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Lemniscate Blue
Apr 21, 2006

Here we go again.

Saros posted:

:stonk: I clearly need to do a re-read because I don't remember this at all.

The Naagloshii got at him in Turn Coat, if you want the specific book.

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Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

Narsham posted:

Can you point us to his response, either on YouTube or an account of it? Because you're reacting strongly to something I've never encountered or heard of.

Seems like Butcher removed his tweets, as I looked for it and the conversation is gone. That might be why you never heard of it.

NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:

And that's part of a problem I have with the series. A lot of hay is made of Harry using magic to kill Justin in a legitimate self-defense scenario, and I get that it's a huge taboo in Dresden, but...

Do the later books describe this differently as the ones I read made it super clear that killing humans with magic breaks a Law Of Magic that is not just a taboo because it turns your soul evil. But it's just fine killing anything slightly non-human. Like IIRC it was just fine using magic to kill the belt-changed humans in Fool Moon.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Yeah. As much as we are told the Laws of Magic are not just rules but actions that have massive personal consequences. Even Harry doesn't argue that, just that the taint isn't necessarily impossible to overcome. Of course the two examples we have are Harry himself and Molly who backslid even before she went Batman

NerdyMcNerdNerd
Aug 3, 2004

ImpAtom posted:

Yeah. As much as we are told the Laws of Magic are not just rules but actions that have massive personal consequences. Even Harry doesn't argue that, just that the taint isn't necessarily impossible to overcome. Of course the two examples we have are Harry himself and Molly who backslid even before she went Batman

I'm aware of that, it just feels like a super duper cop out. Mostly because it is.

OK the Fae are assholes in the shape of humans, and often very inhuman both in form and function. But then Harry flash-freezes and shatters one to make a point, and he doesn't know poo poo about poo poo about that guy. He was just some bloke with pointy ears who, for all Harry knew, could have been yanking his chain as part of a social pecking order thing.

And that's... fine? I guess? Fae play rough and poo poo happens.

But then what about the time he beats the piss out of an old guy with a baseball bat, in no small part just because he was really pissed off?

Or like when he ant-hilled the ghoul after having turned another one into Edgar Allan Poe's favorite candle?

Legitimate self-defense against another human/wizard with magic causes soul taint but going all zero dork thirty on magical creatures doesn't matter at all? It feels like some arbitrary line in the sand.

I know someone's going to mention him being influenced by magical means, the mantle, in the first example, and Lash in another, but that's... kind of another cop out. And it kind of screws things up when Harry gets all introspective and stuff.

I contrast stuff like that with how basically everyone reacted to Alex's actions in book 4 and how they're still reacting to it in book 9 and mmmmm.

Beachcomber
May 21, 2007

Another day in paradise.


Slippery Tilde

NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:


I contrast stuff like that with how basically everyone reacted to Alex's actions in book 4 and how they're still reacting to it in book 9 and mmmmm.

It's kind of bullshit that they keep harping on that with Verus. There's a limited number of ways someone with his skillset can defend himself.

rndmnmbr
Jul 3, 2012

NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:

I'm aware of that, it just feels like a super duper cop out. Mostly because it is.

OK the Fae are assholes in the shape of humans, and often very inhuman both in form and function. But then Harry flash-freezes and shatters one to make a point, and he doesn't know poo poo about poo poo about that guy. He was just some bloke with pointy ears who, for all Harry knew, could have been yanking his chain as part of a social pecking order thing.

And that's... fine? I guess? Fae play rough and poo poo happens.

But then what about the time he beats the piss out of an old guy with a baseball bat, in no small part just because he was really pissed off?

Or like when he ant-hilled the ghoul after having turned another one into Edgar Allan Poe's favorite candle?

Legitimate self-defense against another human/wizard with magic causes soul taint but going all zero dork thirty on magical creatures doesn't matter at all? It feels like some arbitrary line in the sand.

I know someone's going to mention him being influenced by magical means, the mantle, in the first example, and Lash in another, but that's... kind of another cop out. And it kind of screws things up when Harry gets all introspective and stuff.

I contrast stuff like that with how basically everyone reacted to Alex's actions in book 4 and how they're still reacting to it in book 9 and mmmmm.

