... her willingness to break the rules ...
...1.Mothers.
2.Queens.
Not just willing, I think, but able.
I think Maeve was willing to break the rules before she got Nemfected -- probably eager, in fact! -- but she wasn't able to.
1.
While the Mothers have tons of power, they're very limited in how they can act.
It appears they knew what Aurora was up to with the WK mantle hidden within StatueLily... but they couldn't even drop a word in the ears of the respective Queens! That's... kinda feeble, actually!
[Mab has a *LOT* more power than Titania... but most of it is tied up at the Outer Gates.
That would imply an actual physical block to them breaking the rules.. As in, "the Fae cannot lie," because there is a physical block against it in their brains. I don't think that is so clear, because we've seen both Lea and Mab twist things so while yeah you cannot say they are lying, they aren't exactly telling the truth either.@Mira -- You keep going back to this, as a thesis. I've seen you return to it over and over.
... What was up with Aurora while something they'd notice, they leave dealing with it up to the Queens, Mothers don't have time to micromanage...I think it goes beyond mere "micromanaging." They said Aurora was planning something that "must not be" (n.b. "must"), and yet they let it all advance to the point of open warfare, leaving both Queens ignorant. The Queens had summoned the Overworld above Chicago, manifested the Stone Table (a necessary step for Aurora's plan to succeed); Aurora had brought the SK-mantle to the Table, and only Harry and his "ragtag band" was in her way.
But the Fae are entirely letter-of-the-law... there is no such thing, to them, as "the spirit of the law." If it's not technically a lie, then (to the fae) it's not a lie ... not in any way, shape, or form.
I think it goes beyond mere "micromanaging." They said Aurora was planning something that "must not be" (n.b. "must"), and yet they let it all advance to the point of open warfare, leaving both Queens ignorant. The Queens had summoned the Overworld above Chicago, manifested the Stone Table (a necessary step for Aurora's plan to succeed); Aurora had brought the SK-mantle to the Table, and only Harry and his "ragtag band" was in her way.
With an existential threat to the balance of the Courts, a hint to one or both of the Queens seems like it might be appropriate...? Yet evidently they couldn't. They spent a good long while, actually, chatting with Harry. Faster and easier (and safer!!!) for each Mother to have let the respective Queen know the skinny, before those two threw their semiannual "turning of the seasons" shindig!
nstead, they let a crazed (& Nemfected!) Summer Lady haul the Knight-Mantle & a sacrificial knife to the Stone Table, and left it to Harry and his (admittedly clever) plans to save both courts. That's a lot of risk to put onto Harry Dresden's shoulders... if they could have let the Queens know, they would have.
... Mab is simply more assertive than Titania and applies it differently perhaps because it is her Court's turn to guard the Gates.I do not think Summer & Winter take turns on the Outer Gates.
However lets not forget that was the millennia roles around Titania will once again have her turn at doing the guarding.
I do not think Summer & Winter take turns on the Outer Gates.
Before it was the Fae, it was one of the Pagan pantheons; I'm pretty sure there's WoJ to the effect that both the Norse and the Greek pantheons had turns, and I presume an older one (Egyptian? Sumerian?) before that.
"Always," he said. "There are always Outsiders trying to tear their way in. There are always forces in place to stop them. In our age, it is the task of Winter to defend these boundaries, with the help of certain others to support them.
... It is all about their perception of what is true, not what actually is untrue, ergo a lie, but as long as they believe they are telling the truth by their lights, it isn't a lie! ::) ...Note that the fae don't come anywhere close to practicing the kinds of self-deception and willful blindness that many mortals do. If the fae "believe" something is true, it's more likely to be true than if a human believes it; but it's a highly-specific, letter-of-the-law "truth" the faeries hold to. The fae are so literal-minded about "truth" and so specific in their language, that humans (who are used to dealing with "A implies B" as being virtually the same as "A means also-B") regularly get screwed-over in dealings with the fae. (q.v. "legalese," which also regularly screws-over mortals).
