Yeah, there is definite unresolved sexual tension between the two.

Agreed, it's been there since she was a teen for Molly and in recent years it's becoming mutual, and Harry is reluctant to admit this to himself for various reasons, some of them good reasons, some purely Harry-baggage.

I'm pretty sure the women Harry's made the most sexual comments about so far are: Mab, Lara, Molly and (odd one out) Andi. Typically the first time he meets one of them in any book (and often every other time they are in the same room as him) he has to go into detail about how great he thinks their bodies are. Then in Mab or Lara's case he has to remind himself they are evil and in Molly's case he reminds himself that he can never go there because of [insert excuses]. Followed by him checking out their arse again anyway or giving a detailed description of how Molly's nipples are noticeably pierced. 

Yeah, but that set doesn't go together.

Very nearly all males and many women automatically have that reaction to Lara, it's imposed from outside.  About the only way Harry could avoid reacting to Lara that way would be active use of magic or maybe certain drugs. 

Which is not to say he doesn't find Lara the human being attractive, because he clearly does.  But that overwhelming lust is independent of that.

Likewise, Mab is a special case, esp. now that he is the WinterK.  That attraction there is only partly sexual, though it's easiest to express in that form.  It's a mixture of awe, terror, respect, revulsion, admiration in the abstract (the way one can admire the beauty of a tornado or a shark), and ordinary desire for a beautiful woman mixed in.

His attraction to Molly, OTOH, is purely human.

His description of Corpsetaker in GS was also a strange look into his psychology. He starts of saying she is UGLY!!! (It's not spelled correctly without the three !!!), yet by the end of the paragraph has decided she must have been really attractive when she was younger. He's obviously got a thing for bad girls that he's in denial about. Not sure how his Andi fixation fits into that theory but there's a girl who needs to ask a certain Native American Senior Council member how to take her clothes with her when she shape changes.

His comments about Andi are simply based on the fact that she's exceptionally hot.  There's no particular mystery to it.

When he's laying down the law to the winter court:
My voice echoed throughout the whole chamber as clearly as if I’d been using a PA system. “All right, you primitive screwheads. Listen up. I’m Harry Dresden. I’m the new Winter Knight. I’m instituting a rule: When you’re within sight of me, mortals are off-limits.” I paused for a moment to let that sink in. Then I continued. “I can’t give you orders. I can’t control what you do in your own domains. I’m not going to be able to change you. I’m not even going to try. But if I see you abusing a mortal, you’ll join Chunky here. Zero warnings. Zero excuses. Subzero tolerance.”
I paused again and then asked, “Any questions?” One of the Sidhe smirked and stepped forward, his leather pants creaking. He opened his mouth, his expression condescending. “Mortal, do you actually think that you can—” “Infriga!” I snarled, unleashing Winter again, and without waiting for the cloud to clear, hurled the second strike, shouting, “Forzare!” This time I aimed much of the force up. Grisly bits of frozen Sidhe noble came pattering and clattering down to the ice of the dance floor.

When I first read this I did a mental double-take. Harry committed murder there. Seriously, he straight up murdered a sapient being for the crime of disagreeing with him, and somehow it's okay because it was a Sidhe, not a human. And nobody calls him out on it. There have been other instances of speciesism in the series, but this takes the cake.

Did he commit legal murder?  No.  Mab gave approval.

Morally, Harry is in extreme danger, and he knows it.  Not long before he did that, he was musing about the danger of power corrupting, one little step at a time.  At the time he was thinking about the moral risk of sex with Sarissa, even with consent, under the peculiar circumstances, but it applies more generally.  Harry isn't unaware of the danger.

The problem is that it's also true that Harry probably really does have to behave that way, and do things like that, to enforce what authority he has in Winter.  Not enforcing his authority is suicidal.  Literally.  He very probably does have to be the Alpha Monster to keep the other monsters at bay.  Does that make it OK morally?  Not necessarily.

Note that we saw something similar in the short story Even Hand.  What Harry did that Sidhe noble, John Marcone did to a prisoner who started to waste his time with empty bravado.  The situation is not entirely similar, of course.  Harry was less in a position of power relative to the others than Marcone was to his prisoners, Marcone had more options available.  In each case, though, both men (who are very similar in some ways, psychologically, though they spin in oppositely) issued an order or asked a question, with either a stated or implied threat of death in the even of non-compliance, and then enforced that threat.

