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The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: Tinfoil hat on July 03, 2024, 01:34:19 PM
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Is Harry a good mentor
So I have been thinking about what makes a good mentor a lot lately. And like all things it got me thinking about the Dresden files.
Harry is shown to be a better mentor than Justin (fine it’s a low bar) . He’s kinder amongst other things( Again it’s a low bar).
So in Ghost story, Lea points out that he was too soft on Molly. Lea being Lea is a sociopath, Mab agrees with Lea that Harry is too soft on her. Mab being another sociopath. In Turncoat Morgan pointed out that He was being too soft on her. But Morgan is an ahole so we don’t think about it too much.
But the Sociopaths may have a point. If being a good mentor is about the results then Harry is a bad mentor. Molly under Harry was left scared after a battle and was not suited for battle in general. After one year with Lea she is a force of nature in Bombshells? Against the fomor.
Justin is a bastard but look at his 2 apprentices. One took is a badass, the other is slightly less badass.
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... After one year with Lea she is a force of nature in Bombshells? Against the fomor ...
Molly was also mentally/emotionally fragile, and (as an unstable mind-mage) incredibly dangerous to her friends as well as enemies.
And she was getting worse, not better, until Harry came back.
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I'd say that the difference is in the goals of the mentors.
Justin, Lea, and Mab are training with the goal of producing battlemages that will hold up in the fiercest combats and are ready for trouble 24/7/365. Morgan didn't necessarily train that way but judges by that standard because of who he was.
Harry is teaching the daughter of his best friend how to be a responsible and moral practitioner. He's giving some combat instructions for self-defense but but he's not training a soldier.
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Harry is teaching the daughter of his best friend how to be a responsible and moral practitioner. He's giving some combat instructions for self-defense but but he's not training a soldier.
I'd agree with that, he was also trying to emulate Eb, who didn't teach him much magic but did will teaching him the ethics of magic. He went easier teaching Molly because she was a girl, yeah, I know but it's true, and partly because he felt that Justin was way too hard on him. I also think though he did do the soul gaze with her, he underestimated how tainted she really was as far as going down the warlock road.
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Molly was also mentally/emotionally fragile, and (as an unstable mind-mage) incredibly dangerous to her friends as well as enemies.
And she was getting worse, not better, until Harry came back.
This^^. Though to be fair, in the case of the Ragged Lady it was partly Harry's fault, because of Molly's involvement in his death scam.
Overall, Harry was an excellent mentor. Yeah, Mab and Lea thought he went to easy, but they would think that. That's Winter. They'd have thought Justin went too easy on Harry and Elaine.
Morgan had a little more of a point, but you have to look at it in context. When Harry first became her Master, Molly had just barely come through a nightmarish experience that she had in no way been ready for. She had effed up two minds, but with good intentions. To complicate it, Molly almost surely did save Rosie's baby from being born addicted, if not worse.
She had specific magical talents that especially lend themselves to misuse. I can't prove it, but I would hazard that more warlocks come to warlockhood through mind magic than from all the other Laws combined. It's just so easy to misuse, and so tempting to do so, and so many ways good intentions can lead to disaster.
Molly was full of adolescent rebellion as well, something Harry was easily young enough (and similar enough in personality) to understand, but she longed for her family, too. Harry recognized in her almost right away that however blase and independent she acted, her parents' good opinion still mattered to her, esp. Michael's. Remember how upset she was when she found out she'd still be living at home while an apprentice, and how happy she really was at that.
Now this same rebellious, confused girl thought she was in love with Harry, which complicated things enormously. (While she may have come to the real thing later, at that point it was infatuation and fantasy. Harry poured cold water on that, literally.)
Now keep in mind that part of her probably still thought she hadn't done anything all that wrong with Rosie and Nelson. Yeah, she's been told why it was bad thing to do, but at this point she hasn't seen how bad this sort of thing can go. She did get them off the drugs, and as I noted above, she almost surely saved the baby from being born a drug addict, or worse. So she did a bad thing with good intentions, and actually did get some good results (partly by luck, admittedly).
At the same time, her own motives were mixed, and Harry knew he had to help her sort that out if she's going to avoid being beheaded for a repeat offense.
