Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[Kornet]

The problem is that to exercise that free will, you need to buckle the mantle. And Mab doesn't.

Click to shrink...

No, the problem is that Mab can't excercise free will because she doesn't have one. She is a fae, and all of them explicitly lack it.

Now, the dresdenverse diefinition of free will is kind of narrow, and I may not like it, but it is an objective fact in that universe.

 

[Alratan]

This is a materially false assertion, as the lawyers would say.

Mab has canonically walked through the angelically reinforced protections and guardian squad of the Carpenter household after Michael's retirement without triggering the countermeasures that would come from nonhuman evil or hostile intent.
Uriel has literally connived at empowering her chosen agent.

Click to shrink...

The Carpenter Household doesn't have conventional wards, as I understand it. It has a squad of angels on over watch. They have discretion to choose to let her through if that's what they're told to do.

Uriel has empowered Harry because Harry is Uriel's chosen agent, not to help Mab. He's worked against Mab's attempts to deceive Harry into becoming loyal to her.

Uriel is Heaven's spook. He's working in the knowledge that Mab is a necessary evil that needs to be mitigated and even worked with where interests coincide given that the world is literally a decade away from the Apocalypse with a capital A.

This is not true. They guard the Outer Gates. They already had face from everyone who matters.

The current Unseelie Accords are roughly twelve years old at this point, having been implemented in 1994 after a clash between factions spilled over into the real world and made Milwaukee disappear for several hours.
Most of the Accords govern relationships between supernatural factions.


Winter does not arbitrate the Accords; mutually-chosen mediators do, such as when Ortega showed up.
The text of the Accords are open, written records to everyone to learn about; Dresden canonically has a copy in his apartment as of Death Rites. Winter has no advantage there over any other faction.

Literally any three existing signatories can sponsor members, thats how Marcone got in via the sponsorship of Monoc + White Council + White Court.
Winter literally cant sponsor you alone according to the rules we know.

And yes, I believe they dont abuse it. Its supposed to be written that way, and the protagonist has a copy.
When Dresden was a wizard of the White Council, he didnt complain about how it advantages Winter.
Now he's Winter Knight, he doesnt giggle about how its in his favor.

Click to shrink...

It's not in Harry's favour. We're told this:

Sarks: Edit: One last little question, that reading other questions below made me think of. How did Mac get his pub declared neutral ground?
Jim: 6) He filled out the proper paperwork, as cited under the Unseelie Accords. Which is about as involved as a mid-level quest that leads into epic weaponry quests, so it's kind of a story in itself. I mean, /Mab/ designed it. The summary of it is: It's a giant pain in the ass, but anyone can theoretically do it if they have the mildest of supernatural contacts and are determined enough.
2015 AMA​

It's a giant pain in the ass that counts as a quest in itself. Mab chose to write it that way, and she chose to because she could, and the tone makes it seem she did it out of basic cruelty. And yes, anyone can technically do it, but being determined enough is something that will prevent most people taking advantage of it unless they've an inside track on how to fill out the paper works.

And as for it being printed, the US tax code and legal code is published, as are the precedental judgements. That doesn't mean a non-outsider can successfully set up a legal tax sheltered set of companies and trusts. Complex systems inherently advantage the people closer to the creator of the system, if only because they understand the way they think.

 

[Nyarky]

No, the problem is that Mab can't excercise free will because she doesn't have one. She is a fae, and all of them explicitly lack it.

Click to shrink...

Problem with that: Molly as Winter lady, who I think people pointed out still has free will, so....

Also, I think there is a citation somewhere on Harry being wrong on Fae not having free will, and not having a soul too, I am absolutely sure that they do have a soul, if a different one from humans, but I can't confirm the free will part.

 

[BronzeTongue]

I don't read the quote to say the Winter Court have always been the foot soldiers, but even if you do. There are lots of faerie that aren't members of the fey, and faerie as a category is much bigger than the sidhe. Faerie are those beings of the Nevernever that are part mortal:

Click to shrink...

This bit is what I'm thinking of. It implies heavily that there's some continuity in the specific group of fey and that they didn't coup anyone. They got elevated when everyone else fell apart.

So um, her- slight tangent based on her role which is to be kind of like at the gates when Mab's busy and all that stuff, as far as the guardianship of the gates over time, has it kind of been a cycle where one pantheon falls, the next one picks it up because the other one lost worship and this one got stronger? Or has there always been kind of like a coalition of whichever was top dog at the time was the one in charge?

It's almost always been a bit of a coalition. The fae have always kind of been the foot-soldiers of what was going on, but it's been more recently that they've been given autonomy, which is to say Mab and Titania. And when I say recently I mean like within the past few thousand years. As far as the immortal things are concerned, recent events are, you know, human history.

