But the Law of Hospitality applies to wizards as well, last time I checked, Harry is still a wizard.

I think in Skin Game Harry mentions that the consequences of breaking hospitality are that everyone tries to kill you and something about having super-bad luck from then on (it's the chapter where he meets Hades; I don't remember exactly what he says).

A lot,  while it isn't quite what the neutral territory Mac's bar is, it is almost that..  Hostilities are suspended while the rules of hospitality are in force, to violate them is an act of war.  Actually if I remember correctly in Grave Peril it is the rules of hospitality that Harry supposedly broke, that is why the RC wanted him so badly or go to war with the White Court.

Wait, what? I had thought hospitality came up in reference to a list of things that Harry could do but faeries couldn't, which was itself posted as an explanation for why Harry wouldn't necessarily assume that Winter Law applied to him (and so he wasn't trying to weasel out of his responsibilities as Mab's Knight when he broke it). I'm not sure how hospitality has to do with anything, unless the claim is that faeries are incapable of breaking it (which may be the case).

Also, I think there's a WoJ that the way neutral territory works is that everyone present is essentially Mab's guest.

The simplest explanation has been that Michael is talking about two separate ways of dealing with the Shadow.  Telling Harry that the Shadow will fade if he quits feeding it, but that the only way to get rid of it permanently is to take up the coin and find redemption.

If you want to find a contradiction, that right there is a beauty.  To get rid of the coin he has to do evil and then repent, but if he doesn't take up the coin and do evil then he can never be truly free.  How f**ked up is that?

Given that, the moral choice is to give up his magic and never do evil, which is what Michael suggests.

I agree. This is why I said Michael would be willing to exaggerate in this case.

He understands, thus the depth of the sacrifice would bring the reward, the end of the shadow..

I refuse to believe this on the basis that if TWG genuinely demanded that Harry destroy an essential part of himself and also much of his capacity for helping people purely because it would be a sacrifice in order to rid Harry of the shadow, then He would definitely not be a good guy, and I'm confident that Jim is writing TWG as the good guy.

It would be different if Harry was giving up his magic to save someone's life/soul or something, but he clearly wouldn't be in this scenario.

Key word here, evidence...  Michael is a man of faith, he doesn't work on evidence, he works on his faith in the Almighty...  His sincere belief is that if Harry sacrificed his magic with the help of the Almighty, he be rid of the shadow...  For him it isn't about logic or evidence, it is about faith..  You can go on and on about this and that, but for Michael it is a very simple truth...

Yes, but even faith has some basis. This is why Michael believes in TWG, but not in fire breathing pink elephants.

Evidence is usually a pretty good basis for believing something. I'm saying "this might be why he believes it"; other reasons might be "because TWG/his messengers said so" or "because the Church said so."

First I'm going to respond to what you're saying, then at the end I'm going to post a couple of explanations that are related but don't fit into my responses.

Given it's a source we know Michael has gotten information from before, yes, I think it's wrong to disregard. It'd be like saying, "How does Harry know this? And don't say Bob told him."

Yeah, fair enough. This is probably what happened.

If getting rid of a Shadow is a possibility, it is exceedingly rare. I mean, it's probably super rare that a wizard gets a coin in the first place -- most of the wielders we've seen don't appear to have been wizards or sorcerers before they got the coin. My point is not, "Nicodemus doesn't know about it, so it's impossible," the point is, "Nicodemus doesn't consider it a factor because it almost never happens, so he doesn't care enough to bother looking into it. Michael and his ilk, on the other hand really really want a way to remove the Shadow, therefore they'd have looked for it actively."

And my point is not "Nicodemus would look into it on his own" it is "Nicodemus would keep track of what the Church believes about the subject, and attempt to prove/disprove their theories, because as a spymaster that's what he does."

Michael believes it. Harry trusts Michael implicitly -- so to Harry, Michael believing it means that it's trustworthy, because Michael is trustworthy, and to Harry's knowledge -- and ours -- Michael would not tell Harry something that Michael believed would bring Harry to harm.

That is an absolutely accurate assessment of why Harry wouldn't question it (even though I like to believe that if he thought about it he would ask how giving up the one thing he has faith in is supposed to help him against the Fallen--but that's beside the point).

How? Who's putting the gun to Michael's children's heads and forcing him to lie?

