Dark influences on Harry

[Serack]

So I was just thinking how there have been several instances where Harry went through something and afterwords he felt stained.  There is even one instance where he speaks with that oracle spirit in DM and the spirit says she senses dark magic on him and he says not all of it is his, probably referring to his consuming the Nightmare's "Chi"

So I thought I'd compile a list of all the times Harry went through something that stained him.  I might make two separate lists, one of definite dark influences, and one of things that are more ambiguous in how they stained him...

The thing is, there are so many instances of this stuff, that I am sure to miss lots, so help is appreciated.


Dark Influences

• Harry is stalked by HHWB, gaining his shadow
  • "I felt... Stained, simply by feeling its presence, stained as if it had left some hideous imprint or mark up on me, one that could not be wiped away." ^{GS ch 31}
• Harry kills Justin, breaking the First Law.
• Harry Consumes the Nightmare
• Harry Picks up Lasciel's coin
• Harry redirects the Entropy Curse
  
  • "I felt a sudden terror that something had been torn away from me; that in simple contact with that dark energy, I had been scarred somehow, marked.
    Or changed. ^{BR Ch 17}
• Evil Bob marks Harry with Necromantic energy.

Other possible stains.  Either not necessarily dark, of unknown quality or not necessarily permanent. 

• Leananshea does some dark rite on young Harry
• Harry uses the Hexenwolf belt
• Lots and Lots of Nasty True Sight viewings

[Griffyn612]

Specifically the Sight of the Skinwalker.  That one was pretty potent.

[peregrine]

He's got an evil spirit whispering to him.  At least once, maybe more than once.  He's taken on power from Mab to be her Knight.  It's not necessarily black magic, but I expect that will leave a mark.

[DragonEyes]

Dark Influences

• Harry is stalked by HHWB, gaining his shadow
  • "I felt... Stained, simply by feeling its presence, stained as if it had left some hideous imprint or mark up on me, one that could not be wiped away." ^{GS ch 31}
• Harry kills Justin, breaking the First Law.
• Harry Consumes the Nightmare
• Harry Picks up Lasciel's coin
• Harry redirects the Entropy Curse
  
  • "I felt a sudden terror that something had been torn away from me; that in simple contact with that dark energy, I had been scarred somehow, marked.
    Or changed. ^{BR Ch 17}
• Evil Bob marks Harry with Necromantic energy.

7. Harry dons the mantle of the Winter Knight. That one is pretty dark too.

[Paladino]

Harry ressurect Sue's? I know she isn't human but, its necromancy anyway.

[dimpwnc]

-I don't know if it's too amorphous and un-magicky to count, but his kills in DB seem to haunt him during PG and beyond:
[Murph:]"You look like you're bleeding, somehow...you killed them.  It's eating at you....You made the choice cold...[in reference to her own killing of Denton]...but it made me feel stained.  To take a life." (PG, 99-100)
[Harry:]"I've never killed, man.  Not like that.  Cold."...[Michael, in response:]"You feel like nothing is ever going to be right again...you feel stained." (PG, 385)

-And I guess the obvious (if still unmagicky) one, manipulating/killing Susan in Changes: "One day I hope God will forgive me for giving birth to the idea that came next.  Because I never will." (C, 415) "'It wasn't hard,' I said quietly.  'Just cold.'" (C, 425)

-And another unmagicky one where he doesn't perceive it, so this may be way too tenuous: his complete contempt for and utter brutality to ghouls.  In terms of that counting as a stain, in a different context, he talks about how "Life's easier when you can write off others as monsters, as demons, as horrible threats to be hated and feared.  The thing is, you can't do that without becoming them, just a little.  Sure, Lasciel's shadow might be determined to drag my immortal soul down to perdition, but there was no point in hating her for it.  It wouldn't do anything but stain me that much darker." (WN,276-277).  Seems to me that's exactly what he's done with ghouls, despite his initial comments to Ramirez in the same vein as the quote above.