Harry isn't trying to teach Molly to be a battlemage, he's trying to teach her to be a functional human being and a Wizard (as opposed to a warlock). At that stage, Molly could be compared to old-fashioned sweating dynamite, or the like. It would be very very easy to detonate it, to the disadvantage of everyone.
Harry did it. He managed to teach her to combine the morality she learned from Michael with her own situation. He taught her self-restraint. He taught to recognize that 'having the power' is not the same as 'having the right'.
Remember in one of the side stories, Molly is tempted to do something she knows she shouldn't, but then she remembers Harry telling her that the best way to deal with 'it would be wrong but' is to stop the thought at 'it would be wrong'. He reached her. She learned.
Now, eventually, she reached the point where he probably needed to start getting tougher with her training. That comes hard to him, and he might have been a little too easy-going at the end, just before Turn Coat and around the time of Changes. If everything hadn't gone to crap right then, probably Harry eventually would have realized that himself, but everything went to crap just then.
It's true that pain can be a good teacher. Sometimes it's the only teacher. It's true that a drill sergeant who is too easy on his trainees is not doing them any favors when war comes. But Molly had only just reached the point of being ready for drill instruction when things went south. Before that, she was a broken, fragile girl armed with a built-in mental nuke.
Mab and Lea, if they had been in charge of Molly's training after Proven Guilty, might very well have produced a badass battlemage. Of course, she'd also have become a monster and almost surely at least four kinds of warlock. Or maybe she'd have suicided from overload before she was ready. Mad and Lea would just shrug at either. That's Winter.
So yea, overall, I'd say Harry was a damned good mentor. He was the right Wizard for the job at the right time. Maybe, probably, toward the end, he needed to be a little tougher. But try that much sooner than it happened and you'd break Molly, one way or another.
So give Harry an A- as an instructor, esp. considering that this was his first effort as a master.
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Is Harry a good mentor
So I have been thinking about what makes a good mentor a lot lately. And like all things it got me thinking about the Dresden files.
Harry is shown to be a better mentor than Justin (fine it’s a low bar) . He’s kinder amongst other things( Again it’s a low bar).
So in Ghost story, Lea points out that he was too soft on Molly. Lea being Lea is a sociopath, Mab agrees with Lea that Harry is too soft on her. Mab being another sociopath. In Turncoat Morgan pointed out that He was being too soft on her. But Morgan is an ahole so we don’t think about it too much.
But the Sociopaths may have a point. If being a good mentor is about the results then Harry is a bad mentor. Molly under Harry was left scared after a battle and was not suited for battle in general. After one year with Lea she is a force of nature in Bombshells? Against the fomor.
Justin is a bastard but look at his 2 apprentices. One took is a badass, the other is slightly less badass.
Yeah, and one is a badass and a functional human being because a surly old farmer in the Missouri Bootheel took him in and taught him how to be a decent human being, (building on Malcolm's foundation), and even so Justin left scars. The other almost-as-badass is a broken bird in some ways, gradually putting herself back together, not having had the benefit of Ebenezar and Malcolm to counter Justin's influence.
Kemmler was a mega-badass, too. There's more to life than being a badass.
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Yeah, and one is a badass and a functional human being because a surly old farmer in the Missouri Bootheel took him in and taught him how to be a decent human being, (building on Malcolm's foundation), and even so Justin left scars. The other almost-as-badass is a broken bird in some ways, gradually putting herself back together, not having had the benefit of Ebenezar and Malcolm to counter Justin's influence.
Kemmler was a mega-badass, too. There's more to life than being a badass.
Molly did have the benefit of her parent's upbringing as well. Yes, she rebelled, but deep down she could not escape what was ingrained in her from birth. However having said that the danger for unmentored kids once they start down the dark path, is it is addictive and a slippery slope. The old "Dark side of the Force," type thing easier to do with quicker results, which leads to a rush of feeling powerful that is hard to give up. Molly had good intentions as far as her friends go, and she also had good intentions when she went into Morgan's mind in Turn Coat, looking for quick and easy for her answers because she had that kind of ability, not thinking of the repercussions for those around her, including Harry who would suffer the same fate if they decided to prosecute her. Harry couldn't undo completely that part of her addiction. That's what the Merlin tried to tell him when he was explaining why the White Council have gone mostly to a zero tolerance policy. However it was that part of Molly that attracted Mab, Molly had crossed that line when she went into the minds of her friends. In her mind the end justifies the means, much like Mab, herself.
