We know Lea gets the athame in GP. We know she is carrying it in SK. We know that Mab is carrying it in DB and has at that point had to contain Lea. We know that as of PG Mab seems erratic and Lea is clearly completely Upminster*. It seems a reasonable working hypothesis that the athame is a vector for crazyness.
We also know the athame comes from Cowl. So it seems a reasonable working hypothesis that the power it conveys is Outsider-based.
We know Aurora's nuts in SK. We also know we have not seen Titania on stage yet and it would be surprising were there not a reason for this.
[As I see it, the options for what's going on with Summer are
a) whoever is behind the athame has their hooks in Summer too
b) Summer has gone looking for a non-Faerie power source to keep the balance against Winter having the athame and picked a different dark and nasty one. The Denarians seem a reasonable choice here.]
Big outstanding question here; if the athame drove Lea mad, enough that Mab had to forcibly subdue her, why on Earth is Mab carrying it around rather than burying it in a deep dark hole ?
The explanation that seems to make most sense to me is, because she has no choice. Because Lea, under the influence of the athame, has made some sort of commitments which Mab, in binding Lea, is bound to fulfil. As she explains in DB she has to in the case of Lea's godmotherly commitments to Harry.
The Gatekeeper:
The mystery of PG really starts with the Gatekeeper and his cryptic warning to Harry about "Black Magic" in Chicago. Bob comes up with the interpretation that the Gatekeeper cannot give any more information because it will lead to paradoxeggedon - i.e. that even more black magic is potentially coming to Chicago and this warning is the best the Gatekeeper can do.
But when you think about it, other than Molly's mind-control stuff, is there any other Black Magic going on in Chicago? What exactly is the Gatekeeper trying to prevent? Initially, Harry thinks that the psychic mauling of Pell (the theater owner) is black magic, but this turns out to merely be a Fetch. Somehow, this feels more "animalistic" to me rather than "evil". Is the blackout that the Fetch induced any more "black magic" than the Myrk that the Hobs bring during SmF?
The other (and to me, more plausible) explanation is of course that the Gatekeeper is foreseeing Molly's greased (by the mind control she's already attempted) slide into black magic, and is getting Harry to prevent that.
Which leads me to my next point...
Black Council actions in PG:
Talk to anyone about BC activity in Proven Guilty and they'll immediately think about the attack on Arctis Tor. It was swift, powerful, and it very clearly implied that there were forces at work that had their own agenda. However, two things always bothered me:
1) The frontal assault
The BC is a group that has consistently worked from the shadows and through layers of cats-paws. Why would they conduct a full-scale frontal assault on one of the most powerful creatures in the DV in her place of power (i.e. we've seen that Erlking thought he had a chance against her should she be summoned to his domain)? Furthermore, we have the WoJ that any assault by the like of Namshiel would not only be defeated, but utterly crushed. Sanya excepted, why would any intelligent creature (and nigh-immortals count, certainly once they are at least a century old) pursue such a futile course of action? This smacks as either desperation (i.e. Harry), or temporary insanity (i.e. Harry).
I've seen the various theories that they had some hold or bargain over Mab, or that maybe this was a strike to remove the Athame from Mab's possession (heck, I made that one myself at some point), but then this never really explained why Harry needed to come to Arctis Tor - the real attack was already defeated.
2) BC in Chicago:
Fact is, we have circumstantial evidence of Black Council activity in Chicago during PG:
- Madrigal is a known cats-paw for the BC. Someone invited him over a year before the convention started. Speculation is that he covering for **something**
- Sandra Marlin is the one who gets Molly thinking about using magical fear to stop a drug addiction. She also used to work at a homeless shelter (Marva warning bells here). If we believe the RPG as cannon, she also disappeared shortly after the events of PG.
The answer struck me that the whole PG story might just have been an attempt to "turn" Molly.
Consider that:
- We've already seen that the general BC mode of operation is to give powerful-but-dangerous black magic tools to various people and let them run loose:
- Victor Sells
- Hexunwulf FBI
- Kravos
...you might also include the Athame, the device from Love Hurts, and possibly even the Word of Kemmler itself.
Now we have Molly, who unlike Victor Sells, actually has the power to make the White Council, and she's rebellious enough to be touched by darkness. All one needs to do is to nudge her in the right direction and give her a bit a of power and she could make a scary diversion from whatever you're trying to actually accomplish. For extra points:
- If Marva is on the BC, corrupting the daughter of the guy who "killed your children" is certainly a bonus.
- If you are a Denarian (Namshiel?), then getting the magically-powered daughter of a Knight to take up a coin is certainly a bonus.
- Maybe Molly is special (I'll speculate more about this at the end)
As a last thought, consider the following:
If Harry hadn't stepped in and taken Molly to her parents, she would have gone with Nelson to greet "Darby Crane". Given who he really is and Molly's looks, don't you think he would have tried (and probably succeeded) to "shake hands" with her? If he did shake hands, isn't it a reasonable assumption that he would have realized her potential, given his ability to feed on fear and Molly's recent fear-inducing magic?
Also, it has probably occurred to more than one of you that if Mab was /really/ in trouble, she could have had the entire military might of Faerie back at the fortress in moments--exactly the way they *did* come back when Harry smacked the Winter Well with the fires of Summer.
(Which goes to show that while Mab may be canny to an inhuman degree, she isn't infallible. Just way closer to infallible than us.)
The real "attack" on Winter is via the means of the athame, warping Mab and Lea, and possibly also via the means of Lea being required to make bargains that are not for Winter's good (like swapping the athame for Amoracchius in the first place). The Scarecrow a) has power entirely outside the nature of any of the other Fetches, which Harry identifies at the end of PG as "Black Council" modus operandi and b) has Harry's power fade out when it somes to near, in ways much more similar to Lord Raith's Outsider-backed immunity in BR than to just being too strong for it (cf. Ursiel in DM, "Grum" in SK). This leads me to suspect the Scarecrow is an Outsider-plus-allies agent who has the run of Arctis Tor.