... However if you bargain with the Fae with the belief that they will be fair to you since they cannot lie, oops, you just got screwed... ::) As Harry has found out trying to deal with Mab...And the Leanansidhe!
... But they did have it in hand, didn't they. Somehow Harry just happened to make his way to their cottage where he was given the unraveling...No, the Mothers were also in dire straits, here.
... You think it an accident that Mab shows up in his office in the early chapter telling him she just took over his contract from his godmother?Not an accident, no...
...
Lets go back to when Mab tells Harry that the Summer Knight has been murdered and the Summer Court was holding her responsible. Why in the heck would Mab go to an obscure wizard detective in Chicago to save her hide?
... No, it took a neutral party for all the elements of the conspiracy to be rooted out, that took detective work ...Aurora cleverly hid the truth from the Titania and from Mab. They each had to name an Emissary, to uncover the truth. Harry -- and the two Queens -- needed the "detective work." But when Harry finally worked his way up to the Mothers, it was clear they were "leading the witness," helping him to formulate the right questions to ask.
Note that the fae don't come anywhere close to practicing the kinds of self-deception and willful blindness that many mortals do. If the fae "believe" something is true, it's more likely to be true than if a human believes it; but it's a highly-specific, letter-of-the-law "truth" the faeries hold to. The fae are so literal-minded about "truth" and so specific in their language, that humans (who are used to dealing with "A implies B" as being virtually the same as "A means also-B") regularly get screwed-over in dealings with the fae. (q.v. "legalese," which also regularly screws-over mortals).
But Harry knew better, knew the risks of bargaining with the Fae; he didn't go into those deals expecting the Fae to be "fair" in their dealings.
My own WAG is that Mab herself was the one who initiated the "Starbabe" plan; it was her intention, all along, to gain a Starborn-Wizard Winter Knight, and she laid her plans a generation in advance.
The Mothers knew the right answer, they had the solution in-hand already.
If someone as cold and calculating as Mab couldn't bring herself to directly put Maeve down, how much harder would it be for Titania, who is governed by her emotions, to destroy Aurora. I think Titania let things go so far to force Mab to stop Aurora. She couldn't face the pain herself. Mab was willing to do it, hence Harry, but she didn't want to kill her niece and further hurt her sister directly. Any future works they had to cooperate on would be more contentious and therefore risky. Plus, though she only shows it in extreme moments, Mab does care. She just won't let caring get in the way of necessity or expediency.
...I could see "unable." If we are to believe Bob, the Ladies are un-killable even to the Queens, except at the right Conjunctions. Conjunctions can be times (such as All Hallows Eve) or places (such as the Stone Table). But, even more than this issue, the Fae are circumscribed with all manner of rules and prohibitions; if Aurora wasn't violating any rule that mandated a death-sentence, it's possible that the Queens were unable to kill her because of Faerie rules.
I think it's highly likely that both Titania and Mab knew that she was Nemfected by the time of SK but were unable or unwilling to take direct action against her ...
But the theory (that the Queens knew) doesn't really hold together: your theory posits that the Queens didn't need investigation-work done (just execution). Harry's pretty badass, but for straight murderization there's better candidates out there (Kincaid, Genoskwa, and I'm sure many as-yet unmet).
"Don't be coy,child," Mother Summer sniffed. "What my counter part knows, I know. Mab commanded you to slay Maeve..What do you think will happen if you disobey her."
I walked around for a while before I answered,"It depends whether of not Mab's still around when the smoke clears, I guess," I said. "Id she is ...upset. I'll wind up like Lloyd Slate. If she isn't"
"Yes?"
"Maeve assumes Mab's mantle and becomes the new Winter Queen."
"Quite so," said Mother Summer. "And if you do heed Mab's command?"
"Maeve's mantle gets passed on to someone else," I said. "And if. . . the adversary ? Can I say that safely?"
