g33k - I agree. Outsiders even if they are aware of Nuclear weapons, likely don't care. They have reality-ending power, Nuclear weapons are firecrackers compares to the power of the Sun, let alone an event that would end everything. Hell they are firecrackers compared to Hurricanes, at least in terms of energy. Humans are powerful, sure. But we are mostly really only capable of ending Life on our little planet, not everything everywhere. As Bob says, destruction is easy. All you really have to do is wait and let Entropy do its work. Creation is hard. Hence its value.
POTUS, if they are even aware of the position, probably doesn't really rank very highly in their eyes. Humanity and mortals are much more deadly to beings of our world than them in the traditional sense. Mortals' real strength comes from our ability to Choose, I suspect.
Kbrizzle -
1) Maeve is a high value target, considering her influence in Winter and her potential to become Queen. Nemesis' is a sapper, and wants to open the Gates from the inside. And sorry for the confusion, metaphors become difficult when dealing with the supernatural. I did not mean that the entirety of Nemesis jumps from host to host - far from it. I do not necessarily believe it behaves like any virus from Creation either, I am merely borrowing Jim's analogy. I believe that this thing has no such limits - it is more like a gestalt being, able to exist in many bodies. It doesn't copy itself, it doesn't exactly move, it merely "spreads". Think a large amount of butter on many pieces of bread. It's all the same butter, the bread is different. And I believe as we don't know the exact mechanism of infection, it makes it difficult to ascertain why it hasn't spread further. However I think the biggest hint we have so far is power. The acquisition of power, perhaps of specific types of power, seems to be the door.
2) What is interesting to me about your argument here is you are perfectly willing to accept that Lily is correct and truthful about Nemesis changing that which it ought not to change, based on information from a source you believe is untrustworthy. But you won't accept the rest of her statements...because you believe the source is untrustworthy. You can't cherry pick here - either you accept that Maeve gave credible information, or you don't. We have literally no other frame of reference to figure out which bits are true or otherwise. As for the rest of your statement -see above.
Kindler -
1) I suppose that is true, if Sells was never infected then the issue doesn't exist. However what you say does not address a key factor: why one reason but not another? Why is Dark Magic, Mental Manipulation, Demonic Influence etc explain these out of character behaviors better than Nemesis. Assuming all these things are not linked (which is a definite possibility, plausibly at least some of those things are linked) why are these reasons more plausible than Nemesis? And we are dealing with probability here, not possibility. There are many more possible reasons that Sells, the FBI agents, and Kravos would act they way they did - what we are trying to do here is eliminate the possibilities and focus on what the probabilities are. We have in-text a character saying that these beings were affected by Nemesis, and that is why they went for Dark Arts in the first place. What we do not have is a plausible explanation for why any of these characters would pursue the Dark Arts in the first place. We can assume many reasons, but we have a very small pool of actual evidence, and the evidence we do have says directly that the reason they pursued Dark Arts in the first place was Nemesis. If there is an alternative, backed up by hard evidence, I am all ears. But so far no one yet has found anything to the contrary beyond speculation and theory. Interesting theories though they are.
3)I really enjoy your theory on the reason for Three Eye (that is the correct name, to answer your question) emerging. I do believe that many beings want an end to the Masquerade - for various different reasons but almost all would give them more power. However there are many who oppose this as well, I think, because there positions are already quite secure and feel no need to upset the Status Quo. This I believe goes a long way to explaining the seemingly opposing actions within certain supernatural organisations and nations. Great WAG btw.
3) To answer you other post - how would Lily know that Denton etc were infected? Knowledge and Power go hand in hand, and even the minor Faeries Queens have a lot of Power. So even if Lily wasn't up to speed on all the big secrets in Faerie, I suspect in terms of current affairs she would have a pretty good knowledge. What is also interesting about your comment, is that for the first two cases (Sells and FBI agents), Maeve hadn't yet been introduced and did not even know Dresden. She would not have even been infected back then. So how would she have known either? Considering Lily becomes Winter Lady around the same time we first are introduced to Maeve, and Maeve was still a book or two from being infected, there is still plenty of time for both to learn about this new Winter Emissary of Mab's who killed Aurora and saved Faerie. And as Bad Alias points out - Harry speculates Maeve moved to Undertown when Mab came to the city, we don't actually know that. I think we cannot simply dismiss Lily's accusation as merely a guess, especially when we have so very little hard evidence to say that her information was false. Theories must fit facts, rather than facts being made to fit theories. And the facts are that we have an accusation that Harry's first few cases were all Nfected. We have the Gatekeeper saying that Harry's actions over the past few years have resulted in a series of well-placed thumbs (as he puts it) in Nemesis' eye. We have Vadderung saying everything is connected and Harry is only just learning who the players are (in a talk that discusses Sells and the Red Court). And we have the Gatekeeper and Mother Summer's reveal that it is an Outsider, that is a sapper trying to open the gates from this side. We also have Lily saying it is an Outsider virus, and Titania confirming that it has a name (and that she would know if Mab was infected). And we learn of Outsiders in the very first Dresden Files case. The theory that Lily was wrong does not fit, considering the evidence.
