The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Mab chose Molly
Mira:
--- Quote ---Certainly Mab picked Molly to be Winter Lady. She had Lea prep her in Ghost Story. She could do that because she was Harry's apprentice. Molly couldn't say no since she was cut off from everybody else. She endured exactly the same kind of things Harry and Sarissa endured in the beginning of Cold Days.
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Not exactly, page 499 Cold Days
--- Quote ---"Why?" I demanded. "Why did you do it to her?"
"It was not my intention for her to replace Maeve," Mab said. "Frankly, I would have considered her a better candidate for Summer."
"You still haven't told me why,"I said.
"I meant for Sarissa to take Maeve's place," Mab said. "But one does not place all one's hopes with any one place,person, or plan. Like chess, the superior player does nor plan to accomplish a single gambit, a particular entrapment. She establishes her pieces so that regardless of what her enemy does, she has forces ready to respond, to adapt, and to destroy,
Molly was made ready as a contingency." [b/]
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Molly was a back up plan.
--- Quote ---The story arc that ended with Molly as Winter Lady and Harry as Winter Knight started in Grave Peril. In Death Masks Molly, who is way too young, gives love advice to Harry that will end with Susan pregnant. Jim had to have this in mind. In Proven Guilty Harry binds her to him as his apprentice to avoid a beheading. In Turn Coat he spends a lot of time telling Molly not to do exactly what he'll ask her to do in Changes. Where he then proceeds to throw her under the bus by taking the cowards way out. Since he left her under a sentence of death when he has himself killed, Mab sent Lea in to get her ready.
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I could go along with all of that except, Molly knew perfectly well why Harry asked her to wipe his memory. She knew of the suicide and why it was necessary for his mind to be wiped. She could have objected, she was of age, she isn't stupid, she understood and went along. Perhaps out of love for Harry, perhaps because she didn't want to see him as the slave of Mab as Winter Knight,either. She could rationalize, but that won't stop the human mind from feeling guilt after the fact which hers did. Now is that why she became the rag lady? Or is the simply rationalization because as we saw in Turn Coat, Molly didn't have any problem using her mental magical abilities if she thought she was right, even if the consequences of that would mean not just her head but Harry's head as well. Assisting a suicide isn't a simple matter... Also suicide isn't a simple matter, to call it a coward's way out is offensive.
--- Quote ---“Is it not?” Mab asked. “Have I misunderstood? First you captured her imagination and affection as an associate of her father’s. You made her curious about what you could do, and nurtured that curiosity with silence. Then when she went to explore the Art, you elected not to interfere until such time as she found herself in dire straits—at which point your aid placed her deep within your obligation. You used that and her emotional attachment to you to plant and reap a follower who was talented, loyal, and in your debt. It was actually very well-done.”
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Mab is so good at twisting, that is why you don't bargain with the Fae...
1] Should Harry not have become friends with Michael?
2] Harry has never kept secret what he is, Molly has always known what he is, she also knows what her parents think of him. Did Harry make himself out as a hero to her? I really don't think so, Molly's own imagination filled in those blanks just as most pre-teen and teenage girls will do upon whom she has a crush.. Which usually is on someone unattainable and not that person's fault.
3] Harry had no clue she was exploring magic or had talent, he had no reason to. Until Proven Guilty Charity told him nothing of her own talent. Molly never told him she thought she had talent, nor did she openly demonstrate that talent.
4] Harry was able to keep her head on her shoulders.. Yes, it reaped him a talented follower in his debt.. So? I mean should he have allowed the Merlin to lop off her head? Did any other wizard step up to share the Doom with her? No, this is how Mab can be telling the absolute truth, but at the same time not because it is only half truths..
--- Quote ---Mab leaned closer to me and said, “That is precisely what you did,” she said. “The only thing you did not do is admit to yourself that you were doing it. Which is why you never availed yourself of her charms. You told yourself lovely, idealistic lies, and you had a powerful, talented, loyal girl willing to give her life for yours who also had nowhere else to turn for help. As far as your career as a mentor goes, you grew into much the same image as DuMorne.”
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Harry was right, that isn't what he did, but he didn't stand his ground, as always taking blame where there is little or none. Mab came at him from an emotional sore spot, comparing him to DuMorne...
