The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection

Proven Guilty Mysteries

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Griffyn612:

--- Quote from: Carl on January 24, 2015, 08:25:50 PM ---I have one problem right there at the start of you argument.

The idea that this was in some way a pot to weaken the gate. As was pointed out the last time this idea came up, this did not, nor ever was going to affect the situation at the gates, (it would need something that Mab and all her main army put together couldn't deal with and which threatened the fundamental power of winter to do that, this never came close to that). The only people affected negatively by this where Harry and co and the red court. The latter of whom are working with outsiders and so are probably at least partial allies of Nemesis. Whatever Maeve's comments on her Mother at the time her plot actively worked against Nemesis at this point. She might have been infected, but she wasn't working for nemesis at that point.

--- End quote ---
I think the speculation is that either Maeve or Nemesis thought that by attacking Arctis Tor, and the Winter Wellspring specifically, Harry might draw ALL OF WINTER home to defend the castle.  Since the guards at the gates are Winter, maybe they were hoping it would draw some troops away, even temporarily, which might aide an increased assault at the gates.

But that wouldn't be the only benefit.  The entire thing also was a play at the long game.  It established in Lily's head that Maeve was trustworthy and different than she'd thought.  It set up the entire plot of Cold Days by establishing that they could work together for a common good, which was allowing Summer to attack the Ramps while Winter ran back home.

Foxed:

--- Quote from: Carl on January 24, 2015, 08:25:50 PM ---Whatever Maeve's comments on her Mother at the time her plot actively worked against Nemesis at this point. She might have been infected, but she wasn't working for nemesis at that point.

--- End quote ---

Maeve uses the same lie she will use in Cold Days: that her mother is insane/infected. Maeve is definitely infected by Proven Guilty.

Carl:
Where did i say she wasn't?

KurtinStGeorge:
I was going to post this in a new thread, but many of the points covered in the OP are covered by what I have to say, so here goes.

Let’s look at some facts, assumptions and odd details that make what happened during Proven Guilty difficult to unravel.

Harry assumed that Darby Crane/Madrigal Raith was set up to be the fall guy for the phage attacks that took place at Splattercon!!! That may be true or more accurately, Darby was set up to be a stop gap fall guy, someone Harry’s would zero in on and by the time he realized his mistake it would be too late to stop what was actually taking place.
 
Let’s assume that Harry is more or less correct, that one of the two above assumptions above is correct.  Madrigal told Harry his appearance at the Con had been scheduled about a year in advance.  This means the phage/fetch attacks were likely planned that far in advance as well.

Harry made another assumption we need to examine.  He guessed the reason the Scarecrow/Eldest fetch took out Crane’s assistant; the jann Lucius Glau, was because Glau was in on the set up and could have told Harry who bribed or threatened him to accept an invitation for Darby Crane to appear at a new horror movie convention which would be held the following year in Chicago.  So Eldest Fetch was protecting the identity perpetrator of the fetch attacks.

This leads us to the actions and motivations of Eldest Fetch.  Was he just the oldest and strongest of the fetches, or was he Nemfected?  If he wasn’t Nemfected then he was following Mab’s orders and Mab more or less sacrificed him, probably to test Harry, to see if he was really up to being her next Winter Knight.  However we have this sentence in PG which seems to contradict this idea. “It was a fetch, I was sure of it, a creature who had been given talent or power enough to exceed its former status, to become the embodiment of the icon of fear mortals called the Scarecrow.”  Jim uses language similar to this in White Night, when Lash tells Harry that Vitto Malvora had been “given power” because he has been possessed by an Outsider.  We're not certain if that is the same as being Nemfected, but it sure sounds like it to me.
 
If the Scarecrow/Eldest Fetch was Nemfected, why would it have followed Mab’s orders?  Wouldn’t it have wanted to defeat Mab’s designs instead?  Could it have been working with Maeve, who we know was Nemfected and was actively working to gain Lily’s trust with the long-term goal of destroying both the Summer and Winter Courts?

Let’s look at another odd fact that needs to be explained.  Someone threw a ward in front of Harry during the first phage/fetch attack he was present for.  However, the ward didn’t stop Harry, it only slowed him down.  What was the purpose of doing this?  Either it was placed there by a weaker practitioner, or the goal of the ward was only to give the fetch a chance to do some damage before Harry arrived, to get Harry good and angry at what he would see when he arrived.
 
However, that doesn’t tell us who put up the ward in the first place.  It couldn’t have been Mab.  She had to be on the other side in order to send the fetches.  Even the Queen of Air and Darkness can’t be at two separate places at the same time.  Of course, this assumes it was Mab who sent the fetches.
 
