Nemesis – Invidia. (latin) for envy, one of the seaven deadly sins.

Wouldn't that be interesting if Nemesis was in fact how Nemesis was transferred? When a being becomes envious?

It would make a lot of sense when we consider Lea.

Lea has long been Mab's greatest rival, and most powerful servant, within the Winter Court. Mab has allowed her to gain significant Power whilst also incurring commensurate debt. Lea would both hate and envy Mab's power and position. She has to be one of the most ambitious of the Fae, as she would not have grown her power so much otherwise. In Dead Beat she gains Morgana's Athame, a weapon tainted with Nemesis, but still grant her enough power that she unbalanced the Winter Court and was a real threat to Mab's authority. But the fact that she openly challenged Mab at all is perhaps what is most strange, as even Lea wouldn't risk unbalancing the Winter Court normally. The Fae seem to like subterfuge, sex, and brutal violence when it comes to internal matter (although externally this also seems to be the case...).

Aurora too perhaps was envious, not of Titania's power I think, but of Mortal freedom. She was tired of being immortal and the endless cycle of death and rebirth.

Maeve of course was envious both of Sarissa's place in Mab's eyes, but also to a lesser extent, Mab's power and position. It is made pretty clear on Cold Days it is the fact that Sarissa is free-er and seemingly more loved by Mab than Maeve, that is the root of her anger and sadness.

Cat Sith...well who knows. Probably envious of the power of mightier beings in the Court, and deeply resentful of being beholden to Dresden. Perhaps envious of Dresden's higher status.

I am leaving out the mortals who Lily accused of being infected by Nemesis, as I don't want the discussion to be derailled and I don't think I will convince anyone that there is a good chance that the mortal's are infected. Let's just stick to the "known" infected candidates.

Also, whilst I am NOT saying that Nemesis IS one of the seven deadly sins, if that were the case then it would makes sense that there are other sins (and perhaps corresponding virtues) that are sentient beings. Food for thought.

WAG time!

I think most would agree that there as at least an implied connection between the Black Court of Vampires and the Outsiders.

They are often described as being tainted by something inhuman, unworldy and evil. Something that robs them of all choice.

Renfields are particularly interesting - their will is some brutally and completely overridden that the person they were before is essentially dead. They are empowered by that same fell strength that the Black Court runs off (though obviously a lot less than a BCV). They are described as being bound by a vile collar of dark energy (a reflection of the magic that enslaves them), their muscles are bulging with blackened veins, but the worst is the eyes - which appear as though they have been clawed out and their is a hideous cold darkness, vast and terrible instead. A profound Nothing. This is their description when Harry views one with his Sight. Curiously, neither the OG Merlin nor any Saint on record who tried to remove the spell was able. This suggests to me that once their minds/psyches have been so dominated so violently by the BCV, they are effectively dead. There is nothing left of the original person. Just a meat suit.

The Renfields, and vampire thralls, are an example of how the White Council's Laws can be perverted and used against them. The White Council cannot kill (with magic) mortal beings, even Renfields it seems, making them effective tools and meat shields. It was problems like this that required the creation of the position of the Blackstaff.

A few inconsistencies, or at least issues, exist though. In Blood Rites, Harry believes that the Black Court have been around since the dawn of human civilization and Ebenezar says that Dracula (son of Drakul) went to join the Black Court as a sort of teenage rebellion. However in WOJ we have a quote saying that Dracula, in an effort to impress his father (Drakul), wound up creating himself as the first Black Court Vampire - but it didn't work out so well. Finally, OG Merlin supposedly tried to remove or fix the Renfield curse/enthrallment. However, the OG Merlin would have existed about a thousand years before Dracula (who would have existed about 600 years before the Dresden Files).

So which is true? As the WOJ came after Blood Rites, most have taken that to mean Jim has retconned/rethought his original idea of the Black Court. Of course it could be a genuine mistake too, but perhaps the discrepancy was intentional (it would hardly be the first...). An easy solution to the Merlin issue is that he is a Time Traveler. But then, is Dracula? Did he go back to the dawn of humanity to become the first Black Court Vampire?

