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That's a good question. But then again, it's an equally good question whether my hypothesis is true or not, considering that whether or not the Council was more 'relaxed' before Kemmler, they visibly were chop-happy by the 1990s and after.I have always suspected that kemmler traumatized the WC has a whole. Cause if he was a prob from 1861 - 1961, the members of the council had to have felt a lot of guilt about him especially while watching him kick start WW1 and WW2. Everytime they had some atrocities being committed that had to weigh on the council as a whole.
We don't fully know the answer to how Harry survived.
To be fair, they almost did kill him. He came very close, several times, and it was partly the fact that Ebenezar is a high-ranking Council member himself, and a few of the other high-rankers were at least prepared to listen, that saved him. Harry being a starborn may have been part of the equation, too. The Council clearly knows more about starborns than Harry has been told, some Councillors may have considered his starborn status to make him valuable enough to take a risk with.
But we just don't have enough information to say for sure.
I agree, taking up the coin was not part of a long term plan on Marcone's part. I doubt that he thought past the part where the coin would give him wizard power equal to and beyond what Harry has. I doubt that he even realizes now who is really calling the shots or will be soon. As I said, in my opinion there are two reasons why Harry was able to reject both the influence ultimately of Lasciel's Shadow and the coin. 1] Right off Butters points out to Harry that Sheila was a delusion, thus he needs to be questioning everything. 2] His experience with the soul gaze of a Denarian, he understands from the get go about who is really calling the shots if he accepts a coin. Marcone has none of those advantages, however I think it will take a while before he realizes he isn't calling the shots.True
Which is why given the Merlin's admitted prejudice against talented kids who screw up because dark magic is easier and they don't know better, he shouldn't have been the one to soul gaze the Korean kid. Because the Merlin believes that trying to rehab these kids is a waste of time and dangerous, he'd only see the worst and nothing redeeming about the kid. Why Harry didn't argue that point? At least request that he, himself, also gaze the Korean kid or another more neutral minded wizard do it. The outcome might have still been the same, but the process would have perhaps been seen as a bit more fair.First of all the Korean kid was too far gone, just reading about his crimes told everyone that he was to far gone. He had bent to many minds to his will twisting his own in the process. I suspect the soulgaze was a formality.
I have seen that as a fan theory... do not recall seeing a WoJ to that effect, however.Ask and you shall get a half answer, misread or half remembered.
If you can find your cite, I'd be grateful!
OK, I'm not really angry, but this quote from Peace Talks just might derail several ideas that I and other readers have been discussing the past week or two. More than that, it confuses Jim's narrative. Jim probably has it all worked out so it will make sense, but I still find it annoying. So without further delay, here is what Ebenezar said to Harry in Peace Talks about what it means to be Starborn.Being nemfected isnt the only way to be controlled just regular old mind control from a mortal warlock will do that (Peabody, Molly etc). Other cases include vampire whammies from any of the Courts the Lawyer in White night? ( cant remembers which book), Fae mind control (when Mab made harry forget Fire magic). The last one is impressive cause casting fire like swimming to a fish for Harry
Ebenezar - "Every couple or three generations, the stars lineup just right, and what amounts to a spotlight plays over the earth for a few hours. Any child born within that light-"
Harry - "Is starborn. I get it. What does it mean?"
Ebenezar - "Power against the Outsiders. Among other things, that their minds can't be magically tainted by contact with anything from Outside. Which means.."
Which means to me, why the hell was Morgan, the Merlin and anyone else on the White Council; who knows about Nemesis and what it means to be starborn, afraid that Harry was "molded to be a creature of Nemesis."? That last quote is from Morgan's Microfiction.
Didn't they know that Harry is starborn? Rereading Morgan's Microfiction for the umptieth time, he doesn't say anything about Harry being starborn, so I suppose it's possible Morgan didn't know. But Morgan should have known that that possibility existed, unless he didn't know anything about being starborn.
Let me stop for a moment and say why Morgan should have known that Harry might be starborn. Morgan states that he failed to keep his promise to Margaret to protect her child. So Margaret LeFay contacted Morgan when she was pregnant. I doubt it was a face to face meeting because the Wardens had been ordered to arrest Margaret on site and Morgan was a stickler for following orders, but I digress. The possibility of being starborn only happens once every 666 years. You would think that the higher ups in the White Council would be hyper aware of this date. Do you see the issue here and the problems it might create?
