[CD spoilers] Small Favor

[narphoenix]

Here's the thing: they /couldn't/ have infected Ivy. If they did, the world would be SCREWED. Ivy can deseminate information about all the Old Ones ever written. She could make so many 7th Lawbreakers that the Council wouldn't know what to do with them. And of course, she could have killed Harry like /this/.

[Orbweaver]

Here's the thing: they /couldn't/ have infected Ivy. If they did, the world would be SCREWED. Ivy can deseminate information about all the Old Ones ever written. She could make so many 7th Lawbreakers that the Council wouldn't know what to do with them. And of course, she could have killed Harry like /this/.

Nemesis, though, isn't *banking* on only one entity to bring Empty Night in. In all likelihood, it's going to sit inside the higher level beings it infects (through the exchanges of power and promises that tend to go hand-in-hand with making it to the top of the supernatural hierarchy) until such a time as it is best placed to bring most of the Outside Inside. (Assuming that's the motivation it has.)

It would do far better to simply start wiping out those who are responsible for removing the information about its allies. I suspect the Venators are about to get hit, and HARD.

Think about how most of mortality started treating Stoker's book a few decades after it was written. Hollywood all but bastardized the thing with Twilight. Getting information out is important- getting it to the right people is even more so.

Edit: I also suspect that the reason the Winter Knight mantle messed with Harry's emotions and thoughts as much as it did during Cold Days was because Harry picked up the Nemesis infection pretty early on in the series. Nemesis is what allowed Lash to come into her own as an individual entity. 

[pharthead]

Remember what Titania said to Harry is CD.  She was not attacking Harry because she is an idiot.  She is attacking Harry because Summer functions on emotions, and Harry just killed her daughter.  Also, SmF is the book in which Harry gains the respect of eldest Gruff, therefore he couldn't have counseled Titania with reason before SmF. 
Titania has motivation and reason to kill Harry, Mab making Harry her emissary which gives Titania the opportunity.

[Elegast]

The Calvin and Hobbes book is a roundabout way of warning Harry that Maeve is sending hobs.

“Thanks,” I said. I dragged out the heavy plastic storage box. It was filled with books, most of them leather-bound, handwritten treatises on various supernatural topics. Except for one book that was a compilation of “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strips. How had that gotten in there?

I'm not really sure why she did that. Probably to tell him he was the winter emissary.

[Second Aristh]

I'm not really sure why she did that. Probably to tell him he was the winter emissary.

I was thinking that Mab was trying to warn Harry.  She can't move openly against an order that Maeve has made, but if she can move her own pieces behind the scenes...
The book might not mean anything to Harry, but it might have put hobs on the mind of id!Harry

[knnn]

Very nicely done.

My initial analysis always had a big problem because I didn't have any realistic candidate who would be a major challenge to Mab (i.e. you can play Harry, but you can't play Mab) in a verse-wide chess game.  Nemesis fills this void very nicely.

I also like the notion of Maeve sending in the Hobs -- it works as a nice side gambit.

I'm not as happy with the fact the Titania appears to do nothing.  She's powerful enough that she should have a stake in the game, but I don't see how else she fits in.  One thing worth pointing out though.  CD shows that Titania was very much aware of Nemesis.  Her putting Lily and Fix under a mindlock (in PG and SmF) might very well her way of protecting them from being infected.

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P.S.
I am also a very much a member of the Mab fan club!

[haaschnp]

Sign me up.

With Titania, sadly she suffers from a lack of information. Her and Mab don't speak. At all. Anymore. So when she sees Mab's forces moving (even the ones Maeve may have sent) she has to act. She has to serve as a counter. She could serve as a much more effective "counter" if Mab would let her in on the bigger picture. Sure Titania knows about the Outer Gates and Mab's duties...but she doesn't know Mab's individual plans within that bigger picture and therefore cannot properly follow Winter's Forces in such a way that allow Mab to properly protect the World while at the same time defending the world in case any of Winter gets infected and starts mucking things up. I bet if Mab and Titania spoke and confided in each other, Titania may have been able to do more to help with the Maeve problem...

[Elegast]

I'm not as happy with the fact the Titania appears to do nothing.  She's powerful enough that she should have a stake in the game, but I don't see how else she fits in. 

Her secondary motivation is to prevent Harry from becoming WK. But even that is foolish as Winter will need a lot of help to stop the Outsider apocalypse.

