But your statement above is not consistent with what we saw in the books.
It's consistent with what
I saw. You appear to have seen something else.
Paranet up to the events in changes is a decentralized help network, providing advice and ability to get assistant from Harry or other key leader
The Paranet, as I understood it, was designed to create a centralized network to coordinate a group of people that have been notably decentralized up until that point.
Paranet in Ghost Story has evolved into a defensive organization, spreading news of attacks and encouraging people to behave defensively. Murphy is clearly directing where some of the military forces are being directed, including where to call in Ramirez or white court hit teams.
As I understood it, the Paranet was
always a defensive organization, and what changed is their level of coordination with other groups. Murphy was (maybe) directing where Ramirez and White Court hit teams went, but I don't see how that makes her in charge of the Paranet--neither of those people/groups belong to the Paranet.
In no way was the paranet EVER described as some centralized organization. It has always been described as a series of city/town focused groups with some central coordination. Remember, the paranet was created on the back of the existing social structure for minor practitioners – aka a lot of local organizations. You can argue that this structure changed dramatically with the formor. Not sure I buy that, but if you do then you do.
I'm arguing that the point of the Paranet has always been to centralize a bunch of unrelated groups, and that it has been moving toward that continuously.
I am not saying that Murphy is the ONLY one who can lead the paranet.
Oh, good.
To be honest, I am not sure the paranet would ever have “one” leader. The org screams “committee” to me.
Makes sense to me.
But Murphy is the most likely candidate for the “chair” simply because she is very well known, she already has a personal relationship with all the key people, she IS a heroic figure to the lay members of the paranet and is well situated to represent their interests.
This doesn't make sense to me, because as I understand it, Murphy is in the position of "valued and trusted ally." And allies of an organization, no matter how valued and trusted, don't suddenly end up in charge of that organization without either some sort of takeover, or a lot of people thinking that there's some sort of takeover.
Wasn't someone arguing earlier that no member of the White Council could end up in charge for precisely this reason?
It is true she is not a practitioner, but not sure that is a big deal given the org is likely run by committee. Given that many practitioners have very little power, I doubt magical power has much bearing in the authority any individual has within the Paranet. I could easily see the Paranet including a number of individuals that are not practitioners, but are useful/supernaturally aware. After all, their common interest is awareness of the supernatural and vulnerability to the supernatural. However, if the organization defines itself as Magical Practitioners, then there is no chance of Murphy being a leader.
This seems to be another case of different understandings. I have always understood the Paranet to define itself as an organization of magical practitioners. I could see this maybe changing due to the war against the Fomor, but I feel like we'd need to see that change well in advance of Murphy being put in charge.
I suspect Elaine can be a highly effective leader as well – and she may very run the Paranet’s national organization. I do agree that Elaine would not be considered a warlock UNLESS she was associated with Justine. Not joining the White Council is not against the laws of magic. But Elaine’s fear of this will keep her from taking a very public role with the White Council.
I, on the other hand, see Elaine's fear having waned significantly, since she has at this point been working with Ramirez for years, and seems quite comfortable with it. Also, Harry at least doesn't see this as being a problem, given that he was advocating that the White Council work with the Paranet since sometime before Changes, and he's well aware of Elaine's issues.
White Court, Marcone, Odin’s people, White Council, Knights of the Cross, Supernatural part of the Church, Winter Lady, Billy Borden and the Alphas
No, no, maybe, no, no, no, no, and no. Did I not specifically say that I wasn't counting contacts through Harry and Harry's actions? (Also, we
know that Elaine has contacts with at least the White Court and the White Council, because we've seen it in the books. And Molly doesn't have a huge reason to like Murphy--their relationship in Ghost Story was fairly adversarial, and their interaction in Cold Days mostly consisted of her getting politely kicked out of her own apartment so that the person she was in love with could have a conversation with Murphy (who is her rival in that department). She may be polite about working with Murphy at need, but I don't see them having much of a relationship outside of "we're mostly on the same side and both like Harry.")
