Yuillegan

Interesting discussion.  My rebuttal 😊

I think we both agree that Mab is not equal to an archangel.    I remember a comment in the book implied that Mab and Uriel are in the same business, but that does not mean they are in the same level. 

I believe that the Mother is not equal to an Archangel.  None of your arguments in favor of this fact seemed persuasive. 


The Argument that the Lady, the Queen and the Mother are one individual is based on really two things in my mind.   
1)   The constant repetitions of the three statue theme in multiple settings (arctus tor, hades vault) with each time the author clearly indicting it is significant
2)   What happens when a Lady (or Queen) dies.  When a Lady dies, her power flows to the Queen.  When a Queen dies the lady becomes the Queen.  Presumably the same is found for the mother.  Like flows to like is the phrase used.   That tells me the power is the same.   It is not three Mantles, but one mantle with three parts.   

My point about “counts” is that the fact that there is one of some being or three of some being or a thousand of some other group says nothing about the power of any individual being discussed.  Power determines power, not how many others match your power.    The exact count of gods or archangels tells you nothing about their power. 

I do agree with you that any being that exists in multiple universes is almost certainly more powerful than a being that exists in just one. 

I disagree with you about the gods being multiverse.   I would argue that the stories confirm that the gods are multiverse, as do the WOJ.   Almost the entire conversation about the role of Ivy talks to this.   The whole point of what Ivy is doing is to “disconnect” a god from this world.  By blocking the memory of the god, that god loses contact with this universe.    I remember at least one other Harry digression where he talked to gods being active in some universes and not others.     Based on how described, no one god is probably active in all universes and probably many gods are active in only one.  But it is clear that at least some godlike entities are active in more than one universe. 

Given the close relationship between the Mother and the Queen, I find it hard to believe that one is mulit-versal and the other is not.   Not sure what the correct answer is, but I am positive that the answer is the same for both. 

There does seem some relationship between belief and power, but it is not a count.  A being with a billion worshipers is not many times more powerful than one with a few thousand worshipers.  I think worship is important, but it is not the primary determination of power.  A clear example is Hades who has great power, but probably no worshipers remaining on the planet (although he is a favorite in fiction).   I suspect worshipers/fans are necessary to provide an anchor in this world and more worshipers/fans make it easier to influence the world.    That certainly impacts the effective power of a being.   But there is little evidence that worshipers have a huge impact on raw power. 

What everyone always seems to forget is the sheer Power of things like Uriel. He is so strong he doesn't do contested violence, he has terminated galaxies and even whole universes (WOJ). Mother Summer and Winter are at the same level, and so apparently are the Walkers (HWWBh and HWWBf).

Nothing in the book that I have seen says that Urial and Mother Winter are at the same level.   What makes you believe they are equivalent?   




But they are all limited because of their extreme might, and so can only use that incredible power in very specific ways at very specific times.

I would argue that "estimating how limited a godlike being is" would be the only way to measure the power of a godlike being.  A more limited being is a more powerful being.  Uriel is incredibly limited, while Mother Winter is so mysterious that it is hard to tell.  Hades is very limited, although it is unclear how much of that is choice vs hard limits.  Ambiguity on power level seems a feature of the dresden universe.   



There are SO MANY gods. Thousands, possibly more depending on the limits Jim has set. There are only two Mothers, three Walkers and five Archangels. That tells you something right there.

Not sure this makes sense to me.  There are thousands of gods, but there is only one Odin and only one Hades.  So not really sure why your counts communicate anything about power. 

Also do not forget that there is a multiverse.  There might be thousands of gods, but only a relative handful are active or engaged in any way with the Dresden world's universe.   And it is not clear at all (until Mirror Mirror) whether Mab/Mother Winter exists in more than one multiverse.  These other universes might have different guardians at the outer gates.   It might even be possible that in some worlds the outer gates have fallen where in others they stand.   So I can totally see thousands of gods of roughly equal power across the multiverse, with most of those simply not active or so limited in their access to the Dresden universe that they have effectively no power in that universe. 





What is clear enough, is that Hades is not at the same level as the Mothers, and therefore cannot be as great in power as all SIX Queens combined. That would be insane. He would then be stronger than two Archangels combined plus extra. It isn't impossible I suppose, but considering everything we know about Power in the series and the various beings, it just doesn't add up.

It is not clear to me how you are determining Hades is at the same level as the mothers.  The speculation that Hades is comparable to Hecate is based purely on mythology.  But neither mythology or anything that occurred in the books would give any insight as to the relative power of Hades vs the Mothers.   Can you please identify why you feel the two are equivalent? 