Also - Mavra is about 600 years old according to WOJ, and the name Mavra comes from a Russian opera about a love affair. Mavra is the pseudonym of a man (Vassili) pretending to be a servant. Is there a connection between Mavra and Russia? Well for one, Simon Pietrovich was Russian and the White Council's expert on Vampires. He is also the number one suspect for Cowl currently (as rated by these boards). It would fit - Jim loves those 80s references, the whole Russian vs America thing is very much a part of pop culture (and was heavily so in the 80s). Also, if Mavra is 600 years old she definitely existed during Dracula's reign. Which either makes her one of the oldest and strongest Black Court Vampires, but might also mean she was someone from history. Perhaps Dracula's sister/wife/mother etc.

I have also speculated in the past to the connection between Drakul and the Outsiders - which would make more sense if the Black Court were heavily connected to the Outsiders as well.

g33k - I agree. Outsiders even if they are aware of Nuclear weapons, likely don't care. They have reality-ending power, Nuclear weapons are firecrackers compares to the power of the Sun, let alone an event that would end everything. Hell they are firecrackers compared to Hurricanes, at least in terms of energy. Humans are powerful, sure. But we are mostly really only capable of ending Life on our little planet, not everything everywhere. As Bob says, destruction is easy. All you really have to do is wait and let Entropy do its work. Creation is hard. Hence its value.

POTUS, if they are even aware of the position, probably doesn't really rank very highly in their eyes. Humanity and mortals are much more deadly to beings of our world than them in the traditional sense. Mortals' real strength comes from our ability to Choose, I suspect.

Kbrizzle -
1) Maeve is a high value target, considering her influence in Winter and her potential to become Queen. Nemesis' is a sapper, and wants to open the Gates from the inside. And sorry for the confusion, metaphors become difficult when dealing with the supernatural. I did not mean that the entirety of Nemesis jumps from host to host - far from it. I do not necessarily believe it behaves like any virus from Creation either, I am merely borrowing Jim's analogy. I believe that this thing has no such limits - it is more like a gestalt being, able to exist in many bodies. It doesn't copy itself, it doesn't exactly move, it merely "spreads". Think a large amount of butter on many pieces of bread. It's all the same butter, the bread is different. And I believe as we don't know the exact mechanism of infection, it makes it difficult to ascertain why it hasn't spread further. However I think the biggest hint we have so far is power. The acquisition of power, perhaps of specific types of power, seems to be the door.
2) What is interesting to me about your argument here is you are perfectly willing to accept that Lily is correct and truthful about Nemesis changing that which it ought not to change, based on information from a source you believe is untrustworthy. But you won't accept the rest of her statements...because you believe the source is untrustworthy. You can't cherry pick here - either you accept that Maeve gave credible information, or you don't. We have literally no other frame of reference to figure out which bits are true or otherwise. As for the rest of your statement -see above.

Kindler -
1) I suppose that is true, if Sells was never infected then the issue doesn't exist. However what you say does not address a key factor: why one reason but not another? Why is Dark Magic, Mental Manipulation, Demonic Influence etc explain these out of character behaviors better than Nemesis. Assuming all these things are not linked (which is a definite possibility, plausibly at least some of those things are linked) why are these reasons more plausible than Nemesis? And we are dealing with probability here, not possibility. There are many more possible reasons that Sells, the FBI agents, and Kravos would act they way they did - what we are trying to do here is eliminate the possibilities and focus on what the probabilities are. We have in-text a character saying that these beings were affected by Nemesis, and that is why they went for Dark Arts in the first place. What we do not have is a plausible explanation for why any of these characters would pursue the Dark Arts in the first place. We can assume many reasons, but we have a very small pool of actual evidence, and the evidence we do have says directly that the reason they pursued Dark Arts in the first place was Nemesis. If there is an alternative, backed up by hard evidence, I am all ears. But so far no one yet has found anything to the contrary beyond speculation and theory. Interesting theories though they are.
3)I really enjoy your theory on the reason for Three Eye (that is the correct name, to answer your question) emerging. I do believe that many beings want an end to the Masquerade - for various different reasons but almost all would give them more power. However there are many who oppose this as well, I think, because there positions are already quite secure and feel no need to upset the Status Quo. This I believe goes a long way to explaining the seemingly opposing actions within certain supernatural organisations and nations. Great WAG btw.
3) To answer you other post - how would Lily know that Denton etc were infected? Knowledge and Power go hand in hand, and even the minor Faeries Queens have a lot of Power. So even if Lily wasn't up to speed on all the big secrets in Faerie, I suspect in terms of current affairs she would have a pretty good knowledge. What is also interesting about your comment, is that for the first two cases (Sells and FBI agents), Maeve hadn't yet been introduced and did not even know Dresden. She would not have even been infected back then. So how would she have known either? Considering Lily becomes Winter Lady around the same time we first are introduced to Maeve, and Maeve was still a book or two from being infected, there is still plenty of time for both to learn about this new Winter Emissary of Mab's who killed Aurora and saved Faerie. And as Bad Alias points out - Harry speculates Maeve moved to Undertown when Mab came to the city, we don't actually know that. I think we cannot simply dismiss Lily's accusation as merely a guess, especially when we have so very little hard evidence to say that her information was false. Theories must fit facts, rather than facts being made to fit theories. And the facts are that we have an accusation that Harry's first few cases were all Nfected. We have the Gatekeeper saying that Harry's actions over the past few years have resulted in a series of well-placed thumbs (as he puts it) in Nemesis' eye. We have Vadderung saying everything is connected and Harry is only just learning who the players are (in a talk that discusses Sells and the Red Court). And we have the Gatekeeper and Mother Summer's reveal that it is an Outsider, that is a sapper trying to open the gates from this side. We also have Lily saying it is an Outsider virus, and Titania confirming that it has a name (and that she would know if Mab was infected). And we learn of Outsiders in the very first Dresden Files case. The theory that Lily was wrong does not fit, considering the evidence.

