Some curious things in Summer Knight

[morriswalters]

Mother Summer answers this in Cold Days.

Titania cannot match Mab's forces, but she can drag Mab personally into oblivion with her.......

This is probably a retcon, but Jim used this idea to pin Mab at Arctis Tor in PG when she was attacked. 

[Bad Alias]

My interpretation is that Mab is faced with a war on two fronts, which she couldn't win. She doesn't have the ability to hold the Gates and defeat Summer. Summer doesn't have the ability take Winter. As long as Mab has to devote forces to the Gates, Summer and Winter are evenly matched.

[g33k]

... Can't Mab just redeploy an equivalent measure of winter's forces to gate duty, and make things that little bit harder for the outsiders?

No; because there IS no equivalent to a Knight; it's not about the "force" or the military might.

The Knights can do things  in/with/for/to  their respective Courts, that the Queens have no other way to do.

[Yuillegan]

Snark Knight makes a good point.

But I think Morris actually touches on something that gets to the heart of it. The Queens (all of them, Summer AND Winter) are all inextricably linked. Consider the Mother's relationship (what one knows, the other knows). Harry even realises this when he goes to Titania to figure out if Mab is actually nemfected. I don't think Titania necessarily has to kill Mab in contested violence exactly. I think there is a deeper, more serious connection. I suspect there is a fail-safe mechanism for the Courts that Summer can utilise in order to stop Mab. Consider the fact that Harry is considered a viable choice to kill Mab because he has Winter. I think the Queens are connected on a deeper level than there respective alignment of Summer and Winter, all to do with what they truly are. The ability of the Wyld Fae to even Choose which side they go to even hints at this i.e. beneath it all they are all linked.

I don't think it is a retcon Morris. Cold Days is pretty recent, as the series goes. As for Mab being pinned at Artic Tor, don't forget she was "healing" Lea. She HAD to be there. Her Knight was there too (a critical chunk of her power) and  her most powerful servant was there (Lea). Mab's ability to be in multiple places at once relies on proxies and representatives. Normally she could have attended the border with Summer and Lea at the Outer Gates, or vice-versa (or whatever). Jim says that is why Lea and Mab rarely are in the same place. Mab could have attended the Outer Gates, but she relies on her forces there and the Gatekeeper to hold it. She couldn't risk Lea escaping or not getting better. Summer wasn't attacking but merely waiting at the border, so she wasn't yet required to take the field.

AND she had just been attacked by the Black Council/Circle/Nemesis-infected forces. Not for nothing, she was defending the heart of Winter. Curiously, I wonder why the Mothers almost never intervene? There are a few theories about why they assaulted Arctis Tor at that moment (some involving Time Travel). Some think it was to rescue Lea (a potent asset). Some even think it might have been to with Molly or Slate. And perhaps there were completely different reasons not yet stated.

Also, I think it worth considering that although Mab is the defender of Reality...I am not so sure she doesn't have other plans that are bad for humanity. I don't believe that Summer is just there to hound Mab when her monsters go and eat people. I think they are actively suppressing her, they certainly have been much more the aggressor than Winter has.

Good point G33k. A very excellent reason.

[Avernite]

Except they're not actually balanced. The entirety of summer is balanced with the fraction of winter that isn't on guard duty.

Which kind of messes up the point of SK. Like, OK, let's say Aurora succeeds in unbalancing the courts by transferring some of summer's power to winter. Can't Mab just redeploy an equivalent measure of winter's forces to gate duty, and make things that little bit harder for the outsiders?

They are balanced, you just miss factor 3, the Outsiders, in the balance.

If Mab deploys extra power to contain the Outsiders, nice, but she can just draw them off again at a later point and kick Summer. The balance is NOT, Mab=Titania. The balance is, Mab cannot defeat Titania without forfeiting reality. If Mab gains the power of Summer's Knight, she can defeat Titania and live to celebrate her victory. The very possibility unbalances everything.

[Bad Alias]

Jim has hinted that adding Summer power to Winter would not have had the effect of making Winter stronger. More of an explosion effect.

Cf.

sapph42: Could the Summer Court bestow the Mantle of the Summer Knight (is that capitalization all correct?) on someone who held the Mantle of the Winter Knight? What would holding both Mantles do to a person? If it is possible, and is not fatal, how would such a person resolve their conflicting obligations? Would they still have obligations if they lived, but no longer held the Mantle(s)?
Jim: 2) That’s a fascinating question. I think they /could/, but it would do horrible things to the head of the person who got it. Reuniting two things that were meant to be divided just cannot be good for the person standing around when it happens… (Jim has also compared this to a matter/anti-matter reaction.  #203)

The parenthetical is a dead link to the WoJ I was thinking about.

[g33k]

Jim has hinted that adding Summer power to Winter would not have had the effect of making Winter stronger. More of an explosion effect.

Cf.The parenthetical is a dead link to the WoJ I was thinking about.

I think there was also some text in the book, to the effect that the Queens DID have a solution, were it to happen -- the "blow things all to flinders, and let them settle out."

I think the implication is a century or three (or more) of ice-age or tropical greenhouse effect, and no Knights (because that level of things has been blown to flinders), and then things settle out, with the Knight Mantles sort of "returning home" to their original places (likely the Mothers rather than the Queens)...  But this is just my guess.