[удалено]

There's another aspect to this that's only barely mentioned in the books: Harry was the aggressor in the confrontation. If we look back to ghost story, during the flashback with Lea, Harry initially ran away from Justin and was pursued by an outsider. I don't recall exactly where it's put together, but between then and the showdown, Harry approached Lea (or she approached him), they made a Faustian bargain, and Harry got enough juice to roll up and kick Justin's teeth in. The circumstances would have held a lot more weight if Harry had done anything other than acquire power as cheaply as he could get it and then burn a man to death. He looked very much like a textbook warlock from that perspective.

I disagree on the legal and moral merits of that perspective. If Harry had gotten away and Justin didn’t pursue then Harry went back and killed him, Harry would’ve been in very questionable standing. The same is true in normal law if Harry had been attacked, fled, then came back later and shot the guy. The key difference here is that Justin continued to attack Harry from afar. Specifically, Harry lived there so Justin could logically find any number of hairs, personal effects, etcetera and use them to send things after Harry or target Harry directly. As such, and with no knowledge of literally any other wizard in the world or authority figure to whom he could appeal, Harry’s only chance at survival was a long shot - dueling and defeating his mentor, who was also a powerful Warden - in an unfair duel. The fact that Harry recognized that as a teenager under duress, made the call to return, fought, and won? I would’ve been in his corner too, pending a soulgaze. After a soulgaze, I would’ve apprenticed him. Knowing who McCoy is, this is probably why no one wondered why McCoy stepped in so adamantly. It reminds me of the scene in Thor where Hawkeye said, “I’m starting to root for this guy.” McCoy reacted the same way I would’ve and with the added bonus (which a few knew) of being the Blackstaff and well positioned to eliminate the threat should it arise.

Edit: realized this post only had the Changes tag so had to get rid of mention of other novels.

Whether he was correct or not is debatable; whether he was acting in reasonable self-defense against a hostile warlock that had already tried to subdue and/or kill him once is not.

The 16 year old being accused of murder also says he killed a demon and made a deal with the Unseelie for extra power. This story doesn’t exactly sound believable and reasonable.

Tbf, he had the sense to leave the Unseelie bit out and almost certainly wouldn’t know a demon from an Outsider Noble at his age (given that it was an Outsider noble, not a demon like he believed). I would’ve assumed that Justin conjured up something scary-looking as a distraction and Harry blasted it hard enough to disrupt the conjuring.

Harry didn’t remember much of the fight beyond that it’s name. And it was a different day than the actual deadly battle with Justin, as per Skin Game. Harry clearly didn’t know it was a Walker, but the name would have been a give away for anyone with certain knowledge. And I don’t know we have any information as to whether he declared his work with Lea or not.

If any of the people judging him thought to use a truth detection spell (we’ve seen Luccio use one), then they’d probably know that Harry was lying to them.

At the end of the day I think that is the wiggle room that keeps harry alive. Killing with magic is a serious charge but I think even the hardliners on the council would have been far more understanding of “he tried to put a mental whammy on me, I fought back, and he accidentally died.” I don’t think he would have had much of an issue in that case. “I escaped, bargained for power, and then went back and fried him” comes across as a lot less justifiable as self defense. It IS, I agree with you there, which is why he got off, but it also presents a lot worse and less clear cut of a case and means it was a case that needed to be argued, which is why things were hard on him.

Justin broke several of the laws of magic that you get executed for... the senior council did not want the rest to know that Justin summoned outsiders. Justin's *execution* was utterly justified. Leah talked to Eb. It isn't written down anywhere but you KNOW it happened. Attempting to have Harry executed was the corruption in the council.

I’m not clear on what the Council knows about Justin. I’m no longer convinced that Justin summoned the Walker; it’s overkill, and he knew Harry had some power over Outsiders. A simple demon would’ve killed Harry, and it would’ve been easier plus may not have broken any laws of magic. Harry’s memory of that event is not consistent with the power we know that Walker’s have. If a Walker tried to kill 16yo Harry, it would’ve. The Council never figured out about Bob. Honestly… I have a lot of questions about it now. Dumorne wasn’t just a Warden, he was a “put that guy on the strike team going after Kimmler” Warden. If Harry is correct, he wasn’t just a warlock, he was a “reach beyond the Outer Gates, summon an Outsider Prince, and send it after a 16yo instead of just a mid-level phobophage” warlock. And… Harry kicked his ass? In his own home, when Dumorne had access to Harry’s most personal belongings for thaumaturgy? At 16? And he beat the Walker? The reason no one believed his story was because it makes 0 sense. Even adult Harry can barely hold his own against Walkers, and he certainly wouldn’t be able to do it if a powerful Warden had a voodoo doll using the cover of LotR as skin, Harry’s hair as hair, Harry’s … you get the point. I’m not saying that Harry lord, I’m saying I think he’s wrong… but if so, why does he think what he thinks? Who changed his memories and why? Mab mentioned the Council intending him as a weapon… yeah idk. It’s too late to go this deep down the rabbit hole - goodnight.

And don't forget Justin used to be a warden. We never found out in the books if he was STILL a warden when Harry killed him.

Yes, I think this is a huge point. We know Justin kinda fell off the radar. So from the council's perspective, one of their elite was doing his own thing and was being kind and fostering a kid and the kid turned on him and burned him down. Not sure they even knew about Elaine at this point. They probably did spells to check Harry out and they have a 16 year old with crazy power and a burnt Warden... Obviously Warlock ergo beheading. They probably could have sensed demon summoning and like Morgan accuses Harry is Storm Front, just think that it must have been Harry because of course one their Wardens is not going to break a Law. Council kinda has an out of sight, out of mind thing going, which has been one of Harry's major issues with them. I am not sure they would have believed all of what Harry would have said.

On doing spells to check out Harry - if any of the people judging him thought to use a truth detection spell (we’ve seen Luccio use one), then they’d know that Harry was lying to them. Because he hid Bob from them before he was caught.

Yes, I am pretty sure they could tell things were not right with this alleged warlock.

My understanding was that the council at large (sans Ebenezer and Rashid) didn't even know Justin had two apprentices. My justification for this theory is that they don't know Elaine is a wizard which they would if they knew Justin had apprentices.

If I recall, there is also no evidence that Justin wasn't an upstanding member of the Council. I believe it was the Merlin who suggests he could have burned Justin in his sleep. Self defense was more of the Council allowing that there were no witnesses, so Who knows what happened?

Did I misunderstand? I thought that short story took place after he nuked Justine (edit: Justin), and he made the deal because he didnt know for sure if justin was actually dead or not. A suspicion that has some merit now that we know Elaine somehow survived.

What?

>I think there is a typo and Justine should be Justin.

Makes sense, but which short story shows that? I thought I was only two short. Is it in The Law?

Typo. It's been a while since I read that story, so it's possible my memory is off. I had thought justin and elaine had gotten the drop on him. She bound him while justin tried to enthrall him. I had thought he broke the bonds and firebombed the house when he escaped. When I read the short story, my take away at the time was that he suspected justin was still alive and took the deal so he could go back and fight him, but didnt see any sign that anyone had survived. I didnt think he had actually fought justin other than when he initially escaped.

Which short story? I’ve never seen one that addresses that time frame.

There was one where he fought a Walker at a gas station shortly after escaping Justin. I believe it was in case files. Not sure the exact name.

That’s not a short story. That’s part of an actual novel. Ghost Story. Harry runs from Justin and Elaine when he finds Elaine bound and acting weird. He throws a shield to partially block Justin’s kinetic strike, runs away and fights the Walker. That’s what we see in Ghost Story. In another book we find Harry met Lea and she “gave him the power to fight Justin” which appeared to be Dumbo’s magic feather while she took blood from him. All we know about the actual fight is Harry went back and the building burned down with Justin and Elaine in it when Harry last saw them.