KurtinStGeorge - As Kindler points out, Nemesis wasn't using Maeve as a sock puppet. It mostly appears to influence, rather than puppet its hosts. Maeve was merely enjoying her knew ability. And she had no idea how dangerous the ability to lie really is. It got her killed. We are also assuming that the reason Maeve knew about Nemesis was from Nemesis telling her. Except as Dresden points out in Cold Days, it is because of Lily's relative newness in being Summer Lady that she likely didn't know. Maeve has been around for several centuries, she knew quite probably knew about the Adversary. At least in part. She knew about starborns and the Sleepers, I would say her knowledge of the big stuff far outstripped young Lily. And I am not saying btw, that Sells or any other Mortal was a sock puppet. I think they were mostly just being nudged along. We never saw any other evidence to the contrary that they were being possessed. I just think that Nemesis is more like ringworm or botfly, it just lives inside making the host sicker until it can't fight it off. Hell there are zombie worms that control snails in nature. Life is weird enough, who knows what something beyond reality would do. I think they were corrupted, but how and why is contentious. See my argument to Kindler.

Bad Alias -
1) She used synonyms. It is semantics at this point. But to use your analogy - you may not possess or partake drugs, but the money and culture of it may have influenced you. However we are also talking spirit here, and so in the Dresden Files, you would in a sense have been "corrupted". Jim often talks about how you can lose your soul without any supernatural thing being involved. The key word in her sentence is "them". She says they are tainted, not their lives. She makes a great deal out of the fact it has changed them, not that it is merely affecting their lives indireclty. Mab directly says (and she cannot lie) that the Leanansidhe was tainted by Morgana's Athame, and she spread it to Maeve. I don't know how much more proof you want, but I think the definition Jim is using means infected.
2) Ok so hypothetically if we go with your definition for taint in this context, sure. But by that logic, Nemesis has tainted Harry and just about anyone else affected by it's actions. But Lily doesn't go "Dresden you have been tainted" even if her ability to check for Nemesis was bulldust. She clears him, even though his life has been greatly impacted by the actions of Nemesis. So has just about everyone in those cases, but Lily doesn't mention them either. She specifically mentions the villains. Food for thought.
3) Nemesis briefly took full control of Cat Sith. We have no idea of the long term effects of that. We don't know if his personality remains, if he would remember the incident. What we do know is that it changed his fundamental nature so thoroughly that he couldn't fulfill his oath, his duty to Dresden even before Cat Sith was aware of the infection. Also as above, I don't think Nemesis uses sock puppets much. We haven't really seen anything to suggest that it would do so unless revealed (which Titania implied, as did Lily and Maeve, that that would force it to either infest or kill anyone aware of it, within its power). By that logic, Nemesis isn't in complete control of any of its hosts most of the time. Which is likely. Easier to keep pushing its victims to doing its bidding than actually actively controlling everything. Perhaps it can't. We don't know its limits. Mostly, it only seems to resort to that sock puppet move when discovered - to which it promptly tried to kill Dresden (which I think we can take as a good sign Dresden is not yet infected).
4) The WOJ you are referring to was discussing what would happen if a Knight had both mantles. I think he was saying it would destroy the Knight, not the Mantles though. If as you suggest, the power of Summer would blow up if combined into Winter, Aurora's entire plan to destabilize the Courts makes no sense. Which pretty much every powerful being thought was a credible threat. There is a WOJ answering a fan who said what they believed happens is that the Power in the mantle is transferred into the Court that holds the Stone Table, not the mantle itself. The energy therefore is not destroyed but changes. Which is consistent with physics. It is the Mortal form that is weak and cannot handle the energies, not the Courts. I believe that they often has stolen/eaten each others Power before. How else would anything change? The power-sucking Stone Table in Tir-Na Nog is there for a reason.
Also yeah, I think what happens is Dresden says in Cold Days it was Leah was tainted by the knife, and spread it to Maeve. p463 of Cold Days.

