Elaine is the wizard the White Council should really be afraid of.

[Mira]

We have no proof positive, no.  But we have some indicators...

The fact that he chose to live an increasingly-impoverished life, moving from being a notable multi-book author, to running hokey seances as a con-man, with cheap plastic gargoyles in the yard is one such.

Lack of any Bob-testimony / Harrry-awareness is another:  Harry sent Bob out  "scouting for info" quite a few times, that we saw; I presume he did so off-screen, too.  Bob would certainly have noticed -- sooner or later -- if Mort was operating (up through Grave Peril) a spiritual redoubt as formidable as the one in Ghost Story, and reported as much to Harry.

Harry himself has other investigative magical resources, as well; he won't just be looking with his  eyeballs.  The idea that an ectomancer the caliber of GS-Mort could have been operating under Harry's nose & in his back yard for years seems wholly unbelievable...  Mort's a powerful ectomancer, but there are a great many magical disciplines where he's blind and ignorant... and Harry isn't.  Hard for Mort to effectively block what he can't detect / doesn't understand!

Oh it is very believable, it's done everyday.  Mort was regarded as a con man by Harry, and in Grave Peril Mort didn't do anything to change that opinion.  At one point he even pointedly confirms it to Harry, paraphrasing, "you know I've lost my power, right?" Now that can be taken two ways, yes, Mort's lost his powers, or Mort is covering, as in telling Harry what he already believes and wants to hear.

Yes, he had some  power; it faded, and was lessened... but never faded entirely out of his reach.
Note that Charity's power is gone gone, by way of neglect (intentional dis-use); it isn't coming back.

Apples to Oranges, Charity was never trained, Mort was.. I also think it remains to be seen whether or not Charity's power or talent is gone, gone.. I think it is gone because she wants it to be, because of what she almost became.

I think it was because of Harry.  Harry seems more-able than most to uplift those around him, redirect them in better ways.  Mort seems to have benefited.

Still to what purpose?  As I said, in Grave Peril Mort just had too much information for someone who is out of the game.

[g33k]

Oh it is very believable, it's done everyday.  Mort was regarded as a con man by Harry, and in Grave Peril Mort didn't do anything to change that opinion.  At one point he even pointedly confirms it to Harry, paraphrasing, "you know I've lost my power, right?" Now that can be taken two ways, yes, Mort's lost his powers, or Mort is covering, as in telling Harry what he already believes and wants to hear.

It sounds like you really want to believe Mort had his full powers all along...
But you're going to have to argue with Jim himself:

what Morty was doing with his talent was borderline slimy and he knew it.  And he didn’t really believe in it, and as a result, his talent started failing him from time to time–which affected his confidence, which in turn made his talent even shakier, a vicious cycle.  He was still trying–he had just gotten himself into a situation where he was sandbagging himself psychologically.

Now, we all know that Jim isn't above lying.  But you'd honestly need a really strong argument as to why Jim was lying about this for me to give any serious credence.

... Apples to Oranges, Charity was never trained, Mort was.. I also think it remains to be seen whether or not Charity's power or talent is gone, gone.. I think it is gone because she wants it to be, because of what she almost became ...

No, Charity's coven (and the cultic leader there) did train her (at least somewhat; I think we can presume it wasn't nearly the caliber of training Harry can give (or any WC wizard open-minded enough to train a "lesser" talent); or even what the average Paranetter (as of PT/BG) can get).  Charity wasn't so much untrained as (very) badly trained.

But yes, Charity's power is gone, gone; she hasn't passed it to any of her other children.  Jim says:

Maybe her kids, if they wanted, could go out and work hard and stir up a latent talent.  A watershed sort of life event might do something along those lines–shake them up enough to jump-start a dormant gift.  But then, that’s most of humanity in the Dresden Files, really.  Everyone has some kind of ability, if they just want to look hard enough to find it.  That’s where the Alpha’s came from.

^{(bold italic emphasis added by me)}
Or at least, it's profoundly weakened/lessened, like a muscle atrophied from extreme disuse; and then deeply buried, so that it's completely unavailable.  It would take Charity a very long time, and lots of hard work, to get back any magic whatsoever.  Quoting Jim, again:

Being a wizard is ... a complicated talent with /many/ different aspects, all of which have to work together to cause an effect–IE, a spell.  If you neglect that group of talents over the course of years, regaining them and getting them all to work together again would be extremely difficult, if it was possible at all.