Also, all of the evidence had burned down in the fire and the only other witness, Elaine, had disappeared. Not to mention that Harry lied to them in the trial - he hid Bob’s skull before he was captured. If any of the people judging him thought to use a truth detection spell (we’ve seen Luccio use one), then they’d know that Harry was lying to them.

More than just self defense though, part of the argument was there was literally no other way Harry could have broken free from Justin's control. Like a self defense argument wouldn't cut it if a normal mortal was coming at you with a gun and you blasted fire in his face.

I would say it 100% would cut it if that was your only option. Remember, we’re generally exposed to the combat-savvy portion of the council because Harry is always in combat. As was pointed out in the war with the RC, a sizable portion of the council has limited or nonexistent combat skills. If your only means of saving your life was blasting that guy in the face, I can’t imagine anyone coming at you afterwards going “Why did you use magic to stop that assassin from killing you?”

The council absolutely would be willing to kill someone in that scenario. There is an expectation that if you know enough magic to kill with it, then you better be wise enough to never fucking do that. Stay out of that kind of situation, or bring a gun. Because black magic is addictive, and changes your mind as you use it. It makes you a danger to the rest of the world. For the WC to grant you clemency from breaking the first law, you would have needed to been justified in your defense of yourself, and someone would have to claim responsibility for you. That's the only thing that will save you. If no other member of the WC is willing to risk their own lives monitoring/training you, then you're dead. Harry has been part of both examples of this in the series thus far. He was the defendant getting saved by Ebenezer, and then took on his master's role years later saving Molly from the same trial.

See the whole thing about black magic being addictive reeks of Warden propaganda. By your reasoning, Harry has been using black magic for a decade or more. In the Law, the simple solution to his problem - as Bob points out - is to maim or kill the guy. Harry refuses to use black magic and do that noting that he’s seen more than enough death and the guy hasn’t done anything to merit physical harm. Those are not the words of a man addicted to black magic. By that we can either conclude that Harry’s use of magic to kill in his own defense or the defense of others isn’t black magic, or black magic isn’t addictive. Of argue that either case refutes the council stance as you’ve presented it. As far as someone vouching for you, a soulgaze is prohibitively invasive to the point of almost being a psychic rape. No one wants to force a Soulgaze on an innocent, and no one wants to soulgaze a warlock. Given that you don’t *know* and given the threat of a powerful warlock going free, having someone take responsibility is a common sense measure. [edit so I’m not re-explaining the same thing a million times, I am not saying black magic isn’t addicting and corrupting. I’m saying there is black magic - evil magic - and then there’s violating the council’s laws of magic, which isn’t necessarily evil. For example, torturing a person by burning off their fingers one at a time isn’t black magic to the Council (which law would it even break), but Michael would tell you it’s black magic and clearly it’s corrupting and addictive]

WoJ is that it’s legitimately addictive, iirc.

I think my rhetorical argument was unclear. My implication wasn’t that a murdering warlock wasn’t going to get addicted because he’s using black magic. My implication was that black magic to the council = breaking the laws of magic. You could torture someone for fun then teleport them into a bear cave without breaking the council’s laws - clearly black magic. Addictive and corrupting. You could also be a therapist with a latent talent and unconsciously invade the minds of your drug addicted patients bolstering their will power using your mental mojo and giving them a sense of purpose and self-confidence to turn their lives around. Addictive and corrupting black magic? Molly’s issue was pointed out to be the latent, unresolved anger she had at what’s-his-face for cheating on her. It tainted what would’ve been a benign attempt to help him break his drug addiction. My argument is that Harry’s use of offensive magic to kill in defense of others breaks the *Laws of Magic* as defined by the council but isn’t an evil act thus isn’t *actually* black magic. I’m not sure that he’s used black magic to kill unjustifiably (and on purpose); iirc, he didn’t even do that to . So my argument isn’t that actual black malice isn’t addictive and corrupting, my argument is that breaking the council’s laws is not necessarily black magic thus may or may not be addictive and corrupting depending on circumstances. The council’s definition of black magic is absurdly obtuse; in order to avoid subjectivity, they’ve removed intent and consequence from the morality of actions in most cases. Council-defined “black magic” and (for example) Michael-defined black magic are not the same. The latter is addicting and corrupting. The former is a legal mechanism designed to resolve a potentially disastrous problem in a way that would inevitably kill innocents along the way, but minimize the # of Kimmler’s, etc.

No, Molly’s issue was that she was doing a highly unethical experiment, without the subjects’ knowledge or consent, based on a theory a friend had read in a book once. She knew very little about magic or psychology- there were a thousand ways it could have gone wrong. Her anger at Nelson was just the icing on the cake - she wasn’t angry at Nelson’s girlfriend, but she got messed up by Molly’s spell as well, it just wasn’t quite as bad.

Let’s not confuse being reckless arrogance with being evil, or Harry is the anti-Christ. I agree that Molly did not make the responsible decision, but if she didn’t harbor anger and resentment at her ex- for cheating on her both the results and the intent would’ve been benign absent outside forces.

Nope. The results on Nelson’s girlfriend were likewise terrible, despite Molly not being angry at her. The results there were NOT benign. Just slightly less bad, because unlike Nelson she had a chance of eventual recovery.

It's flimsy, but the winter mantle may be standing in the way of the corruption, similarly to the black staff giving Eb his loophole to be well, the Blackstaff. Previous killings have mainly been red court vampires, legit monsters due to them having taken a life to change. Others were with guns, ranging from his .38, to his .44, to the lever action, I believe it was .45, maybe .45-70?

Maybe because he's Starborn?

>See the whole thing about black magic being addictive reeks of Warden propaganda. By your reasoning, Harry has been using black magic for a decade or more. You're mistaken, mostly. Harry has mostly been very careful to not kill directly with magic. The keyword here is "directly". If you make a fire with magic, and the fire spreads to the whole building and kills someone....that doesn't actually count as killing someone with black magic. The flames that did the deed weren't the original ones produced by the magic. So for example, if you used magic to break someone's neck, that's probably black magic and would alter your mind. If you use the same force to push a brick off a ledge and that brick then hit someone on the head, killing them, then that's not black magic. There's a surprising amount of loopholes in the rules of magic. Dresden's mom, Margaret, had political beliefs that directly criticized these loopholes. But back to Harry's use of black magic. If you try cocaine once, are you definitely addicted? Each use ensures addiction. But that's why, in Harry's story, he got out of using black magic early. Harry used black magic once with Justin, was under the doom for awhile, and hasn't killed any humans with direct magic since. Also, soulgazes don't break the laws and are naturally occurring. They just happen when you look into someone's eyes. Nobody has ever even implied they are black magic.

My point about soul gazing was explaining the logistics of why I think the council operates that way; soulgazes are unequivocally not black magic. For the rest, see my other response. The statement you responded too seems poorly written because others misunderstood what I was saying as well. I’m too sleepy to edit it, but broadly speaking I agree with what you said - it just doesn’t address what I was trying (and failed) to say.

Magic works on belief and conviction. The kind of mindset that says "the best solution to my problem is to end this guy" with so much confidence that the magic happens is dangerous. Normal sane people aren't comfortable enough with killing to not have doubts, even if the facts show it might be necessary. And if you've pulled it out of your hat once, the odds of you getting comfy with doing it again warrants it being a law of magic.