By declaring mortal 'off limits' around him, Harry hopes to protect them and himself from traps using mortals, the way Maeve tried to use Sarissa.  If the Winter Fae know that the moment they even try something with a mortal to get at Harry, he'll immediately go to DefCon 5 and nuke them on the spot, it provides an incentive not to make that attempt in the first place.  That helps avoid things like somefae grabbing Karrin or Butters or Billy and using him/her as a tool in a play against Harry...or so he hopes.

Since the warning has already been issued, Harry doesn't have to concern himself with things like boundaries or the fae claiming that he's just plucking Karrin's eyes out and it's no concern of Harry's, the warning's already in place so Harry doesn't need an excuse to act.  The fact taht it's a capital offense means that a fae has at least what should be a good reason to think carefully before trying anything 'clever'.

Harry has allowed himself to be put into a position where he may literally have no options other than behaving immorally or dying.  It's the latest link in a long chain of bad consequences stemming from a long chain of bad choices going back to his 16th year, and his ill-advised deal with Lea.  It was compounded by later bad choices, especially in Death Masks.  As Uriel keeps trying to pound into him (and is starting to penetrate), bad choices tend to give bad results.

The situation Harry (and Molly) are in now is also glaring proof of the wisdom of Bob's warning to Harry, way way back in Summer Knight, that wise mortal avoid getting mixed up with the Sidhe.  At all. For any reason.  Note that this is also the traiditional view of the Fae in myth and legend.

Did Harry take a step closer to corruption at the party?  Almost certainly.  Was it as  big a step as it could have been?  No, because his options really were limited.  But it was a step.

I find the suicides on Love Hurts really repulsive, especially the brother and sister one..

I mean, to have their mind/feeling tampered to belive something is good, to feel really good doing it, but on unaware level to know that is fundamentally wrong. I can't not imagine how low they would probally think of themselves for doing what they were forced to do, and even lower because they liked doing it. And not being aware that it is not their fault they are acting like that? That they aren't a terrible person.. 

And than the conflict inside their minds push them to suicide, and if they were christian, they would have died thinkign they were condemning their souls..

I don't think you can torture someone much more than that. Or of an act of evil much worse than that.

Hence the Fourth Law of Magic.

I don't think this issue is that big of a deal.  I noticed it on my second read-through, years ago, but never thought it was worth bringing up except maybe as a throwaway comment here and there.  Now however, Serack is looking for all possible discrepancies in the Files, so I thought I'd lay it all out formally:

So let us look at the bodies:

1.  Janine.

Lives alone.  Apparently killed by despair.   Exodus 22:18 on her wall.  This means that Madrigal killed her, unless someone wants to suggest that the Skavis killed her and then Madrigal came later.  To me this complicates things needlessly;  Madrigal is too sneaky to invade another person's crime - he would just find his own victims.

2.  Pauline Moskowitz.

Mother of two, husband, two dogs.  Note that according to #1, the Skavis only attacks people who live alone or are isolated.  Doesn't seem like his MO.  Futhermore, Butters points out that she had equal cuts on both her arms, meaning that someone "helped".  I don't see this fitting the Skavis' profile either.  Surely he would want the victim to actually kill themselves in order to feed fully?

3.  Maria Casselli.

Had a husband and a younger sister living with her.  Again, against #1. 

4. Next two profiles.
 

Again, against #1

5. Jessica Blanche

Killed by sexual ecstasy.  Exodus 22:18 on her chest.  Obviously Madrigal.

6. "twenty people unaccounted for since last month"

Note that the only 3 bodies (#2) found are Janine, Pauline and Maria -- all those have been mentioned above, and don't appear to be Skavis work.

7. People who weren't actually dead

8. Anna Ash.  Pretty sure this was done by the Skavis.

Now the quotes:

#1
#2
#3
--------------------------------

There are two or three potential issues that come to mind:

1) Body count.

We have word of Anna that there are 20 missing/dead people in Chicago.  Subtract the dozen at Thomas' hideaway.  Subtract the "Several" (At least 4, or Harry would have mentioned the actual number like with the kids), and you 20-12-4 = 4.  Subtract Jessica, Janine, Pauline, Marie and the other 2 "living with family" that Harry found and you get less than zero.