The frontal assault by some Denarian - supposedly Namshiel though Mab avoids confirming this directly and makes great effort to distract Harry when he suggests it - is a rescue mission. The whole point is to blow away enough goblins and trolls that Harry and company have a hope of getting into Arctis Tor.
Dear god. Are you a CIA analyst or something?Now some may doubt it, but remember: Mab needs a motive for kidnapping Molly, and according to a WOJ, the damage to the Winter Well was not planned. Here are Neurovore's arguments:
The Scarecrow is a "Black Council" agent - in this case a Circle agent.
Compare, Harry, p.476 of PG pb: "Consider all these things running around with more power than they should have had." With p.366 ibid "This thing was no fetch, no changer of form and image and illusion. There was no shadowy mask over an amorphous form, no glamour altering its appearance, which my salve would have enabled me to see through. This thing was a whole independent creature. Except maybe it was a fetch so old and strong... " (Emphasis mine.) The "old strong fetch" theory is not what one might call confirmed.
Compare also, p. 368 ibid, "A lance of flame as thick as my wrist lashed out from the tip of the rod - and died two feet away from it, the burning energy of the strike swallowed by an unfathomable ocean of cold cold power." That's not how entities toughing it out against Harry's fire from sheer resilience behave - see Grum in Reuel's apartment in SK, see Ursiel in DM. What it is reminiscent of is Lord Raith's immunity to magic. Which we are pretty certain is Outsider based, which leads back to the Circle again.
The Scarecrow is an entity that has been let into Arctis Tor by some agreement Mab is held to under duress. Mab's motivation in manipulating Harry is not only to get Summer to flatten the Reds, but also to be rid of the Scarecrow in a deniable way.
To play devil's advocate to myself, and expand from a line of reasoning JRBobC was suggesting in the other thread:
Suppose the Scarecrow is only an old strong fetch. Suppose Mab is willing to sacrifice it for the sake of getting Summer to flatten the Reds. Suppose the Circle have nothing directly to do with anything in PG. It holds together pretty much equally well, if you don't find the observations I make above convincing, and leaves the athame-vectored craziness as a separate piece of plotting entirely.
There is also the other element of how Harry got into Arctis Tor to consider in each case. There's nothing defending Arctis Tor but some fetches, because something, armed with Hellfire, took out a small army of goblins and a pack of trolls.
(Given that Harry knows Hellfire, I think we can rule out the Scarecrow's unfetchlike powers being Denarian-based, fwiw.)
Yeah. It sure looks that way from here, don't it.
But to correct some minor stuff: the fetches aren't even /close/ to her strongest servitors. They're her couriers, harassers, spies and occasional assassins. Captain Kudzu was a being that was deemed more-or-less sufficient on the badassometer, but nothing to write home about. The fetches main use, to Mab, isn't as battlefield thugs. She's got /plenty/ of other things for that. Another mild correction: who says Mab /lost/ the battle at Arctis Tor, before Harry and Company arrived? At the end of the day, the Winter Queen was still in her fortress--but you didn't see anyone standing around assaulting the place, did ya. Also, it has probably occurred to more than one of you that if Mab was /really/ in trouble, she could have had the entire military might of Faerie back at the fortress in moments--exactly the way they *did* come back when Harry smacked the Winter Well with the fires of Summer.
(Which goes to show that while Mab may be canny to an inhuman degree, she isn't infallible. Just way closer to infallible than us.)
See above regarding "the question is *why*?"
Ask yourself why Mab had Molly brought in. What chain of events did that set in motion? What secondary effects came about because of it? Ultimately, Mab can always go to the Wyld and draw in more muscle to replace fallen thugs. If worst comes to worst, with just a few "seed" fae, she could rear up enough Changelings to repopulate her cadre within a human generation or two--nothing, to a being thousands of years old.
As far as she's concerned, everyone and everything is expendable, including herself, when it comes to adhering to her (seemingly irrational and inexplicable) priorities.
(And by the way--don't think Titania is much better. When push came to shove, she let her own daughter be murdered rather than upset the balance of the Faerie Courts. At least Mab is up front about it. Usually.)
Sacrifice her best troops? Mab would sacrifice every creature *in* Winter, every one she could bring from Summer, and every single mortal on planet Earth if that's what she thought was appropriate. And she wouldn't even need to add extra sugar to her cup of tea afterwards, much less lose sleep over it.
But no one does cold-blooded like the Queen of Winter. Mab's been in the business a long time, she's got a balance sheet, and she is *not* going to come out in the red--
--unless, of course, she really *has* stripped a gear, as Lily and Maeve believe. In which case there's a stark raving bonkers demigoddess whose powers are no longer being held in check by the Escher-esque code of Sidhe behavior. And that's all kinds of bad.
But hey. It's probably not that. I mean, not *everything* that happens can be the absolute worst possible possibility, right?
Jim
Also, as a minor quibble, I'm not specifically arguing that the Denarians attacking Arctis Tor were working for Titania, merely that the point of their attack is to aid Harry and team's entry; Titania is one option for that, but given the WoJ about how much Mab would be willing to sacrifice for her goals, I can equally well see them working for Mab directly.
Also, the thought of a knnneurovore is really kind of intimidating.
Plz refrain from talking about
•Little Chicago
•Molly = Mab
- she allways planned for ahrry to do somethign which would get winters attention, and draw her troops in, leaving summer free to attack the reds. That is why she put the erlking in charge, sinc eshe knew he wanted harry bad. the exact method (summer fire) may have been a surprise, but not the result
Thank you for the kind words, though I am still not a "he".Nice picture. Definitely a "she" :)
Only attacking the well would draw her troops in. And she hadn't planned for it (nearly WOJ).
Nice picture. Definitely a "she"
(http://www.sideshowtoy.com/mas_assets/jpg/6366_press11-001.jpg)An adult knnneurovore: note Knnn's teeth and Neurovore's brain
All this has led me to a somewhat small conundrum: if Harry was the key Mab needed to fight Captain Kudzu, because Kudzu is outsider-boosted, why is it summer's fire that was the key to wounding him? It seems like some sort of outsiderbane-ness should have been the deciding factor, which was what made Harry important to the equation, rather than summer's fire which did the trick. I'm not debating the point that Captain Kudzu was outsider boosted--I think the arguments on that fact are compelling. I know this is a small point to the overall arguments, which are impressive, but I am trying to digest it all....The Outsider magic resistance may be related to mortal magic. Maybe summer fire is something else entirely? It is totally inimical to Winter, certainly, and would certainly have injured the fetch seriously if it had no such protection.
