In defense of the WC

[LordDresden2]

I'm pretty sure the WC, as currently constituted, is going to fall.
I suspect this issue is going to be a big part of the reason why it does... and why in fact it should.

I don't think we know that, actually.  The Korean kid may have been a Molly-caliber mind mage, or even (potentially) stronger.



(Obviously, Molly became much more powerful with Harry's teaching; the Korean kid never got anything comparable)

He could have been, but the odds say he wasn't, because Molly-level Talent is rare.  Any given warlock, just a matter of odds, is more likely to be a local menace than a major threat to the world.

As for a Council/Parenet larger alliance, it's tough to set up because the Council is set in their ways and don't trust Harry and his associates, and the plan won't work without the Council involved.

Other people have theorized that Harry himself, and his allies, could form the nucleus of an "advanced studies" program for the Paranet's more-powerful talents, without ever involving the WC. 

No, they can't.  Or at least, they can't on any useful scale.

Training the Council-level Talents is a full-time task.  Harry could train maybe one or two at a time, Elaine maybe one or two at a time, Molly one or two at a time if she could get free of Winter.  Harry doesn't have many other allies who are powerful enough and skilled enough (and who have the right mindset for it, which is very important) to train high-end Talents.

Trying to train more than a handful at a time is a good way to end up with a major-league warlock, or a trainee who isn't up to the Council level because of sloppy training.

The world probably only produces a few hundred potential Council-level Talents a generation, but that's still way more than Harry and his allies could possibly train (and restrain) on their own, even if they could identify and reach them all.

Harry could be one instructor, Elaine another.  Morty is highly-specialized, but within his specialty is White-Council caliber.  He might be able to entice Molly to teach.  Etc...

Nope.  Mort is highly specialized, and that's just not good enough.  A dozen minor Talents don't add up to a Wizard, even if they're all as good as a Wizard in some specialty.  There's also the social and political elements to consider, too.

And then there's the nasty part, which is inescapable.  Even with good training, some of the high-end Talents will still end up going bad.  Some Talents might need to face the carrot and the stick both to be persuaded to stay and the strait-and-narrow, or even to accept the training from the teachers.  When that happens, somebody has to be the heavy and enforce the rules, or kill the new warlocks.

Which means you still need the Council and the Wardens.  If the Council falls and the Paranet rises to take its place, to do that job they more or less have to become the Council...which they cannot.  They are minor Talents, they just aren't powerful enough to take the Council's place.  Whatever took the place of the Council would have to gather in the majority of the Wizards and the more they did what they had to do, the more they would start to look like...the White Council.

If the Council falls, its replacement has to be more or less the Council 2.0 or something along those lines.  The Parenet just can't do it.

[LordDresden2]

I think we are overrating a lot of these warlocks - global level threats? World class?  How many of the WC are even world class? They are all below the thousands of WC members. Even Harry says he would be crushed by the Seniors, and I think he said he was in the top 30 or so on raw power.  The vast majority of these warlocks are at most a localized threat.  They are not the Allied army facing the German Army in 1944, they are some loonie on LSD with a stolen 9 MM.

Exactly.  A few of them are worse than that, the equivalent of a major gang leader or the like, a very few of them can be major problems, but still nothing the Council couldn't crush easily if it became necessary.

The Kemmlers are rare, few, and far between.

Though probably any Council-level Talent is a potential world threat, with the right knowledge and experience.  That's part of what makes them Council-level Talents.

[g33k]

...  Any given warlock, just a matter of odds, is more likely to be a local menace than a major threat to the world ...

True enough; but this wasn't just "any given warlock."

This was the warlock hand picked by the Merlin to rub in Harry's face.  I'd put long odds on him being one of the stronger Warlocks they had captured in several years; so if Harry raised too big a stink ... they can prove the kid in fact was a major threat who needed to be put down.

[g33k]

  No, they can't.  Or at least, they can't on any useful scale.

Training the Council-level Talents is a full-time task.  Harry could train maybe one or two at a time, Elaine maybe one or two at a time, Molly one or two at a time if she could get free of Winter.  Harry doesn't have many other allies who are powerful enough and skilled enough (and who have the right mindset for it, which is very important) to train high-end Talents.

Trying to train more than a handful at a time is a good way to end up with a major-league warlock, or a trainee who isn't up to the Council level because of sloppy training.

The world probably only produces a few hundred potential Council-level Talents a generation, but that's still way more than Harry and his allies could possibly train (and restrain) on their own, even if they could identify and reach them all ...

