A fresh perspective on Proven Guity (Spoilers for everything)

[knnn]

Title really says it all, let's just get into the meat of things...


The Gatekeeper:

The mystery of PG really starts with the Gatekeeper and his cryptic warning to Harry about "Black Magic" in Chicago.   Bob comes up with the interpretation that the Gatekeeper cannot give any more information because it will lead to paradoxeggedon - i.e. that even more black magic is potentially coming to Chicago and this warning is the best the Gatekeeper can do.

But when you think about it, other than Molly's mind-control stuff, is there any other Black Magic going on in Chicago?  What exactly is the Gatekeeper trying to prevent?  Initially, Harry thinks that the psychic mauling of Pell (the theater owner) is black magic, but this turns out to merely be a Fetch.  Somehow, this feels more "animalistic" to me rather than "evil".  Is the blackout that the Fetch induced any more "black magic" than the Myrk that the Hobs bring during SmF?

The other (and to me, more plausible) explanation is of course that the Gatekeeper is foreseeing Molly's greased (by the mind control she's already attempted) slide into black magic, and is getting Harry to prevent that.

Which leads me to my next point...

Black Council actions in PG:

Talk to anyone about BC activity in Proven Guilty and they'll immediately think about the attack on Arctis Tor.  It was swift, powerful, and it very clearly implied that there were forces at work that had their own agenda.  However, two things always bothered me:

1) The frontal assault

The BC is a group that has consistently worked from the shadows and through layers of cats-paws.  Why would they conduct a full-scale frontal assault on one of the most powerful creatures in the DV in her place of power (i.e. we've seen that Erlking thought he had a chance against her should she be summoned to his domain)?  Furthermore, we have the WoJ that any assault by the like of Namshiel would not only be defeated, but utterly crushed.  Sanya excepted, why would any intelligent creature (and nigh-immortals count, certainly once they are at least a century old) pursue such a futile course of action?  This smacks as either desperation (i.e. Harry), or temporary insanity (i.e. Harry).

I've seen the various theories that they had some hold or bargain over Mab, or that maybe this was a strike to remove the Athame from Mab's possession (heck, I made that one myself at some point), but then this never really explained why Harry needed to come to Arctis Tor - the real attack was already defeated.

2) BC in Chicago:

Fact is, we have circumstantial evidence of Black Council activity in Chicago during PG:

- Madrigal is a known cats-paw for the BC.  Someone invited him over a year before the convention started.  Speculation is that he covering for **something**

- Sandra Marlin is the one who gets Molly thinking about using magical fear to stop a drug addiction.  She also used to work at a homeless shelter (Marva warning bells here).  If we believe the RPG as cannon, she also disappeared shortly after the events of PG.

---------------->

The Theory
The answer struck me that the whole PG story might just have been an attempt to "turn" Molly.

Consider that:

- We've already seen that the general BC mode of operation is to give powerful-but-dangerous black magic tools to various people and let them run loose: 

- Victor Sells
- Hexunwulf FBI
- Kravos

...you might also include the Athame, the device from Love Hurts, and possibly even the Word of Kemmler itself.

Now we have Molly, who unlike Victor Sells, actually has the power to make the White Council, and she's rebellious enough to be touched by darkness.  All one needs to do is to nudge her in the right direction and give her a bit a of power and she could make a scary diversion from whatever you're trying to actually accomplish.  For extra points:

- If Marva is on the BC, corrupting the daughter of the guy who "killed your children" is certainly a bonus.
- If you are a Denarian (Namshiel?), then getting the magically-powered daughter of a Knight to take up a coin is certainly a bonus.
- Maybe Molly is special (I'll speculate more about this at the end)

As a last thought, consider the following:

If Harry hadn't stepped in and taken Molly to her parents, she would have gone with Nelson to greet "Darby Crane".  Given who he really is and Molly's looks, don't you think he would have tried (and probably succeeded) to "shake hands" with her?  If he did shake hands, isn't it a reasonable assumption that he would have realized her potential, given his ability to feed on fear and Molly's recent fear-inducing magic?