And were they kind of- to circumvent that whole problem of a continual transition because it seems like if you're losing power based on faith you'd want something a little more permanent like a mantle that goes and stays empowered at all times.

It was less about that... less about the whole thing running on faith and more about the fact that occasionally things got bad and the fae needed backup and that would be when "okay we've got to cover this one, who's got this one? Uhh how about Asgard? Yeah Asgard gets this one, go guys" you know like that. And that was how it went for a long time, pre-history that was pretty much how it went. But as things have gone on, the past couple of thousand years has been mostly the fae in charge. Because essentially they got a sponsor and then they were able to get some actual leadership put in place so.

They got a sponsor?

Yeah I've actually told everybody about it already, it's in the books, you'll have to come up with it yourselves.

Click to shrink...

 

[Alratan]

No, he didn't. He said "lies". Mab was speaking them, but didn't need to be aware they were lies to spread them. If, as I hypothesize, she herself was indoctrinated into Winter Law and told these lies, she might believe them to be true.

Click to shrink...

Thing is, something being wrong doesn't make it a lie. If I write a paper that in good faith assets a hypothesis based on credible reasoning/evidence and it later turns out that the hypothesis was incorrect based on later research, if someone described the paper as 'lies' that would be fighting words, basically an attempt to destroy me professionally. In fact, the person making that claim would be the one coming out with lies.

In this scenario, with that wording, either Uriel or Mab is lying. An essential component of a lie is the intent to deceive. If you include simply being wrong or repeating in good faith erroneous information you were told in the category of lie then you're devaluing the word and concept of lie to the point of meaninglessness, and eliminating the key moral aspect of what defines a lie.

 

[BronzeTongue]

Thing is, something being wrong doesn't make it a lie. If I write a paper that in good faith assets a hypothesis based on credible reasoning/evidence and it later turns out that the hypothesis was incorrect based on later research, if someone described the paper as 'lies' that would be fighting words, basically an attempt to destroy me professionally. In fact, the person making that claim would be the one coming out with lies.

In this scenario, with that wording, either Uriel or Mab is lying. An essential component of a lie is the intent to deceive. If you include simply being wrong or repeating in good faith erroneous information you were told in the category of lie then you're devaluing the word and concept of lie to the point of meaninglessness, and eliminating the key moral aspect of what defines a lie.

Click to shrink...

If I told you a lie and then you published something based on it others might accuse you of spreading lies even if you believe it though.

From what we know of what's going on later in the series it doesn't really look like Mab is actually infected by nemesis so she can't knowingly lie.

If she was infected then the screwing around instead of pushing him to let demonreach imprison her would have been dumb. She's hardcore, but in that specific place and type of conflict the spirit of scariest prison in existence could likely have taken her.

Not without consequences, but less so than letting nemesis run the gates. Uriel can't find nemesis when it's hiding, but a fey Queen speaking a deliberate lie is a huge red flag.

 

[Alratan]

This bit is what I'm thinking of. It implies heavily that there's some continuity in the specific group of fey and that they didn't coup anyone. They got elevated when everyone else fell apart.

Click to shrink...

That's fair, but then we also are told, as I cite above, that the Sidhe were created by someone rather than always being there, and that fae is a category based on a characteristic rather than a cohesive group.

So yeah; 'the fae' may always have been guarding the gates, but the mix of species that made up 'the fae' guarding the outer gates may have radically changed. Nothing says it hasn't, as 'the fae' is a very broad concept. For example, if you replace the phrase 'the fae' with the clumsier 'the category of creatures who are part mortal and part immortal' in to it cited passage, what I mean comes across more.

For example, we know that Winter and Summer are Western European groups, and that in the rest of the world they exercise influence via alliances with the Wyldfae who live there.

That means that while currently the Outer Gates are primarily guarded by Winter Fae, which means the fae of Western European mythology, at other points in history the Outer Gates may have been guarded by, say, Central East African fae, or South Indian Fae, or Oceana's fae, particularly when pantheons from those areas had responsibility for the Gates.

Things seem to have changed when Winter and Summer and the related Mantles were created from power stolen from people sacrificed on the Stone Table, when for the first time there were organisations of fae with strong enough leaders. This may have been related to the creation of the Sidhe, as some of those leaders and certainly their officers are ascended Sidhe.

 

[BronzeTongue]

That's fair, but then we also are told, as I cite above, that the Sidhe were created by someone rather than always being there, and that fae is a category based on a characteristic rather than a cohesive group.

So yeah; 'the fae' may always have been guarding the gates, but the mix of species that made up 'the fae' guarding the outer gates may have radically changed. Nothing says it hasn't, as 'the fae' is a very broad concept. For example, if you replace the phrase 'the fae' with the clumsier 'the category of creatures who are part mortal and part immortal' in to it cited passage, what I mean comes across more.

