I think you are underestimating how much Sarissa is part of the conspiracy to kill Maeve and make Sarissa the Winter Lady.  The whole book is written essentially under one context and Harry (and us) take that to be the truth.  But go back to events and remember that she is Mab's daughter.

Let's roll it back to the very start of the book.  Sarissa never says, "Mom" to Mab.  When she talks about her relationship with Mab, she doesn't outright lie but does not tell the truth.  Then she shows up at Molly's place.  I want to remind you at this point in the book Harry thinks she is a young, Mortal woman.  Under 30, maybe under 25.  The Redcap would know that she is Mab's daughter.  He likely pre-dates Mab.  So, do you think he is really going to KILL Mab's daughter?  How would that go for him?  More likely she let her self be captured by him and sent to Harry.  I suspect all her hiding is not her fear of Harry, but instead fear that he will recognize her as Maeve's twin.  The next event is the "team" crossing the circle at the top of the island.  There is no way to force her into the circle and make her stay.  She went into the circle willingly.  The plan was to have Maeve killed and pop the Winter Lady's Mantle into Sarissa.  Mab knew it AND so did Sarissa.  Look at her argument with Maeve.  She clearly knew that Maeve was nFected.  She compared Maeve to Lea and how Mab could cure Maeve. 

We tend to assume that the people working against Harry and the good guys are Nemesis-infected or Nemesis-influenced, and obviously some of them, like Maeve, are so.  But it's not clear that Aurora, for example, was suffering from exactly the same thing Maeve was.  There was no indication that Aurora could actually lie by commission, for ex.

Likewise, there are people working for the other side who almost surely are doing so of their own free wills (or as close as the supernaturals have in some cases).  They may or may not be allies, but they probably do work together sometimes (and maybe against each other at other times).  I strongly doubt Cowl is Nemfected, for ex.

Regarding Sarissa, see nambkas' comments above.  Sarissa looks to be far more than what Harrry took her to be in Cold Days.  But just as a speculation, suppose Sarissa is actually Circle, or working for/with them (presumably even unknown to her mother).

That might seem improbable, but it might also explain a few things.  For ex, Maeve hated being Winter Lady, apparently.  She apparently also hated Sarissa, though that may have been jealousy over her relationship with Mab, and/or her personal freedom.

But how did Maeve end up as Winter Lady in the first place?  Why Maeve and not Sarissa?  From Mab's POV, Sarissa looks like the better candidate.  More self-disciplined, more serious.  I would think that Mab would have preferred Sarissa to be the Winter Lady.  Yet somehow Maeve ended up with that 'honor'.

But if Sarissa was with the bad guys, even back then, of her own free will, it might make sense to let Maeve have the title and the power, since that way Sarissa retains her freedom of action and her semi-immortality.  She can always become Winter Lady later, if need be something can be arranged to happen to Maeve...

If Maeve was somehow forced into taking the Winter Lady status, that might also have contributed to her hated for her sister.

Just speculating...

I can think of two ways to make the Oblivion War make sense...

1) Things have changed.

   Once upon a time, eldritch horrors could come and go and make themselves known to early man.  Something changed (perhaps the building of the Outer Gates or the rise of organized pantheons of gods who pushed out other powerful beings who might compete for worship) and now only the knowledge of free-willed humans keeps them tethered at all to our world.

or

2) First Contact is Hard.

   In Proven Guilty, Harry describes how things can cross over from the NeverNever -- either someone here calls to it (even unconsciously as it turns out) or something really, really powerful pushes it through from the other side.

   It stands to reason that something making contact from "the other side" for the first time would have to push through -- requiring a substantial amount of effort.  Perhaps it's also hard to find our world out of all of the possible worlds and the vast space of the NeverNever, so it would take an eldritch horror a long time and a lot of energy to get back here once it's been forgotten.

Which might be true.  But that leaves the other meta-problem with the concept.  If things ever change again, whatever circumstance let them make contact returns, the nature of the Oblivion War would mean that nobody would be there to recognize them for what they are, or know why they need to be blocked!