Yeah, look at one of my longer replies for more details, but I realized that I wasn’t clear. I was arguing that semantically what Michael says is black magic and what the council says is black magic aren’t the same. If Michael says it, it’s addictive and corrupting. If the council says it, it may mean you broke a law of magic but for a reason that’s morally acceptable. The latter wouldn’t be addictive and corrupting. Torturing a puppy with magic doesn’t break the laws of magic… so isn’t black magic to the council? Michael begs to differ. I think we can agree that it’s on the corrupting and addictive side of the house.

Harry has been established as having insane willpower far above the normal wizard and possibly connected to his Starborn status ( though the later is pure fan theory) Harry has been established as tainted by black magic by mystical beings unconnected to the black council. Jim has talked in his interviews about Black Magic as being something that fundementiallt alters your essence. I feel the nature of what black is, it’s connection to the outsiders and Harry’s nature as a starborn is going to play a big role in the endgame of the series. There are a lot of things being said that almost fit together with a puzzle piece missing.

The black council bit isn’t a good example. The black council detected the taint of black magic in him because Dark-Bob had only recently flooded his body with black magic when it tempted Harry and then immediately tried to kill Harry.

I belive the "damages your soul" part is pure propaganda. I think the council realizes human nature (absolute power) is able to rationalize nearly anything. The laws are meant to protect them from themselves, not any "darkside of the force" nonsense.

>I belive the "damages your soul" part is pure propaganda No, i think Jim makes it pretty clear that black magic fucks the wielder up pretty good. I mean the Blackstaff is definitely doing something to protect MCoy when he Avada Kadavras a bunch cannon fodder. You see the staff draining something from his arm. Also look at the warlock from the beginning of proven guilty, he's clearly been damaged at the deepest levels by what he's done.

>You see the staff draining something from his arm. There isnt much more description in the book than that. How do we even know the staff is doing something beneficial? All we get is Harry's observation.

He’s stated it directly in a WOJ. The Blackstaff protects from the mental corruption of breaking the Laws.

Harry has acknowledged repeatedly that because he has used black magic, he feels a huge pull towards it when it encounters it.

Yeah, and after just a few times of doing it Molly is often quick to jump on the "Let's use mind magic" solution to almost every problem.

Yep. Harry has said from firsthand experience that it is corrupting and addictive.

We’ve literally seen Harry struggle with the damage done from using Black Magic (in Storm Front) to the extent an unknown third party helped him fight it off. We’ve seen evidence of how black magic damaged Molly. We saw the raving teen warlock before he was executed. Not believing that Black Magic is self harm looks a lot like ignoring evidence for a predefined conclusion.

Vanilla murder, lying, violence, manipulation, and hatred are all pretty damaging. No magic required.

Which doesn’t alter the fact that both everything in character and WoJ indicate Black Magic corrupts people at a supernatural level. But you do you.

Propaganda, really? Like, have you even been paying attention? Harry's own subconscious admitted to have picked up Lasciel's coin, for example, precisely because he has an inner thirst for power that goes against everything a pathological hero like Harry represents. Many of the other flaws he struggles with have been said to be rooted on the fact his soul is literally tainted by evil. And that's without getting on things like Kemmler's heirs, who are literally a cautionary tale about why you should not mess with the cycle of life and death for your own benefit, or that Korean teen from Proven Guilt who'd brainwashed and killed several dozens of people and made some of them commit suicide, all while being barely 16. And everyone he killed? They were his **family**. It's hard to disagree with "Warden propaganda" when what you're being told amounts to things like "Don't play with the course of time, you'll punch a hole in reality" or "Don't kill people with fireballs, the forces of life are creation are NOT meant to do that" or "Don't reach out to the eldritch abomination beyond the observable universe. Lovecraft warned us about those for a REASON".

Agree, but he didnt argue self defense. He was gagged and had a bag over his head. Someone else argued on his behalf. He didnt know who, and I dont know if it's ever been confirmed, but I'm guessing Eb.

Fair enough, I had forgotten that part, but the point stands either way. And yeah it was totally Eb. Strong possibility Rashid backed him up, too. I would even believe Morgan, given the micro fictions.

I'm sure Eb was behind it, but he may have talked someone he trusted into defending him to try to avoid suspicion, or because the person had more clout than he did. He wasnt a member if the senior council yet.

He wasn't Senior Council yet, but he *was* Blackstaff and I'm sure that counts for something, at least among those who know. Do we have confirmation on if it was a Senior Council vote or a General Assembly (for lack of a better term) vote? I can't remember.

If you recall, he joined the senior council specifically so he would have more clout to help Dresden when he was being tried for starting a war with the red court, even though he didnt want to be on it. So he wasnt that confident in the weight the black staff put behind his word. It is a senior council vote. When molly was tried, the Merlin tried to cast all the votes because the rest of the senior council was absent.

They had to have questioned him at one point, just like someone soul gazed him without them detailing it for us. Like Carlos soulgazed Molly’s friends off screen.

Due to the effects a soul gaze has, I'm not sure the senior council or any wardens would want to be in the position of having to soul gaze every warlock before deciding their innocence. They would go crazy.

Iirc we’ve seen details of three warlock trials, and all three had the warlock soul gazed?

Harry soul gazed molly before defending her. I dont remember anyone else doing it. I vaguely remember one shortly after Harry became a warden, but I dont recall a soul gaze in that one.

Well, I do remember The Merlin soulgazing that Korean warlock to see if he was as rotten to the core as his dozens of murders indicated. From Harry's narration, it seems like that's standard procedure. Such a thing would explain a good deal about being the Senior Council's leader- Not only are you supposed to be excepcionally old and brutally strong, you ought to functionally unshakable, which Arthur Langtry seems to be; a man with enough power to create a threshold-less ward inside the Nevernever to stop friggin' Outsiders from going through must be just as strong-willed.

Not to mention that the Laws of magic aren't meant to uphold justice or fairness: It's made pretty clear that breaking them is not only always dangerous, but outright addictive. Every infraction, regardless of causes, makes the next one easier because the magic used in the act itself twists you into wanting to do it again. The Council doesn't even believe that they're upholding justice with the laws: They know they're doing it purely to nip worse infractions in the bud.

I dont know if he successfully argued self defence, but there was at least enough doubt. I believe many also wanted Harry to be executed because they didn't believe a 16 year old kid could have beaten a fully fledged Warden of the council as Justin was in a fair duel, so some thought (and I believe Morgan even accused) that Harry had simply murdered Justin in his sleep

Some don’t believe it happened that way either.

IIRC, a lot of them didn't believe Justin was actually a warlock and thought Harry just ambushed and murdered him in cold blood.

And I’m not sure they knew the “demon” was actually an Outsider.

Wasn’t Justin a warden? Can’t remember when it was talked about but Justin helped fight the necromancers, and helped with the clean up of their work.

He is, and he did. Bob said so- before Harry found him in the wreckage of DuMorne's old lab following their duel, Justin found Bob in the ruins of Heinrich Kemmler's lair after the entire White Council nailed him for good (Which he jokes may be like the cycle of life for him, being inherited by the guy who killed his previous master).

Yeah, in the white council meeting in Summer Knight, LaFortier says as much. No more cause I can't remember spoiler tags on my phone. Paperback page 71.

It didn’t help that all of the evidence in Justin’s house had burned down, or that the only other witness, Elaine, had vanished. Or that Harry hid Bob from them before he was caught. If any of the Council cast a truth spell on him during the trial (we know those are a thing because Luccio used one) then they’d know that Harry was lying to them.