Some people think Sandra Marling might have been a practitioner.  That seems unlikely to me.  She had known Molly for some time and for her to be a magic practitioner we have to assume they never had the slightest physical contact with one another, because if they touched for even a moment, Molly should have felt the power of another magic practitioner.  Harry picked up on the power of the girl who had Cassandra’s Tears; in Grave Peril, and she wasn’t anyone of real power.  Molly and Harry both felt each other’s power when they touched near the end of PG.  So I think Molly would have remembered that sensation if she had ever had the slightest contact with Sandra.  However, it is possible Sandra was working for someone else, even if she didn’t realize she was, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Sandra was the person who gave Molly the fear suggestion which encouraged the impressionable girl to use black magic to prevent her friends from using heroin.  Sandra sent Darby Crane the invitation to appear at Splattercon!!!  Sandra also got Harry to break up the police interrogation of Molly.  Perhaps she did this of her own accord or perhaps someone wanted Molly free so the fetches could grab her without interference.
     
Molly met Sandra Marling at a shelter; which I presume means homeless shelter, which Molly did community service at after she was arrested.  About the same time Molly was making herslf known around Chicago's magical community, at least among some small time magic users or magic want'a be's. We know Mavra used a homeless shelter as a hideout for her scourge in Blood Rites.  It’s possible she uses these types of places when she needs a short-term hidey hole.  Now you have to wonder why I would be dragging Mavra into a story when we never saw a trace of her in the novel.

Think about the next book after Proven Guilty.  In his final conversation with Lash in the Raith Deeps, Harry made an intuitive leap that the Black Court of Vampires is connected to the Outsiders in some fashion.  This is just a guess on my part, but I won’t be surprised if we discover that the dark magic which animates Black Court vamps comes directly from the Outsiders.  However, to get back to the facts, in the book before Proven Guilty, Harry threatened to destroy Mavra “horribly” if she ever threatened Murphy again.  She had to be impressed by Harry’s improvised use of her own explosives to annihilate her flunkies in Blood Rites, even after his hand had been scorched.  We know from Blood Rites that Mavra had been watching Harry fighting other monsters for some time without his knowledge.  We also know Harry dissed her and took Amoracchius away from her at Bianca’s party.  Do you think the egotistical sentient super-zombie is going to accept all of these things without trying to get back at Harry?

If Mavra became aware that Molly had any magic ability, what better way to get back at Harry than to corrupt the daughter of Harry’s best friend and at the same time settle a score she had with Michael for destroying what she called her children and grandchildren, twenty or so years before Bianca’s party?  She would also drive a wedge between Michael and Harry through Molly's use of black magic.  How could Michael look at Harry's use of magic with anything but disdain after what Mavra got her to do with magic? I’ve almost got myself convinced Sandra Marling is a fine thrall who was acting under Mavra’s command, but there is a major glitch with this idea.

According to Bob, a Black Court vampire doesn’t have enough humanity left in it to create a fine thrall; someone who can function on their own and who doesn’t even know they are a thrall.  Either Bob is wrong, and he has been wrong before, or Sandra was working for someone else.  Could Sandra have been working for Mab, and everything that happened to Molly, the suggestion to use black magic, the fetch attacks at Splattercon!!!, and her kidnapping, was part of Mab’s masterplan to get Harry to travel to Arctis Tor and learn about the so-called Black Council attack there?  I’ll put a pin in this idea for now.

There are other facts to consider.  Harry didn’t think the fetch attacks through all the way.  He eventually realized the fetches were sent.  He knew that fetches needed mirrors or a mirror like surface to cross over to the mortal plane.  He knew that Molly provided a beacon of sorts that the fetches could use to find the convention.  I think Harry was wrong about this last fact.  Molly wasn’t at the convention when the last fetch attack occurred.  Also, the fetches needed Clark Pell’s movie theater as a base to cross over to Arctis Tor.  Someone had to pinpoint where Pell was for the fetch Hammerhands to find and beat him to a pulp in the Men’s room at the convention.  Someone had to make a call that got Eldest Fetch to show up and take out Glau.
 
Just before Harry ran into the ward that slowed him down he said, “I reached out to the cold and gloom, and found it a vaguely familiar kind of spell working, though I couldn’t remember precisely where I’d encountered it before.”  This sound’s to me like someone may have been messing with Harry’s memory, or perhaps I am reading what really isn’t there.  I don’t think Harry ever felt Mab’s magic before PG.  He saw her preparing for battle but probably wasn’t close enough to get a feel for her power.  Maeve threw glamour at him during her party in Summer Knight, but I don’t know that Harry ever described feeling the energy she gave off when she was casting a spell.  Harry has definitely felt Mavra’s magic and its cold and greasy.  That’s similar to the murk that Harry and Rawlins couldn’t see through.  Harry said it made the temperature fall about forty degrees in a few moments.
 
