[PT Spoilers] WAG/Theory: The Cycle and the "Black Council"

[vultur]

Inspired by PT and by conversations on a couple of other threads:

Reality, or at least Harry's particular universe, has a "threshold" similar to a home. Mortals can summon Outsiders (but supernatural beings can't) for the same reason that mortals get thresholds and supernaturals don't: the "magic mechanics" is the same as the threshold/invitation principle.

(In this analogy, Winter's job is to keep the Outsiders from just "burning the house down".)

Certain things can weaken the "threshold" of reality, in the same way that Sells' rituals wrecked the threshold of his lake house.

And it waxes and wanes on a cycle, similar to how the Nevernever-mortal world boundary is weakest on Halloween (as seen in GP and DB). The weakest point is coming, and this is what will cause the BAT.

The "starborn cycle" of every 666 years is a "defense mechanism" for reality that's part of the same cycle; the starborn conjunction occurs maybe 40 years before the weakest point, in order for that cycle's starborn to be trained up and ready to fight when the Outsiders are strongest.

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I think the actions Harry attributes to the "Black Council" come from two different groups with different goals: Nemesis and the Nemfected on one hand (who want the Outsiders to win), and the Circle and the Fomor, who want to profit off the chaos (so they want the Outsiders to almost win, but ultimately lose) on the other hand.

Due to the "mildew" descriptions of Cowl's Nevernever gates, I think the Circle is working with the Fomor. Ethniu is attacking Chicago in sync with an Outsider assault on the Gates, so they are clearly working together at some level, but I doubt Ethniu wants reality destroyed. Both sides (the Circle/Fomor/Ethniu and the Outsiders/Nemesis) probably believe they are using the other for their own ends.

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Further WAG: The specific goal of the Circle/Fomor alliance is to let the Outsiders weaken reality enough that they can rewrite it to their own ends via magic, gaining essentially absolute power, and then kick out the Outsiders. Lord Raith and Maggie Sr (before her redemption) were members, and Harry was originally intended to be the Starborn that implemented the "kick out the Outsiders" part of the plan.

[ClintACK]

Sounds plausible.

I do wonder what an Outsider victory looks like, though.

It's conceivable that beings like Ethniu, or a post-Darkhallow Cowl, could find a comfortable place in the very different universe that follows the return of the Old Ones.

[Snark Knight]

It's conceivable that beings like Ethniu, or a post-Darkhallow Cowl, could find a comfortable place in the very different universe that follows the return of the Old Ones.

Or have been deceived by them that they will.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Presumably victory by the outsiders would end linear time as we know it killing mortals and immortals but not god level beings who existed before linear time, so on that basis God Level Cowl and Ethnui would continue to exist.

[The_Sibelis]

Things stir up with the weakening naturally. That major conjunction could be a time when the order of reality itself shifts. I could see the black council trying to reorder it so they have the power.

[vultur]

Sounds plausible.

I do wonder what an Outsider victory looks like, though.

We seem to have conflicting information on this. Mother Summer (who ought to know) says in CD that "everything ends". But we are also told that the Outsiders once occupied our reality. So who knows.

It's conceivable that beings like Ethniu, or a post-Darkhallow Cowl, could find a comfortable place in the very different universe that follows the return of the Old Ones.

I would tend to think that the Faerie Mothers are powerful enough that they would survive if anything could.

On the other hand, their nature is likely closely linked to this universe. Perhaps an entity like Ethniu could survive radical changes in the universe's nature that the Faerie Courts couldn't.

Or ... well, if travel between parallel universes is possible via wizard magic, then the real powerhouses should be capable of it unless their nature constrains them to a specific reality (as might be true for the Faerie Courts). So the destruction of an universe wouldn't necessarily be fatal to all natives of that universe, if they could flee to another.

I'll be very interested to see in MM if "home-universe" Harry is still the Winter Knight when he's in the mirror-universe.

[Yuillegan]

Well, to be fair we don't know the nature of how they occupied reality. It could have been a far more chaotic 'soup' of existence where the laws of physics were breaking down. Not to mention, Mother Summer didn't say everything ended immediately. If they are anything like the Hellboy Old Ones they like to make the world suffer first. And Hellboy really just stole that from Lovecraft anyhow.

We still are not yet sure if the Mothers are like Uriel in that they are multiverse level beings. I'd say that's very possible. So perhaps they would survive...but be weakened.

I would say that perhaps even some gods and other such entities wish for a return to the days before Time existed. Perhaps some of them resent being forced to experience reality the way they have to now. The Outsiders certainly seem to.

Maybe some of these beings like Ethniu have been promised the opportunity to 'reform' the world when the Outsiders reduce it back to the more malleable state that it was. Perhaps they merely believe they can wrest control from the Outsiders and believe they are using them to beat the competition and the defenders of the status quo.