The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers

Re-interpreting the events of Small Favor

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kbrizzle:
Using the knowledge gleaned in the later books, I re-visited this one to understand what was really going on.

From what I can tell, the Black Council's goal was to waylay Mab's future plans involving Marcone & weaken the Unseelie Accords. However I find the reasons why Nicodemus & Titania want to be involved in this book puzzling.

Why does Nic go along with this plan?
I understand that he feels that he needs to get back at Marcone for the "insult" given to him in Death Masks, & I'm sure having a Signatory to the Accords under his influence are important to him, but are these really enough for him to work with Tessa again, and go to "corporate" for support with the greater circle? We know that Nic hasn't worked with Tessa for nearly 700 years, is this really important enough for that?

I find it hard to believe that the plan to capture Marcone was expressly set up to capture the Archive - I believe this was opportunistic. The Denarians had no way of knowing that (a) Mab would use Harry in this case (likely since it was in Chicago, but Nic/ Anduriel would know that Harry hates Marcone) or (b) Even if Mab involves Harry, that he would reach out to Ivy instead of the White Council to mediate this dispute. Even if Harry doesn't trust the Council, he trusts Ebenezer, Rashid & probably Injun Joe & Luccio as well. Its possible that Nic & Anduriel had been spying on Harry enough to conjecture that he would call on Ivy, but the question becomes, why now? Why not go after Ivy when she was even younger & less able to defend herself?

The only explanation I can come up with is that Nic wants to know if Mab is Nfected, insane or weak. In Skin Game we see that Nic has a cause he is seemingly devoted to (perhaps fighting Nemesis in his own way) - if knows the true purpose of the Winter Court (guard the Gates), and he is hearing on the supernatural grapevine that Mab may be crazy, perhaps he cares enough to invest some real effort in finding this out. I wouldn't be surprised if this is what Tessa used to convince him to join.

Why does Titania oppose Mab in this instance?
From what I can understand, the Summer Court exists to keep the Winter Court in check - i.e. make sure they are not distracted by matters not pertinent to guarding the Gates & in doing so, sparing most of the world from Winter's cruelty. By sending Harry to rescue Marcone, Mab is simply trying to enforce her own Accords, which I'm assuming Summer is also a Signatory of - so why would Titania send the Gruffs to stop Harry from being able to do this?

In the only hint of an explanation we see is in Cold Days where Titania is shown to be ridiculously angry with Harry - she says that without Eldest Gruff's counsel (whom Harry met at the very end of the book), she would not have moved on at all. So perhaps this was her focusing her wrath upon Harry before Eldest Gruff is able to calm her down.


The Black Council's plan is a little easier to fathom -

* Kidnap Marcone - ruin Mab's future plans
* The Black Council/ Maeve learn that Mab has big plans for the newly created Baron of Chicago & use their allies in the Denarians to abduct him, putting extreme effort into bypassing Marcone's security. I would not be surprised if the Denarians' plan was to give the captured Marcone an Nfected coin, or just kill him to remove him from play
* As we see in Skin Game, Mab has plotted for years to find a way to get the weapons in Hades' vault. The way she chooses is to support Marcone's bank for the supernatural, which accomplishes 2 goals - it severely punishes Nic for screwing with the Accords & it gains her entry into Hades' vault so Harry can retrieve the 5 artifacts/ weapons. Marcone is crucial to this plan working.
* Kidnap Marcone - weaken the Unseelie Accords
* The overarching plot of the series so far is that Nemesis is attempting to take over by breaking the supernatural alliances that keep the various powers from fighting each other in self-destructive wars. The way it chooses to do so is by weakening the Unseelie Accords, which were sponsored by the Winter Court - meaning that unless Winter is able to enforce the terms of the Accords, why should anyone obey?
* The seeming inability of Mab to go after the Red Court for violating her own passages is the plot of Proven Guilty - this signals to all the other powers that Mab may not be as strong as she was when the Accords were signed. We see that by White Night even the likes of Lara Raith are testing the Unseelie Accords (Harry points out that Lara had kidnapped a bunch of little folk to deliberately give the Winter Court a minor insult to see what they would do - which is nothing, since Mab has more important things to worry about)
* The Black Council uses its agents in the Denarians to convince them to kidnap Marcone. As I mentioned above, I believe Ivy's involvement was simply a bonus. If Mab is unable to stop 1 Signatory from simply grabbing another, it would signal to the rest of the supernatural world that the Accords were no longer in being adhered to, & with the White Council fighting an expensive war of attrition, everyone was fair play.

morriswalters:
The Denarians did a lot of work to hold Ivy at Demonreach.  That couldn't have been done on the fly, it had to take some time wouldn't you think?  And if you kill or corrupt the archive the Oblivion War would be lost.