Enter Mab:
Mab sees the BC trying to turn Molly and she decides to intervene.  The actual reason for intervention doesn't quite matter:

- Perhaps it's retaliation for infecting Lea with the Athame.
- Perhaps she sees a them as threat to her Accords.
- Maybe it's some sort of Intellectus.
- or perhaps Molly is special.

In any case, her intervention is to send in the Fetches to kidnap Molly.  From Mab's point of view, this makes perfect sense.  It messes up the goal of the BC plans (i.e. recruiting Molly), it puts a blinding spotlight (Wizards/mortal authorities/etc) on BC operations, and has potential for just the type of mayhem that Mab can later take advantage of.

And that is the neat part of it.  Harry is not the only person in the dark about what is really going on.  The BC operatives are also not sure who is summoning the Fetches (remember that Harry also initially dismisses the thought that the fetches are actually being sent).  Glau and the rest of the operatives (maybe Marva/Namshiel) are not sure what is going on, except that the fetches (on their own) have kidnapped their target and taken her to Winter.

So they mount an attempt to take Molly back from the fetches wherever they may have stashed her.  Lucky them, Mab happens to have put the entirety of her forces on her border (and doesn't even appear to be home).  "This snatch-and-grab is so elegant in its simplicity it cannot fail"...     

Mab thus succeeds in bringing a portion of the BC into the open, and bringing the smack-hammer down on them (though apparently Namshiel managed to get away).

Now, to complete her victory, she only needs to get Harry to come and claim Molly so that he can stop her from turning to the dark side, and then she can call her army back from the border and stomp on the Reds in concert with Summer.  So why does she let Harry battle it out with Scarecrow?

1) Scarecrow is not that important to her that she wouldn't risk him in an attempt to gain something.
2) Maybe Molly is not that important, so she doesn't care if Molly dies (think Hobs from SmF).
3) Harry had the means to kill Scarecrow (the butterfly).  Mab was *right there* - I'm sure she considered the possibility (Lily certainly did).
4) Harry battle with the Scarecrow was a situation where Mab had absolute control.  I'm sure she could have stopped Scarecrow from killing Harry if she needed to.  It was a perfect opportunity to see if Harry would take the mantle of Winter Knight under external pressure.

Perfect solution, except for one thing....
Harry accidentally blows up the wellspring of Winter during the fight - wounding Mab (that's right, Harry wounded Mab, not the Hellfire attack), and calling back the hosts of Winter.

Oops...

Now, re-read this WoJ with my theory in mind:

Yeah.  It sure looks that way from here, don't it. Smiley

But to correct some minor stuff:  the fetches aren't even /close/ to her strongest servitors.  They're her couriers, harassers, spies and occasional assassins.  Captain Kudzu was a being that was deemed more-or-less sufficient on the badassometer, but nothing to write home about.  The fetches main use, to Mab, isn't as battlefield thugs.  She's got /plenty/ of other things for that.  Another mild correction:  who says Mab /lost/ the battle at Arctis Tor, before Harry and Company arrived?  At the end of the day, the Winter Queen was still in her fortress--but you didn't see anyone standing around assaulting the place, did ya. Smiley  Also, it has probably occurred to more than one of you that if Mab was /really/ in trouble, she could have had the entire military might of Faerie back at the fortress in moments--exactly the way they *did* come back when Harry smacked the Winter Well with the fires of Summer.

(Which goes to show that while Mab may be canny to an inhuman degree, she isn't infallible.  Just way closer to infallible than us.)

See above regarding "the question is *why*?"

Ask yourself why Mab had Molly brought in.  What chain of events did that set in motion?  What secondary effects came about because of it? 

P.S.
I bold-faced the part that I think implies that Harry's "pour Summer Fire into Winter's heart" was not by design.

....
Darn Tootin' it works!!


And finally:
Some speculation about the importance of Molly:

I'll leave the really crazy theories to the "quacks", but I think we have some evidence that Molly is important.

- Lea attempts to bargain with Michael for Molly in PG.
- Father Forthill's "hunch" at the end of PG -> it implies that the WG wanted Harry to teach Molly.
- The fact that there was a BC operation targeting her.

Here's my final thought:
- We know that Harry is an "outsiderbane".
- We have the WoJ that he's not that unique and that there are others.