_{(all WoJ's quoted above come from https://wordof.jim-butcher.com/index.php/word-of-jim-woj-compilation/woj-on-magic-in-the-dresden-files-part-2/ )}

[Mira]

Now, we all know that Jim isn't above lying.  But you'd honestly need a really strong argument as to why Jim was lying about this for me to give any serious credence.

Lying is a strong word isn't it?  I never said Jim was lying, I only go by what I read or interpret what I am reading in the text.  For me that makes reading the series much more interesting, because it is fiction it is open to many interpretations from the readers. Also again Jim's answer is just vague enough to allow for that, because who knows when he answered that question he may have been after one thing, but later on in the series he might change his mind, we've seen examples of that as well.   

No, Charity's coven (and the cultic leader there) did train her (at least somewhat; I think we can presume it wasn't nearly the caliber of training Harry can give (or any WC wizard open-minded enough to train a "lesser" talent); or even what the average Paranetter (as of PT/BG) can get).  Charity wasn't so much untrained as (very) badly trained.

Train somewhat?  Badly trained?  I'd like to repeat a statement my brother in law used to love to make, in other words, "Charity knew just enough to be stupid!"  The same could go for Kim if you will remember?

But yes, Charity's power is gone, gone; she hasn't passed it to any of her other children.  Jim says:

I think talent is genetic, she managed to pass it on to at least one of her children, didn't she?

    Maybe her kids, if they wanted, could go out and work hard and stir up a latent talent.  A watershed sort of life event might do something along those lines–shake them up enough to jump-start a dormant gift.  But then, that’s most of humanity in the Dresden Files, really.  Everyone has some kind of ability, if they just want to look hard enough to find it.  That’s where the Alpha’s came from.

Um, I think you misread Jim there!  Charity's kids couldn't stir up any talent, or at least not enough to make that much difference, if they didn't have the talent to begin with. 

Being a wizard is ... a complicated talent with /many/ different aspects, all of which have to work together to cause an effect–IE, a spell.  If you neglect that group of talents over the course of years, regaining them and getting them all to work together again would be extremely difficult, if it was possible at all.

Which kind of contradicts what he said about Mort doesn't it? Or maybe having it both ways to give himself as an author more flexibility, I understand that..

[g33k]

Lying is a strong word isn't it?  I never said Jim was lying ...

Not at all... not in this context.
Every story Jim tells is, at some level, a "lie" -- an un-truth, spoken/written in full knowledge that it isn't true.

I used to tell my kids, when they were little:

I try really, really hard never to lie to you.  I don't always tell you every detail, and everybody makes errors and is mistaken about some stuff... but I don't lie to you.
Except once a year, at Christmas.
You're getting coal for Christmas.

Jim lies to us to entertain us.  And sometimes -- iirc by his own admission -- he even lies outside of "canonical" stories, in the Q&A / AMA / etc that we collect as "WoJ"'s, when he seems it sufficiently-important to keep a plot-element back as a surprise and just saying "I won't tell you" is insufficient.

But back to  the point at hand:  Mort's power had indeed weakened, confirmed by  Jim:

... his talent started failing him from time to time–which affected his confidence, which in turn made his talent even shakier, a vicious cycle ...

Or:

... what I read or interpret what I am reading in the text ... because it is fiction it is open to many interpretations from the readers ... who knows when he answered that question he may have been after one thing, but later on in the series he might change his mind, we've seen examples of that as well ...

Because Jim engages with us outside the context of his art, we have more opportunity to query -- even have dialogue with -- the artist & his intent.  We're always free, of course, to take the work entirely on the basis of its own merits & our own responses, and disregard the artist themselves!

Personally, I prefer to consult the WoJ's to further my understanding.

But, of course, you're right -- Jim changes his mind.  And the series is just as subject to "early episode weirdness" as any other.  And sometimes (albeit rarely) Jim even lies directly.

Even so, I like to have the WoJ's, and I read them when I find new ones!

