Could Dresden have been wrong about Thorned?

[Mira]

His arm quivered for a second, and then he lowered his eyelids until they were almost closed. A moment later he very, very slowly relaxed his arm, allowing me to breathe again. My throat burned, but air came in, and I wheezed for a second or two while he stepped back from me.

I glared up at him and debated slamming him through one of those Corinthian columns by way of objecting to being manhandled. But I decided that I didn’t want to piss him off.

Nicodemus’s lips moved, but an entirely different voice issued from them—something musical, lyrical, and androgynous. “At least it has some survival instinct.”

Or to an fallen angel, humans are merely "its" not worth calling a "he" or a "she."  Calling Harry an "it" in this case says he is beneath contempt.

[morriswalters]

The attack itself does only one thing.  It keeps Mab from attacking the Reds. From an old WOJ.

Ask yourself why Mab had Molly brought in.  What chain of events did that set in motion?  What secondary effects came about because of it?

To answer the question why did Mab have Molly brought to Arctis Tor you need only look at the text. It brings all the remaining players to the church were Harry can make the connections he needs to make. The act coalesces his thought process to produce enough of the truth to realize that Molly is the one doing Black Magic. This solves Rashid's mystery. 

The secondary effect is to show Harry why Mab did not attack.  This is the answer to Eb's question. Somebody with enough power to throw hellfire at the heart of Winter has attacked the Fortress.  With the butterfly Harry is able to cast fire and kill the Scarecrow but the attacker killed hundreds of Mab's elite guard.

@Second Aristh
I gave it to you that way because it would be a fairly long dissertation if I hadn't. For instance here is the chain for the attacks by the fetches. While there still are mysteries in Proven Guilty the primary questions posed by Jim are answered in the text.  By the end of the arc in Cold Days the rest have been mostly revealed. You know for instance that Rashid works for Mab and that he has the eye.  Making Mab the source of the warning.  The events around LC are more complex.  Why did Jim break it for instance? And why did Lash blow hot and cold.  Was the accident an illusion fostered by Lash?  If it was sabotage, why? Who was Sandra Marling? Why was the first trial held in Chicago?

(click to show/hide)

This starts with an event at the WWII Cantina in Summer Knight with Harry explaining to Billy.

"Sloppy," I said. "She was laying a binding on Slate. Her power was sloshing over into changing the temperature. A child could do better."

Referring to this.

Sudden blue light gathered around her fingers, and the temperature in the room dropped by about forty degrees. She spoke again, and flicked her wrist, sending glowing motes of azure flickering toward Slate.

The snowflake brand flared into sudden light, and Slate's advance halted, his body going rigid. The skin around the brand turned blue, then purple, then black, spreading like a stop-motion enhanced film of gangrene. A quiet snarl slipped from Slate's lips, and I could see his body trembling with the effort to continue toward Maeve. He shuddered and took another step forward.

Now connect the dots to the second attack of Proven Guilty. On his way to the screening room  Harry is opposed by a ward and Myrk, used to the same effect in Small Favor.

He gave me an odd look, grabbed an older woman who was passing blindly, and sent her off to follow the wall to the door out. He shivered then, and when he exhaled his breath came out in a long, frosty plume. The temperature had dropped maybe forty degrees in the space of a minute.

And the third attack. Here the lights and alarms are sabotaged in advance of the attack.

As I did, the air temperature plummeted, sending the hotel’s climate from near-sauna to near-freezing in a handful of seconds.

Now the order of the attacks.  Mab sends the fetches to attack Pell.  To distract Harry Maeve launches the second attack in the screening room using the same Myrk used in Small Favor and the same binding as she used against Slate. The four fetches are summoned by Maeve in the third attack.  Hammer Hands, The Reaper and Scarecrow go to the Carpenters and take Molly while the Scarecrow then goes to the Fool Moon Garage and kills the Jann. Probably at Maeve's direction. The attack against Pell is a pointer to Harry meant to draw Harry's attention. Mab or Maeve, take your pick, had the theater locked up.