For example, we know that Winter and Summer are Western European groups, and that in the rest of the world they exercise influence via alliances with the Wyldfae who live there.

That means that while currently the Outer Gates are primarily guarded by Winter Fae, which means the fae of Western European mythology, at other points in history the Outer Gates may have been guarded by, say, Central East African fae, or South Indian Fae, or Oceana's fae, particularly when pantheons from those areas had responsibility for the Gates.

Things seem to have changed when Winter and Summer and the related Mantles were created from power stolen from people sacrificed on the Stone Table, when for the first time there were organisations of fae with strong enough leaders. This may have been related to the creation of the Sidhe, as some of those leaders and certainly their officers are ascended Sidhe.

Click to shrink...

That seems like you're reaching. It makes more sense in this context if the continuity implies that the fey Butcher is talking about are the Sidhe, who were made for the gates and then afterwards became involved in the mortal world in the areas where their myths are strongest.

All of these guys predate human civilization; it's inaccurate to call them western, eastern, or whatever else entities in the sense of them being an aspect of mortal culture.

Your argument seems designed specifically to give as much credit as possible to anyone who isn't the courts rather than the actual context and focus of these questions.

I'm trying to avoid apologia for what are some genuinely nasty beings in a lot of ways, but I think you're going to far in the other direction.

 

[uju32]

Yes. And this Mab likely was "shaped" by Mother Winter. And took the belief that such shaping of subordinates is within remit of higher Winter hierarchs from the experience.

Click to shrink...

I dont believe there's enough evidence to advance this as a theory.
All we know about her earlier life is that she and Titania are twins, that she had a thing with Merlin, and she was Winter Lady for the previous Mab.

She didn't say "I don't trust you". She said "I will never trust you". Mab knows Mab's mind. Mab cant' lie. Even and especially to herself. Mab told Dresden that she will never trust him. Not that "she won't trust him until he's absolutely and unquestionably proves his loyalty" not that "she won't trust him until he's her fully soul and mind bound slave". Never. Period. Mab is incapable of trusting Dresden. It is safe to extrapolate that outside of maybe Mother Winter and Uriel, she is incapable of trusting others period.

And this is why she can't be dealt with in good faith. Because she will always deal with others with full expectation of betrayal. Will always coach her deals in terms that protect and benefit her when she is betrayed. There will always be a knife prepared to stab us when and if we deal with her. In order to be able to trust Mab, one has to know that she can trust them in turn. Otherwise, it just doesn't work. And she can't trust others, period.

Click to shrink...

1)Mab cannot knowingly tell a lie. But Mab is not immutable. Mab is not unchangeable. Mab does not know the future. The fact that she says "I will never trust you" can be her sincerely held belief in Ghost Story, and her opinion can changes in a day, or a month, or a year by the time of Cold Days as her assessment of you changes.

Or even just conditions change.

As we see in canon, where literally her first task to Dresden in Cold Days, the next book, is to entrust him with assassinating her daughter and where she steps onto Demonreach with him there.
Or in Battlegrounds, where she trusts him with her life and strategy.


2)Being prepared for betrayal =/= Not be dealt with in good faith.
Thats like saying that you cant deal with banks in good faith because they demand collateral for loans and have procedures for attempting to recover money from defaulters.

Furthermore?
This is the Dresdenverse; breaking a deal, a promise, a contract with a magical Power gives them power over you.
You dont want to give Mab power over you after trying to cheat her.


3)Except literally everyone else that does.
Dresden trusted her to keep her word about his debt, and to give him information about the Kemmlerites. The White Council trusted her word about their getting safe passage through the Ways of Winter in the middle of a war. And so on.

This is Mab. Not the Red Court of Vampires. Not the Denarians.
Her word is good.

That's not quite correct. Mantles are not absolute. You can, and, I believe, are supposed to fight against them, while cooperating in things that matter. Mab lost that fight long ago.

Click to shrink...

Not actually true.
Mother Winter makes it clear in Cold Days that Mab has agency and free will even within the constraints of Winter Law, and exercises them. It might not look so from the outside, but Fae dont work the way vanilla mortals do.

Kind of... Mechanically Isabela has academics 2 which would put her at College level, but it is not in fields American High Schools recognize as important, things like an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the Roman Empire, up to and including part of it modern historiography does not recognize because the source is 'I was there', being able to describe in detail the campaigns of Alexander the Great and offer a analyses on them that would impress a military historian or a creepily detailed understanding of how plagues spread historically and nowadays.

You have to keep in mind these people are vampires, they do not see themselves as part of human society, it would be psychologically unhealthy to engender a feeling of kinship to the the ones they must prey on.

Click to shrink...