Thats the piece i doubt the most. We have woj the fetches were sacrificed, and a very small sacrifice for mab. So hes not outsider anything.
Thats the piece i doubt the most. We have woj the fetches were sacrificed, and a very small sacrifice for mab. So hes not outsider anything.
I'm not sure I buy that the Fetch has outsider power; it's certainly possible, but it also seems possible that it just has very, very, deep Winter power as an Ancient fae -- that its immunity to magic is just like the immunity that we're told Ogres have in Summer Knight.
I think the latter portion was a plot by Mab to subvert Harry, and perhaps ultimately to get him into a position where he'd have to agree to be Winter Knight in exchange for Molly's freedom.
Why then would it not look like a fetch under glamour-breaking ointmentovision ?
snatching Molly so that she can try to trade her for the Winter Knight job.
I don't believe Mab is interested in a knight who took the job through blackmail. If that was the case there was no need to kidnapp Harry: she coud have tortured him until he accepts the job. Or kidnapped Murphy in Summer Knight.
Oh, she's blackmailing Harry in one sense or another from the moment she forces that letter opener through his hand.
“Whoever called up these phages,” I said, “needed a way to guide them from the Nevernever to the physical world. They needed a beacon, someone who would resonate with a sympathetic vibe. Someone who, like the phages, wanted to make people feel fear.”
Butcher, Jim (2007-02-06). Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8) (p. 270). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Yes. But she's just making sure Harry pays his debt. Not kidnapping someone to force him to take more. I feel that if Mab was in the business of kidnapping people to get new debt, the WC woud try to stop her. Now you may say that she's too strong. In fact I'm sure that an alliance between the WC and Summer would be devastating for Winter.
The "Attack" on Arctis Tor was actually Lea with the Athame (and the Black Council?) attempting to rebel against Mab. Sure, that happened at least more than a year before (prior to Dead Beat, since Lea's imprisoned then) , but what's time in the NeverNever? Mab conquered the attack all on her ownsome, so no probs.
Edit: Alternate Theory:
Lea sent the phages after Molly. We know from as early as Grave Peril that Lea wants Molly; she asks Michael Carpenter for his eldest child. She's high up in Winter and might reasonably be able to command fetches, as Mab's handmaiden and highest servitor.
She has been trapped in the garden for years, and it was still smelling of sulfure at the broken gate. That doesn't seem to fit the timeframe.
EDIT: frankly, I find it maddening that after so many years, we still don't understand why Mab kidnapped Molly.
There are still a number of questions about PG that I've never seen any good discussion of, much less answers for. Who goes back and locks up Pell's theater for him while he's in the hospital?
I caught my breath a little, and asked, “Anything at Pell’s theater?”
Murphy nodded and crossed the room to pick up two of the candles. “A lot of nothing. Place was locked up tight. Chains on the front doors, and the back door was locked. Sign on the door said they were closed until further notice.”
I grunted. “You’d think Pell would be wild to have the place open, if the convention was providing a significant amount of his income—even if he was in a hospital bed. Hell, especially if he was in a hospital bed.”
“Unless he doesn’t have anyone he trusts to run it for him.”
“But he does have someone he trusts enough to lock it up?” I said. “That doesn’t track. Pell sure as hell didn’t lock up after he was attacked.”
Murphy frowned, but she didn’t disagree with me. “I tried to call him to ask him about it, but the nurse said he was sleeping.”
As to the first, it's the NeverNever. Theoretically the fight at Arctis Tor could've happened a hundred years prior to the start of the series.
I expect we'll find out more in Cold Days.
Time isn't THAT screwy in the NN, even if it happened a year before PG, it would have been cleaned up by then. And the smell of Hellfire would probably be gone in half a day, tops.
“It must have been weeks,” Thomas said. “It takes that long for bones to get this clean.” “It’s all relative,” I said. “Time can pass at different rates in Faerie. These bones could have fallen a thousand years ago, by the local clock. Or twenty minutes ago.”
Harry actually says specifically otherwise:
Noted, so time isn't even consistent if you stay in the one place in the NN.....
Because it's a massively strong and old fetch.
We have already some exemples of anti-magic: in Summer Knight, in Heorot.
Lea sent the phages after Molly. We know from as early as Grave Peril that Lea wants Molly; she asks Michael Carpenter for his eldest child.
The "Attack" on Arctis Tor was actually Lea with the Athame (and the Black Council?) attempting to rebel against Mab.
My post quoted at the start of the thread makes the distinction between resistance and immunity, and I hold to that logic; we see resistance from beings old and strong enough to bull through magic, and immunity from Lord R that is specifically identified by Harry as Outsider-backed, and the description of the fetch fits the latter.
"Fuego!" I barked as I released the energy. Fire in a column the size of my clenched fist flashed out at Grum and splashed against his chest.
It didn't slow him down, not by a second. His skin didn't burn-his hair didn't even singe. The fire of my magic spilled over him and did absolutely nothing.
Yet:
That doesn't sound like he's bulling through magic.
Edit: could anyone get the quote in Hereot when harry's magic is blocked? I don't have the text.
The grendelkin hadn’t been kidding about knowing counter-magic, though. All that naked force hit him and just sort of slid off him, like water pouring around a stone. It only drove him back about two steps—which was room enough to let me drop to one knee and swing my staff again.
"A golden flame of fire as wide as a whiskey barrel leapt across the cavern to the grendelkin, smashing into his head and upper body. It was too dispersed to kill the grendelkin outright, but hopefully it would blind and distract the beast enough to let Gard get in the killing blow... ... ...I realized I might as well have hit him with the stream of water from a garden hose, for all the effect the fire had on him." (pg. 139, hardback.)
The problem with the "ocean of cold, cold power" quote is that it's equally interpretable as "outsider immunity" and "ancient winter fae immunity." We already know the Scarecrow is an ancient, powerful, Winter fae, so that seems the simpler explanation.
