Agree to disagree then, because people are still alarmingly easy to exploit.
As to Harry's competence, he never once verifies what Lara says because he trusts his read of her and frankly on some level doesn't want to know.
The white court's whole attitude and abuse of humans doesn't paint any sort of picture where they care about mortal rights or status, only technicalities and attention. Once they've got someone somewhere private they can be bent into saying or doing whatever.
As to how hard people are to disappear? Looking at 2020 as a sample year
link apparently you can lose hundreds of thousands, and that's just people who the FBI can get data on. Undocumented people, ranging from the homeless population to migrant workers simply don't make it into most of these sorts of reports.
With even minimal effort they can throw off suspicion, but even if they don't people just disappear in alarming numbers even without supernatural nonsense.
Agree to disagree then. But there are two points I'd like you to keep in mind:
1) The books represent around 3-4 days of the most hectic periods of the year for Harry Dresden; after the first two books, which both happen in the same year, the events of the other books are spaced at least a year apart IC.
We dont actually see what Dresden does for the other 360-odd days of the year.
I would assert that he isnt just gathering bottlecaps, especially with Bob to gather intel for him in the Chicago area.
2) Harry Dresden put up his brother Thomas Raith in his apartment between the end of Blood Rites, when Lara banished him, and the ending of Proven Guilty, when he moved out and into an apartment of his own. Thats a period of roughly 2 years.
In an apartment with no power, no radio or TV or computers, and nothing doing besides talking or reading.
They had the time to talk. A lot.
Thomas was raised in the heart of White Court power for four decades, and Lara was responsible for hand-raising him after Maggie LeFay fled. Harry has a better sense for her, and frankly the White Court, than any other wizard alive.
3) Sure, if you were just vanishing randos.
When you are selecting for youth and good looks, like this sort of event does, your activity stops being lost in the general background hum of missing person reports and starts leaving its own distinct signatures.
I just dont see them taking the risk.
Not when they can literally geas you not to talk, like Madeline Raith did, and send you away.
I wasn't thinking looting his resources ourselves, other than the blackmail, but rather setting him up to be displaced by allies we cultivate on the court, and profiting from our deals with them.
Ultimately reforming the white court will requiring displacing people invested in the status quo in favor of those willing to change. People like Charles are part of that.
The distances make it a problem though, so I'm not going to push it terribly hard.
=Social reputation is key in the internal politics of the White Court, and Lydia just incidentally murdered his in two minutes in front of his peers. He let a sixteen year old goad him into intemperate response, and then challenged the kid to a duel.
And Lara had to bail him out and publicly spank him to keep the peace.
Lydia has managed to raise serious questions about his competence, which will dog him for a long time.
Not to mention that the impending outbreak of violence is going to reinforce major questions about his threat evaluation capabilities that were raised when he brashly tried to mindwhammy the part-human daughter of an old death god.
Right next to her archdevil-presenting companion.
Because I'm sure other people will note Molly not considering it necessary to defend her companion with interest.
Especially in the light of the rest of the evening's events.
=No real indication that Charles is particularly invested in the status quo anyway, and he's House Raith, so he follows Lara's lead.
He's just a dick.
I know we didn't choose to play Molly carpenter but we are her. That comes with pre conceived norms and those include a family that does do charitable things pretty much whenever a problem arises even if it's to their own detriment. That's part of the package. Even if it can have consequences altruism is not something to give up on.
[X] Offer to send Eleanor to your house to talk to mom, you are sure she can be of help somehow
^^^
Even when Charity couldnt stand Dresden, she still put him up in the Carpenter guest room and was primarily responsible for nursing him after Butters removed the bullet that he was shot with in Death Masks.
They try to live up to the whole brother's keeper credo.
I'm of mixed feelings because there is a good chance she's going to get picked off shortly after she is away from the party, not even because she is a loose end so much as because she was here at all. We're probably being hunted even now, just with the hunters having to stay back due to the sheer density of whites unless He Who QWOPs In The Lavatory decides to erupt from the corpse of one of our victims or something.
I'm kind of feeling that the danger she is at from those at the party is actually already peaked. She's already compromised, just expected to be on someone else's leash.
1)Can't see why.
Mercedes sports cars arent exactly scarce in Chicagoland; Black Rider isnt even the only Mercedes here. And its night time, which isnt great for visual identification between models for anyone watching traffic from and to the Raith estate.
Furthermore, anybody supernatural who wants to come to conclusions with Molly can tell that she isnt in Black Rider because the tidal bore of Molly's magic signature is not in it. Besides, Black Rider is a C219-model CLS that can do at least 250kmhr even with the electronic limiter enabled. And its a Monday night, so clear roads. Rider can beat feet quite well.
2)Given Eleanor's apparent age in the late 30s/early 40s, she has been living with Charles Barrowill for at least ten years, but less than fourteen years, which would track with his having married her in her late 20s after his daughter was born and something happened to the birth mother.
Thats a long time to live in a man's house. A long time to overhear or see a lot of things.
She probably knows where an awful lot of dead bodies and details are buried. And the skinwalkers who have demonstrated such interest in House Raith are still out there somewhere.
I like the Black Rider idea, right now just driving around town to get your head clear sounds like a very good idea after all that happened.
She doesnt live in Chicago.
And with the skinwalkers still out there somewhere, Id probably prefer not to have someone with a lot of information on a significant House Raith minion just walking around Chicago at night.
