You can always fall on your sword. Usually people only consider suicidal choices if nothing better is available and we have seen in Ghost story that it was the suicidal choice that actually caused a lot of problems.
Like I said -- it was a choice. Bad choices are still choices, and if Molly had decided to tell Harry to screw off, there isn't anything he could have done to make her take his tutelage.
Lea could call the servitors to attack Molly to check her progress. Test her shields with knifes and just attack her. She could litterarily force her and she did, that is what was shown in Ghost Story. She did not just make it seem like, she did. And she got that power and obligation because of Harry.
And if Molly is staying at the BFS building, which has a threshold and a crapload of Einherjar to defend the place? Or if she's staying at her parents' house, and replace the Einherjar with angels? She could only "force" Molly to do anything because Molly eliminated her other choices herself.
The other thing? As Harry points out, among the obligations Lea took on from Harry are to
protect and take care of Molly, which is why I think she'd hold back from actually killing her or bringing her real harm.
If an option has a clear negative outcome it tends to be disregarded. I am not talking about choices given by Lea, Molly is smart enough to look at her own options. I am talking about the options open to her that have any realistic chance to end well.
You are talking about choices Lea gave Molly:
It seems to me extremely likely that Lea did not give Molly that much of a choice.
And Molly is smart enough? When she's half brain-fried from malnutrition and she's on the Self-Flagellation Express? Molly post Changes is
very much not a Molly who's in charge of all her critical thinking and objective, rational thought faculties.
She's not calmly laying out all her options and rationally deciding on the best course of action. She's
crippled with guilt because she just murdered the man she loves and she probably feels like she deserves all the crap Lea puts on her.
Until somebody else from the white council sees her there and informs people.
Remember the part about how the Fomor are only a big presence in Chicago because
there isn't a White Council presence? Seriously, that's a whole thing, that things are so bad because there
aren't wizards there, and the one that bothers showing up is Carlos.
Just because Mab sometimes operates that way does not mean they always do.
Yeah, it's not like Mab sets the tone for her kingdom, or like Lea is explicitly taking Mab's role for the sake of acting in Mab's place the way Mab would or anything.
Mab isn't unique in that respect. That's what
all faeries do, it's how they get you into those deals.
I mean, let's look at Lea herself. Her "deal" with Harry to give him power to beat HWWB... which amounted to a magic feather and getting Harry to swear to give himself over to her. Harry absolutely had a choice there, considering Lea's "help" didn't actually do anything tangible, but she certainly didn't put it that way, now did she?
Again it is not about what Lea or Mab was telling to Molly. It is about the choices she actually had. There is a great difference.
Yeah. They weren't telling her she had
any options, so in her guilt-riddled mind, she assumed there weren't any, or explicitly rejected the ones she was aware of.
That is fine for them but this is about what choices would benefit Molly.
Yes, like opening up to her friends and allies and seeking shelter from people not grooming her for a job that will eventually eat away at her soul.
Choices that she has, but doesn't realize she has or has rejected because she's racked with guilt.
She will send lessons her way like she did with the servitors. She even combined it with a lesson for Harry. She is very good in that sort of thing.
Again: I'd like to see her try it when Molly's at the BFS or her parents' house.
There are probably oaths involved in the apprenticeship and certainly heavy obligations. These were not oaths sworn to any Sidhe at all but Mab was bound to it.
That means Lea was bound to the full obligation Harry had to Molly as Mab would interpret it. This can not be just the obligation to give some free lessons.
Lea could not leave Molly alone and that means she could and would have followed her everywhere. Easy for Lea.
Mab was bound to her vassal's obligations.
If Molly walks away and declares she's no longer Harry's apprentice, it's no longer Mab's obligation. Molly is an adult with free will, and she
absolutely has other choices besides starving, sleeping in the snow and letting Lea throw knives at her.
She's just not in a place where she sees those choices, and Lea is not going to go out of her way to let her newest plaything think she actually has a choice in the matter.
