Namkcas, why do you think a tracking spell wouldn't work? I mean, sure, the amulet wasn't with Thomas, but Harry could have tried to use his blood to find his family. If he was desperate, he would have tried it. Or even considered it before dismissing it.

The gnostic connection is interesting vis a vis Sophia, one of the Aeons.


I mean, pare away the fiddly bits so Jim can keep not offending active religions, and you might have something there.

Jim may still use the Hero's Journey template, but I think that if you have a "big apocalyptic trilogy" coming, the series will build, not resolve. I think the last couple of books are more likely to build towards a major event that will set the stage for the trilogy. Just my two cents.

I think that if Harry returns from Winter in the BAT, regardless of what else has been built towards, we have a pretty solid framework for his character arc. That's the key with the Hero's Journey-- it's a character arc, not necessarily a plot arc.

Also, would love to hear your theory on Jotunheim being Arctis Tor, though I personally think Jotunheim is more than a fortress, which is all Arctis Tor is. Jotunheim is an entire mountainous realm of winter and fjords.

Ah. Then for you, I mean all of Winter. I've also posted the theory above in its entirety.

Any theories on Muspelheim? I do wonder if Harry might discover something in a realm of fire and darkness, which in some interpretations recently has been a substitute for Chaos.

Outside.

Anyone remember or have a link to the post analysing the DF novel by novel as following the pattern of Tarot cards ? That seems an interesting comparison to this.

Not sure if this is a compliment or not.

A limit to impose on Harry for an adventure? Jim would never do that to him.

1. Which is why I like Marling as a pawn of Maeve and not Maeve glamoured. Her cover is much too deep and I don't think Maeve has the skills to pull it off for a year.

2. That is a very good point. Jim does seem to be clearly saying that Mab done did it with regards to at least the kidnapping. I still think the majority of the plot was Maeve's plan, though. Ah! I have a working hypothesis!

That fateful night must have also been the attack on Arctis Tor. When Mab's elite assassins weren't there for it, Mab must have had the fetches return with the mortal Maeve was using as their anchor.

3. Most of the "Mab's here so it's winter in Chicago" stuff comes after this, though. I do buy that the strong summer could be a lack of winter, but with the Table in Summer's control anyways, I think Titania having a role to play is likelier.

4. Well, there's a ready-made other story happening... the attack on Arctis Tor. A rogue Denarian. I like Future Harry for that plot. I also like him for fixing Little Chicago for his own purposes because, once you let him into the narrative, he's the most reasonable suspect.

5. That is a very good point, and circumstantial corroboration of my "Titania is grooming Molly" theory! Titania isn't stopping Lily from helping Harry because Lily is also helping Molly.

6. I don't buy it. Remember Lily owes Harry a favor. Why would Titania try to orchestrate events to make it so that she would owe Harry? In the end, yes, Harry gets a free favor from her. Which she then makes him desperate enough to use in Small Favor.

No. Titania didn't fix LC. We have three clear suspects if we treat this as a fair play mystery (not that I think there are no problems with any of the suspects, but it seems clear to me that Jim intends is to consider the following three):

1. Future Harry. There's plenty of time where Harry is out of his apartment with Bob, and after Thomas has moved out, on the night Molly is taken. My guess as to motivation is that Future Harry has his own goal in this time period and requires LC to accomplish it. And Future Harry, perhaps with his spirit daughter, would have the means to make the fix.

2. Lash. She states several times that she wants to survive and will not if Harry kills himself. Motive. She seems to know it is broken and can fix it. Means. Opportunity is slim, but she does affect Harry without him knowing (Murphy points out his improved lying skills) and implies she can talk to him as he sleeps. So, Lash riding sleepwalking Harry provides the opportunity.

Or perhaps, like the Ladies, the Queens are colluding

3. Mab. She seems mostly concerned with healing Lea in this book, and my evidence that Titania is backstage in this novel also doubles as evidence that Mab is absent. We've hashed out that she can cross the threshold to help Harry, and that she likely has the means to fix it. Perhaps she trusted Harry to stop Maeve and provided this minimal assistance.

Whatever Maeve's comments on her Mother at the time her plot actively worked against Nemesis at this point. She might have been infected, but she wasn't working for nemesis at that point.

Maeve uses the same lie she will use in Cold Days: that her mother is insane/infected. Maeve is definitely infected by Proven Guilty.

I spent this last week rereading Proven Guilty, and I think I have most of the answer.