Everyone - I sincerely apologise for the 2000 word essay. There was a lot to come back to after two days.

  Yeah, but Jim's answer is kind of a non-answer..  Kind of like his sing-song," I'm not going to tell you..."  Ideas rooted in the same place?  What does that mean?  I'd forgotten about Thomas, but then again did Margaret wear both necklaces?  One for show and one for blow?  Did Eb give her the two that she had?  No where is it mentioned that Eb wears a pentacle necklace..  There are a couple of good reasons for that, 1] he doesn't want or wasn't ready until recently for Harry, the Council, or anyone else to know his real relationship to Harry.   2] Eb and Margaret's mother wore them during their marriage, he in turn passed both on to Margaret to give to her children... However that still doesn't explain Elaine.

What Jim was referring to seems pretty obvious to me. When Harry talks about his pentacle he talks about it being five elements (Fire, Water, Earth Air and Spirit) bound within a circle of Will. Which means at least to some extent, Elaine believes in that level of restraint too. Consider the symbol in Small Favor and a Fistful of Warlocks - magic without restraint. Elaine is hardly an anarchist - a bit sketchy but seems like she does intend to help people.

As to why a few people have them - that much is also pretty obvious. It is far from a unique magic symbol to Harry's family. One of the most common there is. So Elaine having one isn't weird if she made it whilst working for Justin. So I suspect that Margaret made them for all her children as she wanted them to have something to remember her by (I think she knew she might not be around for them). Question really is: how did Dresden get his? He didn't know magic was real until Justin. If Malcolm gave it to him then I would say probably he just said here is a nice necklace from Mom. But if not, then Justin had them. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Maggie and Justin knew each other - in fact I suspect they worked together at one time or another. Perhaps it was no coincidence that Justin adopted her child. Unless you suspect he wasn't really adopting at all...and Elaine and Harry are his children. But that is tinfoil hat stuff (I mean Margaret is perhaps tall for a women, but Eb hardly is tall, and Malcolm is never described as a giant either - so where does Harry's height come from? Perhaps his real dad).

Of course the most likely answer is that Butcher accidentally has made an error, and that originally the pentacle was from Harry's mother but then he accidentally retconned and decided that Justin taught Elaine and Harry how to make them as part of their apprenticeship (or the other way round). But that is the least fun explanation.

Edit* Earlier I said I suspected that Margaret and Justin knew each other - this is actually canon. In Summer Knight Eb mentions it with Harry when talking about Maggie's death at Lord Raith's hands.