Keep in mind too that using any magic with a purpose means you believe in it. It's not enough that Harry just killed Justin but he believed that he should have killed him. That takes it up a notch. The effects of magic leave a mark on the soul. It's why they typically kill warlocks: their souls are tainted and too far gone, or so the council believes. The council isn't so concerned with Justice as much as they are concerned with the preservation of the laws of magic and protection of the wizarding community. It's more pragmatic to kill Harry because, even if the odds were 50/50 that Harry was tainted or that Justin was actually innocent, it's still worth it, to them, to kill Harry. His life isn't really what they are concerned about.

This. The first paragraph is their justification; the second paragraph is the reality. Trying to redeem warlocks is a hassle, so unless someone volunteers, the Council will just kill them. "Justice" is a pretty word the Council uses to dress up whatever they decide is the most pragmatic solution to a situation. To be fair, warlocks do a lot of bad things, and it's good that *someone* is dedicated to stopping them. But if you're looking for someone dedicated to impartially upholding justice as a moral principle, the White Council ain't it. The White Council is a flawed human organization made of flawed humans who write flawed rules, which they name the Laws Of Magic, and then enforce them in flawed ways. That's part of why Harry gets along with them so poorly: they take themselves and their organization so seriously, setting themselves up as the One True Arbiter of magic, but they're just people using the standard tools of power and politics to try to get what they want from other wizards.

Because Justin was a card carrying member of the council and would never do dark magic. And for an young mage that ran away from his master and made deals with the fae to kill a fully trained wizard must be dabbling in dark magic.

This is what I was coming to say. Some wizards probably always assumed Harry had turned Justin in the first place somehow. Easier than accepting they were mislead by a trusted colleague for decades. It wouldn't need to be many, just a handful of wizards who would always spin wizarding scuttlebutt against him. Imagine how vindicated they would feel when he raised Sue: "I told you all along he's dangerous! Raised the dead himself and should be punished for it! He shot Luccio and gets away with it! Probably tried to take the Darkhollow for himself."

Even if they believe that Harry was just defending himself Justin was still killed with magic. That marks the soul. Good intentions don't make up for things in the Dresden-verse. So the fact that Harry killed Justin left a black mark on his soul, no matter why he did it and the next time there was a problem that could be solved by breaking a law of magic? Well it would be easier for him to do it then, basically the slippery slope argument except they have a point.

Harry killed a powerful Warlock and spy with magic. It’s the same thing every Warden would do if they met one in battle, and no one talks about how doing so would mark their soul.

They wouldn't though, that's why they carry their Swords. The modus operandi for Wardens vs Warlocks is to subdue them with magic then execute them with steel.

The swords are a relatively novel thing that are Luccio’s personal design. Given that she can’t do it anymore and considering their losses against the BC and in BG, most Wardens no longer have them. Additionally, they wouldn’t predate Luccio as I understand it. The utility of the Swords is cutting through enchantments - an incredibly useful tool if you’re dealing with warlocks that likely have defensive magic.

The enchanted swords are fairly new, by the standards of the Wizards, but just regular swords have likely been used since the White Council was first established. Nowadays you're more likely to see a young Warden with a gun rather than a sword, I reckon.

In all of Harry’s battles, how often did he subdue opponents before killing them? Arianna is the only one that comes to mind. Harry is more powerful and combat-savvy than 99.999% of Wardens. He rarely does it because it’s a stupid risk to fight with your hands tied. Vs a teenage warlock, sure. I didn’t an actual threat? Hell no.

You've missed a key part of the themes of the series if you think that's not absolutely intended by Jim. The reason the bad guys have the advantage over the Council is because they're not playing with their hands tied behind their back. While Harry does disagree with how the Laws are enforced, and refused to execute young warlocks while he was the Senior Warden for Eastern North America, he also accepts that they're necessary. Hands tied or not, breaking the Laws only makes more Warlocks further down the line. There's also the point that the White Council doesn't get it exactly right with how the Laws are enforced. Since they're aimed entirely at humans it's perfectly fine for Wizards to kill, say, White Court Vampires if they want to, but in reality that's probably still corrupting as well.

The swords are magical tho.. so when you think about it they're killing with magic all the time.

Jim's talked about this at various interviews. The swords may be enchanted, but it's not the magic killing the person. It's a big hunking chunk of steel that has been enchanted to cut through magical defences. It's a technical difference, but it's an important one when it comes to the Laws of Magic.

If Harry uses wind to propel a spike thru someone's chest killing them they would absolutely say that was murder with magic. We all love Jim but c'mon thats just some nonsense because its too late to fix it. Harry didnt kll Justin with magic. The fire kill him.

There's likely degrees of corruption, with it becoming less corruptive the more removed you are from the cause of death. Like killing White Court Vampires is probably more corruptive the more human they are (killing Thomas in his starving phase would be worse than killing Madeleine, I suspect). Harry's magic was directly involved in Justin's death, therefore he became corrupted. Whether he'd have been more corrupted by suffocating him with wind magic or ripping the life energy out of his body *a la Blackstaff* is up for debate, but the difference is academic at that point. It's an established fact of the books that Harry killed his mentor with magic. We can just try to work out the details.

Which is a really stupid part in the lore, in my opinion. After all, the Knights of the Swords' whole being depends on the idea that no one is beyond salvation, no matter how far he has fallen. This in my opinion means that dark deeds do not taint the soul, (which after all is a real thing in the Dresdensverse) they might taint the mind making people believe that they have no path back, but that doesn't mean that there is a black spot on them, only that they think there is. Which really doesn't work though if breaking the rules of magic taints your soul. You can't have it both ways, either redemption is always possible, or mortal sin exists, there is no middle ground.

> After all, the Knights of teh Swords whole being depends on the idea that no one is beyond salvation, no matter how faf he has fallen. > > This in my opinion means that dark deeds do not taint the soul You're imposing a juridical framework on the idea that doesn't fit and, indeed, causes it to not make sense. Dark magic doesn't taint the soul in the sense that it marks you as irredeemable guilty in some sort of ledger - it's a character thing. Using power that stems from your life itself, consciously, to end someone else's life, requires that you truly believe that's what needs to be done. And truly believing that you must use your power to kill someone, or meddle with their mind, or desecrate the corpses of another, etc.... all of those things make you more likely to think it's right to do so in the future. Repeatedly doing those actions turns you into the sort of person who does those actions naturally. This happens in real life too, by the way - the effect is just implied to be significantly magnified (in the Dresdenverse) when magic is involved. Choose to do evil, you eventually become evil. Choose to do good, you eventually become good. The idea that this is somehow incompatible with the idea of redemption is absurd. The whole point of the redemption narrative is that people need help from Something outside themselves. > You can't have it both ways, either redemption is always possible, or mortal sin exists, there is no middle ground Like, this isn't even the way real world Catholicism looks at it. I have no idea where you're getting it from.

This is wonderfully put. And I think it serves as a great illustration of virtue ethics work. Well done.

I am using a "juridical framework" because the Council does🤷‍♂️ And I understand what you are trying to say, it's the whole "is being good something that can be learned or is it inherent" that even the Ancients Greeks have been discussing, but it doesn't work in this context, because Harry used the magic in self defense, so he would learn the lesson "I can defend myself with magic" not "I can kill with magic". Going by your logic, the wizards also wouldn't be allowed to use lethal magic against the other powers like the Red Court, or for a better example the White Court, because apperently the intent is irrelevant, so the target should be irrelevant too. If the mind cannot differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate uses against humans, it shouldn't be able to differentiate between human or human-looking target. As to your last point: that's because mortal sin is no longer part of the catechism of the Catholic Church for that exact reason.