For the record, I think we must accept Harry's final conclusions at the end of the novel, as it would be a very unusual casefile if Harry didn't solve it by the end. So, the main plot is as follows:

• Molly comes into her magic.
• Sandra Marling primes Molly to use fear magic to cure Nelson and Rose of their addiction.
• In doing so, Molly and her victims become fear anchors for a Fetch sending spell.
• Darby Crane is invited to Splattercon!!! as a guest and a patsy.
• The main villain sends the fetches from the Nevernever to the anchors.
• When Harry attempts to send the fetches back to the summoner, they get sent back to the fear anchor instead, because they were sent, not summoned.
• The Greater Fetches bring Molly to Arctis Tor for reasons.
• Eldest Fetch goes to leave an incriminating corpse, Darby, as the summoner.
• Harry accidentally rescues Darby from being the patsy.
• Harry et al. rescue Molly from Arctis Tor.

There are still questions. And, upon rereading, I find the "Sandra=Maeve=main villain" theory to be surprisingly plausible. At the very least, Sandra is working towards the same purposes as Maeve. It is Sandra who gives Molly the idea to use fear magic. As the convention chair, she is well-positioned to invite Darby Crane to SplatterCon!!! I find Sandra working for Maeve to be more plausible, given how deep her cover is (runs a shelter and a convention, has been helping Molly and friends for months).

Maeve is the main villain of Proven Guilty. We can narrow the Fetch Sender down to two individuals, Mab or Maeve. (One can assume that Mother Winter remains too uninvolved to bother being the sender.)

"There are things strong enough to send them through from the [Nevernever]? I didn't think that ever happened anymore. Hence the popularity of working through mortal summoners."

"Oh, it's doable," Bob assured me. "It just takes a hell of a lot more juice to open the way to the mortal world from the other side."

I frowned. "How much power are we talking?"

"Big," Bob assured me. "Like the Erlking, or an archangel, or one of the old gods."

I got a shivery feeling in my stomach. "A Faerie Queen?"

"Oh, sure. I guess so." He frowned. "You think this is Faerie work?"

"Something is definitely screwy in elfland," I said.

"Specifically, [fetches are] creatures of deepest, darkest Winter.

We know that Lily's plan in the climax of the novel was for Harry to use Summer fire to draw Winter forces from the border so that Summer could assist the White Council in their war against the Red Court. We know that Lily and Maeve are working together, as Maeve traps the Winter forces in a time dilation spell. We also know that Maeve has been subverted by Nemesis, because she is by this point advancing her lie that Mab has gone insane.

It is pretty clear that Nemesis has Maeve pulling the strings here. Pulling back Winter's forces from the Gates advances Nemesis's goals. Maeve is clearly playing Lily and Harry here. I can only therefore conclude that she is playing Eldest Fetch, as well. That was the goal, to weaken the Gates' defenses.

I stuck my left hand out to one side of me and said, "Look over here." Then I mimed a short jab with my right fist.

"It's a rope-a-dope," Murphy said, her eyes narrowing. "A distraction. But from what?"

This theory, that Maeve is pulling the strings, and that Sandra Marling, Lily, and Eldest Fetch are all her cats-paws, explains much of the plot.* It in fact leaves us with three main mysteries.

1. Who hit Harry on his way home from the warlock execution, and why didn't his attacker want to kill him?
2. Who fixed Little Chicago?
3. Why Molly?

-----

WHO HIT HARRY?

First of all, we can discount Ace. I mean, maybe he's just an amateur, but it's also possible the accident was just a delaying tactic.

"You sure it was deliberate?"

"Yeah, but whoever it was, he wasn't a pro."

"Why do you say that?"

"If he had been, he'd have spun me easy. No idea he was there until he'd hit me. Could have bumped me into a spin before I could have straightened out. Flipped my car a few times. Killed me pretty good."

This novel discusses time travel an awful lot. In fact, I'm pretty sure it discusses time travel more than Cold Days, where the plot clearly relied on the temporal shenanigans it mentioned (the Demonreach explosion blasting backwards in time). And then, there's no explicit time travel in the climax.

There's implicit time travel with the note that Rashid sends Harry to kick off the plot. Except the plot kicks off just fine when Molly calls him. So why send Harry the note? Bob explains this best:

"OK," I said. "So what's the point in sending the message at all, if it can't change anything?"

"Oh, it can," Bob said. "If it's done subtly enough, indirectly enough, you can get all kinds of things changed. Like, for example, he tells you that your car is going to be stolen. So you move it to a parking garage, where instead of getting stolen by the junkie who was going to shoot you and take the car on the street, you get jacked by a professional who takes the car without hurting you-- because by slightly altering the fate of the car, he indirectly alters yours."

Rashid, by the note, is priming Harry to look for black magic. Without that priming, Molly would have died. (Harry admits he didn't even notice the tampering with Rose, and almost didn't notice Nelson's. Without being told to look for black magic, would Harry have ever seen it?) Rashid also interferes at the trial, stalling until the cavalry arrives.

