Kbrizzle - I am not married to the idea of Lord Raith being the progenitor. I like your analogy about the LoON to the Leaders of the Houses. Fits as well as anything else. Although it doesn't explain why the Red and Black Courts.

My point really is that 1) He is probably the oldest White Court vampire. Power and rank do seem closely aligned with seniority in the supernatural world. 2) The Red King is almost certainly older, and so is the Red Court.

Morris - Explicitly, in Cold Days. Lily (Summer Lady) tells Dresden about Nemesis, and tells him of his first three cases and confirms it.

The Nemesis part is generally accepted to be factual - as every being that knows of it that Dresden encounters confirms it's existence one way or another.

Many believe that Maeve lied to Lily, and therefore the information is compromised. Personally, there is no valid reason that I have yet heard why she would lie. Nemesis, and indeed Maeve, gain no benefit from lying about those cases.

But I am always open to theories.

Mira - you are pretty much right about what Sells was. However, none of that disproves him as being infected. The statement from Lily was "It changes that which ought not to change. It destroys a father's love for his family by twisting it into maniacal ambition." She is directly talking about Sells. Everyone always assumes Nemesis allows some big magic change, like allowing Fae to lie. But changing someone's love and turning it into something evil, something terrible like horrible ambition is pretty bad right on its own.

Is it on youtube? If it wasn't, I didn't see it.

2008 Comic-Con Q&A @2:40

You use a lot of mythologies in your books.  Which is your favorite to work with, and how do you chose them?
I wish I could give you a cool sophisticated answer for that…  (he basically says what he uses is based on the story, and trying to be original).  Things that I want to use that I haven’t gotten to are:  A little bit more Hindu stuff. Hindu Mythos is full and rich and confusing, they have been doing the supernatural soap opera thing way before any of us got started with it on TV.  I haven’t gotten to do as much Norse stuff (note this was before changes).  I haven’t gotten to do as much Greek stuff as I wanted to do which is why I added the hekitean (msp?) hags in Welcome to the Jungle.  Warhammer fans will recognize some of the names I dropped in Dead Beat

That's one that I remember, but there are a few more. I have put in italics the relevant bit.

https://youtu.be/4Gmu76ritoQ?t=2959
Quote

    Eb took up the Blackstaff in 1884-1885 somewhere in there.  The Blackstaff chooses his successor.

So to my thinking - the most significant event of that time was the Berlin Conference and the Scramble of Africa. This allowed a channel for old European rivalries and helped set the stage for WWI.

So Eb takes up the Blackstaff, right as Kemmler is helping set up the first World War. What was Eb really up to and what caused him to take up the position?

That quote is now outdated. Jim has actually retconned that information.

Since Summer Knight things have changed significantly in the Power rankings

Kindler - I considered that, but then that would also defeat the significance of what Bob knows. Not to mention when he discussed how Immortals could be killed, he said it didn't matter if Harry chopped up the Winter Lady and burned her ashes unless it was on Halloween because she would reform otherwise. When Harry questions how he was able to kill Aurora, it is explained that it was because it was in a specific killing ground for immortals (Chicago-over-Chicago), created by the Queens. And Harry killed her without killing the mantle. In fact, I think Mantles can't be killed per se, but transferred or changed. Which is what happened to Maeve and Aurora. But mantles don't apply to Outsiders I think anyway. As mantles seem to be shaped by mortal imagination.

I think HWWBf is able to come in, just not all of him. But it doesn't really matter, he has the same Outsider limits as He Who Walks Behind. As for the summoner, probably another Black Council flunky.

Griff - see above. Nowhere has it been said mantles can be destroyed. In fact, the Mothers specifically tell Harry that cannot be done - energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can be hoarded (like Dragons do) or rendered valueless or sold (both of which are change). I believe that passage is in Summer Knight when Harry is trying to find out from them what could have happened to the mantle of the Summer Knight.

Fair enough Dspringer, I will take that as feedback. I need to work at convincing people and I did write a lot of text. I don't want to distort too much from the OP at this stage so I will leave it alone for now.

We both agree that Mab and Archangels are not the same level, but to correct you statement that they are in the same business but not the same level, see the below quote from Summer Knight. I put it in my last post but I admit it probably got hidden in all that text.