Mother Summer smiled. "That's why we use that word rather than a name. Sir Knight. Yes."
"If the adversary has taken Mab," I said, "then it gets to choose an agent to take the Winter Lady's mantle. Two-thirds of the Winter Court will be under its influence.
Did Mab ask for an investigation to have Maeve executed? How about when she told Harry to kill Molly if something happened to her so Molly wouldn't get the Queen mantle? So no, they don't need an investigation..
It's not a procedural matter, as it is with mortal justice. The Faerie Courts don't "need an investigation" to make a judgement.
But the theory (that the Queens knew) doesn't really hold together: your theory posits that the Queens didn't need investigation-work done (just execution). Harry's pretty badass, but for straight murderization there's better candidates out there (Kincaid, Genoskwa, and I'm sure many as-yet unmet).
With the order to kill Maeve, Mab already knew of Maeve's Nemfection. She had done her grieving and raging, and settled to the kill. But the Winter Knight (or another mortal) had to do the deed, because faerie rules are specific and unrelenting.
Killing Molly was more "advice" than an "order." Mab's assessment was that Molly was too weak (and/or ignorant) to serve as nuMab, with an Apocalypse incoming. I'm pretty sure Mab's wrong about Molly being too weak... but she very well may be too ignorant... Mab, after all, has spent a millenium on plotting and planning and gathering info & intel... and that's all in Mab's head, not in the Mantle. At least if Lea became WQ, there would be a decent body of experience and "ancient wicked faerie" fighting to protect Creation.Advice?
But the Summer Knight issue needed investigating. Aurora knew how to hide the SK-Mantle, even from Titania (and if from SQ-Titania, then certainly from WQ-Mab). Suspicion was on Mab; if the Queens had known the truth, that wouldn't be so.
There seems to be a contradiction here^ Either the Fae need investigation or they don't.. I disagree about "moral judgement" that is important to them. Because she was accused and the consequences of her not being able to clear herself, Mab needed a first rate investigator.Couple of points, here:
... But not as simple as it sounds ... who is to say that it wasn't Mab who was really the infected one trying to get rid of her uninfected daughter.But it is just that simple... from Mab's perspective, from the Faerie-Law / Winter-Law perspective.
... Maeve was bat guano crazy before she was infected, and didn't behave too differently after she was infected ...I don't think we know this.
But it is just that simple... from Mab's perspective, from the Faerie-Law / Winter-Law perspective.
Mab knew Maeve was incurably-Nemfected, so Maeve had to die.
The end.
Obviously, it wasn't that easy from Harry's perspective! Maeve cleverly raised the spectre of Mab being the "crazy" one. Harry needed to figure out what was really going on.
I don't think we know this.We do know she had issues before she was infested, and not just "mommy" issues. If it was so obvious that Maeve was infected why did it take till Small Favor before Mab figured out what happened to her daughter and was so pissed at herself for not seeing it when something other than killing her could have been done?
Lea took the Athame in Grave Peril, book 3. We don't know how soon after that Maeve became Nemfected, but presumably Nemesis made that happen ASAP.
IIRC, we first met Maeve in Summer Knight, book 4. Mab is already stepping in between Harry & Lea; I presume Lea's Nemfection has Mab's attention (I'm unclear if Mab has figured out that Nemesis is the issue, but I'm inclined to think not).
Maeve's pre-Nemfection resemblance to guano is really entirely unknown.
The Fae Courts are running their own version of the Cold War. There are rules and boundaries, and if one side moves the other moves; in either conjunction or against.
If Maeve was that obviously crazy and infected, why would Harry even believe the merest hint that it was Mab who was the crazy one?No; you're putting words into my mouth. It was NOT "that obvious."
...We do know she had issues before she was infested, and not just "mommy" issues.Having "mommy issues" and generally being ... shall we call it "inadequate"? ... at the Winter Lady gig: this does not qualify either as "bat guano crazy" nor "nemfection." And all of that was out of Harry's sight (but not Mab's).