... Train somewhat?  Badly trained?  I'd like to repeat a statement my brother in law used to love to make, in other words, "Charity knew just enough to be stupid!"  The same could go for Kim if you will remember?

You had alleged Charity was "untrained," I just thought it an important distinction that -- however piss-poor he was -- there was a magic-trainer in Charity's life.  An abusive one, without much native power; but she wasn't entirely untrained.

... I think talent is genetic, she managed to pass it on to at least one of her children, didn't she? ...

The WC calls it "Salic Law" -- mothers with magical gifts tend to have children with magical gifts; apparenty it's not a male-line (Y-chromosome?) thing, however.

But sometimes power "comes from nowhere," no known talent from ancestry; and sometimes the most promising of parentage produces no more than a squib.  Margaret LaFey was the daughter of a mundane mother.  I think "recessive" genes and "masking" genes are part of the issue; but there's more...

Jim has made it clear that magical talent is (at least in part) a matter of epigenetics:
 https://harvardcenter.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/EpigeneticsInfographic_FINAL.jpg.

Molly is talented because Charity's potential got expressed; and that happened specifically because Charity had relatively-recently been a practitioner herself (and (maybe) because she'd been exposed to other magic (her coven/cult, the dragon Siriothrax)).  The rest of the Carpenter kids did not have their potential expressed... specifically because Charity had been working so diligently to suppress her magic and had no other magic influencing her.
(this kind of environmental exposure causing different "expressions" of similar/identical genetics is what the study of epigenetics is all about)

As adults, Molly has full power, while her younger sibs would need something extraordinary to even get minor abilities; their potential is akin to most mortals'.

... Charity's kids couldn't stir up any talent, or at least not enough to make that much difference, if they didn't have the talent to begin with...

Jim explicitly says the other kids aren't very different from most humans in the Dresdenverse:

... that’s most of humanity in the Dresden Files, really.  Everyone has some kind of ability, if they just want to look hard enough to find it ...

... Which kind of contradicts what he said about Mort doesn't it? Or maybe having it both ways to give himself as an author more flexibility, I understand that.

Charity's situation and Mort's are entirely different.

Mort never abandoned his powers; he just lost faith in himself, and they weakened... but never faded away to zero.  When Mort started believing in himself and his powers again, he was able to rebuild them.

Charity actively abandoned her powers; she chose to let them atrophy, and fade... and now they have actively faded beyond her reach (as witness her later children being born without magic talent).

[Mira]

Charity actively abandoned her powers; she chose to let them atrophy, and fade... and now they have actively faded beyond her reach (as witness her later children being born without magic talent).

That doesn't mean that the genes no longer exist in Charity's body to pass on to her children or that they don't have recessive genes for magical talent in their bodies that will show up in later generations.

[BugBear]

I noticed in White Knight is that Harry uses Elaine's True Name to make contact with her when she's under attack from the Skavis.

Harry makes a ritual conduit by conjuring up an old Sight memory of her, but it's 16ish years out of date. So he fills out his construct of her by trying to understand the pain she's gone through since they knew each other, and filling out/updating his mental image based on that.

Half of her life had gone by since she had given him that True Name, which supposedly stop working after your personality changes enough. And somehow it still worked. In retrospect, I find that kind of odd. It's a ~16 year old Name, founded on the solidity of the identity of an about-to-have-a-formative-trauma teenager. I can think of three explanations.

The first, least likely possibility to my mind is that Harry really did just figure out the last 16 years of her life well enough to update her Name with on-the-fly guesswork. What must have been near a decade of existing with the Fae somehow didn't come with it's own unique trials and scars that he couldn't personally imagine to insert into her Name. Even if Summer's got a better reputation, they're still Fae. It doesn't scan to me.

The second, what seems to be more likely outcome is that Elaine simply hasn't changed that much over the intervening time. Perhaps she hasn't changed at all, and any difficulty Harry had with the spell was because of his adjustments, not in spite of them. I don't know what Nemfection does to mortals, but dragging our ability to change to a halt seems perverse enough to qualify. Stasis would have also been very appealing to a recently freed thrall who would likely slip into madness over the coming weeks as her mind tore itself apart.

(Also, possible Kumori connection? Bringing change to a halt is the essence of how she saves that guy with necromancy.)