-Most of that will qualify her for something like an International Baccalaureate I think.
Its nonstandard curriculum, but its still enough to pass high school requirements. She really shouldnt be in a lower grade.
And fudging her age would have been more trouble than its worth.


-Most of them still live in and navigate mortal society. They have to do so, since Whampires are the social ones.

Madrigal Raith is a movie director.
The Malvora who was killed in Jury Duty was a stockbroker, Tania Raith worked in the DA's office after graduating college in her early 20s, and Connie Barrowhill was in college when we first met her pre-fledging.

My impression of Bella's scholarship as portrayed is that it appears to be more of an anomaly than the norm.

You claimed that her mentor is propably of Roman age.
And even if he isn't quite that, he's definitly old, powerful and a relative outsider among his court.

I can totally see him having different priorities than modern tutors and if you let your daughter be mentored by an ancient monster, then you should let him do his thing with minimal interference.
I would not fault her father.

Click to shrink...

Thats why my point of comparison was children working fulltime in entertainment and sports.
Children actors and athletes spend full days working and still have time to keep up with a modified academic schedule.

Lights, Camera, Fractions: What It’s Really Like To Teach Child Actors On Set

Being a teacher on a film set is like trying to teach math in the middle of a big, loud, 10-hour cocktail party

www.refinery29.com

https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/schooling-options-working-child-actor-8341/

3 hours a day in California by statute.

There was literally no reason I can think of that even fulltime mentorship by a vampire elder should have been exclusive with enough private tutoring to maintain age-appropriate modern scholarship.
Especially since some of the subjects, like Literature and History and Foreign Languages, share some overlap.

And this wasnt fulltime; if he's a troubleshooter for the Skavis, he's often going to be away in places doing things where a 6-16 year old scion tagging along would have been inconvenient at best.
Hence I dont blame this on Leinth. Her family fucked up.

 

[Alratan]

If I told you a lie and then you published something based on it others might accuse you of spreading lies even if you believe it though.

From what we know of what's going on later in the series it doesn't really look like Mab is actually infected by nemesis so she can't knowingly lie.

If she was infected then the screwing around instead of pushing him to let demonreach imprison her would have been dumb. She's hardcore, but in that specific place and type of conflict the spirit of scariest prison in existence could likely have taken her.

Not without consequences, but less so than letting nemesis run the gates. Uriel can't find nemesis when it's hiding, but a fey Queen speaking a deliberate lie is a huge red flag.

Click to shrink...

Even accusing me of spreading lies is different to describing what I'd said itself as 'lies'. There's a significantly different implication of moral culpability. And even that requires that an actual lie was told at some point.

The other thing is, we don't know what stops a Faerie Queen from lying. For all we know it has an 'except about Faerie Mantles' clause at the end.

We also know that Sidhe are fully capable of lying by omission. I'd have to carefully parse the passage in more detail than I can on the phone to rule that possibility out.

That seems like you're reaching. It makes more sense in this context if the continuity implies that the fey Butcher is talking about are the Sidhe, who were made for the gates and then afterwards became involved in the mortal world in the areas where their myths are strongest.

All of these guys predate human civilization; it's inaccurate to call them western, eastern, or whatever else entities in the sense of them being an aspect of mortal culture.

Your argument seems designed specifically to give as much credit as possible to anyone who isn't the courts rather than the actual context and focus of these questions.

I'm trying to avoid apologia for what are some genuinely nasty beings in a lot of ways, but I think you're going to far in the other direction.

Click to shrink...

These guys don't predate human civilisation. The fae as in the category of part mortal entities do. I don't believe the Winter and Summer Courts do. I think they're 'modern' innovations that were formed in historical time. As far as citations about the Courts being Western European institutions; see here:

I was talking with a friend about the faerie courts, and since we live in Australia, we were both wondering what the explanation is for the seasons being reversed in the southern hemisphere. Does Titania take a vacation down south for Christmas? Or is there a seperate pair of courts for the south?
Oh, no, they'll just rotate interests. Mab has more power in the southern winter, Titania in the southern summer. Though, as fundamentally northern-hemisphere, basically Western European beings, they don't have the kind of absolute reign there that they enjoy in other parts of the world, and their relationships there consist more of strong alliances and consensus influence among a much larger population of Wyld fae​

Remember that Winter guarding the Outer Gates is almost certainly post-Christ, very likely post-Battle of Hastings. I suspect that the Winter and Summer Courts themselves are only a couple of thousand years old. I think the sacrifices on the Stone Table that created the Court's mantles happened in the pre-Christian Celtic period of Western Europe.

 

[W00KY]

"Well yeah, but that's boring, what kind of ancient god-beast in human form is called 'Molly'?"

Click to shrink...

