made his threat, Harry had passed the trial and Mab would have given the Council access to the Ways. Harry was home free as far as the Council was concerned. Rashid had a clearer vision of the stakes. Assuming that Jim had made up his mind how the story was going to progress, then Rashid may have known that Aurora was nemfected and would have to be killed. This was Rashid's trial. I may be reading it wrong of course. Here's the relevant text.
Some speculation for fun. If Rashid moved against Harry, my take is that he's moving him in a path that preserves him for whatever. He'll kill him if he veers off to far and reset the board and try again. How's that for a WAG. I stole that off of Live, Die, Repeat.
The Trial would have ended at that point, yes. But Harry would have failed had he chosen to walk away then. As you say, it was a Trial set by the Gatekeeper. The entire point of the Trial was to test whether Harry was worthy of being a White Council wizard, at every level. While the Council at large would not have expected Harry to stop a war between the Courts, the Gatekeeper did expect him to try, if Harry was to be worthy of being a White Council wizard - in point of fact he had to succeed. Which is obvious in later books why - considering what impossible tasks are expected of Harry later on. Not to mention he had to survive. I also believe that Rashid was testing Harry in that conversation you quoted. He is testing Harry's resolve - offering him the easy way out. But more is expected (at least by Rashid's standards) of a wizard of the White Council. Of course, I would argue that he expects more of Harry than is expected of most of the Council. Then again, Harry is also a unique case with a lot of special considerations.
I think the Gatekeeper knows perhaps the best what could happen if Harry goes bad, and so he pays special attention to him. I think he has always been watching Harry and ready to nullify him if needed. I could see that by voting Harry out he is trying to protect him from the Council...but that suggests that Harry either needs to be free of the Council's restrictions (which says all sorts of bad things) or that the Council is going to fall soon and he wants Harry to avoid that demise (say the Librarians decide to end the Council, it might be good if a certain wizard is no longer associated with them).
I tend to agree that Rashid likely did not vote, he was likely at the Gates. Didn't Chandler once say the only wizard he saw less frequently that Rashid was Harry? Merlin likely held his proxy by rule. But...... more than any other wizard except Harry, he seems to walk his own path. He even said at least once it would be merciful to kill Harry. Never seen a weapon, and no indication he could take on the Winter Knight - Jim slipped and used numbers there - Harry is quite a bit stronger than any normal man, at least in this world. He can call that mother-lifts-car-off-child adrenaline in a six foot nine male body. have to assume he was planning on using magic, against the Rules. Could he see an advantage in Harry being cut loose? Maybe seen Mab's plan to marry Harry off - bringing the WCV closer to being allies. And maybe thus also adding Winter to the WCV if the Blacks kick up a fuss. Are all the Vampire Courts signatories?
Of course, allies are two groups with a common enemy - could even the Denarians kick in against Outsiders? The Denarians may want to possess and souls... can't do that if the Outsiders have them. Hey, look, Stalin was one of the Allies....
Martha Liberty - is there a senior council member we have seen less of? If she has comms she may have recon, and seen/reported Harry.
And yet, he has been present at every major vote around Harry. He was present at Harry's first trial, then in Summer Knight, then in Proven Guilty for Molly's trial, then Turn Coat for Morgan, and likely was at Chichen Itza as a Grey Council member... Just because Rashid isn't at Edinburgh a lot doesn't mean he doesn't attend important things...like Harry's expulsion from the Council. Considering how seriously he took it last time I can't imagine why he wouldn't be involved at some level. Even if he wasn't present, he may have orchestrated things so that the vote happened in the first place. He is well respected in the Council, particularly the Senior Council.
The bit about it being merciful to kill Harry is in the quoted paragraphs above (both Mira and I quoted that section). It's in direct reference to Harry being turned over to the Red Court should he fail his trial to stay a White Council wizard. Mira believes that it was more a judgement about whether Harry was a warlock or not. Jim has told us he is the most dangerous wizard on the Council. He and the Merlin stopped an entire army of Red Court vampires and Outsiders with a ward. Just one. Rashid is the oldest wizard on the planet (that we know of) by a considerable margin - he is over twice as old as "Ancient" Mai (who herself is over 400). We know wizards become stronger with age. Just consider that for a moment. Rashid is over 1000 years old. Harry wouldn't stand a chance. He doesn't need a weapon to kill Harry because his magic is more than enough. He likely is a starborn himself. He also can predict the future to some degree...which makes him extremely difficult to beat. We've had more than simply indications he could beat the Winter Knight. Any of the Senior Council could do that, even the non-combat oriented ones. They all have their own power-ups that they hide. They all have their own histories and successes. Rashid fights Outsiders as his job. I'd say he wouldn't be so worried by a Winter Knight. Harry might put up a good fight but he would be going up against a wizard who has survived over 1000 years of fights. It's just no comparison.
No, I don't believe that Rashid would be kicking out Harry because of his closeness to the White Court etc. That's what more narrow-minded wizards worry about. He is a big picture guy. My theory (this thread) was to do with Rashid predicting back in Turn Coat that Harry would one day challenge the White Council to combat, perhaps to war. The way he spoke about it even suggested he thought it was necessary. Whether he intends Harry to destroy the Council or simply conquer and rule it is another matter. But the point is that in order to set these events in motion, I propose that Rashid orchestrated Harry's removal (or at least participated to ensure it) from the White Council.
