Mistakes Harry has made that will come back

[The_Sibelis]

Ehhh, the swords aren't made to intercept evil acts though. They facilitate choice. The only time I can think of them ever injuring a normal mortal is SmF, where iirc Michael shoves it through a door with a gunman on the other side(might be confabulating it with him doing the same to a Hob.. 🤔🤷‍♂️ )
For the swords to have specific sway and purpose there, as the arrival of Sanya would make it appear, then something fishy had to be going on on one end or another. Either Rudolph was innocent and the Lie itself was the abrogation of freedom, or Harry's reaction wasn't entirely on center. Which, even without specific interference the heightened magic in the air could have been driving his emotional reaction. Harry's act may have been evil, using defensive magic to kill might have been a twisting of creation itself. But Harry's human, he's allowed to error. He's allowed to accidentally burn down a building full of vampires and probably kill many of their impaired victims. Michael was right there, nobody stopped that. This situation HAD to have a quantifiable difference.

[BrainFireBob]

Essentially I am saying: Harry was not Harry, Harry was the mantle at the same.

You could view that I was arguing that the burn was the Faithsabre sending the mantle into brief remission, restoring Harry's ability to choose- since apparently he's the fulcrum, as the seer said in book 1. The Council may be blind to it, Mab and Vadderung may have guessed- but Uriel would *know*.

Burn=antithesis of ice, after all

[Mira]

Ehhh, the swords aren't made to intercept evil acts though. They facilitate choice.

Which fits with what I am saying.  The burn presented Harry with a choice, the smell of sulfur and brimstone, the consequences of that choice, ice water to the face, "wake up, there are consequences, is this what you really want to do?"  Harry came back to himself, the answer was, "no, this isn't what he wanted to do."

Harry's act may have been evil, using defensive magic to kill might have been a twisting of creation itself. But Harry's human, he's allowed to error.

Correction, it would have been evil had he carried it out, but the burn brought Harry back and he chose to let Rudolph go.  Kind of a play on a Holy Knight giving a Denarian a choice, surrender the coin and seek redemption or continue his or her evil ways.  The burn made Harry pause long enough to make a choice.. And yes, I agree Harry is human, humans error, and he had been under tremendous pressure and snapped.. Forgivable, even understandable, but if he had killed Rudolph
that bell cannot be unrung and Harry would have had to live the those consequences.

[morriswalters]

I've said it before and I will no doubt say it again: I believe the shock of Murphy's sudden depth slipped Harry's control over the Winter Knight mantle, demonstrated in text by the parallel with when he gave it its head in Cold Days, and the burn from the Faithsabre was to allow him to reassert his free will/mastery over the mantle. The burn wouldn't stop him from killing Rudolph, but it would shift it to him killing Rudolph, instead of the meat suit being piloted by the id-machine Winter Mantle.

Anything is possible, but this isn't the first instance of this. In the other two I'm aware of Harry didn't have the mantle. In Blood Rites Eb grabs his burned hand to bring him back. In Grave Peril Michael has to give him CPR after he uses so much magic killing Vampires that his heart stopped.  It's no wonder LTW offered to teach him anger management. But if you're going to hold your position then you're going to have to reconcile what they theorized about Butter's sword.

Michael touched the blade of Fidelacchius again, more reverently. “Angels aren’t allowed to interfere with mortals or their free will,” he said. “If you’re right, Harry . . . this blade of light is a direct expression of the will of an angel. It can’t impinge upon the free will of a mortal. It can only fight evil beings who attempt the same.”

Butcher, Jim. Peace Talks (Dresden Files) (p. 178). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Harry was meant to be a weapon, Lea tells you as much in Ghost Story.  When that part takes over, Harry has the potential for evil and the sword can hurt him. That text is given to reader to make what happens to Harry understandable.

[Arjan]

Harry makes lots of mistakes but I'm looking for what you think are big critical ones that will return some how in future books.  Here are some of mine.

1.  Handing over the Book of Kemmler to Mavra.  She was blackmailing him, but was protecting a friend from her career getting ruined worth handing over a book like that to a monster?  I don't think so, and I imagine it's going to come up again.

2.  Staking claim to Demon Reach.  This was a really big move, and it seems to have worked out well for him.  That being said, Jim said "He's going to wish he never stepped foot on that Island".  So I imagine it was a bad move.

Jim is misleading here. Harry might say that a few times and he might be really pleased he did so a few other times. What matters is the total balance and Jim says nothing about that.

3.  Splitting up Bob.  Seemed like a good idea, but I think Evil Bob is out there, allied with who knows who.  He had access to horrible knowledge.  Can't imagine that will end well.

4.  Killing the entire Red Court.  Some of that may be becoming apparent already with the Fomor.  I'm wondering if Harry will realize he had another option, and the one he chose was the wrong one.  As a wizard I'm wondering if he could have worked out a spell, and used that source of power for something else, rather than sacrifice Susan and wipe out out the Red's.

I think that was a really good idea. Even necessary.

Just some off the top of my head.  Can you think of some critical decisions he made that may have appeared right but will return to haunt him later?

Knowing Jim even the good decisions can have bad side effects that will haunt him later even if all the alternatives were worse.

[Mira]

Harry was meant to be a weapon, Lea tells you as much in Ghost Story.  When that part takes over, Harry has the potential for evil and the sword can hurt him. That text is given to reader to make what happens to Harry understandable.

It still doesn't make Harry evil, a weapon is neither good nor evil, it is the hand that wields that weapon that does the good or evil.