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Yeah, and one is a badass and a functional human being because a surly old farmer in the Missouri Bootheel took him in and taught him how to be a decent human being, (building on Malcolm's foundation), and even so Justin left scars. The other almost-as-badass is a broken bird in some ways, gradually putting herself back together, not having had the benefit of Ebenezar and Malcolm to counter Justin's influence.
Kemmler was a mega-badass, too. There's more to life than being a badass.
True but in the Dresden universe there is need for badasses now more than ever. In the grand scheme of things which is more important for Molly to be a broken badass who saves the world over and over again at the low low cost of her soul and sanity or for her to be a mostly decent human being
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True but in the Dresden universe there is need for badasses now more than ever. In the grand scheme of things which is more important for Molly to be a broken badass who saves the world over and over again at the low low cost of her soul and sanity or for her to be a mostly decent human being
The thing is for Molly as a Fae Lady now, it will cost her her soul as she becomes less and less human. That is unless as a favor to her father, Heaven intervenes.
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Molly is holding out against the mantle. She's strong enough to stand up in defiance of Mab. That speaks well of her family, and Harry credits them for that in BG. But it also speaks to her mentor teaching her about the correct use of power. And that is a credit that Harry would never acknowledge.
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Being a Fae Lady doesn't necessarily cost you your soul, it may cost you your humanity.
Maeve and Aurora were both outliers. We only saw Aurora after she was Nemesis infected and Maeve became Nemesis infected early on.
Mab and Titania do their jobs with an inhuman and sometimes inhumane dedication. But both still have human feelings deeply buried. They sacrifice everything that interferes with getting the job done but still retain the capacity for love and hate. Mab's dialog shows a great deal of biting humor, and she tolerates private and logical defiance.
One of the reasons Mab is so hard on Harry and Molly is to give them the mental toughness to work through the future pains she knows they'll be facing. She's teaching them to cope but is willing to risk them becoming unfeeling because she needs results. And as long as they produce results, she'll give them some leeway even it causes some wobble in her plans.
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Being a Fae Lady doesn't necessarily cost you your soul, it may cost you your humanity.
Maeve and Aurora were both outliers. We only saw Aurora after she was Nemesis infected and Maeve became Nemesis infected early on.
Mab and Titania do their jobs with an inhuman and sometimes inhumane dedication. But both still have human feelings deeply buried. They sacrifice everything that interferes with getting the job done but still retain the capacity for love and hate. Mab's dialog shows a great deal of biting humor, and she tolerates private and logical defiance.
One of the reasons Mab is so hard on Harry and Molly is to give them the mental toughness to work through the future pains she knows they'll be facing. She's teaching them to cope but is willing to risk them becoming unfeeling because she needs results. And as long as they produce results, she'll give them some leeway even it causes some wobble in her plans.
Would you say that Mab has a soul these days? Mab was once human.. She may have a smidge of humanity left,
but is that enough for her to still have a soul? Granted it's taken a thousand years or so to get to this point, Molly might not reach it before the end of the BAT, but who knows? I think she will have to choose at some point, Winter Lady power, or even Winter Queen power, or her soul.. I think that might be what Mab was getting at when she ordered Harry to kill Molly if something happened to her.. Being Queen maybe a soulless job and Molly isn't ready to give up hers just yet.
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Would you say that Mab has a soul these days? Mab was once human.. She may have a smidge of humanity left,
but is that enough for her to still have a soul? Granted it's taken a thousand years or so to get to this point, Molly might not reach it before the end of the BAT, but who knows? I think she will have to choose at some point, Winter Lady power, or even Winter Queen power, or her soul.. I think that might be what Mab was getting at when she ordered Harry to kill Molly if something happened to her.. Being Queen maybe a soulless job and Molly isn't ready to give up hers just yet.
If Mab didn't have a soul, she wouldn't have been so torn up about Maeve's Nemfection, she'd have killed her herself. She wouldn't have shuddered at Harry's thanks at the end of Battle Ground or changed her proclamation and given Harry a year to marry Lara. The conversation she had with Harry about selling his soul applies to her as well. And Harry can build his soul back with time after overusing Soulfire so why can't Mab or Molly? Mab's reputation for evil does not match up with her deeds in the books, especially once you know her place in the Dresdenverse cosmetology.
