Count me in the group of people that do not think Harry and Merlin are or should be the same person. I agree that it seems to simplistic of an explanation. I believe that Merlin is a distinct person. We know that he created the White Council. I believe that if Harry is the younger Merlin and thus when he is older goes back in time and sets up the White Council he would have set it up differently due to his younger experience with it. In other words, I have a hard time believing that Harry, with his experience with the council's actions towards him and his beliefs about how the council should act would set the council up in a way that would allow that to happen.

My own pet theory is that Merlin, with all his time travel shenanigans, sets up the Well to harbor the worst of the worst because he knows it will be needed. Because he knows it will be needed he leaves a message for the future Warden of the Well with instructions and advice. I'm thinking something along the lines of Harry's mother's amulet. This would allow Harry to interact with Merlin and give us a window into who he was without having to do a whole separate book about it.

Agreed, unless there is a rule against the Winter Knight getting a salary from his Queen.  Remember before the battle, Molly was buying a house close to her parents to further protect them and she loaned Harry her old place because he was homeless.  I seem to remember that there was a rule against him being paid, because Mab could have given him money then and didn't.  Unless Harry just doesn't want to be in Mab's debt anymore than he has to be so refuses a salary.

I could see Harry being leery of getting anything from Mab and going further into debt. I could also see Mab having the viewpoint of the Knight being disposable and thus not worth any extra resources.

When you start down the moral culpability road it starts to get unclear..  None of what happened is Monica's fault, also she went as far as she was able to or capable of going to Harry in the first place.

Since morality is subjective based upon one's beliefs and experiences it is hard to paint with a wide brush when it comes to culpability.

I cannot remember, are the Fomor signatories of the accords? If they are, the rest of the signatories could have been surprised because they thought the accords would protect them as far as leading to conversation before battle. I find it hard to believe that the Fomor could have killed  Gwynn ap Nudd without someone knowing about it. He was evidently alive to arrange and lay down some of the protections on the Peace Talks meaning he was in contact with the other accorded nations. They took him out after the protections were laid, but before their appearance so that they could bring his head to the Peace Talks. Killing a head of an accorded nation, that should have been caught right away in my opinion.

So you are saying when Arianna was human she hated all her fellow humans?  Or she hated humanity as a human, and as a full vampire, who don't like humans anyway except as food proves she kept some of her human emotions?  Or is it a coincidence?  Like the rooster crowing at sun rise has nothing to do with the sun rising..

I am asserting that as it says in the quote from the book, Arianna hated Europeans. Specifically conquistadors due to their actions in South America. Not quite all humans, just a subsection. Due to her hatred she sought out a conquistador to turn and marry so she could torment him for all eternity.

I also have read the books umpteen times. I alternate between reading the series straight through and only hitting my favorite books. However, I have never been able to listen to books. I enjoy the voices in my head too much to listen to someone else's voices  .

Yeah, this.

Harry gets everything he bargained for there under the stars, at the Stone Table.

Everything.

And not a single bit more.

(except a tiny bit here or there, as he manages to leverage new points by virtue of being the Winter Knight and having understanding of Faerie Law and Winter Law (e.g. Mab was annoyed with him for summoning her to Judgement in Talvi Inverno's office, but it was a correct use of Winter Law by the Winter Knight; so she was compelled to do it).  salary is nowhere in this. )
 

Harry has a history of not being complete with his bargains (ie the Magic Feather with Lea). Granted, he is under pressure most of the time when he makes bargains. He got everything he asked for at the Stone Table. He was already planning on weaseling out of it so he did not take the time to find out more about what the job entails or the resources he could use to do the job. He could have asked for more.

I'm pretty sure the Author has no wish to do so.

Money is power.  If Harry has access to lots of cash on a regular basis, his life gets easier, his options more extensive, it gets harder to wrap him in plot difficulties.

Remember back in Turn Coat:  Harry was hiding Morgan from the Council and almost everyone else, but he had only a handful of places he could use.  Luckily for him, most of the people hunting him were used to having lots of resources and didn't fully grasp how limited Harry's options were.

Binder did get it, and he actually said at one point "Money never gets it."  Binder is working class background and he understood exactly why Harry was doing things they way he did them.

There is a WOJ about how much Harry can do and how much equipment he can maintain given his time and financial constraints. That is one of the things that keeps him a medium sized fish in the pond who occasionally gets a lucky shot in against the bigger fish. If you give him unlimited resources that will allow him to level up to quickly which is at odds with who he is and his growth up to this point. I give it 50/50 odds that if he had access to that much money he would just blow it all on worthy causes instead of using it for himself.

  I think Harry will have come into some more money by now to his sorrow.  Murphy may have left her worldly goods to him in her Will, which also included at least one sock full of diamonds.  This might also be one of Mab's motives for the union between Harry and Lara, she has enough money for the two of them.

I believe that motive to be really far down on the list. If Mab wanted Harry to have money she would just give him money. There is no need to be that circumspect when resources are not a problem for Mab.

Woah. I like this theory a lot. Faith and Charity as names do fit thematically together and match what image conscious parents might chose to make the "perfect family." I do not know if I buy Faith as the younger sister however. It would make sense because Faith never mentioned a baby sister when talking to Harry, but I could see the arrival of a new sibling being a reason to run away. We know that magical talent tends to be harder to pass down when the parent has not been practicing. Since Charity fell in with bad company I tend to believe that her mother either had weak talent or was not practicing thus not training Charity making it easy for her to fall in with the wrong crowd. If that supposition is true then there may have not been enough magic to pass along to a sibling younger than Charity. In order to believe that Faith is Kumori (who was listed as being strong enough to be in the White Council) I would say that Faith should be the older child and Charity got a diluted weaker magic passed along as the younger sibling.