The Dresden Files

Nah.

Nope.

Never heard of it.

A moment of silence, for GOA's dreams.

(Don't think I've read it either.)

Anything by Mercedes Lackey?

If L-Mage hasn't, he should.

Okay to further clarify. Never heard of it nor the person who makes it.

So I know that the Dresden Files as a whole sorta runs on "great power, great responsibility," but here's a little chestnut courtesy of Lord Acton that's worth discussing:

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

"We are not allowed to have nice things."

I suppose that depends on your definition of "great men". Great political power?

I know you probably weren't fishing for an answer this serious, but that depends on the context.

Bordieu defines power as having access to capital, whether or not this be economic capital, cultural capital, or social capital (and subsequent researchers have added sexual capital to that list as well,) as an expansion of the Marxist idea of capital. So power here refers to anyone who has political, social, or economic power, not just political power (which is a combination of the three types of capital.)

So what Acton is referring to is that power isn't exercised by people, but that power gains control over people - that the source of one's power, whether legitimate or not, is irrelevant, and that power itself is a terrible influence, no matter what the source is.

It's sort of a counterargument to the notion of "great power" and "great responsibility" having any kind of structural correlation, and that you can't really equate evil with abuse of power because inevitably everyone will abuse their power.

Well first, to define the parameters of great, I can assume that the quote is referring to the definition of "Great" as "Successful people, leaders, or those who perform or accomplish lofty and significant goals" rather than the general use of "great" to mean "Positive and decent human being"?

It's a mite important to properly establish that before going forward because one can argue that Lord Wraith or the Vampire King are "great" in the former sense but not at all in the latter sense while the vice versa is true for Michael Carpenter, while Harry is straddling the line where he knows full well absolute power corrupts and he is in possession of a ton of it.

And one could argue that his original and long-standing humble livings are a result of a personal choice to not become the sort of "great man" that is also a bad man and trying to settle for being a good one.

And of course he straddles this line because as the story ahs progressed he has only attained more and more power and resources with friends or at least frenemies in powerful positions that sort of want to help him or at least can get things out of helping him.

Or if you want to go with the obvious and more direct version of this, Harry's struggles with the Winter Mantle which gives him the power and instincts to be a great and powerful force, but if here to submit to it fully it would corrupt him into a sort of monster he's always fought and make him the bad man that just happens to be great.

@Ninety, How dare you me by being concise!

You too! I was on to something!

edited 28th Oct '14 7:42:23 AM by MousaThe14

Well, it's interesting to note that Harry himself, while he exercises responsibility (at least nominally) for using his powers, has generally become a lot more of a ruthless character as the story goes on and he himself accumulates more power. The Winter Mantle is a symptom of this, but it isn't the disease, if you catch my meaning. Even before he got that whole hunk of power, he was still developing into a pretty nasty guy.

I wouldn't say nasty. Definitely more ruthless and savvy, but that was not a consequence of the power as much as of his enemies and the circumstances they forced him into. There is certainly an element of power abuse, to be sure (see the sun scene from White Night, for example, or really most of that book, though that can be partly blamed on Lasciel). But I would argue against that being the prime motivator for Harry's alleged moral decline, and I don't see a direct relation between power and corruption, logically.

@math, I know it's a symptom, I probably misspoke. I was trying to state before that the winter mantle was a microcosm of the overall situation. It is a power that he has acquired that contributes to his absolute corruption but it also shows that entire arc in a manner that is smaller and more direct. Like the blunt instrument version of the overall arc.

@Ninety, The corruption angle is that the more of it you have, them ore you're going to use it, even in circumstances when you didn't need to use it, either to throw your weight around to make a point, or using it just because it's there in a sort of steamroller to crush an anthill situation.

Yes, the majority of Harry's decline in gentleness is the circumstances, the reality of the things he's facing. But part of what he's needed to do to combat these things is acquire more power, more power he may be more inclined to throw around to make a point rather than use as a tool to contain certain situations. He's been holding back and doing mostly well at it, but you can't deny the potential is there and it wasn't just Lasciel doing all the influencing.

As a salve to God of Awesome I will say that, I have though its been a while and I haven't read the most recent two.

It's worth noting that Word of RPG is that "the temptation of power" is a major issue for Harry.

@GOA: I've read some Valdemar books, the first Halfblood Chronicles book, and...ah! The Fire Rose! I remember that book now! Yeah, I have read one of them. Didn't realize it was part of a series. First Beauty and the Beast I read where the Beast doesn't get de-beasted.

edited 28th Oct '14 3:36:46 PM by rikalous

I got into reading Lackey's Valdemar books when I was in my preteen omnivorous stage, still enjoy/consider them a guilty pleasure if you will. Haven't read any of the Elemental Masters books, though.

