Harry wiped out the Reds, every single one over Maggie.  Would Mab want to test that?

And as I said in an earlier post, Harry can't do anything close to that to the Winter Court, or at least not unless he's prepared to let the Outsiders win (which would also get Maggie killed).

And what narrative sense does it make for Jim to revisit that story line?

No idea, and it's irrelevant to my point. What I'm saying is that, in-universe, Harry should be concerned about what Mab might be planning for Maggie, if she's giving her Christmas presents. Harry doesn't know that he's a character in a book, so narrative sense doesn't matter to him.

So maybe Cowl didn't get exactly the outcomes he desired, but I don't see how having 2 or 3 times the power would have changed any of them, really.

It's not a question of power, but of skill. To address your fights in order:

1) If Cowl were Merlin, he shouldn't have had to run away from the Alphas. He left (as I remember) because they were an unknown. But A) Merlin was a master of time magic; and B) we know that there is a way to see the future. Therefore, if Cowl was Merlin, he should have been able to look a minute or two into the future, say "oh, those are just wolves" and beat them too.
2) Yes, he did.
3) Merlin created Demonreach and you're telling me that he wouldn't have an on-the-fly spell to trap one wizard so that he couldn't screw up his ritual?
4) No real evidence, but I would have expected Merlin notice Harry sooner.
5) Cowl's allies in this battle were working with Outsiders. Given what happens in Cold Days, if Cowl was Merlin, then since we know that he's allied with Outsiders I see no possible reason why he wouldn't be involved in blowing up his own prison when the Outsiders were trying that.

There is also the other part of the end of skin game where Harry and Molly bump into Mab's meeting with marcone and play their own game.

Yes, and?

Lea had far more opportunities with Harry than Mab will ever get with Maggie and there was no other influence to compensate for it. Maggie mostly lives with the carpenters and has Mouse. She is far better protected.

Harry's letting Mab give his daughter Christmas presents, the Winter Lady is acting as Maggie's big sister, and there's going to be a squad of Winter faeries next door as a protection detail. I'd say that's plenty of opportunities--in fact, I'd say it's more opportunities than Lea probably had.

It is true and she is behaving like an older sister with Maggie.

Regardless of how Molly is behaving, we do not know that it is true. There is no reason Molly's personal feelings of protectiveness and obligation should automatically translate to the metaphysical and binding obligations of the fae. As an example: Mab clearly felt love for her daughters, but she still had to make an explicit bargain with Sarissa before she could spend time with her. So there's no reason that Molly feeling like she should protect Maggie means that she actually can--I'd say it's far more likely that she can do very little to protect Maggie without a bargain allowing her to do so.

She could trade Harry's debt but she did not trade her obligation to Harrry. I do not think she could. Those are different things

So she prevents Molly from fulfilling her obligations (if there are any) instead, and then it's automatically her job.

Maggie is connected to her old life and the obligations to her human family. I think that is pretty strong

Maggie is also connected to the whole mess of Harry not loving Molly and asking her to help him suicide to protect Maggie, which I feel is also pretty strong.

Also, we've seen that the Winter Mantles can screw with people without them necessarily noticing.

I do not see that happen and even if it happens it will only be after the BAT when Mab would not need an active more than average knight that much anymore.

A) I'm not convinced. I think there's a good chance that Harry finds a way out, and then has to wrestle with whether he actually ought to use it.

B) I don't see Mab just letting Harry go after the BAT, just on general principle. It wouldn't be Mab to just give up a powerful knight that she's worked hard to get in favor of a mediocre one just because Harry doesn't like the job.

More than likely we will see that everything Mab asks Harry to do will in some ways be a good thing to do if done in Harry's way. As we see in Skin Game.

And as we see in Cold Case, there are plenty of things that Mab has her subordinates do that are in some ways a good thing and are still horrifying and the kind of thing Harry would want no part in.

I found the quote. It's not as definitive as I thought it was, but here it is:

I went back over to Uriel to find him conversing with Sir Stuart.

"Don't know," Sir Stuart was saying. "I'm not . . . not as right as I used to be, sir."

"There's more than enough left to rebuild on," Uriel said. "Trust me. The ruins of a spirit like Sir Stuart's are more substantial than most men ever manage to dredge up. I'd be very pleased to have you working for me."

So Uriel definitely refers to Sir Stuart in the third person when hiring Sir Stuart's ghost.

I am not so sure about that. I would say Uriel's interest is a strong indication that Sir Stuart had a soul. He stayed to protect his family (morty). Magical talent is often inherited. He had a stronger presence than most ghosts. It is quite possible that he had the same talents as morty and a strong will to stay behind. That would be enough in my opinion.

Does anyone have a copy of Ghost Story handy? Because I remember Uriel saying something that definitively states that Sir Stuart's ghost is not Sir Stuart's soul when he hires Sir Stuart's ghost, but I don't have my book to check.

If we leave out the Nemesis influence and Harry's own deal with Lea we end up with an entity beneficial to Harry thanks to his mothers deal.

Has it been? Because it's been pointed out (by Aurora, admittedly, but there's tons of evidence that she's correct) that Lea has been manipulating him the entire time to make him colder, less trusting, more violent, more predatory, and generally more Winter-like--and I'm pretty sure that Harry would consider this to be quite detrimental. Some of it he might be fine with for himself, because he acknowledges the usefulness, but nowhere close to all or even most of it, and I don't believe he'd want any of it for his daughter.

Also, his deal with Lea was caused by her being his faerie godmother--she'd been hanging around his entire life (and probably helping with small things) which was both why she was around and why he trusted her enough to make the deal in the first place. That's actually the biggest reason why I'd expect Harry to object to Mab giving his daughter gifts: even if Harry can ensure that everything Mab does for Maggie due to her obligations to Harry is 100% positive and beneficial, he knows that that will only make Maggie more likely to make a bargain with Mab, and that there's no possible way that that will end well for her.

