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human
[The Dresden Files] How much magical assistance can a person use to kill without breaking the first rule of magic?

On book 6, and a strange thought went across my head. I’ve read tons and tons of fantasy novels before, but never ones where it was actually illegal to kill someone using magic (at least, not any more illegal than using a different method). As such, I have to wonder: where draw the line?

I.E., the White Council wouldn’t care if Harry capped someone with a gun, right?  That makes sense. But what if he got into a gunfight, blocked his opponent’s bullets with a shield of air, and a stray ricochet bounced back at the attacker and wounded them fatally? Or, for that matter, is it illegal to use magic in any kind of fight, since the eventual death of the victim can be attributed (at least in part) to magic?

The same goes for any number of dangerous situations or environments you could create for someone without actually attacking them directly. What if you set a house on fire with magic, and the secondhand flames end up killing some people? What if you develop a curse that weakens the target’s immune system to the point where they get tons of opportunistic infections and die from mundane disease? What if you use magic to restrain someone or otherwise weaken them in a fight, tie them up, and give them ol’ cement shoes?

In other words, there are lot ways you could easily kill people and the cause of death technically wasn’t magical since it could have been accomplished without magic, but the magic did *help* (unlike an entropy curse, which directly attacks someone with magic in a way that is impossible without it).
gpt
Killing with magic is against the Laws because it corrupts the user in a fundamental way. When you bend the laws of nature so that it directly causes the death of another human being, that is an act of violence so profound that it irrevocably damages your spirit. Too many acts like that and you will become a warlock, driven insane by your own powers.

There are other uses of magic that will have the same effects, like invading the mind of another human being. Even if you do so with good intentions, this is a violation of that person's very essence, and that kind of willful violation cannot help but taint you.

In both cases, almost any kind of buffer is sufficient to prevent the use of magic from spoiling you, and to therefore prevent the Laws from being broken. The Wardens carry swords that have been enchanted, and they use them to kill as one of their primary duties. The reason this isn't a violation is that the person who enchanted the sword only did so to make the sword stronger and more capable; the death of another human was an indirect result, even if it was totally foreseeable.

Similarly, if you caused a fire, and that fire spread out of control and someone died, you would (probably) be in the clear, because the death occurred as an indirect result, not in the heat of the moment. No pun intended.

It's the hateful, violent *need* to murder, and the kind of twisted belief that using magic to that end is fundamentally *right*, that warps you. Reaching out with magic to directly kill changes you. Reaching out with magic to toss a car into the air that happens to land on someone? Maybe not so much.

But in the end, it will all be decided by a Soul Gaze. A Wizard can look the accused in the eye and literally see if their use of magic has corrupted them. If it has, off with their heads. And if it hasn't ... well, they'll be watching.