So what IS the agenda of the Fae Courts?????

[Amseriah]

So, this could just be me being incredibly obtuse but I really don't understand what the agenda of the Summer/Winter Court is.  As near I can guess Summer tries to promote life, warmth, and positiveness.  Winter tries to promote death, cold, and negativeness.  This doesn't really make much sense though.  At least according to the books, Summer doesn't really seem to care about killing people anymore than Winter does, none of them are really good nor are they evil.  The only thing that we really seem to know is that they are opposing forces and that their agendas are to of course oppose the other so as to form an equilibrium between the two of them.  This thought runs into problems though because they aren't static forces...if they were in perfect opposition there would be stasis and neither side would be able to do anything.  I know, I know the seasons change so the power of the courts is always in flux and that keeps them from being in perfect opposition.  Still...seems almost like the only agenda that they have is to oppose the other one.  What am I missing?

[noclue]

Day and Night are opposites, but they are always in flux. Hot and Cold are opposites, but temperatures can fluctuate. Summer and Winter are in what's called a conditional equilibrium, rather than stasis.

And you're right they don't really care about humans all that much.

[UmbraLux]

Here's my take on it: 

• Summer
  • Unrestrained Growth
  • Heat / Fire
  • Light / Day / Sun
  • Purification
  • Agitation / Activity
• Winter
  • Unchanging Stasis
  • Decay
  • Death and Rebirth
  • Cold / Ice
  • Darkness / Night
  • Stillness / Solitude
  I treat them as themes more than specific agendas.  However, any agenda in sync with the court's themes might be pushed by a given member of the court.  This way there's plenty of room for politics and infighting...  :)

[Grokken]

Themes are a great way to go about it.  They don't have "human" motivations, and certainly do not use the same thought process.  The Summer Court is as likely to go ballistic over a trampled flower as the Winter Court might over someone tracking new fallen snow...or they might not.  Whatever they do they are likely to be either very passionate about it, or completely blase.  And whatever it is, their reason is likely to may you go.. "What?"  Mode of thought is just alien to the mortal mind.  Their agenda might simply be that they were bored at the time...

[sinker]

Another thing to note is that (and this is my take on it) they don't really seem like they are attempting an equilibrium. They are at war and are trying hard to wipe out the other side. Sometimes it's a cold war and they strike in carefully coordinated places and times. Other times it's all out war like in summer knight. That being said it's their nature to be a balance and to gain/lose ground at their given times. They may be trying to destroy each other but they just aren't capable of it.

Also keep in mind that it's not stasis, but they are equal in the long haul. When one gains power/position the other loses it, however over time the second will always retake the power/position and then start gaining again. So it's all about the long term rather then who has the most power at any given time.

So short answer, their agenda is to gain power and fight their opposite.

[sjksprocket]

There agendas are many and various. There overall agenda would IMO be to be in control over the other court. Not to destroy it though. In summer knight, The summer Lady at that time went crazy and was trying to destroy the summer court so that there would be no more fighting. The summer court was obviously trying to stop them because they didn't want to be destroyed, but so was the winter court. If there is only one court then earth would be destroyed, and with earth the nevernever that is linked to earth would no longer exist either. Bad times. They want control, but realize that there needs to be some sort of balance.

UmbraLux has it right for the ways they do things and what the courts propagate. But would like to add that neither can be called true good and evil by Mortal standards. They do not have the same standards and morals and even way of thinking that mortals do. Think of the courts as you would the seasons. Summer is all about things at their peak. Flowers and trees in bloom, Fruit at it's ripest and best for spreading their seeds. But also can have brutal heat that can wither the strongest plants. Winter is all about things at their end. You have the death of plant life, Hibernation, brutal cold and shattering ice. But there is also the beauty of freshly lain and unmarred snow, and prisms that lay within the highly structured ice reflecting light. It's like yin and yang.

[tymire]

As near I can guess Summer tries to promote life, warmth, and positiveness.  Winter tries to promote death, cold, and negativeness.

The problem is that you included 2 words; positiveness and negativeness.  Those 2 terms do not apply....

[Richard_Chilton]

I see another agenda of the courts - one that applies to both of them.

Boredom.

See, humans are fun toys to play with.  They break easily, but beside that they are fun.  Hey, I know - we could offer these red shoes to someone who wants to dance forever! Won't that be fun? Oh dear - she died after only three days of non-stop dancing.  But that's the best thing about humans - there are always more.

Okay, those deals they make might be part of some kind of long term goal or they might be part of a grand design, but from the point of view of short lived humans it looks like they like playing with us.  Messing with us for fun (theirs).  Making offers that are too good to be true.  Offering us our dreams and delivering nightmares - and never telling an actual lie while they do it.

So if someone has sponsored magic, is Marked by a Power, is a changeling, is an envoy, or is otherwise associated with the fairies then you could easily give them a patron.  Make it so they don't owe the court as a whole but do owe a noble of one of the courts.  Being the gopher for an immortal, inhuman creature who gets bored easily can be interesting...  And if later it's revealed that all those little tasks were to set the stage for <idea that shifts the balance of power> then the PC can go "But how was I to know?"/  Maybe something like "I thought she just wanted ice from the bottom of that glacier so she could put it down that other Summer Court Noble's top.  I never thought that she would combine it with ash from that volcano and air collected from a mountain top to create a blast furnace at the base of the glacier and melt it!".

