No, she was no fool, but from the way Lash words it when she tells Harry about it says she was being set up to be the little star mother. I will wager it was because of qualities she had.
My answer to that is something Jim said years ago when asked about Elaine and Harry. Paraphrasing because I cannot remember the exact WOJ, but he said those born at that particular time have the potentialto be star born, which is a lot different from being star born. Again I used the example of Harry Potter and Nevil Longbottom, both were born under the same circumstances to become "the boy who lived," actually if I remember the story correctly it should have been Nevil, but it was Voldermort that screwed up and went after the wrong baby. So what I am saying is if we go by that old WOJ, if I'm remembering it correctly, fifty thousand born under that light and alignment of stars have the potential to be star born, but out of that number, very few actually grow up to be one.
Margaret also knew she and her baby would be targeted, thus she made arrangements with the Winter Court and Harry ended up with a real fairy godmother.
If Margaret has special qualities, are there 50,000 others with special qualities?
The quote that Morris provides is the one I believe you are referring to. For your theory to really work, Harry has to be more special than any other star born. A special star born. Which I grant is possible. Harry could be some Chosen One of a prophecy. But we haven't heard any references to a prophecy or that Harry is chosen. The Chosen One thing is very much a fate thing, yet the series is constantly underlining the importance of choice. While fate and chance are not mutually exclusive necessarily it does make it harder to reconcile.
The other thing to consider is if the 50,000 only have the potential to become star born then when was it that Harry became a star born if not his birth? Was it his first encounter with He Who Walks Behind? Was it earlier? That too has never really been discussed, because to me Harry has been one his whole life since birth. If anything, the hint is that he has the potential to undergo some sort of transformation in the future, not that he has already undergone one.
The other thing about the phrase "star born" is that it literally implies being born from the stars. So becoming a star born from the moment of birth would make sense rather than at some other point.
I'm not totally convinced of that, I think the godmother bit is pretty significant, also the Winter Court is in charge of the defense of the Outer Gates. So that kind of move in my opinion doesn't happen without passing muster with Mab. Why would it have to be seen as a move on the White Council by the Winter Court? To quote Rashid who plays a significant role both on the Senior Council of the White Council and in the Winter Court as the Gate Keeper as one of the main generals keeping the Outsiders at bay.. "What the White Council doesn't know won't hurt it.."
So I wouldn't be shocked if the White Council is totally ignorant that Lea is Harry's godmother.
Um, Mab is Winter, and I doubt it was personal, if Harry was just your ordinary Joe, who's mother made some kind of bargain with Lea, you'd be right, and I doubt that Mab would be interested. But Harry isn't, Mab knows it, has known it from the time he was a mere gleam in Malcolm's eye, she plays the long game and as a result, got herself a star born as her Winter Knight with the BAT approaching.
I believe Lea says that even Mab cannot gainsay her deals - which is clearly partly how Lea has gained so much personal power. Every Fae clearly has the right to their own deals. Toot-toot made his own personal deal with Harry, for example, which has massively increased his personal power.
I think part of the appeal of the deal to claim Harry by Lea was to one-up her position against Mab. Remember they are not friends. Frenemies might be a better term. So in many ways Mab getting Harry as her knight was balancing the scales, and then some.
The White Council know many things they shouldn't, yet then again no one has ever mentioned that deal (and you think they would when trying to paint Harry as a bad guy). So I am inclined to agree that the Council at large are unaware of Harry and Lea's various deals. Although Eb does keep a pretty close eye on Harry, and I wouldn't be surprised if he knew given his own connections with Lea.
Monarchs have their official sovereign capacity and their personal capacity. So yes, Mab can contract in either capacity. When Harry started being useful to her she made sure she took over Lea’s deal over Harry, literally freezing her our. Everything Lea has done since then for Harry was by Mab after Harry became Winter Knight, part of her duties to her liege..
I think you might be going a step too far here. While I agree Mab can make deals both as herself and as her position as Queen (although I suspect much of the differences are semantics in most situations to the person on the other end), Mab only took over Lea's deal that she made with Harry but
not Lea's deal with Margaret La Fey. Which I think Lea confirms as much in Changes when she says even she doesn't owe Mab so much to take out the Lords of the Outer Night, but Lea did so anyway because of her obligations to Dresden (because of her deal with Margaret). So I wouldn't say everything is just her duties to Mab, but much of it for sure.
Think you crossed some arguments.