If Maeve was that obviously crazy and infected, why would Harry even believe the merest hint that it was Mab who was the crazy one?
Because Harry still didn't think that it was possible for Maeve to tell a direct lie. He only discovered that at the denouement of CD.
... The Fae Courts are running their own version of the Cold War ...There's a decent simile, there.
Because Harry still didn't think that it was possible for Maeve to tell a direct lie. He only discovered that at the denouement of CD.
The Fae go to war -- hot war -- every year, at the turning of the seasons.No, I don't think they do, the only reason there was possible hot war in Summer Knight was because Aurora had upset the balance which affected what happened at the stone table at the turning of the seasons.
No; you're putting words into my mouth. It was NOT "that obvious."Not putting any words in your mouth.. If something wasn't THAT obvious, it is because her behavior was bat guano normally before she was infected! Easy to ignore the normal, which Mab mostly did until it was too late. Maeve was the perfect host for Nemesis to deeply infiltrate unnoticed into the Winter Court.
Mab had multiple years to observe Maeve -- her words, her actions, her lack of actions -- and determine what had happened.
Harry only has a few brief scenes with her, less than an hour all-told across the years (up until the Birthday Party scene with Sarissa). It wasn't nearly enough for him to figure out who's "crazy," who's acting Winter-y vs who's acting Nemesis-y (Harry doesn't even have the name "Nemesis" to hang his theories upon, as of the Birthday Party!) .True, but when Maeve is acting like a sadistic nymphomaniac voyeur, it doesn't take long to figure out that something is a bit off with her.. On the other hand Mab is ordering him to execute her daughter, the Winter Lady, without explaining why, would also seem a bit insane, outward appearances to the contrary that she wasn't insane or more than her usual murderous self.
Having "mommy issues" and generally being ... shall we call it "inadequate"? ... at the Winter Lady gig: this does not qualify either as "bat guano crazy" nor "nemfection." And all of that was out of Harry's sight (but not Mab's).Oh it was more than inadequate, as I said, look to Maeve's little court under Chicago.. Out of her own guilt perhaps, Mab chose to ignore and indulge her daughter's "normal" behavior until she realized that Maeve was beginning to undermine her, then she realized that she was infected, too late.
Nemfection is good at subtlety, at passing unnoticed. I expect there were many things that Nemfected!Maeve could slip past Mab as just "that's just Maeve having mommy-issues again" and "Maeve not doing her job, again." Eventually, of course, Mab did notice that it wasn't just "Maeve being Maeve;" we don't know how long from that initial "notice" until Mab realized Maeve was Nemfected... It was book 8, Proven Guilty, where we saw Lea the Sidhe-cicle; but Mab never spoke. I think it isn't until book 10, Small Favor, that we see Rage!Mab speaking through malks, or causing head-trauma with her angry-voice. But we don't actually know when it was that Mab realized Maeve was Nemfected
" A few years back, you got angry. So angry that when you spoke it made people bleed from the ears. That was why. Because you figured out that the adversary had taken Maeve. And it hurt. To know that the adversary had gotten to her."
"It was the knife," Mab said.
Mab's eyes flashed with sudden fury and frost literallyformed over every surface of the chapel, including my eyelashes. Mab snarled in her own voice. It sounded hideous--not melodious, because it was as rich and full and musical as it had ever been. But it was filled with such rage, such fury, such pain and such hate that every vowel clawed at my skin, and every consonant felt like someone taking a staple gun to my ears.
"I am Sidhe," she hissed. "I am Queen of Air and Darkness. I am Mab." Her chin lifted, her eyes wide and white around the rippling colors of her irises--utterly insane. "And I repay my debts, mortal, All of them."
Yes, we do... Small Favor, the chapel, Mab had a real, "Oh Crap!" Moment.. Because that's when she put it all together, Harry asks her about it in Cold Days...
