Has Carlos sided with the merlin against Harry

[Mira]

1/  if Harry's story is true -- killing DuMorne was self-defense after the former Warden sent a summoned demon after him -- then Harry was raised by & apprenticed to a warlock; specifically, he was trained as a warlock (not as a WC wizard).  And we know this actually is the case, because Harry keeps showing up with weird bits of wizardly ignorance unsuited for a full WC wizard (types of lycanthrope, 3-queens model of Summer/Winter courts, "Conjuritis," etc)... but with a really-outsized suite of combat-magic.  And if his story isn't true -- DuMorne didn't attack first, it wasn't self-defense -- then he killed DuMorne in a full-blown 1st-Law-breaking warlock act.

I don't think Harry lied, it was established that he was trained to become an "enforcer" eventually.  Harry was raised ignorant of the
White Council and the Seven Laws.  Somehow the White Council missed that one of their Wardens, i.e. Justin was either a warlock at the time of his retirement, or turned so shortly after.. How does that happen?  Harry was more innocent victim, an angry one with a lot of power, than warlock, according to what Eb saw in his soul gaze of him.. Now that isn't to say that Eb may have blinded himself to the facts because Harry was his grandson, but as an experience wizard and the Council's designated assassin, I believe Eb would recognized it if Harry was a warlock or so far down the road towards that that he was irredeemable.

Either way, that pre-WC background is a HUGE piece of Harry's "image problem;" it gives the overwhelming appearance of "whichever way it happened, he's still a warlock."

Image doesn't make him a warlock.. It was also established back in Death Masks by the Ulsharavas, that though Harry is stained somewhat by black magic and admits to making a bad call or two, that he wasn't a warlock.. If he were the Ulsharavas wouldn't have answered his questions.  Appearances are not evidence, one needs facts to prove something.

2/  Speaking of Harry's "outsized" combat power -- it's REALLY outsized, frighteningly-powerful:  Harry scares entire combat-platoons of Wardens.  Beginning -- as a barely-trained teen -- by taking out a fully-trained senior Warden, he moved on to vampires (all the big Courts), lycanthropes of various stripes (including the incredibly-tough Loup-Garou), on up to heavyweight Fae and thence to the Summer Lady.  It's remarked that before he turned 40 he had seen more combat that most wizards ever saw in their lives, and defeated more-powerful foes than most ever defeated... and he's still in the "dumb kid just figuring stuff out" phase of his career!  That's terrifying.

That still doesn't make either evil or a warlock, all it establishes is that he is powerful, as seen by Eb in the soul gaze.  Also especially in his earlier years he was a lot of kaboom with no control.. Yes, he has seen a lot of combat for one of his years, but so has Carlos for that matter, the same could be said of any young Warden who fought in the war with the Red Court.  I guess you could call Harry the Audie Murphy of wizards... Audie Murphy who entered the army during WWII at the age of 16 and became the country's most decorated war hero. 

3/  When Harry first met McCoy's Sr-Council allies in the parking structure, one of them reminded McCoy "you know what he was meant to be."  Now... we don't know "what he was meant to be."  Just the Big Gun in a warlock's private brute-squad?  Or something else, something more... a reference to his mom's "Starbabe" plan?  And what about the reference to a "Destroyer" in the Morgan-POV short Journal (we don't even know what a "Destroyer" is; but presumably it's something known to (at least some of) the Senior Council)?  But there's something about Harry, about his origin and/or early training, that makes him inherently problematic and worrisome, to those who know.
 

More important question I think should be, how does the Council know what Harry was meant to be?  And if they knew, how come they let him fall into the hands of someone like Justin in the first place? 

4/  His overall attitude of disrespect for the WC and their authority paints him in a proud and arrogant light; more than one senior wizard has remarked (when Harry complained about the stifling WC rules) that Harry is unaware of the horrors unrestrained wizardry has unleashed (and every time that happens, read the subtext there of Harry having pointed-out to them the inadequacy of his training, how Justin skipped the history and the "why" and the Laws, in favor of m0Ar POWER!

There I totally disagree, he never had an attitude of disrespect for the WC. Yes, he disagrees with a lot of their ideas as outmoded, and has clashed verbally with them, but he also more often as not speaks of their power and the rules.  If he disrespected the White Council he wouldn't have turned Molly over to their justice for trial as a warlock.  At the end of the day he still believed in their justice.

