In defense of the WC

[Ed0517]

There is no Molly, there is only the Winter Lady. 

Not yet. Even Mab points out she was once mortal. There is not much mortal left in Mab, but a tiny spark exists. Molly is still a candle worth at least. It may die in time. But it may not, either.

[g33k]

yes, but my point it is a favor not an order. The Lady orders the Knight, she owes him nothing, it is his job, Molly asks Harry a favor, she owes him one (or one he owed her is now paid up)

But Faerie Law governs "favors."  It isn't a Lady/Knight matter of the Mantles, but the Mantles bind them both to Faerie Law.  If Harry owes Molly a favor, it doesn't matter to Faerie Law that they are friends; nor even that they are Knight & Lady.  The obligations (of Molly collecting on a Favor owed her, and not Harry not cheating on a Favor he owes) is binding upon both of them.

[vincentric]

Not yet. Even Mab points out she was once mortal. There is not much mortal left in Mab, but a tiny spark exists. Molly is still a candle worth at least. It may die in time. But it may not, either.

Harry's greatest power may be that every entity in the Supernatural that he works with gets more in touch with humanity. Perhaps the greatest ability of a Starborn  might be to gather alliances among those that have constraints or only partial free will through association.

[Mira]

Harry's greatest power may be that every entity in the Supernatural that he works with gets more in touch with humanity. Perhaps the greatest ability of a Starborn  might be to gather alliances among those that have constraints or only partial free will through association.

  I agree.

[g33k]

  Harry's greatest power may be that every entity in the Supernatural that he works with gets more in touch with humanity. Perhaps the greatest ability of a Starborn  might be to gather alliances among those that have constraints or only partial free will through association.

Hmmmmmm...

Given that one of the big "benefits" that Nemfection offers to the powerful immortals is that they can violate many of their strictures (e.g. Maeve gloried in being able to overtly lie), which is in many ways a restoration of their lost "free will," ...
...

What if the Starborn is actually an empowerment of/by the Outsiders themselves?
What if becoming a "Destroyer" is actually the normal, natural, & expected state of any Starborn?

It would go a long, long ways toward explaining why so very many of the more-informed wizards &c seem to be expecting the worst of Harry...
 

[Ed0517]

But Faerie Law governs "favors."  It isn't a Lady/Knight matter of the Mantles, but the Mantles bind them both to Faerie Law.  If Harry owes Molly a favor, it doesn't matter to Faerie Law that they are friends; nor even that they are Knight & Lady.  The obligations (of Molly collecting on a Favor owed her, and not Harry not cheating on a Favor he owes) is binding upon both of them.

They can give a favor away, like Mab giving Harry the gift at Christmas for Little Maggie

[Conspiracy Theorist]

I think that was a boon rather than a favour because Harry had performed well as Winter Knight that year, if Mab is weakest on the Summer Solstice she is strongest on the Winter. At the height of her power  she would reward those of her Court who have performed well over the year, unrelated to Christmas a few days later. Kringle, the Winter Lady, the Red Cap and the Erl King would all have been rewarded with boons for their sterling service  in the Battle of Chicago I wonder if Molly’s boon was the gift giving in The Good People? She not only performed well in the Battle but did so much in recruiting and dealing with Maeve’s backlog. The difference would be that you have to ask for it there and then, not hoard it for the future

The flip side there were probably quite a few executions and punishments for those who performed badly over the year. Nameless probably had something nasty gifted to him on the solstice by Mab, perhaps a chamois leather and turtle wax for the cleaning of the entire fleet of Winter vehicles in front of the rest of Winter? With a seething Ms Laplander aiding in a bikini, plotting on new ways to kill Nameless for this new indignity.

I like to kind of think Mab puts real effort and thought  into her minor punishments, like in Harry’s recovery.

[g33k]

They can give a favor away, like Mab giving Harry the gift at Christmas for Little Maggie

I think this is wholly governed by Winter Law.

They MUST gift at Christmas (and it incurs no debt from the person being gifted-to).

They MUST trade favor-for-favor at other times, demanding high value if they are asked to give high value (n.b. they aren't required to actually give value for value; tricksy fae giving worthless returns on a bargain is one of the tropes (but so is giving startlingly-valuable returns; the fae are unpredictable!)).

I suspect Summer has some similar rules; like... they MUST dance the maypole in May.  I'm in the USA, so I don't know all those traditions; I suspect there's (much) more to it than that.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Christmas is the White Gods festival the Winter Solstice is Mab’s

Kringle does both.

[g33k]

Christmas is the White Gods festival the Winter Solstice is Mab’s

Kringle does both.

That seems like a reasonable POV.  There seems to be this Mab/Odin/Uriel triumvirate, makes good sense some playing-around in the myths & Mantles is happening, too...

[Conspiracy Theorist]

I picture Odin as the go between for Uriel and Mab, a Fae Mantle and Soulfire he is trusted by both. When he stepped down from being a god, this would have meant that instead of one Odin in the Multiverse, there was an Odin for each world as there is a Mab for each world. There is only one Uriel.

