No, he is the one doing the bad thing and we can make it so he doesn't need to, just like we did with our minions.
He is not similar to us but our minions.
You went straight from comparing his deal with them to our deal with our minions from our end, which is where that line of argument is coming from. Perhaps I'm misreading it, but it seems like you've jumped tracks entirely and are attempting to equivocate the place you started with where you ended up.
Dying to love someone is definitely mitigating circumstances.
For some things, but not others. He had a world of choices to make here.
J could have accepted the situation, as he's previously been doing. He could have talked to his partner about a change to their sex life to modify or spread out the drain*. He could even have tried risky magic solutions of one stripe or another. If we caught him stealing reagents or selling other people's relics I wouldn't mark it down as poorly.
All decisions have consequences, and he wants to make other people pay a very high price for what he wants, beyond the degree I consider justifiable by his situation.
Again it doesn't make him the devil, but it doesn't redeem him to any appreciable degree in my eyes. Love being involved at some step doesn't implicitly sanctify everything it touches.
* Depending on the angle this may involve things that aren't actually his decision to make at all**, but in a committed relationship messy conversations like this should be possible when necessary.
** Just to be explicit here, so no one reads this in a way that implies something nasty, I'm not talking about him pressuring Tuzi into something. Just having an uncomfortable conversation about how often it's healthy to be intimate, and if there's any change to their relationship both would accept that would help with the medical consequences.
They would have killed those people regardless, he doesn't control their actions or facilitate them, he i literally just someone they convinced, maybe with supernatural powers, that he needs to be a vessals. He isn't culpable for not having agency beyond his wish
That's like saying the getaway driver at a bank robbery isn't responsible for the teller getting shot because the other guys probably would have found someone else. Choosing to be involved is choosing to be responsible. If they'd chosen someone else they'd be on the hook instead.
Being born into is a just a rationalization as yoh like to say, its not mitigation. Plenty of people grow up in cults and overcome their brainwashing, she didn't.
Attempted murder is definitely worse than Just being part of the organization.
It doesn't fully excuse it, but she's barely more than a child and is getting out before she did anything permanent. I don't think it perfectly excuses her, but it makes a difference.
J is a grown adult, and what he's doing is not just being a member. He's not proving music for their events, he's a keystone of the plot.
The comparison isn't useful anyway, whataboutism isn't an argument.
I don't think they're the same, but if they are then that just means that hiring Isabella had more issues than we thought at the time. To be honest she's such an OOC pain at this point I almost regret not rolling the dice on killing them both.
The other option was death, you realise that right.
Death eventually, which he knew going in and could stop at any time if he wanted to. It's not the best, but he had a range of options and chose this one.
Being immortal is a merit we can provide, power we can give him. We are getting both of those charms regardless.
Trivially; a major charm and the cost to apply it isn't nothing. If he's worth the return then sure, but I don't think he's earned anything but the bed he's made for himself.
No he can't, his love is literally killing him. Its literally killing him to be with the ones he love.
His circumstances are massively more damgerous than the vampires, he will die while its only a risk for them.
Having sex is shortening his life, the rate is presumably variable with how much energy Tuzi needs to survive. Thomas has worked out a romantic relationship where he can't even touch his actual partner anymore; it isn't impossible.
He wants everything without the costs associated with the ends he seeks. That is understandable, normal even, but it doesn't change the fact that he's embraced exporting the lethal consequences of his decisions to people who had no part in them.
As to the bit on (white court) vampires, they die eventually if they won't eat and run out of food. They have no option other than eating or dying. J could choose something else, he just doesn't want to.
He values his love over his life, which is fair and to an extent even admirable. He also values it over the lives of other people, which isn't.
What do you mean, so he should have died when the akuma come for him, how is that not necessity.
Like you keep ignoring that his options are die slowly, die now or live by working with these people.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. The crown didn't return. "Wants immortality and not to be murdered by vampires" the threat of violence is there, but is not a primary motivation.
1)For one thing, high Perception + Awareness is not common among the lower levels of the supernatural set.
Let alone if the Akuma was hiding it.
Remember Dresden meeting at arms length with Quintus Cassius shapeshifted as Father Vincent multiple times without realizing he was a Denarian? He even had him in his car, if I recall correctly.
Or when Mab walked into his office and he couldnt tell and had to use iron as a test?
2)They wanted someone with magic potential. You presumably cant just pick one of those off the street.
3)Mental influence is not exclusive of temptation.
Or of Intimidation, for that matter. Im assuming they all came into play.
Furthermore, we have IC evidence that Eiko doesnt tell her lesser akuma shit; we questioned one onscreen, and he knew very little.
I quote:
1) They're still offering him immortality and power on the middle of a serial killing spree that put his whole community underground. You don't need high perception to maybe notice what's going on, especially since he's been living with them since he took the offer.
2) My point was that if he could be completely ignorant and still do the job they wouldn't have told him enough to gain the motive he had. He probably needs to willingly engage in some ritual for it to work.
3) Fair, but I'm operating under the assumption that if it was imposed on him then it wouldn't qualify as his own motivation. Too much mind magic in DF turns you into a spud, and makes you useless as a practitioner. They probably limited it to avoid breaking his brain.
1)Dresden was expected at Arctis Tor in Proven Guilty. And at Demonreach in Small Favor. And at Wrigley Field in Death Masks.
We were expected at the Fomorian base. Possibly at the Museum as well.
Sometimes you have no reasonable way to avoid it. Dem's the breaks.
2)There isnt much else to look at, and very little time left to do so. Its October 3, and the meeting is October 5.
We can either continue expending effort trying to find a vulnerability that may or may not exist, or we can invest preptime based on what we already know, in order to disrupt what we know they have planned.
3)Longterm sure. Short to medium term they could do a lot of damage.
An akuma with no requirements of subtlety and a hunting license could cut a wide swathe in a couple days without even risking the masquerade.
And Eiko is probably an elder Shikome Assassin, to boot, given Emma-O's proclivities.
One that has spent enough time gathering intel on our life and associates to have a messenger meet us in a graveyard at a ball that was literally organized in a couple days.
1) Those were shit shows that also involved a lot of background planning from other people who supported Dresden's actions. We don't have that. The fomorian base knew we were coming, but they had hours of prep at best and weren't really sure what to do about us.
2) The ritual only matters if we're there for it. If we don't strike before they're ready then striking whenever we want after the fact isn't worse from that angle.
3) So why this rather than anything else? They could trivially have forced their way into Molly's school or something and played hostage games. It would have been easier and more effective than what they actually did.
They might try that, but if we're on the offensive we can control the pace.