The dividing line seems to be "has free will". Like killing a Fae or a ghoul or something similarly supernatural is okay because they have natures they must obey, and can't choose not to obey. But mortal humans get free will and preventing the exercise thereof is Very Bad and Frowned Upon By Above and Not Allowed. Which falls apart when you get to Thomas, who is obviously, being a vampire and all, is a creature with a nature he must obey, but is also demonstrated to possess and utilize free will.

And as far as hitting a few home-runs on Cassius, I think there is an implication that killing someone is icky for your soul, full stop. But there are more abstractions for killing them with a knife or gun, which absorb some of the blow to your soul. OTOH, killing them with magic, no matter how you fancy it up with SFX, is essentially just making them die with nothing but willpower alone, and that skips a bunch of abstractions and puts your soul in direct contact with the horrible poo poo you just did.

A good analogy is the Sight. If you see something, there is eyes and brain-meat in the way, so there's enough uncertainty you can lie to yourself that you were mistaken. If you See something, your soul was directly the thing looking, you saw it in perfect detail, and you can't forget. There's nothing for uncertainty to get traction on, so it's the awful truth until you die. Same with killing, any other way you can tell yourself it was a mistake or that they really deserved it or that it served a greater positive purpose, but if you do it with magic then your soul directly did the killing and there's no forgetting you directly willed someone to death, and the ends don't justify the means.

e. (but lets face it, the way Butcher writes the First Law, it comes off very much like a GM punishing you for killing a PC or GMPC, but NPCs or bad guys, who the gently caress cares, gotta get that sweet XP.)

rndmnmbr fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Jul 9, 2019

Slanderer
May 6, 2007

Beachcomber posted:

It's kind of bullshit that they keep harping on that with Verus. There's a limited number of ways someone with his skillset can defend himself.

It isn't, though, since it makes complete sense for Verus to question whether he had simply missed a better option, and for that to haunt him. To everyone else with a conscience, there's so much room to doubt the facts presented by Verus and his account that they would obviously keep harping on it (because he loving killed a bunch of kids!)

NerdyMcNerdNerd
Aug 3, 2004

rndmnmbr posted:

The dividing line seems to be "has free will". Like killing a Fae or a ghoul or something similarly supernatural is okay because they have natures they must obey, and can't choose not to obey. But mortal humans get free will and preventing the exercise thereof is Very Bad and Frowned Upon By Above and Not Allowed. Which falls apart when you get to Thomas, who is obviously, being a vampire and all, is a creature with a nature he must obey, but is also demonstrated to possess and utilize free will.

Seems kind of backwards to me. You'd think something that was literally ingrained to act a certain way would deserve more leeway than something who free-willed itself into being a monster.

By that standard, Harry could put like a hundred little folk like Puck into a pizza oven and fireball them into a fine grey ash for no reason and be fine, but using magic to throw Hitler into space would be bad. This is a stupid rear end system that ends up with 'you're a dark wizard because you used magic to defend yourself from rape' while it's A-OK to straight up kill things just to flex nuts.

Dead Beat explores the role intent plays in the corrupting nature of magic but then that just sorta... goes?

I actually think the books do a good job of exploring nature and free will but it basically trips over its own dick and falls down forty flights of stairs every time it tries to be morally grey. It ends up making things very tonally messy when you have sexual assault in the same book as PARKOURRRR

And that's probably my biggest beef with the series, post Changes. It really feels like that should have had more of an impact on Harry. Maybe it would have if ever book didn't have such a frenetic tone and time frame but

Ghost Story was slow, and had a lot of... 'meh' that could have been torn out with a demolition ax for more... ? The Scrooge-like angle of the book doesn't really work when it becomes clear Harry was nudged into being selfish. And that doesn't really excuse what he did to Susan, either.

But then Cold Days happens and hey I don't care because it's everything the series is at its best and weeeeeee oh gently caress here comes Skin Game

I know it seems like I hate the books, and I really don't. I generally have a fair opinion of them, but the morality of the world super sucks when it tries to go deeper than Star Wars level deep.