I reached out through the cane for Lord Raith-
And felt nothing. Not just empty air and drifting dust, but nothing. A cold and somehow hungry emptiness that filled the space where he should have been. I'd felt something like it before, when I'd been near a mote of one of the deadliest substances that any world of flesh or spirit had ever known. My power, my magic, the flowing spirit of life, just vanished into it without getting near Raith.
I couldn't touch him. The void around him was so absolute, I knew without needing to doubt that there was nothing in my arsenal of arcane skills that could affect him
Yeah. When you add in that there's no "void" described around the Scarecrow, and that summer fire DOES reach him, it seems more that he's just filled with "cold cold power" from ancient Winter. I think the fetch/outsider connection is the core error assumption that Jim was commenting on in Neurovore's theory.
We know that if you throw enough magic at an Outsider, even they will be affected, the Summer Fire could have just been enough magic to get around it, it was enough to destroy the Winter wellspring.
After Harry defeated He Who Walks Behind, how did he make contact with the Leanandsidhe to bargain for the power to face Justin DuMorne? I think that’s the only part of that story you haven’t covered yet.
With relative simplicity, since she’d basically been lurking about near him, unseen, from the time he was born.
She judged everything that had happened to him a valuable learning experience, up until the point where DuMorne wanted to break into his skull. She couldn’t take on the Walker directly, but once that obstacle was out of the way, she appeared to ickle Harry right quick.
Mab as orchestrator of all is just a little much for me to swallow. Seems like she loses a lot more than she gains, and I don't think Mab is big on coming out behind in her negotiations.
Yeah. It sure looks that way from here, don't it.
But to correct some minor stuff: the fetches aren't even /close/ to her strongest servitors. They're her couriers, harassers, spies and occasional assassins. Captain Kudzu was a being that was deemed more-or-less sufficient on the badassometer, but nothing to write home about. The fetches main use, to Mab, isn't as battlefield thugs. She's got /plenty/ of other things for that. Another mild correction: who says Mab /lost/ the battle at Arctis Tor, before Harry and Company arrived? At the end of the day, the Winter Queen was still in her fortress--but you didn't see anyone standing around assaulting the place, did ya. Also, it has probably occurred to more than one of you that if Mab was /really/ in trouble, she could have had the entire military might of Faerie back at the fortress in moments--exactly the way they *did* come back when Harry smacked the Winter Well with the fires of Summer.
(Which goes to show that while Mab may be canny to an inhuman degree, she isn't infallible. Just way closer to infallible than us.)
See above regarding "the question is *why*?"
Ask yourself why Mab had Molly brought in. What chain of events did that set in motion? What secondary effects came about because of it? Ultimately, Mab can always go to the Wyld and draw in more muscle to replace fallen thugs. If worst comes to worst, with just a few "seed" fae, she could rear up enough Changelings to repopulate her cadre within a human generation or two--nothing, to a being thousands of years old.
As far as she's concerned, everyone and everything is expendable, including herself, when it comes to adhering to her (seemingly irrational and inexplicable) priorities.
(And by the way--don't think Titania is much better. When push came to shove, she let her own daughter be murdered rather than upset the balance of the Faerie Courts. At least Mab is up front about it. Usually.)
Sacrifice her best troops? Mab would sacrifice every creature *in* Winter, every one she could bring from Summer, and every single mortal on planet Earth if that's what she thought was appropriate. And she wouldn't even need to add extra sugar to her cup of tea afterwards, much less lose sleep over it.
But no one does cold-blooded like the Queen of Winter. Mab's been in the business a long time, she's got a balance sheet, and she is *not* going to come out in the red--
--unless, of course, she really *has* stripped a gear, as Lily and Maeve believe. In which case there's a stark raving bonkers demigoddess whose powers are no longer being held in check by the Escher-esque code of Sidhe behavior. And that's all kinds of bad.
But hey. It's probably not that. I mean, not *everything* that happens can be the absolute worst possible possibility, right?
Jim
quote author=TheCuriousFan link=topic=32166.msg1401233#msg1401233 date=1336229704]
We know that if you throw enough magic at an Outsider, even they will be affected, the Summer Fire could have just been enough magic to get around it, it was enough to destroy the Winter wellspring.
let me nail this one to the door if I may,b ecause I beleive we can disprove ' cpt kudzu had outsider help ' quite nicely.
the argument seems to be he is magic imune, but not summer fire imune, and this makes him an outsider. The problem is, there is no eveidence that strong sidhe magic hurts outsiders, and some that it does not:
1- Lea could not take on HWWB, but harry could, and he did not need to use summer fire to do so; his ordinary magic was more than enough. So its not sidhe magic, its outsider bane magic that hurts outsiders.
therefore, ahrry's ordianry fire should have hurt CK if he was outsider, and the summer fire not. Sinc ethe opposite is true, i deduce that CK wa sprotected by winter magic.
2. Lord Raith was still breathing in BR. Now, I believe that Lea loved Maggie, as much as a sidhe can. LR killed Maggie, and Lea did not seek revenge? Eb mentioned he treid to kill LR several times but failed, I suspect lea did as well.
now, on to the other point:
Jim says that she sacrificed the fetches, and CK in particular. That means CK was hers, all allong.
(of course, it also says that Mab had Molly brought in, that she won the battle of AT, That things happened that she did not quite predict, but it still worked out, and oh yes Mab may be in love with Harry. )
(before people scream about the dagger causing Mab's madness, let me point out that: we have woj that the dagger hurt her, and the reason she cant talk is she's pissed. And it was maeve that sugested she has fallen in love with harry, and then we have lea's comments about love causing madness.)
;D
We have multiple theories for that one:
5- the Oberon connection. It has liitle to do with Molly, and everything to do with harry
5- Molly is the once and future king. Mab has forseen this. It's Molly's destiny to wield ammorichus in battle against the outsiders.
Could you explain?
I thought Jim said he didn't know who will wield amorracchius, and that Molly's destiny could still change.