Some of the Fallen might be interested in fighting Outsiders. Lash doesn't seem to like them much. But it's hinted that at least some Denarians (whether lead by the host or the Fallen inside) are working with the Outsiders. It's been theorized that Lucifer's original purpose was possibly to do with fighting the Outsiders - but he believes the mortals are a massive security threat, hence his Fall. And all those others with him.
I don't see Rashid doing that unless he warned Harry before hand or an explanation afterwards. This is what he has repeatedly done all through the series.
Harry also believes that it is wrong to kill with magic, but as you say he does what has to be done at the time. How is that different from Carlos or Christos? And why does that make Carlos as great Warden and Harry not?
I also agree with Morriswalters and the text from Summer Knight that he sights. I will also add Rashid's explanation as to why he would have killed him himself if he felt that he should have voted against Harry.
He also says that he won't kill Harry because he was willing to take some of the responsibility for
what was going on between the Sidhe Courts even if no one on the Council would expect him to stop the war between the Sidhe Courts..
The Rashid does what he can to help Harry, the ointment for help him see through Sidhe veils and a piece of the Stone Table. Harry accuses Rashid of interfering with his trial. To which Rashid replies;
Then he says something interesting;
By "we" is Rashid referring just to himself? Him and Harry? Him and others unknown on the Council? I think while the Council thinks they know why Harry was born, only Rashid actually knows why Margaret gave birth to him. He is the also the only one who knows the whole story as far as the Winter Court goes and Harry. So if Rashid did indeed vote to oust Harry he does indeed have an ulterior motive and I expect to hear what it is in the next book or short story.. Otherwise, I don't think he was there, and like in Proven Guilty Langtry was claiming vote proxies without getting instructions for those he is voting for as to how they wanted to vote.
Why warn Harry if the purpose is to set him at odds with the White Council? That would be counter-productive.
Harry doesn't believe it's so wrong that he doesn't do it. That's the difference between him and the other wizards. It's not necessarily that it makes Carlos a "better" warden, but we know why the Council (at least in part) are so uptight about breaking that law. It can corrupt the killer. By the standards of the White Council, Carlos is the better warden by a country mile. That doesn't mean that is objectively true in a universal sense. But Harry has long wondered (like many others) if the Council was right about a lot of things. As Luccio explains, it's a complicated thing. Harry's own mother railed against the perceived (and perhaps real) failings of the Council. But the White Council is mostly about limiting the power of wizards - not about morally guiding them. That doesn't mean they aren't a bunch of self-righteous dicks who have bullied the rest of the wizards into line, with authority granted through might rather than perhaps a moral right (even if they pretend that they are in fact moral). But that's almost every major body ever - governments, mobs, religions, armies you name it.
Rashid wasn't going to kill Harry because Harry could have chosen to not stop a war between Winter and Summer. He was going to kill him because, as the quotes I provided earlier say, by voting against Harry's membership status as a White Council wizard he would effectively be killing him, as the Council would have been forced to hand Harry to the Red Court for "justice" in order to stop the war. Which probably would have only been temporary, but the Merlin desperately wanted to believe that was true. Rashid is too principled to hide behind protocol, as he even says. He also would have been sparing Harry a far worse death at the hands of literal monsters, who might have converted Harry into a Red Court vampire (thereby gaining a powerful wizard and starborn themselves). That's a threat too great to be ignored in and of itself.
Rashid then helps Harry because Harry is beyond the parameters of the trial and far more is at stake than Harry's membership status. Probably more than we were even aware of in that book, knowing what we do now about Rashid. Likely the Outsiders were putting pressure on elsewhere. Not to mention Nemesis was in Aurora, something that Rashid at the very least suspected if not knew. Rashid saying what the Council doesn't know does not hurt it, is reminding Harry that the Council at large exists to do what it does, but there are too many other things that it couldn't deal with and too many nuances that the Council at large can't process and so he is trying to teach Harry a lesson i.e. that sometimes you have to use your own judgement to do the best good. The rules are a guideline. The Council are only there to do what they can. But they can't do everything.
The "we" thing is probably two things. Firstly, Summer Knight is a book from really early in the series where many things were not well established and have either been soft-retconned or altered. The language that they talk about the Sidhe is quite different from later books as Jim's ideas had evolved. Secondly, I believe he is talking in a broad sense rather than a specific sense about the Council. He isn't referring to a clandestine group who specialise in interfering with the Sidhe. After all, his job is directly involved with the internal affairs of the Sidhe (primarily Winter). I believe it's occam's razor: the Council does what it can to preserve the balance of the Sidhe Courts so that things don't go bad in the mortal world, but are wary of overreaching. All powerful bodies do this to their various allies and competitors etc. It's espionage up to a point, but not with the goal of sabotage, but rather with the goal of preserving what the Council feels are it's best interests.
I don't doubt we will see the Gatekeeper the next time the White Council are prevalent in a book - hopefully next book. But Jim does leave things on the backburner so who knows.