Maggie was part of a plot to engineer a dangerous, uber-strong wizard starborn. Rather than walk away, she threw a wrench in the process by having such a child with Malcolm- breeding aside, Malcolm also raised Harry. Eb said Malcolm has a soul like few he'd ever seen- after meeting Michael. Also would neatly explain why Harry adopted Michael as a pseudofather so quickly.
The goblins are Wyldfae. Ir's why the Erlking is a Summer King, like Kringle is winter. Erlking is lord of the bloodsport that is the hunt in summer, as Kringle embodies the warmth and family coming together to survive side of Winter.
Wyldfae means Fae. Summer King implies Sidhe. Herne the Hunter is geographically close. And his Nevernever digs were similar tunnels, as I recall.
Which arguments did I cross?
Well, that's fair enough if that's your theory. But so far we haven't yet had that written in the books nor as WOJ so for now I am unconvinced that Margaret was part of a plot to create a star born.
But if we play out your theory a bit here - who was Margaret supposed to have a child with originally? And who were the co-conspirators to the plot? And what was going to be achieved by creating a star born? And why not just capture and raise one of the other 50,000?
The goblins are indeed Wyldfae but they are not the Sidhe. Faeries are a nation of many groups. I believe Bob made the comparison of calling to calling humans apes (which implies that the differences between different sub-groups such as goblins and sidhe are just as varied between different sub-groups of apes i.e. would we like being called chimpanzees?)
The Erlking being a Summer King has also been contradicted by Jim himself. I wouldn't rely on it too much. He later also says the Erlking has origins in Winter.
He further then says that there are no real "kings" of Faerie, they are just powerful lords of the Fae. But they don't have Courts.
There is no such thing as a Summer King in the Dresden Files faerie cosmology. Mab and Titania need a King like a fish needs a bicycle.
There are a ton of independent rulers of the Wyld, though, much like the Erlking, who is a member of the Winter Court more or less as a sign of courtesy and respect.
Kringle doesn't have a Court, nor does the Erlking. In theory they could side with either Summer or Winter, just like any Wyldfae.
The Faerie realms just aren’t that structured. It’s more accurate to say that [Kringle] is /a/ Winter King. Or even more accurately, that he is a free Wyld Fae who is of a power level that is on par with Mab’s and happens to neighbor her sphere of influence, and finds it simpler to show up to family dinners during the holidays and make polite than to start staking out boundaries and establishing treaties.
Who says Herne is the Erlking any more than Kringle is Vadderung? Lots of beings in disguise in the modern day. My meaning is that they could be two legally separate entities that happen to inhabit the same body. Also, Herne is just as associated with Winter given Shakespeare is the earliest reference to him given also one of his titles is "Master of Winter".
I get that his digs are tunnels, and Edinburgh has tunnels, but there are lots of tunnels around the world? That doesn't seem like a strong connection to me. Herne is from Windsor in England, which is as separate from Scotland as Canada is to the US (in those times). Edinburgh is in Scotland so I doubt that Herne had much to do with it. The association with Herne and the Erlking actually comes from the Grimms.
Butcher is playing games. He's lied, I just can't figure out about what. Give or take it's about two years after she left that Harry is born. Term may have been longer then nine months but not shorter. So she had about fifteen months to find Malcolm and fall in love. Or somebody else found Malcolm and put him out to stud.
If Margaret was enthralled to Raith and fell in love with Malcolm that might have broke her free of Raith since he wouldn't have been able to touch her. He introduced the idea of time passing at different rates in the Never Never so it isn't out of the realm of possibility. He(Butcher) has also dropped a lot weird bread crumbs like Margaret and Malcolm visiting the Lincoln Monument just before Harry is born. That may have been where Harry was born (In DC).
What makes you think he's lying? I am curious on what that might be. Good to hang on to such feelings as it's often a good way of spotting a hint.
I seem to remember Margaret went on the run for two years, as you say, and in that time Harry was born. I think Ebenezar tells Harry this. I think she didn't meet Malcolm during this time, but rather at the start, given that's what I believe what gave her the strength to escape. Falling in love does crazy things to people after all.
DC is a reasonable spot as any if the location for the conjunction Light is the most if not all of the USA. But I do suspect it might be a bit smaller than that (i.e. the size of a city). DC could be the place of conception though...I doubt even Jim has the answer to that right now (if it ever becomes relevant). I think it would have to be only the size of a city, maybe smaller, given the amount of star borns.