Uriel has been working with Mab for a long time, together over HARRY since Grave Peril and Summer Knight. Uriel alerted this worlds Mab to offer Harry the Mantle after this time line was created by Harry’s decision to try to save both Susan and Michael. Kringle was the likely messenger after their once a year luncheon ( which I posit  was the 6th December 2001, the first Saints day of St Nicholas after the events of Grave Peril and before the  events of Summer Knight, how’s that for specifity?, I am still working on the time of day, but I suspect it was after dessert (Angel Food Cake, naturally)

[g33k]

I picture Odin as the go between for Uriel and Mab ...

I don't think they need a "go between" precisely... Uriel can "go" wherever he wants, and Mab can make her own wants known.
They have this HUGE commonality, in the form of resisting Outsiders.

Say rather Odin is a "facilitator" -- some mix of "social lubricant" and "social glue," helping them notice more of what they have in common, chafe less where they differ.

... a Fae Mantle and Soulfire he is trusted by both ...

"Mab" and "Trust" really don't belong in the same sentence, you know...
How about a "translator," fluent in both Soul and Faerie-Mantle?

[LordDresden2]

The White Council take death as the first and only option for Warlocks, they seem incapable of putting in the resources to locate young wizards early and their policy of masquerade means that there is no public recognition of the problem.

Realistically, the WC doesn't have the resources to put in.  They're incapable of it in the literal sense of the word.

There are only a few thousand Council-level Wizards.  Not all of them are psychologically or temperamentally suited for teaching.  Of those who are, many of them already have apprentices, potential Council-level Wizards who need a lot of training and a lot of attention.

The vast majority of warlocks are minor Talents.  They have power, and learn to use it and abuse it and it devours them.  They becomes dangerous threats to the people around them, to their local communities, etc.  But they just aren't powerful enough to be major threats to the world on their own.

The kid the Council executed at the start of Proven Guilty, for ex, was very dangerous on an individual level.  He was guilty of murder and rape, it was implied incest and other stuff.  He could have gone on to kill, maim, etc. a lot more people if not stopped.  But he would not likely ever have been a world-level threat.

The apprentices of the Council members, OTOH, are high-end Talents, and they can potentially be global-level threats if they go bad.  So the Council has to focus on them first.  Whatever resources go to the minor players have to come from what's left over, from cold necessity.

Now the Paranet and related groups might could fill some of the void.  They could identify budding Talents, maybe train/restrain the minor ones themselves and pass the major Talents on to the Council, if that setup could be arranged.  Maybe what the Council needs is a setup a little like minor league baseball, with groups like the Paranet as associated groups.  But it would be tricky to set that up.

But the Paranet is not really qualified to train the high-end Talents themselves.  That's why they would need to have an association with the Council to make the project work.

[g33k]

Realistically, the WC doesn't have the resources to put in.  They're incapable of it in the literal sense of the word.
... Whatever resources go to the minor players have to come from what's left over, from cold necessity.
...
The WC sets itself up as the authority in this area, yet clearly is incapable of exercising that authority in a prompt and effective manner. 

I'm pretty sure the WC, as currently constituted, is going to fall.
I suspect this issue is going to be a big part of the reason why it does... and why in fact it should.

...  The kid the Council executed at the start of Proven Guilty, for ex, was very dangerous on an individual level ... But he would not likely ever have been a world-level threat ...

I don't think we know that, actually.  The Korean kid may have been a Molly-caliber mind mage, or even (potentially) stronger.
(Obviously, Molly became much more powerful with Harry's teaching; the Korean kid never got anything comparable)

... Now the Paranet and related groups might could fill some of the void.  They could identify budding Talents, maybe train/restrain the minor ones themselves and pass the major Talents on to the Council, if that setup could be arranged ... But it would be tricky to set that up.

This is my own pet theory; and it's not even very tough to set up!  Really, it depends on whether Jim decides to write it...

There's already a link between Elaine Mallory (at the head of the Paranet) and Carlos Ramirez (high in the Warden hierarchy).  It'd be very easy to create a channel there for the Paranet to funnel "wizard-level" candidates on up to the WC, if they chose.

Other people have theorized that Harry himself, and his allies, could form the nucleus of an "advanced studies" program for the Paranet's more-powerful talents, without ever involving the WC.  Harry could be one instructor, Elaine another.  Morty is highly-specialized, but within his specialty is White-Council caliber.  He might be able to entice Molly to teach.  Etc...

[Ed0517]

I think we are overrating a lot of these warlocks - global level threats? World class?  How many of the WC are even world class? They are all below the thousands of WC members. Even Harry says he would be crushed by the Seniors, and I think he said he was in the top 30 or so on raw power.  The vast majority of these warlocks are at most a localized threat.  They are not the Allied army facing the German Army in 1944, they are some loonie on LSD with a stolen 9 MM.