Beachcomber posted:

It's kind of bullshit that they keep harping on that with Verus. There's a limited number of ways someone with his skillset can defend himself.

That's kind of the point, though. Philosophy is usually somewhat logical. Morality, very rooted in perception and people's own internal filters, isn't. The way people react to what Alex does is very much shaped by their way of looking at things.

Caldera, Telisid, Vari and Luna all shrug it off for various reasons.

Anne and Sonder are shocked and repulsed for different reasons.

And for all most people know, Alex just straight up killed them all, personally. Some of the light council were no doubt expecting as much, but look at it this way: someone with a dodgy reputation killed a group of aggressive ( but so far, just ) kid vigilantes. And consider how most Mages look at Adepts.

Then consider that if he had the power to single-handedly kill them all there's a sort of unspoken expectation of 'well, why didn't you do something else?'.

NerdyMcNerdNerd fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Jul 9, 2019

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

rndmnmbr posted:

The dividing line seems to be "has free will". Like killing a Fae or a ghoul or something similarly supernatural is okay because they have natures they must obey, and can't choose not to obey. But mortal humans get free will and preventing the exercise thereof is Very Bad and Frowned Upon By Above and Not Allowed. Which falls apart when you get to Thomas, who is obviously, being a vampire and all, is a creature with a nature he must obey, but is also demonstrated to possess and utilize free will.

And as far as hitting a few home-runs on Cassius, I think there is an implication that killing someone is icky for your soul, full stop. But there are more abstractions for killing them with a knife or gun, which absorb some of the blow to your soul. OTOH, killing them with magic, no matter how you fancy it up with SFX, is essentially just making them die with nothing but willpower alone, and that skips a bunch of abstractions and puts your soul in direct contact with the horrible poo poo you just did.

A good analogy is the Sight. If you see something, there is eyes and brain-meat in the way, so there's enough uncertainty you can lie to yourself that you were mistaken. If you See something, your soul was directly the thing looking, you saw it in perfect detail, and you can't forget. There's nothing for uncertainty to get traction on, so it's the awful truth until you die. Same with killing, any other way you can tell yourself it was a mistake or that they really deserved it or that it served a greater positive purpose, but if you do it with magic then your soul directly did the killing and there's no forgetting you directly willed someone to death, and the ends don't justify the means.

e. (but lets face it, the way Butcher writes the First Law, it comes off very much like a GM punishing you for killing a PC or GMPC, but NPCs or bad guys, who the gently caress cares, gotta get that sweet XP.)

This is why I brought up the belt-transformed guys, who apparently it was just fine to slaughter and they counted as non-humans because they were wearing magic belts that didn't seem to get rid of their free will.

With Thomas I'm pretty sure Butcher ran into the Buffy The Vampire Slayer issue where he wanted a major vampire character but didn't want to deal with the restrictions that the story had decided that vampires should live under. Hell, Thomas is basically Angel/Angelus from Buffy, and hell the mental change from becoming a vampire in Buffy is that a demon possesses you.

But yeah, in the end, it feels exactly like an excuse for why it's okay to casually murder NPCs, especially with how you describe why magic-murder effects you. It really shouldn't MATTER what you kill with magic. You're intentionally destroying a being through sheer willpower. The fact that there's and * next to the law is bullshit.

Beachcomber
May 21, 2007

Another day in paradise.


Slippery Tilde
It's because Humans are God's pet project.

Hub Cat
Aug 3, 2011

Trunk Lover

Kchama posted:

This is why I brought up the belt-transformed guys, who apparently it was just fine to slaughter and they counted as non-humans because they were wearing magic belts that didn't seem to get rid of their free will.

Dresden doesn't kill any of the Fbi wolves, three of them kill each other after fighting him and then Murphy shoots the last one.

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

Hub Cat posted:

Dresden doesn't kill any of the Fbi wolves, three of them kill each other after fighting him and then Murphy shoots the last one.

I coulda sworn he decapitated one of the wolf people with his ring thing.

Beachcomber posted:

It's because Humans are God's pet project.

This is a real lame thing about the setting.