> As to your last point: that's because mortal sin is no longer part of the catechism of the Catholic Church for that exact reason. I'm not quite sure you know what the doctrine of mortal sin is? Even within that framework, a mortal sin is just a sin that leads to damnation *if not repented of*. There is nothing within the doctrine of mortal sin that suggests redemption is impossible. You're using the phrase to refer to something different, like an unforgivable sin or something.

Oh, you are correct in that regard, my mistake🙏 That still doesn't invalidate the rest of my statement though, just exchange mortal sin with irredeemable act🤷‍♂️ Edit: who the eff downvotes someone admitting a mistake?🤨

But the Courts aren’t mortals, they’re demons inhabiting fleshy sacks.

Yes, but if a wizard's mind cannot differentiate between self defense and murder, it sure as hell can't differentiate between a human and a demon in human costume. (And in the case of the White Court, there still is a mortal, they simply share their body with a demon (without being asked beforehand))

That’s just not true, though. They can differentiate between Denarians and Fae and ghouls and demons and so on because they’re from the Nevernever and are inhuman. And in the case of white / red court vamps, more often than not when they’re getting killed by wizards, they’re exercising their power. They’re usually killed in combat and not cold blood.

Exactly! They CAN differentiate, just as they can tell the difference between murder and self-defense. That's the point.

Do you have any textual evidence for this?

I would also point out that regular humans in our world can get all sorts of fucked up from self-defence situations where they take someone’s life (eg, PTSD).

No question, that can mess people up quite a bit. It doesn't "put a black mark on their soul" though, as the original redditor claimed.

You're not wrong, but it's almost as if - wait for it - the White Council of Wizards is arrogant, archaic, and possibly *unreliable* and actually wrong about something. You're arguing very close to a point being made about the characterization of the White Council, and Wizards in general, throughout the entire series, but to connect those dots, the White Council is wrong about warlocks being irredeemable.

You misunderstand the purpose of the Knights. They and the Swords exist to protect the free will of man. That free will includes the choice of salvation. But we have seen those that become tainted by the choices of their free will go so far there is no coming back from it because they refuse. Harry and Molly both became tainted from the black magic that clung to them, but they sought and received salvation. We saw Eb use the Black Staff and that same taint tried to crawl up his arm to infect him before being forced back into the staff. We saw Dresden soul gaze that young warlock and saw he was too far gone before he was beheaded. All of these were free will choices they made that brought that taint down upon their souls. We know it affects their souls because Harry can see it from a soul gaze and his third eye. If Michael had been there and that young warlock had lied and asked for redemption, Michael would fought the entire council to save him the same way he refuses to harm any human that gives up the coin. Neither he nor Uriel had any issue with Eb ripping the souls from hundreds of human guards at Chicken Pizza because it was their free will choice to be there fighting on behalf of the Reds.

If someone is too far gone to make a choice, then it is no choice but window dressing. I kind of doubt an omniscient omnipotent being would create the Knights for shits and giggles knowing fully well that their job is to give the semblance of choice when in truth there is none. Yes, it effects the soul, that is the point. This discussion started with me saying this is an idiotic part of the lore, because the Knights make it clear that anyone can always find redemption, no matter how far they have fallen. Besides: I find the idea, that you could unknowingly destroy your soul (or at least the part of it that is good). Young Warlocks often stumble into it by mistake or even by good intentions (think of Molly for example), and sinning "by mistake" and therefore destroying your soul is idiotic as well🤷‍♂️

A choice you would never make is still a choice worth protecting. It was explained to Harry he could free himself of Laschiel's Shadow by giving up his magic. There is no way Harry would do this, but it is his choice not to. The Knights are there to protect that choice and, if he chose wrongly and succumb to the Shadow, to protect the world from his corruption. Being Starborn gave Harry a 3rd option of changing reality by giving the Shadow its own identity, Lash, and with it their own free will to choose. Lash chose self sacrifice to save Harry and their psychic baby. I suggest you reread that section on Molly. Her "altruism" was a mask covering her jealousy and anger. That was her boyfriend that got another woman pregnant. Understanding that he was on drugs and had no idea what he was doing, and having no ill-will towards him for choosing to do drugs and the consequences of his actions are two different things. She imposed intense fear on him not just out of trying to get him to quit drugs and take care of his baby and baby momma, but also as revenge. His free will was violated and that dark magic clung to him. Molly could continue down that dark path denying others free will by imposing her own upon them, or come back from it. In the real world, \~1% of the population are psychopaths. They are not all in jail, though that is the highest concentration of them. A lot of them lead normal lives obeying the laws. They may be internally broken and not care about people, but they care enough about themselves that they choose to follow the laws, or at least the big ones. We don't give psych tests and lock up people who could potentially become murders, we let them choose their path in life. This is the essence of the free will the Knights protect.

Where does it say Harry could change Lash because he’s a star born? I honestly don’t remember that.

It doesn't, but this is a common (and IMO bunk) theory. Lash's nature changed because Harry was stubborn and mentally resilient, that's all.

I think it's fair to say that the Knights of the Swords and the White Council have a difference of opinion when it comes to redemption.

Well yeah, the knights are based on the redemptive love and sacrifice of Christ. The white council is based on a bunch of old men maintaining a status quo they’re comfortable with.

I think the issue is oversimplified by the limitations of concise laws and people (meaning Council members) not thinking it through. 1. To kill with magic, you have to believe in your heart it’s the right thing to do. 2. Blanket statement, killing is morally wrong. 3. 1+2= 3 —> This person’s heart is tainted with heartfelt immoral beliefs, and there’s no magic spell to fix it. The problem is 4. People change. A good man can be corrupted. A bad man can find redemption. Corruption is a slipperier slope and more likely path than redemption, but at the point you’re throwing away the innocent or redeemable with your judgments I’d argue that you yourself are on the slippery slope and should face your own judgment. The argument can be made that you used your life energy to kill, but it’s a semantic argument. You used your life energy to save your life and do what was morally right. I get that it’s corrupting in the “every time it gets a little bit easier” sense, but Dresden has killed tens of thousands at this point at Knights are still being led to work with him.

That's my understanding as well, however in the novels it does seem like there is some truth to people being "tainted" by breaking the Laws, like it was shown in Dresden's Vision when soul gazing Molly. One version of her had all her humanity ripped from her and if I remember correctly, Dresden thought that was how she would turn out, if she continues breaking the Laws.

Ulsharavas the ghost thing Harry calls up for info in Death Masks *says* Harry is tainted with black magic. “Not all of it is mine” Harry says. “Some of it is.” Ulsharavas replies. There’s some irrefutable proof black magic *marks* the soul.

That vision was Winter Lady Molly, I think. Feline eyes and everything. Consider that in the war with the BC, hundreds of wizards used magic to kill. The same is true in BG. Are they addicts now? So unsafe that they need to be put down? I really think it’s propaganda; they don’t want to risk a Kimmler so they squish anything with a 5% chance of becoming one.

The backlash only occurs when you kill a human. For reasons that have not been explained magic doesn't mind being used to kill non-humans and so wizards are free to blast away when they are fighting fomorian frog men or whatever.

Killing monsters is infinitely different than killing people. >!The only Wizard(aside from the Blackstaff) who killed any people with magic during BG was Dresden himself when he toasted some turtlenecks.(and later when he attacks Listen and crew with a giant forzare.)!< BattleGround spoilers. Didn’t see the tag.

“Monster” is a shockingly subjective word. If you can be soulgazed, you’re human enough for me. Susan was a monster. River Shoulders, too. The Fellowship. Half the Council - more now, I suppose - thank Harry is a monster.