To play devil's advocate: The White Council, (well, technically a sword rather than a gun). Or what do you think would happen to Molly if Harry took up the coin? Whether she stays with him or leaves, that's not going to be good for her.

In all seriousness, I think this is a fairly remote possibility--I'm more inclined to believe that Michael exaggerated rather than just lied.

No. When asked, Michael told Harry that to get rid of the shadow, he needs to get rid of his magic.

In the later conversation, Michael is not answering a question, he is making a point about why he thinks Harry still has the Shadow -- because, to Michael's knowledge, Harry has not done the things he knows of to get rid of a Shadow.

What I was trying to say here is that if he believed what he said in Proven Guilty and then found evidence disproving it, it is not out of character for him not to mention that evidence unless confronted, just as he conceals his sword but almost certainly would not lie about it when asked.

If what Michael is saying is a lie and Michael knows it, then Michael telling Harry does not help at all. As you have argued, if Harry tries to get rid of his magic and doesn't get rid of the Shadow, then it will only make things worse.

If what Michael is saying is an exaggeration (which I have been calling a lie, but am realizing now that that's not a clear way to talk about it) then giving up his magic would help Harry. If Michael doesn't believe that Harry would give up his magic, then he doesn't need to factor the consequences of Harry doing so into the equation.

Michael's reaction is clearly disappointed that Harry won't take him up on the offer; there are a number of ways Michael could have given Harry hope without lying if that was the case. There is no indication in the scene that Michael was trying to offer false hope.

If Michael truly did not know a way to get rid of the Shadow, he would have straight up told Harry, "I don't know how. But that doesn't mean there isn't a way, and I will be right there with you helping you through this."

This is very true. At this point, I don't believe that Michael did more than exaggerate.

Not true, because Michael ends the conversation by explicitly and directly confronting Harry with what he will do if Harry succumbs to the coin.

Michael acknowledged the possibility intellectually, and knew what his duty was. He didn't necessarily accept it emotionally. If he had, I would think he would have had a stronger emotional reaction to Harry turning down flat the only way he knows to get rid of the shadow. (Of course, he could have just gone home and dealt with his emotions where they wouldn't undermine Harry--we don't know).

Also not true, because the event they're driving home from is Harry volunteering to train Molly and Michael clearly approving of such an arrangement.

And I don't see anything to indicate Michael considers Harry putting aside his magic to be a higher priority than the risks you say exist if putting aside magic doesn't get rid of the Shadow.

If any such prejudice existed, I would expect it to be unconscious. Also, Harry just saved Molly's life, so I would expect Michael to approve of that. As for your second point, see the explanations below.

In this analogy (and I do not intend this as any judgment or statement on disabilities), you going to and finishing college is analogous to Harry getting rid of the coin. Your learning disability is, if anything, analogous to Lash; the obstacle to doing the thing you want, a thing that you/Harry are well aware of as an obstacle.

Saying the disability is the equivalent of Michael's idea not working is disingenuous, because Michael's idea not working is just not a factor that Michael or Harry are aware about or would be, except in the sense that all plans that anyone ever makes have the unspoken rider of, 'If this works.'

Ah. I understand the problem now. The disability is not the equivalent of Michael's idea not working. The equivalent to Michael's idea is my aunt's belief that I can get through college, and the possibility of it not working is why we discussed contingency plans.

On the other hand, thinking it over again, Michael probably would have expected Harry to contact him if he changed his mind about giving up his magic, so he might have saved discussing "what if it goes wrong" for then.

Nicodemus having no knowledge is not a data point -- it's a lack of one. If Nicodemus had positively claimed Michael was full of crap, that would be one thing -- though I would probably still doubt it, because Nicodemus is a liar who has incentive to lie here.

Nicodemus not knowing that it is possible to get rid of a shadow is a data point. Here's why:

If there was a known method to get rid of a shadow, there is a good chance that Nicodemus would know it. As such, the chance of Nicodemus not knowing it is significantly less than 100%.

If there is no known method to get rid of a shadow, then the chance that Nicodemus did not know of one is 100%.

According to my understanding of formal logic, this works out to mean that Nicodemus not knowing the information means that it is more likely that there is no known way to get rid of a shadow than that there is one, based on the information given.

