[CD spoilers] Small Favor

[Serack]

“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.

I like this much better than the "no matter what that is."  However if their communication has broken down, it makes it harder to make the distinction.

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.

Heck yah.  Maybe that's the true power of a starborn.  I've always leaned towards the power of a starborn being to use their will to exert their version of reality over an outsider's assertion of outside reality over our own.  Maybe these 2 abilities can be coupled...

[Ezakra]

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.

^^ This
But...
Cat Sith, there was total "Borg" Like domination of the Cat Sith.
Others though, I entirely agree.  Victor Sells all the way through to the porn star death cult, they were pursuing their own aims, but the infection allowed or spurred them on to taking the efforts to the extreme

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

^^ This
But...
Cat Sith, there was total "Borg" Like domination of the Cat Sith.
Others though, I entirely agree.  Victor Sells all the way through to the porn star death cult, they were pursuing their own aims, but the infection allowed or spurred them on to taking the efforts to the extreme

Maybe that's because Cat Sith was in the early stages, or because Starborn-Harry was *right there* and the infection didn't yet have enough of a hold to fully maintain control.

From here, it seems the entire plot of TDF is a giant, decades-long game of chess between Mab and Nemesis, with Uriel on the side giving advice/subtle help. Jim Butcher is a F***ing genius.

*Joins Mab Fan Club*

[knnn]

Remember that Cat-Sith proclaims any number of times a wish to attack Harry, kept back only from an obligation to Mab.  Sure, he gains a bit of respect toward Harry but maybe this wasn't enough really to offset his natural anger so that when the leash came off he turned on Harry?

[pharthead]

Honestly, I don't think cat sith was trying to kill Harry on the boat.  I Nemesis was fighting cat sith for control while using his body to attack Harry.  That was why cat sith was moving slower than usual and talking more than ripping spines out. 

I think Harry actually made it harder to Cat Sith by calling him out.  I think Nemesis thought it had full control but Cat sith was sitting in the dark tweaking things until Harry brought him into the light.  Then Nemesis completely overwhelmed him. 

[TruffleMuffin]

From here, it seems the entire plot of TDF is a giant, decades-long game of chess between Mab and Nemesis, with Uriel on the side giving advice/subtle help. Jim Butcher is a F***ing genius.

Longer, I would posit the WOJ regarding how Margaret could of gotten a lot better deal out of Lea is because Lea was there at Mabs bidding. A kind of cut out, attempting to get some link to a 'Starborn' without anyone realising how important it was. Margaret making a deal with Lea to be a Godmother is one thing, Margaret making a deal with Mab to be a Godmother is a whole other kettle of fish.

Mab later bargaining for Harry from Lea just after she gets the Athame. Perhaps Mab see that she may lose Harry to the Adversary through Leas corruption and acts to prevent that from happening. More than just trying to get three favours out of our favourite wizard, she is bargaining for a 'Starborn' to be her Knight. Side note, could have been she didnt actually bargain anything here, could of just been an arrangement between Lea and Mab when Lea originally bargained with Margaret.

I suspect perhaps it may have been the fact Harry was to be a 'Starborn' that would of allowed Margaret to bargain for such immense benefit, and had she realised the significance (perhaps she couldn't see past the Sidhes game at the time considering being on the run from White Council and White Court and perhaps others) of her sons birth to bargain for more.

[pharthead]

bargain for more?  Lea has been protected Harry for 40 years.  That doesn't seem like something cheap to me. 

[wyltok]

This is a really cool analysis. A couple of things ocurred to me while reading it.

- Mab's first action was not declaring Harry her emissary, but rather, extending winter for as long as she did (May, wasn't it?). It would suggest that either the construction of the entrapment circle in Demonreach took quite a bit of time and testing, or that she acted first. Which poses the question: why did she choose the particular time she did to declare him her emissary? At a guess, I would propose that it was intended to ensure that Harry wouldn't forego going to Michael for help.