So to recap we know Sandra Marling played a major role in getting Molly to use black magic.  If she didn’t have the ability to use magic, there must have been someone else at the convention under a veil; someone who could communicate with whoever sent the fetches, because someone had to pinpoint the exact locations to send them, at least in the case of the attack against Clark Pell and murder of Lucius Glau.  This person had to be strong enough to make Harry work hard to fight through a ward.  It was someone whose magic Harry had felt before and someone who is good at veils.

Now I’m going to stop and make a big WAG.  If the guess I made earlier about the magic which animates the Black Court is correct, that it comes from the Outsiders, would that give a Black Court vampire like Mavra; who has great long-range communication skills with her scourge, and probably with her thralls and Renfields too, the same kind of communication ability with Nemfected agents?  I mean they both might be able to communicate on the same magical wavelength.  If that were true, it would give a veiled Mavra the ability to coordinate her actions with Maeve, if Maeve was at Pell’s theater just waiting to step across so she could send the fetches over from the other side.

Still don’t like the idea of Maeve sending the fetches.  Wait there’s more.  After Harry rescued Molly and got her back to Pell’s theater, Lily admitted that she hoped that Harry might threaten Winter’s Well Spring and draw Winter defenders back from Summer’s boarder so Maeve could slow time near Arctis Tor which would allow Summer to launch an attack against the Red Court.  There is a great deal of information conveyed in the statement Lily made.  So much so that it makes you miss an important fact.  Lily’s plan was really; pick your adjective, lousy, dumb, idiotic, half-assed, incompetent, or simply unlikely to succeed, unless Lily was given some inside information.  Someone Lily trusted; meaning Maeve, tipped her off that Eldest Fetch liked to take it’s victims to the top of Arctis Tor near Winter’s Well Spring.  How else could Lily have thought that Harry would have the slightest chance to throw Summer fire anywhere near the Well?  Knowing how much Maeve hated Mab, I think it's likely Maeve may even have told Eldest Fetch to carry Molly up to Mab's ice garden prison to both sully Mab's garden and to lay further suspicion on Mab should Harry somehow survive his encounter with the old fetch.  Maeve gave Lily the information about Eldest Fetch's likely location because she calculated that the odds were good she would be sealing Dresden's fate by helping him go to Arctis Tor, but whatever happened the long con she was working on Lily would still be in place.   

I think that Mavra and Nemfected Maeve were working together.  If Sandra Marling wasn’t Mavra’s thrall, then she made a deal with Maeve and was working for her.  Mavra gets her revenge on Michael and Harry.  Molly dies, but not before her soul is tainted by the use of black magic.  Harry blames Mab for Molly’s death.  Maeve has more proof that Mab has gone insane.  However, Mab crossed up their plans by visiting Harry’s lab and fixed Little Chicago, giving Harry a way to track the fetches.  So when Lily contacted Maeve and came up with a plan to help Harry, Maeve had to go along with it and calculated that Eldest Fetch would kill Harry.

Either that, or there is my earlier idea that Mab was behind everything.  In that case Maeve went along with Lily’s plan hoping to kill Harry, and as part of a long con to gain Lily's trust until she could work out a plan that would destroy Mab and both Courts with her. 

There is one detail I haven't covered.  If Maeve sent the fetches was there ever a plan in place to kidnap Molly?  It's possible Molly's kidnapping was just an accident.  However, when Harry was talking to Bob about diverting the fetches to what he thought was their summoner, Bob told him that was classic White Council doctrine.  Therefore it's possible that Harry diverting the fetch's by sending out fear was  a move that could have been anticipated.  Particularly if the being who made the prediction was a powerful magic user herself, someone who may have been a member of the White Council before she became a Black Court vampire.

Yes, there is a lot of supposition in the picture or pictures I have just painted for you.  However, I don't believe I have seen any better attempts to pull all or most of the pieces together in a coherent fashion.  I will tell everyone that the reason I like Mavra playing a role in PG is she is still alive; sort of, and may one day get a chance to rub it in that she played Harry like a violin during the events of PG.   

I haven’t even gotten to the so called Black Council attack on Arctis Tor, but this is a good place to stop for now.  My thoughts on that subject might take up several more pages.

Foxed:
Well, let's attack that from a Doylist perspective. Jim mentions Mavra exactly once during the book: In the beginning, when Harry and Murphy are discussing the execution of the Korean warlock and mind tampering.

But that's not related to the fetches. I feel strongly that Jim played fair with this book. Everything we need is there. Sure, the solution before Cold Days is "Maybe Maeve is the insane one instead of Mab," and not anything about Nemesis, but the info for that is in the text. There are no clues in the text to suggest that Mavra had anything to do with this casefile.

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