1- Lea could not take on HWWB, but harry could, and he did not need to use summer fire to do so; his ordinary magic was more than enough. So its not sidhe magic, its outsider bane magic that hurts outsiders.
2. Lord Raith was still breathing in BR. Now, I believe that Lea loved Maggie, as much as a sidhe can. LR killed Maggie, and Lea did not seek revenge?
(before people scream about the dagger causing Mab's madness, let me point out that: we have woj that the dagger hurt her, and the reason she cant talk is she's pissed. And it was maeve that sugested she has fallen in love with harry, and then we have lea's comments about love causing madness.)
Does anyone have a searchable copy of the df? I dont have my books, but there is a quote in sk where lea talks about how much she cared for maggie, and one in gp where she talks about how long they were together. Also the comment in pg where maeve talks about love majing the sidhe insane.Here's the relevant portion of PG. I don't have digital copies of the others.
"It may well be. Dark things stir in Winter's heart. Things even I have never before seen. Dangerous things. I believe they are a portent."
I tilted my head a little, focused on her. "How so?"
"What Aurora attempted was insane. Even among the Sidhe," Maeve replied. "Her actions could have thrown enormous forces out of balance, to the ruin of all."
"Her heart was in the right place," Fix said, his tone mildly defensive.
"Maybe," I told him, as gently as I could. "but good intent doesn't amount ot much when the consequences are epically screwed up."
Maeve shook her head. "Hearts. Good. Evil. Mortals are always concerned with such nonsense." She abruptly rose, her mind clearly elsewhere.
Something in her expression or manner gave me a sudden sense that she was worried. Deeply, truly worried. Little Miss Overlord was frieghtened.
"These mortal notions," Maeve said. "Good, evil, love. All those other things your kind natter on about. Are they perhaps contagious?"
I rose with her, politely. "Some would say so," I told her.
She grimaced. "In the time since her death, I have often thought to myself that Aurora was stricken with some mortal madness. I believe the Queen of Air and Darkness has been taken by a similar contagion." She suddenly shuddered and said, voice curt, "I have answered you with truth, and more than needed be said. Does that satisfy the accounting, mortal?"
"Aye," I told her, nodding. "Good enough for me."
"Whoever called up the phages," I said, "needed a way to guide them from the Nevernever to the physical world. They needed a beacon, someone who would resonate with a sympathetic vibe. Someone who, like the phages, wanted to make people fell fear."
My problem with the theory that the Outsider needed killing is that Mab was its Queen. Surely she could have orchestrated his death in many, many ways. Its possible that the Scarecrow had tricked her into giving it some kind of safe harbor, but this just strikes me as wholly unfounded and conjectural.
Does anyone have a searchable copy of the df? I dont have my books, but there is a quote in sk where lea talks about how much she cared for maggie, and one in gp where she talks about how long they were together. Also the comment in pg where maeve talks about love majing the sidhe insane.
She let out a peal of laughter. “No, silly child. Simply put your hand in mine. I will convey you.”
I gave her a sidelong look and asked warily, “At what price?”
“None.”
“None? You never do anything without a price.”
She rolled her eyes and clarified, “None to you, child.”
“Who, then?”
“No one you know, or knew,” Lea said.
An intuition hit me. “My mother. That’s who you’re talking about.”
Lea left her hand extended. She smiled, but only said, “Perhaps.”
“Treacher!” spat my godmother. She rose up from the ground, blackened and burned, her fine dress in tatters about her waist, her body and limbs stretched, knobby, and inhuman. She clenched her hands into fists at her sides, and the fire from the building around us seemed to rush down, gathering in her grasp in a pair of blazing points of violet and emerald light. “Treasonous, poisonous child! You are mine as your mother swore unto me! As you swore!”
She’s bad, Harry. Some of them are merely alien, but that one is… malevolent. She enjoys causing pain.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I didn’t exactly pick her.”
“Who did?”
I shrugged. “My mother, I think. She was the one with power. My fatherwasn’t a wizard. Wasn’t into their world.”
“I don’t understand why she would do that to her child.”
Something inside me broke with a little snapping sensation, and I felt tearsat my eyes. I scowled. They were a child’s tears, to go with a child’s old pain. “Idon’t know,” I said. “I know that she was mixed up with some bad people. Bad beings. Whatever. Maybe Lea was one of her allies.”
“Lea. It’s short for Leanandsidhe, isn’t it.”
“Yeah. I don’t know her real name. She takes blood from mortals and gives them inspiration in return. Artists and poets and things. That’s how she
amassed most of her power.”
Michael nodded. “I’ve heard of her. This bargain you have with her. What is it?”
I shook my head. “It isn’t important.”
Something shifted in Michael, became harder, more resolute. “It is important to me, Harry. Tell me.”
I stared at the babies for a minute, before I said, “I was a kid. Things fell out with my old teacher, Justin. He sent a demon to kill me, and I went on the run. I made a bargain with Lea. Enough power to defeat Justin in exchange for my service to her. My loyalty.”
“And you broke faith with her.”
“More or less.” I shook my head. “She’s never pushed it before now, and I’ve been careful to stay out of her way. She doesn’t usually get this involved with mortal business.”
Michael moved his hand to Amoracchius’s empty scabbard. “She did take the sword though.”
I winced. “Yeah. I guess that was my fault. If I hadn’t have tried to use it to weasel out of the deal…”
“Why?” she said, finally, her voice very quiet, pitched only for me. “Why would you do this to yourself, Harry? I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t think you would,” I said. “There are people who need me. People who are in danger because of me. I have to help them.”
“You cannot help them if you are dead.”
“Nor if I am taken by you.”
“You would give your own life in place of theirs?” she asked, her tone incredulous.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because no one else can do this. They need me. I owe it to them.”
“Owe them your life,” Lea mused. “You are mad, Harry Dresden. Perhaps it comes of your mother.”
I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Lea shrugged. “She spoke as you do. Near the end.” She lifted her eyes to Michael and straightened on the horse. “A dangerous play you made tonight, wizard. A bold play. You cut the traditions of my people very close to the bone. I accept your bargain.
