Oh, bother.
It also definitely didn't help that Ebenezer flat out tried to kill Thomas — who remember is also his grandson.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Also, we don't know the Black Council answers to Nemesis. They could be two separate things.
Cowl certainly seems to be free willed and Kumori believes that they're doing all of this to help stop death as a whole.
But yes, personally, I think the BC is a far bigger deal than Nemesis and far more dangerous.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 18th 2024 at 7:52:25 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Oh, bother.
Though it's also uncertain whether the Black Council is even a thing at all. They may not be a formal organization but just a bunch of people from various groups who fell under Nemesis one way or another.
Note that the way Peabody manipulated the White Council was similar to the way Nemesis usually manipulates people. It was less outright mind control and more nudging them into doing things that benefit their goals but are still things they probably would have done anyway.
Edited by M84 on Feb 19th 2024 at 12:07:02 AM
Disgusted, but not surprised
Personally, I hope that's not the case because Cowl has interesting A Lighter Shade of Black qualities and doesn't want to destroy the world but save it, unlike Maeve who planned to destroy America by destroying Demonreach.
The Outsiders want to destroy reality.
Cowl as the Black Council's representative in the books so far, has a very different agenda.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Oh, bother.
Though considering how much death and destruction Cowl was causing, he was still helping Nemesis along in a way. Road to hell and all that.
Heck, it's possible that the only reason Cowl was able to throw off any moral considerations keeping him from being the "Extremist" in "Well Intentioned Extremist" was because of Nemesis "helping" him lose his inhibitions.
That's the scary thing about Nemesis. It mostly doesn't do straight up mind control and possession. It instead "helps" people do what they really want.
Edited by M84 on Feb 19th 2024 at 12:26:13 AM
Disgusted, but not surprised
Monsieur
The mention of "the Circle" when Cowl and Malvora spoke to each other seem to imply to me that something like the Black Council exists, even if not in name or form that Eb/Harry guesses.
Edited by allfictions on Feb 18th 2024 at 11:47:35 AM
Oh, bother.
Harry was grudgingly okay with the WC being suspicious of him, but when they started going after people he cared about (or grew to care about as he did with Morgan in the end)...
Disgusted, but not surprised
Going after Molly with a Kangaroo Court is a Moral Event Horizon that *I* would go against the White Council for.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 18th 2024 at 10:13:25 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Just out of interest, how do you think Michael would have reacted if he'd found out the Merlin had executed his oldest child because of a petty political squabble?
Heart of Stone
Oh, bother.
Though it should be noted that Molly is guilty of breaking one of the Laws. She wasn't being framed for anything.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Yes, but the trial was rigged to have all of the people who would have voted innocent gone.
Which is enough to make it not a trial but premeditated murder.
And the only motive can be to teach Harry a lesson.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 18th 2024 at 10:24:32 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Oh, bother.
Ironically, that's the only reason Molly survived. If they had gone with standard operating procedure they probably would have just chopped her head off and be done with it.
But because they wanted to make a show of it to put Harry in his place, that gave Harry the chance to put his own life on the line for her.
Speaking of Harry and Molly, one of the interesting things about their mentorship is that it ultimately turns out badly. Harry tried his best, but he failed Molly as a mentor. And he's very aware of that.
Edited by M84 on Feb 20th 2024 at 4:29:09 AM
Disgusted, but not surprised
It depends on whether you view the Ragged Lady/Winter Lady as a failure or not.
Sometimes the hero you need is not the one you, yada yada
Really, the only way Harry failed her was asking her to help in his suicide. Which was all sorts of fed up.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 19th 2024 at 1:07:07 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Oh, bother.
No, Harry failed her. That she's not totally messed up now (arguably) is despite Harry.
Harry's not perfect. He's as flawed as any Detective Noir protagonist. And that's part of what makes him an interesting character.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Harry was a good mentor to her before Changes; we saw this especially in Turn Coat. He failed her in Changes because he modelled for her that yes, it is justifiable to break all the rules for person reasons or in order to win against the bad guys, and she took that lesson to heart as the Ragged Lady. That’s what made her capable of becoming the Winter Lady; the Molly of Turn Coat would not have been.
