Some observations on a Winter Day

[morriswalters]

That would tend to disagree with the text. The central plot has two branches.  Molly's and Eb's. Eb's branch is to answer the question, why did Mab not retaliate. The answer to that lies in Dead Beat. Not in Proven Guilty.  There may be a portal in the Garden at Arctis Tor, but if so it had nothing to do with what happened. But no matter what happened the question must be answered in some fashion or the plot makes no sense. Ergo, the answer is in the text and we just don't see it.

The text supports the idea that Namshiel never went in the Court Yard.  when Harry and the others enter at Arctis Tor the entrance is clogged with bones and the bones fan out from the Gate and the external walls are pitted.

I'll give you a scenario but won't defend it.  During Dead Beat the Black Council in collusion with Lucifer has the fortress attacked. Maeve opens a way in the theater that puts Namshiel in close. The purpose of the attack is to  pin Mab at the fortress and make her believe that Summer took part. Only one of the Queens could open a way this close to the fortress and Mab is not sure who did it.  She suspects Summer.  Thus she arrays her force against Summer and does not strike back.  Since she is down a bishop and a knight.

Lilly is a fly in Maeve's ointment.  Neither Maeve nor Mab expect Harry to throw Summer Fire at the Well. By doing so she causes all Winters forces to return to the fortress leaving the border unguarded. Summer supports the Council in their attack on the Reds.  This accomplishes two things. Since Summer doesn't attack her when her troops pull back she now knows that Summer was not part of the attack.  This shines a spotlight on Maeve.

I don't say this is how the plot worked but it answers all the questions that need to be answered.

[Mira]

That would tend to disagree with the text. The central plot has two branches.  Molly's and Eb's. Eb's branch is to answer the question, why did Mab not retaliate. The answer to that lies in Dead Beat. Not in Proven Guilty.  There may be a portal in the Garden at Arctis Tor, but if so it had nothing to do with what happened. But no matter what happened the question must be answered in some fashion or the plot makes no sense. Ergo, the answer is in the text and we just don't see it.

Or because she was infected, Mab wasn't in any shape to retaliate.. She wasn't just hiding in the ice garden along side of Lea in Proven Guilty, she was taking the cure along side of her.  It gave the Denarians and their allies an opening, because they sensed that she was vulnerable, and they attacked.  Who could have sent word of Mab's vulnerability? Maeve of course..

[morriswalters]

Count the pieces on the chessboard. With an eye to the balance of the courts. Butcher feeds you there answer. 

He has Harry present a rationale that you can compare against what really happens later.

Maeve is selling the idea that Mab is Nemfected to the Summer Lady.

“All right,” I murmured. “Mab’s got a man in the penalty box. She wants to take the offensive before Summer pushes a power play, and she’s looking for ways to even the odds. If Summer goes running off to take on the Reds, it will give her a chance to strike.” I shook my head. “I don’t pretend to know Mab very well, but she isn’t suicidal. If the imbalance is so dangerous, why is she keeping the Winter Knight alive to begin with? And she must see what the consequences of another Winter-Summer war would be.” I looked back and forth between them. “Right?”

“Unfortunately,” Lily said quietly, “our intelligence about the internal politics of Winter is very limited—and Mab is not the sort to reveal her mind to another. I do not know if she realizes the potential danger. Her actions of late have been…” She closed her eyes for a moment and then said, with some obvious effort, “Erratic.”

The second paragraph is Maeve's con. The first paragraph is for contrast when Harry throws Summer Fire at Winters Wellspring. Mab tells him why Slate lives in another book.

[Mira]

Count the pieces on the chessboard. With an eye to the balance of the courts. Butcher feeds you there answer. 

He has Harry present a rationale that you can compare against what really happens later.

Maeve is selling the idea that Mab is Nemfected to the Summer Lady. The second paragraph is Maeve's con. The first paragraph is for contrast when Harry throws Summer Fire at Winters Wellspring. Mab tells him why Slate lives in another book.