Of course I'm drawing this attitude not only from legends, but from Summer Knight where mortals bargained with the fae and then made wonderful music (until the mortals died).

Richard

[Bruce Coulson]

The Fae have no free will.  They fight because it's their nature to struggle against each other.  And they use humans as pawns because it's in their nature to do so...even when sometimes those pawns become a problem.

That doesn't make them unintelligent.  But ultimately, Summer strives against Winter, and vice versa, because they have no choice in the matter.

Now, part of their nature is to toy with humans, so they do so.  Sometimes they seek advantage, using these strange free-willed beings who do the most interesting things.  And even though ultimately, every time, things backfire and they make no progress...they continue, because they must.

[bitterpill]

Fae have free will otherwise they would act uniformly they are controlled by there nature but really no more than people, fae of each of the court are subject the will of the trinity (the maiden, the mother and the crone) but are capable of making choices otherwise Harry God Mother could not of acted the way she did. The fae are spirits of nature and are forms of conceptuality there actions usually seem to bring chaos as distraction from eternity, so bordom and domination are the true motives of both summer and winter.   

[Bruce Coulson]

Free Will (or positive refresh in game speak) generally isn't possessed by supernatural beings.  They are capable of acting intelligently (if they are intelligent) towards the pursuit of their goals; but they MUST continue to work towards those goals; they are not capable of changing or abandoning them.

The more powerful beings often have complex goals, and are highly intelligent.  So, from a limited perspective, it might appear that they have free will, because they make choices.  But those choices are tactical in nature; intimidate?  Bribery? Seduction?  But all are leading towards the ultimate goal.

It's an interesting philosophical question; can the Fae even BE bored?  Oh, they can feign that emotion, and act bored; but are they capable of truly feeling any emotion?

[devonapple]

It's an interesting philosophical question; can the Fae even BE bored?  Oh, they can feign that emotion, and act bored; but are they capable of truly feeling any emotion?

Boredom is considered an emotional state of mind by Psychiatry, but I don't know if the Fey are really so Emotionless that they wouldn't literally be able to be in a state of boredom or ennui. They have a longstanding mythological history of fascination with mortals, but it could be more accurately expressed as a cat interested in playing with a toy when it is not busy doing something else, and a lot of the darker Fey tropes reflect that predatory fascination.

[Bruce Coulson]

"Kleitus, I'm bored.  What new plaything can you offer me today?"

"An interesting mage in the USA quadrant, sir.  He's known as Harry Dresden."

(Emperor Ming touches a stored spell crystal; it begins snowing on Harry...in July.)

"Most effective, your Majesty.  I'll make arrangements to have this Dresden destroyed immediately."

"No.  I like to play with things a bit...before annihilation."

[sinker]

I wouldn't say that the Fey are emotionless or incapable of emotion, but their emotions (and the trigger for them) seem alien to us. Seems like they express all sorts of emotions (unless they're doing that purely for the mortals' benefit?) just not as we might expect and for different reasons.

[tallgrrl]

I've seen many signs of emotion in JB's flavor of Fae as well as in other author's versions as well as historical descriptions of them so I don't agree that they're emotionless.  Mab for instance has been angry, disappointed, satisfied, bored, intrigued, curious, etc, etc... and so has Leah not to mention other lesser fae so I don't agree at all that they don't feel emotion.  It may be a sort of detached version of the emotion as compared to human kinds' emotions, but they all seem to be represented to some extent at least. 

I agree that they are a sort of yin/yang of contrasts to each other, and must struggle against each other, at least enough to keep a steady pressure against each other to some extent to keep the yin(seelie)/yang(unseelie) shape within the encompassing circle of our perception intact.  I don't see it all so much as evil vs good as much as a light vs dark thing.  We humans mostly prefer the light, and so we see the seelie as 'good', but without the dark, (which many creatures prefer and indeed NEED) how would we perceive the light? 

Oh, and as far as their "boredom" goes, I think it goes beyond simple boredom.  The long lives of both branches of the fae has resulted in something more pervasive.  I think the word "ennui" expresses it much better.  I found a rather good explanation of the word here:  http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword/word/ennui  and here are some snipped out descriptions of it from there. 

Meaning: A chronic mental listlessness and disengagement caused by boring interactions with the people, places and things around you.

Notes: Ennui is a special kind of boredom that attacks people who know and have experienced everything in life—or think they have.

In Play: Ennui is likely to attack the man or woman who has everything, and has done and seen everything: "Six months into retirement Jack Uzzi found the ennui unbearable and returned to his job as a parking meter attendant." Ennui is often the price of wealth: "Morris Bedda had 6 houses, 24 cars, two planes, a helicopter, a billion dollars, and more ennui than in all of France."

I like all that the word expresses in reference to the fae, they don't have to strive for life or a living, and have everything they could possibly want, and they are incredibly restricted by custom too so humans offer them all sorts of variety that they don't have any other opportunity to indulge in.