WK Mantle or Lawbreaker taint?

[Mr. Death]

I'm probably off on this, but I'm as allowed to get in a good WAG as anyone. And I fully expect the same level of scrutiny I show y'all, so bring it on.

Consider the following:
1. Per Word of Jim, effect is as important -- sometimes more important -- than intent when it comes to breaking one of the laws. I.e., if you mean to kill someone with a fireball, but miss, you're impacted less than if you mean to just trip someone with a wind blast and they fall and break their neck.
2. Harry already has Black Magic taint from using magic to kill; possibly not only Justin, but the deaths at Bianca's house.
3. When he cast the Red Court Explode spell, it affected half-vampires.
4. Some of those half-vampires were really old, and their losing their half-vamp-ness caused them to immediately die.
5. Ergo, Harry caused the deaths of humans en masse when he cast that spell.

So, post Cold Days, what are the chances that his sudden murderous tendencies aren't just the Winter Knight mantle -- what if it's also the Black Magic taint from killing dozens of humans with that spell messing with his head?

Discuss, prove me wrong.

[Quantus]

I'm probably off on this, but I'm as allowed to get in a good WAG as anyone. And I fully expect the same level of scrutiny I show y'all, so bring it on.

Consider the following:
1. Per Word of Jim, effect is as important -- sometimes more important -- than intent when it comes to breaking one of the laws. I.e., if you mean to kill someone with a fireball, but miss, you're impacted less than if you mean to just trip someone with a wind blast and they fall and break their neck.
2. Harry already has Black Magic taint from using magic to kill; possibly not only Justin, but the deaths at Bianca's house.
3. When he cast the Red Court Explode spell, it affected half-vampires.
4. Some of those half-vampires were really old, and their losing their half-vamp-ness caused them to immediately die.
5. Ergo, Harry caused the deaths of humans en masse when he cast that spell.

So, post Cold Days, what are the chances that his sudden murderous tendencies aren't just the Winter Knight mantle -- what if it's also the Black Magic taint from killing dozens of humans with that spell messing with his head?

Discuss, prove me wrong.

I would argue that Point #4 falls into the same category as lethal Wards, where there was not magic specifically targeting a person Mortal with lethal intentions.  I think the key mentioned in that WOJ (a recent one not in the index, Im looking) even if there is an eventual death, there was never a specific Choice made to "Kill".  He didnt Kill them, he freed them from a magical parasitic force that was trying to consume their Souls;  after that Nature took its course (and it's Due), but Id argue that isnt on him.

[Aminar]

Intent might not matter much, but belief might. Guilt might? And I don't think Harry feels nearly as guilty about killing those people as his murder of Susan. Who wasn't mortal and thus doesn't really count for lawbreaking. But might because of how he feels.
Either way, the murderousness is winter. He describes it in tandem with the lust(which wouldn't be from lawbreaking) too often. I feel like that would be an unpleasant and cheap twist beneath Jim's talent. A gotcha moment.

[Smaug with OCD]

I would buy this argument. Though, I would like to further posit that the murderous urges are the mantle, and his ability to dismiss killing with magic so easily is due to taint. For example, when he kills the guy in the Hunt during the chase scene, and when Harvey dies*. And, for support, I would like to throw in Molly and Harry's conversation in Denny's during Ghost Story. Molly says something along the lines of "It's easy... it shouldn't be so easy..."

*Yes, he gets upset about Harvey, but he shrugs it off pretty easily compared to beginning-of-the-series Harry.

[Snark Knight]

I think the key mentioned in that WOJ (a recent one not in the index, Im looking) even if there is an eventual death, there was never a specific Choice made to "Kill".  He didnt Kill them, he freed them from a magical parasitic force that was trying to consume their Souls;  after that Nature took its course (and it's Due), but Id argue that isnt on him.

That's why I don't really find the "effects matter more than intentions" WOJ sensible. The explanation of warlock soul tainting is that to cast nasty spells, you have to convince yourself it's right, and causing the warping of ethical standards. How can that be sensibly applied to unanticipated collateral damage?