- It would be best not to underestimate the chess-playing skill of the Denarians, even without taking into account anything Nemesis himself was up to. They each have a Fallen on their head. Granted, not all Fallen are created equal, but still, these are the kinds of guys who manipulated Harry just by using 7 words.

- Considering the amount of time it took Harry to identify the Gruffs, I can buy the idea that the Calvin and Hobbes book was placed so that Harry would be able to identify the hobs in time. Since we now know the fae can pass a threshold when they mean well, it was probably even Mab or one of her allies who did it (I kinda want it to have been Grimalkin, myself).

- I agree that Mab probably did not plan for Harry to make it into the Shedd. I suspect, however, that Uriel did. Like Mr. Sunshine said, he could have exerted his influence in a short term solution (like making sure Harry didn't make it into the sign in time, similar to how Michael never has trouble finding a babysitter) instead of giving him soulfire, and things would have been much simpler. Instead, Mr. Sunshine, as he himself admitted, chose to plan for the long game. There's a reason Mab likes him.

- With Jim's latest post in these here forums, we know that Ivy's claim of Neutrality is a lie, one even Kincaid isn't aware of. It's merely her cover. So her giving Harry a clue can't be used as proof of contagion by Nemesis.

- You know what's interesting? When Uriel gave Harry soulfire, it resulted in Thorned Namshiel being broken, making him unable to walk. I could be wrong, but I suspect that was specifically done so that Thorned Namshiel could not participate directly in Ivy's torture, and wouldn't be capable of infecting her with Nemesis.

*Joins Uriel Fan Club*

[Elegast]

- Mab's first action was not declaring Harry her emissary, but rather, extending winter for as long as she did (May, wasn't it?). It would suggest that either the construction of the entrapment circle in Demonreach took quite a bit of time and testing, or that she acted first. Which poses the question: why did she choose the particular time she did to declare him her emissary? At a guess, I would propose that it was intended to ensure that Harry wouldn't forego going to Michael for help.

You're making a small confusion with GS:

Winter came early that year; it should have been a tip-off.

“If they were very close, I’d know it. They’re probably spread out in a loose ring, watching who comes and goes,” I said. “The gruffs don’t really want to kick my apartment door down—not yet, at any rate. They’d rather fight where there won’t be collateral damage. But I’ve got a feeling that they aren’t at their best in all this snow.”
Molly frowned. “You think Mab is influencing the weather for you?”
“Maybe the ongoing record snowfall is a coincidence,” I said. “But if so, it’s awfully convenient.”

She didn't extend winter, she made it come sooner. So Nemesis acted first.

- You know what's interesting? When Uriel gave Harry soulfire, it resulted in Thorned Namshiel being broken, making him unable to walk. I could be wrong, but I suspect that was specifically done so that Thorned Namshiel could not participate directly in Ivy's torture, and wouldn't be capable of infecting her with Nemesis.

*Joins Uriel Fan Club*

That's a great idea.

Fits well with that quote:

“The Watchman and I,” Grimalkin mewled for her, “had a common enemy this day. The enemy could not be allowed to gain the power represented by the child Archive.”

[wyltok]

You're making a small confusion with GS:
She didn't extend winter, she made it come sooner. So Nemesis acted first.

...whoops. My bad. Still, my point is, Mab first action, even before declaring Harry her emissary, was messing with the weather. Question is, which came first, the weather, or the entrapment circle in Demonreach?

Another idea I had for for Mab declaring Harry her emissary is that it could be a "polite" (well, for Mab" way of letting the forces of Heaven that she was going to involve someone on her side in the events of the book.

[Vairelome]

Excellent work, Elegast and knnn.  I have one quibble with a side point, however--the motivation for messing with Marcone.

Marcone has been a repeated target of Nemesis's plotting since SF, which long predated his connection to the Accords.  I agree that targeting him in this instance had the additional benefit of forcing Mab's hand to protect her Accords, but I think Marcone has value to Nemesis in his own right, either in subverting or removing him.