[wildfire393]

Very nicely done.

My initial analysis always had a big problem because I didn't have any realistic candidate who would be a major challenge to Mab (i.e. you can play Harry, but you can't play Mab) in a verse-wide chess game.  Nemesis fills this void very nicely.

I also like the notion of Maeve sending in the Hobs -- it works as a nice side gambit.

I'm not as happy with the fact the Titania appears to do nothing.  She's powerful enough that she should have a stake in the game, but I don't see how else she fits in.  One thing worth pointing out though.  CD shows that Titania was very much aware of Nemesis.  Her putting Lily and Fix under a mindlock (in PG and SmF) might very well her way of protecting them from being infected.

----
P.S.
I am also a very much a member of the Mab fan club!

Recall, Summer exists to oppose and check Winter. Titania is forced to act against Winter's interest, no matter what that is. This doesn't mean she's completely blind to what's going on though. Look at Small Favor. She's required to put a force against Winter's Emissary, but the only aspect of that force that really poses a threat is Eldest Gruff. She then gives Lily and Fix just enough leave to hint at Dresden about the talisman of Summer, allowing him to delay the encounter with Eldest Gruff until he's on Demonreach. At which point, Eldest Gruff shows up, kicks a bunch of Denarian butt just in time to pull Dresden's chestnuts from the coals, and clues Dresden in to a loophole that allows him to get out of having to fight. (Middle Gruff may have also been able to throw his weight behind the scenes in fighting off the Hobb attack on Ivy, though that is pure speculation)
In the end, all that happens from Titania in SmF is that Dresden gets some aid from Eldest Gruff against the Denarians. So despite her upholding the necessary appearance of counteracting Winter, she does manage to aid its fight against the Outside.

[Elegast]

Titania is forced to act against Winter's interest, no matter what that is.

That's a real possibility.

[wildfire393]

That's a real possibility.

“You’re telling me that this is why Mab has her power? To  .  .  . to protect the borders?” “To protect all of you from the Outsiders, mortal.” “Then why does Titania have hers?” I asked. “To protect all of you from Mab.” I swallowed. “Titania cannot match Mab’s forces, but she can drag Mab personally into oblivion with her— and Mab knows it. Titania is the check to her power, the balance.”

The way I'm reading this, Titania has an *obligation* to oppose Winter when it comes to any actions taken within our reality. It's as much her duty as guarding the Outer Gates are Mab's.

[Shamshiel]

Nemesis's power to influence people is limited. It can't bend them into something totally opposite of what they were. From what we've seen of it so far, it removes some of your natural restrictions, gives you "free" will, and nudges you down roads where your desire or ambition is already leading, but common sense or the order of things keeps you from pursuing. I don't have the book on me, but Nemesis is cited in tons and tons of mortal cases of just this.

Aurora didn't become an evil Winter Fae. She wanted to do something fundamentally inline with her character: end suffering, out of kindness.

Maeve didn't become kind and gentle. She remained selfish and conniving - but Nemesis spurred that selfishness to madness.

Nemesis pushed Aurora as far as she could go.

Now what I think is notable is that Nemesis does this and pushes people toward evil ends, whatever their intentions.

...and a wizard by the name of Harry Dresden also has done the same thing to the shadows of Fallen angels, Marcone, and wildfae, but for noble ends.

Harry is the anti-Nemesis.

EDIT: !!!!!!
Harry himself does this - he does crazy things and exercises free will etc. to do good/noble things (and its contagious.) That's what made him special. The doll/nature spirirt he summoned - it knew about it. If you recall, it asked him WHY he lives the way he does, because the WHY was VERY VERY important.

[pharthead]

That makes sense with what happened between Titania and Harry's conversation in CD

[Ms Duck]

Even with her hands tied, she pulls a major play from thin air.  The Calvin and Hobbes book is a roundabout way of warning Harry that Maeve is sending hobs.  I wonder if Maeve was hiding somewhere nearby and decided to scrap the kidnapping instead of going against everyone at once.  She had to know that the hobs were at best a distraction for Ivy.

*Joins Mab's Fan Club

its also a foreshadow of Harry becoming Winter Knight, and a hint Mab fixed LC.

look up the lasts trip of calvin and hobbes

[The_Tuninator]

Excellent analysis! Mab is fast becoming one of my favorite characters.