. Mab is talking to Harry in the chapel though her malk quite calmly actually, about her and the "Watchman" having a common enemy. Harry mentions "Thorned Namshiel." That's the moment Mab goes into a rage.
No; the malk-voice was the sign of her rage. She could act calmly (icy control -- it's a Mab thing), but not quite speak calmly.
But we don't know how long she had known... she entered book-10 already knowing, and she spoke normally back in Book 4, but that's a loooooooooong stretch of time where she might have realized.
Later, during the scene in the chapel (the last chapter, IIRC)... honestly, I don't think we know what made her self-control slip, made her use her own voice.We do, because Harry asks her about it in Cold Days, and she answers, "it was the knife." The knife wasn't the subject of conversation when she spoke through her malk.. However you can hold a conversation on one subject, and be thinking on another at the same time.. We've all had those kinds of conversations where we are talking, suddenly the other person exclaims, "oh shit!" Or it is you who is talking and you realize you had forgotten something or realize something unrelated to the conversation, "oh shit, that's what happened!"
Harry mentioned the assault on Arctis Tor, and named Thorned Namshiel. Mab never confirmed the assault -- nor Thorny -- as causing her rage.No, she didn't, because it wasn't.. That isn't to say she wasn't angry about the assault, she was, her and the "the Watcher" had a common enemy.. But that didn't cause her to lose control.
She permitted Harry to assume. That -- right there -- is classic Faerie misdirection: not-lying and leaving the mortal believing something that is un-true; thinking Mab herself had confirmed it!I don't think it was part of her calculation in that moment, and anyway there was no reason for her to direct Harry one way or the other about the attack on Arctis Tor, not during the chapel conversation in Small Favor. She simply lost it when she realized what had happened to her daughter and why.. "it was the knife." She freely admits that to Harry in Cold Days, and as Harry said,
" A few years back, you got angry. So angry that when you spoke it made people bleed from the ears. That was why. Because you figured out that the adversary had taken Maeve. And it hurt. To know that the adversary had gotten to her."
"It was the knife," Mab said.
The exchange is so typical of faerie deception, I figure it at far less than 50/50 chances that Thorny was the Fallen at Arctis Tor.No, if it was about faerie deception, Mab wouldn't have lost control.. If she had thought Harry was being so stupid, she would have told him so.. Oh she was busy trying to move the goal posts a little so she could still claim a favor from Harry, i.e. become her knight, she even suggested Thomas for the job to persuade him, but she didn't lose control..
I have a low-key WAG that what slipped Mab's self-control was her Emissary and soon-to-be Knight being so stupid!
She wasn't in a rage when she was speaking through her malk, the subject matter had nothing to do with anger
...
Even if she was angry as you say when she was talking through her malk, she wasn't pissed... When things finally added up in her brain and she got four, she got pissed, things turned to ice and ears bled.
...
"A few years back, you got angry. So angry that when you spoke it made people bleed from the ears. That was why. Because you figured out that the adversary had taken Maeve. And it hurt. To know that the adversary had gotten to her."
But the whole point of malk-voice wasn't rando-faerie-wierdness. Mab used the malk's voice to buffer Harry from her rage; ALL of malk-voice was because she was so angry her voice would make people bleed from the ears & eyes.
Mab could discuss other topics, act calm, be rational; all without forgetting for a single instant that the Winter Lady (one step from the Queendom (and thus likely the fall of the Outer Gates); and her own daughter, one of her last links to love, to her own fragile wisps of humanity) was lost to Nemfection.
Scary -- no, terrifying! -- how coldly-calculating she could be, when she was ear-bleedingly enraged.
" A few years back, you got angry. So angry that when you spoke it made people bleed from the ears. That was why. Because you figured out that the adversary had taken Maeve. And it hurt. To know that the adversary had gotten to her."
"It was the knife," Mab said.
