But didn't he really make it seem to Harry that he was going to the "great beyond" or whatever? He showed Harry all his loved ones and everything. What did he gain by not telling Harry what was going to happen, or at least just not get involved in the interim.

Maybe I'm misremembering it but it seem like that in my head

And what were the seven words?

 

"Lies. Mab cannot change who you are."

 

The thing to remember is that Uriel is literally the guardian of free will in the books. He didn't 'know' what decision Dresden would make, but as he stated at an earlier point, "If you know the lay of the land, you can guess which way the river will flow,' or words like that. (In other words, he didn't 'know', but he fuckin' knew.)

All he was doing in that last exchange was letting Dresden make a free, informed choice.

 

Does killing a Denarian with magic violate the First Law?

 

The hosts are still mortal (right? They can still choose to give up the coin), so yeah, probably.

 

Probably. Dresden very specifically doesn't kill any of them, even when a chance is offered. All in all, though, I think the White Council would allow some leeway when it comes to the Denarians.

 

They don't mind killing vampires. Not even the White Court vampires who have souls and everything. The Denarians have literally sold their souls to Satan. I don't really see the difference there.

 

Denarians can choose to give up the coin, so that deal's not exactly final. Vampires, or at least the Blacks and the Reds anyway, can't really go back.

 

Harry has killed Denarians with magic before: his first strike against a falling Denarian in the Aquarium sent it into the Hellfire Circle. Deirdre would have followed it, but she managed to make a parachute out of hair to save herself.

Also, while I suspect that killing a Denarian does stain your soul, I don't think the White Council would raise too much of a fuss about killing them. If you're fighting a Denarian pretty much anything counts as self defence.

 

Yeah, Aekiel. Went full retard there. Can't believe I forgot it. Honestly, as Ched said, it might just go any direction depending on how much of an asshole the Merlin feels like being.

 

I think Zeelthor's got the right of it. The White Council is a law-keeping organization, but before that, it's a political organization, and a lot of interpretation is left to the Wardens and Senior members. Things that Morgan might have killed you summarily for, Ramirez might have brought you in for trial, or even let go with a warning.

Something tells me that trial would consist of a debate that sounded strangely similar to this conversation, and would come down to the Merlin rendering a verdict depending on whether you living or dying was politically profitable.

Harry got off with probation when he killed DuMorne because McCoy stepped up and said it was self-defense (and that he would kill Harry himself if he stepped over the line again). The Merlin, even if he didn't know about the grandson-grandfather relationship, knew that allowing this would put McCoy's balls in a sling, as well as paint him as reasonable and merciful, so he jumped at it.

As to the Denarians, there is no political profit in showing them mercy while they are coin-carrying villains; they are a threat to pretty much every other magical party or Accord Signatory, as well as all mortals, the protection of whom is the Council's bailiwick.

Given that Harry magic'd one into a wall of fire and saw no consequence - a careful reading shows the idea that he might even face consequences never even occurred to him - I think it's safe to say it's open magical season on the Denarians. The only ones who ever seem worried about helping the hosts are the Knights - even Uriel was more concerned with the acolytes.

 

I have a bit of a pet theory in relation to this. Ignoring the White Council's Laws for a moment in favour of the cosmic Laws that stain the soul, Harry has possibly broken a few of them so far. He's obviously broken the First Law, very likely broken the Fifth, possibly broken the Fourth with his sleep spell. He's also killed a few things that may count as mortal when it comes to the Laws (Madrigal Raith, various Denarians, the White Court thralls in Proven Guilty, the Hound in Cold Days*).

I think that over the course of the series, Harry has been gradually stained by his use of black magic. Not enough to make him Evil with a Capital E, but enough that his perception of life, death and his own power has been warped slightly. This added onto the stress of being a Warden and the various calamities that follow him around has made Harry into something of a hardened killer, which is why he doesn't sweat it when he toes the line around breaking the Laws.

*I take a fairly hard line approach to what stains the soul: killing mortals always does it, and if it has a soul, it's mortal enough to count.

 

... son of a bitch. The very embodiment of the unreliable narrator. You might be right; I dare say the Dresden of Storm Front would be more than a little put out by the Dresden of Skin Game.

 

How about his house's wards? I thought he made them pretty dangerous, what would happen if they fried some burglar or mortal henchman?

 

I'm fairly sure the Why counts pretty high, too. If you kill someone in cold blood with magic, I'm fairly certain that it backlashes a great deal harder than if you do it in self-defense.

 

Maybe. All we know is that breaking the Laws stains your soul, not whether intent affects the severity of the taint.

 

We know that people say it does. We do know that some magic does it, as was seen in Changes. The details are still pretty damn fuzzy, though.

 

I was going to make a thread but it flows on from this.

Three scenarios, which ones are against the laws of magic:

1) Harry throws a ball of fire at a mortal and kills him?

2) Harry purposfully knocks over a wall to crush a mortal and kill them.

3) Harry catches a building on fire and mortals die by being chance.