If you get accosted by a burglar on the street, freak out and burn down the building next to you, and kill three people sleeping there, you're going to get excecuted because you didn't use your magic responsibly.

As always, I'm pretty sure exceptions are made for collateral damage during wars.

 

So if a red court infected, like Martin, meets Dresden on the street without a war going on and Dresden kills him, would that be against the Laws of Magic? The infected still have souls it seems, especially because the disease can be cured, but they also aren't really human anymore. I'm more worried about the corruption aspect than what the Wardens would do.

 

Probably not according to the White Council. It would be a diplomatic incident, but the Council doesn't apply its Laws to non-humans. Cosmically there's a bit more going on there. Red Court Infected still have their soul so my judgement would be that it counts as Lawbreaking. Others may disagree.

 

Probably no. Otherwise it would also be against the laws to kill White Court vampires, who also retain their soul.

 

The short answer is you have to classed as 'fully-human' to come under the White Council's purview.

Where it gets tricky is that, while politically, anything other than fully human and you're under someone else's demesne, in terms of Soul and Cosmic Law and the actual effect use of magic to harm or kill would have on yourself, as with so much in this universe, it comes down to intent and feeling and how you deal.

(Incidentally, this is also where the WoJ gets cloudy, because he's been quoted both ways on whether accidentally killing someone with magic tarnishes you. If it comes down to strict intent, then it cannot, since you never meant to kill; if it comes down to how you deal with your own actions, and if you feel guilt, then that might tarnish you.)

So I'd say that, as long as you know that a half-Red has a soul, and you kill them with magic, while there is no strict Law against it, the Wardens would probably start keeping an eye on you.

 

Shouldn't it be the other way around? If you feel guilt, then clearly it wouldn't be as tarnishing as a lack of guilt. A lack of guilt implies a lack of remorse that you took a life, meaning you weren't *that* bothered either way in the first place.

Say your new stove blew up while you were using it because it was poorly installed, starting a fire in your block of flats which ended up killing someone. I think it would be more human to feel some guilt, despite it being entirely not your fault, than to feel no guilt at all.

 

Two sides of the same coin; remember that feeling guilt in the first place is an indicator that you have a soul to corrupt. If there's no guilt, then obviously no damage has been done.

 

That sounds more political to me, like someone(s) on the Council want you dead. You start a fire, it burns. It is a normal fire. It's mentioned often enough that you can do some terrible things and not break the laws. I have trouble seeing them punishing anyone for arson (flickum bicus), and imagine that other wizards indirectly kill through magic (e.g. blighting a crop and selling short).

Since we're getting WoJ by pseudonym, why is it that humans do the most tarnishing?

The concept of a soul seems like one part, but as it's been noted, humans aren't the only ones with souls. After that, there's a supernatural add-on component, where corruption or immortal spirits typically undermine the other factors. Given the Kantian vibe in a lot of Dresden, I'd say it's also the willingness to destroy one of the only creatures with the unadulterated spark of freewill.

Further, I'm assuming magic, unlike murdering someone with a knife, apparently, has direct pushback on your mind and personality, hence the laws.

 

If you use magic to kill, you're a warlock. There isn't really much room for grey area in there. It's not about quibbling of the degree, I'm pretty sure it's rather black and white. Magic either caused death, or it didn't.

 

The point is that the Council is about restraining the use of magic. They can't do that in a way that prevents all use that's malicious or hazardous, sure, but they expect some responsibility.

Using your magic in a manner that is dangerous for the general public isn't responsible.

 

Agreed, it's about restraining power without turning the Council into a political body, which would then dissolve from infighting.

I just enjoy speculating on the intricacies of what exactly they're restraining, how, and why, especially when there are points that can lead the WC to paralysis if taken too far.

 

That's when they send the Black Staff out.

 

No, I mean (for example) a guy who causes a crop blight to turn a profit, tangentially causing thousands of deaths.

There are tons of lines to cross before it becomes 'illegal', and my question was "when?"

 

When someone violates one of the seven lines they said 'Thou shalt not cross'.

I'm not seeing what's there to speculate about. It's literally right there, intentionally extremely black and white. You either violate one of the laws and get a visit from an angry warden or you do not.

