Harry cut off all other prisoners not in the same confinement mode from communicating with Thomas. There's only one prisoner before Thomas in 'contemplation' mode. The British guy.

I'll be quite honest, I'ma lose my cool with you real quick. The books entirely support that position, they DO NOT support your position.

I'll break it down for you, Barney-style.

The fae lady mantles are supposed to go to the closest reflection of their court.

Lily was an undeclared changeling. Her mother was a Nixie, making her a mortal, technically. But Nixies are members of the Winter court. FLAW.

Lily said that no mortal has ever been given a fae queen mantle.

Mab confided in Harry that she was once mortal. FLAW. It's a double FLAW, since Mab and Titania are twin sisters per WOJ. Whoops! It's a quadruple FLAW, since Maeve and Sarissa were Mab's twin daughters by an Austrian composer in the 19th century, and Maeve was already the Winter Lady.

WOJ is that a person possessing a fae mantle can't acquire another one, since they would be 'full'. https://wordof.jim-butcher.com/index.php/word-of-jim-woj-compilation/woj-on-the-fae/ On this page, all the way at the bottom.

Lily was the Summer Knight and acquired the Summer Lady mantle. FLAW.

In Summer Knight, Aurora just dies. Harry doesn't even find out until days later that Lily is now the Summer lady and Fix took up the Summer Knight.

In Cold Days there's a big dramatic sequence where the mantle coalesces into a big green bird-like figure and leaps from Lily's prostrate form into Sarissa. The same thing happens between Maeve and Molly, only the bird is blue. FLAW.

These are contradictions. We are being told one thing and being shown another. Until an errata sheet is published, there's no clarity. And, FWIW, Jim has said out front, that he WILL lie to us. Until and unless it's shown and explained in the books, it's not written in stone. And even then, comic book rules apply. Harry is a rule-breaker. See also: Law of Magic 1 and 5.

Just my take on it, but Molly's soul is not currently in jeopardy. The fae courts had to have been set up with TWG's approval. It's the only scenario that fits with TWG kicking out all the small G gods or making them surrender their immortality to continue to interact with humans.

If the courts were set up with TWG's approval, then TWG had to know what it would do to the mantle wearers. And how their choices would shape their destinies. And that making those choices, gaining power, and losing free will, would cost them personally.

I mean, it's not like TWG isn't all about sacrifice on behalf of others.

Mab was just twisting Harry and trying to make him doubt his course of action. It's her way of trying to exert control over him. And that's a losing gamble, no matter who you are.

I absolutely hate when someone says this. Virginity is a spiritual ideal of giving yourself to someone. Rape doesn't count. Very much so in a world we're metaphysical things are tangible.best not to ask me to clarify. I really shouldn't have to.

Your position isn't supported by the books, yet.

Mab chose Molly.

In the grip of insomnia last night I went back and re-read the chapter in Peace Talks where Harry summons Molly and this bit jumped out at me. It was easy to miss given all the bombshells with the summoning and Molly's tenuous mortal status.

…Molly probably wasn’t going to forgive herself for assisting in what had amounted to a very complicated near suicide. There’d been a lot of fallout, on every conceivable scale. Very little of it had been Molly’s fault, directly or otherwise, but she’d been a mover on that scene, and she probably felt at least as bad as I did about it, and I’d been way more in the middle of things.

And, being a wizard, I felt guilty as hell for walking her into that. I hadn’t had much choice, if I wanted to save my daughter’s life, but thought the cost was worthy, it still had to be paid-and Molly had laid down cold, hard cash.

So cold and so hard that Mab had wound up choosing her to be the new Winter Lady, in fact.

Suddenly I wondered if maybe I hadn’t been hard enough on myself. I mean, hell, at least when I’d become the Winter Knight, I’d made a choice. My back had been to a wall and my options had all sucked, but I’d at least sought out my bargain with Mab.

Molly hadn’t been consulted, and Mab’s policy on dissenting opinion was crystalline: Deal with it or die.

Of course, inveterate dissenters like myself, it created a pretty simple counterpolicy for when I was tired of Mab’s crap: Deal with it or kill me. Mab was a lot of things, but irrational wasn’t one of them, and as long as it was easier to put up with me than replace me, we had attained a state of balance. I imagined that Molly had come to similar arrangements…

There’s so much to unpack here. But, first and foremost, MAB CHOSE MOLLY TO BE THE WINTER LADY.

Which means everything we’ve been told or shown regarding succession of the lady mantles is either wrong, incomplete, or the person telling us how it works has been lied to. Unreliable narrators is the rule instead of the exception in DF. Fae are information hoarders. People wearing fae mantles must behave as fae would, so they are obligated to hoard information and not release it unless you back them into a corner and ask them three times. They get a bit testy about that.

Now, that opens the door that Titania may have chosen Lily to be the first replacement Summer Lady. If the queen gets to choose from available vessels for fae power, Sarissa being chosen as the Summer Lady can only be viewed as revenge for Aurora’s death. After all, Mab did choose the person who caused Aurora’s death as her Winter Knight.

So, perhaps in a way, Molly brought herself to Mab’s attention by helping Harry arrange his death? Lea instructing her during her year as the Ragged Lady might have helped prepare her to be a vessel for fae power, but I think she was already on the board. Besides, due to Lea’s obligation, she would have been bound to instruct Molly. Molly made a cold, hard decision, against her emotional human interests, to help Harry suicide. That really does ring of Winter.

Mab could have chosen Murphy for the mantle. There’s no age requirement that we know of. Molly may have been technically virginal, but Lily certainly wasn’t since Slate had raped her. Murphy wasn’t a virgin, but she had never had a child, so she would have technically been allowable by the flawed rules we have been shown.

And let’s face it, veiled or not, there’s no way an apprentice wizard’s veils would have been good enough to conceal her from Mab, who in terms of age, experience, power and sneakiness is leagues above Molly in Cold Days.

So, when Maeve died, Mab had a choice and she chose Molly.

Mind. Blown.

I think the Merlin knew that letting Harry slip his leash would make him a more powerful force for good. The White Council can't do anything overt if Harry starts flouting the laws of magic. They'd run afoul of Mab, both as head of the Winter Court and as the enforcer behind the Winter Accords. Harry is already part of Winter and soon will be under the aegis of the White Court's protection. Kicking Harry out and threatening him with the Doom of Damocles is political posturing. The Black Council thinks they can use it to get Ebenezer killed, that's it. They have to recognize that when it comes to Harry, they're toothless.

It's going to suck for them when Ebenezer, as a last act of defiance, wills Harry to be the next Blackstaff.

Odin always was an educator and guide. It's part of why he was allowed to stay if he handed in his immortality. Because he was one of the gods that actually did their job.

I think that Odin would endow several institutions rather than one large one. It would be relatively easy to obscure the money trails to common investigators while letting the Librarians know that Monoc Industries was supporting humanity. Plus, with several institutions producing 'aware' mortals, there's no big, obvious target for adversaries to take out.

Mother Winter doesn't know where her staff is in the way Harry doesn't know where the eye is. She hasn't looked for it.