But in terms of the elimination of the Red Court and the subsequent deaths of most of the Fellowship half-turned losing their protection against aging, no, I don't believe Harry could have acquired any warlock taint from that. Why? Because he didn't cast the spell - the Reds' sorcerers did that themselves; he and Susan just hijacked its targeting by giving it her blood instead. It didn't take any act of magic (the Red King tried to send one of his warriors to sacrifice Maggie, and Susan would have stabbed herself but for losing control of her hands during the transformation) at that point.

Now, that's not to say it didn't have fairly hideous moral repercussions anyway - but it didn't inherently change the specific dimension of how Harry interacts with magic in an addictively mind-altering way.

[Mira]

  I wouldn't call the deaths at Bianca's house due to black magic, it was plain old Harry kaboom fire magic.  It isn't even clear that any of them died because of him according to Michael.. They were already drugged by vamp venom and poison, and sucked dry by Bianca's buds..  Though agreed the line between intent, [Harry didn't intend to kill any of the kids on the contrary] effect is just as bad..  Still if Harry had been responsible for their deaths you'd think when they ghost rose up and killed Bianca, that those kids would have gone after Harry.

3. When he cast the Red Court Explode spell, it affected half-vampires.
4. Some of those half-vampires were really old, and their losing their half-vamp-ness caused them to immediately die.
5. Ergo, Harry caused the deaths of humans en masse when he cast that spell.

Did he really?  Or was their fates sealed when they were infected years before?  You might also say he saved hundreds of the younger half-turns, insuring that the once again lived normal human lives..  So does one balance out the other?

So, post Cold Days, what are the chances that his sudden murderous tendencies aren't just the Winter Knight mantle -- what if it's also the Black Magic taint from killing dozens of humans with that spell messing with his head?

Harry doesn't have murderous tendencies..

I would argue that Point #4 falls into the same category as lethal Wards, where there was not magic specifically targeting a person Mortal with lethal intentions.  I think the key mentioned in that WOJ (a recent one not in the index, Im looking) even if there is an eventual death, there was never a specific Choice made to "Kill".  He didnt Kill them, he freed them from a magical parasitic force that was trying to consume their Souls;  after that Nature took its course (and it's Due), but Id argue that isnt on him.

I agree totally with this..

[LordDresden2]

That's why I don't really find the "effects matter more than intentions" WOJ sensible. The explanation of warlock soul tainting is that to cast nasty spells, you have to convince yourself it's right, and causing the warping of ethical standards. How can that be sensibly applied to unanticipated collateral damage?

Was Jim talking about the cosmic effects of black magic in that WoJ, or the Council's legal view?  That is, was he saying your soil is more tainted from result than intent, or that the Council is more likely to whack you if you actually kill someone by accident with magic, than if you meant to kill someone with magic and failed?

[LordDresden2]

That's why I don't really find the "effects matter more than intentions" WOJ sensible. The explanation of warlock soul tainting is that to cast nasty spells, you have to convince yourself it's right, and causing the warping of ethical standards. How can that be sensibly applied to unanticipated collateral damage?

But in terms of the elimination of the Red Court and the subsequent deaths of most of the Fellowship half-turned losing their protection against aging, no, I don't believe Harry could have acquired any warlock taint from that. Why? Because he didn't cast the spell - the Reds' sorcerers did that themselves; he and Susan just hijacked its targeting by giving it her blood instead.

That's an interesting point.  What constitutes 'using' magic?  Also, the fact that their deaths weren't directly caused by the magic is important, I suspect.

[groinkick]

It probably had an effect but he should have shown the signs earlier, not just because he got the Winter Knight Mantle.

[Mr. Death]

There's not a lot of time passing for Harry between the spell and Cold Days -- he's shot dead the next morning, then is a ghost. And my view is, it's not happening in a vacuum. Yes, the murder urges are tied in with the lust, but what I'm thinking is the black magic taint is basically reinforcing it.