 

Incoming wall of text.

Because they have the most mortal souls, and thus, the greatest degree of free will and choice. Unlike with, say, a White Court Vampire, there is no ride-along demon that can take even 1% of the blame; what you did, what choice you made, and, on a deeper level, how you let it affect you, causes the tarnish.

If a creature that is a monster, even a little bit, uses magic to kill, they can shift a portion of the blame for those actions to their Dark Passenger, to borrow from Dexter.

If you are completely human, your actions, your intent, are completely your own. If you kill and destroy with magic, you have chosen to do so, and accept that the damaging effects of such action will belong exclusively to you, even if you are not aware of those effects.

Think about it this way: in real life, when a person kills, there's usually a reason. If it's murder, they have chosen to kill, and it is safe to say that it affects them, to one degree or another. Some assassin or serial killer isn't going to feel much guilt, even for the first death, but there will be an effect on their psyche; each kill after the first is even easier. And think of how we, as a people judge killers; one death we might understand, might, given enough time, even forgive, and after enough jail time, might even allow that person back into society. But with multiple kills, we assume the killer is too far gone, and their chances of ever being rehabilitated or rejoining us on the outside are non-existent. Same with magical kills.

Now, if the person is considered a 'good' person, if it's a 'good' kill, such as a cop taking down gun-wielding maniac, the cop is going to feel guilt. A large number of officers who shoot to kill leave the force not long after. the effect of that death, whether they wanted to do it or not, is profound. They feel guilt, and a great many never want to do it again. A sad few never forgive themselves. The stain on the psyche runs deep, but hopefully, they can eventually forgive themselves and move on.

In magic, there is no forgiveness to be had in either case; the 'stain' is permanent, causing damage even if you don't realize it's there.

This is how the Blackstaff works, absorbing the stain in place of the user's soul.

As for the tangential question, a blight on crops is also a blight on the soul. While there are many steps between you unleashing magical Dutch elm disease and thousands of people starving, in the end, magic, to a degree, knows what it was used for.*

(*Okay, no, it doesn't, since as a form of energy, it's not sentient. But the effects of magic cause a sort of 'feedback' - most wizards, with a little practice, block it out, almost without thinking about it. Recall when Dresden and Molly were discussing her first veil - she ended up with a massive, long-lasting headache. The physical and mental impact of magic use can be mitigated, but it is always present.)

So when does it become magically illegal? The instant someone dies. Proving it's your fault, however, is a whole other kettle of fish.

 

Why did Cowl never try to perform another Darkhallow on another Halloween? Harry implied in at the end of Dead Beat and in Changes that he himself could have performed it if he wanted to, he was just unwilling to due to the moral implications. The morality of it didn't seem to bother Cowl, so why didn't up and go try his hand at insta-god again? Was he worried about intervention from the White Council or something? (In Dead Beat, the Council was too frazzled by the Red Court to send more than a skeleton crew to take on Cowl and the other necromancers)

 

The Darkhallow would have been particularly potent at that point in time because you had a confluence of factors-- a big city full of juicy people's souls to eat and the Wild Hunt was going to be in town.

Just the Goblin King would been a nice big boost, given he's a distant peer of Mab.

So you could theoretically do the Darkhallow at another city or time with all of the rituals beforehand, but it wouldn't be nearly as potent and would still get you on everyone's shit list.

 

This so much. The scary thing about the darkhollow is that it just eats everything and then gives it to someone. While a lot of other major powers have assorted reasons not to throw their power around (no incentive to, obvious weaknesses or people to counteract them) someone coming off the darkhollow is going to be able to shake up the status quo in a big way. And we know how much other major powers like it when things change...

 

You forget the part where the White Council would stomp the shit out of his. There's a reason he did it when the Red Court was keeping the White Council busy and it is very likely that said Council took precautions to avoid getting caught off guard by such a thing in the future.

Not to mention the fact that he seemed like he didn't really want to do it. He just wanted to keep the others from doing it.

 

The Darkhallow was also mostly unknown, there were a bunch of necromancers up to something but the actual details were secret. Now if the Wardens or anyone notices a bunch of weird interactions with spirits and necromancers they'll come prepared for bear.