The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
The Answer(hopefully) to Who Fixed Little Chicago (FULL SPOILERS)
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Powderkegger on July 09, 2011, 07:58:25 PM ---The theory holds water, but at this point why wouldn't Mab own up to it?
--- End quote ---
Because Mab never volunteers anything without a clear gain to be obtained for it. "Why wouldn.t" never applies to Faerie, only "why would".
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Orbweaver on July 11, 2011, 01:42:14 AM ---Is there any evidence to suggest that if Little Chicago had blown up, it would have affected Harry spiritually?
--- End quote ---
Not that I can think of. Unless you count frustration over losing a tool he got some use out of and was on the whole very proud of.
Anyone want to tie this theory in with LC's apparent absence in TC ?
AcornArmy:
--- Quote from: Orbweaver on July 11, 2011, 01:42:14 AM ---Is there any evidence to suggest that if Little Chicago had blown up, it would have affected Harry spiritually?
--- End quote ---
Aside from being dead, I can't think of any such effect. On the other hand, in the same book, we see that Mab has kept Slate alive and has been torturing him for years, for no apparent reason other than a decision to wait until Harry accepted the position of Winter Knight before killing the traitor. According to Fix and Lily, this was detrimental to the Winter Court, yet Mab was doing it anyway.
If Harry blew himself up with Little Chicago, all of that time would have been wasted. It's possible than Mab simply used her position as Harry's temporary godmother as an excuse to do what she wanted to do, which was preserve his life. After all, in Dead Beat, once she realized that the Darkhallow preparations had begun, she told Harry, "I must do what I might to preserve your life."
I know this runs contrary to all of the many, many times when Harry was almost killed and neither Lea nor Mab ever popped out of thin air to save him. The only guess I can make is that maybe it was a matter of simple awareness. Mab was talking to him and aware of the danger to his life in DB, so she had to act to help him. Maybe she watched him in his laboratory, and when she became aware that the flaw in Little Chicago was an imminent threat to his life, she had to act to save him. Which she already had personal reasons to do, anyway. Just a guess.
Orbweaver:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on July 11, 2011, 01:49:56 AM ---Not that I can think of. Unless you count frustration over losing a tool he got some use out of and was on the whole very proud of.
--- End quote ---
I wasn't sure. Harry put a lot of his own thought, time, and "self" into building LC as he knew it to be accurate.
--- Quote from: AcornArmy on July 11, 2011, 02:56:30 AM ---Aside from being dead, I can't think of any such effect. On the other hand, in the same book, we see that Mab has kept Slate alive and has been torturing him for years, for no apparent reason other than a decision to wait until Harry accepted the position of Winter Knight before killing the traitor. According to Fix and Lily, this was detrimental to the Winter Court, yet Mab was doing it anyway.
--- End quote ---
I think that may have had more to do with the fact that the Sidhe cannot directly take a mortal life, although it may not have been a stretch to conclude that Mab could have set up circumstances in which Slate had no way to emerge alive (after all, Mab sent the hobs after Ivy). And I suspect her score sheet on the balance issue looks much, much different than Fix and Lily's does. I also suspect Slate's life, despite the physical and psychological torture he endured, was being put to another purpose (maintaining and/or fueling some of the magic at/around Arctis Tor.)
--- Quote --- If Harry blew himself up with Little Chicago, all of that time would have been wasted. It's possible than Mab simply used her position as Harry's temporary godmother as an excuse to do what she wanted to do, which was preserve his life. After all, in Dead Beat, once she realized that the Darkhallow preparations had begun, she told Harry, "I must do what I might to preserve your life."
--- End quote ---
The Sidhe are bound by the letter of their agreements. Based on the statement Lea made to Harry, it sounds like Margaret only protected Harry's spirit- which means Mab would not have been able to use Margaret's deal to protect Harry's life, no matter how good her excuse was. Only his spirit. That doesn't necessarily mean she didn't have a different agreement elsewhere that allowed her to protect Harry's life, just that Margaret's deal was designed to protect him solely from spiritual attacks. Little Chicago does not fall into that category unless it was capable of harming him in more than a purely physical or psychological manner.
--- Quote --- I know this runs contrary to all of the many, many times when Harry was almost killed and neither Lea nor Mab ever popped out of thin air to save him. The only guess I can make is that maybe it was a matter of simple awareness. Mab was talking to him and aware of the danger to his life in DB, so she had to act to help him. Maybe she watched him in his laboratory, and when she became aware that the flaw in Little Chicago was an imminent threat to his life, she had to act to save him. Which she already had personal reasons to do, anyway. Just a guess.
--- End quote ---
I believe Bob stated that Harry missed a power coupling near the stadium, which shifted the power flow around LC. Rather than having gone to the trouble of attempting to get through Harry's wards and into his basement without Bob or anyone else noticing, I think the culprit simply disabled and/or removed the actual coupling at the time Harry did his trial run.
After all, it's a lot easier to take out a power coupling than it is to go the other route. Harry's not the only one who gets into magical dust-ups, and if there was a magical battle going on in the area around the stadium at the time, the power coupling would have been one of the first things to go on the fritz. There are no shortage of entities in Chicago who need/desire darkness, and they don't even have to have been part of the supernatural community.
The culprit for fixing LC might have done so inadvertently, which is a possibility Bob missed in his initial analysis of what happened. I don't think we can automatically point a finger at anybody.
AcornArmy:
--- Quote from: Orbweaver on July 11, 2011, 03:31:57 AM ---I believe Bob stated that Harry missed a power coupling near the stadium, which shifted the power flow around LC. Rather than having gone to the trouble of attempting to get through Harry's wards and into his basement without Bob or anyone else noticing, I think the culprit simply disabled and/or removed the actual coupling at the time Harry did his trial run.
--- End quote ---
No, Bob didn't say that LC now matched the power flows in the real Chicago, so the problem was solved; he said that LC had a power flow set up the wrong way the last time he looked at the model, but that now, when he was looking at it, the power flow was correct. One scenario involves the real world changing but the model staying the same, while the other involves the world staying the same and model changing between one viewing and the next. If the real world had changed, Bob and Harry wouldn't have had any need to go through the part of the discussion in which they talked about how someone would've needed to get past the wards, examine Little Chicago, and realize how to fix the problem. Bob would have known the difference and we would've had an entirely different mystery to think about.
--- Quote from: Orbweaver on July 11, 2011, 03:31:57 AM ---After all, it's a lot easier to take out a power coupling than it is to go the other route.
--- End quote ---
True, which is one reason that I consider the location of Lea's demesne to be a point of evidence in favor of Mab fixing the model. At any point during those nine months, Mab could have stood in Lea's garden and looked across the veil between Earth and the Nevernever, and watched Harry while he was working on it. No one else would've had that avenue of information available to them.
And I bet Mab took the opportunity to do that very thing. She has shown an unhealthy interest in Harry ever since Summer Knight. When she assumed Lea's responsibilities toward him, she was suddenly obligated to follow him around and arrange guardians for him in the Nevernever. She was already holding Slate's position open for him. I wouldn't put it past her at all to stand there in Lea's garden and watch him while he worked on Little Chicago, like some cold, creepy stalker who happened to have power on a planetary scale.
This behavior might also explain what Maeve was talking about when she said that Mab may have been contaminated with the mortal notions of good, evil, love, or something similar. From Maeve's perspective, if she didn't know about Lea's obligations or that Mab had assumed them, then it might seem as if Mab was obsessed with Harry, following him around, sometimes protecting him, and waiting for him to the detriment of the Winter Court.
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