[Dina]

Mira, I think this time I agree with Geek. I mean, you are right Harry is a victim of Justin, he is not a warlock and he respected the WC rules...but he was raised as a warlock, he sometimes acts like a warlock (full of rage) and he is verbally disrespectful. Do he presents like a Warlock-wonna-be. I think Harry is a sort of young Anakin Skywalker. He has the potential to become a great Jedi master, or Darth Vader. And the WC knows his potential for dark and that scares them.  Aside from Eb, they did almost nothing to help him to remain in the light. Luckily, Harry, with the things he learnt from his dad and the guidance of people like Michael, is mostly good.

[vincentric]

Mira, no one is arguing that Harry is a warlock, but that the White Council somewhat justified in their suspicion of him based off the information they have.

Aside from Eb, we do not know if any council members have soulgazed Harry, so only secondhand accounts of most of Harry's adventures and character are known to them. We, as readers, have all the necessary information but everything isn't known to the council and a good bit of the exonerating info isn't. A demonstration of soulfire at that council vote would probably have swayed it.

Rashiid knows enough, Eb, Luccio and Listens probably trust him, and Carlos will at least talk before fighting but the rest just don't have enough to make an argument for or against Harry in a council vote and will follow Langtry, (who probably would trust Harry but is biased against him for reasons of pride and politics.)

[LordDresden2]

Part pf Harry's problem with the WC is an Image issue. From the average WV members perspective Harry only shows up to meetings that are generally about bad news.
Harry is a young wizard who should be kissing the rings of older members, trying to make friends and networking. Instead he shows up to meetings late, in the wrong attire and with the attitude that the Council is beneath him. Harry shows up on the WC worst days delivering bad news and expects the WC to back him up.
Image Harry as a core worker, Dude got the job based on friendship  with the manager, skips meetings, shows up to criticize the work you have done, claims he can do better than you idiots.

Goes away for who knows how long. Breaks the rules ,is saved by senior management , wants your help with a project he messed up, and you are ordered to help him. Dude f***s off to who knows where.  Comes back barely contributes. And then when the project seems like its doomed to fail, shows up with a brilliant solution and gets all the credit. That's Harry from the Average WC member

All anyone knows about Harry is that he is trouble. Harry makes the barest amount of effort to make friends with members of the WC

Don't know if I fully agree with all of that.  He has an image problem, true, but more because in my opinion of who his mother was and how he became a full wizard in the first place. 

True...but that doesn't really change much.  His mother being who she was, and his association with Justin, are all the more reason Harry really should have been making more of an effort, all along, to reassure the other Wizards and project an 'I'm not my mother' image.

Yeah, that's not fair.  Yes, we know Harry isn't the nightmare a lot of the other Council members think he is.  But Harry still should have been making more of an effort, in part precisely because of who his mother was.

One thing Harry did apprently inherit from Margaret is his attitude.  They both have a lot of pride, and a substantial tendency to take a 'FU' attitude to authority they don't respect, which is most authority.

But whether that lack of respect is justified or not, it's still a character flaw, one that has helped put Harry in the position he's now in.

As I said, there is fault on both sides in the Harry/Council relationship.

[LordDresden2]

4/  His overall attitude of disrespect for the WC and their authority paints him in a proud and arrogant light; more than one senior wizard has remarked (when Harry complained about the stifling WC rules) that Harry is unaware of the horrors unrestrained wizardry has unleashed (and every time that happens, read the subtext there of Harry having pointed-out to them the inadequacy of his training, how Justin skipped the history and the "why" and the Laws, in favor of m0Ar POWER!

Note, too, that over the years, Harry himself has been forced to admit that some of the stuff the older Wizards do and insist on turned on to be necessary, even if unpleasant.  Harry is still very young inexperienced, as Wizards go, and he still has a lot to learn.

[LordDresden2]

There I totally disagree, he never had an attitude of disrespect for the WC. Yes, he disagrees with a lot of their ideas as outmoded, and has clashed verbally with them, but he also more often as not speaks of their power and the rules.  If he disrespected the White Council he wouldn't have turned Molly over to their justice for trial as a warlock.  At the end of the day he still believed in their justice.

His attitude about the Council has gone back and forth, sometimes naively trusting, sometimes contemptuous.  It's a mark of his youth and inexperience that (esp. in the early books) he tends to see a failure to live up to their ideals and PR entirely as damning, 'either or'.

"The Council can bite me."  A quote from one of the early books, from an incident in which Harry was doing something stupid that the Council would have advised against.  A few minutes later, he learned how stupid what he was doing was (dealing with Chaunzoggorth).

