The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection

Mab/Murphy Ironies

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raidem:
So many of you have asked about my Mab/Murphy theory.  I truly don't know how it could happen, either in some alternate reality it is true, or if it did occur in the past via TT, or she becomes Mab in the future.  But, I think I can say a case can be made where there are potential ironies that exist should Jim skew that way.  There are more than the ones I listed here, but these are the ones that I recall at the moment.

(click to show/hide)1)
--- Quote ---2. the white council - isn't mab her true name?
It's /one/ of her Names.  But God help the simp (or Council of simps) who tries to control her with that and nothing else.  Ugh, that would get ugly.
--- End quote ---

--- Quote ---Instead of trying to play shepherd, you need to play coach, and get her into shape to do what she needs to do."
"But that means-"
"Telling her everything," my double said. "The White Council, the Nevernever, all of it."
"The Council won't like it. If I tell her and they hear about it, they might consider her a security risk."
"And if you don't make her able to understand what she's fighting, something's going to eat her face some dark night. Murphy's a big girl. The Council had better be careful if they decide to go messing with her." My double considered Murphy for a moment. "You should ask her out sometime, too."
"I should what?" I said.
--- End quote ---
2)
--- Quote ---WOJ- Mab wasn't always so big, followed by :).
Murphy constantly joked with about her height.
Shakespeare reference to Hermia in Midsummer's Night Dream (And though she be but little, she is fierce.)

--- End quote ---
*)
--- Quote ---Something was upsetting her. A lot.
"Murph?" I asked through the door. "Where did the aliens hide your pod?"
She opened the door enough to scowl at me. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"No pod, huh. Maybe you're an evil twin from another dimension or something."
The muscles along her jaw clenched, and her expression promised murder.
I sighed. "You don't seem to be your usual serf. I'm not an analyst or anything, but you kinda look like something is bothering you. Just maybe."
She waved a hand. "It's this paperwork-"
"No, it isn't," I said. "Come on, Murphy. It's me."
"I don't want to talk about it."
--- End quote ---
So what does she not want to talk about...a Family Reunion where she won't have a date and the fact she had two divorces. It's also the first reference to familial dementia with the second reference being made by Sarissa in Cold Days) Murphy later finds out her ex will be her brother in law, ouch. And, her mother is accepting of it.  Who does that start to remind you of, cough.

--- Quote ---Oberon... well, the guy kind of wound up between Mab and Titania in one of those romantic triangle things, back around Shakespeare's day. He didn't make it.
--- End quote ---
That sounds like Mab and Titania maybe had some jealous/rivalry issues in their past.  I wonder where that came from.
3)
--- Quote ---She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to make any more decisions. So . . . I think I’m going to go get really drunk. And then have mindless sex with the first reasonably healthy male who walks by. Then have a really awkward hangover. And after that, we’ll see.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” I said. And my mouth kept going without checking in with the rest of me. Again. “Do you want some company?...Her hand went to her hair and she forced it back down. “I want to . . .” She took a breath. “I’ll pick you up in an hour?”
--- End quote ---
Who picks Harry up in an Hour, Mab after he is shot dead.
(click to show/hide)4)
--- Quote ---Karrin’s hands flew out from behind her back in a shower of broken chips of black ice. She tore her little holdout gun from a concealed ankle holster.
“No!” I shouted.
Two shots rang out, almost simultaneously.Something hissed spitefully past my ear.
A neat, round black hole appeared just to the side of Maeve’s nose, at the fine line of her cheekbone.
Maeve blinked twice. Her face fell into what was almost precisely the same expression of confusion Lily’s had. A trickle of blood ran from the hole.
--- End quote ---

--- Quote ---Mab moved so quickly that I literally never saw it. The gun was suddenly, simply gone from my hand and was being pushed into my face—in exactly the same spot where Maeve had been shot.
--- End quote ---

--- Quote ---“Was it hard for you to kill Maeve?”
Mab did not turn around. When she spoke, her voice had something in it I had never heard there before and never heard again—uncertainty. Vulnerability.
“I was mortal once, you know,” she said, very quietly.
--- End quote ---
But, Murphy, a mortal, had killed Maeve.
5)
--- Quote ---I clenched my fists along with my teeth. “You . . . you bitch.”
Mab slapped me.
--- End quote ---
Whose the other bitch in the series.  Just kidding.

--- Quote ---Her smile sharpened. “Is it not quite the game?” she asked. “In my younger days, I would have relished such a novel challenge.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Gee. Thanks.”
--- End quote ---
And yet...