She would have then fled to the Summer Court, to have her "mind healed" by Aurora. If Aurora had such an ability, it seems to me like the White Council would have bargained handsomely to have that on retainer for themselves, if absolutely no one else. But even after Peabody screws up everyone's head, they have to rely on their own fumbling inexperience to fix things, instead of trying to even get lessons from a more powerful mind healer. Like the new Summer Lady who happens to be a huge fan of one of their wardens.

More likely, it seems to me that the Senior Counsel is aware that the Summer Lady has no such abilities. Probably after asking her directly and paying for that specific information in vain hopes of tackling this exact problem.

Currently the only people who have all of the information about how bad Elaine's mental whammy was, and the finer details of how much damage a mental whammy like that does, are Harry and Elaine. And Harry is Harry.

The third possibility is what Harry uses to shock her fully alert in White Night. He calls her Name once and her first name a few times and gets a response, but she's still drowning under the psychic assault. What fully snaps her out of it is when he gives his own name as part of a command.

Elaine Lilian Mallory! I called, and in my head, my voice rumbled like thunder. I am Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, and I bid thee hear me! Hear my voice, Elaine!

It's very reminiscent of how he compelled HWWB in Cold Days, but the way it's written is ambiguous. It could be that throwing his will behind Elaine's full name is waking her up, or it could be that throwing his will beyond his own is doing the job.

Or it could be some combination of the above. Elaine's stasis allowing her Name to land, forming a conduit for Harry's Name to compel Nemesis to act.

Perhaps even, by sheer stumbling idiot fluke, screwing up one of Nemesis' plans by forcefully compelling it to blast it's own agent into the parking lot. That would be very Harry.

It's all circumstantial and speculation, but the lady is shady.

[Mira]

It's very reminiscent of how he compelled HWWB in Cold Days, but the way it's written is ambiguous. It could be that throwing his will behind Elaine's full name is waking her up, or it could be that throwing his will beyond his own is doing the job.

Yes, or he is relying on the love they once had for one another when they were children, soul gazed, knew and used each other's full name.  It could also be because as a star born he has such power over Outsiders and Nemesis, thus he was able to over come any power they had over Elaine at the time and wake her up.  This is before Lash clued him in about some of his power, so I'd say he was relying on the love they once had for one another to get through.

[g33k]

That doesn't mean that the genes no longer exist in Charity's body to pass on to her children or that they don't have recessive genes for magical talent in their bodies that will show up in later generations.

Yes, Charity still possesses those genes; if the X-chromosome "salic Law" theory is correct, she may well have passed them to any (or all) of her kids; who (potentially) will pass them to theirs.

Epigenetics is more than a matter of "dominant/recessive" though:  Jim has been clear that Molly has a talent because of Charity being magically-active so recently; and the other Carpenter kids have no talent because Charity had been non-magical for so long.

What Charity was doing (or not-doing) was what activated (or didn't activate) the magical talent in their genes.
For future generations, it will come down -- in large part -- to a question of how much magic the mothers are exposed to... though some postpartum (and even adult) experiences can maybe shake-loose some powers (as happened for the Alphas).  I suspect there are a few other issues in play, that Jim hasn't yet revealed.

[Mira]

Epigenetics is more than a matter of "dominant/recessive" though:  Jim has been clear that Molly has a talent because of Charity being magically-active so recently; and the other Carpenter kids have no talent because Charity had been non-magical for so long.

  I don't think it works that way..

[g33k]

... Epigenetics is more than a matter of "dominant/recessive" though:  Jim has been clear that Molly has a talent because of Charity being magically-active so recently; and the other Carpenter kids have no talent because Charity had been non-magical for so long.

I don't think it works that way.. 

That's how Jim says it works:

Well, like many things in life, it just isn't as simple as positive/negative, either/or.  Genetics /are/ a factor.  However, they are not the /only/ factor.  I think I've said that at least a couple of times before this, but I'm happy to reiterate.