And how does Harry giving up his magic, retaining the Shadow, resenting Michael for it, and possibly taking up the coin again save Harry's soul?

See explanations below.

I'm saying we have a whole lot of evidence that Michael doesn't lie; and someone who doesn't lie often, has an aversion to lying, and has been shown as visibly uncomfortable when other people lie? They don't lie very well. Michael presents no tells that he's lying. He doesn't hesitate, he doesn't stop to think, he doesn't look away, he just straight up, instantly, tells Harry that there's a way to get rid of a Shadow.

How does he know? In the same scene, he admits that he's known for years that Harry picked up the coin. It only makes sense that -- knowing his friend has a Shadow in his head -- he would look into some way to help him.

Good point. This is why I have changed my opinion to believing that what he does here might be exaggeration, but no worse a lie than that.

I think Michael would posit that lying doesn't save souls; in fact, that lying taints the soul. Lying is, among other things, one of the problems he has with the Denarians in general. I mean, hell, isn't Satan referred to as things like the "lord of lies"? With all that in mind, I do not for a second believe Michael is the kind of person who would make that compromise based on what we've seen in the books.

Good point; very possible.

I am claiming that, he makes his own judgments of whether the information he finds is true or not, with the knowledge that sometimes the Church's information is not accurate.

He is, again, a smart man. If there's a possibility that his information was wrong, do you believe he would not have even tried to verify it? If he found some old book that claimed you could get rid of a Shadow by giving up magic, do you think he wouldn't have looked into it? Prayed for guidance? Straight up gone, "Hey, Big Guy, we both know you owe me a solid -- will this help Harry? One lightning bolt for yes, two for no."

I think he does try to verify his information. How successful he is and when he is successful are different questions.

Michael still doesn't think it's right, and even afterward Harry has to continue justifying the action. You can see where Michael makes a sort of "clean break," where he goes from, "That was wrong and I don't approve," to, "Well, what's done is done. He's an asshole anyway."

You're right in that it is a contradiction -- but it's not on the scale of him questioning and undermining his own beliefs and advice. He still doesn't think it's right, just that it's funny. There's lots of things that are hilarious but still wrong.

I don't mean that he should undermine what he has said. I mean that he could say "I'm 95% certain of this" rather than "I'm 100% certain of this."

ADDENDUM: Michael doesn't know Charity had any magical power. So whether or not it prevents warlockness is not a factor in his thinking, at least not because of anything Charity's done. I honestly just don't think the two are linked in his mind.

Very true.

Explanations:

Why Michael would tell Harry to give up his magic if he were uncertain it would work, given the consequences:

I believe that if Michael thought that Harry would ever willingly give up his magic, then that implies that he didn't understand how important magic is to Harry and how much damage it would do for him to give it up. As such, either Michael did not expect Harry to give up his magic, in which case he wouldn't have any reason to consider the consequences if Harry did so; or Michael was missing information that would have told him how dire the consequences might be, and as such could not make an accurate assessment of the risks.

On Michael exaggerating:

As I've said before, there is no evidence apart from Michael's word that Harry giving up his magic would destroy the shadow. There is, however, evidence that Harry giving up his magic would weaken the shadow's hold on him--the way hellfire ties into the shadow's influence. Hellfire is clearly a vector for the shadow to influence Harry. In the same book we see Harry using hellfire, we see the first negative effects the shadow has on Harry's mood. Further, the shadow can only interact with Harry's conscious mind once Harry has used hellfire consciously. Just as Mab prevented Harry from using fire magic because summer fire was entwined with it and would let Summer find him, Michael might believe that Harry needs to stop using magic in order to weaken/eliminate the shadow's influence on him, even if it doesn't destroy the shadow.

For one thing it would be a real sacrifice on Harry's part,

True. But Harry makes a real sacrifice by endangering his life helping people rather than using his talents to make him rich and comfortable.

as I said it saved Charity from being a warlock.

Corruption from the Fallen =/= corruption from black magic. But I suppose it could be Michael's thought process, sure.

It really doesn't matter, it is a sincere belief on Michael's part, and he sincerely wants to help his friend.   Faith isn't logical, it is what it is and Michael has more of it than almost anyone.

Faith may not be logical, but unless you're crazy then beliefs generally have some basis. It might just be the black magic warlock thing, though.