Rashid saved Molly's life by sending Harry a note. A future without Lady Molly must be bleak for the Reality Defense Force, indeed.

There's another time traveler in the tale, and I suspect he's working with Thomas. It seems suspicious that Thomas is tailing Harry on this one adventure. But there's something I noticed once Thomas joins the plot: he does his best to remain uninvolved.

I glanced at Thomas, who was facing away, a little apart from the rest of us, staying out of the decision-making process.

There are other instances where Thomas basically wallflowers. He's very careful not to disrupt the natural flow of the case as much as he can help it. I think, like Rashid, Thomas has future information.**

Hitting Harry keeps him out of the apartment. I posit that Future Harry is at the periphery in Proven Guilty, and whenever Harry is out of the apartment, Future Harry is using it as his base of operations. Future Harry has Thomas as a knowing accomplice.***

[ALTERNATIVELY: Listen. Harry Dresden is unstuck in time.]

-----

LITTLE CHICAGO

Given all of the above, Future Harry and possibly his spirit daughter fixed Little Chicago. There is actually plenty of time in which to do so, as Thomas moves out right before Harry stuffs Bob into his bag for half the book. This covers the night Darby attacks Harry, Rawlins, and Mouse and the fetches kidnap Molly. It's a bit Azkaban as Future Harry knows he can do it because it has already been done.

-----

WHY MOLLY?

This is difficult to guess, and can seemingly only be explained by assuming Maeve knows more than she should. Either Maeve knows that Molly is Harry's best friend's daughter and a mortal practitioner coming into her talent, or it is an amazing coincidence that her plan hinges on. We know Arctis Tor was attacked by a rogue Denarian. We suspect this rogue Denarian was a Nemesis agent with a Coin. It's plausible to posit that Maeve and Nemesis sent another agent, the rogue Denarian, to clear out Arctis Tor, leaving the Wellspring unguarded why Mab was curing the Leanansidhe. And through Lea and the Denarian, it's possible Nemesis knows about Michael. But what about his family?

Gregor. Molly was targeted as Charity's daughter, and not as Michael's. We know she has Fae in her ancestry, and that this is likely the source of her and her daughter's talents. I posit that Charity is Aurora's descendant. Future Harry, by the way, isn't the only player operating on the periphery. Someone else is in town.

The sun had risen on our way there, though heavy cloud cover and grumbling thunder promised unusually bad weather for so early in the day. That shouldn't have surprised me either. When the Queens of Faerie were moving around backstage, the weather quite often seemed to reflect their presence.

We see this again in Small Favor and Ghost Story, where particularly frigid weather means that Mab is in the area. So, let's check out the opening to Proven Guilty's second chapter:

I turned my back on them and walked out of the warehouse into Chicago's best impression of Miami. July in the Midwest is rarely less than sultry, but this year had been especially intense when it came to summer heat, and it had rained frequently.

What the hell is Titania doing in Chicago? Combining this with Mab's assertion that Molly would be a better fit for Summer and the symmetry of a Winter scion becoming the Summer Lady while a Summer scion becomes the Winter Lady, and it's not unreasonable to conclude that Molly's Fae ancestry stretches to Titania.

But that doesn't answer what Titania's goal is. Fix and Lily aren't working towards it. They're working towards Maeve's goals. It would be a stretch for Titania to be infected with Nemesis, wouldn't it?

I suspect that Titania was trying to groom Molly to be Lily's successor, subtly, in the background. Maybe by nudging the right books into Molly's hands. I suspect that Winter's Queens knew this and were keeping tabs on Molly for that reason. And when the pump was primed, Maeve chose Molly to use as a fear anchor.

This is the wildest-assed guess, but I think it holds up.

=====
* Note that Eldest Fetch need not be infected with Nemesis. The two main symptoms pointed out by fans, his magic immunity and his more-than-a-simple-glamour shapeshifting are both explained away within the text.

I should have kept in mind how easily the Scarecrow had shed my magic the night before. The lesser fetch must have had some measure of the same talent, because it changed the tone of its howl in the middle of its leap, impacted my shield, and oozed through it as though the solid barrier was a thick sludge.

This thing was no fetch, no changer of form and image and illusion. There was no shadowy mask over an amorphous form, no glamour altering its appearance, which my salve had enabled me to see through. This thing was a whole, independent creature. Unless maybe it was a fetch so old and strong that it could transform itself into the Scarecrow in truth and not simply in seeming.

** Unless that's how Thomas always is and I've never noticed.

*** It's worth noting that I suspect Thomas is lying about Glau being a djinn scion. My only evidence is that Glau is a dead ringer for the Innsmouth look. I think Thomas was told to not draw Harry's attention to the Fomor because timey-wimey-wibble-wobble.