[The_Sibelis]

Considering the time dilation and the fact that battle happened years before Harry arrives, the timeline doesn't match up strictly speaking with the attack in, DB iirc? With time shenanigans all things are possible here. The council retreated for about a day and a half. Also, Mabs not able to apply a rebalance of the scales, which is what the council specifically expects. The attack on Arctis Tor doesn't explain that at all. A future event of moving against them for violating their territory. That's the thing that the council doesn't get, why they didn't do anything back, not why they didn't immediately react.

[Second Aristh]

The attack itself does only one thing.  It keeps Mab from attacking the Reds. From an old WOJ.To answer the question why did Mab have Molly brought to Arctis Tor you need only look at the text. It brings all the remaining players to the church were Harry can make the connections he needs to make. The act coalesces his thought process to produce enough of the truth to realize that Molly is the one doing Black Magic. This solves Rashid's mystery. 

The secondary effect is to show Harry why Mab did not attack.  This is the answer to Eb's question. Somebody with enough power to throw hellfire at the heart of Winter has attacked the Fortress.  With the butterfly Harry is able to cast fire and kill the Scarecrow but the attacker killed hundreds of Mab's elite guard.

@Second Aristh
I gave it to you that way because it would be a fairly long dissertation if I hadn't. For instance here is the chain for the attacks by the fetches. While there still are mysteries in Proven Guilty the primary questions posed by Jim are answered in the text.  By the end of the arc in Cold Days the rest have been mostly revealed. You know for instance that Rashid works for Mab and that he has the eye.  Making Mab the source of the warning.  The events around LC are more complex.  Why did Jim break it for instance? And why did Lash blow hot and cold.  Was the accident an illusion fostered by Lash?  If it was sabotage, why? Who was Sandra Marling? Why was the first trial held in Chicago?

(click to show/hide)

This starts with an event at the WWII Cantina in Summer Knight with Harry explaining to Billy.Referring to this.Now connect the dots to the second attack of Proven Guilty. On his way to the screening room  Harry is opposed by a ward and Myrk, used to the same effect in Small Favor.And the third attack. Here the lights and alarms are sabotaged in advance of the attack. Now the order of the attacks.  Mab sends the fetches to attack Pell.  To distract Harry Maeve launches the second attack in the screening room using the same Myrk used in Small Favor and the same binding as she used against Slate. The four fetches are summoned by Maeve in the third attack.  Hammer Hands, The Reaper and Scarecrow go to the Carpenters and take Molly while the Scarecrow then goes to the Fool Moon Garage and kills the Jann. Probably at Maeve's direction. The attack against Pell is a pointer to Harry meant to draw Harry's attention. Mab or Maeve, take your pick, had the theater locked up.

I don't buy that the Arctis Tor attack alone was what kept Mab from retaliating against the Reds.  Mab won that battle, whatever it was, and she could have called in her reinforcements from the border in moments.

As far as Mab sending a fetch against Pell initially, faerie queens can't just go and order an underling to kill an unaffiliated mortal.  That has to fall to a knight. 

Idk, there's lots of little things like that that don't add up in PG.  I think that the time travel book will definitely spend some time in the background helping to give answers that we're missing.  Future!Harry giving Rashid the message to send to him (probably involving Mab and helping initiate her end of the plot and letting her know that Harry would someday be her knight where she can make definitive statements without lying), him causing the car wreck in the beginning for whatever reason, LC issues being resolved.  That kind of stuff.

[morriswalters]

Harry asks this question of Fix.

“Theoretically speaking,” I said, “what kinds of things might prevent Winter and Summer from reacting to an incursion by another nation?”

To which Fix gives him an answer. This seemed rather blunt for Jim to me but evidently not.

As far as Mab sending a fetch against Pell initially, faerie queens can't just go and order an underling to kill an unaffiliated mortal.  That has to fall to a knight. 

Who dies in the bathroom?

[Second Aristh]

Harry asks this question of Fix.To which Fix gives him an answer. This seemed rather blunt for Jim to me but evidently not.

