The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Proven Guilty: An update to my previous thoughts on the topic
Kindler:
--- Quote from: Cozarkian on October 17, 2017, 04:31:41 PM ---Murphy fighting the chlorofiend wasn't impressive - Aurora wasn't able to harm Murphy because Murphy wasn't an emissary so wasn't connected to the Fae.
It was like Lois Lane using kryptonite to fight Superman.
--- End quote ---
Assuming that's true, Murphy didn't know that when she did it. It's like Lois Lane unknowingly wearing a kryptonite necklace, but choosing to fight Superman anyway. In this case, I think the relevant part is related to the old adage, but changed slightly to "It's not whether you win or lose, it's whether you play in the first place."
--- Quote from: wardenferry419 on October 17, 2017, 04:27:36 PM ---Marcone does have greater authority, unofficially. I just feel that Mab didn't care whether Murphy was a cop or not. She sees Murphy as a Dresden-connected pawn with connections and willingness to face the supernatural.
--- End quote ---
Ah, I get you. It's a perfectly valid interpretation. I won't belabor the point; I've said it all already.
wardenferry419:
Back to the OP for a moment, there were 4 questions asked. I would like to respond with possible answers. Not necessarily my POV, just random quick thoughts.
1. Who sent the fetches?
a. Mab sent them to use Molly as bait to get Harry's attention without losing a favor.
b. Maeve sent them as a bit of revenge against Harry for his attitude towards her.
c. Lea sent them to draw Harry to Arctus Tor and free her Nem-infected self.
2. Why did Black Council (prefer this name) attack Arctus Tor?
a. To free asset (Lea) from Mab.
b. To test Mab's defenses and capabilities.
c. Maeve, as a recently acquired asset, demanded it.
3. Who fixed Little Chicago?
a. Mab did it so that Harry would not die and Mab would lose a potentially useful fighter.
b. Lasciel, using Harry's body, as part of long con of temptation.
c. TTHarry, self preservation.
4.Who hit Harry's car?
a. Ace, for revenge over SK.
b. Sandra Marling, an opportunity to knock resident trouble-shooter out of picture.
c. Larry Fowler, because the guy is a pompous jerk.
Just random thoughts, not validated.
beetnemesis:
As much as I like figuring stuff out from an in-universe perspective (Watsonian), I think you guys need to take a step back and think like a Doyalist (author/reader perspective).
A Doyalist would be asking, what would make for a better story?
And honestly, a lot of the theories in this thread... would not make a good story.
Some key facts to consider:
Proven Guilty came out ages ago. Think about what that means. We've all moved on, and meaningless details have mostly been forgotten. It would be incredibly boring to have something like, say, "Remember 10 years ago? That person who had the idea of tracking Molly through her mother's blood....wasn't Murphy at all!!!! (It was actually Mab).
Reader reaction would just be, "Oh. Huh."
Same thing with Ace. Ace is done. No one cares about Ace. Hell, people barely cared about Ace when he came back in Cold Days. I don't even remember if he's dead, that's how irrelevant Ace is. Imagine if we discovered that, 10 years ago... Ace almost hurt Harry with his car!!! (He didn't, though).
The problem is all the little inconsistencies in PG aren't actually important right now. If they're not important, they're not satisfying to read about.
And there's no way to MAKE them important, in the here and now- those books are done with, enemies defeated, everyone's moved on.
Luckily... we have a wizard, and Jim is chatty. Consider the following:
- Proven Guilty has a good number of minor, deliberate, unsolved mysteries.
- Jim has stated that Harry will need to deal with every one of the Laws before the series is over.
- At the time of writing Proven Guilty, Jim was also working on the Dresden Files RPG
- The Dresden Files RPG has a lot of bonus material not in the books, including information on Baltimore, secret societies, and a primer on how time travel works (page 243). It even references PG specifically, proving if nothing else that Jim had these two books on his mind.
So with all that in mind, I think the simplest solution, as unintuitive as it may be, is: a Time Traveller (likely Harry), who is in a story akin to Prisoner of Azkaban: Harry goes back to a time we've read about before, and has his own plot, while guiding/avoiding/fixing the events of the previous timeline.
It would make a LOT of sense, and be a good story, because the events would be happening "now," so to speak. Instead of "Oh, so you're the one who fixed my model city 10 years ago? ...thanks, I guess?" it'd be "Crap, I need to fix this model city NOW so I can find the bad guy, and I need to do it and get out of here before Past Harry gets home!"
___
I think that's what it comes down to, for me. Immediacy. Any theory that's just an unimportant minor revelation is just going to be incredibly unsatisfying to read, and considering that it's pretty clear how deliberate this was from Jim, I don't think unsatisfying is in the cards.
namkcas:
@wardenferry,
1 - Those are the answers that are pretty standard.
2 - The one thing to me that stands out is the timing. WHY attack then? What was different? The only answer I have is Molly.
--- As a note, this is the thing that made me come up with the theory. They have years and years to attack Mab in Arctus Tor, yet they only do so when Molly is there. I am stretching the text with this, because we have no exact timing of the attack. It just seems unlikely that Mab would leave her gates blown up for Months and Years. So I am presuming that the attack is recent to when Harry shows up. Molly has been there for at least overnight. It is not exactly clear the time difference from Molly being there to Harry showing up, but it has to be on the order of 12 hours.
3 - Those are the standard answers.
4 - I lean to Ace because he continued to try to kill Harry...for example he could be the Murphy Car Bomber in WN.
namkcas:
@bestnemesis,
Things come back 10 years later in this series. Faith Astor is set to come back at the start of BAT. You may not have cared, but other's do. And PG is the book with the least tied up answers in most people's mind. That is because all of this is recently relevant in the series. For example, it is where (if we had known) we saw an nFected Maeve. That and the Black Council are still important enemies.
Finally, Time Travel is a horrible answer in this series. If I were Harry and I time traveled from the end of the series I would:
1 - Go back in Time and Kill Cowl.
2 - Ditto with Peabody
3 - Same with Arianna
4 - And the rest of the Red Court
5 - And heck while we are at it the Fomor
If you can not see the problem with going back in time, then remember this - if you can...do the "Kill the bad guy" thing before it becomes a problem for Harry. Why would TT Harry just not wait at Molly's, Kill the Fetches, and move along. He knows they are showing up.
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