[Mira]

His attitude about the Council has gone back and forth, sometimes naively trusting, sometimes contemptuous.  It's a mark of his youth and inexperience that (esp. in the early books) he tends to see a failure to live up to their ideals and PR entirely as damning, 'either or'.

"The Council can bite me."  A quote from one of the early books, from an incident in which Harry was doing something stupid that the Council would have advised against.  A few minutes later, he learned how stupid what he was doing was (dealing with Chaunzoggorth).

I think it is a maturing process isn't it?  Then there is the fact of all the White Council wizards, Harry is the least shielded from the outer world, i.e. modern world, and it's attitudes.  He has also gotten to know at least two wizards, i.e. Mort and Elaine who have avoided becoming members the White Council.  I think that too has shaped his attitude in the later years. 

[g33k]

I don't think Harry lied ...

I'm not trying to argue how things are.

I'm saying how I think things look, from the White Council perspective.

No, Harry didn't "lie" about what happened with Justin; he may have been mistaken in small ways -- or even large ways -- but I think he told the truth as best he could.

But the WC doesn't employ magic to detect or coerce the truth.
And from what they can tell, things look awfully bad where Harry's concerned; it's unclear whether it'd be worse if he was lying or not!


(BTW, @Mira -- I've noted this as a repeated pattern of yours:  you respond to something presented as an in-world perspective (how things seem to a character, given their limited Watsonian knowledge) as if it were a full-info Doylist/reader argument; it's very disconcerting).

[g33k]

It's also worth noting that Carlos... actually kinda has a point?

Like, Harry is acting sus as fuck in PT/BG.

Carlos: "Yo Man, we're kinda worried that you've be enthralled by the Totally not White Queen™. Can you talk to us about what's going on"

Harry: *Grounds staff and begins Channeling Magic* "FUCK YOU, I'M NOT SUS, YOU'RE SUS. FUCK OFF OR FIGHT ME".

Like, actually what the fuck dude. You treat your frenemies/enemies with less venom then you do you supposed friends/allies, and then go all 'boo hoo woe is me, why don't they believe me' when they don't trust you
...

The thing is:  that's not what happened.

If Carlos had come to Harry with his concerns, that'd be one thing.

But it wasn't Carlos.

It was Regional Commander Ramirez, senior Warden... with both a combat-crew and one or more personally-invasive "detection" wizards, confronting Harry out of the blue and...errr... "probing" Harry without his consent.

No, Harry didn't respond well to that.

In fact, he couldn't cooperate with them.  He doesn't know all those other wizards, their loyalties and ideologies.  Maybe one of them is explicitly going to go debrief the Merlin about how best to take down Harry.  Maybe another is in the "Dresden is a warlock we'll have to take down sooner or later; his black magic will corrupt him eventually, inevitably..." camp.  He doesn't know, and so he cannot extend that kind of trust (the kind that Carlos, alone, might have elicited).

This is, BTW, exactly the kind of thing I mean when I say that this could still be Carlos trusting Harry and working to buff Harry's "rebel / bad-boy" cred, and build him up with the Black Hat crew:  Carlos showed up with a bunch of freaking Wardens, when he knows that:
 (a) Harry generally distrusts all Wardens (barring a few specific individuals)
 (b) Harry hates having his privacy invaded
 (c) Harry is actively trying to look like a Black Hat^(tm).

So when Carlos shows up with a posse of unknown-to-Dresden Wardens and demands personal info and accountability... looks a lot like Carlos "aiding and abetting" those points a+b=c

[vincentric]

The thing is:  that's not what happened.

If Carlos had come to Harry with his concerns, that'd be one thing.

But it wasn't Carlos.

It was Regional Commander Ramirez, senior Warden... with both a combat-crew and one or more personally-invasive "detection" wizards, confronting Harry out of the blue and...errr... "probing" Harry without his consent.

No, Harry didn't respond well to that.

In fact, he couldn't cooperate with them.  He doesn't know all those other wizards, their loyalties and ideologies.  Maybe one of them is explicitly going to go debrief the Merlin about how best to take down Harry.  Maybe another is in the "Dresden is a warlock we'll have to take down sooner or later; his black magic will corrupt him eventually, inevitably..." camp.  He doesn't know, and so he cannot extend that kind of trust (the kind that Carlos, alone, might have elicited).

This is, BTW, exactly the kind of thing I mean when I say that this could still be Carlos trusting Harry and working to buff Harry's "rebel / bad-boy" cred, and build him up with the Black Hat crew:  Carlos showed up with a bunch of freaking Wardens, when he knows that:
 (a) Harry generally distrusts all Wardens (barring a few specific individuals)
 (b) Harry hates having his privacy invaded
 (c) Harry is actively trying to look like a Black Hat^(tm).