Justin thought he could teach 2 at a time; and we don't really know the upper limit.

The Craftmaster/Apprentice model is usually thought of as 1:1 or at most 1:few, but the "vocational school" model shows it doesn't have to be that way, and the WC's "baby warden school" in the desert showed that more-modern "team teaching" methods can get better than a 2:1 student:teacher ratio (though I don't think we have a precise number).

"A few hundred a generation" (call it 400 for an estimate (mainly because the numbers work very-cleanly) is only an annual class-size of about 20 per year; but that's worldwide (and as you note, they will miss some).

Still, it's probably more than Harry/Paranet/etc can handle, but I think -- after a few years -- they'd begin making a substantial reduction in the number of warlocks who cropped up each year; and as they produced trained people, they'd have more and more who could do the work of teaching.

Nope.  Mort is highly specialized, and that's just not good enough.  A dozen minor Talents don't add up to a Wizard, even if they're all as good as a Wizard in some specialty.

Molly is also specialized, though less-so than Mort.
Mort, however, is a world-caliber power... despite his narrow specialty, he's not a "minor" talent.

Mort took down Capiorcorpus.

Harry tried.
Molly tried.

Mort did it.

Mort may not be any use teaching wizards to manipulate the forces of the elements; but if any of them have ectomantic/necromantic abilities, Mort is likely a better teacher than anyone on the White Council.  Harry himself could use those lessons, I think:  he's got a fair bit of native talent in that direction, but little-to-no training; so he's not well-equipped to avoid any well-known (within the field) screw-up modes, that an experienced teacher could point out.

Harry might also be able to recruit River Shoulders, for some wilderness lessons; Listens to Wind respects RS enough that he might then join.

Harry might induce Rashid to teach on the dangers of Outsiders (I'm pretty sure the Gatekeeper considers that job (the Gatekeeper) more important than the entire rest of the White Council, and would keep mum about teaching anti-Outsider lessons to non-WC wizards).

Etc.

It wouldn't be perfect -- far from it!

But Harry & allies & the Paranet -- making a concerted effort -- would already be doing more good the entire White Council.

[LordDresden2]

True enough; but this wasn't just "any given warlock."

This was the warlock hand picked by the Merlin to rub in Harry's face. 

I doubt that very seriously.  He was a Chicago area warlock who had been captured, after doing a lot of nasty local damage, Harry was there because he was the Warden of Chicago.  I don't think there was any 'hand picking' going on.

[LordDresden2]

Justin thought he could teach 2 at a time; and we don't really know the upper limit.

As I said, Harry and Elaine could probably each manage 2.  Three at once, maybe, but that would be pushing it.  It takes years to properly train a Council-level Talent, and do it right, and it takes a lot of attention.  This would be especially true in the case of Talents who had either already started to go wrong, or who had the native personality to be difficult.

The more apprentices you try to train at once, the less attention each one can get, the less personalized the training can be, and the more chance of something important slipping through the cracks.

The Craftmaster/Apprentice model is usually thought of as 1:1 or at most 1:few, but the "vocational school" model shows it doesn't have to be that way, and the WC's "baby warden school" in the desert showed that more-modern "team teaching" methods can get better than a 2:1 student:teacher ratio (though I don't think we have a precise number).

The vocational school model doesn't work for Wizard training.  There isn't just a set specific body of skills that have to be taught, at that level each student has their own requirements and has to be taught individually.  It's also about philosophies, attitudes, the moral aspects of magic, proper habits of thought and necessary self-discipline.  It's about the master recognizing the particular weaknesses and strengths of the student, it can't be entire standardized.  What worked for teaching Molly would fail teaching someone else, and vice versa.  What worked well for Harry would not have worked well for Elaine, and vice versa, because of their different personalities and native strengths and weaknesses.

I'm sure you could teach some of the basics in a group-class setting, but as soon as you started getting into the high-end stuff that model would fail.

The baby warden school was just that, all they were doing was trying to accelerate specific Warden training, not the overall training to make a Council wizard.  And even there, it wasn't doing as good a job as they would have liked, it was just necessitated by the war emergency.

"A few hundred a generation" (call it 400 for an estimate (mainly because the numbers work very-cleanly) is only an annual class-size of about 20 per year; but that's worldwide (and as you note, they will miss some).

But even if you assume just 20 a year, you still need at least 7 full Wizards to teach them, assuming 3 per master, 10 Wizards if it's 2 per master.  Some of those students will be hard cases who absolutely need the full 100% attention of a master, which makes it worse.  Harry does not have even 7 full Council level Wizards to do the teaching.  In practice, to teach 20 students would probably realistically need at least 10 Wizards to master them.