That sort of thing is one of the reasons I've always disliked, 'belief defines reality' as a concept in fiction.  It's OK in specific cases or situations (like the DV requiring that you believe in what you're doing with magic for it to work) or a specific monster taking a shape out of someone's head (though even that has problems, it lends itself to silliness like the Sta-Puf Marshmallow Man, fine in a comedy, but when you think about it, it could just as easily work that way in a serious story because it could work that way in reality, given that concept).  When a story tries to make general reality a product of collective belief, problems immediately arise.

Even if the Oblivion War is definitely real, I still think it's likely that Thomas' understanding of it is flawed, esp. since everything he thinks he knows about it comes through Lara.  That would at least open the possibility of it making sense in the bigger picture.

We are assuming he was innocent. 

No, I'm not.  What I said applies equally well either way.  Whether he was innocent, or trying to play them, Titania's still the one of the two more likely to lash out in a lethal angry rage.

Of course their not speaking does make it look like their fight is with each other, and not him.

Not necessarily a contradiction.  Any given lover might try to 'play' them, and even after they found out they could still easily blame each other as well.

Quote

In a way that disappoints me, because it leaves all the logical holes and contradictions in place.  If Lara had been making it up, or distorting it for Thomas, some of those problems would be gone.

I don't see how. JB has thought this out and his explanation not only makes sense but is verified in the series. Lara doesn't need to create a whole mysterious ruse to control Thomas, we have seen her do it with much simpler methods, more traditional White Court methods.

The whole Oblivion War has some basic problems in the concept, at least as Thomas presents it.  For ex, all these entities the Venators are supposedly trying to remove from the world by everyone forgetting they ever existed...apparently they made contact with the world before at some point.  How did humanity find out about them in the first place?

Also, Thomas implies that all the entites in the NN are like that, he says the Venators tried to get rid of the Fae but failed because of the Brothers Grimm and the Gutenberg printing press.  I'm sorry, but that makes no sense.  I think later WoJ sort of implied that it's various Outsiders that the Venators are trying to wipe away from memory.  Well, that helps, because it narrows down the issue, and the Outsiders would be expected to follow different rules than the 'native' entities of the universe.

Meta-level, it's even worse.  Ever read The Martian Chronicles?

It's also possible she was using a ceramic gun. And as far as Winter's teeth I thought in Cold Days they were specifically described as iron.

By Harry Dresden in the first person.  Which means they may, or may not, actually be made of element 56 on the periodic table.  I don't think Harry had time to do spectroscopy at that particular juncture. :lol:

Perhaps the last Star Born who killed a few Queens was Merlin, but I suspect if both Mab and Titania loved a mortal, it was probably Tam Lin.  Who then left the Knight service to be with some mortal woman.

Hmm...according to legend, one of the dangers of taking a Fae lover was that they can be ferociously jealous, murderously jealous, even if they are routinely unfaithful themselves.  I wonder if Mab and Titania share that tendency...

If I remember correct, there are three weapons linked to Arthur. A sword, spear and a dagger. If the Knights have the sword, and the athame is the dagger, so where is the spear?

It also occurs to me that there might be some (nasty) possibilities in combination of more ordinary technology and/or magic to deal with immortals.  IIRC, Bob told Harry something to the effect that you could kill an immortal (Maeve in that specific case) and mulch the corpse, and all you'd do (except on Halloween) would be to delay her return.

So suppose someone wanted to keep an immortal, say Mab for an example, down.  Assuming he managed to kill her in the first place, you could mulch the corpse, then put a tracer spell on the remains, or otherwise attach some kind of magic to tell you what the mantle was doing, and when it starts to bring her back...mulch her again before she can recover.  Or things along those lines.  If you really had it in for her, you could even make sure each successive death was a whole new agony, sort of like what she did to Lloyd.

No wonder Mab wants Bob's knowledge out of circulation...Bob told Harry that one of the early Council Merlins apparently knew about the Halloween effect, because he originated the custom of masks on Halloween as a protective ritual.  I wonder what ever happened to that Merlin, and if the Senior Council people might still know the truth?

If this has been discussed elsewhere, please accept my apologies...

If Lara were to become nemfected, would that give Nemesis any advantage given her involvement in the Oblivion War?  Would Jim want to use that to bring that conflict into the main book series?

If I remember correctly that he doesn't plan to have Harry involved in the Oblivion War, is this a clue to show that Lara won't be nemfected in order to keep it out?

thoughts?

I'm not even 100% convinced that there is an Oblivion War.