Ooooh! I like her! Sassy and not shy about poking those more powerful then her. I can see how she caught the eye and interest of that Elder! She must have been a breath of fresh air when considered against the usual "scraping and bowing".
I think we can groom her to be the kind of person that asks questions about our plans others hesitate to ask. Like that one rule from the Overlords rule list about having a 5year old check your plans.

Also the quoted line has inspired me. The next time I DM an ancient god beast or something similar it shall have a VERY mundane name but incredibly bombastic title. And it will demand to be called by its name and not its title. Just to see my players faces whenever they have to interact with it and tell NPCs about it ^__^

 

[Alratan]

Found the quote that shows that Winter took over the Outer Gates post-Christ:

At a Con you attended recently, you mentioned that the reason Mab owes favors to some unsavory characters is due to debts she accrued when the Winter Fey first assumed the duty of manning the Wall.
Regarding that favor, it was a situation where Mab needed to be in two places at once and couldn't. So Anduriel loaned her Nicodemus to step into one of the places she couldn't be. Man has since learned better than that and now she has somebody that will step in for her when she needs to be in two places at once. Which is why the Leanansidhe has got so much power and generally shows up whenever Mab isn't there. If you'll notice in the books, the Leanansidhe and Mab very rarely show up in the same place at the same time. That's because Leanansidhe is covering things that Mab should be doing, while Mab is wasting her time on Harry Dresden. And vice versa.​

The Dennarians only existed post crucifixion, so this must have happened after then.

Also, we know Nicodemus is older than Mab:

Is Nic older than Mab?
He is.​

Also; I believe but don't have the quote to hand that Mab was the first Winter Lady. As Mab is younger than someone born around 0 AD that means that the Winter Courts, at least in their full form with the triune Mother, Queen, Lady setup post-date Christ. Is suspect they were created as a job lot as that seems most thematically appropriate, but can't, of course, guarantee that.

 

[Yog]

This is Mab. Not the Red Court of Vampires. Not the Denarians.
Her word is good.

Click to shrink...

We have vastly different interpretations of Mab's character based on the same literary evidence. I do not think we can convince each other of our viewpoints, as we are using the same evidence to reach different conclusions. We'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[uju32]

Found the quote that shows that Winter took over the Outer Gates post-Christ:

Click to shrink...

Dresden Files Podcast Transcript, 2021

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

So um, her- slight tangent based on her role which is to be kind of like at the gates when Mab's busy and all that stuff, as far as the guardianship of the gates over time, has it kind of been a cycle where one pantheon falls, the next one picks it up because the other one lost worship and this one got stronger? Or has there always been kind of like a coalition of whichever was top dog at the time was the one in charge?

It's almost always been a bit of a coalition. The fae have always kind of been the foot-soldiers of what was going on, but it's been more recently that they've been given autonomy, which is to say Mab and Titania. And when I say recently I mean like within the past few thousand years. As far as the immortal things are concerned, recent events are, you know, human history.

And were they kind of- to circumvent that whole problem of a continual transition because it seems like if you're losing power based on faith you'd want something a little more permanent like a mantle that goes and stays empowered at all times.

It was less about that... less about the whole thing running on faith and more about the fact that occasionally things got bad and the fae needed backup and that would be when "okay we've got to cover this one, who's got this one? Uhh how about Asgard? Yeah Asgard gets this one, go guys" you know like that. And that was how it went for a long time, pre-history that was pretty much how it went. But as things have gone on, the past couple of thousand years has been mostly the fae in charge. Because essentially they got a sponsor and then they were able to get some actual leadership put in place so.

They got a sponsor?

Yeah I've actually told everybody about it already, it's in the books, you'll have to come up with it yourselves.

Click to shrink...

EDIT
@Yog
That citation you asked for yesterday about the Fae always guarding the Gates.
Here it is.

My thanks to @BronzeTongue for reminding me where it was.

 

[BronzeTongue]

Even accusing me of spreading lies is different to describing what I'd said itself as 'lies'. There's a significantly different implication of moral culpability. And even that requires that an actual lie was told at some point.

The other thing is, we don't know what stops a Faerie Queen from lying. For all we know it has an 'except about Faerie Mantles' clause at the end.

We also know that Sidhe are fully capable of lying by omission. I'd have to carefully parse the passage in more detail than I can on the phone to rule that possibility out.

Click to shrink...

He had seven words, and as astounding a manipulator as Uriel is he does have to prioritize. Such a hypothetical exemption doesn't really fit with what we know of the fey, and Uriel isn't bound to tell the literal truth all the time. It seems more likely that Mab was wrong than anything else. She's good, but good isn't perfect and her mistakes aren't always trivial things. See how she ended up owing a favor to the denarians due to making a bad deal early in her career.