Morgan should have been able to put two and two together and realized what Margaret was doing or at least suspected she was trying to create a starborn child. Even if Morgan didn't find out about Margaret's death until a few days after it occurred, he should have wanted to establish the time of her death and Harry's birth. Unless Morgan didn't know anything about being starborn or perhaps he had heard the term, but didn't know what it meant. So under this scenario, Morgan knew about Nemesis but didn't know anything about people who are starborn. I suppose that is possible, but it seems a bit weak to me.
What about the Merlin and others on the senior Council? What is their excuse? Surely, when they heard that Margaret LeFey had died while giving birth, they should have been asking what day she died and what time it was. Shouldn't they have a calendar with the date and time for people who are going to be starborn marked off? Wouldn't they have been checking the birthdate and time of birth of anyone showing enough magical talent
to be admitted to the Council, so they would know if that person was starborn? We know that Ebenezar and Listen's to Winds know that Harry is starborn. They can't be the only one's on the Council who knows this.
Unless, they do know, but only Ebenezar knows that being starborn insures protection against Outsiders. If that was the case, why didn't Ebenzar just tell the members of the Senior Council that Harry couldn't be tainted by Nemesis? I understand that wizards don't like revealing secrets, but this idea borders on the ridiculous.
Other potential problems with this passage:
Is Elaine starborn or not? Because if she is, that kills the OP and a big chunk of a thread I started about Elaine being nemfected. On the positive side, it might explain why Jim hasn't given us a straight yes or no answer to Elaine's starborn status. So, I could still be right.
Was the White Council trying to create their own starborn? Because, if Eb and maybe LTW are the only ones on the White Council who knows what being starborn means, it kills that idea. It would also kill the idea I had that Harry being a destroyer is related to him being starborn. I think this is highly unlikely, so if the Council wanted their own starborn, was that Elaine? Did they fail or did they succeed? We don't know.
Aside from knowing the date and time someone was born, is their another way to detect that someone is starborn? Lea, Mab, Lash and I assume Odin/Vadderung know when Harry was born. How did the Erl King in Cold Days and Drakul in Battleground know that Harry is starborn? For that matter, how did Mavra know? She specifically told one of the other Black Court vamps that Drakul got to eat anyone who is starborn. Is there some supernatural data broker selling information on who is starborn or is there something in Harry's aura that clues them in? A bit off track, but if it is something in Harry's aura that clues-in the characters mentioned above, can Bob see it? Would Bob know what it means?
Getting back to Elaine, if being starborn is something that can be detected with supernatural powers, Titania must know if Elaine is starborn, because she would be able to detect it. You would think that those in the White Council who are in-the-know about what being starborn means would want to create their own starborn detector. Times and dates of birth can be fudged or simply mistaken.
I'm trying to create a narrative where all of this makes sense, but it's a bit difficult. Most of the Senior Council doesn't know that Harry is starborn.
I refuse to believe that, at least for now. So, the Senior Council knows that Harry is starborn, but for some unknown reason think he might be vulnerable to Nemesis. Being a destroyer that Morgan feared might be related to Harry being starborn, but it might be something else. A lot of supernatural heavyweights and at least one supernatural middleweight know that Harry is starborn, but we aren't exactly sure how all of them got this information. Elaine might also be starborn, but she might not be one. If Elaine is starborn, then she can't be nemfected, unless there is a exception that can allow Nemesis to posses someone who is starborn. While this would explain why Morgan and the Senior Council feared and still fear Harry, it completely violates what Ebenezar told Harry in the long quote above.
You can bet on it. Only you can bet that it's way, way more complicated than just a simple quid pro quo to become a national leader.I think a deal can be done or has been done before just not in the way the politicians thought it was. In my mind, i can see Lara, Mab or what ever entity proming a young politician money and support in exchange for a few favours. Dude agrees thinking its a normal thing, usual political deal and what not, only for the entity to came back and collect only then for the guy to realise f..... it wasn't a human but who you gonna tell
But in the Dresdenverse, there are quite a few people who do know the truth, or part of it. It's not a majority that believe, but certainly a large minority are perfectly well aware of at least the real existence of the supernatural.
