Do you have the exact WOJ on this?
[Question]: “Actually, Molly’s intentions when she broke that particular law twisted her.” Here’s where I think you hit the nail on the head Lightsabre. It’s the intentions of the caster that matter. Time Travel, Nercomancy, and Mind Control are all tools that can be used to do *bad* things. I’m fairly sure what we see in the laws of magic is a sort of wizard gun control, trying to limit the existence of these problematic classes of spells.
[Answer]: But if the substance of the consequences of the act itself does not have its own inherent quality of good or evil, then how can the /intentions/ behind it determine a similar quality? “Really, I was only trying to provide a better quality of life for my family and my employees. It wasn’t my intention to destroy that particular species of flower in the rain forest that cures cancer.” “I was just trying to give those Injuns some blankets. It wasn’t my intention to expose them to smallpox and wipe out hundreds of thousands of innocent people.” “I just wanted to get that book finished while working two jobs and finishing a brutal semester of grad school. It wasn’t my intention to screw up the name of Bianca’s personal assistant whose death had motivated her to go all power hungry to get revenge on Harry.”
There’s some old chestnut about good itentions serving as base level gradiant on an expressway that goes somewhere, but I can’t remember the specifics right now. 
While I agree that the /intentions/ of the person taking action are not without significance, they carry far less weight than the /consequences/ of that action.
“I meant to shoot him in the leg and wound him, not hit the femoral artery and kill him, so I should not be considered guilty of murder,” is not something that stands up in a court of law /or/ in any serious moral or ethical evaluation. You had the weapon. You knew it was potentially lethal, even if you did attempt to use it in a less than fully lethal fashion. (Or if you DIDN’T know that, you were a freaking idiot playing with people’s lives, something really no less excuseable.) But you chose to employ the weapon anyway. The consequences of those actions are /yours/, your doing, regardless of how innocent your intentions may have been.
Similarly, if you meant to drill that ^@#%er through the eyes, if you had every intention of murdering him outright, but you shot him in the hand and he survived with minor injuries, again the consequences overshadow your intentions. You might have made a stupid or morally queestionable choice, but it isn’t like anyone *died* or anything. He’s fine (at least in the long term), you’re fine, and there are fewer repercussions–regardless of your hideous intentions.
The exercise of power and the necessity to consider the fallout from your actions isn’t something limited to wizards and gods. Fictional people like Harry and Molly just provide more colorful examples.
As for violating the laws of magic themselves turning you good or evil, well. There’s something to be said on either side of the argument, in the strictest sense, though one side of the argument is definitely less incorrect than the other. But it’s going to take me several more books to lay it out, so there’s no sense in ruining the fun.
Jim
Someone proposes that Molly's intent was what twisted her. Jim responds that while intent is important, actual consequences are more important. He uses a bunch of analogies, not stating directly what his statements have to do with the DF. He ends with a paragraph I interpret as saying using black magic makes you evil is more true than not, but it's not that simple. I also think this last paragraph eludes to the theme of the DF of choice vs nature.
I feel like you're insisting that I reject the idea of gray areas when I've repeatedly and explicitly said that I endorse the idea.
I don't believe I'd seen that quote before hearing this idea from Jim. I don't know if the video(s) I recall have been transcribed or I just can't find them on the WoJ site.
If it is what he is driving at, then ultimately Margaret was right about the Council, they are all corrupt and are hypocrites. Eb might be the most corrupt, how many innocents did he kill when he brought down that satellite? Those that died weren't all vamps.. I doubt that you can find one wizard not tainted in some way by this standard.
Just to be clear, the standard, as I understand it, is "killing a mortal with magic corrupts." "With magic" and "mortal" appear to be in need of further definition. It also appears that the degree of corruption may be mitigated, but not eliminated, by factors such as intent.
How does this make the WC hypocritical? The Blackstaff protects Eb from black magic corruption. Are you saying that every wizard has killed a mortal with magic?
Not the way I understand it, they didn't put Harry under the Doom for dueling. Harry is a bit of a unique case and had he not had the likes of Eb defending him, he could have gotten the chop. The Doom in his case was a bit of a compromise, because half the Council refused to believe that a sixteen year old kid/apprentice could successfully defend himself against a powerful full wizard who was a warden at one time, ergo it had to have been murder. Harry was placed under the Doom, not for defending himself fairly in a duel, but because half the Council believed it was impossible that he could.. That is how he was rewarded for being that powerful and skilled, with being named a full wizard, but at the same time put under the Doom to placate those who believed it impossible.
We definitely don't know how or why the vote played out as it did. We just know
a result was that Harry was placed under the Doom instead of being beheaded. That said, I don't think Harry's probation was a matter of compromise. The wizards who believed Harry didn't defend himself voted to kill him. Or at least Harry is fairly certain that's what LaFortier did. The wizards who thought he killed in defense against black magic voted for the Doom. Harry was given to Eb because Harry was still a child and couldn't be left to his own devices. It's never suggested that Eb was under the Doom like Harry is with Molly. It's never suggested that Morgan is going to go after Eb when he catches Harry breaking the Laws. In fact, Eb was ordered to kill Harry if Harry misbehaved. This suggests to me that Eb wasn't under the Doom at all.
Another reason I think the Doom was applied to Harry because he killed in defense against black magic (instead of as a compromise) is that he has black magic corruption from somewhere. Ulshavaras feels black magic on Harry. Harry claims it's "mostly" not his. Ulshavaras replies "Some of it is." It's arguable that he got the taint from killing MacFinn or the "children" at Bianca's.
That sort of blows your first argument..
No. It demonstrates that since all the Wardens aren't going warlock, the slippery slope argument isn't the same thing as black magic corruption. If we are to take the Merlin's word as even mostly true, people who've crossed the line that much are generally doomed to be totally corrupted warlocks.
I'm not saying conditioning yourself to properly use violence to solve problems won't create a risk of spilling over into improper use of violence to solve problems. Especially if we're talking about the fictional situation of magical violence in the DF. If everybody wants to label this as a "slippery slope" argument, then I'm fine with that.
The general mechanism is that you must believe in what you do with your magic and that is bidirectional.
I'm not sure what you mean by "bidirectional," but if you mean that believing in something and acting on that belief with magic makes you believe it more, then I don't see any support for that. I mean habits are a thing, and if you have to believe in your magic, then using magic to do a thing is demonstration of that belief. That's what the scene outside the brothel tells us.
As far as that goes an old fashioned water heater with a simple pilot light would heat it just fine, no need for electronic anything.
Until it explodes. That was Harry's concern for using gas anything.
And I;m not even about to take chances with with the gas heater.
Storm Front Ch. 8