"Mab hasn't allowed it" is only half an answer.  Why hasn't she allowed it?  You proposed the attack on Arctis Tor, but that seems too small for that kind of choice on Mab's part.

Who dies in the bathroom?

True. 


Like I said, PG has lots of little things that don't quite have answers yet.  We can probably make some good guesses now, especially post-CD, but I don't think we have all the clues we need.

[morriswalters]

It's your book when you read it.

[Kindler]

I think it's more complicated than that.  There's a contradiction: it has to be a group tough enough that they can do that kind of damage in the heart of Winter.  At the same time, they have to be weak enough that Mab didn't feel like there was any real danger for her interests (otherwise call in reinforcements).  WoJ says that Wild Hunt + Erlking + Namshiel would be iffy about Mab even needing to make an effort to stop them.

Altogether, it makes it seem like Mab made a judgement call and showed restraint towards the attackers for an unknown reason.  Harry didn't notice any enemy bodies Mab left behind, but her guards were all killed.  In the end, the attack doesn't seem to have met its objective either.  Mab still has Lea on ice (if that was even the goal at all).

My theory has always been that Molly was the focus of PG because someone knew (or believed in the possibility) that she would one day become the Winter Lady. The fetches were intended to draw Harry's attention to Molly's use of black magic, because without him, she would have certainly been caught, tried, and executed. The main whole-series outcome of Proven Guilty is Molly becoming Harry's apprentice, setting her on a path to replace Maeve as Winter Lady.
Personally, I find it convenient that the first fetch assault accomplished three things: it sealed up Pell's theater, attracted Harry's attention, and framed Molly's... boyfriend? Side piece? I don't know what the cool kids call it these days. Molly was a beacon, and so was the guy (because he was the target of black magic and had the scent of fear that attracted them).
In my opinion, the Arctis Tor attack succeeded at the intended objective: clearing the way for Harry's party. Harry, Thomas, Murphy, and Charity barely had enough in them to handle the fetches; if Mab's elite bodyguards were still kicking, they almost certainly would've failed.
The players we know about:
1. Mab
2. Maeve
3. The Arctis Tor Attackers (speculated in the books to be Thorned Namshiel; at the very least, it appears to be someone capable of using Hellfire)
4. Molly
5. Lily and Fix
6. Nemesis
7. Rashid
Other potential players:
1. Uriel (or other agents of TWG)
2. A third party who may or may not be misleading the Fetches

I believe that Rashid knew Molly would be important, which is why he got Harry looking in on it early. I don't know if Rashid knew that Molly would be the Winter Lady, but he seems to know a lot about what's happening and what's GOING to happen. I think he at least knew that she would be a player in the future, and that her death at that point would be catastrophic. The results of her death would be:
1. First, Harry would go berserk and die. At the very least, he'd be removed from the Council. That's where he is at the end of Battle Ground anyway, but now he's got other Powers backing him up. In Proven Guilty, he had nothing but Hellfire at his disposal, along with being pals with a pack of werewolves and Murphy. Now he has: Winter Knight Mantle, Mab, Molly, the Alphas, the Knights of the Bean (maybe, I haven't decided how important that compact is yet), Bonea, Demonreach, Soulfire, Lara, Odin, a castle, and the 'Za Lord's Guard, plus a reputation.
2. Maeve's gambit in Cold Days might've succeeded. Demonreach might've been breached. Big death bomb.
3. Maggie would've been sacrificed, Eb would've died, and the Red Court would still be alive.
4. White Night might've worked, too. Elaine would've died (also speculated to be another Starborn) for certain.
5. Failing all of that, Ghost Story would've worked as Corpsetaker planned, and a Darkhallow might've been performed for real.
6. Michael would probably have remained a Knight for a while longer if he even still lived.
7. Peabody would've gone undetected.
8. Most importantly, even if Harry lived long enough and Cold Days still played out the way it did on page, there would be another Winter Lady right now. If it was someone of Mab's choosing, she'd likely be an awful lot colder and more ruthless. I think Molly's role as Winter Lady is to be a more humanizing element to Winter, which I think is going to be critical in later installments.
Etc., etc. Basically, if Molly bites the dust and Harry throws down with the Council, everything goes down with them. So it's my belief that someone (likely someones) knew she was going to be important, and helped push the attack on Arctis Tor to make sure things worked out as they did.