Fair points about the intent, and in fact the "distance" between the casting itself and Harry might have buffered him from the black magic taint of it more than if, say, he'd been doing the human sacrifices.

[Quantus]

The thing that is hanging me up more than anything is my side theory for how the Mantle is actually Pushing him.  I theorize that the Mantle itself isn't actually infulencing him, at least not directly.  I suspect that the mantle (at least when gifted by Mab this time) doesnt bring along it's own personality/consciousness that Harry is trying to fight like a possessing spirit, rather Mab gave a big ol' ball of power to a "spirit" (using the term loosely here) that was already in Harry, specifically Id-Harry, as represented by the Snowflake Badge of Office Id-harry now wears.  All the Urges Harry has gotten since becoming Knight fully align with "base desires" that Id-Harry always says he represents. 

So, if that is the case, the notion that some of that is coming from Taint, that Id-Harry specifically is being affected by repeated Black Magic use, is both fascinating and a little frightening.

[Snark Knight]

That's an interesting point.  What constitutes 'using' magic?

In this context, I'd go with the same description of gathering, shaping and releasing energy that Harry described in BR as analogous to loading, aiming and firing a gun. With the malocchio, Lord Raith's helpers were getting the power from the Walker but splitting those three tasks, with the difference in shaping it with intent accounting for why the curse' killings went from comic-book ridiculous when Trixie was running that step to fast and surgically lethal in the hands of the more competent sorceress.

With the heart-ripper curse, all of that was already automated and set up to go as soon as a compatible ritual knife was used to spill a life's blood sacrifice and trigger propagation along the bloodline. Harry's narration didn't talk about manipulating energy at all, just using the knife.

[groinkick]

There's not a lot of time passing for Harry between the spell and Cold Days -- he's shot dead the next morning, then is a ghost. And my view is, it's not happening in a vacuum. Yes, the murder urges are tied in with the lust, but what I'm thinking is the black magic taint is basically reinforcing it.

Fair points about the intent, and in fact the "distance" between the casting itself and Harry might have buffered him from the black magic taint of it more than if, say, he'd been doing the human sacrifices.

Oh ok..  I thought you were talking about his spell at Bianca's....  As for the Changes spell.  No I don't think it would effect him.  He didn't do any spell work.  What he did any vanilla mortal could have done.  It wasn't magic that he cast so I don't see it doing anything to him. 

[Griffyn612]

The thing that is hanging me up more than anything is my side theory for how the Mantle is actually Pushing him.  I theorize that the Mantle itself isn't actually infulencing him, at least not directly.  I suspect that the mantle (at least when gifted by Mab this time) doesnt bring along it's own personality/consciousness that Harry is trying to fight like a possessing spirit, rather Mab gave a big ol' ball of power to a "spirit" (using the term loosely here) that was already in Harry, specifically Id-Harry, as represented by the Snowflake Badge of Office Id-harry now wears.  All the Urges Harry has gotten since becoming Knight fully align with "base desires" that Id-Harry always says he represents. 

So, if that is the case, the notion that some of that is coming from Taint, that Id-Harry specifically is being affected by repeated Black Magic use, is both fascinating and a little frightening.

Objection: we don't officially know what the snowflake pin is symbolizing.

As to the rest, I'd argue that the mantle is actually a construct that is nothing more than an Id, which is also trying to influence Harry in addition to his own. 

I don't think Id is tied to the mantle's urges, because Id wouldn't have rapey tendencies, nor would he be quite as brutal-minded about Harry's friends.  I can't recall when, but I thought there was a moment or two when Harry considered killing Butters. Id would be more likely to see Butters as Harry's pack or family.

[kazimmoinuddin]

Technically the curse did not kill the Demi rcv, it restored their humanity. It is not his fault their natural mortality turned them to dust.

Harry Id and the mantle is all about survival, while black magic useful, he knows it leads to insanity, which is not great for continual survival. If he can focus enough on this, he can hold the temptation to use it at bay.