These guys don't predate human civilisation. The fae as in the category of part mortal entities do. I don't believe the Winter and Summer Courts do. I think they're 'modern' innovations that were formed in historical time. As far as citations about the Courts being Western European institutions; see here:

Click to shrink...

Modern in the sense that immortal view human civilization as modern, look at the quote I pulled on their ascension.

My point about the institutions was that they're western in the sense that they're strongest in the west, but that it doesn't directly map to mortal areas of influence because the fey were here before most of the languages people in this thread can speak, and their power dynamics have broadly stayed the same on a macro level that entire time.

Another hint of this is Winter's heavy involvement in the arctic, the management of which is a key duty of the winter lady and a task Molly herself thinks of as good work that needs doing.

I wouldn't be surprised if many regional types of fey are retelling of the same entities either.

It's telling that the weakest their influence gets is "strong alliance" which is apparently the bar on the other side of the planet.

 

[Alratan]

EDIT
@Yog
That citation you asked for yesterday about the Fae always guarding the Gates.
Here it is.

My thanks to @BronzeTongue for reminding me where it was.

Click to shrink...

There were always fey guarding the gates. When you realise fey just means, 'anything that is part mortal', it becomes a lot less relevant. It doesn't mean Winter Fey, or sidhe; or any particularly coalition of fey species. It could include centaurs and heroic demigod children of the Olympians in previous millennia and still fit the quote.

He had seven words, and as astounding a manipulator as Uriel is he does have to prioritize. Such a hypothetical exemption doesn't really fit with what we know of the fey, and Uriel isn't bound to tell the literal truth all the time. It seems more likely that Mab was wrong than anything else. She's good, but good isn't perfect and her mistakes aren't always trivial things. See how she ended up owing a favor to the denarians due to making a bad deal early in her career.

Click to shrink...

With seven words he could have said 'wrong' rather than 'lies' and not been actively misleading.

Modern in the sense that immortal view human civilization as modern, look at the quote I pulled on their ascension.

My point about the institutions was that they're western in the sense that they're strongest in the west, but that it doesn't directly map to mortal areas of influence because the fey were here before most of the languages people in this thread can speak, and their power dynamics have broadly stayed the same on a macro level that entire time.

Another hint of this is Winter's heavy involvement in the arctic, the management of which is a key duty of the winter lady and a task Molly herself thinks of as good work that needs doing.

I wouldn't be surprised if many regional types of fey are retelling of the same entities either.

It's telling that the weakest their influence gets is "strong alliance" which is apparently the bar on the other side of the planet.

Click to shrink...

The Fey were. That means nothing. There were probably always part mortal part immortal creatures since the first god got horny in deepest pre-history. By the definition we have, every demigod is a faerie. Lydia is a faerie according to the definition we have. More than that, as a being that is part mortal soul and part immortal Exaltation, according to the definition of fae we are told applies in the Dresden files, Molly herself is faerie. Any entity that straddles the mortal and immortal worlds is a faerie.

Faerie/fae is an incredibly broad category encompassing countless different types of being. The specific set of fae creatures in service to the Courts are a specific subset of them.

Alternatively, think of 'the fae' as being a descriptor like 'the working class'.

And their power has significantly changed. The Winter Lady mantle, at the very least seems to post-date Christ. All the Courts' mantles may. I suspect from the mention of the importance Battle of Hastings that the Winter Court took over the Gates after then.

And as it's made clear that fey outside Western Europe are generally Wyldfae, which hints that regional fey aren't reinterpreted summer or winter fae, but their own kind of fey.

And management of the arctic isn't that surprising for a Western European power group. Western Europeans have been messing around in the arctic for as long as the Winter Court has probably been a thing.

 

[Artemis1992]

There was literally no reason I can think of that even fulltime mentorship by a vampire elder should have been exclusive with enough private tutoring to maintain age-appropriate modern scholarship.
Especially since some of the subjects, like Literature and History and Foreign Languages, share some overlap.

Click to shrink...

Maybe she's not good at some school topics, in addition to her mentoring taking up time?

Sure, some people can keep up with fulltime work or hobbies and school, but many can't.
And vampirism doesn't give her any mental advantages, unlike Exaltations would.

 

[BronzeTongue]

With seven words he could have said 'wrong' rather than 'lies' and not been actively misleading.

Click to shrink...

Unless he was trying to manipulate Harry by picking something adversarial to put himself against. Uriel is the white God's conman, he does stuff like that.

The Fey were. That means nothing. There were probably always part mortal part immortal creatures since the first god got horny in deepest pre-history. By the definition we have, every demigod is a faerie. Lydia is a faerie according to the definition we have. More than that, as a being that is part mortal soul and part immortal Exaltation, according to the definition of fae we are told applies in the Dresden files, Molly herself is faerie. Any entity that straddles the mortal and immortal worlds is a faerie.