So of the 20:
- 16 were actually saved by Thomas.
- 3 of the 5 killed were most likely Madrigal (Exodus and the twin-cuts from the knife), and the other 2 were living with others, so it's likely the Skavis didn't kill 'em.

Sure, you can say that maybe there were other victims that Anna didn't know about, but the "almost" community was pretty close-knit.  For that matter, if someone was really off the radar, how would the Skavis have known to target that person? So how many did the Skavis actually get (other than Anna)?   1?  2?

For a deadly creature, the Skavis doesn't seem so competent...

2) Living alone

Anna makes this whole production about being the "sole Ordo member living alone"; so much so that she is laying a trap with Elaine for the killer.  And yet, by the case-files that Butters shows Harry, two of the three members of the Ordo that are dead actually lived with others, and so did the other dead women.  Either this is a discrepancy in the story, or Anna/Elaine is leaving something out.  Possibly an extra clue leading them to believe Anna is the next target?

3) Infiltration
Note that in the count, the killer has been to six cities over the course of a year.  That gives you an average of 6 bodies per city, and two months per city.  Given that the disappearances in Chicago started happening a month ago, it sounds like "Priscilla" only had about a month to blend in.  Sure, she could have had letters of introduction or something like that to set up a persona, but wouldn't the "new guy" be under a leettle bit of suspicion if the murders started shortly after she came? 

Interesting, very interesting.  I hadn't considered that.

I mean, that situation is bound to be awkward. What would you have said if you were in her place? Would you have gone off on how much of a warlock she was, when you knew that wasn't what your date wanted to know about their mother?

Given their background, the respect she supposedly has for him, and the stakes of their world?  Yeah, I'd expect the straight truth.

 Hell, Luccio may have still been sort of hoping to get laid that night. You have to keep things in perspective.

I would expect that sort of thinking from a 20-something trying to get laid, yes.  But Luccio is a grownup, and is supposed to see Harry as the same.

So Kumori isn't "regularly breaking the Laws"? She strikes me as very "misguided idealist".

The problem is the context of Luccio's comments.  That's what makes it so hard to reconcile wiht the other accounts from the other people.  You can do it, you can put interpretations on the other versions, and Luccio's, that will make them fit together...but you have to stretch things considerably because of the context.

The kind of 'misguided idealist' that Luccio described isn't the kind that would produce the accounts we get from Nicodemus and Thomas and Lea and Chaunzoggoroth and Eb.  It's not Kumori's kind of idealist.  Luccio talked about the Wardens being assigned to watch Margaret, and spoke of her disappearing for 5 years to be with Lord Raith, but there was no hint of anything about her being a warlock.  At all.

And Harry's reaction is just as weird, which makes me consider the whole conversation weird.  Even if what Harry thought he knew was all wrong, it's still what he thought he knew, you'd expect him to react to what Luccio was saying, at least in his own thoughts.  But he doesn't.

Imagine for a moment that you've spent your entire adult life combating some ghastly practice, let's say slave trafficing and organ legging and murder.  You worked against it as a private citizen in your younger days, and became successful enough at it that the FBI recruited you to do it as an agent.  Working to shut down the people doing it, and protect others from them, is what you've pretty much dedicated your life to doing.

Further assume that your mother, who died in childbirth, was as far as you know heavy into that very activity, she was a murderess, a slave trader, an organ legger, she associated with the worst criminals on the Most Wanted List on a regular basis, as far as you knew.  Your older brother, who can remember her, gives an account that corroborates this.  Some of the criminals you've taken on made references to working with her, some of the older FBI guys around you remember her as well, and their accounts are unpleasant and disturbing and match what you had heard elsewhere.

An old friend of your mother's, who has a psychological block that prevents her from lying, gives you an account that, again, tallies with the bad stuff.

But then, one day, you happen to discuss her with the FBI director, who was also in charge of the FBI back in the day, and his account is totally different, instead of a murderess and a criminal he talks about her being a war protester who hung out with a bad bunch for while, but mentions absolutely nothing about murder, slave trading, or anthing else of the sort...and the time-line of his account conflicts with the other versions.