Although, if that's the case, you would think that seeing Molly reform after having used black magic would encourage Michael to believe that Harry could get rid of the shadow without giving up his magic. Maybe not, though--I doubt he wants to think of anything his kids have done as being equivalent to touching a Denarian coin, so it might not have occurred to him.

"Mab says that she has the ability to change Harry as her Knight." == Nicodemus and Lash think you can't get rid of a Shadow

"But Uriel says she doesn't." == Michael says he knows a way for Harry to get rid of the Shadow.

Because, you know, Michael is allowed to have information that Nicodemus and Lash do not. He is literally someone to talks to a direct agent of an omniscient source of information, after all. Plus? Michael and his people have incentive to figure out ways to get rid of a Shadow, while Nicodemus and Lash do not.

Yes, Michael is allowed to have information that Nicodemus does not. (I have significant doubts that he could have information on this topic that Lash does not, considering what she is, but she doesn't say that it's impossible to be rid of the shadow in such a way--only that no one has ever held out against a shadow for as long as Harry.) Yes, Michael is allowed to be told things by TWG and their agents. I have explicitly brought up the possibility and stated that I was, for purely personal and subjective reasons, I was disregarding it. Since no one said anything about it, I had assumed that others were doing the same for the purposes of this discussion. If your claim is that I am wrong to disregard it, please say so and I will stop arguing the point.

Absent the above point, however, Nicodemus has far more reason to know anything about the shadows than Michael, based on the information he has access to. And I would argue that he does have an incentive to keep track of other people's theories about what could get rid of the shadow in order to either make sure they don't work or see that they are forgotten/discredited.

None of that speaks to whether Michael believes what he is saying is true. That's the measure of whether Michael's a liar, isn't it? Whether he believes what the thing he's saying is true?

Someone who's a Flat Earther might be hilariously wrong about the nature of the world, but if he or she believes what they're saying is true, that means they're not a liar -- stupid, misguided and misinformed, yes, but not a liar.

It speaks to whether a reasonable person would believe it utterly, believe it's probably true, believe it might be true, or disbelieve it. I do not believe that Michael is stupid; I do believe that he is reasonable. I do also believe that Michael is capable of lying to himself about how high the chances are because he genuinely cares about Harry and doesn't want him to give in to the Fallen.

Yes. And I understand that it's not a thing Michael does. It's one of the central tenets of his character.

And Michael forgives people--it's a central tenet of his character. That does not mean that he wouldn't have chosen vengeance against that priest guy who kidnapped his daughter without Harry's help--we have that from Uriel. The fact that Michael generally does not lie does not mean that he would not do so under extraordinary circumstances, and I am arguing that these circumstances are extraordinary.

Betcha a dollar that he doesn't lie about it when he's asked. Hell, when he's literally about to be arrested at the start of Grave Peril, his reaction is to keep his Sword where it can be seen and tell the truth.

By this measure, he did tell Harry that there was no way to get rid of the shadow without taking up the coin when asked (this is support for the "lie of omission" theory, not any of the others).

And here's a question: What is the "higher good" served by this supposed lie? As you have pointed out, at length, if Michael is wrong, if getting rid of Harry's magic doesn't get rid of the Shadow, then it's nothing but bad news for everybody involved.

So, again, why on Earth would Michael lie about it?

Because Michael believes that it will help, just not as much as he says, because Michael believes that Harry never will take him up on it and believes that it is important that Harry have hope that there is some way of getting rid of the shadow, because Michael is lying to himself instead of Harry and doesn't emotionally face the real probability that Harry will be corrupted until he talks to Sanya about it in Small Favor, or because he hasn't quite gotten over the issues he had with magic in Small Favor and believes that Harry's magic is inherently corruptive/leaves him more vulnerable to corruption (if this last is true, then I believe that he got over it after watching Molly's training).

There are plenty of reasons.

You're moving the goalposts. Yes, they're talking about the Shadow. The non-factor is that getting rid of Harry's magic won't work. That is the thing that neither of them have reason to think about.

Can you explain this? I genuinely don't understand either how I'm moving the goalposts or (inclusive or) why Michael has no reason to consider that it might not work (or why Harry would not have had reason to consider it if he'd thought about it for more that two seconds).

Show me where in the books anybody positively says, "it won't work." Show me where that position is addressed in that manner.

