The mothers exist on a power level that is much greater than the queens. I believe there is a WOJ somewhere about them being much more elemental in nature. That kind of power would leave a mark on the world which means they don't usually get up to shenanigans and stay more in the Nevermere.

I think that since a Wizards cells make such perfect copies of themselves, that would almost negate the chance of any degeneration.  Also my understanding is that one of the ways to prevent such degeneration is to make sure your brain stays active to constantly look at things differently creating new pathways of thought, that's almost a given for someone working with magic on a daily basis.  So if the lifestyle is a contributing factor to the diseases origin, then their lifestyle would strongly prohibit it's inception.

At some point the perfect copying mechanism wears out. Otherwise wizards would not age at all. My read is that everything is slowed down for wizards. Aging and degenerative changes included.

For what it's worth, I don't think that Harry's back is explicitly tied to his gig as the Winter Knight. I think the bout of paralysis he experienced in Cold Days was a result of him (briefly) reneging on his Deal with Mab.

First, obviously, Harry's paralysis is taken care of before his term as Winter Knight starts, and that service (as I understand it) begins before he has the Mantle; killing Lloyd Slate is actually the first command she gives him as Queen to Knight. Second, he's agreeing to service explicitly in exchange for healing him (and, you know, buffing him up with Winter Juice).

All of that is to say that by saying "Screw Winter Law," he tacitly rejected the terms of his Deal, which yanked his non-paralysis away temporarily.

I agree with your overall point, but I disagree in some of the details. IMO Harry is agreeing to serve Mab for the healing and for time to rescue his daughter "before his service begins." Meaning that he gets access to the perks of the WK (the healed back and power) before Mab can give his orders so that he can rescue his daughter. The killing of Slate was necessary to free up the power so it could be passed from Mab to Harry.

"While Lloyd Slate lives and breathes, he is my Knight," said Mab's voice. "Take Medea's bodkin, wizard. Take his life's blood."

I stood there holding the knife and looking at Lloyd Slate. The last time I'd heard him speak, he had begged me to kill him. I didn't think he'd be capable of even that much now.

"If you would be my Knight, then this is the first death I desire of you," Mab said, her voice almost gentle. She faced me across the Stone Table. "Send his power back to me. And I will render it unto thee."

It wasn't so much an order from the Winter Queen to the Winter Knight. Instead it was a necessary step that Harry had to take if he wanted that power. He was completely free to back out and pursue one of his other options if he so desired.

You've been gone awhile acorn... I'm thinking we have Woj latent fae ancestory can be activated more or less by proximity, and another that the whole purpose of the fae making bargains is to get mortals caught up in the 'faeness' or whatever, like Harry being butt deep in it now.

*imo, it was the training to use fear as a weapon without directly violating free will and ergo Cosmic reasoning behind the 7 laws.

Here is a couple of WOJs that may be relevant.

@longshotauthor @HarriedWizard So a half-elf changeling could have kids that when exposed 2 faerydom, child could exhibit faery qualities?
@DeusSolis @HarriedWizard Yeah, though they’d need more exposure the wider the generation gap was. It would be impractical at some point.

The other question I had is, **unintelligible**…when a human takes on the mantle of a Fae, do they automatically become Fae? Do they lose their soul?

Ok, do they automatically become Fae, do they lose their soul? The answer to that question is “sort of”. Um, it’s automatic, but not necessarily instant. Mab herself was human once, and she eventually became the, uh, the fun-loving Mab that we all know. So, a lot of it has to do with who you are when you go into it, because most of the Fae were human once. A lot were born as half-bloods and decided to become Fae and sort of automatically got their **unintelligible**. But a lot of the other Fae who were there, including the Erl and several others, who were at one point humans….So, a lot of this is going to depend on who they  might end up being, a lot of it depends on who they are going into it and what kind of will they have to maintain who they are. That’s going to be a big deal. I’m really looking forward to writing the next books so I can see what happens with Molly, ‘cause I’m really not sure yet, I have a vague idea of what’s gonna happen, because basically she just got handed the largest, unruliest crowd of little brothers and sisters to deal with ever.

**Audience laughter**

But on the other hand, she’s kinda cool with that. She’s used to that role. So anyway, we’ll have to see what happens to her, but, uh, there’s a lot of choice involved **unintelligible** as far as soul goes. Everybody always talks about souls as if it’s something you can have a receipt for, that if you lose it, then it’s just gone, and I don’t think souls work that way, I think that there’s too much attached to them, I think that there are too many things that consist of what your soul is, so I don’t think this is kinda trying to figure “did you lose your soul?”, because I think you can lose your soul without bothering to stop by any kind of supernatural beings whatsoever. You know, if you watch the news, you’ll see people who do that all the time. But yeah, as far as The Dresden Files goes, as far as eternal damnation, etc., goes, no I don’t think that’s as much an issue for Molly as yet, it could sometime though. Whether Mab has some kind of spark of a soul left or not, that’s one of those questions that would be very difficult to answer, and I’m probably not smart enough to answer it. Probably, when you’ve gone so far down the road, just pure power is madness, it’s hard to hang on to your soul. And it depends on how people who have been handed all this extra stuff deal with it, and what that’s going to do for them in the long run. And it’s one of those long run kind of things, meaning you’re going to be stuck like that for 2,000 years, you don’t really have to go bad tomorrow, you have plenty of time yet to start growing mold on your conscience.

Ya.  Maeve sorta kinda tried at the end, mentally pushing him while he was all deep in the Winter, but Maeve never actually Ordered him to take out Mab, just indicated it's what he should actually be doing

I wonder if the absence of a direct order was connected to the infection. For instance, was the mantle instinctively protecting Winter from direct Harm by not letting Maeve issue a binding Winter Order. Otherwise Maeve should have just issued an order to Harry with the intention of him violating it and thus violating Winter Law and being stripped of his powers.

Same.  My theory is that she "loaned" it to her Knight once upon a time needing to Empower him, but said knight (maybe Merlin, who knows) found a loophole in the terms of when he had to give it back.  Basically like that time Caesar was given "temporary" wartime powers and just decided to not give them back.

I like that scenario. "You can have the staff until the conflict with XYZ is resolved." All the knight has to do is decide that the conflict is never resolved.

Feeding on breath? That opens up a new can of questions. Are there different type of breaths? Do they need mouth to mouth contact or is being in the vicinity enough? What are the long term consequences? Inquiring minds need to know.

Murphy will have to transition into a slightly different role given the degree of injury, but I don't see her moving on from Harry anytime soon.