And that's just the first year.  A year later you get another 20, but the Wizards from last year are still teaching the first round of students, Harry now needs 10 more Wizards.  Let's be conservative/hopeful and say three years can turn a new student into a Wizard.  (I suspect it usually takes longer, but let's be optimistic.)  That means you need thirty full Wizards, with the right mindset and skills for teaching, to get 20 students a year through the process.  In the fourth year the first round of students 'graduate' and the first ten masters can take 2 new students each.

So Harry needs, at a realistic minimum, 30 skilled Wizards to teach 20 students a year for 3 years a student.  That's not ideal, that's minimum, ideally he would want twice that many to really do it right.

Plus he still needs the equivalent of a force of Wardens to be the enforcers, too.  That's separate of the teaching staff.

Molly is also specialized, though less-so than Mort.

Molly has specific talents, yes.  So does Harry and any practitioner.  She's still a full Council-level talent and has vast potentials Mort will never equal, outside his one narrow specialty.

Mort, however, is a world-caliber power... despite his narrow specialty, he's not a "minor" talent.

No, he's a major-level sub-Council talent.  His abilities by themselves are not sufficient to make him a world-level player.

Mort took down Capiorcorpus.

Harry tried.
Molly tried.

Mort did it.

No doubt.  It doesn't matter.  That fact that he's better than they are in that one narrow area doesn't make up for their vast superiority at the other 95%.  I'm sure Binder is better than Harry at his one specialty, too.  Victor Sells could probably teach Harry a few things about sex magic.  That doesn't make Victor a peer of Harry.

Etc.

It wouldn't be perfect -- far from it!

But Harry & allies & the Paranet -- making a concerted effort -- would already be doing more good the entire White Council.

Um...no.  The Council is still doing vastly more good at a large scale than they could do.

We see the Council's negative side because we see it through Harry's eyes.  His first encounter with them was them putting him on trial for his life for defending himself.  He hates the very idea of executing children for breaking rules they didn't even know about.  He hates the Council's elitist tendency, even as he recognizes the necessity of it.  He really really hates the Council's hypocrisy.

BUT...over the years Harry has reluctantly been forced to admit that a lot of the stuff he hates is necessary.  Also, the Council and the Church are the two main factors that have enabled civilization to rise as high as it has in the last few centuries.  The Council is the main reason why the average mundane doesn't believe in supernatural monsters anymore:  the Council has imprisoned/destroyed most of the worst of them, and forces the rest to keep their heads down most of the time.  The Council is the main force that kept the Red Court, the White Court, and some degree the Black Court from running unchecked.  The Enlightenment was a Council project that got somewhat out of hand.

Plus, of course, Kemmler.

Even Karrin had to admit, in a backhanded, resentful compliment, that the Council were running themselves ragged keeping the world from blowing up in the instability that followed the fall of the Red Court.

As frustrating and hidebound and hypocritical as the White Council is, the world of Dresden would be a far, far worse place without them.

[Tinfoil hat]

As I said, Harry and Elaine could probably each manage 2.  Three at once, maybe, but that would be pushing it.  It takes years to properly train a Council-level Talent, and do it right, and it takes a lot of attention.  This would be especially true in the case of Talents who had either already started to go wrong, or who had the native personality to be difficult.

The more apprentices you try to train at once, the less attention each one can get, the less personalized the training can be, and the more chance of something important slipping through the cracks.

The vocational school model doesn't work for Wizard training.  There isn't just a set specific body of skills that have to be taught, at that level each student has their own requirements and has to be taught individually.  It's also about philosophies, attitudes, the moral aspects of magic, proper habits of thought and necessary self-discipline.  It's about the master recognizing the particular weaknesses and strengths of the student, it can't be entire standardized.  What worked for teaching Molly would fail teaching someone else, and vice versa.  What worked well for Harry would not have worked well for Elaine, and vice versa, because of their different personalities and native strengths and weaknesses.

I'm sure you could teach some of the basics in a group-class setting, but as soon as you started getting into the high-end stuff that model would fail.

The baby warden school was just that, all they were doing was trying to accelerate specific Warden training, not the overall training to make a Council wizard.  And even there, it wasn't doing as good a job as they would have liked, it was just necessitated by the war emergency.