So when Carlos shows up with a posse of unknown-to-Dresden Wardens and demands personal info and accountability... looks a lot like Carlos "aiding and abetting" those points a+b=c

I agree with you but you're making your argument on a bad basis.

The wardens that Carlos brought were some of his and Harry's best friends among the ranks. It was Carlos, Wild Bill, Hoshino and Chandler. But they did approach Harry in a tactless manner. They should have done it at Murphy's or Michael's or Mac's, not on a dark road in the country. Carlos could have then taken Harry aside and talked off the record.

Again, it's a matter of information. As readers we have it all, the characters have bits and pieces.

[Mira]

The thing is:  that's not what happened.

If Carlos had come to Harry with his concerns, that'd be one thing.

But it wasn't Carlos.

It was Regional Commander Ramirez, senior Warden... with both a combat-crew and one or more personally-invasive "detection" wizards, confronting Harry out of the blue and...errr... "probing" Harry without his consent.

No, Harry didn't respond well to that.

In fact, he couldn't cooperate with them.  He doesn't know all those other wizards, their loyalties and ideologies.  Maybe one of them is explicitly going to go debrief the Merlin about how best to take down Harry.  Maybe another is in the "Dresden is a warlock we'll have to take down sooner or later; his black magic will corrupt him eventually, inevitably..." camp.  He doesn't know, and so he cannot extend that kind of trust (the kind that Carlos, alone, might have elicited).

This is, BTW, exactly the kind of thing I mean when I say that this could still be Carlos trusting Harry and working to buff Harry's "rebel / bad-boy" cred, and build him up with the Black Hat crew:  Carlos showed up with a bunch of freaking Wardens, when he knows that:
 (a) Harry generally distrusts all Wardens (barring a few specific individuals)
 (b) Harry hates having his privacy invaded
 (c) Harry is actively trying to look like a Black Hat^(tm).

So when Carlos shows up with a posse of unknown-to-Dresden Wardens and demands personal info and accountability... looks a lot like Carlos "aiding and abetting" those points a+b=c

You are leaving out a key point which blows any trust Harry may have had when Carlos and company confronted him on the way back from the Raith estate.  Earlier on the beach when Harry had had his run with Thomas in the opening chapter of Peace Talks, Carlos shows up and secretly puts a tracking device on Harry.  This says that Harry was a target for some reason even before Thomas went off the rails.  Then when they catch up to Harry later because sex can be detected on him, they jump to conclusions it was sex with Lara, and Harry isn't about to kiss and tell that it was with Murphy... Meanwhile Chandler is signaling Harry not to trust any of his fellow Wardens.. Confirming this is the fact that Carlos had secretly put a tracking device on Harry from the onset.  Why?  If it had happened post Thomas assassination, it would make some sense, but it happened before all of that went down.  This screams that something was afoot to get Harry or to try and get Harry before all of this started, and Carlos was willing to go along.. 

I agree with you but you're making your argument on a bad basis.

The wardens that Carlos brought were some of his and Harry's best friends among the ranks. It was Carlos, Wild Bill, Hoshino and Chandler. But they did approach Harry in a tactless manner. They should have done it at Murphy's or Michael's or Mac's, not on a dark road in the country. Carlos could have then taken Harry aside and talked off the record.

Again, it's a matter of information. As readers we have it all, the characters have bits and pieces.

In this case we readers don't have it all either, why was the tracking device put on Harry in the first place? I also agree that the approach was tactless, they also jumped to conclusions, sex was detected on Harry, he came from a visit with Lara, ergo, he must have had sex with Lara, who's brother is Thomas, who is the accused.  Not sure how many or if any of the Wardens know that Thomas is actually Harry's brother, they do know that they are friends.  Also Carlos must know Harry well enough by now that approaching him in the manner they did would only backfire..

[g33k]

You are leaving out a key point which blows any trust Harry may have had when Carlos and company confronted him on the way back from the Raith estate.  Earlier on the beach when Harry had had his run with Thomas in the opening chapter of Peace Talks, Carlos shows up and secretly puts a tracking device on Harry.  This says that Harry was a target for some reason even before Thomas went off the rails ...

This isn't really relevant to the question of Carlos and where his trust really lies.

He and Harry agreed to a plan where Carlos was to suck up to the Merlin-loyalist mainstream, lean in on the letter-of-the-law enforcement, and generally work his way up the "traditional" ladder of trust inside the White Council... all the while keeping his ears and eyes open for discrepancies and oddities that might reveal "Black Council" agents.