Look, even the simplest genetic traits are way less simple than you get in basic biology classes when they're operating in the real world.  Sure, you can inherit the gene for tallness, which is dominant, but if your mom is horribly sick, or starves during the pregnancy, it's going to impact your birth and development.  So is your health, environment, diet, behavior, the behavior of those around you, etc, as you grow...
 magical potential and heredity operates along those same lines.  Charity was, essentially, stacking up environmental factors against her unborn children developing their genetic propensity for magic into a real, tangible gift to the point where the chances of them actually doing it were negligible.  If Charity had been possessed of a monster gift, of if she'd been constantly around and involved in magic during the course of the pregnancy, it would have been more difficult for her to reduce it to practically zero like that.  But instead, she was making a deliberate and willful choice to deny her children's potential a chance to find a chance to take root and bloom.

https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,5860.msg157767.html#msg157767

... what's critical to this particular equation is the fact that Charity was consciously and deliberately neglecting her talent--which hadn't been all THAT hot to begin with.  She went through the time she got engaged to Michael, all the way through Molly's term, all the intervening time, etc, before she got to Daniel.  It had been more than two, maybe three years since she'd done anything with her magic by the time Daniel was conceived.

https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,631.msg16946.html#msg16946

You are, of course, free to take your entire opinion from the stories, and ignore WoJ's.

[Mira]

You are, of course, free to take your entire opinion from the stories, and ignore WoJ's.

Which I prefer to do, because it ruins the story for me, and I think limits the author from the freedom of changing his or her mind if the story takes a turn as they often do in a series.  J.K. Rowling mentioned in an interview that in many ways she was too wedded to her outline over the course of the series.  I used to belong to a Harry Potter site and people were constantly saying, " well, J.K. Rowling said this or that so it was the only option for the story.."  Oh I don't mind asking questions, I used ask all kinds of questions of a favorite author of mine and good friend.. But that was after she had finished the story..

[g33k]

... and I think limits the author from the freedom of changing his or her mind if the story takes a turn as they often do in a series ...

Jim's still free to change his mind; either admitting as much or just saying, "what did you expect? of course not everything I said was true!!!"

Notably, though:

• Butters, at his introduction, was only ever meant to be a bit-character, comic relief, coward, etc.  Jim originally had no vision of him as an alt-Batman, a Holy Knight, or getting into a menage a trois with Were-Hotness.
• Going into Changes, Jim hadn't yet decided whether he was going to write the "Harry's Power-Up" scene as the WK (that he eventually did choose) or the Dark hallow, or Lasciel's Coin.  Jim said he could see how each might work, and how Harry might justify them.
• When questioned about some details -- particularly about older books -- Jim has said, "you know, I'm not sure, because with many of these I've written 9-10 versions of a scene, and I don't always remember for sure which one is the final published version."

So Jim is absolutely making (at least some of) this stuff up as he goes along!

[Mira]

    Butters, at his introduction, was only ever meant to be a bit-character, comic relief, coward, etc.  Jim originally had no vision of him as an alt-Batman, a Holy Knight, or getting into a menage a trois with Were-Hotness.

Which is why I prefer not to listen so much to WOJs.  Butters is an excellent example of what the author may have envisioned for a character in his or her head that didn't present that way on the page.  As a reader, not having any knowledge of a WOJ saying that about Butters as a character, I formed my own opinion of him from what was written on the page and to me Butters never came off as either a coward or comic relief.  I know Jim did try, when we first meet Butters, he loves the polka, has this crazy homemade instrument that he is taking to a polka convention.  Thomas tries very hard to convince Harry, thus us that Butters was a coward and a fool.  However in spite of Jim's efforts, while Butters came off as maybe a bit weird and eccentric, at the same time Butters came off as open minded, very intelligent, and willing to step up no matter how frightened he was.  Those qualities for me made Butters a favorite character from the get go.  I am grateful that Jim also realized quickly about the character and went the direction he went with Butters.

The truth is, I think in the first paragraph when we first meet Butters, we find out that he had suffered a demotion and was forced to spend time in a mental hospital because he would neither lie about or take back his medical findings about a body he felt wasn't quite human. This is a man of great courage and conviction,  no way after that could Butters be made into a comic or cowardly character.
   

Now it is interesting after the fact to learn what Butters was supposed to be long after the book was written.

Jim's still free to change his mind; either admitting as much or just saying, "what did you expect? of course not everything I said was true!!!"

Which tells me that most WOJs, unless he is answering a question that has been resolved back when, should be taken with a large grain of salt!