[The_Sibelis]

The Molly angle is all wrong because it's missing one piece, Molly was instructed to use fear to replace free will. The fetches couldn't have had a beacon without it.

[Kindler]

The Molly angle is all wrong because it's missing one piece, Molly was instructed to use fear to replace free will. The fetches couldn't have had a beacon without it.

Instructed by whom? And I don't think she exactly abrogated free will. She altered perceptions, and sent nightmares. She attacked their psyches to the point that they made crappy decisions, but that's not replacing free will, in my opinion.
And yes, she was a beacon. I don't see how that makes any of it invalid. It just helped put her in danger. My point is that third parties like Rashid wanted to make sure she didn't die, not that they guided her to become Harry's apprentice and become the Winter Lady. Does that make sense?
1. Molly is going to be important in the future;
2. Rashid and others know this;
3. Molly's gonna die in the near future without intervention;
4. Let's make sure that doesn't happen without violating causality.
That's how I see pretty much all of Proven Guilty.

[The_Sibelis]

Instructed by whom? And I don't think she exactly abrogated free will. She altered perceptions, and sent nightmares. She attacked their psyches to the point that they made crappy decisions, but that's not replacing free will, in my opinion.
And yes, she was a beacon. I don't see how that makes any of it invalid. It just helped put her in danger. My point is that third parties like Rashid wanted to make sure she didn't die, not that they guided her to become Harry's apprentice and become the Winter Lady. Does that make sense?
1. Molly is going to be important in the future;
2. Rashid and others know this;
3. Molly's gonna die in the near future without intervention;
4. Let's make sure that doesn't happen without violating causality.
That's how I see pretty much all of Proven Guilty.

what was her name, Sandra Marlin? That fishy lady who directly told molly about fear as a motivator.
She didn't just send nightmares, she replaced compulsive behavior. Even Harry commented on how her friend should have been jonesin still. She modified their behavior with choices they did not make themselves. This compromises free will. Your looking at the right vs wrong aspect I think, which is not the same, and is a matter of opinion really, taking free will vs allowing destructive behavior.
Didn't say it invalidated it? The leaning tower of Pisa is still valid, it's just off base lol.
Without her using fear, she's not a beacon, and nobody can send anything after her or anywhere else. Your basing your theory off the idea the good guys acted first, but they reacted, like literally, post timeline messages and all.
1 that's not even future event knowledge then, that's alternate timeline knowledge.. without intervention whatever happened had to be significant enough to attract not just attention, by the need to fix it from happening by someone whose known for sitting things out and letting things play where they will without his interference.
2 Rashid, knows what? That whatever happened in the original future was deleterious to that future.
3 is death really that big of a deal, for Rashid to interfere?
4 indeed, but what does it actually cause that's so bad?

[morriswalters]

Molly was led in to using fear as the tool when she invaded the mind of her friends.  The suggestion is from Sandra Marling. She is the connection between all the young people.  And she is the one who causes Molly to be removed from the scene before the last attack. She leads Harry to where Molly is being questioned. All of this is in the text.  Harry makes it explicit when he is speaking to Murphy after the accident explaining why the Warlock was beheaded.

“The kid had gone in for black magic in a big way,” I said. “Mind-control stuff. Robbing people of their free will.”

But you can ask one question about Proven Guilty and if you can answer it you may understand what Michael tells you later.  What did the attack on Pell do?

No attack on Pell and Nelson is not arrested.  Molly never calls Harry to get Nelson out of jail. Harry is not interrupted and uses LC to find the source of Rashid's Black Magic. And since we know it was broken at that point Harry would have been maimed or killed.  This is incontestable given how the book is written.

In the denouement we see Jim's genius.  How to tell the truth in such a way as to leave the reader in doubt

He glanced back at his house and said, “Have you ever considered the possibility that the Lord did not send me out on my most recent mission so that I could protect my daughter? That it was not His intention to use you to protect her?”