Fun characters we have not seen in a while that make sense to be at Peace Talks
*  River Shoulders - per prior comments
*  Alphas - not for muscle, but they make great scouts and sentinels
*  Fitz - if the winter knight is there, the summer knight will be there, even if he is seriously depressed
*  Stallings will be there as I suspect the police will be involved to some extent
*  Marcone of course will be there along with his chief minions
*  Talos would be an interesting attendee - he was the chief follower of Aurora and probably dead/infected, but maybe not
*  Eldest Gruff is always a hoot at a party
*  Lara Raithe of course as a major participant
*  Mara for the same reason
*  The hellhound would be a great add - and I expect Ivy would be there as well in her role as arbiter.  I am pretty sure there is a Jim statement that says she will be there. 
*  Several members of the grey council - not sure which.  I suspect NOT Ebenezzer as he is their best battle mage and would be kept elsewhere with a strike team in case it is needed.  I would like more time with ancient mai myself. 
*  The Erlking - he normally disdains such things, but he has been getting involved a lot lately (relatively speaking....).  And you have to admit that he would have fun once the battle started....

Characters we  probably will not see
*  Gatekeeper - he has better things to do
*  Knights will not be there as that is not their role
*  No Fallen either - they have their own issues post Skin Game
*  Steed - that warden that controls time would be interesting, but the wardens like to keep him close to the HQ
*  Hades - not his role to get involved

As a general tendency, the forum generally assumes Mab is effectively all-knowing, all powerful, at least from Dresden's perspective.   

This thread is more focused on Mab's very real weaknesses.  I would argue that Mab is a key player, but nowhere close to all knowing/powerful. 

Strengths
*  Immortal
*  Fairly low powered god.  The combination of Lady, Queen and Mother is collectively equal to a strong god like Hades in power.  The Mother has the lion's share of that power, so Mab by herself has to be fairly weak in the god power scale.  I would argue that the very weakness of her god power is a strength as she suffers much less restrictions on the use of her power as compared to the more powerful gods.  The universe as described clearly has rules that severely limit the more powerful beings.  The Mother must be far more constrained than the Queen and the Lady should be less constrained than the Queen. 
*  She is Winter --- great power over cold, ice, winter, etc.   Fey are very nature focused, so expect she has great ability to influence anything winter related in nature. 
*  She is clearly very smart and capable
*  She can hear things spoken at night, especially if her name is spoken.  Great source of intelligence
*  She is a planner - always having multiple plans for every contingency
*  She commands the winter fey.  Mother may be stronger, but the queen rules day to day operations
*  She no doubt has a "bank" of favors accumulated to leverage as needed
*  She has a very capable 2nd in command in Lea -- as well as a capable (if young) Lady in Molly

Weaknesses
*  Mab shares all the weaknesses of Fey - cannot tell a lie, vulnerable to iron, bound by winter law, must honor agreements, cannot give gifts without payment. 
*  Mab is automatically countered to some extent by Summer. That is the role of Summer
*  Mab's nature is Winter Fey --> which means her reactions are somewhat predictable if you understand winter fey in general
*  Mab cannot harm a mortal directly, but must wait for them to make themselves vulnerable (via a deal) or use the Winter Knight. 
*  Mab is weaker in the summer months, which means enemies can time their threats to when she is least able to deal with them
*  Mab must devote a large chunk of her time and energy to defending the outer gates.  If she wishes to be elsewhere, she must assign a substitute (typically Lea). 
*  The Fey are not easily controlled - as evidenced by Mab's use of unyielding edicts (like nobody can go to the mortal world until dawn as seen in Cold Days) as more subtle/flexible rules are likely to be bypassed by clever fey seeking advantage.   I would also argue that the Molly as Lady short story also highlighted the restrictions Mab operates under via her conversation with Molly.  She asked Molly for alternatives and Molly could not provide them.  That implies pretty strongly that Mab is operating with some pretty significant constraints. 
*   There are MANY other powers comparable to Mab out there in the universe.   Her attention must be split to counter many of them and/or make sure their agenda does not hurt Mab's agenda.  For example, the entity behind the "worshipers" in the molly short story has nothing to do with the Outsiders, but was still a threat to Winter's interests.   Even though the Outsiders are clearly making a move, Mab cannot afford to ignore the other threats just in case they are acting while Mab is distracted. 
*  Mab has been surprised several times, so clearly her ability to find useful/critical information is limited.

What am I missing?

I think we can safely say that being on the White Council gives you access to a lot of wizard training and knowledge, well beyond what you get from simply apprenticeship.   Certainly Harry has gotten access to many reference books and sources that the common want-to-be-wizard would never have a chance to acquire.  Harry has also received advanced training, although a lot of that was specific to the Wardens.   But I suspect whatever role you play in the WC involves some specialized training. 