(My own WAG regarding Marcone's importance is that he's something of a darker foil for Harry, and like Harry, could be a person-of-significance in repelling Nemesis's designs.  I don't mean to suggest that he's also starborn, necessarily, but that he's got something special going on.  In specific, I think the background of the Mirror Mirror universe will have Marcone as the central hero, and a darker and harder Harry as the sometime-ally, reversing their relationship in the main universe's plotline.)

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

This is a remarkable piece of work.  Well done indeed.

Question it raises for me, though; if Nemesis-through-Namshiel is working towards entrapping and infecting the Archive, what's Nemesis-through-Maeve's motive in sending in the hobs ?  Crossed wires or variant motives among the Nemesis hosts seems to run counter to what we are told in CD about the nature of Outsiders.

Given how outgunned the hobs are by the combination of Harry, ivy, Kincaid and Michael, is "the hobs are a heads-up from Mab to prompt Ivy to take more care with her security" still salvageable in this model ?

I am still suspicion of the precise timing of Mab's burst of rage at the end of the book, and how effectively it seems to deflect Harry from thinking about Namshiel basically ever again.  I think the similarity with Mab messing with his mind at the beginning of the book to remove his memory of combat-fire magic while freezing his eyes from spite is not accidental.  Before CD I argued that the line about Mab and Uriel having a common enemy that day could refer to those specific events having happened to put Mab in conflict with the Denarians as a whole, to whom Uriel is long-term opposed; at this point, I can read that the other way around, that events happened to put Uriel into conflict with an enemy to whom Mab is long-term opposed.

Is Mab actively distracting Harry from that line of inquiry to conceal that Namshiel is working for her all along still salvageable ?

Another thought; Nicodemus' monologuey bit while watching the fish in the tank, with his shadow circling outside, seems to be parsed by Harry as a metaphor in which the fish are mortals and the beings outside the tank are Fallen; if we take that rather as the fish in the tank are everyone in the universe and the beings outside are Outsiders, which bits of information is Nicodemus trying to determine whether Harry knows ?  (I do not, myself, believe Nicodemus' reaction of surprise and anger is any more than trying to keep Harry distracted.) I do think there's a recurring series pattern of Evil Overlordy monologues pretty much always having an ulterior motive, from Victor Sells; projected shadow delaying Harry until the demon can catch up with him in the storm in SF to Cowl keeping Harry occupied while Kumori steals Bob in DB. 

[Orbweaver]

This is a remarkable piece of work.  Well done indeed.

Question it raises for me, though; if Nemesis-through-Namshiel is working towards entrapping and infecting the Archive, what's Nemesis-through-Maeve's motive in sending in the hobs ?  Crossed wires or variant motives among the Nemesis hosts seems to run counter to what we are told in CD about the nature of Outsiders.

Possibility: Nemesis is keeping the identities of those it has infected separate from infected hosts. The right hand, so to speak, does not know the left's intentions, motivations, or identity. That way, if one infected agent is coerced into revealing information, he or she effectively cannot present a list of other infected members to an enemy. It presents a huge logistical problem in terms of a pawn's plan countering or even nullifying other plans of equal import by another pawn, but this is counterbalanced in that one agent may not effectively expose the rest. It was oft repeated in Cold Days that identifying the presence of Nemesis is far from a simple task.

Edit: This does seem to beg the question of what happened when Mab asked Lea who else was infected.

[Gman]

This Nemesis infection sounds kind of like the Shadow of a Fallen. Sort of like Lash is but instead with a more powerful Outsider. It will influence and corrupt you but lets you do mostly what you want as long as that doesn't conflict with it's mission. It can take over the host temporarily when mission demands but mostly it is just influencing and corrupting. The host can fight it. It can be gotten rid of but that is real hard. That's my guess to the Nemesis infection.

[Ms Duck]

One thing about SmF.. Mab forsaw much of it, part of what happens is Mab first introduces Harry and the island together. In CD, harry himself notes this