But if she had used her own voice to instruct her Emissary, there in the snowy alleyway of Small Favor... Harry would still have been curled up in agony on the ground when the Gruffs with machine-guns arrived.The scene I am talking about was in the chapel of the hospital after Harry's conversation with Jake,aka Uriel, there was no snowy ally way.. Let us return to what Harry said to her in Cold Days after Maeve was dead..
A few years back, you got angry. So angry that when you spoke it made people bleed from the ears. That was why. Because you figured out that the adversary had taken Maeve. And it hurt. To know that the adversary had gotten to her.""That was why." Harry tells Mab she had figured out the adversary had taken Maeve. Then he says,""And it hurt." Mab felt a mother's pain in that moment, her rage was an expression of that pain.. That kind of thing ain't expressed through a malk, not even by Mab..
"It was the knife," Mab said.
All maybe true, but doesn't change this.. From Cold Days
Nothing cold, calculating or Fae here, Mab was simply acting like a mother who's daughter was in danger.. Note Harry said, "you got angry." Not, "you were angry.." This implies that it was in the middle of the conversation when she got pissed and made ears bleed..
Mab may have been talking through her malk, just to show Harry she could, and she wanted to jerk him around a bit, to remind him he still owed her a favor and she wanted him to be her knight, as well as return his blaster.. The scene I am talking about was in the chapel of the hospital after Harry's conversation with Jake,aka Uriel, there was no snowy ally way.. Let us return to what Harry said to her in Cold Days after Maeve was dead.."That was why." Harry tells Mab she had figured out the adversary had taken Maeve. Then he says,""And it hurt." Mab felt a mother's pain in that moment, her rage was an expression of that pain.. That kind of thing ain't expressed through a malk, not even by Mab..
Mab's simple reply in Cold Days says it all..
"It was the knife." Mab said.
Yup, she didn't see it, her daughter is dead because she didn't see it, and Mab is full of regret.
While we may not have the exact date that Maeve was infected, it can be surmised that sometime between when Lea brought the knife back from the party in Grave Peril to when she and Mab went into ice treatment for infection in Proven Guilty, Maeve was exposed. However Mab missed the fact that her daughter had been exposed and by Small Favor Mab finally realized it, and that hurt. Mab also realized what the outcome of that would be, so she began to prepare suitable vessels to receive the mantle of the Winter Lady.. Cold and calculating, but necessary, but that fact also hurt.
I'm pretty sure that the moment her temper cracked, and she made Harry bleed, was not the moment she realized Maeve's Nemfection; the moment she said "It was the knife" to Harry was not Mab's realization/recognition that it was the knife.
5]... Mab realized in the chapel ...
The crux of our disagreement.
... Harry asking Mab about her anger in the chapel ...
To my reading, Mab's anger, her rage, was in every scene; not just in the chapel.
A few years back, you got angry. So angry that when you spoke it made people bleed from the ears. That was why. Because you figured out that the adversary had taken Maeve. And it hurt. To know that the adversary had gotten to her."In the chapel is the only time I recall Mab being so pissed that Harry's ears bled. You say she is talking through her malk because she is pissed to try and keep control, perhaps, but that still is part of the scene in the chapel.
You put far more emphasis on "It was the knife" than I do: that isn't even the moment her rage peeked through; that moment came when Harry named Thorned Namshiel (as the Fallen who assaulted Arctis Tor), nothing to do with the Athame / Maeve / Nemfection (unless it does: what if Thorny did have something to do with the Athame...?) .I agree that that is confusing, however it possible to have two things on one's mind at one time.. Very possible for Mab, she through her malk and Harry are talking about her and the The Watcher having a common enemy... Then the thought hits her, Nemesis has infected her daughter.. Yeah, they seem unrelated, but then again during the attack on Arctis Tor, she and Lea were on ice taking the Nemesis cure.. Mentioning Thorny reminds Mab of that, and she has a real oh shit moment, and Harry's ears start to bleed. That's what Harry is asking her about after Maeve died..