I have read all the books and short stories and listened to a few of the forums, but I have to admit that I have only a hazy idea what the White Council actually does

There are some hints
1) They have a financial arm that trades in the stock market, manages investments
2) They have the wardens that enforce the laws of magic and defend the white council/wizards  (collective security)
3) They find and train powerful practitioners in the art of Wizardry
4) They have alliances, mostly with smaller powers who they protect. They have diplomatic relations with all the significant supernatural powers and are members of the unseelee accords. 
5) They are located worldwide, but the center of their power is Europe.  They are fairly strong in North America, much weaker elsewhere.   Less about physical territory and more about spheres of influence
6) Pyramid watching - although what purpose that services.

#3 is clearly the center of the their purpose, but #2 is also pretty high up.   But judging by Harry's life, the White Council has very little impact on the day to day lives of Wizards and relatively little impact on the supernatural balance in their community.    Harry upsets the balance (in a good way), but he is clearly an outsider in this respect. 

But none of the above really speaks to what role the White Council has in the larger supernatural community.   Maybe they are just a supernatural nation defending their own interests, but there is always this undercurrent that they (should) serve some larger purpose (humanity perhaps).   Certainly they are one of the very few powers (and probably the only powerful one) that acts to some extent out of a sense of human morality.   The other supernatural nations are all either very focused on their personal interests or predators or both.   I suspect it was no coincidence that the first nation targeted by the outsider attack was the White Council. 

Which leads to my next question - how much purpose did the original Merlin try to embed into the White Council -- and how far has the current White Council fallen short from that original vision?

And my last question - what allies did Merlin have (like Odin) that are still around - but no longer tied to the White Council's current agenda.  Harry is going to need to gather strength for the final battles.  Odin is one arrow in his quiver, but he needs more.    Given another future book involves professional wrestler who are ex-gods, that might be another way Harry gathers powerful champions for that pivotal fight based on the outcome of that book.    And Thomas is gaining reputation and power in the White Court -- which means he might eventually bring the White Court on Harry's side as well in the end days.  Perhaps bigfoot will play a role as well

I think the actual events are different than Hankthemoose described.   Based on what was described Dead Beat, Lea challenged Mab in some way.   Mab stated that Lea thought the atheme gave her that right and she showed her the error of her ways.   

We know from later books that this is when Mab realized lea was infected.  We also learn that the challenge was related to Harry - specifically Lea was desperate to help Harry against the necromancers in Dead Beat.  That desperation was presumably what tipped Mab off about the infection as it is not typical of Fey.  But I cannot remember which books gave this info, but they were late stage books (cold days perhaps). 

I also believe that Mab was holding the Atheme during her meeting with Harry during Dead Beat, but I am a bit hazy on this.  If correct, then Mab had already taken the Atheme from Lea and cleansed it.   Certainly Lea was aware that the athemea was how she was infected and holds a grudge -- which she explained to harry to justify Mab using her to help him during Changes.   Mab was doing a favor for Lea to allow her to get her revenge on the red court - otherwise lea's services would have been much more expensive to Mab. 

Totally agree that the Paranet needs champions within the White Council - Rameriz, Lucio, and Harry fill that role.

However, what we are talking about is the Paranet's own internal leadership - aka who works with that champion.   In that sense, I think Murphy has to be one of their top 3 leaders, if not their defacto leader today.   Elaine would also be one of those leaders, but she lacks the contacts Murphy has.  Elaine's power would be an asset, but she is actively hiding that power so it will probably not end up being decisive leadership wise in the short run. 

The Paranet was forced to organize and develop some form of national structure in response to the Formor.   Based on actions in Ghost Story, Murphy was being briefed on Paranet crises across the nation, and coordinating national Paranet responses to those crises.  She is likely known to all the local paranet leaders and seen as the go-to person to get help.  She was also the person who represented paranet interests with both Marcone (chicago specific mostly) and the White court (national) and the knights of the cross (worldwide). 

Also keep in mind, Murphy has PERSONAL and RESPECTED relationships with all the key White council members (Harry, Lucio, Ramerez), knows Elaine, Lara Raithe, Marcone, both the Knights of the Cross and the Winter Lady.  Who else in the Paranet has this level of high level contacts in the supernatural world. 

Now you could argue that the White Council should provide that leadership, but the fact is that they do not want to do this and probably would not do a good job because of that fact.   The paranet is much more likely to end up formal White Council ally rather than a subset of the Council itself.  That might change over time, but ally is the best they can hope for in the next few years. 

Do not get me wrong.  Paranet will always be a mostly decentralized local organization and each community will have their own local leaders.  Leading the Paranet will be like herding kittens.  But the fact is clear that the Paranet needs a national leadership an (based on the books), Murphy is probably the best candidate for that role.