Don't you think that under those conditions, you'd at least note that discrepency to yourself?!  That's the equivalent of where Harry was at the time of the conversation in TC, yet he doesn't even seem to blink at it.

Weird.

Is it possible that Maggie used her death curse to kill herself at Harry's birth?  That she wanted Harry to group up a specific way?  She wanted Malcom to raise him and instill certain values in him, and she felt that her being around and alive just wasn't a viable way to do that?

We already know that she used her death curse to take away Lord Raith's power to feed, and I'm pretty sure it's established that Lord Raith used his sorceresses to kill Margaret with an entropy curse.

The most important thing, though, is that Luccio's depiction of Maggie doesn't contradict any of that, it simply adds to it.

No, it blatantly contradicts it.

According to Ebenezar, Margaret was a warlock on the run from the Council, and under a literal death sentence.

According to Luccio, Margaret was a misguided idealist who the Wardens had been assigned to watch, and nothing more.  No mention of her being a warlock, no mention of a death sentence from Luccio.

Further, Luccio comments that Margaret simply disappeared for 5 years or so with no explanation, and presumably was with LR and had Thomas in that time.  Nothing about her being hunted afterward by the WCouncil and the WCourt at the same time.  None.

And Harry, in that same conversation, doesn't even notice the contradiction.  That's part of why I say that whole conversation is so weird.  It portrays Margaret as being something totally different than every other reference we've seen.  Either Luccio or Eb is lying, or else one of them is remembering events 100% out of synch with reality.  Yet Harry doesn't even react to the contradiction in his own mind.

That's why I call that conversation 'weird'.

Ebenezer himself told Harry that Maggie called him to Lord Raith's place for dinner and suggested an idea to him, an idea that he didn't want any part of, and that he thought she shouldn't want any part of, either. He said that this occurred shortly after Maggie had taken up with "that Raith bastard." So whenever Maggie's Lawbreaking occurred, it was after the scheme had been thought of and begun. Ebenezer was almost certainly not under orders to kill her at that time, or it seems doubtful that Maggie would have invited him to dinner with Lord Raith and Duchess Arianna.

No, but Luccio didn't mention her becoming a warlock or under death sentence at all.  She made Margaret sound like a misguided idealist, not evil.  Every other account, every single other account, implies evil.

Not that Chaunzoggorth said that Hell expected to get her soul, but she found redemption just before the end.  I didn't remember this last night, but that version also tallies with what Lea told Harry in Grave Peril.  Lea said that Harry's self-sacrficing, noble choices reminded him of his mother...at the end of her life.  After she changed paths.

The problem is not just that we have conflicting versions.  It's that we have a fairly consistant set of versions, set against one strange and conflicting one from Luccio.

And as I suggested in the OP-- well, if the group found themselves with access to a Gate to the Outside, what would they have done about it? Research on Outsiders was a beheading offense, so it's not like they could ask around within the White Council. They couldn't just start trying to summon Outsiders without any clue as to how to do it, because they weren't
It seems to me that Luccio's description gives us insight into why Maggie did the things she did and where she came from, while the others give us insight into the kinds of things she was eventually willing to do to achieve her goals. I was never suggesting that Maggie was pure as the driven snow, or even that she was just misunderstood. I'm sure she did some ugly things, once she came up with her plan and started putting it in motion. But from the example of the dinner Ebenezer had with her, the darker period of her life probably took place near the end, after she hooked up with Raith.

You can't just do 'ugly things' with magic and not have it change you.  That's why using black magic for good purposes doesn't work, or not for long, you lose the good purposes and it rarely takes very long.

Further, the accounts other than Luccio's say that the dark period of her life came first, then, at the very end, came something better.

All the sources agree, though, that she eventually turned away from her allies and left them. She eventually came to her senses, and realized that what she had intended to achieve was not what was actually happening. That's pretty much what it sounds like from all of the various sources. She may have been misguided and short-sighted, but she wasn't evil. Which fits perfectly with how Luccio described her.

Yeah, but every version other than Luccio's does suggest evil.  You have to take a really improbable interpretation of the others to make them even half-fit with Luccio's account, and Eb's account is totally incompatiable with Luccio's.