Kindler:
Personally, I think if Harry had tried to bring in the White Council, Nic would have rejected the idea. Then he could have insisted on a neutral third party, and eventually suggested the Archive if Harry didn't.

I think he worked with Tessa and her crew to find out if she was their "own Judas." And working with her brought him the opportunity to influence or dominate the Archive.

I think a better question about Summer is this: how did they know that Harry was Winter's Emissary several hours before Mab went to him? The Gruffs hit the Carpenter house right away, and it's not till the wee hours of the morning that Harry runs into Mab on the way back from Marcone's blown-up hideout. Not only that, but there wasn't even a breach of the Unseelie Accords until after the first Gruff attack, which seems entirely unprovoked, now that I think about it: Marcone hadn't been taken yet, unless I remember things wrong.

morriswalters:

--- Quote from: kbrizzle ---(b) Even if Mab involves Harry, that he would reach out to Ivy instead of the White Council to mediate this dispute.
--- End quote ---
The White Council couldn't mediate, Harry is a member.  And the only neutral party that Harry is knows of is the archive.  Only a signatory nation can lodge the protest.  The only two other signatories in town at the time were Marcone and the Denarians.  If you don't count Summer.

--- Quote ---I think a better question about Summer is this: how did they know that Harry was Winter's Emissary several hours before Mab went to him?
--- End quote ---
Titania wanted Harry dead  But that debt lay at Mab's feet since Harry was acting for Winter.  Snatching Marcone was meant to get Mab to do just what she did.  Enlist a mortal champion.  Being how she was in the middle of a torture session with the current Knight.  Who you gonna call?  Harry is where he always is, the last to know.  Everybody was using somebody.  Marcone was Titania, the Archive was Nic.  Harry was everybody's chew toy. Titania's appoints Nic her emissary, and has him breech the Accords by snatching Marcone.  Mab goes to her Knight in waiting.  Harry is now fair game.  This starts the shot clock.  This suits Nic since it will bring the Archive out of cover to where she can be taken.  He brings in everybody because he expects the Archive to be unhappy.  Thirteen dead Nickleheads later, he is proven correct. 

Harry sending Eldest Gruff to Chicago for a doughnut ran out the shot clock and ended the mayhem.  Leaving nobody happy.  Eldest Gruff calms down the Summer Queen in time and Mab burns Nick in Skin Game.  I don't know that's what went down but it's good enough for me. :)  Nic actually got forked twice counting Tessa's early departure.

dspringer1:
My own perspective
1) Nic recruits only the best agents (aka - quality).  Recruiting Marcone would be a coup for Nic, although obviously it would be very difficult as the coin must be picked up willingly.  Then again, Nic tortured Harry and waved the coin as a way to escape the torture when he tried to recruit Harry.   It is possible that Nic was playing the same game with Marcone.

2) Nic clearly wanted Harry involved.   He thought Harry was resisting Lasciel and needed another push.  Nic clearly wanted Harry to commit to the Fallen side. 

3) IF Harry was involved, it is logical that the Archive would also be involved.  Harry sticks close to the people he knows and Nic has spent centuries learning how to study his enemies and use their habits against them.   


The big question in my mind is the archive.   On one hand, corrupting the archive would be a huge coup.  Because every archive from that point on would have the memories of a corrupted archive tempting them to also take up a coin.  Especially when the archive first passes on, that might be a lot of temptation.   It would also give a great deal of power to the fallen.  The Archive has information that could accelerate Armageddon tremendously and Nic is clearly playing the Armageddon game.   

However, the true purpose of the Archive is as a defense against ancient and dark gods.  Compromising that defense would potentially introduce a bunch of competitors to the Armageddon game.  I doubt Nic benefits much from somebody else winning the Armageddon game. 

My guess is that Nic is playing the odds.   Either the attempt will fail and his ex-wife gets a big enemy or it fails when the archive goes insane or it fails and the the dark gods come back.   Or it succeeds.   I can totally see him seeing that the odds of success are decent and the odds of a really bad outcome failure low.   That sounds like a gamble he is willing to make.   

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