What I did think about when you started discussing corruption by power, is the One Ring in LOTR (and, by extension, The Hobbit). There, there is an implication that more (initial, before you acquire the Ring) power corrupts more: Gollum wants power and took the Ring by force, i.e. he really wanted power, but only really used it to hide from Orcs and hunt and it took a long time to become the twisted thing he is, and the Hobbits (with little to no magical power) are the only ones who seem to be able to carry it safely. Magically powerful beings like Gandalf and Galadriel reject the Ring, even though their intentions are pretty much just to keep it out of Sauron's hands: they believe they couldn't resist the temptation to do more with it. And of course, that's a part of it too, what your intentions are going in: neither Gollum nor Bilbo knew what the Ring could do except conceal them while they had it in their possession, Frodo just wanted to get the Ring to Mount Doom, and for Sam's brief tenancy he was entirely focused on nothing but finding and freeing Frodo. It affects them: but, implied, hardly as badly as it could have.

Please excuse me for being a LOTR nerd if you're not that familiar (or familiar at all) with the story.

Now, Harry's fairly inherently powerful. He certainly doesn't pretend he's a saint, either. I certainly believe that he would have an issue with desire for more power. But I think it's worth noting that when he accepted the mantle of the Winter Knight specifically, he wasn't focused on power for himself at all: if it was just for himself, he wouldn't have accepted. He needed it to save a certain someone. And in most magic systems, motivations like that mean a lot. I would be surprised if that doesn't turn out a deciding factor in his fate somewhere or other. He also recognizes that he's playing with fire and tries to keep himself from getting out of control after he uses it for the above mentioned purpose: even if he wasn't exactly neutralized as he intended in the end. Again, in most magic systems I've encountered intentions tend to matter, somewhere along the way.

edited 29th Oct '14 8:42:19 AM by PointMaid

Totally agree with all of that.

As far as most magic is concerned (particularly Western magic), intention is everything.

Well, according to Butcher himself (at least by way of Word of God,) what you intend to do with your magic doesn't matter, the consequences of your actions matter.

I.e it doesn't really matter whether or not you killed a guy by accident or you really, in your heart of hearts, believed that a fucker needed to be sentenced to the electric chair by way of wizardry, the end result - a man is dead - is the same, and the consequences, as far as "magic itself" is concerned is the same.

Same deal with necromancy. Your benign intentions are irrelevant, but the consequences of your actions aren't.

The point where intentions matter, as far as TDF is concerned, is that magic is inherently tied to your personal beliefs. So, say, incinerating someone by accident is pretty difficult unless they happen to be in the way of someone/something you REALLY want to set on fire, so you're almost never (provided you have enough control over it) going to kill someone entirely by random happenstance unless you're fighting magic duels in public places.

edited 29th Oct '14 9:02:08 AM by math792d

Are you sure about that? I remember Harry saying several times in the book that part of why killing with Magic is so awful is because it's always, always informed by your intentions. If you hadn't really thought it was right for you to kill that guy, he wouldn't be dead, since the magic wouldn't have happened.

You're talking about the effect of your magic on the wider world. What I'm talking about is the fact that in the Dresdenverse, as in real life magic systems, what makes the spell work in the first place is the will put into it by the caster.

Sure, you might only intend to get that dusty old piano out of your attic, but the consequence may be squashing the litte old lady next door. That consequence, however, in the context of the original spell, is irrelevant; what you wanted was to drop the piano onto the sreet. The consequence has no bearing on the casting of the spell at all.

edited 29th Oct '14 9:18:38 AM by InverurieJones

The man himself:

Also, some musing on the mechanics of necromancy:

edited 29th Oct '14 9:37:08 AM by math792d

Again, that's talking about the weight of consequences vs. intentions from a moral point of view, not a practical one.

Consequences are, naturally, not really relevant while the spell is being cast, as they haven't happened yet. What makes the spell happen is that you intend it to happen, not the stuff that may or may not happen afterwards.

So, while Harry has, theoretically, the power to do bad things, as things stand he doesn't want to. I wonder, then, if he really could do them?

edited 29th Oct '14 9:45:53 AM by InverurieJones

He probably could.

I mean, look at Death Masks, where he beats a guy within an inch of his life with a baseball bat. I mean, the guy's a scumbag, but breaking most of his limbs and then sending him away limping isn't really terribly conductive to good behavior.

Harry doesn't want to do truly bad shit, at least not with his magic, but as far as doing pretty bad shit without magic, he's not exactly a saint either, especially when worked into a frenzy.

Another example: Bianca's party in Grave Peril. Harry pretty much flat-out admits that there were probably non-vampires attending the ball, either as afterparty snacks for the vampires or serving in some other function, and that they probably burned to death with Bianca and her cronies, but he rationalizes it by saying that they'd probably have been dead either way.

So yeah, Harry is capable of some pretty nasty shit when put under the suitable emotional duress necessary to reach that state of mind. The question is whether or not the mantle of Winter Knight is going to mess with that threshold at all.