Who is a 'witch' in the eyes of the WC?

[LordDresden]

The term 'witch' is used occasionally for female magic-users in the Dresdenverse, but what is its meaning?  Thomas called their mother 'one hell of a dangerous witch'.  In this sense, is it just the female of 'warlock'?  Or is it a rarely-used female of 'wizard'? 

[Leo]

I think it might be a generic term for female magic users.  IIRC, in Storm Front Harry says something to the effect that "witches are just plain meaner than wizards" while viewing a crime scene. 

[Kali]

But Elaine's a wizard...

[neurovore]

But Elaine's a wizard...

But from what Harry says in BR, "wizard" technically means "magically talented enough to invent spells of your own rather than needing a recipe book", so wizard and witch might both be valid descriptions; I'm inclined to think that given an apparent consistency error between books, SF is notably less likely to be considered valid than later volumes.

[cornyphil]

Also don't forget the bible verse in WN "Suffer not a witch to live"

The book directly says that "witch" was mistranslated from a word that meant "one who uses their magic for evil" to the more general word "witch".  By this, witch translates as a magic user good or evil.  Also this always sounded to me like a pro-feminist thing...

Elain: "what...? Becuase I am a girl i can't be a wizard! FULMINARIS!!!" (WC dives for cover)

[Magus_Jasonius]

Elain: "what...? Becuase I am a girl i can't be a wizard! FULMINARIS!!!" (WC dives for cover)

That's pretty much the basis of Terry Pratchett's Equal Rites. Great book. The Dresdenverse needs it's own equivalent of Unseen University.

[Murphy's Stunt Double]

I'm not sure, but I think it has more to do with the type and method of magic each uses. Witches cast their spells from a religious base whereas Wizards do it from a more science based study. Also, the witches that have appeared in JB's books struck me as group oriented while Harry and Elaine are more solitaries.

Just my assumptions.

[Gallowglass]

IIRC, when Harry is talking to Murphy about the Ordo, he specifies that there is a difference between being a witch and being Wiccan.  A witch can be a wiccan and base her magic upon the tenents of that religion but she can also be any female magic user without a religious base.  Actually, they can be of either sex and still be wiccan.  It gets complicated when you realize that each group basically makes up their own specifics from a general framework.

IIRC, when Harry turns Molly in, he doesn't call her a witch but a warlock.  This is continued by the person answering the phone and the trial.  Since they tend to be sexually equal within the Council as to what the good guys are called regardless of their sex, they continue this in what they call the bad guys.

Now Thomas isn't human or technically a magic user.  I don't believe he inherited any of Maggie's power since that would have shown up, hopefully before his first sexual encounter.  IIRC, the impression was that they tended to have a first lover at legal age but this could be a way to keep the PC crowd from attacking the books because of their under-age sexual content.  As for Thomas, his family regards all human magic users as talented prey so he might not have learned the difference until after his speech patterns were set in early teen-age years.

The simplest answer is that Jim might have changed his definition of what made a witch while writing and never made the changes in the entire book.  It happens over time as well, as the characters and their backgrounds might change over the years and either the author retcons it in new editions (Maybe Jim will take care of the problems of the 2 names for Bianca's assisstant/lover.) or they re-write the entire book, often changing it wildly (Christopher Stasheff's Gramerye books, specifically 'King Kobold' in the process.  Sometimes they write on and change it with a Author's Note (David Weber on the political requirements of the Prime Minister in his 'Honor Harrington' universe) and sometimes they don't make any changes at all, leaving it for future editors to mesh it all together.

[Heretic]

I wouldn't assume Harry and Thomas, given their different backgrounds, use the term the same way.  Thomas may have simply meant "female-magic-user", while Harry might mean "female-magic-user-who-isn't-a-member-of-the-Wizard's-Council" (and Harry is being nice not to fuss at Elaine for using the title Wizard when she isn't a member).

That said (Backup sort-of-spoiler)  Backup provides some insight into the matter of Thomas and his views on magic.

[Gallowglass]

Well Harry knows that she is of Wizard caliber, she is just faking a lower level to keep out of the Council.  The problem is of course is that if things get bad, they might re-write the power levels needed for membership.