Morgan Micro Fiction

[Gigglestomp]

I just had a little jolt of a thought I haven't been able to fully flesh out yet. But there have been a few times in the story where someone or something has done something unexplained in the background that was glossed over because of pressing matters. Now we have to go back and review - which if any of these things could be attributed to Donald Morgan looking out for Harry in the mortal world the way that Lea does in faerie?

[Avernite]

One thing more somewhere in the books I believe it had been clearly stated more than once that all but Eb's inner circle had no clue that Margaret was Eb's daughter.

Much as the rest of the stories make Morgan a large Merlin-loyalist (and we know Eb and the Merlin are not good friends), we also know Eb was Captain of the Wardens which he passed (no known intermediate) to Luccio. And Morgan was clearly also a Luccio loyalist.

So could Luccio and Morgan have been close enough to Eb's circle? We know the Senior Council has pro-Merlin, pro-Eb, and pro-others trends, but some people there also seem to skirt the line between Eb and the Merlin...

Of course it may also just be Margaret who got Morgan to promise to protect Harry by going 'Look I know you hate me, but you respect Captain Ebenezar, and that kid is his grandson too!'.

[Dina]

I just had a little jolt of a thought I haven't been able to fully flesh out yet. But there have been a few times in the story where someone or something has done something unexplained in the background that was glossed over because of pressing matters. Now we have to go back and review - which if any of these things could be attributed to Donald Morgan looking out for Harry in the mortal world the way that Lea does in faerie?

Interesting...

[morriswalters]

Of course it may also just be Margaret who got Morgan to promise to protect Harry by going 'Look I know you hate me, but you respect Captain Ebenezar, and that kid is his grandson too!'.

Or Margaret told Morgan this and told him what might be possible if the child survived.

"It is relevant," Lasciel said, "because of the circumstances of your birth—because of why you were born, Harry. Your mother found the strength to escape Lord Raith for a reason."
What the hell was she talking about?
Thud-thump: 1:26.
"There was a complex confluence of events, of energies, of circumstances that would have given a child born under them the potential to wield power over Outsiders."

Which gives rise to this quote.

Martha shook her head. "You know what he was meant to be. He's too great a risk."

And the first quote closes with this.

After which, we were going to have a long talk about my mother and these Outsiders and their relation to the Black Court and exactly what the hell was going on.
Lasciel—Lash, rather—nodded once and said, "I will tell you all that I can, Harry."

Say hello Bonea. In any case Morgan may have known what Harry represented because he met with Margaret and she extracted the promise as the price for revealing what  Harry's role was to be.

[Mira]

I just had a little jolt of a thought I haven't been able to fully flesh out yet. But there have been a few times in the story where someone or something has done something unexplained in the background that was glossed over because of pressing matters. Now we have to go back and review - which if any of these things could be attributed to Donald Morgan looking out for Harry in the mortal world the way that Lea does in faerie?

The main thing is seeing that he doesn't slip into warlockhood. 

[Bad Alias]

@Gigglestomp: I guess we have another candidate for Proven Guilty shenanigans. I don't think that's correct, but some of the theories are already pretty far out there.

[Kindler]

So I've been slowly reading this thread when I have the time over the past few days. I think I'm reading a few bits of the story differently than some (maybe all) of you.

First, I want to say that I think this is the best short story Jim's written so far, if for no other reason than I don't think any other story upended so much of the existing plot in such a small space. Maybe Thomas's bit about the Oblivion War, but even that doesn't alter my view of Thomas as much as this messes with my view of Morgan.

One very important part where I think my reading is different from many of you:

Malcolm died while I was on mission elsewhere. I arrived less than ten hours after the child went into the foster care system, and someone made him vanish. Magically, physically, bureaucratically. There was no trace of him, and I searched for years.

That bastard Justin DuMorne got to him before I could.

From then on, we could not be sure that the child was not molded to be a creature of Nemesis.

I read this as indicated the order of events were as follows:

1. Morgan goes away on some kind of job. We don't know what it was, but it's not really important (though maybe Justin arranged for the Big Bad Warden to be elsewhere).
2. Malcolm is murdered (not even really up for debate at this point, in my opinion; too many clues otherwise).
3. Someone absconded with Harry. When he says "someone made him vanish. Magically, physically, bureaucratically," I take it that there was no trace of which orphanage Harry went to. He was shipped off somewhere, and left there for years.
4. Justin adopts him. Morgan's line "That bastard Justin DuMorne got to him before I could" implies, to me, that Morgan thought Justin found him, not necessarily that Justin hid him in the first place. My reading is that Morgan is only commenting on Justin's adoption of Harry, not on Harry's original disappearance.

This final line: "From then on, we could not be sure that the child was not molded to be a creature of Nemesis." To me, this only means that Morgan is speaking with hindsight. I don't believe that anyone knew that Justin had adopted Harry OR Elaine, let alone both. I don't think Justin was even really on their radar very much at this point, unless it was as a fugitive.