Click to shrink...

Look at the quote again, it specifies the courts and the original queens as being at least a few thousand years old and in the same category as human history. The minimum age of the courts puts them as older than the concepts of forging iron and writing using an alphabet, and potentially older than the use of hieroglyphs.

It also implies that the original holders were older and part of some established leadership that ascended to their then new roles. Like being officers under the now fallen pantheons.

 

[Azais]

Also; I believe but don't have the quote to hand that Mab was the first Winter Lady.

Click to shrink...

Point of order, the current Mab is second, at the time she was the Winter Maiden and Lean was that generation's Jen GreenTeeth (i.e. the Maiden's personal servant). Just like Molly is the current Maiden in the book.

To repeat: of all the Winter and Summer royalty the only one who has remained since the creation of the Courts without successors is the Winter Mother.(i.e. don't fuck with granny).

Yes. And this Mab likely was "shaped" by Mother Winter. And took the belief that such shaping of subordinates is within remit of higher Winter hierarchs from the experience.

Click to shrink...

And Mother Winter could never have molded Mab for the duty of teaching the Maiden is the Queen's (the "Mab" of that generation) and she has always been solely the Mother.

 

[DragonParadox]

Some bad news guys, I'm still running a fever and I don't think I can get an update for this done today.

 

[Alratan]

Look at the quote again, it specifies the courts and the original queens as being at least a few thousand years old and in the same category as human history. The minimum age of the courts puts them as older than the concepts of forging iron and writing using an alphabet, and potentially older than the use of hieroglyphs.

It also implies that the original holders were older and part of some established leadership that ascended to their then new roles. Like being officers under the now fallen pantheons.

Click to shrink...

Thousands. Two is still thousands, and people could still loosely describe events from the 5th century as thousands of years ago, even if itms only one and a half. The minimum age of the Courts is roughly contemporary with King Arthur, so 5th century AD.

Mab is certainly less than two thousand years old. I've provided cites for that.

Edit: and this is evidence that where Jim Butcher uses the word 'thousands' he just means more than a thousand, as he's said Mab is thousands of years old and shown she's less than two thousand.

Mab was alive and active when the Winter Court took over the Outer Gates.

I believe that there is evidence that Mab was the first Winter Lady, but I'm still looking for it.

The Mothers seem to also be members of other pantheons when wearing other Mantles, that's true, but if so they're not actually Faeries, just wearing a Faerie Mantle, like Odin wears the Faerie Mantle of Kringle without being a Faerie.

I also think it's hinted that the Battle of Hastings was a significant date for the Courts. I suspect that's when they took over from Asgard.

Point of order, the current Mab is second, at the time she was the Winter Maiden and Lean was that generation's Jen GreenTeeth (i.e. the Maiden's personal servant). Just like Molly is the current Maiden in the book.

To repeat: of all the Winter and Summer royalty the only one who has remained since the creation of the Courts without successors is the Winter Mother.(i.e. don't fuck with granny).

Click to shrink...

The triune of the Fey Courts isn't Maiden, Mother, and Crone.

It's Lady, Queen, and Mother. Mab was Winter Lady, then Maeve, then Molly (in canon).

 

[Dheer]

Mab is not a good entity. She's not an evil entity. Morality is not her function.
Neither is it Titania's function for that matter. Anyone who makes the mistake of thinking that Summer is "good" should take a look at the Mothers shared cottage, and the jars of unreleased epidemic diseases that Mother Summer has lining the walls.

Mab is Queen of Winter.
Mab is not the whole of Winter. She's not the fetches, or the hags, or the spiders et cetera. Dont conflate the day to day behavior of a lot of Winter's denizens with Mab's actual policies.

Click to shrink...

While that may be what is believed. Butcher seems to view her as a villain which makes her alot of fun to write for him

With the possible exception of Harry, who is your favourite character to write?

Who is my favourite character to write? It's sort of a tossup depending on what kind of mood I'm in and how badly I wish I could murder someone. But Mab is always a lot of fun to write, because she is just a villain and she literally doesn't care. She is just not concerned with whatever nonsense it is you are occupied with, she's doing important things and you need to get with the program, it's just so fun to write a person like that. Butters is always a lot of fun, any of the knights are a lot of fun to write, Bob the skull is my inner 14 year old without any filters, I love writing that.

Click to shrink...

No, he didn't. He said "lies". Mab was speaking them, but didn't need to be aware they were lies to spread them. If, as I hypothesize, she herself was indoctrinated into Winter Law and told these lies, she might believe them to be true.

The problem is that to exercise that free will, you need to buckle the mantle. And Mab doesn't.

Click to shrink...