Here's the text of some applicable WoJs:

Jim: What [a soulgaze] shows you is /true/.  But it isn’t necessarily /all/.

For instance, a ‘gaze could show you that a man was self-disciplined, sober, highly organized, dedicated to his principles, and that he loved dogs, and all of that would be /true/.  But it /doesn’t/ tell you /everything/ about Adolf Hitler.

Granted, a soulgaze of Hitler would probably have given off a big vibe of either “crazy” or “ruthless” too.  They tend to give you a pretty good core sample of the individual in question.  However, every wizard gets things a little bit differently than any other, in terms of how the soulgaze is perceived.  Not every wizard sees things in symbols and allegory, the way Harry does.  There’s a whole spectrum of different “filters,” I suppose, of how the basic natures of others are perceived.

As for misinterpreting what they perceive, or putting their own preconceptions on their interpretations?  Please.  EVERYONE does that, wizard or not.  It’s part of being human.

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In reply to the question of whether a soul can change over time, my humble opinion lays thusly:

Since your soul is the essential you, anything that truly touches you will change your soul.  I know that having to watch a five year old die over a period of months while I and the rest of my pedi ICU did everything we could to save him changed me.  I know that meeting and falling in love (yes, and finally marrying her!) with my Lady and Wife changed me.  And I know that there are more changes down the road.

I an not the person I was at twenty.  Nor am I yet the pperson I will be at sixty if I should get that far.  Life is an ongoing process, after all.

Jim: Ah, but is it a process of pressure and change, or is it a process of polish and refinement?  One could argue that the events that “changed” you in actuality only revealed a truer facet of your soul than had previously been perceiveable–that those events only changed you inasmuch as a rough diamond is changed by a master jeweler’s tools.  The diamond doesn’t become an emerald–it just becomes a more beautiful and quinessential diamond.

(Just Devil’s Advocating here, for the most part, and throwing that thought out.)

In any case, it may just be possible for a person to change enough for a soulgaze to reveal something else–but it would have to be an utterly incredible kind of change.  Something along the lines of the billionaire executive who, after a near-death experience, gives all his worldly goods to charity, leaves home in his pajamas, and takes up a life of underwater basket-weaving and meditation.  And even that seems a little mild to me, thinking of it.

Anyway, it’d take a truly epic change of heart and mind–to the point where you would practically *be* a whole different person, and not just a person who happens to be you with a lot more life experience to inform his outlook.

(And, in fact, there’s all sorts of theories about people who this happens to after a near-death experience, regarding “walk-in” souls who come and inhabit a person near death, changing them and becoming a kind of inner Yoda to the “native” soul.)

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The third sight reveals truths about people and places that aren’t evident to the naked eye.  Are the specific images that are seen intrinsic to the subject, or is there a measure of personal metaphor and interpretation on the part of the viewer?  In other words…  Let’s say that Wizard A grew up in America, and may consider the embodiment of evil to be a devil-like figure.  Wizard B is from India, and might instead associate evil with a rakshasa.  They each view a subject with their third sight.  The subject is a vile and malicious person.  Would this be revealed to them both in the same way, or would what each one sees be influenced by his own cultural background?

Jim: Not only would the Western-raised wizard and Eastern-raised wizard perceive things according to the cultural biases and subjective experiences, they might not even perceive them with the same /senses/.

The Third Sight is different for everyone, subjective, and inherently slanted towards ones own experiences and background.  So while two wizards might look on some totally-gone, bloodthirsty warlock and see a bloodthirsty warlock, they might see it in very different ways.

Maybe Harry looks on him and sees some Hannibal-Lectery figure crouched on the floor grinning and soaked in blood.  But maybe Ancient Mai looks on him and sees a bare, twisted white tree in the center of an unbroken field of white snow, representative of the individual’s loss of spirit and humanity.  And maybe Rodriguez looks at him and hears some kind of hideous music that accompanies the individual and makes the hair on the back of Carlos’ neck stand up.  Maybe Klaus the Toymaker looks at them and sees that his head is covered in cracks and flaws, and that underneath the parts where the flesh looks chipped away, something rotten and horrible is underneath.  Maybe Listens-to-Wind looks on the warlock and smells something rotted and vile.

It’s way different for each wizard, and it’s why even though soulgazes and third sight can be used as evidence in, for example, warlock trials, there is also room for argument and interpretation–that’s how Ebenezar defended Dresden, for example.  He claimed that he Saw more than just “murdering warlock.”

Plus, it isn’t flawless.  I mean, if a wizard looks at someone who has just suffered some kind of horrible physical or emotional injury, he gets a much different picture of that person than if he sees them a week sooner, or a year later.  If a wizard looks on someone who is in a towering rage at the moment, it’s going to have an effect on what is Seen.  Maybe not an enormous effect, true, but at times even a little bit of difference in shading can change the overall picture.  Oh, plus if the /Wizard/ is in a radically altered state of mind, it can shade things differently, too.

Ultimately, the Sight is something that is best relied upon for making one’s own decisions, for supporting one’s intuitions and observations–as long as one remembers that while it is always true, it isn’t always completely correct.  Circumstance can, at tmes, effect what is Seen.

What all this seems to amount to is that if Prime!Harry soulgazes Mirror!Harry, he will see his own soul, but with different facets highlighted/revealed, and with a potentially different shading. He'll definitely see something that's quintessentially him, but probably with the soul equivalent of different clothes and makeup, and probably some different scars.