These nonmagical examples might not count; I'm not sure.  I guess I never grasped why murdering by magic does more harm to the soul than just general murder.  I get why invading someone's mind/free will does some terrible damage, but it seems to me that murder is murder, and it stains the soul, whatever the weapon.

[DragonEyes]

And killing Slate on the Stone Table is about the same.

[dimpwnc]

And killing Slate on the Stone Table is about the same.

Yes, definitely, and it has the benefit of being less ambiguous.  It is part of a rite that lets Harry gain magical strength:
"I was a man seeking power.  For good reasons, maybe.  But I wasn't going to lie to myself or anyone else about my actions.  If I killed him, I would be taking a life, something that was not mine to take.  I would be committing deliberate, calculated murder...I had no right to take his life, and it was pure, overwhelming, nihilistic arrogance to say otherwise....I just stood there...stared at the remains of the man I'd murdered, wondering what I was supposed to feel.  Sadness? Not really....Mostly? I just felt cold." (G, 238-243)

The term "cold" seems to become as much an indicator of new damage to Harry's soul as the term "stain". I really hope that's not the case in Cold Days....

[Cruness]

This one might be ambiguous, but Harry's exposure to the Hexenwulf belt in FM? It was a spirit of rage, and given its effect on him, I can imagine it left a mark.

[Serack]

Yes, definitely, and it has the benefit of being less ambiguous.  It is part of a rite that lets Harry gain magical strength:
"I was a man seeking power.  For good reasons, maybe.  But I wasn't going to lie to myself or anyone else about my actions.  If I killed him, I would be taking a life, something that was not mine to take.  I would be committing deliberate, calculated murder...I had no right to take his life, and it was pure, overwhelming, nihilistic arrogance to say otherwise....I just stood there...stared at the remains of the man I'd murdered, wondering what I was supposed to feel.  Sadness? Not really....Mostly? I just felt cold." (G, 238-243)

The term "cold" seems to become as much an indicator of new damage to Harry's soul as the term "stain". I really hope that's not the case in Cold Days....

This is a pretty good one.  I was considering the taking of the Winter Knight Mantle, but I didn't know how to seg it.  That quote works pretty well though.  Thanks for including it.

This one might be ambiguous, but Harry's exposure to the Hexenwulf belt in FM? It was a spirit of rage, and given its effect on him, I can imagine it left a mark.

I actually included that one into the 2ndary list.

[Cruness]

I actually included that one into the 2ndary list.

Why yes you did, Sorry about that. I blame morning.

[wyltok]

Harry ressurect Sue's? I know she isn't human but, its necromancy anyway.

Seconding this. Since one of the reasons Harry did this was to surround himself with a "field of necromantic energy " strong enough to survive approaching the Darkhallow Vortex of Doom (tm), it may have left some sort of stain on him afterward.

Not sure if anyone's mentioned his pyrofuego spell in Grave Peril. He's had nightmares about the fact that he didn't care that there were humans still around when he threw it (meaning, he may have killed them with magic, breaking the first law... again).

On a more mundane example of something that stained him (like dimpwnc's), I would mention the whole situation with Trixie Vixen and Co. in Blood Rites. The whole book reads as a study on what TvTropes calls "What measure is a Non-human", with the Black and White Court vampires in one side, and the coven of porn star sorcerers in the other.

"Trixie," I said. "You can't possibly think that this is all right. Why are you doing this?"
 "I'm protecting what's mine, Larry," she said. "It's business."
 "Business?" I demanded. "Two people are dead already. Giselle and Jake were at death's door, and I don't even want to think about what would have happened to Inari if I weren't there. What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
 "I don't feel any need to explain myself to you."
 I blinked at her slowly and then said, "You don't know either. You don't know who he's marrying."
 She didn't say anything, but her eyes blazed with scorn and fury.
 I shook my head, continuing. "So you've just been eliminating all the women around Arturo Genosa. One at a time. You don't even know if you're killing the right person."
 "There's only one little girl toy left pretty enough to suit his tastes," she said.
 "Emma," I said.
 "And once she's gone, I won't have to worry about her stealing what's mine."
 I stared at her for a second. "Are you insane?" I said. "Do you think you'll get away with this?"
 "I'd love to see some prosecutor try me for witchcraft," she responded.
 Trixie was too stupid to believe me about the White Council and too self-absorbed to keep my name straight, but for crying out loud, she had to be human. "Hell's bells, Trixie. Emma's got kids."
 "So did Hitler," Trixie snapped.
 "No, he didn't," I said. "He had dogs."
 "Whatever," Trixie said.