Hub Cat
Aug 3, 2011

Trunk Lover

Kchama posted:

I coulda sworn he decapitated one of the wolf people with his ring thing.
He kills the loup- garou by magicing his pentacle at it really hard which I guess doesn't count because it's really scary at the time?? Okay I checked the book and it doesn't count because technically it is a demon at the time. :pseudo:

Hub Cat fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Jul 9, 2019

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

Hub Cat posted:

He kills the loup- garou by magicing his pentacle at it really hard which I guess doesn't count because it's really scary at the time?? Okay I checked the book and it doesn't count because technically it is a demon at the time. :pseudo:

That's basically 'it's really scary at the time'.

Hub Cat
Aug 3, 2011

Trunk Lover

Oh I agree I just wanted to see what weak justification there was and make a sarcastic joke.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Hub Cat posted:

He kills the loup- garou by magicing his pentacle at it really hard which I guess doesn't count because it's really scary at the time?? Okay I checked the book and it doesn't count because technically it is a demon at the time. :pseudo:

Also the self-defense thing.

Hub Cat
Aug 3, 2011

Trunk Lover

Yeah he is covered as far as the first law goes, but killing Justin even in self defense still hurt his soul whereas killing temporary werewolf MacFinn somehow does not. I'm pretty sure in this instance Butcher hadn't thought up magic backlash damage stuff yet and probably never went back and considered it.

Hub Cat fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Jul 9, 2019

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

I don't really care whether there's a 'mechanical' definition for "killing this is okay, killing that is not", but seeing his violent life taking a toll on him (beyond the occasional "oh you were under supernatural influence") would be worth reading, particularly since Butcher does take a pass at making other things he does have consequences for him sometimes.

I've said it before and I don't mean it flippantly (or negatively), but Butcher has long been writing Magic Spider-Man, which means we're absolutely due a "I'm not doing anyone any good anyway, SPIDER-MAN NO MORE" story.

NerdyMcNerdNerd
Aug 3, 2004
Vampires should have just like tied regular humans to their transformed bodies like screaming, sentient armor when they were attacking the council. Half of them would have become warlocks or been too busy killing each other for wizard heresy to fight back. Baby pauldrons would have been highly effective.

Hey what about some of those not-quite vampires that Harry killed with the magical rite? The members of Susan's organization?

What about the end of Grave Peril? There's been a lot of 'did I kill humans?' going on in his head, but if he did there'd be an even bigger blacker mark on his soul, wouldn't there? And he's being watched constantly. He'd be super dead if he looked a little more warlocky after that, so he apparently didn't kill anyone? I guess?

A hard-coded system like this super sucks and makes any effort toward ambiguity kind of confusing

docbeard posted:

I've said it before and I don't mean it flippantly (or negatively), but Butcher has long been writing Magic Spider-Man, which means we're absolutely due a "I'm not doing anyone any good anyway, SPIDER-MAN NO MORE" story.

I think that was part of what Ghost Story was meant to do.

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:

Hey what about some of those not-quite vampires that Harry killed with the magical rite? The members of Susan's organization?

What about the end of Grave Peril? There's been a lot of 'did I kill humans?' going on in his head, but if he did there'd be an even bigger blacker mark on his soul, wouldn't there? And he's being watched constantly. He'd be super dead if he looked a little more warlocky after that, so he apparently didn't kill anyone? I guess?

A hard-coded system like this super sucks and makes any effort toward ambiguity kind of confusing

It really doesn't even seem like the hard-coding is all that hard-coded, considering how many exceptions the rule has.


Hub Cat posted:

Yeah he is covered as far as the first law goes, but killing Justin even in self defense still hurt his soul whereas killing temporary werewolf MacFinn somehow does not. I'm pretty sure in this instance Butcher hadn't thought up magic backlash damage stuff yet and probably never went back and considered it.

Magic backlash damage? Well, as far as I remember the first several books makes it super clear that it does bad things to your soul but also forgets it exists half the time and generally only gets brought up as the reason why Morgan is after him and he has little to no White Council support.

mastajake
Oct 3, 2005

My blade is unBENDING!

NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:

Vampires should have just like tied regular humans to their transformed bodies like screaming, sentient armor when they were attacking the council.