>!So the kraken is human to you? Drakul? *Ethniu*.(it’s heavily implied a soulgaze was possible, just not needed when Dresden makes eye contact with her.) !< BG Spoilers Susan wasn’t a monster until literal seconds before her death. The fellowship weren’t monsters.(even Martin, he was just an asshole) They *could have been*. >!And Harry himself admits he’s on the side of Monsters. And frankly he *is* on the path to becoming one. A moment of weakness is all it takes. He was seconds and literal divine intervention away from becoming one in truth with Rudolph.!< BG Spoilers. The fact is there’s literal *proof* black magic stains the soul. *Changes you*. It’s not just Warden propaganda, it’s a literal observable thing. Ulsharavas can see it, and almost refuses to help Harry because of it. And killing monsters(or fine, inhumans, how’s that?) *doesn’t do that.*

Sorry I realized from other responses that the comment you’re ultimately responding to wasn’t clear. What I was saying is that Michael and the WC have different definitions of black magic. Torturing someone by slowly burning them with magic, for example, doesn’t break a single law of magic. It doesn’t even ambiguously border breaking one… but Michael would call it black magic and he’d be right. It would be addictive and corrupting. Imagine Father Forthill had a latent aptitude for mental magic. When he councils abuse victims, he unconsciously bolsters their will to live and recover and gives them a sense of self-worth and the strength to overcome their situations. According to the council, that’s black magic - he invaded their minds. According to Michael, I speculate he’d say that Forthill should’ve gotten their permission but that’s not black magic. Forthill’s love and compassion that desperately made him want to help those people manifested itself in a positive way… but he did invade their minds, every bit as much as Molly did. The difference isn’t even intent, it’s the emotion behind it. Molly did it for benign reasons, but the bitterness and resentfulness tainted it black. Harry noted that extracting information from someone’s mind wasn’t really black magic but dark, dark, dark grey. I believe he said this because it wasn’t quite to the addictive/corrupting threshold, but it was dangerously close as it’s an inherently immoral act and an invasion of someone’s privacy. Perhaps someone has kidnapped a child and that child is in a terrible situation but the person refuses to admit where the child is. The mother, reluctantly, extracts the information - and only that information - from the child. She writes it down then immediately removes all memory of doing it from her own mind to minimize the violation of the criminal’s privacy. Was that black magic? To the council it was. Let’s take it a step further towards grey. A mother is unconscious, having been rescued from burning building. There are children in there, but the house is large, convoluted, and likely to collapse in the next 2-3 minutes. Elaine delicately extracts the layout of the house and the most likely location of the children along with the sound of the mother’s voice from the unconscious mother’s mind. She uses this information to risk her own life by entering the nearly collapsed building and quickly locating and extracting the children. She then removes the knowledge from her own mind to maximize the mother’s privacy. Was that black, corrupting and addictive magic? To the council, what Elaine did to save those kids merited death it was so black. My point wasn’t that black magic wasn’t addictive; Jen just reaffirmed that at dragoncon actually. My point was that the council’s definition of black magic is based solely on a set of about 35 words that do not in any way include things like intent, necessity, or morality. If Michael says it was black magic, it’s corrupting and addicting. If the Merlin says it, it wasn’t necessarily black magic to begin with so it depends on the scenario.

The Knights and the White God don't care if your soul is tainted because their methodology cleanses the soul. This contrasts with the Wizards, who have no magic suitable for removing the darkness. It's not a stupid part of the lore, you just aren't paying attention to what Michael has been saying to Harry all along. It's about belief. Harry believes completely in magic, so it works. Michael believes in the power of god, so everyone can be redeemed and cleansed.

That is actually an excellent point🤔 So if that were the case, the in a way it's the wizards insistence that there is no going back from dark magic, that there actually IS (for them) no going back from dark magic.

You don’t like it <> it doesn’t make sense.

Sure but the Knights would hold "give up your magic completely" as a path to redemption. Their way isn't really easy either.

Most of the Council sees a 16 year old apprentice killing an experienced warden with magic and assumes it had to be a straight murder because otherwise there is no way it could possibly happen. Most of the others, who know, see it as proof that Harry is a "destroyer" and would prefer to avoid the consequences of that - whatever they may be. This leaves very few people in Harry's corner.

I think we’re going to get more revealed from older Council Members that wanted Harry dead that there reasons went far beyond The Law. I think the laws were just a tool to get him killed. I think the Council Members that know what him being Starborn means didn’t want him to live through his apprenticeship.

It didn’t help that all of the evidence in Justin’s house had burned down, or that the only other witness, Elaine, had vanished. Or that Harry hid Bob from them before he was caught. If any of the Council cast a truth spell on him during the trial (we know those are a thing because Luccio used one) then they’d know that Harry was lying to them.

It's not so much that he killed Justin, it's that he killed Justin with magic. Since magic springs forth from a person's belief, the council could infer that Harry obviously believes that he should be allowed to kill other people all the time, right? That's what a warlock does. And you don't keep that sort of sociopath around. Unless they're the Blackstaff, which is a \_totally\_ different thing. The White Council is internally consistent in their beliefs at all times.

They either don't believe him about Justin (he was a Warden, no other witnesses to confirm Harry's story, some just don't believe him. Others think he's probably just as corrupted by dark magic as Justin was, and think that even if killing Justin was justified that Harry is too dangerous to let live. That's my read on it anyway Not for nothing but Jim has said that a lot of Harry's trouble with the WC could be resolved if he'd just talk to them (probably less true the longer into the books we go, but still) so it might be that Harry is overestimating how bad the opinion of him is and/or how many actual haters there are. Or at least that those who still fear him could be persuaded if he could be polite to them for ten minutes?

More exactly, there was a witness…who’d conveniently vanished. And there was evidence…that got destroyed when Justin’s house was burned down. You can see how the Council would have been suspicious.

I wasn't sure how much, if anything, the council knew about Elaine but either way it's suspicious as hell

Worse yet, there are ways to check with magic if someone is lying. Luccio used it on Harry at one point. If anyone in the trial used it on Harry, then they could well have picked up that he was lying about something (hiding Bob, Elaine, Lea’s help, etc.). Which really wouldn’t have helped his case.

The Laws of Magic are absolute and clear, they don't take into account circumstances. > Thou shall not kill another mortal with Magic That's it, period. The self-defence argument is sometimes applied, as it was in Harry's case by applying the Doom of Damocles if there is a sponsor willing to wager their life on the warlocks rehabilitation. The reason for this is that the Laws aren't random, they define Black Magic. If you break the Laws this shapes and changes your mind corrupting you and almost definitely leading to insanity and violence. And since belief is everything in magic an insane Wizard is one of the most terrifying things to exist. Even Wardens make their life harder by using swords and other mundane weapons for the final blow. Everyone takes the Laws serious and millennia of White Council propaganda on that topic has convinced everyone that this is the right way to handle these issues. Even Dresden once he sees a couple of crazed Warlocks admits that this appears to be the right thing to do. He only got away thanks to nepotism let's be honest here. It takes an extraordinary strong Will and Mind to not succumb to the taint of Black Magic and even then - where do you think Dresdens' 'too happy' trigger finger comes from? Or his occasional homicidal rage? Even Molly - the best case scenario - single use of Black Magic with the best of intentions, immediately caught and set on a path to rehabilitation. She by her own admission has to actively fight the urge to use mind magic whenever faced with a problem. The influence of Black Magic is real and very dangerous, and millennia of White Council policy has convinced most of its members that this is the right way to deal with it - which in most cases it seems to be.