[Snark Knight]

Ehhh, the swords aren't made to intercept evil acts though. They facilitate choice. The only time I can think of them ever injuring a normal mortal is SmF, where iirc Michael shoves it through a door with a gunman on the other side(might be confabulating it with him doing the same to a Hob.. 🤔🤷‍♂️ )
For the swords to have specific sway and purpose there, as the arrival of Sanya would make it appear, then something fishy had to be going on on one end or another. Either Rudolph was innocent and the Lie itself was the abrogation of freedom, or Harry's reaction wasn't entirely on center. Which, even without specific interference the heightened magic in the air could have been driving his emotional reaction. Harry's act may have been evil, using defensive magic to kill might have been a twisting of creation itself. But Harry's human, he's allowed to error. He's allowed to accidentally burn down a building full of vampires and probably kill many of their impaired victims. Michael was right there, nobody stopped that. This situation HAD to have a quantifiable difference.

It was Death Masks where Michael killed one of the tongueless foot soldiers in the airport.

Though we can't really assume the faithsabre plays by the same rules as the physical Swords anymore - they don't HAVE a 'shock' setting. It's either use them worthily and they're supernaturally powerful, or use them wrongly and they're just metal, with their supernatural protection compromised thereafter by the act. Precedent isn't entirely useful here - all we can interpret is that a burn that shocked Harry out of doing something wrongful was considered worthy enough that the blade did anything at all. Maybe the there was something hinky about the situation that wasn't immediately clear, like someone else gave Rudolph a case of the brain scramblies to precipitate killing Murphy, or maybe the angel in the sword has latitude to do that kind of thing all the time now that this particular sword is in noncorporeal form.

I wonder if using earth to trap Rudy's feet in the asphalt and staking him out in front of the Fomor to finish him off would have generated the same response as squashing him with a shield. Arguably the latter wouldn't have violated the first law (any more than the Wardens binding someone so they can't resist a physical murder), but presumably heaven would still take a similarly dim view of it.

[Mira]

Though we can't really assume the faithsabre plays by the same rules as the physical Swords anymore - they don't HAVE a 'shock' setting. It's either use them worthily and they're supernaturally powerful, or use them wrongly and they're just metal, with their supernatural protection compromised thereafter by the act. Precedent isn't entirely useful here - all we can interpret is that a burn that shocked Harry out of doing something wrongful was considered worthy enough that the blade did anything at all. Maybe the there was something hinky about the situation that wasn't immediately clear, like someone else gave Rudolph a case of the brain scramblies to precipitate killing Murphy, or maybe the angel in the sword has latitude to do that kind of thing all the time now that this particular sword is in noncorporeal form.

If a Sword is misused, not only do they become just metal as Murphy found out, they break very easily.  A light saber isn't the same obviously, it burned Harry, so it felt he needed to feel the pain as a warning, but at the same time it seemed to know there were mitigating circumstances involved, i.e. the murder of Murphy before Harry's eyes and all the other pressures he'd been under, so it didn't burn his arm off or worse.  The angel in the Sword is most likely like Andriel, in that it knows everything that is going on and responds accordingly.

I wonder if using earth to trap Rudy's feet in the asphalt and staking him out in front of the Fomor to finish him off would have generated the same response as squashing him with a shield. Arguably the latter wouldn't have violated the first law (any more than the Wardens binding someone so they can't resist a physical murder), but presumably heaven would still take a similarly dim view of it.

I don't think the Laws of Magic and Heaven's Laws are exactly the same.  Yeah, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" works for both, but the first has the addendum, "with magic."  Heaven's Law doesn't specify method, just no killing at all... Humans have twisted both to make exceptions, like in defense etc..

[Arjan]

If a Sword is misused, not only do they become just metal as Murphy found out, they break very easily.  A light saber isn't the same obviously, it burned Harry, so it felt he needed to feel the pain as a warning, but at the same time it seemed to know there were mitigating circumstances involved, i.e. the murder of Murphy before Harry's eyes and all the other pressures he'd been under, so it didn't burn his arm off or worse.  The angel in the Sword is most likely like Andriel, in that it knows everything that is going on and responds accordingly.

I don't think the Laws of Magic and Heaven's Laws are exactly the same.  Yeah, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" works for both, but the first has the addendum, "with magic."  Heaven's Law doesn't specify method, just no killing at all... Humans have twisted both to make exceptions, like in defense etc..

Thou shall not murder, and murder just means unlawful killing. That is the original meaning. Those exceptions were there from the beginning. They were a warlike people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_not_kill

[morriswalters]

The biblical text is more like thou shalt not murder rather than thou shalt not kill.(Ninja'd by Arjan)

The Sword didn't shock Harry.  It burned him, leaving the scent of brimstone.  And it forced Harry to see through Rudolph's  eyes.

[Snark Knight]

The Sword didn't shock Harry.  It burned him, leaving the scent of brimstone.  And it forced Harry to see through Rudolph's  eyes.

It meant to hurt him enough to bring him to his senses rather than permanently damage him, though. That's what I mean by shock.

I read the brimstone scent as from him. If he'd pulled on soulfire at that moment, he'd have been using the other 'side of the coin'.

[Mira]

It meant to hurt him enough to bring him to his senses rather than permanently damage him, though. That's what I mean by shock.

Exactly, and from Harry's reaction and continued shame because of that burn, it straightened him out totally. 

[morriswalters]

It meant to hurt him enough to bring him to his senses rather than permanently damage him, though. That's what I mean by shock.

I read the brimstone scent as from him. If he'd pulled on soulfire at that moment, he'd have been using the other 'side of the coin'.

I thought as much. But why would being burned by the sword produce the smell of sulphur?

[Mira]

I thought as much. But why would being burned by the sword produce the smell of sulphur?

Warning...

[forumghost]

Maybe the smell was unrelated and Rudolph had made a mess...