It's also worth noting that Carlos... actually kinda has a point?
Like, Harry is acting sus as fuck in PT/BG.
Carlos: "Yo Man, we're kinda worried that you've be enthralled by the Totally not White Queen™. Can you talk to us about what's going on"
Harry: *Grounds staff and begins Channeling Magic* "FUCK YOU, I'M NOT SUS, YOU'RE SUS. FUCK OFF OR FIGHT ME".
Like, actually what the fuck dude. You treat your frenemies/enemies with less venom then you do you supposed friends/allies, and then go all 'boo hoo woe is me, why don't they believe me' when they don't trust you.
Trust is a two way street Harry, you learned this in like, book 3 with Murphy, remember?
Actually, he learned the wrong lesson with Murphy, or maybe he learned both at once. Harry was almost certainly
right to keep Murphy in the dark as much as he did, at that time. It was only after the
loup garou rampage rubbed her nose in reality that it was probably safe to bring her fully into the loop. Even after that, she occasionally starts to let her craving to use the Law as a comfort belief cause her to do something that would make a diasaster, and Harry has to remind her of the loup garou and Carmichael to sober her up. Or remember the incident with the gruff at Mac's.
The Council has excellent reason to distrust Harry, based on his own past actions and inactions. Harry, likewise, has good reason to distrust the Council. The fault lies on both sides. As Carlos pointed out, Harry would have been very wise to put in more regular appearances at Edinburgh, to maintain a good PR image and good relations with some of the other Wizards. But Harry has reason to dislike associating with them, too.
The Council are afraid, in effect, that they're seeing Kemmler II emerging. We don't know the history of Kemmler in detail, for all we know he might have started out as an apparently 'good guy' in the early stages.
But remember what Bob told Harry about Kemmler, back in
Dead Beat:
"...he was a necromancer...he had truck with demons, he was buddies with most of the vampire courts...and some of the uglier fairies, too. Plus he had his own little cadre of baby Kemmlers to help him..."Sound familiar? From the POV of the more skeptical Council members, the above sounds more than a little like Harry. Not every detail, but Harry has apparently come back from the dead, he reanimated Sue, he's way too close for comfort with the White Court, he's known to have trafficked with demons, he's hooked up with a whole mess of entities who are, at best, not friendly to humanity, he's the Winter Knight, he's Margaret McCoy's son, he's managed to make himself the Warden of Demonreach (the ultimate unexploded bomb!), his former apprentice (a warlock herself!) is now Winter Lady, he's accumulating a number of powerful artifacts, he's gathering minions (the paranet would look an awful lot like a mechanism to do that from one POV) plus outfits like the Chicago protectors, he's allies (sort of) with Marcone, ...and he's copping an attitude.
What do we expect the Council to assume? I suspect Carlos himself is probably torn. I don't think, based on what he said in Battleground, that he thinks Harry is evil...but I do think he's afraid Harry might be headed that way in spite of himself, losing his footing on the slippery slope, so to speak.
The Council's attitude is completely reasonable, from their POV.
