The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
A crescendo of deliberate continuity errors
Mira:
--- Quote ---For that matter, we already know Mab is sometimes cruel for its own sake. In her first meeting with Harry in his PI office, after they strike an agreement Harry thinks will protect him, she inflicts agony on his wounded hand again, and says point blank that it wasn't in response to anything Harry did or didn't do, thus their agreement didn't kick in.
--- End quote ---
As I remember it, Mab was teaching Harry a lesson, when she decides to teach a lesson, she teaches it well. The lesson was that she can force Harry to obey her orders. One that Harry learned to well that he was willing to kill himself because he didn't want Mab to force him into doing things that made him a monster. It wasn't until Uriel's "yes, but," seven words that Harry realized that while Mab could force him to impale his hand on the letter spike, she couldn't change who he is, he is still Harry.
Dina:
--- Quote from: LordDresden2 on January 26, 2025, 10:31:01 PM ---I actually think JB has quietly retconned several things and people over the course of the series, esp. Maggie Sr.'s role in things. I am quite sure he has somewhat retconned both Mab herself and the nature of the Faerie Courts as well.
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I agree in general, not so sure about Maggie Sr. but there is something about that. In one of the first books (the first two, I do not remember which one) Harry has a moment when he was about to do something wrong and he is stopped for what he feels is woman hand, a woman's presence. We readers got the idea that it is his mom. But it has never been addressed again and the feel we have of her is different to the one we had with the soulgaze, when we really met Maggie. So I may buy that Jim was going to do something with that Maggie protecting Harry and then he changed his mind.
LordDresden2:
--- Quote from: Mira on January 27, 2025, 03:27:23 PM ---As I remember it, Mab was teaching Harry a lesson, when she decides to teach a lesson, she teaches it well. The lesson was that she can force Harry to obey her orders.
--- End quote ---
That's the first part of it, yeah. She forced Harry to stab himself in the hand with a letter opener. She was illustrating that she now had power over him, because she had 'bought' his obligation to Lea from Lea. A normal mortal, with no ties to the Fae, she couldn't have done that to. She was illustrating her power over him, in order to get him to make that '3 favors' deal.
But then, after the deal was made, she inflicted another dose of agony on him, and she said point blank that the second dose was out of spite. Mab cannot lie. If she said she hurt him out of spite, that means she hurt him out of spite.
Mab is far more than just a vicious monster...but the Queen of Winter is a vicious monster herself. It probably comes with the Winter Queen mantle.
Mira:
--- Quote ---Mab is far more than just a vicious monster...but the Queen of Winter is a vicious monster herself. It probably comes with the Winter Queen mantle.
--- End quote ---
Or she has to appear that way to be successful in the fight at the Outer Gates? No, Mab isn't totally a vicious monster, at the end of Cold Days when her daughter was killed, it had to be done, she knew it and ordered it.. Cold vicious monster stuff, yet Harry managed to tease out a smidge of vulnerability in her about it, which she and the Enemy might see as weakness. Kringle saw apparently that something had gone down between Harry and Mab and warned Harry never to expose this aspect of Mab to anyone if he values his life. Kringle calls Mab a "proud creature," she prides herself on her image as a vicious monster.. So yeah, she might have hurt Harry out of spite, that's what vicious monsters do, but also to teach him and keep her image. Mab's image is one of the things that keep the world safe from Outsiders.
Snark Knight:
--- Quote from: LordDresden2 on January 05, 2025, 09:17:10 PM ---If we've got to do the alternity story (I've commented before that I tend to dread those, though I've seen exceptional good ones), what I would want to see is that EvilHarry's other choices led to both good and evil outcomes that didn't happen here, and some good and evil outcomes that happened here didn't there.
--- End quote ---
I expect that. Superficially, it would seem good to have avoided provoking the Red Court war. But Shiro figured otherwise, that Harry provoked them into starting it when the forces were relatively evenly matched, rather than building up enough ramp numbers to hit the Council with overwhelming force after greater prep. Shiro is pretty much as close as anyone other than Mr Sunshine gets to relaying Word of God in the series.
A decade and a bit more buildup would pretty much line up with MM. We might see a mirror timeline with a shattered Council where isolated wizards are on the run as lone agents. Morgan and his apprentice Molly, for example?
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