What if all it takes to make an outsiderbane is a Mother who is a Wizard and a Father who is a "Good Man"?
- It makes sense from a wizard+cleric dnd point of view
- That would certainly make Harry an outsiderbane (it's certainly explains why people keep telling Harry "Your father was a good man")
- It would make Molly an outsiderbane, and therefore doubly attractive as a BC recruit...

[Shecky]

I still think that what we're looking at as a "frontal assault" was a rope-a-dope.

[contraducktory]

It may not have been a rope-a-dope, totally.  Could be that Mab was trying to manipulate Harry into being there when the BC attacked, but he was a bit slow on the uptick to get there in time.  Either way, Harry knows the nickleheads were involved in attacking her.

[wildone654]

Here's something that bothers me about the BC attack on Arctis.  The BC must have known that the only thing keeping the Summer court from helping the council against the vamps was that winter was on summers borders.  So why would they attack Arctis and risk winter pulling back to defend its own territory, thus leaving Summer open to help the Council just as it did when harry 'attacked' Arctis?  

Also I think we can all agree that whatever the BC is, they aren't stupid.  What did they think they could possibly gain from this attack?  They must have known going in that they where unlikely to significantly hurt winter or get to Mab.  As per WOJ you can infere that although Mab is pissed about the attack, she didn't think it was all that big a threat as she didn't call for help.


OOOh now I just had another idea.  if Mab did call for help, harry would have had zero chance of breaking in to get Molly.  So maybe Mab would have called in some bigger guns during the fight if it wasn't for the fact that she wanted Harry to come to Molly's rescue (for some reason).  So what if some how the BC KNEW that Mab wouldn't pull her forces off the border, because she needed Harry to be able to get to Molly, so instead she did the whole ' I'll just freeze myself, haha you can't get me' thing and let her normal contingency of guards to beat on.  Maybe thats why Mab is soooo pissed, because for a brief moment her own plans made her vulnerable and the BC was able to act on it... to do... something.... still not sure what they where after.

This could also explain why Mab had most of her muscle on the border to begin with, she needed them away from her center of power or Harry wouldn't have stood a chance.  They did say more then once that what Mab was doing threatening Summer at a time like this didn't make much sense, even for her.  I don't buy into the whole "her knight was off the field" thing cause she could have gotten a knew one at any time.  I think she just needed her Army occupied doing something else right then...  Yeah, I like that idea.  

[knnn]

It may not have been a rope-a-dope, totally.  Could be that Mab was trying to manipulate Harry into being there when the BC attacked, but he was a bit slow on the uptick to get there in time.  Either way, Harry knows the nickleheads were involved in attacking her.

My whole point is that **it was never supposed to be an attack on AT**.   they were just trying to get Molly back from the Fetches.  Then all of a sudden Mab springs her trap...

[Phariah]

i very much like it Knnn. well done.

also maybe there was a test for Mauve in there at the end. Mab knows Mauve and Lilly worked together to save the WCouncil and take some vengeance on the RC for the Summer Court? she is happy to see Mauve start to think and take some type of mature actions. also Summer is part of the Accords so this allows them to settle the score and Mab allowed it to happen.

[BillTheB]

I think this theory has legs.

Another train of thought on this is that if Harry didn't save Molly it is likely the WG would have had Michael in Chicago not in a position to help the WC.  Would also probably mean Michael couldn't help Harry on Demonreach.  I think there were some communications between Uriel and the Gate Keeper. 

I am not sure there is a black council so much as some angry entities that are looking to take their places back.  Dragons, Black Court, elder gods, etc.  I think that I should probably look over the guest list at Bianca's again as I think there were some serious bad guys in attendance.  I don't think Bianca was really much of a player but I think she was one of their pawns.  I would guess that the White King was among the alliance of evil until Harry defanged him.

[TheCulinaryWizard]

Here's something that bothers me about the BC attack on Arctis.  The BC must have known that the only thing keeping the Summer court from helping the council against the vamps was that winter was on summers borders.  So why would they attack Arctis and risk winter pulling back to defend its own territory, thus leaving Summer open to help the Council just as it did when harry 'attacked' Arctis?