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If Mab didn't have a soul, she wouldn't have been so torn up about Maeve's Nemfection, she'd have killed her herself. She wouldn't have shuddered at Harry's thanks at the end of Battle Ground or changed her proclamation and given Harry a year to marry Lara. The conversation she had with Harry about selling his soul applies to her as well. And Harry can build his soul back with time after overusing Soulfire so why can't Mab or Molly? Mab's reputation for evil does not match up with her deeds in the books, especially once you know her place in the Dresdenverse cosmetology.
People with souls kill themselves all of the time. Harry is still a human, is Mab still a human? Whatever Mab's reputation is, and I agree with you that she isn't as evil as she seems, has nothing to do with whether or not she has a soul. Even evil people have souls, that's the part that is condemned to hell in the Final Judgement.
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If Mab didn't have a soul, she wouldn't have been so torn up about Maeve's Nemfection, she'd have killed her herself ...
I think Mab can't.
I think it's a Winter Law thing, and she has to work through her Knight or some other agency.
... She wouldn't have ... changed her proclamation and given Harry a year to marry Lara ...
I think the telling argument -- the one that changed her mind -- was about what was "proper" and "traditional." There are rules to be followed, and a mourning period is one of them.
That being said: yes, I think Mab still has a soul. Just the smallest ember smoldering in her cold, cold heart... but I think it's still there.
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Neither Mab nor Titania could bring themselves to stop their Nemesis controlled daughters.
Titania still can't totally forgive Harry for doing it even though she admitted to him that it was necessary. Mab was in a rage for years when she discovered Maeve's infection and had to speak through proxies or else injure listeners. Her dedication to necessity did enable her to give the order to execute Maeve directly.
I'm seeing two heartbroken and grieving mothers, not soulless monsters.
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That being said: yes, I think Mab still has a soul. Just the smallest ember smoldering in her cold, cold heart... but I think it's still there.
Which could lead to her downfall, but also for victory for her side.
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Which could lead to her downfall, but also for victory for her side.
I think that little bit of soul in Mab is what makes her acceptable to Mr Sunshine and his boss. Without that piece she is another monster that will threaten humanity unnecessarily. Mab seems like a bad guy to us but she is a part of the ecosystem of the Dresden universe. The Reds were probably to soulless to be allowed to continue and where cut same with the blacks
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I think that little bit of soul in Mab is what makes her acceptable to Mr Sunshine and his boss. Without that piece she is another monster that will threaten humanity unnecessarily. Mab seems like a bad guy to us but she is a part of the ecosystem of the Dresden universe. The Reds were probably to soulless to be allowed to continue and where cut same with the blacks
But it may make her hesitate which could lead to her downfall as Winter Queen. Hard to say though, ordering the cold blooded death or execution of her daughter was pretty soul less, though her reaction after the fact hinted that she did have some soul... Did Maeve have a soul? Or was she merely insane?
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But it may make her hesitate which could lead to her downfall as Winter Queen. Hard to say though, ordering the cold blooded death or execution of her daughter was pretty soul less, though her reaction after the fact hinted that she did have some soul... Did Maeve have a soul? Or was she merely insane?
Having a soul doesn't stop her from being insane. Nemesis seems like it possesses anything and everyone with or without a soul
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Having a soul doesn't stop her from being insane. Nemesis seems like it possesses anything and everyone with or without a soul
True, but it still doesn't answer the question of whether or not Maeve had a soul.
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... ordering the cold blooded death or execution of her daughter was pretty soul less, though her reaction after the fact hinted that she did have some soul...
"soulless" as an adjective is much like "cold-blooded" ... but absolutely should not be confused or conflated with the Dresdenverse condition of having or not having a "soul."
Regular everyday humans -- who absolutely-and-for-sure have souls -- make those sorts of "soulless" decisions (and do so distressingly often!).
This might equivalently be called a "corrupted soul" or other epithets; but such criticisms of the state of their souls are very different from literally having no soul whatsoever in the Dresdenverse.