How do you get a Fetch to come to Earth? Well, you need to summon it with a load of fear. Enter Madrigal, puppet of the Black Council. As Madrigal says, he was invited to come to the convention a year previous. ...Right around the time the Darkhallow failed?
Jim says that she sacrificed the fetches, and CK in particular.
Here's the relevant portion of PG. I don't have digital copies of the others.
In this option, the assault on Arctis Tor happens some time between Dead Beat and PG, and is specifically a raid to get the Athame out of Mab's hands.
Option 3
As above, except the assault was made in order to free Lea.
In any case, we have a WoJ pretty much stating outright that the assault failed.
What I dont get is why, if the fetches were sent to kidnap Molly, did they go around beating up, scaring and killing a bunch of other people?
If you're talking about the WoJ you just quoted, where do you read it saying that she did rather than that she would ?
If the athame had infected Winter
by the phrasing of the original question. ;D
It seems to be a common assumption that the athame "infected" or "corrupted" Lea/Mab/Winter. WoJ says that the athame is NOT a vector of corruption, but it IS a vector of power. I think that any theory based on a need to cleanse the corruption caused by the athame is going to run into issues, which is why my own theory above looks for a different source of Lea's corruption and Mab's injury.
how can thw scarecrow be an outsider when it says in the book it has served Mab since before Haarry's (or mortals) time
how can thw scarecrow be an outsider when it says in the book it has served Mab since before Haarry's (or mortals) time
I am operating on the basis that a power as dark as whatever is behind the athame, that appears most likely Outsidery
I don't follow the train of logic that leads to this conclusion. The athame certainly has dark associations (according to the WoJ that nailed down it's historical reference), but I don't recall any evidence for an Outsider linkage.
However, I don't see why you wouldn't call those effects "corruption," especially if you are describing Lea's mental state while she was frozen in Arctis Tor. Something had clearly messed with the inside of her head. Given her reactions, "twisted by dark magic" sounds like a perfectly valid explanation.
Lea acquired the athame and (presumably) used it offscreen at some point. Some time later, Lea appeared to be suffering from the corrupting effects of some dark source of power, maybe Outsider-linked. There are two relatively obvious potential sources of this damage/corruption: the athame itself, or whatever Lea was doing with the athame. Since the athame isn't a vector of corruption (WoJ), I'd like to know more about what exactly Lea was doing with the athame. "Trying to overthrow Mab" is one idea, but that theory depends on the athame acting as a corrupting influence, so I don't buy it. "Fighting--and losing to--something powerful and Outsidery" better fits the data, in my opinion.
It coming from Cowl, who when he's not out there faking Darkhallows to kill off Kemmlerites, is pretty much an Outsider sort of guy.
What about the Fomor (or rather Fomor-altered or whatever, since his magic seems human) theory?
Have we actually seen him doing anything that's distinctly Outsidery? The uberghouls and the weird pterodactyl-comet in WN could just as easily be from the same sort of dark, creepy bits of the NN that the Fomor come from
Hmm, if we provisionally accept the fake Darkhallow idea, was the whole WN plot a fake too - specifically designed to lure in Harry? It seems the sort of thing that's practically designed for his intervention - hm, let's attack female practitioners right on Dresden's turf, since we know he can't stand to see women hurt and is unusually connected to the White Court for a wizard, great idea.
I think Harry identifies the pterodactyl-comet and maybe also Vittorio's attack as feeling specifically outsidery.
Didn't that cold power also block a massive force blast at one point? It seems less fire resistance and more magic resistance to me.
I was referring to when he first met the Scarecrow or was in the middle of running away from it.
"Trying to overthrow Mab" is one idea, but that theory depends on the athame acting as a corrupting influence, so I don't buy it. "Fighting--and losing to--something powerful and Outsidery" better fits the data, in my opinion.
Some of the strength seemed to ebb from her, and she suddenly seemed exhausted. “I grew too arrogant with the power I held. I thought I could overcome what stalks us all. Foolish. Milady Queen Mab taught me the error of my ways.”
Judging from Harry's comments during the final fight that is because he was afraid of it. The fetch feeds on fear and the more fear you feel the less successful your magic is. I'll look for some quotes when I haves some more time.
I was referring to when he first met the Scarecrow or was in the middle of running away from it.
Yeah, I think one valid reading of that is that Summer's fire gave Harry the mental "warmth" to charge his magic and wipe out his fear; not so much that Captain Kudzu was vulnerable to Summer Fire specifically, as a thing, but that Harry was able to defeat the Fetch because he was infused with Summer Fire and it helped him blank out his fear, charged his magic, refreshed his mana points, whatever, etc.
It coming from Cowl, who when he's not out there faking Darkhallows to kill off Kemmlerites, is pretty much an Outsider sort of guy.
because I think "possession" looks like a much better word.
There's textual support for this:QuoteSome of the strength seemed to ebb from her, and she suddenly seemed exhausted. “I grew too arrogant with the power I held. I thought I could overcome what stalks us all. Foolish. Milady Queen Mab taught me the error of my ways.”"What stalks us all" is pretty ambiguous. Death? Mortality? Who is "us all" -- all Fae? All Fae and humans together, since she's talking to Harry? The Walkers?
I had an interesting thought as I read through all of the posts.
One of the distinguishing things of the Fea is that they cannot lie and that they must honor their word once given. It is part of their nature. It is something they must be aware of constantly- not only current commitments but the effect of new ones upon old commitments. It is speculated (and I believe true) that if a Fae were to have two mutually exclusive commitments, it would severly weaken them. Given this, here is my speculation:
-Lea gives a promise to Maggie to protect Harry.
-Mab forsees the coming rise of the outsiders, and enters into a deal to prevent it at all costs. Part of this deal has to do with Harry either becoming an agent of winter or a member of the Black Council, and it doesn't bode well for him.
-Lea realizes this puts her in a bind- on one side she has her oath to Maggie, on the other her fealty to Mab. Mab, of course, sees it as a chance to put some limitations on an powerful subordinate. So Lea casts about for the power to do the unthinkable- to lie and break oaths.
-Someone sells Lea on the idea that the Athame would grant her that power. She trades it for locking summer and winter into a stalemate, so the Red Court can come and go through the nevernever and further the aims of the anti-wizard portion of the Black Council.
