The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
We gotta talk about Margaret LeFay
g33k:
--- Quote from: Lord Kinbote on July 20, 2024, 02:56:03 PM ---Maybe someone has already wrote this in this thread - or cited canon that disproves it - but I believe a "mantle" to refer to a role/level of power/set of abilities that MUST transfer when the entity (vessel) that currently contains that mantle dies.
Winter/Summer Lady dies, when the W/S Knight dies, the mantle MUST go immediately to another. Presumably same applies to Mother W/S, Mab, and Titania, except that those mantles automatically pass to the next in the hierarchical line based on Battle Ground (Mab - 'kill Molly if I die; she's not ready for the Mab mantle').
But the transfers at the bottom of the Mother/Queen/Lady hierarchy isn't controlled by the dying entity or even apparently the Fae hierarchy, who seem only able to position a possible vessel for the bottom tier mantle to take but the mantle goes the the closest, "best" vessel (whatever "best" means and is determined).
Whether that causes an automatic cascading effect (e.g., Mab's mantle automatically to Molly, then the WL mantle automatically exits to head to another vessel) or whether a vessel simultaneously can take the "seeking" mantle and keep the mantle already contained isn't revealed by canon. But maybe Mab's 'kill Molly' hints that Molly would have had both the Mab mantle and the WL mantle, and that's what she couldn't handle.
The Winter/Summer Knight mantle may be different, though, and seem controllable by the W/S Queen. Insofar as we know or has been hinted, the W/S Knight mantle is an appointed position, not part of a hierarchy, and the selection of the vessel is controlled by the W/S Queen to at least some degree.
Maybe the Leanansidhe mantle - if it is one - is similarly controlled by Mab.
--- End quote ---
I'm pretty sure that there are at least hints, and maybe overt statements, that the Queens and the Mothers can override the auto-succession and hold onto a lesser mantle. But they almost never do so: it's really bad for the respective Court, and/or for Reality itself, to have those roles "empty."
Cannot cite sources at the moment, sorry.
Mira:
--- Quote from: g33k on July 21, 2024, 03:38:53 PM ---I'm pretty sure that there are at least hints, and maybe overt statements, that the Queens and the Mothers can override the auto-succession and hold onto a lesser mantle. But they almost never do so: it's really bad for the respective Court, and/or for Reality itself, to have those roles "empty."
Cannot cite sources at the moment, sorry.
--- End quote ---
If the Queens can override automatic succession, why did Mab want Harry to kill Molly if something happened to her? Couldn't she just have put an override on it so the succession wouldn't have happened? Also another little problem doesn't she have to be dead before the mantel can jump in the first place? And if she were dead, how could Mab override the succession?
g33k:
--- Quote from: Mira on July 21, 2024, 04:02:13 PM ---If the Queens can override automatic succession, why did Mab want Harry to kill Molly if something happened to her? Couldn't she just have put an override on it so the succession wouldn't have happened? Also another little problem doesn't she have to be dead before the mantel can jump in the first place? And if she were dead, how could Mab override the succession?
--- End quote ---
Context, Mira.
I was replying to -- quoting -- the specific context of Kinbote saying that the succession is always automatic, and cannot be stopped. I think -- if they really need to -- that the Mothers can each hold on to any of their lesser mantles, while they move their pawns into the right configurations. And the Queens, I think, can do the same with the mantles of their Ladies and their Knights. But the Queens & Mothers almost never see the need to do so.
You're correct (I think, we have no canon here) that a dead Mab couldn't interfere with Molly ascending to the Queenmantle, and I wasn't trying to suggest that.
Mira:
--- Quote --- the specific context of Kinbote saying that the succession is always automatic, and cannot be stopped
--- End quote ---
I think that was pretty well established in Summer Knight, that the mantel will always flow to the nearest vessel that can receive it. The Mothers confirmed that when Harry visited them. Also confirming that was what happened in Cold Days, if Mab had her preferences Sarissa would have gotten the Winter Lady's mantel and Molly the Summer Lady's mantel, but it was out of her hands once the mantels began to migrate.
g33k:
--- Quote from: Mira on July 21, 2024, 09:03:48 PM ---I think that was pretty well established in Summer Knight, that the mantel will always flow to the nearest vessel that can receive it. The Mothers confirmed that when Harry visited them.
--- End quote ---
I think in Summer Knight it was a special case: an unexpected murder, done by surprise. I don't think Titania had the chance to intervene.
I'll have to re-read the scene with the mothers, though.
--- Quote from: Mira on July 21, 2024, 09:03:48 PM ---Also confirming that was what happened in Cold Days, if Mab had her preferences Sarissa would have gotten the Winter Lady's mantel and Molly the Summer Lady's mantel, but it was out of her hands once the mantels began to migrate.
--- End quote ---
Sarissa got the Summer mantle 1st. That one is outside Mab's control -- she couldn't hold it.
So that one was a done deal... then the Winter mantle also had to move (and Sarissa was already taken).
(eta: I have long wondered, though -- why not move to one of the Winterfae that Maeve had brought there...? Does the Ladymantle *want* a mortal host??!?)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version