Mab -- who has mastered both cold-blooded calculation and self-control -- took years of coming to term with her daughter's state, before she gave her new WK the (necessary) order to kill Maeve. But I don't think this gives us strong evidence of Mab either having or not having a soul, honestly.
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But I don't think this gives us strong evidence of Mab either having or not having a soul, honestly.
That's my point, unless you believe that non-humans can have souls.. Then you have to figure out how much mortal human remains in Mab, and is that enough for her to have a soul? Now Maeve may have had, with a mortal father she might have been at least half human.
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As Uriel said, " You have a body, you are a soul." Any creature that started off as a mortal has a soul to begin with, even if they corrupt and distort it over the course of their lives. Assuming a big enough mantle may grant immortality but doesn't destroy your soul.
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As Uriel said, " You have a body, you are a soul." Any creature that started off as a mortal has a soul to begin with, even if they corrupt and distort it over the course of their lives. Assuming a big enough mantle may grant immortality but doesn't destroy your soul.
Do the animals and reptiles and fish have souls? They all have bodies don't they?
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Do the animals and reptiles and fish have souls? They all have bodies don't they?
They never had human souls while Mab, Titania, Maeve and Sarissa started as full humans or changelings.
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They never had human souls while Mab, Titania, Maeve and Sarissa started as full humans or changelings.
However at some point they have to make a choice, they give up their humanity for immortality and power. Sarissa is a bit different as a changling, she clung to her humanity until the Lady's mantel was forced upon her.
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However at some point they have to make a choice, they give up their humanity for immortality and power. Sarissa is a bit different as a changling, she clung to her humanity until the Lady's mantel was forced upon her.
No, while they took on their mantles voluntarily or forcefully merged with them, they never had to choose giving up their humanity like a changeling's choice. It's just that the mantles continually try to exert control and the human has to control the excesses. Over time, a balance is reached.
Harry keeps tight rein over the Winter Knight, otherwise he'd spend a great deal of time at Arctis Tor "being entertained" in his apartments. Mab is pleased with Molly's work as Winter Lady but thinks she has too much emotion to be a good Queen. Molly worried herself to near panic avoiding her parents and siblings because she was mortified that they'd see her as a monster. Perhaps over time, the mantles will exert greater control, but the people are still in there.
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No, while they took on their mantles voluntarily or forcefully merged with them, they never had to choose giving up their humanity like a changeling's choice. It's just that the mantles continually try to exert control and the human has to control the excesses. Over time, a balance is reached.
Would you say that there is a "balance" between human mortal and Fae in either Mab or Titania? I also would say that over time, the "human" loses out.. We saw that in the case of Molly and Carlos, human Molly wanted to have sex, but the Lady's mantel won out and Carlos was torn up.
Harry keeps tight rein over the Winter Knight, otherwise he'd spend a great deal of time at Arctis Tor "being entertained" in his apartments. Mab is pleased with Molly's work as Winter Lady but thinks she has too much emotion to be a good Queen. Molly worried herself to near panic avoiding her parents and siblings because she was mortified that they'd see her as a monster. Perhaps over time, the mantles will exert greater control, but the people are still in there.
As I said, the Knight's mantel is a bit different, also Harry is one of a handful of mortals that has been able to keep the mantel under control, he goes to great lengths to do it too. Molly's fear isn't that her parents would see her as a monster, but their fear and her own fear of losing her soul because of what she has become.
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Would you say that there is a "balance" between human mortal and Fae in either Mab or Titania? I also would say that over time, the "human" loses out.. We saw that in the case of Molly and Carlos, human Molly wanted to have sex, but the Lady's mantel won out and Carlos was torn up.
As I said, the Knight's mantel is a bit different, also Harry is one of a handful of mortals that has been able to keep the mantel under control, he goes to great lengths to do it too. Molly's fear isn't that her parents would see her as a monster, but their fear and her own fear of losing her soul because of what she has become.
There is a balance in both Queens, but those balances don't have to be equal. They just have to be enough to allow them to do their jobs without going insane.
Mab and Titania have to let their mantles have prominence; their roles require levels of information management that our best supercomputers would be incapable of. Mab is linked to Winter, the way that Harry was to his followers in Battle Ground. She says as much when Harry asks her about the Banner. She's defending the bastion of reality 24/7/365 against an endless horde of Outsiders. It's more telling tat she actually has some time for small diversions.