-Now Mab is in a real bind. So she imprisons Lea and takes the athame. Then she sets about showing Lea how to properly handle balancing a debt ledger.
So, from a certain point of view, PG was all about showing Mab showing Lea how to further her own ends while eliminating debts. Mab showed her that true power lies not in some artifact, but in being smart, and clever, and quick. As Lea said "Milady Queen Mab taught me the error of my ways."
just because lord raith had outsider conections, and justin had outsider conections, and the black court may have outsider conections, does not mean cowl does, or that they are all on the same team.
We know that the Council destroy information related specifically to dangerous lawbreaking - like Kemmler's writings, as Bob says at the start of DB. That's one reason to think information about Outsiders is limited and not in common currency.
Harry knows precious little about them, and him getting new information about them is a big deal when it happens. That's another.
For those of you who believe the Oblivion War is what it seems to be, there's an additional set of people whose actions would work against Outsider knowledge being common.
The thing about Justin and Lord R both having Outsidery knowledge is that we have an established connection between them; they were both associates of Maggie during her time on the dark side. They may not always have been working with the same motivations but the information there could totally have flowed from one of them to the other without needing any more supporting evidence than what we have now. Fitting Cowl in with that cabal would reduce every demonstrated non-White Council bit of Outsider knowledge to one source, and with the above points for Outsider knowledge being restricted, I find that plausible. (Cowl being Simon would make this particularly neat.)
I'm not seeing where you're getting the Black Court having Outsider connections from, though Mavra getting them through Cowl would fit with my take on things here. I can totally buy your living nuclear weapons analogy if we consider the Dresdenverse now as being somewhere in the mid-1940s as proliferation goes, but I think they'd be a sight better known if lots of power groups had the capacity to call on them.
thing is , lovecraft did write a few books on the subject. as did the mad arab.
as to the black court, i get that from lash's comments in WN
the first dozen books are set in nthe 1950s, with the ex allies conesting for power, with the reds as the soviet union, the white court as china, the WC as nato, and the black court being the leftover nazis hiding in argentina.
the post changes books i see as after the fall of the soviets. Now wether the BC will rise up, hydra like, is up to JIm.
And so far as we have any relevant information, the Council shut them both down, which i think supports my point.
To what are you referring here ?
i suspect that the latter half of the casebooks will be more like the post-fall-of-the-Soviet-Union chaos people like Anthony Price were afraid of than the realities of the post-fall-of-the-Soviet-Union world, fwiw.
as stoker was 'killed for being delicous' and lovecraft may have had a simillar fate, im not sure the WCouncil was involved. all we know about them was the gatekeeper killed the mad arab, likely for gatekeerper reasons
and the last thing lash says, about harrys mother, the black court, and the outsiders. i cant quote now, anyone have it available?
"Listen," Lasciel said, giving my head a little shake. "You have the potential to hold great power over them. You may be able to escape the power now held over you. If you are sure it is what you want, I can give you an opportunity to defy Malvora's sending. But you'll have to hurry. I don't know how long it will take to throw it off, and they are almost upon you."
After which, we were going to have a long talk about my mother and these Outsiders and their relation to the Black Court and exactly what the hell was going on.
Lasciel—Lash, rather—nodded once and said, "I will tell you all that I can, Harry."
It's something the Faerie Queens don't do, and that they discourage their subjects from doing, as I understand it.
And yet (if you beleive most of the threads about PG) Mab sent the fetches into the convention and allowed/encourged them to kill innocent bystandards...
And yet (if you beleive most of the threads about PG) Mab sent the fetches into the convention and allowed/encourged them to kill innocent bystandards...My point was it's not something they can't do, just something they usually don't do.
To be absolutely precise, the Outsider-Black Court connection is actually Harry's thought process, not Lash. That said, the fact that his subconscious would make that connection implies something...
My point was it's not something they can't do, just something they usually don't do.
Has there been anything in any of Mavra's appearances that might point Harry at associating her with Outsiders, then ?
And there's the troll in "Restoration of Faith", and iirc a number of references to the Alphas driving off minor supernatural predators including some from Winter. The impression I have is that generic Winter fae on Earth can hunt pretty much as they like, and it's only concerted action by or at the instigation of a Queen that needs the mortal concerned to be in some way already entangled with Faerie.
Not that I know of. Harry doesn't mention Outsiders very often (he doesn't even find out that HHWB is Outsider till now).
IRC, until now, the only time Harry is aware of actual Outsider encounters until now are the Outsiders mentioned in DB and PG. In neither of those cases is Mavra obviously connected.
- In DB Cowl has an "alibi", so the Outsider-Cowl-Mavra connection isn't really apparent.
- In PG, maybe Sandra Marlin is a Mavra connection.
All the people who were at Splattercon!!! were there because they wanted to feel fear. Maybe that was enough to make them legal prey for the fetches.
Re: BC-Outsider -connection
Harry's subconscious could have drawn this connection if he started with Cowl and Vitto, who was Outsider-backed, working together, and then continued to Cowl, Bianca, and Mavra all being chummy back in Grave Peril. The Outsiders are working with Cowl, Cowl was working with Bianca, Bianca was working with Mavra, ergo there is a connection between Mavra and Outsiders, although it seems weak... Unless his subconscious also noticed something we haven't. A similarity in the feel of Mavra's magic and Outsider magic?
He only just found out that Vitto was in fact Outsider-powered. His subconsciousness must be really quick at making connections...
Why not? Mind works with the speed of thought. And Lash could have been giving it nugdes, too.
Edit: And now that I think about it, the connection between Cowl and Outsiders has been there since DB, where Cowl co-ordinated his actions with those of the Red Court, and the Rampires brought Outsiders to fight the White Council (or was that only in PG? Well before that night in the Deeps, anyway).
a paragraph or two later, its where she says 'harry has to know about your mother, the black court and the outsiders.'. someone asked JIm if this was a mistake, that its supposed to be 'the black circle' and he laughed evilly and said no, it is the black court.