"Of course" Lea said. "They each exist in opposition. Each wields vast power, wizard - power to rival the archangels and lesser gods.

(SK, Ch 23, p172)
I have bolded the relevant bit. Lea is telling Harry about Mab and Titania after he has just looked at the with the Sight. As I said, this got retconned later in the series. Some still believe it is the case the Mab and Uriel are at the same level, but considering how unrestricted Mab is compared to the Mothers and/or the Archangels (in terms of her ability to influence and act in the mortal plane, her ability to show up regularly, and several WOJs) it is pretty obvious that Jim restructured his power rankings in the series.

I will leave you with this WOJ though:
 
Info about really powerful beings
The Mothers are extremely powerful beings, I mean, they’re really really well, you can tell because they hardly ever show up on the real world. In the Dresden Files universe if you don’t show up on the real world, it’s because you’re too big to walk around there. For instance,  I think in the third book, when the Dragon is talking about how the Earth couldn’t bear his weight, it’s not that the Earth itself would literally crack, it’s that reality would have issues trying to contain him, because every time he coughs, it would bend around like Neo in the Matrix. So, they spend most of their time NOT on the real world, they spend it hanging around in the Nevernever, all the really heavyweight guys do that. If you’re in the real world, well, the problem is that you’re in the world, and you’re kind of mortal, and something could come along and try and whack you, if they’re fast enough, or good enough, or lucky enough. Which makes Odin a kind of special guy, because he doesn’t mind it, he thinks it’s awesome. But anyway, you can always tell. If there’s folks who don’t show up in the real world, it’s because they’re super big. So, like, an angel shows up, and it’s just sort of a whispered presence that one person is aware of, that’s because he’s just too big to show up here, it’s a giant sandbox, and he’s got to be very very careful to not squash the sandbox. So, he just shows up for that one bit.
Kiama Australia Q&A

He is referring to when Uriel whispers to Dresden at the end of Ghost Story. He often uses the term angel and archangel interchangeably for Uriel, because Uriel is of course both. Species and rank. I have bolded the relevant bits so that you can see that Jim is comparing the two. He isn't saying they both add up to exactly 8 miles high, but they are both mountains. That puts them well beyond almost everything else, except the Walkers and the Old Ones. There is WOJ on that too.


One other thing that is relevant to the OP - in Welcome to the Jungle (the DF graphic novel), Harry encounters Hecatean Hags. These have skin like tank armor, razor sharp claws, glamours, more and stronger magic than Dresden does at the time, and are extremely long lived (having survived since ancient Greece). They were Hecate's greatest fans, her cult, and take a hell of a lot to kill. They are attempting an ascension rite. Bob tells Harry that this was how Hecate came to be in the first place. I think that is highly significant. She was a powerful witch (either mortal or monster like the Hags) and then completed her rite of ascension to become a god.

If Hecate is all the Queens of Faerie, and the Fae only came into being relatively recently, and Hecate herself only ascended several thousand years ago, and the Angels and Archangels existed before Time was a thing (WOJ plus multiple book references to witnessing the beginning of Creation) - then is how could Hecate be so powerful? Could she really match beings that existed before the parts she is made of existed? Even her magic?

G33k - I agree. TWG (Almighty) is just plain beyond anything we have encountered. That is pretty clear - and I am not biased I don't believe in God. Don't mind if others do either though. But I think it is clear that is what Jim has set. TWG is literally everywhere and sees everything, and in particular knows everything (and in the series Power and Knowledge seem to go hand in hand). No other beings have we seen have that much power.

Just to correct you - it is NOT just that the angels allege their origins as being before time, there is WOJ to support this.

@longshotauthor In the Dresden Files, are the fallen 4.6 billion years old or approx 4000? Big bang vs God making everything really.
@GiftedMonster How do you know that before the Big Bang, God didn’t say “Let there be light.” It’s fantasy fiction, Ashely, not theology 
@GiftedMonster Though for the record, the Dresden universe angels have been around since before time was a Thing. #TemporalHipsters

We don't really know their involvement with the act of Creation itself, we just know they were there "when" it happened (which by the way is an oxymoron, you can't have a when before Time). Yeah, no other beings apart from them have made that claim or connection. So I would say it is pretty relevant.