Would have been pretty cool because then Blackstaff McCoy would casually murder hundreds of thousands of people and vampires with an inferno emanating from a wave of his hand. Not that he and Dresden needed any more drama between the two of them.

Narsham
Jun 5, 2008

docbeard posted:

I don't really care whether there's a 'mechanical' definition for "killing this is okay, killing that is not", but seeing his violent life taking a toll on him (beyond the occasional "oh you were under supernatural influence") would be worth reading, particularly since Butcher does take a pass at making other things he does have consequences for him sometimes.

I've said it before and I don't mean it flippantly (or negatively), but Butcher has long been writing Magic Spider-Man, which means we're absolutely due a "I'm not doing anyone any good anyway, SPIDER-MAN NO MORE" story.

Well, now I can see why some of the thread tropes were so confusing to me. I strongly disagree that Butcher doesn't show us how his violent life takes a toll on him. He may present himself as a big goof, even in the later books, but despite even his first-person narration trying to insist that he hasn't changed, he's changed massively. Where he used to have anger issues he was struggling to deal with so he wouldn't get his head chopped off by Morgan, now he's literally Mr. War Crimes but also the guy who would be in charge of punishing himself. So he doesn't care nearly as much. All the casual violence post-Winter Knight mantle is getting elided by the fact that almost everyone else he knows is also steeped in violence. I'm pretty sure Uriel's position on Dresden is that he's both useful and redeemable, but that doesn't mean Butcher has declared that Dresden is already on God's good side.

The series has him as the son of a potentially evil wizard, the grandson of grumpy murder-wizard who some readers think might be Black Council, and entangled in his mom's schemes to do something to mess with the Outsider threat which may or may not mean he has some kind of direct link to the Outside. Now he's also Winter Knight, a role already established as being horrifically violent. "Parkour" or not, Skin Games sees him brooding alone on Demonreach while pretty clearly not dealing with any of his actual problems, and recognizing that the Warden role isn't too different from being another of the prisoners. I get the impression that Warden of Demonreach isn't a job you give to the serene pacifist-types.

Butcher also clearly has a redemption/sacrifice theme going on that's deeply Christian. Maybe he doesn't always pull it off very well, but it's glaringly obvious. If you begin with the supposition that nothing is beyond forgiveness, then your attitude towards things like violence in your main character is going to be affected.

Hub Cat
Aug 3, 2011

Trunk Lover

Is there ever an instance where Dresden kills a nonhuman not in self defense? The only time I can think of is the ghoul in the desert and that is portrayed as not okay.

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

Hub Cat posted:

Is there ever an instance where Dresden kills a nonhuman not in self defense? The only time I can think of is the ghoul in the desert and that is portrayed as not okay.

Someone mentioned above that he killed some non-humans just to prove a point, which doesn't sound like self-defense.

Zore
Sep 21, 2010
willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d’etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Hub Cat posted:

Is there ever an instance where Dresden kills a nonhuman not in self defense? The only time I can think of is the ghoul in the desert and that is portrayed as not okay.

He kills some Fae loving with him at the Ball in Cold Days.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Hub Cat posted:

Is there ever an instance where Dresden kills a nonhuman not in self defense? The only time I can think of is the ghoul in the desert and that is portrayed as not okay.

He didn't just kill that ghoul, he had started to torture it to death in front of the apprentices before Ramirez called him out. Granted he was still harboring Lasciel's Shadow at that point, but I think that's not as much of an influence as Harry thinks as far as who he is at his core. He's an insanely powerful dude with some resentment at the crappy hand he was dealt as a kid and constantly needs to keep reign on his instincts (which he usually fails).

His impulse is not to be a good man. And he knows it and so do the people in his life. Hell, Murph yelled at him for damaging part of a coffee shop at night when he was frustrated saying he doesn't even think of the lives he's impacting (the workers will have to miss work while the shop gets repaired).

Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Jul 9, 2019

Hub Cat
Aug 3, 2011

Trunk Lover

Zore posted:

He kills some Fae loving with him at the Ball in Cold Days.

I totally forgot about this, if anything it is worse since all that guy did was sass him a little and its completely forgotten about immediately.

