Side note: It is obvious that Alfred was aware of the creation of Demonreach which begs the question if he was a genus loci that was present before the prison was formed and he adapted/changed with the formation of the prison or if he was specifically created/formed by Merlin during the creation of the prison to be its Guard.
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That is an excellent question, and is it possible to even create a genus loci? 

Side note, though I have enjoyed "The Sword of Truth" series as well, I think it got a bit long winded..

We know that he was an Austrian Composer (if I recall correctly). Could be the Winter Knight.

No reason he couldn't be both, then again Mab may have had her children before she became Lady.

I agree that given her history it took great courage to take that step. She was potentially putting herself in the cross hairs of the person she was asking to fix the situation. However, what exactly did she bring to Harry's attention? Did she tell him that her husband is creating drugs, participating in black magic, and killing people? She deserves credit for going to Harry, but that doesn't change the fact that she did not tell him the whole story and in a sense mislead him to what the problem was. She told him her husband was missing (true from a certain point of view), but was hoping to put the wizard on a collision course with the Three Eye Operation in order to shut it down. Had she told him more of the truth he might have been better prepared to resolve the situation without it getting as messy. Heck he could have kicked up to the Wardens who would have been all too happy to go medieval on that operation.

Not that simple, when it comes to an abused woman, a terrified abused woman. A conflicted woman, who in spite of everything still loved or thought she loved her husband, dealing with the reality of what he had become. Monica couldn't get away from him, when her sister stood up for her telling Victor to let her go, he killed her.  No, Monica wasn't capable of logically thinking it through like you describe, nor culpable.  She went to Harry because she knew enough to know the police would merely think her insane.. She was terrified for her kids, as Harry said;

Where she was, there was nothing but an endless, hopeless darkness full of fear, pain, and defeat.

That's what he saw in the soul gaze, that's why he was so gentle with her.

Putting aside Monica's background for a second, trying to do the right thing later does not erase moral culpability from earlier actions. If I and a partner rob and kill someone together and then I later go to the cops to turn myself in and give them information to catch my partner, it doesn't change what I had done. It doesn't paint my actions in a different moral light.

However Monica's background cannot be put aside, it is part of the picture..  If your partner bullied you, if you had no self esteem to begin with because you had been bullied all of your life, if you loved your partner in spite of everything, you might go along.. Does it change the fact that you helped? No, but neither are you totally responsible for your actions. When someone's mind has been so screwed with you cannot judge that their thinking was rational, it wasn't.. To be morally responsible I believe you also have to be able to think rationally, Monica wasn't.

Does Monica deserve grace for her situation? Yes. Does Monica deserve credit for reaching out for help despite her situation? Yes. Does she bear some moral culpability for joining the activities in the first place, not reaching out for help sooner, and misleading Dresden when she reached out for help? I would argue yes, but as I said in an earlier post, that goes not equate to punishment. No reasonable jury is going to lay the hammer down on her.

Because she wasn't morally culpable, her problems started long before she met Victor.

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.

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.

Does she bear some moral culpability? Hard to say. Good points being made about coercion and abuse warping her ability to make an informed choice with regards to participating in the rites. However, given her history, I doubt any human jury (informed vanilla mortals able to understand and pass judgement on supernatural cases, not the high horse white council) would convict her of any wrongdoing. That is not the same as moral culpability, but it does illustrate how her actions would be viewed with regards to fault in general.

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. 

  Yeah, that's what happens when you stop watching your back..

I ... guess this is a further riff on "Sword of Truth" (the sundial statue "Life"?)

I'm pretty sure that Jim pretty-rigorously avoids politics (as Harry, he denigrates all politicians equally, just as politicians, without ever calling out specific policies).

And your own remarks in themselves seem to be straying well-into the explicitly-disallowed territory... even if you're "just making a joke" or "forgot the /s" or whatever.

I don't think so, nothing political in referring to other fantasy series, and the Dresden Files is all about war, peace, good, and evil... You really can't discuss the Dresdenverse without getting into those things, the world has been thus since the beginning of time..  In my opinion no one's toes politically or religiously have been stepped on..

I don't think we know the form(s) of Justine's mental illness, no (noting that multiple-diagnoses are very much a thing).  It's not clear to me that Jim does, himself.

I doubt Jim will specifically write it as "hallucinations" though -- that really muddies the whole "free will" issue, which is thematically-important to the Dresdenverse.

Why would it?  You think that Nemesis cares about "free will?"  And though not by Nemesis, but by one of the Fallen, Lasciel was perfectly happy to use a hallucination, i.e. Shelia to seduce Harry into taking up a coin.  The taking of the coin itself might be an act of free will, but getting him to that point goes against his free will, as we saw Harry's reaction once he realized it.  Why wouldn't Nemesis use Justine's mental illness to produce hallucinations to fool her into accepting an Outsider take over of her person? Do you think Justine was really thinking clearly when she agreed to that?