The thing is that the supernatural powers are already deeply entangled into the mortal world power structures. The White Council may be the most entangled one, but it's also the most human one. The White Court are certainly deeply plugged into it, Lara has demonstrated the ability to manipulate the Federal Government at a high level.
And of course, the Feds have at least one of their own counter-version in the Librarians, who are apparently feared in the supernatural world. Probably other major nation-states have their own versions of that.
I don't think a deal to become President, or Prime Minister, or whatever, in a major state, is likely. Not at the simple, straightforward a level. It would be more like trading favors, the White Court (for ex) pulls strings to help get John Doe elected to a spot, and in return he does favors for the Court. In that respect, it would be no different than the Mafia or the Yakuza or Archer Daniels Midland or the Teamsters Union or whoever. And of course in the DV all these groups are also interacting with each other as well. You'd probably be just as likely to see a deal with a supernatural power to get John Doe a board seat at GM or Apple or Disney as you would a legislative seat.
And we've seen how Marcone interacts with the supernatural while running his criminal empire in Chicago.
One of Harry's worries, in fact, is that if the general public ever realized just how compromised every institution and group is by the supernatural, society would break down. That was part of how Mavra was able to blackmail him back in the day.
If he did, he never mentioned it.. So we can't be sure.Im not saying he is owned by the outsiders only that he is tainted and no one has a way of telling what the taint or mark means. From the perspective of joe wizard dude has taint that marks him if he is seen under the Sight.
Since the ones who panic have been vanilla humans, it is safe to bet they never saw magical power in the raw before, and it would scare the hell out of them. However soul gazes with Marcone and a couple of other people have not produced panic, in the case of Marcone, I think he scared Harry more than the other way around. As for the others, they were reassured, even comforted by what they saw.
I doubt that Harry is marked like an animal or is owned by the Outsiders.
However we don't know at what point they soul gazed, did they even know what they were doing at the time? He hasn't soul gazed her since, so who knows what he would see now. Another thought, Eb did soul gaze Harry after or just before he took him in under the Doom, if the presence was there or the taint, he should have seen it.I think we can be sure Eb saw the taint. The 3 eye junkie saw it. I have always suspected that part of the reason tge WC hates/fears harry is because of it. I agree with the guys who think its why people panic after soulgazing harry. One way to think of the taint is that it is a brand ( the type placed on cattle). Brands indetify cattle has belonging to someone. In some cases if owners of the cattle are scary enough no one will steal their cattle cause just because you know who they belong to and what they will do to you. Everyone sees it and knows that an outsider marked him. Could be for purely nice reasons but probably not. In Harry's case people scary themselves to death just thinking what it means. Is he an outsiders pet, food, friend or lover noone knows
No, they really didn't, it was the fight that Molly helped to put up, along with Harry and the others. The actual final defenses for the prison itself were never tested. If Harry hadn't been able to summon Mab, who aided Murphy in shooting Maeve, it could have gone the other way.Chapter 46 cold days,
Did she? I don't remember that line, do you have a quote? I am not saying you are wrong, I just don't remember it. Also Alfred can't choose, he has to be ordered, if it were that simple it wouldn't have been as close as it was. Even if Harry had ordered him, apparently the defenses of the island are a bit more complex that's why it took Harry a year to learn them and put them in place. And notice in Skin Game Mab was actually asking permission to come onto the island where as in Cold Days she didn't.
And they were losing until Maeve was killed. If all you say is true, then why did the powers wait until the last minute?
That is why it is so important that the island have a Warden. However like with so many things the White Council has their collective heads up their arses. My own thinking is they fear the possible rise of another Kemmler more than the possible assault on the island by Outsiders, so they are content what defenses the island can mount on it's own, is enough. This fits a pattern with them, any young kid with talent goes astray, instead of putting him or her under the Doom, give all of them the chop. They fear abuse of mental magic, so only allow the teaching of a minimal and largely ineffective mental defense technique against mental attack.Ok a couple of things