KurtinStGeorge - As Kindler points out, Nemesis wasn't using Maeve as a sock puppet. It mostly appears to influence, rather than puppet its hosts. Maeve was merely enjoying her knew ability. And she had no idea how dangerous the ability to lie really is. It got her killed. We are also assuming that the reason Maeve knew about Nemesis was from Nemesis telling her. Except as Dresden points out in Cold Days, it is because of Lily's relative newness in being Summer Lady that she likely didn't know. Maeve has been around for several centuries, she knew quite probably knew about the Adversary. At least in part. She knew about starborns and the Sleepers, I would say her knowledge of the big stuff far outstripped young Lily. And I am not saying btw, that Sells or any other Mortal was a sock puppet. I think they were mostly just being nudged along. We never saw any other evidence to the contrary that they were being possessed. I just think that Nemesis is more like ringworm or botfly, it just lives inside making the host sicker until it can't fight it off. Hell there are zombie worms that control snails in nature. Life is weird enough, who knows what something beyond reality would do. I think they were corrupted, but how and why is contentious. See my argument to Kindler.
Bad Alias -
1) She used synonyms. It is semantics at this point. But to use your analogy - you may not possess or partake drugs, but the money and culture of it may have influenced you. However we are also talking spirit here, and so in the Dresden Files, you would in a sense have been "corrupted". Jim often talks about how you can lose your soul without any supernatural thing being involved. The key word in her sentence is "them". She says they are tainted, not their lives. She makes a great deal out of the fact it has changed them, not that it is merely affecting their lives indireclty. Mab directly says (and she cannot lie) that the Leanansidhe was tainted by Morgana's Athame, and she spread it to Maeve. I don't know how much more proof you want, but I think the definition Jim is using means infected.
2) Ok so hypothetically if we go with your definition for taint in this context, sure. But by that logic, Nemesis has tainted Harry and just about anyone else affected by it's actions. But Lily doesn't go "Dresden you have been tainted" even if her ability to check for Nemesis was bulldust. She clears him, even though his life has been greatly impacted by the actions of Nemesis. So has just about everyone in those cases, but Lily doesn't mention them either. She specifically mentions the villains. Food for thought.
3) Nemesis briefly took full control of Cat Sith. We have no idea of the long term effects of that. We don't know if his personality remains, if he would remember the incident. What we do know is that it changed his fundamental nature so thoroughly that he couldn't fulfill his oath, his duty to Dresden even before Cat Sith was aware of the infection. Also as above, I don't think Nemesis uses sock puppets much. We haven't really seen anything to suggest that it would do so unless revealed (which Titania implied, as did Lily and Maeve, that that would force it to either infest or kill anyone aware of it, within its power). By that logic, Nemesis isn't in complete control of any of its hosts most of the time. Which is likely. Easier to keep pushing its victims to doing its bidding than actually actively controlling everything. Perhaps it can't. We don't know its limits. Mostly, it only seems to resort to that sock puppet move when discovered - to which it promptly tried to kill Dresden (which I think we can take as a good sign Dresden is not yet infected).
4) The WOJ you are referring to was discussing what would happen if a Knight had both mantles. I think he was saying it would destroy the Knight, not the Mantles though. If as you suggest, the power of Summer would blow up if combined into Winter, Aurora's entire plan to destabilize the Courts makes no sense. Which pretty much every powerful being thought was a credible threat. There is a WOJ answering a fan who said what they believed happens is that the Power in the mantle is transferred into the Court that holds the Stone Table, not the mantle itself. The energy therefore is not destroyed but changes. Which is consistent with physics. It is the Mortal form that is weak and cannot handle the energies, not the Courts. I believe that they often has stolen/eaten each others Power before. How else would anything change? The power-sucking Stone Table in Tir-Na Nog is there for a reason.
Also yeah, I think what happens is Dresden says in Cold Days it was Leah was tainted by the knife, and spread it to Maeve. p463 of Cold Days.
Everyone - I sincerely apologise for the 2000 word essay. There was a lot to come back to after two days.