--- Quote ---“It is necessary to set one condition.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What condition?”
“Backup,” I said. “I want an extra pair of eyes along. Someone of my choosing.”
--- End quote ---
Harry chose Murphy as his Backup, who perhaps in 'her' younger days, participated in the 'novel challenge.'
6) Just examine in a reread of all the deals Murphy makes. She is very transactional.  It's likely she has lots of faerie blood given her Irish roots. And her families proximity in dealing with the supernatural.
(click to show/hide)Harry touches Molly, Winter Lady via dream.

--- Quote ---I dreamed.
It was one of those fever dreams, noisy and bright and disjointed. I don’t remember many of the details—just that I could never keep up with what was happening, and I felt as though as soon as my eyes would focus on something, everything would change, and as soon as I caught up to the action that was happening in the dream, it would roar off in a different direction, leaving me struggling to reorient myself, trying to keep up the pace with my feet dragging in the mud. The whole while, I was conscious of several other Harry Dresdens in the dream, all of them operating a little ways off from me, doing their own confusion dance in parallel to mine, and we occasionally paused to wave at one another and exchange polite complaints.
Toward the end of it, I found myself driving along some random section of road in my old multicolored Volkswagen Bug, the Blue Beetle, scowling ahead through heavy rain. My apprentice, Molly, sat next to me.
--- End quote ---

Harry touches Mab/Murphy, Winter Queen through dream?

--- Quote ---“Now,” she breathed. “Don’t hold back. Don’t hold back.”
And suddenly I couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t want to. I braced my hands on the bed, holding my weight off of her, and could think of nothing but how good it felt, about the pleasure building and building.
“Yes,” Karrin hissed. “Come on.”
I reached the shuddering edge—
—and felt something cold and hard press against my temple.
I opened my eyes and saw her holding her SIG against the side of my head. And as I watched, a second set of eyes, glowing with a hellish violet light, opened above her eyebrows, and a burning sigil of the same fire, in a shape vaguely reminiscent of an hourglass, appeared on her forehead.
Her voice changed, became lower, richer, more sensual. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” she purred.
And then she pulled the trigger.
--- End quote ---
Placeholder.

raidem:
Bah, can someone help me find the WOJ that Mab wasn't always so big :).  I distinctly remember Jim stating something like that with a smiley alluding to Mab being a dew drop faerie, or at least something consistent with Shakespeare, at least in humor.  I liked to take it as Jim hinting at Murphy being Tiny.

Ananda:
Do you mean similarities and coincidences of word choice in description rather than irony? I’m not seeing irony.

Personally, I would find such small universe loops to be boring. Let the universe, which is already small, not collapse in on itself. Also, Butcher’s writing is not exactly high art. That he repeats phrases and words is probably more a function of churning out the stories and a pretty short editing process. You can find a lot of sentences and paragraphs in the books that cry out for further editing. And, some authors just have favourite words; look at Stephen R Donaldson with his “roynish” and “gloaming”.

I think Murphy is Murphy and Mab is Mab and that you’re seeing things that aren’t there.

jonas:

--- Quote from: Ananda on October 15, 2017, 02:50:52 AM ---Do you mean similarities and coincidences of word choice in description rather than irony? I’m not seeing irony.

Personally, I would find such small universe loops to be boring. Let the universe, which is already small, not collapse in on itself. Also, Butcher’s writing is not exactly high art. That he repeats phrases and words is probably more a function of churning out the stories and a pretty short editing process. You can find a lot of sentences and paragraphs in the books that cry out for further editing. And, some authors just have favourite words; look at Stephen R Donaldson with his “roynish” and “gloaming”.

I think Murphy is Murphy and Mab is Mab and that you’re seeing things that aren’t there.

--- End quote ---
One day, ONE DAY, he will no longer have any more of his original storyline to protect and maybe then he'll open up on all those things short sighted people missed. The breadth and depth of combining pop culture and mythologies from across the globe would get it a pass even if it wasn't magnificently layered and set up. A 20 book preplanned series that actually made it to fruition in the main stream? That gives it so much bona fides.
fyi- an maybe a curator would know where it originally came from, because I first heard it from Serack, Jim intentionally uses words to cross connect idea's. Someone did a thread on the blackmagic/ N connection words iirc.

raidem:
Well, I said potential irony, in the case that Murphy=Mab. 

These are coincidences.  We assume many of these to have different non meanings in regard to mab and Murphy.  I'm the only one that has pursued it in any capacity. There is potential irony in the case of a reading whereby Murphy is truly mab.  It puts an entirely different spin on what is being said, Which is a type of irony.

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