“What’s your point?”

“Only that it is entirely possible, Harry Dresden, that this entire affair, beginning to end, is meant to protect you. That when I went to the aid of Luccio and her trainees, I did so not to free Molly, but to prevent you from coming to blows with the Council. That her position as your new apprentice had less to do with protecting her than it did protecting you?”

[Kindler]

what was her name, Sandra Marlin? That fishy lady who directly told molly about fear as a motivator.

Ah, okay, that makes more sense. Yes, Sandra gave Molly the idea. The word "instructed" was bothering me, because it implies a level of authority I don't think Molly'd ever really recognized at the point of her life.

She didn't just send nightmares, she replaced compulsive behavior. Even Harry commented on how her friend should have been jonesin still. She modified their behavior with choices they did not make themselves. This compromises free will. Your looking at the right vs wrong aspect I think, which is not the same, and is a matter of opinion really, taking free will vs allowing destructive behavior.

I meant that terrifying someone doesn't mean they can no longer choose. To me, removing free will means compulsion, literally overwriting their ability to make a choice. Even someone with a gun pointed at their head can still choose to disobey. But I think we can agree to disagree on this.

Without her using fear, she's not a beacon, and nobody can send anything after her or anywhere else. Your basing your theory off the idea the good guys acted first, but they reacted, like literally, post timeline messages and all.
1 that's not even future event knowledge then, that's alternate timeline knowledge.. without intervention whatever happened had to be significant enough to attract not just attention, by the need to fix it from happening by someone whose known for sitting things out and letting things play where they will without his interference.
2 Rashid, knows what? That whatever happened in the original future was deleterious to that future.
3 is death really that big of a deal, for Rashid to interfere?
4 indeed, but what does it actually cause that's so bad?

Yeah, the bad guys are acting and Rashid is reacting. I didn't mean to indicate otherwise. I'm saying Rashid pushed Harry to act because he knows Molly will be important later, and that as things stand she will die without Harry's intervention.
1. It doesn't require alternate timeline knowledge. It only requires knowledge of possible futures. I see an important distinction there. If you can look into the future and see various possibilities, including the death of someone important to global events, you would want to take the steps you can to avoid it.
2. Rashid specifically knows that Molly is going to be important. Not to the degree of her becoming the Winter Lady, probably. But I think he knows who will be important as they relate to the Outsider conflict. The Winter Lady is important in the War, and Molly herself is critical in the first major on-page conflict with Outsiders. I don't mean to suggest that Rashid looked into the future and saw the events of Cold Days, because that would stretch credibility way too much for a mortal wizard. But I do think he knew that Molly would play an important role against the Outsiders, and that her death at the end of Proven Guilty would weaken Reality's chances. So he took steps to attempt to save her, and put her on the path that led to her current status.
3. I think Molly's is, yes.
4. I don't know what would happen if Rashid violates causality. I don't think anyone does, really.

[morriswalters]

“Molly, you need to know the facts. I know you’re tired and scared. But that doesn’t change a damned thing about what you did to them. You fucked around with their minds. You used magic to enslave them to your will, and the fact that you meant well by it doesn’t matter at all. Somewhere inside of them both, they know what you’ve done to them, subconsciously. They’ll try to fight it. Regain control of their own choices. And that struggle is going to tear their psyches to shreds.“

[Second Aristh]