It's one that just seems to come out of nowhere. I can remember nowhere in the books where Harry associates his mother with the Black Court.
Tis a cluebat. I thought it was lash, but if its harry subconcious, perhaps its from the word of kemmler? As to the Fae, the sidhe follow different rules then regular fae and vice versa, as pointed out in the baseball short story.
Why not? Mind works with the speed of thought.
Dont isult the donkey cart. Lol. Actually human processing is pretty good, but kinda error heavy.
Unf im on the phone still, will do digging and post wojs when i get to a pc. Sorry.
No insult meant, that's the speed of nerve impulses in a human brain.
Which is another supplementary reason to believe the Scarecrow is working at cross-purposes to Mab.Not really. She did the same thing with the hobs in SmF.
Not really. She did the same thing with the hobs in SmF.
well actually, with the calvin and hobbs.
;D
You do realize how beneath Mab that is, to KNOW about the comic strip book, and to go out and get one, and then leave it in the basement?
You do realize how beneath Mab that is, to KNOW about the comic strip book, and to go out and get one, and then leave it in the basement?
TTH could have put it there in PG, knowing he wouldn't find it until SmF, and helping his subconscious out with the Hobbs/hobs thing. Just saying... ;)
i think mab has a silly sick sense of humor. as a being with intelelctus, fo course she would know about a comic strip that involves snow goons, magical transformations, and a theme of leaving humanity behind to spend forever in a magical winter wonderland :)
Do we know for sure she actually has full-blown Intellectus? In TC, Harry speculates that Mother Summer and Mother Winter have it, but says nothing about Mab/Titania.
id say we can conclude she has something close, even if not full out. she speaks in the future tense, and in broad statements that so far have been pretty darn correct. she probably does not allways undersatnd what she sees, as far as humanity goes, but shes seeing truth.
My read on her has always been that she was scary smart and had a lot of sources of information, allowing her to predict certain future events with great certainty (like a huge, cosmic chessboard), but no actual "see the future" powers.
I'm not exactly sure what the practical ramifications of this distinction are, but I'm pretty sure they exist.
You do realize how beneath Mab that is, to KNOW about the comic strip book, and to go out and get one, and then leave it in the basement?
TTH could have put it there in PG, knowing he wouldn't find it until SmF, and helping his subconscious out with the Hobbs/hobs thing. Just saying... ;)
I tend to think of Mab as on par with Uriel, and think of Uriel as a four-dimensional being unconstrained (or less constrained) by time. He (and she) can see past present and future at the same moment, and so can control the flow of events with a precision that is impossible for mere three-dimensional mortals.
It's a coherent way to justify projecting complex plans into the chaos of PG. It is consistent with Uriel's known interventions in SmF and his suspected interventions in other books, as well as Mab's admiration for his methods
Mab is nowhere near Uriel's power level. Uriel has full Intellectus (which by definition includes the power to understand what you know) and was described by JB as "an Executive VP of Creation." It would be a stretch to put Mother Summer and Mother Winter in Uriel's ballpark, and they are both clearly more potent than Mab.
Mab cannot have any sort of general form of Intellectus and simultaneously be unable to lie. For example, when Marcone gets snatched by the Denarians and Harry asks Mab who took him, she responds, "I don't know." It's possible for that to be a true statement (in a twisty Sidhe sense) if she believes she has partial knowledge; it is not possible for that to be a true statement from a being with Intellectus.
Mab is nowhere near Uriel's power level. Uriel has full Intellectus (which by definition includes the power to understand what you know) and was described by JB as "an Executive VP of Creation." It would be a stretch to put Mother Summer and Mother Winter in Uriel's ballpark, and they are both clearly more potent than Mab.
Mab cannot have any sort of general form of Intellectus and simultaneously be unable to lie. For example, when Marcone gets snatched by the Denarians and Harry asks Mab who took him, she responds, "I don't know." It's possible for that to be a true statement (in a twisty Sidhe sense) if she believes she has partial knowledge; it is not possible for that to be a true statement from a being with Intellectus.
Took me a while to find the source I was looking for.
In SK Lea states (to Harry after he Sees Seeing Titania and Mab): "They exist in opposition. Each wields vast power, wizard - power to rival the archangels and lesser gods."
Good thread. Some stuff I'd like to throw in the pot.
1) We're asking - Why did Mab kidnap Molly?, when Harry's spell mirrored the fetches back at the summoner shouldn't we be asking - Why did Mab kidnap anyone? I mean, how do we know that Molly was her primary target?
Ask yourself why Mab had Molly brought in. What chain of events did that set in motion? What secondary effects came about because of it? Ultimately, Mab can always go to the Wyld and draw in more muscle to replace fallen thugs. If worst comes to worst, with just a few "seed" fae, she could rear up enough Changelings to repopulate her cadre within a human generation or two--nothing, to a being thousands of years old.
Which, essentially, means that Mab was going to thrash convention goers until her minions could snatch Molly. Meaning one of two things,
1) if Harry's not at the convention the first evening, i.e. drops Molly off after bailing her out or just lets her have the cab, she gets kidnapped the first night.
or
2) if Harry doesn't cast his mirror spell there's going to be a whole lot more mayhem before Mab finally gets her hands on Molly
2) According to Bob, we know that the mirror spell is strandart WC procedure.
Thanks, i forgot that. I knew we had put the archangels, mothers. And ferrovax in the same general weight class but i forgot why..
If Lea is right, then Mab and Titania are in the same weight class as Uriel. The Mothers are a cut above, at major-god levels. Seems appropriate, given that they are the heart of faerie.I thought the capital D Dragons were cosmic forces in their own right?
Ferrovax? I think there's WoJ on him placing him at archangelic levels, but I can't quote it.
Does any of this become simpler if we posit Mab and Raschid in functional cahoots ? [ Not necessarily sitting down and planning together, I mean, but one knowing enough about the other's actions to make plans incoroporating them. ]What is the old desert fox up to? :)
It still bugs me that Mab would allow/encourage the Fetches (and the Hobbs for that matter) to kill innoncent bystandards randomly. I know she is cruel and hard, but not random like that. She even says as much in Changes when she asks Harry why he chooses her.