What you are stating is correct. The dialogue below here.

Mabs eyes snapped to Deamonreach, "I have his oath, ancient one. What he has given is mine by right and you may not gainsay it. He is mine to shape as i please." ... and a voice very calm very genital and vary rational voice whispered in my ear, "Lies. Mab cannot change who you are.

Click to shrink...

Resulted in a question from a person towards Butcher about what happened, with the reply supporting what you state.

2011 DC signing:

Did Mab lie? (At the end of Ghost Story)
Mab did not lie, Mab was wrong. There's a subtle difference to that, at the end of Ghost Story. As far as Mab is concerned, she's telling the truth, because she's telling the truth from her experience, as she knows it. Dresden, however, is getting an earful of truth on a more cosmic level. So we'll see how that plays out a little bit more in the next book.

Click to shrink...

 

[uju32]

Some bad news guys, I'm still running a fever and I don't think I can get an update for this done today.

Click to shrink...

Hey, get some rest and medication.
We can wait.

 

[Yog]

What you are stating is correct. The dialogue below here.

Click to shrink...

Oh, thank you very much! Yeah, this could be interpreted this two ways: either she tried this with previous knights and it worked, and so she believes it to be true, or she herself experienced something similar from Dresden's point of view, only she didn't have the protagonist privilege on, and had to ask Nicodemius Archleone for help early in her career, and we all know that it's always a poisoned chalice with him.

 

[uju32]

There were always fey guarding the gates. When you realise fey just means, 'anything that is part mortal', it becomes a lot less relevant. It doesn't mean Winter Fey, or sidhe; or any particularly coalition of fey species. It could include centaurs and heroic demigod children of the Olympians in previous millennia and still fit the quote.

Click to shrink...

Respectfully? None of this is true.
By your definition, actual fae changelings, White Court virgins, grendelkin, maenads, Valkyries, Lucious Glau the jann, Goodman Grey the half-naagloshii, Irwin the half-Bigfoot, MacFinn's son and Kincaid? Are ALL Fae. Which is straight up not true.

There is a general term for people that are part-mortal offspring; they are called scions.
Fae are something else.

You cant arbitarily redefine supernatural species for the sake of an argument.

With seven words he could have said 'wrong' rather than 'lies' and not been actively misleading.

Click to shrink...

He's an archangel who has watched over humanity since prehistory.
He used the word lies deliberately precisely for the way he knew it would be interpreted.
Just like whichever Fallen whispered in Dresden's ear chose his words for that effect.

The Fey were. That means nothing. There were probably always part mortal part immortal creatures since the first god got horny in deepest pre-history. By the definition we have, every demigod is a faerie. Lydia is a faerie according to the definition we have. More than that, as a being that is part mortal soul and part immortal Exaltation, according to the definition of fae we are told applies in the Dresden files, Molly herself is faerie. Any entity that straddles the mortal and immortal worlds is a faerie.

Faerie/fae is an incredibly broad category encompassing countless different types of being. The specific set of fae creatures in service to the Courts are a specific subset of them.

Click to shrink...

Once again, this is not true.
Part mortal spawn of gods and other supernatural creatures =/= Fae.
The Fae are their own category of being.

And as it's made clear that fey outside Western Europe are generally Wyldfae, which hints that regional fey aren't reinterpreted summer or winter fae, but their own kind of fey. And management of the arctic isn't that surprising for a Western European power group. Western Europeans have been messing around in the arctic for as long as the Winter Court has probably been a thing.

Click to shrink...

No it isnt.
The Dresdenverse is littered with North American Fae who hold allegiance to Winter and Summer respectively, from gruffs to malks.
Citation is very much needed for this claim.

Maybe she's not good at some school topics, in addition to her mentoring taking up time?
Sure, some people can keep up with fulltime work or hobbies and school, but many can't.
And vampirism doesn't give her any mental advantages, unlike Exaltations would.

Click to shrink...

Maybe.
I just find it hard to believe.
WoG is that she has Academics 2. At 17. She's not Lydia, but she isnt dumb.

The triune of the Fey Courts isn't Maiden, Mother, and Crone.
It's Lady, Queen, and Mother. Mab was Winter Lady, then Maeve, then Molly (in canon).

Click to shrink...

1)This is not really relevant to his point though?

2)Point of correction: There was at least one Winter Lady between Mab and Maeve.
Maeve (and Sarissa her twin sister) are by Word of Jim around two hundred years old or so, with their father being an unnamed Austrian composer. We dont know what happened to the previous Winter Lady(or Ladies)

While that may be what is believed. Butcher seems to view her as a villain which makes her alot of fun to write for him

Click to shrink...

Not sure what he means there to be honest, and whether he's being literal or figurative.
Id rather not speculate without more context.