So I see two possibilities:
1. The White Council and Morgan thought that Justin was just a retired warden chilling out in a mansion somewhere. No real need to keep tabs on him too closely.
2. The White Council and/or Morgan knew that Justin was a bad guy mixed up with Nemesis in some way, and Justin was therefore living in Hiding.

I tend to think it's the second possibility. It would make sense, to me, that Justin caught wind that the White Council had tracked him down, and were closing in on him. I've thought for several years that Justin's indoctrination of Harry and Elaine would've been way more effective without resorting to magic, and that it doesn't really make sense to brute force your way into making a pair of teenagers thralls. Cults do it just fine without magic, and then you've got the benefit of fanaticism. So I think that he found out that the WC was coming for him, and resorted to the brute force method because he'd have to go on the run.

[exartiem]

I don't know if this has been asked before.  I don't really have time to look through 9 pages of history.

Morgan said he arrived 10 hours after Harry went into the foster care system.  I was under the impression from other stories that Harry was in an orphanage for several years before Justin adopted him.  Like, Malcolm died when he was six and Justin didn't adopt him until he was 9 or 10.

[Mira]

I tend to think it's the second possibility. It would make sense, to me, that Justin caught wind that the White Council had tracked him down, and were closing in on him. I've thought for several years that Justin's indoctrination of Harry and Elaine would've been way more effective without resorting to magic, and that it doesn't really make sense to brute force your way into making a pair of teenagers thralls. Cults do it just fine without magic, and then you've got the benefit of fanaticism. So I think that he found out that the WC was coming for him, and resorted to the brute force method because he'd have to go on the run.

Morgan said he arrived 10 hours after Harry went into the foster care system.  I was under the impression from other stories that Harry was in an orphanage for several years before Justin adopted him.  Like, Malcolm died when he was six and Justin didn't adopt him until he was 9 or 10.

Actually I think Harry was closer to twelve for some reason.  But you are right, Harry was in the system for a number of years, talked about the hard time he had with vanilla kids once his powers began to awaken because he was different and had no clue what was happening to him.

Actually it does make sense, for the simple reason that Justin was well aware of how powerful both Elaine and Harry were, plus teenagers are unpredictable and can be rebellious...  He didn't want his future enforcers to turn on him for any reason..  And low and behold one of them did..

[Kindler]

I don't know if this has been asked before.  I don't really have time to look through 9 pages of history.

Morgan said he arrived 10 hours after Harry went into the foster care system.  I was under the impression from other stories that Harry was in an orphanage for several years before Justin adopted him.  Like, Malcolm died when he was six and Justin didn't adopt him until he was 9 or 10.

Yes, you're right. There's a several-year gap between Malcolm's death and Justin's adoption, during which Harry lived at the orphanage.

[exartiem]

So that would imply that Morgan's mission took several years or Morgan was napping.

[Kindler]

No, it's that he looked for Harry for years, but couldn't find him. He arrived at the scene of Malcolm's death 10 hours after Malcolm died. Harry was taken without a trace. Morgan couldn't find him for years, though he looked, and didn't see Harry again until after the White Council captured him post-Justin duel.

[exartiem]

He said he arrived 10 hours after Harry went into foster care, not 10 hours after Malcolm died.  We just established that there's several years between.

So then this suggests that Morgan knew Justin was looking for Harry, too, and just got to him first.  I wouldn't imagine it would take Morgan 4 years to find Harry.  Justin, yes, if he didn't know Malcolm had been killed.  But if Morgan knew of Malcolm's death within hours then he should have been able to track Harry down by claiming to the cops that he was a friend of Malcolm's.

If Harry disappeared that soon after Malcolm died, then that should have proven to Morgan that it was a murder.

[morriswalters]

Since Malcolm was a single father with no other known family, Harry would have went into care upon Malcolm's death. The passage implies without stating it, that Morgan had a way to track him that was blocked. This because the text calls out three  specific ways he searched. Magically, physically, bureaucratically.

According to the time line Harry was in care for four years.  He manifests his magic at ten and is adopted by Justin shortly thereafter.  There is no text that shows that Justin had contact with Harry prior to his adoption.  Justin appears to have been only an animal trainer.  We have only support for Morgan finding out about Justin after his death.

There are two people to date who have hooks  in the bureaucracy that we are aware of.  Lara and Marcone, but Marcone hadn't yet come to power at that point.  And the White Council as a group.  There is only one group known to be able to shield against searches by magic without a circle. The Fae.  Three young people in the books to date have been manipulated while in care, in some fashion.  Elaine, Harry and Molly.

[Bad Alias]

Morgan arrived 10 hours after Harry went into the foster care system. I don't expect Morgan to go into the details of the system of care for orphans, so I'm assuming he just means from the custody of first responders to the child care system. I imagine that could easily take a couple of hours. Justin wasn't a foster father. He adopted Harry. Foster care is generally considered temporary. Adoption is permanent.