An excellent point Ser Scot. Luccio was uniquely vulnerable due to her body swap.

g33k - But we can understand why they jumped to the conclusion. From their perspective, the already shady young wizard (child of Margaret Le Fay, student of Justin, who had already at least once broken a law of magic) who started a war with the Red Court that had just lead to a Senior Council wizard's death is highly linked to that particular death, not only more so than most because of being Justin's pupil but it makes him one of the few Wizard's still alive (to their knowledge) who actually could have let the wards down. We sympathize because we know Harry's thoughts - but they don't. I think the magical logic is pretty simple: someone has appeared to bypass Simon's wards, the only way to do so is by either knowing them intimately (not just by knowing wards but knowing those particular ones) or by some unknown aspect of the Art (as Morgan offers as an alternative). Wizards are highly arrogant and assume that the Red's couldn't possibly know some secret bypass magic that they themselves do not. But that is highly unlikely because we NEVER see them do such an act again during the war. I think more than a few wizards felt resentment at Harry dragging them into a dangerous and costly war with the Red Court (led primarily by Langtry, Lafortier, Mai and likely Cristos). I think it wasn't a big leap for them to pin it on Harry.

I do not for one second believe that Justin trained Harry and Elaine (knowingly or otherwise) in wards. I believe that either a) Justin is not fully dead and survived, or is at least active beyond the grave and continued to have Elaine enthralled and has been using Elaine as his enforcer and tool since or b) that Justin is both dead and not active beyond the grave, but Simon is Cowl and faked the whole assault on Archangel. I suppose Elaine could be Simon's new apprentice too, but I am not sure why she would run to Russia, in fact the only way they would meet is if Simon knew about her and Harry and decided to step in and finish her training.

I think Elaine is an excellent candidate too for the treachery because this is the first book we meet her, the first book we learn about wards (I think...), and the first book we learn about Simon and things get bigger in Dresden's world by an order of magnitude - and in her first scene she is alive (somehow) and has bypassed Harry's wards. That is significant, considering Harry has just learned that someone with intimate knowledge of Simon's wards supposedly did just the same thing just two scenes earlier. And she is working for the opposition (Summer) with vague reasons about why she is, how she survived, and seems to have had enough training to be able to veil so effectively that she is not at all worried by Warden's outside seeing her. Harry ignores a lot of Red Flags about her, but also considers that she might be involved in the murder (and is right in fact).

As to the mind-influencing, in point of fact I think that was exactly how Peabody was so effective. Langtry flaws were that he was obstinate, rigid in his beliefs, scornful, elitist and arrogant. Those traits maximized meant he would be quick to push his point-of-view down other's throats (where perhaps he might have been more subtle), looking for a quick victory. He would have found it much harder to be sympathetic to Dresden, open-minded, flexible in his thinking and humble. I quite agree that perhaps over considered and more cautious does fit the bill better with him, and also Mai.

And yes I believe it was lots of little nudges over time that made him so much more effective than attempting major policy shifts.

What did you find unappealing about it?

Anything interesting catch your eye?

Great pick up G33k.

We are also assuming that Simon did in fact die at Archangel, and isn't Cowl.

But if he isn't Cowl and someone betrayed him, the whole point was that it couldn't be just anybody on the Council. It HAD to be someone who knew his wards intimately. Which is why Justin is suspected in the first place, but with his albi of being DED, Dresden was next in line. Elaine too would have known had Justin taught her. If Elaine knew, it was because Justin survived and taught her or I suppose she was picked up by Simon. Either way it implicates her as being at least part of the Black Council if not Kumori, making Simon or Justin the real identity of Cowl.

The least likely explanation is that it is some random on the Council. The whole passage in Summer Knight were we find out Simon has been murdered explains that it could only be someone who knew his wards intimately (Eb even expresses surprise that it could even be treachery because of the fact that Simon's tower was impregnable). Later, Morgan says it is presumed that Simon's death curse took a heavy toll on his attackers, but as none of his house hold survived they can't be sure. Also, there were several attacks that precipitated the attack on Archangel but they always had advance knowledge and so were able to suffer minimal loss of life, the exception was Archangel. Seems to very similar to me in how Martin survived so long (indeed as the longest serving member) in the Fellowship of St Giles. I would say that the Red Court telegraphed their previous attacks and lulled the White Council into a false sense of security so that when the attack happened at Archangel they were unprepared. Only after did they beef up security. It is the Red Court's modus operandi (targets made and escapes provided - just like Martin).

Mira - I think you have hit on something though. Our first interaction with Wizard Peabody and the ink is mentioned a lot, even if it was slid in there unnoticed at the time. I wonder if he was somehow influencing the Merlin even then to be more hasty and less considered in order to force an error. I think you are right - Peabody is no slob. I think he was being deliberate in that moment. Not magic of course, that would have been noticed, but something none the less.