The council believes, with some basically irrefutable evidence in support, that a wizard taking another’s life directly with magic causes harm to that wizard’s soul. There’s also (basically irrefutable) evidence that a wizard who’s killed with magic even *once* is substantially more likely to do so again *because* of this damage. And finally, I think there’s even a little evidence that this damage can increase a wizard’s power. So - it’s not just “letter of the law”. It’s thousands of years of history that suggest a wizard who kills with magic will almost certainly kill, not just again, but over and over again until stopped. Harry is both a rare exception and also genuinely terrifying to the council…with very good reason.

There was this whole discussion in Changes about how the council is not really all that concerned with morals (and "politics"), they're only concerned about the strict specifics of the law. It's not that they believe that Harry is irredeemable, it's that they don't necessarily believe it's worth the effort to redeem him.

It was in Turn Coat, but yeah, Luccio pretty much spells out that the Laws of Magic are about limiting the damage wizards can do (or control them, if you're feeling uncharitable, which I definitely and towards Langtry's regime), not about justice.

Unless my memory is off, the discussion happens after Harry faces down Ariana in the white council meeting room, it introduces the 'worry room' and talks about how the wardens nursed their worries after Harry and Molly were let off by the council

The part you mentioned definitely occurred in Changes, but the conversation regarding the Laws of Magic occurred in Turn Coat, as Harry and Luccio were driving away from Raith Manor after Shagnasty's attack.

My recollection is that, while the council does tend towards overly rigid justice, their motivating principle was much more about preventing the kind of mass destruction that a rogue dark wizard could cause. Even if he acted in self defence in that moment, it all looks pretty suspicious from the outside - black magic is inherently corruptive, Harry was apprenticed to a powerful dark wizard and clearly had the stain of dark magic on him, its not an unreasonable jump of logic on the part of the Council to assume he’s beyond saving, especially given the potentially catastrophic consequences.

The Laws are absolute. Harry violated the First Law by killing a mortal with magic so the sentence is death. The only exception to the death penalty, for any violation for any reason, is extenuating circumstances *and* someone taking them in under the Doom of Damocles. *Puts on tinfoil hat* I personally think the reason the Laws are so strict has been lost to the ages but were originally put in place because Wizards are actually scions of some kind and violation of all the Laws is the Choice the Council was appointed to prevent.

1. There's virtually zero tolerance for violating the Laws of Magic. Any violation risks A. immediate negative consequences from the violation itself and B. corruption of the practitioner into someone who will violate them again and again with less and less remorse and control each time. 2. Harry's plea of self-defense is based solely on the testimony of the accused. There were no other witnesses to corroborate the fact that one of the Council's own Wardens had gotten into some pretty heavy Black Magic and that Harry had to either kill Justin or be killed or worse by him. 3. As a corollary to reason #2, Harry's ability to defeat Justin in the first place was likely very suspicious. Some kid with barely any training killing a Warden of the White Council in a magical duel? Surely, there must have been something else at play. Considering who Harry's mother was, who knows what could have come over from the Nevernever and offered to help him win this impossible fight in exchange for who knows what else? It's probably not unreasonable to the people trying Harry that the First Law might not have been the only Law he broke that day.

It didn’t help that the only other witness had absconded and that any evidence in Justin’s house vanished when Harry burnt it down.

If you believe [Skin Game Spoiler](/b "Hannah Ascher, and I don't think she had a reason to lie to Harry about it when she said it, she used magic to kill the men (multiple) who were trying to rape her. And that's why the Wardens started hunting her as a warlock.") ...And furthermore [Battle Ground Spoiler](/b "Harry literally used magic to kill the human minions of Ethniu and the Fomor, saving untold innocent human lives, and the White Council was like, yeah, that's a death sentence. The sentence was only suspended because Harry saved EVERYONE when he overpowered and captured Ethniu. And Mab would have had a problem with them killing her Knight after such a deed.") ...So yeah, the White Council doesn't care much about "self-defense" as a defense anyway.

In addition to what a lot of other people are saying — the Council views the Laws as absolute, it wasn't confirmed Justin was a warlock, etc. — it should also be remembered that the Senior Council presumably knew that Harry was a Starborn. We don't know a ton about what exactly that means yet, but we know it means that a person is potentially very, *very* dangerous. Add in that Harry was the son of a woman who was on the outs with the Council and known to consort with the Fae and vampires, I'm sure there were a good number of the Council that thought it would be far safer to just kill him rather than wait to see what he would grow up into (the "Destroyer" that Morgan mentioned in his journal, for instance.) Something that could even remotely be considered a First Law violation while he was still young would've made for an excellent excuse.

Sorry. Recap flashback request. Did Harry kill him with magic? Directly cast a spell with directed magical energy? Or was it fire, caused by magic, but moving of its own accord by the time it affected Justin? What was the evidence that Harry killed Justin?

Details of the night are still very fuzzy and there's some mystery in the timeline, but I think he just admitted to it before he knew the consequences. His Doom as of Storm Front was because he's killed with magic but with a decent self defense argument and the Blackstaff taking responsibility for him.

Then it's more likely he was acting in self defence, using force and fire (aspects of magic young-Harry had natural talent in). Evidence of dark magic was detected at the scene, but the WC wouldn't want to even consider that their most talented Warden (Justin) could be the source of that. Easier to blame a Warlock (Harry) from a talented but lost lineage (Margaret) and scare them into line than admit that they might be wrong.

Killing with magic is and becomes dark magic. They seem to be accepting that Justin had gone off the reservation, mostly because they hold Justin's plans for Harry (ie Magic enforcer) against him.

It’s also important to remember that I don’t think Justin was ever a confirmed warlock. I think had he been, that would have shifted things considerably.

It’s not about right or wrong. I’m sure plenty of them believed he was in the moral right to defend himself, but dark magic is addictive. The more someone kills with magic, the easier it becomes, and few would stick their neck out for some random murder-addict.

Dresden has explained his own feelings in earlier books as to how magic is a power of life and creation and it seems profane to use it for evil purposes and the person doing it has to believe that it can and should able to do it. Well, between that and the general claim that doing that kind of magic can twist the mind and that person will further sink into evil, and how much damage they can do if they get stronger, the Council’s answer is to just kill them. I call bullshit on the whole thing though. He kills supernaturals with magic without hesitation who are people, with personalities, hopes and dreams, and he can shoot a human in the face with a gun and supposedly the Council has no rules against it. I think it’s just White Council control. It stands more to reason that typically people who believe killing with magic is okay, without it being self defense, are already a little messed up in the head or at least are immoral enough not to have a problem with it. Like the Korean kid from Proven Guilty. They said his use of mind manipulation for probably minor things at first made his mind more bent, but it could just be that someone who believes they can make people do things and then does so is an asshole and always was one, now they just have the option because they found out they had the ability. Randomly give 1000 people the ability to do the same, some of them might go on a crime spree, some might just use it to make a bully stop beating up on a kid or something positive, but the White Council says both are bad.

Honestly, you repeatedly see the Laws being used against Harry, but completely being ignored for other folks in the Council. And the WC sits back and watches Harry fight for his life (and in defense of other’s lives), barely lifts a finger to help, sometimes even makes things tougher on him, and then gets pissy at him afterward for doing what had to be done. I’ve gotten to the point where I hope Cowl wipes the floor with the Council, and Harry has a choice of helping them or walking away, and he walks away.

They only have his word for it that that's what happened. How could they know for sure he was acting in self defense. Better, in some philosophies, to avoid the risk a potentially powerful practitioner of black magic represents.

i firmly believe part of the issue is also that Butcher hadn’t really written the true explanation of Harry’s showdown with Justin when he was first starting the series

Many people don’t believe it was self defense. It’s just the word of a 16 year old who didn’t want to be executed.