But even if you assume just 20 a year, you still need at least 7 full Wizards to teach them, assuming 3 per master, 10 Wizards if it's 2 per master.  Some of those students will be hard cases who absolutely need the full 100% attention of a master, which makes it worse.  Harry does not have even 7 full Council level Wizards to do the teaching.  In practice, to teach 20 students would probably realistically need at least 10 Wizards to master them.

And that's just the first year.  A year later you get another 20, but the Wizards from last year are still teaching the first round of students, Harry now needs 10 more Wizards.  Let's be conservative/hopeful and say three years can turn a new student into a Wizard.  (I suspect it usually takes longer, but let's be optimistic.)  That means you need thirty full Wizards, with the right mindset and skills for teaching, to get 20 students a year through the process.  In the fourth year the first round of students 'graduate' and the first ten masters can take 2 new students each.

So Harry needs, at a realistic minimum, 30 skilled Wizards to teach 20 students a year for 3 years a student.  That's not ideal, that's minimum, ideally he would want twice that many to really do it right.

Plus he still needs the equivalent of a force of Wardens to be the enforcers, too.  That's separate of the teaching staff.

Molly has specific talents, yes.  So does Harry and any practitioner.  She's still a full Council-level talent and has vast potentials Mort will never equal, outside his one narrow specialty.

No, he's a major-level sub-Council talent.  His abilities by themselves are not sufficient to make him a world-level player.

No doubt.  It doesn't matter.  That fact that he's better than they are in that one narrow area doesn't make up for their vast superiority at the other 95%.  I'm sure Binder is better than Harry at his one specialty, too.  Victor Sells could probably teach Harry a few things about sex magic.  That doesn't make Victor a peer of Harry.
Um...no.  The Council is still doing vastly more good at a large scale than they could do.

We see the Council's negative side because we see it through Harry's eyes.  His first encounter with them was them putting him on trial for his life for defending himself.  He hates the very idea of executing children for breaking rules they didn't even know about.  He hates the Council's elitist tendency, even as he recognizes the necessity of it.  He really really hates the Council's hypocrisy.

BUT...over the years Harry has reluctantly been forced to admit that a lot of the stuff he hates is necessary.  Also, the Council and the Church are the two main factors that have enabled civilization to rise as high as it has in the last few centuries.  The Council is the main reason why the average mundane doesn't believe in supernatural monsters anymore:  the Council has imprisoned/destroyed most of the worst of them, and forces the rest to keep their heads down most of the time.  The Council is the main force that kept the Red Court, the White Court, and some degree the Black Court from running unchecked.  The Enlightenment was a Council project that got somewhat out of hand.

Plus, of course, Kemmler.

Even Karrin had to admit, in a backhanded, resentful compliment, that the Council were running themselves ragged keeping the world from blowing up in the instability that followed the fall of the Red Court.

As frustrating and hidebound and hypocritical as the White Council is, the world of Dresden would be a far, far worse place without them.

True. The world is a better place with them
A real world problem with revolution that remove government or power block such as WC is what will u replace them with. A lot of times it a case of meet the new boss same as the old one. If the WC falls the world will be a darker place. Until it is replaced. Think league of nations and UN. One was an incompetent organization that failed at preventing Ww2. The other is a slightly more competent organization that has failed to prevent small wars but succeeded at preventing WW3

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Mort is WC power level but his talents run deep in areas which the WC are unhappy to be plumbed, and probably more powerful  in summoning spirits than even perhaps Martha Liberty. He lacks experience and training in other areas of magic. He has been shown to be able to channel ghosts (Bruce Lee) so there is no reason he cannot channel the ghost of a trained Wizard, especially one he was already acquainted with. Morgan springs to mind. You therefore have options for a two in one teacher with Mort, a teacher capable of blending the best of WC teaching and his own unique experiences and skills as The Ectomancer. Raise an entire generation of Wizards without the prejudices of field.

The problem the WC has is that they consider that only Wizards can teach Wizards, they would frown on a ghost teaching, as much as a non human magic user like River Shoulders teaching Wizards. Why not have Swartalves teach the magic equivalent of  “shop” or River Shoulders  teach “Nature Studies” as a visiting lecturer?

Butters has a better innate grasp of magic theory than most Wizards and he can teach together with Bob on a wide variety of subjects.


The traditional Master/Apprentice system has allowed the WC to control all Wizardry. It is a poor model for today.

Look at how Eb trained Harry, very little formal teaching. Harry in training Molly insisted she finish High School, his lessons were ‘extra’ so training isn’t as intense as people think, a lot of it is social inculcation, to make Whire Council wizards rather than Wizards.