Mab accuses him of being smug because he didn't take sexual advantage of her. Well, another word for it is, "professional.." Also from that soul gaze, he knew very well how easily it would have been to take advantage of her in that way.
Molly did have people to turn to for help, though not wizards she had two caring and intelligent
parents. Not at all like young Harry and DuMorne, Harry had Elaine, but she had been enthralled that morning which DuMorne then attempted to do to Harry.
morriswalters:
I know you disagree, but it is precisely how Jim wrote it. So the reader won't miss it he has Uriel say.
--- Quote ---“I believe that when you went after your daughter, you said something about letting the world burn. That you and your daughter would roast marshmallows.” I nodded bleakly. “It is one thing for you to say, ‘Let the world burn.’ It is another to say, ‘Let Molly burn.’ The difference is all in the name.”
Butcher, Jim. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) (p. 555). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
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Why was Michael's child worth less than Maggie? That was the choice Harry made. He made a promise to Molly and broke it. She was still under the doom and he left her swinging in the wind. And this has nothing to do with anything Molly did. He should never have asked her. His only saving grace was seven words.
Again another place where we disagree.
--- Quote ---2] Harry has never kept secret what he is, Molly has always known what he is, she also knows what her parents think of him. Did Harry make himself out as a hero to her? I really don't think so, Molly's own imagination filled in those blanks just as most pre-teen and teenage girls will do upon whom she has a crush.. Which usually is on someone unattainable and not that person's fault.
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That Harry is oblivious makes not one whit of difference. Jim actually trolls you with this at the start of Proven Guilty. Harry's bitching about how warlocks are killed by the Wardens. Yet under his nose, the daughter of his best friend goes warlock and he misses it. Pot, kettle, black? I bet you Jim fell off his chair laughing when he wrote that.
Just for the record the Dresden Files is a noir-ish mystery. This isn't me hating on Harry. The protagonist is supposed to be flawed. He isn't Superman.
LostInTime:
--- Quote from: Beldon on October 14, 2021, 02:27:36 PM ---I don't have the book available for reference, but in the conversation that Harry and Mab have, she as much as said that Molly's association with Harry is what put her on Mab's radar. She admitted that she was prepping molly as a fallback if something happened to Sarissa. Also according to Harry, the mantle had to go to someone with fae blood, so Murph would not be an option. I had long wondered why the mantle went directly to Sarissa and Molly. The summer lady mantle should have gone to Fix as established in summer knight (need reference). The winter mantle should have gone directly to Mab, but she easily could have redirected it to Molly herself.
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Harry is an unreliable narrator. And the fae hoard knowledge. They aren't going to give it to you without you cornering them by asking them three times or making a bargain for knowledge with them.
In Summer Knight, Lily says that no mortal has ever received a fae mantle before. Mab and Titania were both mortal and they were both ladies. If fae blood is required to receive a mantle how did Molly get it? We know who their parents were and they were both human mortals.
It was the cold, logical decision in Changes that put Molly on Mab's radar. Or was it the injury that Molly did by trying to deprive Mab of her Knight? When you do a fae injury, they MUST balance the scales. They don't have a choice. Just as if you do them a favor or make a bargain with them, they MUST balance the scales.
LostInTime:
--- Quote from: The_Sibelis on October 14, 2021, 02:23:27 PM ---I absolutely hate when someone says this. Virginity is a spiritual ideal of giving yourself to someone. Rape doesn't count. Very much so in a world we're metaphysical things are tangible.best not to ask me to clarify. I really shouldn't have to.
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Your position isn't supported by the books, yet.
LostInTime:
My point is, we don't know the mechanism and criteria for choosing the lady when the mantle opens up. There's been conjecture, but it's not knowing conjecture. The only people who know are the fae queens, and mothers. And that doesn't include the ladies. Because I get the feeling there's gaps in the intellectus the ladies are privy to. And even if they knew the whole story, neither of them could relate it to Harry.
Bob, like Harry, is not an unimpeachable source. Most of the time he's near enough to absolutely correct. But even back to Fool Moon, he listed all the werewolves, but missed Tara West's type of werewolf.
I think we're going to get the whole spiel on the fae courts, how they came to be and how they operate. But the only person who can tell that story is Mother Winter and we'll probably have to wait until the BAT to get that story.
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