Also, what does having outside contacts have to do with being the leader of the Paranet? I've been meaning to ask this. At best, it would make one a good ambassador to those organizations, or someone who coordinates between them. And Murphy would be a very bad coordinator/ambassador to the White Council, because her connection to them is extremely tenuous (she's met Luccio all of once and has
maybe worked with Ramirez off screen) and explicitly doesn't trust them.
It is not that Elaine cannot find out people’s phone numbers or get an introduction. My point is that Murphy is well known and respected by these individuals. Elaine can develop that relationship as well – but I doubt she has that today.
Maybe. But see above regarding what this has to do with running the Paranet. If you're looking for someone with the contacts to coordinate between different powerful groups, then that's Harry
way more than it's ever Murphy. Seriously, name one supernatural contact that a) Murphy did not get through Harry and b) does not know/respect Harry as much or more than Murphy. And that's not counting the contacts that Harry has that Murphy doesn't.
And Chicago seems to be where all the external help is coordinated from – so Chicago is important.
Maybe. Or maybe it's just that we only see Chicago, and meetings like this are taking place in a bunch of different cities. We don't know.
In all fairness, Elaine probably has a lot more contacts with the individual Paranet organizations. I suspect Elaine has more power within the paranet itself. But I was not addressing that question, but the question of who would make a good public leader of the paranet.
So what you're saying is that Elaine should be the head of the shadow government of the Paranet, while Murphy serves the purpose of puppet leader/public face for the purposes of working with other organizations. You know, I can actually see that working
really well--except that I think Murphy would probably object. She might get talked into it, though, so who knows?
Hoping that the council won't ever found out Elaine's little secret is asking a bit too much. The council are wizards after all, and gathering intelligence is one of their main bread and butter.
If Elaine stay ananomous and hide amongst the masses it is one thing, but if she appears as the head honcho of a major organization, the council is bound to dig up her background, especially if this organization is about to engage in an alliance with the council.
Maybe. On the other hand, the people who actually know about the Justin thing appear to all be either dead or Harry, so...
(there might be some members of the Summer Court left, but probably not many given how faeries don't share information, and given that they would all have been involved in the battle above Chicago (and some of them we saw die on screen there) and then been involved in a war with the Red Court (even if they didn't fight in too many battles) and then involved in the Demonreach incident, not to mention that they've had more than ten years to get themselves killed in other ways, I feel like "they're all dead" is probably a safer assumption than "they're alive and just waiting to convince the White Council to make a trade for information, even though the White Council has no reason to assume that the Summer Court in particular would have information.")
Making contact with Ramirez on a personal basis is one thing. Interacting with the council as an organization is another thing entirely. Ramirez is young and rather tolerant, shown by the way he slack off when the order to catch Molly comes up, but if the paranet is going to ally with the council as an organization, Elaine won't be dealing with Ramirez only but with the likes of Morgan and Langtry.
Maybe. But not very often, I don't think, and working with someone for years puts one at far greater risk than having a few formal meetings with people. Also, having Ramirez say "this person's on our side. She's had plenty of chances to screw us over and lead us into traps, but instead has been nothing but helpful" is probably going to ratchet down suspicion.
Even her relationship with Ramirez is on shaky ground because their relationship is based on a lie. Elaine is still hiding her powers after all, even if Ramirez has some incling, Elaine and Ramirez has not handle this issue openly and clear the air to my knowledge.
Meh. Even if Ramirez does work out that she's hiding her power, that's hardly going to lead to the assumption that she's a warlock--it's more likely to lead to the assumption that she didn't want to get drafted like Harry did. And as you pointed out, Ramirez is fairly tolerant, and he's had years to see that Elaine is interested in helping rather than working against the White Council.
In my opinion, as long as Elaine stay as the head honcho of the paranet, any formal alliance between the paranet and the council is pretty much impossible. Having some contacts and back door dealings with more tolerant individual members of the council is as much as the paranet could go. In such a case, a official contact person aka embassador is rather unnescesary.