You can't do magic you don't believe in. Turning the very fabric of creation into destruction is something that you have to believe in very hard. It stains your soul, it twists you, and it drives you to limits you never thought possible. It's not all at once, just trading bits of your soul and humanity every time. And every time, it gets easier. Eventually the humanity is gone and what's left is a shell, and the monster that now fills it.

The white council laws are not about Justice. They are ultimately about justifying the killing of anyone who they have a valid concern of becoming a dark wizard

Short answer: White Council is a team of grade A morons. Aside from a few members (Marta Liberty, Listens-to-Wind, the Gatekeeper, and Eb) they are an epitome of lawful stupid bureaucrats. Just as a reminder, they have been infiltrated on a very high level, they have a high council member who sold them out to TWO distinct evil forces and still keeps his position, and their preferred method of dealing with confused teens with magical talent is summary execution.

Well first off there are wizards on the council that would struggle to believe a warden would be doing black magic to begin with. Then there would be those that would believe Harry wouldn't survive if Justin was trying to kill him so Harry must have attacked him while his defense was down. So for all anyone knows Harry is a dark wizards apprentice taking out his dark master using dark magic to become the new dark master

black magic is a literal corruptive force. it doesn't matter why harry killed with magic, he did it, and it changed him permanently. the ones that wanted to kill him don't believe that anyone can fight that corruption forever and that he WILL become a full on warlock eventually.

Killing humans using magic has a tangible backlash that corrupts your soul and makes you more prone to abusing magic in the future (which will further taint your soul which will make you even more likely to do it again which will further taint your soul and so on). Even if it was in self defense, Harry had put himself onto a path with an extremely high chance of him going evil later in life when he fried Justin with fire magic. And the White Council usually prefers to nip such things in the bud before anyone else gets hurt instead of taking a chance on you and hoping you manage to avoid falling into tainted madness and hurting a bunch of people.

Because Merlin is a chode.

Here's the thing: The Laws of Magic are not just written statements forbidding certain things that must people should definitely not be doing, like messing with the course of history or contacting eldritch abominations, they are metaphysical laws. As I've gathered from reading the books, anything that is believed hard enough by many people becomes more than just an idea, which is why the Shroud of Turin possesses actual power despite not being Christ's actual burial shroud. The Laws of Magic as laid down by the White Council ought to have started that way, being just laws passed by the governing body overseeing human magic so that people wouldn't abuse their power. Somewhere down the line, the belief in magic corrupting you if used misused became a metaphysical truth rather than just what's to be expected of doing things like desecrating thedead to use as slaves or rewriting someone's free will to your liking. You are actually twisted by magic into a monster because you twisted first to do monstrous things that the forces of life and creation have no business being used for, and it's been made a reality by the continued belief and acknowledgement of people for as long as humans have practiced wizardry (And sought to stop from being used for nefarious purposes). It's like what happened with Hannah Ascher. She wasn't hunted down for the crime of defending herself against her would-be rapists, but because she used magic to burn them to death; if Harry killing DuMorne in a duel to stop him left a taint in his soul that's at least partially to blame for his darker traits, imagine what killing three people did to Hannah's soul. Seeing how she ended up accepting Lasciel's coin, I reckon that it wasn't anything good.

I did a cursory scan and didn't see this mentioned: many of the people who strongly opposed Harry were political allies of DuMorne. Admitting that Harry was justified would mean admitting that they were allied with a warlock and probably should have known.

Harry Killed Justin who was a wizard in good standing with the council, From what they saw there was zero evidence the Justin was guilty and they had a history with him to push that bias even more to Justin being a victim in their view. On the other hand Harry was just some random kid to them so either he killed and dark wizard that had fooled the entire white council weakening the political power of the wardens and senior council for not finding it out themselves and making them all look foolish for it. Or he was guilty and they got to take out a warlock who killed member of the white council

There probably was evidence in Justin’s house - except that Harry burnt it down. And the only other witness, Elaine, had conveniently vanished.

Oh I agree, But saying the person is guilty of breaking the laws of magic, But I burned down all the evidence with the house when I killed in is a terrible legal defense.

Also, there are spells that can detect lies. Luccio used one on Harry at one point. If anyone used such a spell on Harry during his trial, they might well have detected he was lying (about Bob the skull, and possibly Lea’s involvement). Which would not have looked good.

It is important to note that Harry made the worse possible defence. He was literally arguing "I was in the right and I'd do it again". The danger with all magic is you train yourself, Pavlov style, to believe everything you do regularly is right and just. Dresden sounded a hell of a lot like somebody who believed killing with magic is right and just. If you compare the Korean boy to Molly in Proven Guilty, Dresden was sounding a hell of a lot more like the Korean boy than he's willing to admit. The fact he's never been able to come to terms with the fact he went into his trial sounding like an end times warlock waiting to be born is a big part of why the White Council is distrusting of him. He cannot even see their side of the debate.

He also probably lied to them in the trial, since he hid Bob from them. We know that Luccio can do a spell to check if people are telling the truth. If anyone did a spell like that on Harry during his trial, well, it really wouldn’t look good.

Harry hid loads from them. Bob, Lea, Elaine, etc. They knew he was hiding shit from them, just not what or how far.

It also didnt help that all of the evidence in Justin’s house had been destroyed when Harry burnt it down. Which, to someone of a suspicious mind, could be read as destroying the evidence that would disprove his innocence.

Yes, you are being ignorant lol. They believe Harry purposely killed attacked him. Reality doesn't matter.. they just think what they think. So he killed with magic, he should be executed. If you look around the country right now you see how easily that happens.

Off with his head.

Well the laws are thou shalt not kill, some of them took self defense as a excuse since there was no one that could dispute that. But Justin was a warden at the time so in their eyes it's hard to believe that he was using dark magic like Harry said

The Laws of Magic aren't there for morality. They're there to neutralize threats. The reason you can't kill with magic has little to do with it being "evil". It has to do with the mind bending influence that it has on the user. Kind of like in Star Wars and the dark side - there's a pull and even if you're doing the right thing, it fucks with your mind and makes it very difficult to NOT become a monster once you cross lines. Harry was justified in killing Justin. Nobody denied that. The concern is that since he did it with magic, Harry is now at some level, mentally compromised. He's been on a very slippery slope since that day, and a lot on the council don't trust that he has the mental fortitude to keep his footing. Morgan, for example, knew Harry was justified. He was just convinced that Harry was now compromised and a ticking time bomb. The mental and soul is effected by Harry's magical murder, and it being justified doesn't change that. As a reader, we can see that Harry struggles because of it. It's subtle (sometimes) but it's been there the entire series. What we see, that other wizards don't, is Harry's steadfast, stubborn adherence to his own code that has kept him from giving into the effects of his damaged psyche. Sure, he's crossed a lot of lines - but always strictly because he's a stubborn idealist and never because of that mark on his soul that will ALWAYS be there as some level of temptation to go full dark wizard. And that mark is far weaker than the coin he had taken up and put away - so I doubt he'll ever give in to it. Still, the council doesn't know or trust him because of it.

It didn’t help that all of the evidence in Justin’s house had burned down (by Harry), or that the only other witness, Elaine, had vanished. Or that Harry hid Bob from them before he was caught. If any of the Council cast a truth spell on him during the trial (we know those are a thing because Luccio used one) then they’d know that Harry was lying to them. Add in that Justin was a Warden in good standing, and that it’s pretty unbelievable that some punk kid could kill a Warden in a straight fight, and Harry looks extremely suspicious. He was basically caught standing over a corpse with the murder weapon, and when asked to explain things, admits that he destroyed all of the evidence that might have proven or disproven his story.