[...]

 The adrenaline rushed through me, wild and mindless.
 I wanted to kill her.
 A lot.
 I hadn't ever felt that before-a sudden surge of fury, contempt, and disdain mixed in with a physical excitement only a few degrees short of actual arousal. It wasn't an emotion. It was nothing that tame and limited. It was a force, a dark and vast tide that picked me up and swept me along like a Styrofoam packing peanut. And I liked it.
 There was something in me that took a deep and gloating satisfaction in seeing my enemy on the floor and helpless. That part of me wanted to see her screaming. And then see her die screaming.

[...]

 I stared at Trixie for a hot, wild second, and the look choked her continued shrieks to whimpers. Trixie may have been female, but as of that moment she wasn't a woman anymore. She'd crossed a line. As far as I was concerned, she and her allies had forfeited their membership card to the humanity club when they killed Emma.

[Richard_Chilton]

-I don't know if it's too amorphous and un-magicky to count, but his kills in DB seem to haunt him during PG and beyond:
[Murph:]"You look like you're bleeding, somehow...you killed them.  It's eating at you....You made the choice cold...[in reference to her own killing of Denton]...but it made me feel stained.  To take a life." (PG, 99-100)
[Harry:]"I've never killed, man.  Not like that.  Cold."...[Michael, in response:]"You feel like nothing is ever going to be right again...you feel stained." (PG, 385)

My reading of that is that the killing hit him harder than picking up the coin.  With the coin, Harry had excuses.  He had to pick it before Little Harry picked it up, he was fighting the coin's influence, he wasn't planing to use it - he had lots of excuses for that one.  For the murder - he had no excuses.  He had killed someone and couldn't find an excuse or rationalization for that.

When he was alone with Micheal he poured out his heart to the Knight about the murder.  He had a real heart to heart.  The coin thing was more of an after thought with him - and Harry seemed surprised by that.

His first killing in cold blood - that hit him hard.  Very hard.  Without that, I don't think he could have forced himself to kill Susan.

Richard

[DragonEyes]

My reading of that is that the killing hit him harder than picking up the coin.  With the coin, Harry had excuses.  He had to pick it before Little Harry picked it up, he was fighting the coin's influence, he wasn't planing to use it - he had lots of excuses for that one.  For the murder - he had no excuses.  He had killed someone and couldn't find an excuse or rationalization for that.

When he was alone with Micheal he poured out his heart to the Knight about the murder.  He had a real heart to heart.  The coin thing was more of an after thought with him - and Harry seemed surprised by that.

His first killing in cold blood - that hit him hard.  Very hard.  Without that, I don't think he could have forced himself to kill Susan.

Richard

See, I never liked that part. It wasn't his first cold blooded killing. He killed Grevanes drummer (for the life of me I can't remember his name). Granted, the guy had been cutting on him, so it wasn't exactly without cause, but it was certainly a killing not in self-defence. He was already safe by then. Also granted, it was Mouse that did the killing, but Harry was the mind behind the deed.

Not trying to get into an argument about the nature of the killing of slate, but imho Harry is wrong about it being his first cold killing, even if it was a step about what he'd done before.

[Paladino]

See, I never liked that part. It wasn't his first cold blooded killing. He killed Grevanes drummer (for the life of me I can't remember his name). Granted, the guy had been cutting on him, so it wasn't exactly without cause, but it was certainly a killing not in self-defence. He was already safe by then. Also granted, it was Mouse that did the killing, but Harry was the mind behind the deed.

Not trying to get into an argument about the nature of the killing of slate, but imho Harry is wrong about it being his first cold killing, even if it was a step about what he'd done before.

Thats the murder Richard is talking about... Not Slate