Proteus Jones posted:

He didn't just kill that ghoul, he had started to torture it to death in front of the apprentices before Ramirez called him out. Granted he was still harboring Lasciel's Shadow at that point, but I think that's not as much of an influence as Harry thinks as far as who he is at his core. He's an insanely powerful dude with some resentment at the crappy hand he was dealt as a kid and constantly needs to keep reign on his instincts (which he usually fails).

His impulse is not to be a good man. And he knows it and so do the people in his life. Hell, Murph yelled at him for damaging part of a coffee shop at night when he was frustrated saying he doesn't even think of the lives he's impacting (the workers will have to miss work while the shop gets repaired).
I agree that Dresden is essentially a hyperviolent reactionary idiot who always chooses to blow something up or hurt somebody before he ever considers using tact or diplomacy. Its just frustrating because it feels like Butcher is trying to have his cake and eat it too by always having his actions justified by the narrative and besides he feels bad about it(until Michael gives him a pep talk).

Hub Cat fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Jul 9, 2019

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Hub Cat posted:

...it feels like Butcher is trying to have his cake and eat it too by always having his actions justified by the narrative and besides he feels bad about it(until Michael gives him a pep talk).

I think it would probably bother me less, and make Harry a much more interesting character, if it weren't for this. He never seems to suffer any real consequences for his lack of control and thoughtlessness. And you're right, he feels mopey and bad and briefly questions his worth and then it turns out Hey, that was actually the right thing to do after all or someone external validates his worth and says "if you just keep trying to be better it's all OK". And then it is, and we never really visit it again.

Butters is the only one that really pushes back at him, and even then Harry is all "well, you don't have the whole story". There's just no introspection or growth outside of Dragonball Z style power creep.

I still enjoy the series, but with this many books deep it's just frustrating to see what I would consider a fantastic opportunity to give some depth just passed on by. Either make him a hero by facing and addressing his darkness or just swerve into a full on anti-hero who has embraced his baser instincts since that's the only way he can really fight for the greater good.

Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Jul 9, 2019

Spun Dog
Sep 21, 2004


Smellrose
I enjoy them for what they are, pulp.

Beachcomber
May 21, 2007

Another day in paradise.


Slippery Tilde
I'm pretty sure murdering that elf at the ball is the fae equivalent of going after the biggest guy in prison your first day.

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007
I decided to do a little research and apparently contrary to how the first books portray it, the Laws of Magic are aren't nearly as Laws of the Universe as they seemed? Because the wiki says they allow for pleas to mitigate them and well, there's a wizard whose entire job is breaking the Laws of Magic to accomplish whatever goals the Council deems done, and also have a special staff that makes them immune to bad karma or whatever.

That seems to just kinda fly in the face that these are immutable.

Aerdan
Apr 14, 2012

Not Dennis NEDry
Kinda the thing about the Laws is that they were written the way they are by the Council. And Harry says doing wizard crimes just makes it easier to do those particular things. Which explains why Harry's so eager to do violent wizard crimes, if you think about it.

Hub Cat
Aug 3, 2011

Trunk Lover

It comes up in Proven Guilty, doing harm with magic literally damages your psyche and makes you more willing and able to do wizard crimes. It even counts if its "legal" like self defense and that is part of why the wardens have swords. The laws of magic are just wizard laws and could be changed or overruled by the council. I feel like having the Laws of Magic only care about humans is a feature not a bug (the council being wizard-centric shitheads who will only help anybody else if they get something out of it)

Hub Cat fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Jul 10, 2019

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

Hub Cat posted:

It comes up in Proven Guilty, doing harm with magic literally damages your psyche and makes you more willing and able to do wizard crimes. It even counts if its "legal" like self defense and that is part of why the wardens have swords. The laws of magic are just wizard laws and could be changed or overruled by the council. I feel like having the Laws of Magic only care about humans is a feature not a bug (the council being wizard-centric shitheads who will only help anybody else if they get something out of it)

So does blowing up random fae-dudes for being annoying harm your psyche, or are you safe because Wizard Law says it's a-okay? How does a staff make you immune from bad karma? Or is it the job that makes you above the law that protects you from bad karma?