My theory has always been that Molly was the focus of PG because someone knew (or believed in the possibility) that she would one day become the Winter Lady. The fetches were intended to draw Harry's attention to Molly's use of black magic, because without him, she would have certainly been caught, tried, and executed. The main whole-series outcome of Proven Guilty is Molly becoming Harry's apprentice, setting her on a path to replace Maeve as Winter Lady.
Personally, I find it convenient that the first fetch assault accomplished three things: it sealed up Pell's theater, attracted Harry's attention, and framed Molly's... boyfriend? Side piece? I don't know what the cool kids call it these days. Molly was a beacon, and so was the guy (because he was the target of black magic and had the scent of fear that attracted them).
In my opinion, the Arctis Tor attack succeeded at the intended objective: clearing the way for Harry's party. Harry, Thomas, Murphy, and Charity barely had enough in them to handle the fetches; if Mab's elite bodyguards were still kicking, they almost certainly would've failed.
The players we know about:
1. Mab
2. Maeve
3. The Arctis Tor Attackers (speculated in the books to be Thorned Namshiel; at the very least, it appears to be someone capable of using Hellfire)
4. Molly
5. Lily and Fix
6. Nemesis
7. Rashid
Other potential players:
1. Uriel (or other agents of TWG)
2. A third party who may or may not be misleading the Fetches

...

Etc., etc. Basically, if Molly bites the dust and Harry throws down with the Council, everything goes down with them. So it's my belief that someone (likely someones) knew she was going to be important, and helped push the attack on Arctis Tor to make sure things worked out as they did.

Molly is definitely the focus of PG, and I think that time travel shenanigans were definitely involved.  Here's my current theory with some unanswered questions.

Assumption:  The last book before the BAT will be the time travel book because every detective story needs a reveal near the end to show the audience the answer to the mystery.  The mystery in the Dresden Files is figuring out the actions and goals of the Black Council/Circle.  To give the readers that information, Jim will need to put Harry's eyes on key events that were impossible in the earlier books, hence the time travel.  It's also nice fan service to give dead characters another appearance.
To extend this assumption, Harry is traveling back in time and working in the background of several case files books, notably PG for this portion of the theory.

Harry goes back in time in order to preserve his timeline.  Standard time travel rules say you shouldn't meet your past self, so he works only in the background of stories.  PG gets started when the Gatekeeper gives PG!Harry a message to look out for dark magic.  Bob explains that messages like that have to be intentionally vague or risk changing the timeline by themselves.  My theory is that future!Harry gives Rashid the message to send to himself, and Mab becomes aware of future!Harry.  They're both at the Outer Gates.  future!Harry is also the Winter Knight, meaning Mab can make definitive statements about Harry becoming her knight without lying (which fae can't do).  It also gives Rashid information about future!Harry one day going against the Council that he mentions later in TC.  This also motivates PG!Mab to send fetches at future!Harry's request to get the first attack on Pell and PG!Harry's attention. 

future!Harry is trying to keep Molly from becoming a full-fledged warlock without changing his timeline.  Sandra Marlin gave her the idea to use fear as a motivator (suspicious, but maybe innocent) that set her on the road to warlock-dom.  If no one intervenes, Molly is going to go to the dark side where no one can help her.

----
Edit:  Forgot to add the car crash at the beginning of PG. 
If no one intervened, Harry would have used a broken Little Chicago to search for dark magic and killed himself.  Instead, future!Harry gets in an old car and wrecks PG!Harry to delay him enough that Molly's phone call interrupts his preparations.  The oldness of the car is the giveaway that it's a wizard driving.
----

Here's where the theory gets a bit murky.  Mab sends the first fetch attack on Pell (similar warning tactics were used by Mab in SmF with the Hobs and the Archive).  We also know that Maeve reveals her Nemesis infection to Mab in PG based on Mab being so upset she loses her voice in later books.  That means that Maeve has to be an active player in PG that bumps her elbow or that future!Harry tells her.  I think the first is more likely.  I put the second fetch attack on Maeve sending the fetches.  This way, she can confuse Mab's warning to PG!Harry. 

Questions that still need answers:
1)  Glau the jann and Madrigal Raith - Who set them up to be a cutout / fall guy?  How did they know to do that?
2)  What are the details with the third attack?  Did Mab send the three fetches to grab Molly (or did Harry really redirect them like he thought)?  Who sent the Scarecrow / Eldest Fetch?
3)  Arctis Tor:  Who were the attackers?  What was the attackers' goal?  Did they succeed?
4)  Why didn't Mab work with Summer and allow both faerie courts to make the Red Court pay for intruding on their territory?  This is likely related to the Arctis Tor attack.