Now, we can't tell:  is he still doing that?
Carlos is acting that way... years later.  Without ever touching base & confirming with Harry that he's still sticking to that plan.  And similarly, he's acting like his trust in Harry is slipping, like he thinks Harry is compromised, maybe no longer trustworthy.

But then, according to their original plan, Harry was supposed to act just the opposite, the White Council member getting impatient with WC restrictions, making dubious alliances and even allying with rivals and enemies of the WC.  Harry has sure been keeping up his end of things!  So of course, "conservative Carlos" has to act like he distrusts Harry.

And we -- the readers -- are stuck wondering if Carlos really has turned against Harry, or if he's just playing his role so well he's fooled Harry, too!

... Not sure how many or if any of the Wardens know that Thomas is actually Harry's brother, they do know that they are friends ...

I think the first WC wizard besides Harry himself (and Margaret LaFey) to learn of Thomas' parentage (and being Harry's brother) was when Harry told Ebenezer near the end of PT.

... Also Carlos must know Harry well enough by now that approaching him in the manner they did would only backfire..

Indeed; I'd argue that this is decent evidence that Carlos is still on Harry's side:  Carlos staged that little melodrama -- showdown on the dark road -- to demonstrate his own "I'm with the Merlin" credentials, face-down the "problem" Harry Dresden, and to let Harry in turn demonstrate his "I'm a loose cannon, with dubious alliances and possibly under the influence of Lara Raith" credentials.

By this analysis, Carlos was sending a message to Harry:  "look how I set up a confrontation where you had to refuse cooperation, full of over-the-top melodrama, let's ham it up for the undoubted post-confrontation debrief and likely observers-in-the-dark."

[Tinfoil hat]

Mira, I think this time I agree with Geek. I mean, you are right Harry is a victim of Justin, he is not a warlock and he respected the WC rules...but he was raised as a warlock, he sometimes acts like a warlock (full of rage) and he is verbally disrespectful. Do he presents like a Warlock-wonna-be. I think Harry is a sort of young Anakin Skywalker. He has the potential to become a great Jedi master, or Darth Vader. And the WC knows his potential for dark and that scares them.  Aside from Eb, they did almost nothing to help him to remain in the light. Luckily, Harry, with the things he learnt from his dad and the guidance of people like Michael, is mostly good.

The Harry Anakin comparison works well. Both are the chosen ones, and have anger issues, trust issues etc.
The way i see it, the older WC members know he is a starborn and a destroyer but the question becomes whose.
The older wizards know prophecy is a dicy business. Just cause someone is a destroyer doesn't mean that they will destroy only your enemies what if you are what they were meant to destroy.
Most wizards are good at rules lawyering. Saying 1 think that could mean 3 or more different things, they have to be since faes are a thing. So it makes them worried about the destroyer / starborn in their midst

[Mira]

The Harry Anakin comparison works well. Both are the chosen ones, and have anger issues, trust issues etc.
The way i see it, the older WC members know he is a starborn and a destroyer but the question becomes whose.
The older wizards know prophecy is a dicy business. Just cause someone is a destroyer doesn't mean that they will destroy only your enemies what if you are what they were meant to destroy.
Most wizards are good at rules lawyering. Saying 1 think that could mean 3 or more different things, they have to be since faes are a thing. So it makes them worried about the destroyer / starborn in their midst

I agree with this for the most part.  I think they know they need a starborn to lead in the coming BAT, their problem is it didn't go to plan.  To have Margaret LeFey as the child's mother wasn't the plan.  To have her murdered shortly after birth by the head of the White Court wasn't part of the plan.  To have the child raised for his first six years on the run by his vanilla father without their protection wasn't part of the plan. To have that father die or be murdered and the child disappear into the swamp of the child protection agency until his talents awoke wasn't part of the plan.  To have that child then adopted by an former warden turned warlock wasn't part of the plan. Not to realize that the child was being raised by that former warden turned warlock wasn't the plan.  The fact that that former warden turned warlock was raising him to be a destroyer wasn't part of the plan.  Then for that child at sixteen battle and kill that former warden turned warlock wasn't part of the plan.
That the sixteen year old kid would survive his trial at their hands, be declared a wizard, and then survive three years with the Blackstaff and go his very independent way wasn't part of the plan... In other words the White Council never has had control over this starborn child, and not being in control is something the White Council hates. That's a huge reason why they have never trusted Harry.

[vincentric]

Luccio has known about Thomas since Turn Coat.