Having her aid in his suicide also messed her up, but it wasn’t the only thing.
Harry being a good mentor before Changes is pretty debatable. He's seems pretty cool and understanding and cares about her but that comes with being pretty lax, discipline wise and Molly consistently acts out and falls back into bad habits of mental magic. Turn Coat being a prime example.
Morgan and Lea aren't wrong that he isn't preparing her for the bad times well enough even when there's a war on.
Edited by dcutter2 on Feb 19th 2024 at 1:23:29 PM
I'm reminded of Assassins Creed's novels where Edward Kenway doesn't train his daughter to be a Assassin and it results in a Happy Ending Override and horrible fates for everyone.
However, Edward just didn't want his daughter in his life of violence and didn't even want to train Haytham either.
Harry didn't want to train Molly to be a Warden or other violent mage.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Oh, bother.
Harry refused to train and use her the way Justin trained and used him and went too far in the other direction.
Then went on to use her anyway at her expense in Changes.
Harry rightly thinks badly of himself for this.
Edited by M84 on Feb 19th 2024 at 9:07:53 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised
I don’t think he is lax in Turn Coat. When her reading Luccio’s mind gets Mouse shot by Morgan he makes the seriousness of what she’s done very clear to her, makes her do first aid on Mouse. He later has a very serious talk with her about the fact that her breaking the laws of magic in from of a Warden has now but them both in likely danger of being executed…and she can run and hide for the rest of her life, or she can do the right thing whatever it costs. And she chooses to stick around and do everything she can to defend the injured Morgan, even with the full expectation that he will denounce her to the Council.
That’s teaching someone right. That’s a heck of a lot better at reforming a warlock than anyone could do using force and ruthlessness and rules.
Edited by Galadriel on Feb 20th 2024 at 3:59:01 AM
If he'd been teaching her right. She wouldn't have been falling back on mental magic in the first place that's why I mentioned Turn Coat not how Harry handles it after shes dropped the Doom Of Damocles on their head.
She needed to check if Luccio's mind had been tampered with, and it was the only way to do so quickly. She wasn't doing it for Evil or because she was bored.
And as it turned out, she was right about the tampering and it's a vital piece of information.
The problem with mind magic is that it's very hard to counteract without using it yourself.
Edited by asterism on Feb 20th 2024 at 12:28:47 PM
Heart of Stone
I think that assumes Harry has a kind of magical power to make Molly a non-rebellious teenager who is not naturally magically gifted at mind magic. Given mind-magic becomes how Molly defeats large number of Formor with no sign of Black Magic corruption later on, it's a sign of the White Council's rules not being very well-defined.
Harry also points out black magic is addictive so relapses will happen.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Oh, bother.
You forget that the Law against mind manipulation is only really about messing with mortal minds. The Fomorians aren't mortals.
Disgusted, but not surprised
The turtlenecks kind of are, enough that killing them was a good enough excuse to kick Harry off the Council. And it was mostly them that Molly fought as the Rag Lady. (If you were instead referring to Winter Lady Molly, that doesn’t count because she’s not mortal herself anymore.)
She didn’t go spiraling into full-on Darth Molly warlock mode, but using the mental magic probably wasn’t doing her tenuous sanity any favors during that period.
Edited by HeraldAlberich on Feb 20th 2024 at 11:00:55 AM
Harry was actually of the position, in Turn Coat, that the Council’s treatment of him was understandable given the danger a warlock posed. I don’t really agree with him on that…but to me his 180 in Peace Talks/Battle Ground does seem to justify their suspicions that Mab and Lara have gotten to him. Or it would if we didn’t (Doylistically) have Michael as author fiat to say that’s not the case.
(TBH, any reasonable wizard who doesn’t know Thomas is Harry’s brother would think Harry has been compromised by the White Court, based on his actions in PT/BG.)
The White Council not wanting the monsters to have the Eye of Balor is more reasonable than many of their other positions (presuming the Eye is not something that can in any way be destroyed; if it can be destroyed, it should be).
Edited by Galadriel on Feb 18th 2024 at 7:43:22 AM