So what you're saying is that Elaine needs to be thrown out of her position. Personally, I feel that this is a disservice to her character, but I suppose I can get behind the Paranet not formally working with the White Council until after Elaine is proven to be a bad guy, if that's what ends up happening to her. So long as she's not thrown out for incompetence/inability to get over her issues.
Also I want to emphasize that Murphy's vanilla status is very unlikely to effect anything if she wanted to join the paranet, assuming she is not a member already. If we want to be frank about it, when it comes to common ground, the average practicianer on the paranet has a lot more in common with a vanilla mortal compare to a wizard level talent like Ramirez.
Her vanilla status is important to the Paranet insomuch as she really ought to be a member before she ends up running it, and to my knowledge the Paranet is an organization of magical practitioner.
Her vanilla status is more relevant to her interactions with the White Council, however, because as you pointed out, someone who wants to get the Paranet to work with the White Council is going to have to deal with Langtry and people like him, and those people are far less likely to respect/work with her due to her lack of magical talent.
With minor practicianers living amongst the common folk and with most of them still young and has their friends and family around, I will be the first to disbelieve if you tell me that there is no vanilla mortals within the membership of the paranet. Well, As long as the vanilla mortal is not in denial land like Rudolph. I suspect that the paranet has develop from an organization of minor practicianers into an organization of everyone who is clued in on the supernatural world. People like members of SI, Mickey Mallone, Agent Tilly and so on. Charity, Butters, Michael probably is a member as well. It will be stupid not to join the paranet if you are clued in. The information spread on the paranet could save your lives after all, and if I am a minor practicianer I would have recommend my friends and family to join too, so long as they can handle it and not go insane like Rudolph.
You may suspect and disbelieve all you like. The fact is, canon has stated that the Paranet is an organization of magical practitioners, and while that might have changed, we need to see that in the books before we accept it as incontrovertible truth.
Also, are you forgetting the Venatory Umbrorum? That's another organization of clued-in people, and one that explicitly accepts vanilla mortals. Furthermore, it's better connected than the Paranet because it's already an acknowledged ally of the White Council. Why should everyone and their cousin suddenly be part of the Paranet when nobody has felt the need to join the Venatori Umbrorum in all this time?
As for Harry. He is trusted by the paranet, that is true. but even though he is a member of the council, he is not trusted by the council's current leadership. He is the winter knight and warden of demonreach. If he acted as the go between the paranet and the council, it could possibly worsen the problem. The council fears him. Which such circumstance, It won't be clear if the paranet wanted to ally with the council or wanted to intimidate them instead?
Luccio is captain of the wardens. She is practically the council's grand Marshal. Asking her to act as a go between is a bit much.
Okay. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding with what I am trying to say, which I will now attempt to clear up.
For the Paranet to start officially working with the White Council, you need people in three positions:
1) You need the head/one of the people running the Paranet to be in favor of the idea.
2) You need someone who can effectively lobby the White Council into agreeing.
3) You need someone who knows both these people and can act as a go-between/support for both sides.
For position 1, I have been advocating for Elaine. She is one of the founders, she is in the position of CEO, and she's in favor of working with the White Council (as seen by her working with Ramirez and based on the fact that the Paranet was formed in response to a failure of minor practitioners to work with the White Council resulting in far too many deaths).
For position 2, I feel that Luccio would be best, since we know she's in favor of the idea, she's lobbying for it already, and she's the captain of the Wardens. Ramirez could also work or help Luccio with this. A distant third would be McCoy, if Harry convinces him to do so.
For position 3, either Harry or Ramirez could work. I feel that Harry would be better, except that he is generally mistrusted by a bunch of people in the White Council. I think that this will change, though, and based on the people claiming that Harry will end up as the Blackstaff or the Merlin, I'm not alone in that.
I
do not feel that any one person can do all three jobs, and frankly it's better if no one tries to do two. And yet people keep arguing either as if I'm advocating one person for three/two jobs or as if they think one person should do it all. I just don't get it.