This assumes that the BC wanted the red court to win and not for the war to be a distraction for both parties involved. An alternate, albiet unlikely, scenario is the BC attacked Arctis Tor to force mab to call reinforcements giving summer the chance to strike the red court.  In this theory the red court is doing too well and the BC needs the White Council to survive their current crisis.(Eb states how bad things are for them atm at the beginning of PG).   Unlikely I know but its fun to propse off the wall theories.

[TheWinterEmissary]

Interesting theory. 

As far as Mab goes, my take is that she was not free to retaliate against the Red Court for their incursion, but that she wanted to, and that she set up and/or used a lot of the events here so that everything would happen exactly as it did.  My hypothesis is that she was in an alliance with someone, or made a bargain with something, or had to agree to not retaliate against the RC.  And technically she didn't.  But I think that she wanted to, and had to figure out a plausible workaround that would allow the RC to be punished. 

What happens accomplished exactly that.  Remember that Lily was a big factor in things going down as they did, but Lily was the youngest and least experienced of the Queens and Harry remarked that when she was human she wasn't known for her intelligence.  My guess is that her alliance with Maeve was sanctioned (and maybe even ordered) by Mab.  Neither Mab nor her forces ever actually retaliated against the RC (which would have held to the letter of whatever deal that she had made), but by allowing the attack at AT, and allowing Harry to use the Summer Fire, then she assured that her forces were pulled from the borders and that Summer was free to attack the RC.  No one can argue with her forces being pulled away for an attack of such seriousness. 

Mab made it very clear in Small Favor that anyone who trespassed against her was going to regret it.  I believe that all of this was an elaborate ploy, but a necessary one to ensure that the RC didn't go unpunished.  If I'm right, the question is who Mab is allied with, has made a bargain with, or holds enough power to make such machinations necessary.  For that, I am not sure, though I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't BC related. 

[cmprostreet]

First, I like the theory, Knnn.

Second, In my pre-GS backwards order re-read, I'm in the middle of PG now.  I've piled up a bunch of questions already, and this seems like a good place to dump some of them (some may have obvious answers, my memory of PG is always hazy since I still don't know what the big picture is.

• In the beginning, Eb asked Harry to investigate why the Sidhe haven’t gone to war with the Rampires for trespassing through Faerie and bringing Outsiders, on behalf of “myself, a few others… people I trust.”  Is this the first mention of the Grey Council?  He refers to them almost exactly the same way he does in TC.
• According to Eb, the Merlin wanted Harry stripped of his rank as Warden, but Luccio supported Harry and the rest of the SC overruled the Merlin.  Why did Luccio back Harry?  Was she already mind-bent a la TC, or was it just because he executed Capiorcorpus?
• Fix warns Harry that their phone conversation might be tapped- “Someone isn’t playing by the old rules anymore.” That’s obviously true for Harry, but why would Fix be concerned about a tap?  Is Fix worried about his end or Harry’s end being the tapped one? 
• Darby Crane (Madrigal Raith) is the Producer and Director of the movie the Scarecrow is from.  Is this evidence of collaboration between them? (if so, that would work against your theory).
• When the magical murk plunges the hotel into darkness, Harry reached out to the cold and gloom and felt a vaguely familiar spellworking, but he couldn’t remember precisely where he’d encountered it before.  It was different from the Myrk in SmF (as you noted), but I'm not sure it would be familiar to Harry if it was coming from the Fetches.
• After blasting the hockey-mask reaper fetch through the projection screen, Harry sees someone flee the room out of the corner of his eye.  Do we know who it was?
• Lastly, Madrigal (Darby) does the Whampire freeze and Glau tenses up when Harry mentions his name to them in front of the elevator with Murph.  Madrigal immediately seems to fear an attack from Harry.  Does he just know Harry by reputation and fear that he'll go off half-cocked and burn down another building, or was he aware that Harry might be on to his plan (whatever it was).  If it's the second, then why did he think he could threaten Harry with publicity?  Wouldn't he have at least done the 0.2 seconds of research needed to see that Chicago's Warden openly advertises his wizardly services?

I might have to re-read this one twice this time.

[Don]

Interesting...