[vincentric]

Training young wizards would be more a school for the Arts rather than a vocational school.

Perhaps the solution would be one or two years of fundamentals and Laws of Magic with  a core of permanent faculty and weekly guest speakers. If the students pass this basic assessment then they could be split into their specialties and learn from teachers who are experts in them. That will increase the teacher pool because the students will be assisting rather than taking away from their private interests.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Young wizards need to learn with non-human practitioners,  lesser practitioners and mortals. The latter like Butters can still have important input and interaction with the magical community. Wizards are way too insular and poorly socialised,

We may have seen the set up for this already.

For example The Law shows us that there are multiple magical legal systems which are increasingly going to have to interact with mortal legal systems. We have seen The Accords, The Code Duello, the Seven Laws, Winter Law, Guest Right etc, more than enough for a law student to elect to take a course on Supernatural Law in the same way they would Conflict of Laws or international Law, and something a Wizard would need to take. The FBI only take graduates, this would be useful for a lesser practitioner interested in law enforcement, or for legal practitioners looking at representing supernatural clients. Give Nameless a run for his money.

I could easily see a class given by Max Valorius comprising law and magic Students, he is after all a former law lecturer and has defeated the top supernatural lawyer Nameless in both of their head to heads. Thirds times the charm.

We also have Irwin Pounder undertaking his Phd and acting as an English teacher in Job placement. I can see a future Professor Pounder teaching a course on The Supernatural in English Literature which would attract both English students and Magical students. His mother is already an University of Chicago academic, a Professor of Archaeology.

This presupposes the creation of a School of Magic as part of the University of Chicago, with Wizards majoring in Magic and a minor in other matters so they interact with other people. Do that and you will have young Fae, Swartalves, Open White Court Vampires also in class.

I really want to see Lacuna enrol in the school of Medicine and Dentistry. It would be an education. For both of them.

[g33k]

... The vocational school model doesn't work for Wizard training ... I'm sure you could teach some of the basics in a group-class setting ...

You may be right.  But that sort of thing still gives you a huge leg up in total hours needed from a teacher.

Remember -- Harry started Molly's lessons as weekend-only (plus some homework).  Presumably, he could have managed *three* apprentices with that level of time-commitment (and shared another apprentice with another teaching-wizard, if he took no days off).

Undoubtedly, he'd need to put in more time, eventually.

But the traditional (Master/Prentice) relationship is not the only viable way.
 

[Tinfoil hat]

You may be right.  But that sort of thing still gives you a huge leg up in total hours needed from a teacher.

Remember -- Harry started Molly's lessons as weekend-only (plus some homework).  Presumably, he could have managed *three* apprentices with that level of time-commitment (and shared another apprentice with another teaching-wizard, if he took no days off).

Undoubtedly, he'd need to put in more time, eventually.

But the traditional (Master/Prentice) relationship is not the only viable way.

I think it is you are overlooking something. In an apprenticeship the master has to guard , support their students sure, but in wizards relationship the master has to cater to the students unique needs. If the master overlooks the student you have a half trained wizard who is likely to go warlock.
The other beings training wizards might not be a solution. Some of this things dont adhere to our moral code. Lea's training of molly was not healthy. River shoulders may work but what will his people say. Will they accept their secrets being given to mortals.
Other beings may want payment. Supernatural beings dont do things for free. What will the price be. Remember the price always comes due

[Conspiracy Theorist]

I think we can safely rule ou on line learning.

[Tinfoil hat]

I think we can safely rule ou on line learning.

Wait it could work
Imagine harry shouting instruction to paranoid gary who passes it on to a friend/sibling or parent who shouts it to their kid. Great game of broken telephone

[g33k]

I doubt that very seriously.  He was a Chicago area warlock who had been captured, after doing a lot of nasty local damage, Harry was there because he was the Warden of Chicago.  I don't think there was any 'hand picking' going on.

I'm pretty sure he was from Korea, and the Merlin had him brought to Chicago specifically as a message to Harry.

In the opening scene of PG, the boy "screamed and ranted in Korean" (presumably, his native tongue).

In the middle of chapter 2, Harry asks Eb, "Is that why it happened here?  Why come to Chicago for an execution?"
If the kid had simply been a local, that wouldn't have been relevant; a Chicago-origin warlock in Chicago wouldn't have been worth asking about.

In Chapter 5 -- talking to Murphy -- Harry explicitly calls him "the Korean kid."