Hub Cat
Aug 3, 2011

Trunk Lover

Kchama posted:

So does blowing up random fae-dudes for being annoying harm your psyche, or are you safe because Wizard Law says it's a-okay? How does a staff make you immune from bad karma? Or is it the job that makes you above the law that protects you from bad karma?

I mean the psyche stuff comes off to me as badly explaining wizard ptsd, the council justifying straight up executing people without trying to rehabilitate them, and making something explicit that should merely be implicit plus looking at Dresden its hard to argue all the killing hasn't had an affect. As for the blackstaff :shrug:

Beachcomber
May 21, 2007

Another day in paradise.


Slippery Tilde
I think the Blackstaff is just a piece of wood without any special properties. It's given to a single wizard who is judged by the council to have sufficient maturity to handle the responsibility of using magical violence for the needs of wizard-kind. Accepting the staff means accepting the consequences and necessity of such actions.

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

Beachcomber posted:

I think the Blackstaff is just a piece of wood without any special properties. It's given to a single wizard who is judged by the council to have sufficient maturity to handle the responsibility of using magical violence for the needs of wizard-kind. Accepting the staff means accepting the consequences and necessity of such actions.

I considered that, but a little bit of research brought this up:

Dresden Files Wiki posted:

Jim Butcher has said that the Blackstaff protects the user from the backlash a warlock experiences when using black magic, the phenomenon of it "being easier to bend someone the more you yourself are bent.

So it seems the staff really is a staff that protects you from karma. And the wiki says stuff about it making you want to commit more murder or something.


Hub Cat posted:

I mean the psyche stuff comes off to me as badly explaining wizard ptsd, the council justifying straight up executing people without trying to rehabilitate them, and making something explicit that should merely be implicit plus looking at Dresden its hard to argue all the killing hasn't had an affect. As for the blackstaff :shrug:

It seems pretty "Whatever to suit the plot" either way, to be honest.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Beachcomber posted:

I think the Blackstaff is just a piece of wood without any special properties. It's given to a single wizard who is judged by the council to have sufficient maturity to handle the responsibility of using magical violence for the needs of wizard-kind. Accepting the staff means accepting the consequences and necessity of such actions.

I thought the actual Blackstaff the magic stick was a kind of choke device. Isn't it described as having black veins spread up Ebeneezer's arm as he's using destructive magic against the Red Court? At some point he has to pull back or he gets consumed by the actual staff?

I mean I guess that's a huge assumption on my part but that's how I always read it. The Blackstaff as a title is the White Council's black-ops wet-work person, but they can only wield the magics using a literal Blackstaff that will consume them before they go full warlock.

Hub Cat
Aug 3, 2011

Trunk Lover

He has said in a couple of Q&A's that the Blackstaff protects Ebenezar from being driven insane by the negative affects of black magic in some way.

Jim Butcher posted:

Does the blackstaff have any powers that relate to the dead?
Other than making people dead? Really, that’s kind of the point [Crowd Laughs] Really but the staff itself what it really does is it keeps Eb sane while he’s doing insane things. Lucky him, he gets to deal with a hideously guilty conscious and nightmares later, but that’s better than later being like *Muahahahahahahahaha* Which is sort of the other option if your going to go around using magic like that.

Jim Butcher posted:

When Eb does his “Laying of the Cattle move” at the major battle near the end of Changes, is that a power of the blackstaff?
The Blackstaff is what keeps that kind of thing from driving him insane and turning him into a giggling villain. Yah you don’t go messing with black magic in the Dresden Files, it’s very very bad for you. At the same time, Magic is something that happens because you truly believe that when you set out to do it that you should be able to do that sort of thing. That says a few things about Eb that really Harry hasn’t run into in any other forum other than right there. Yah Poor guy, He’s got a tough job.

Hub Cat fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Jul 10, 2019

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Artonos
Dec 3, 2018
I think it's implied that it's grandma winters cane too isn't it? It's been a while since I've read the books. But I think she mentions losing it and thinking a wizard took it or something along those lines.

So that kinda goes with being able to do what's necessary and murder a bunch and being okay with it.

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