But was it a con?  I don't think it was, you forget that we saw Mab with the Knife in her belt.  She isn't immune to the effects of the Knife anymore than Lea or Maeve herself were.  I think Mab realized it sooner than Lea did and got her monoclono antibodies before the infection could fully take hold, thus she was able, barely to direct her defense.  However Maeve didn't know, by this time she was full blown bat shit and betrayed her mother.

[morriswalters]

Well I never say never anymore, but in the context of the story it is what it is. The question drives the plot of Cold Days.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

We simply do not have all the information to say something or other definitive about Mab or her motives. Look at how she was presented originally as a Evil Faerie Queen as opposed to the more nuanced representations in the later books, as the great defender of humanity. I think that process has yet reached its ultimate end, and the likelihood is that the end result isn’t going to be black and white. Mab is going to turn out to be a VERY complex character with everything we have seen to date only parts of that character.

Basically You are probably both wrong, or probably both right.

[morriswalters]

I suspect that Butcher has had a fairly good idea about Mab's destination as a character since day one.  He's tuned it as he's gone along, but she was never written as the evil faerie.  Butcher says that constantly, but what he writes is quite different. But the plot has certain elements that must be served.  If the story is a mystery, then the central mystery must be solved within the covers.

The book has two. You are handed one mystery by Eb.  Why didn't Mab retaliate? Then Rashid hands out the second mystery.  Who is using Black Magic in Chicago? IMO as a reader these have to be solved in the book or the book falls apart.  The narrative would be incomplete. That isn't to say that there are not other things going on.  But the two central mysteries are solved.

Butcher encourages confusion for readers.  He uses Bob very effectively as an unreliable narrator. Rashid's letter specifically calls out when the Black Magic is done. Yet he has Bob supply a red herring in terms of how and when Rashid knew what he knew.  You may be sure that it wasn't that happy horse crap about getting messages from the future and paradox.  Paradox occurs when you break cause and effect. Everything about the Black Magic was over and done with before the first trial.

In the case of the first example, Harry tells you what Mab expects.  To be back stabbed by Summer.  When he has the forces of Winter returning to the fortress he shows you that it isn't true and that Summer, in fact, is not out to attack her because of the power imbalance.

I have no idea what Mab is up to or where the backstory is going.  I doubt Butcher does in detail. But the things I'm throwing out aren't about those issues.

[Mira]

We simply do not have all the information to say something or other definitive about Mab or her motives. Look at how she was presented originally as a Evil Faerie Queen as opposed to the more nuanced representations in the later books, as the great defender of humanity. I think that process has yet reached its ultimate end, and the likelihood is that the end result isn’t going to be black and white. Mab is going to turn out to be a VERY complex character with everything we have seen to date only parts of that character.

Basically You are probably both wrong, or probably both right.

I've never thought that Mab was evil.  Why?  Because Winter is a force of Nature, Winter can be cruel but that doesn't make it evil, and without it, the world would be worse off.

Harry at first sees her as evil because that is how he perceives his godmother, Lea.  Why? Difference of opinion on how to keep him safe, he fears her and by extension everything else about the Winter Court.

As Harry gets to know Mab and understand her and Lea better, he comes to realize that she is indeed a complicated creature, perhaps even a likable one, once he comes to understand her better.

[Snark Knight]

Rashid still considered it a possibility Harry had been coopted by the enemy because of all the hinky stuff he'd been adjacent to up until their conversation a few books later in TC.

I'd tend to read what he did in PG, and events that he might have been an unseen hand behind, as tests of Harry's alignment as much as favours to support Mab.

Perhaps he chained up the theater to keep his test under a measure of control.

[morriswalters]

When you consider it, Rashid's motivation doesn't matter.  He never had to trust Harry.  Mab has motivation, she is standing in for Lea. If Lea had a deal to protect Harry then Mab has no choice then to do what Lea would do.  The only person Rashid had to trust was Mab.

"It means that I will give you what she might give you," Mab said, "and speak what knowledge she might have spoken to you were she here in flesh, rather than in proxy."

And you know by Changes she has been doing a lot to make sure Harry survives.