[Serack]

First, I've gotta say that this is an awesome theory.  You did a great job of laying out the evidence, and coming up with a new and innovative way of explaining what's going on in the background.  Bravo.

Now as to your speculation at the end, I have a few holes to poke.  I think they are patchable, I just have to point some things out.

Some speculation about the importance of Molly:

I'll leave the really crazy theories to the "quacks", but I think we have some evidence that Molly is important.

- Lea attempts to bargain with Michael for Molly in PG.
- Father Forthill's "hunch" at the end of PG -> it implies that the WG wanted Harry to teach Molly.
- The fact that there was a BC operation targeting her.

Here's my final thought:
- We know that Harry is an "outsiderbane".
- We have the WoJ that he's not that unique and that there are others.

What if all it takes to make an outsiderbane is a Mother who is a Wizard and a Father who is a "Good Man"?
- It makes sense from a wizard+cleric dnd point of view
- That would certainly make Harry an outsiderbane (it's certainly explains why people keep telling Harry "Your father was a good man")
- It would make Molly an outsiderbane, and therefore doubly attractive as a BC recruit...

Leme quote what we have on this WoJ (directly from the forum member that asked the question of Jim, emphasis added)

…I asked him the question
The full question was if he had stated in the past, during an interview, that Elaine also was a candidate to have the potential to wield power over Outsiders.  His longer answer was yes, he had said that before, that Harry and Elaine are just a few months apart age wise so for all intensive purposes the same age.  He then told me that was one of the reasons that Justin had picked both of them to adopt, it wasn't just random kids with power.  The key word in my question and his answer was potential.

We don't know that there are others, just that there is potential for others.  (not a big deal)

However, I interpret this WoJ to mean that timing was a part of the "complex confluence of events, of energies, of circumstances that would have given a child born under them the potential to wield power over Outsiders." (WK ch.41)  This doesn't mean that Molly doesn't also have potential to be an outsider bane, just that I'm pretty sure you didn't cover "all it takes"

I'ma gonna hafta archive this one.

Edit:  P.S.  somewhere in the cobwebs, I'm trying to find how all this pertains to any significance in Summers actions in PG, as well as Mab's odd actions that interacted with Summer.

[knnn]

First, I've gotta say that this is an awesome theory.  You did a great job of laying out the evidence, and coming up with a new and innovative way of explaining what's going on in the background.  Bravo.

Now as to your speculation at the end, I have a few holes to poke.  I think they are patchable, I just have to point some things out.

Leme quote what we have on this WoJ (directly from the forum member that asked the question of Jim, emphasis added)

Thanks Serack.  Coming from you, that is a great compliment.

I was actually looking for that specific WoJ you quoted, as I wanted to see if it helps my case in any way. 
As you pointed out, it doesn't.

Isn't there another, more general WoJ saying something like "there are other potential Outsiderbane candidates" floating around somewhere? 

Or, I can always revise my theory to be "Molly is special because she is Mab"... 

[Serack]

Thanks Serack.  Coming from you, that is a great compliment.

I was actually looking for that specific WoJ you quoted, as I wanted to see if it helps my case in any way.  
As you pointed out, it doesn't.

Isn't there another, more general WoJ saying something like "there are other potential Outsiderbane candidates" floating around somewhere?  

Or, I can always revise my theory to be "Molly is special because she is Mab"...  

Occasionally, I just post the releavant WoJ's in a reply and maybe leave some comments on how they support or poke holes in someone's ideas.  This time around you had done such a great job of supporting stuff yourself that the only thing I could do was poke a few holes in the very last bit, and I wasn't going to do that without first acknoledging how much I liked the rest.

Sometimes I go back and read my responses and think along the lines of, "Maybe I should have been more constructive there" rather than just doing driveby WoJ and text quote dropping.

Edit:  As to your question about outsiderbane canidates, as laura118b's quoted post indicates there is an old WoJ that is lost in the ether somewhere that pertains to outsiderbanes.  I've only seen it referenced as "something I remember hearing about," so I can't say if it addresses your question.

[Serack]

I'm on page 246 of 404 in DB for my pre GS reread of the series.  I'm glad you posted this when you did so that I can litmus it during my reread of PG.