The only data point we have on, "Will giving up Harry's magic get rid of the Shadow?" is Michael's assertion that it would work.

We do not have any data points on someone trying it and it not working.

We do not have any data points of someone saying that it doesn't work, anecdotally or otherwise.

We have Michael claiming that it would work. We have Nicodemus having no knowledge that it is possible at all for someone to get rid of a shadow, which I have said is another data point (since if it could be done, there's a good chance that Nicodemus would know about it. We have no evidence of it failing or succeeding. I personally consider the odds of it working to be 60-40 against, but you probably calculate them differently.

Why? What, in any of Michael's characterization throughout the whole series, makes you think he's a liar?

The part where Michael prioritizes saving souls above all else. My argument is, and always has been, that Michael would be willing to lie only for the purpose of saving a soul.

Well, yes? That's how "not being a liar" works, because if you're not a liar, there aren't instances where you lie.

The problem is that I'm saying "well here is a place where he might have lied" and you are saying "he didn't lie there because he doesn't lie ever" when if I'm correct and he did lie there it would invalidate the claim that he doesn't lie ever. That is why I am calling it a circular argument.

We've Michael him in situations where he's been asked to lie and he explicitly refused to; we've seen him in situations where others have lied on his behalf and he's been uncomfortable about it. We've seen him presented with lies from various sources and his response has always been some variation on, "Lying is wrong, I don't do it and you shouldn't either."

So, Michael doesn't lie. When he says something as if he believes it to be true, then he believes it to be true. So far, the only thing pointing to Michael being dishonest is your insistence that he must be lying.

We have never seen Michael in a position where he must lie in order to save a soul, and instead tells the truth. We have seen him do things which he is uncomfortable with to serve a higher good. We have seen him deliberately omit facts when telling Harry things. This is circumstantial evidence, yes, but while it exists it provides support for the possibility that Michael might have lied.

You haven't presented any proof that Michael has evidence it's not true when he speaks in Proven Guilty. There's a possible inference that he learned he was wrong by the time of Small Favor, but that is by no means evidence that he was wrong and knew he was wrong in Proven Guilty.

You haven't presented anyone having told Michael it's not true at any point.

I have presented reasons why Michael wouldn't have evidence that it is true. I have also stated that one of my preferred theories is that Michael did not know he was wrong during Proven Guilty, and only found out later. I have presented evidence that Michael has said that the Fallen have deceived the Church about information before--are you claiming that he was lying then?

You haven't presented any compelling reason for Michael to say this thing to Harry if he believed it wasn't true -- in fact, you've presented a lot of reasons why Michael wouldn't say it if it wasn't true.

So, again, what is the "good reason" for Michael to take an action that you yourself have argued is going to end badly for everyone involved?

See above.

Show me another place in the series where Michael gives advice to someone, then immediately backtracks and says why his own advice that he just gave is bad.

Because that's what you're suggesting Michael should have done. It doesn't sound like anything Michael's done that I can recall.

Michael tells Harry that it was wrong to torture Cassius only to laugh about the subject a moment later. It's not explicitly backtracking, but it certainly undermines his point.

As I have said, repeatedly, I think that when Michael says something as if it's a fact, he believes that to be a fact.

And what is your response to my claim that he might have believed it at the time, and found out later that he was wrong, or that Michael was lying to himself?

He lies in Changes.  Which leads to Ghost Story.

Fair enough.

Harry doesn't, the Mantle does.  There is an existing legal mechanism in the real world which says ignorance of the law is no excuse.  And in point of fact, this appears to be true in Winter.  There is no Winter Law that says Harry can't lie.

This is all completely true. None of it refutes my point that Harry is not trying to weasel out of anything in that scene.

So you want to ignore the broken back, because why?

Because I believe that Mab stuck an illusion in his head that it was broken, and that his back is separate from the mantle. If there is other evidence that the mantle is still active when Harry is stuck with iron, it would be evidence against this belief.

Why would Mab heal Harry if she can use the Mantle to achieve the same results?

Because her deal required her to heal Harry before he became her Knight.

Let's not forget that Harry outright and knowingly lied to Susan when talking about how the armor would protect her in Chichen Itza.  He knew steel would go through fae enchantment like hot knife through butter, and was Winter Knight at that point.

Absolutely, but that wasn't breaking a promise.