Question about the Queens and the Mothers

[Cymbaline]

We know that Mab and Titania are sisters, because in Cold Days, Titania says she hasn't spoken with her sister since before Hastings - Which causes Harry to remark on the epic scale of the dysfunction in that family.


But there's a Mother Summer and a Mother Winter.  If Mab and Titania are sisters, whose daughters are they - Summer's or Winter's?  Or was it neither, and they were adopted somehow?

[Arjan]

We know that Mab and Titania are sisters, because in Cold Days, Titania says she hasn't spoken with her sister since before Hastings - Which causes Harry to remark on the epic scale of the dysfunction in that family.


But there's a Mother Summer and a Mother Winter.  If Mab and Titania are sisters, whose daughters are they - Summer's or Winter's?  Or was it neither, and they were adopted somehow?

I am pretty sure they are real sisters but they don't have to be. Mab is Molly's mother after all.

[didymos]

According to this post, Mab and Titania are twins. And according to this one, Mab was human once (which we also knew from Cold Days).  So therefore, Titania was human once too.  Following from that is that their parents were a couple of humans. Or they were changelings, making one parent fae and the other human. Other than that, we don't know anything about them.

[g33k]

... But there's a Mother Summer and a Mother Winter.  If Mab and Titania are sisters, whose daughters are they - Summer's or Winter's?  Or was it neither, and they were adopted somehow?

Adopted somehow.

Mab was mortal.  Her Mantle is just that, a Mantle.  If Mab had died in Harry's rage&fear at the end of Cold Days, Molly would have promoted straight to Queen of Winter, not just Winter Lady.

Mother Winter is something different...
Skuld.
Atropos.
She is ancient.

She is where the LadyMantle and QueenMantle originate.

[Arjan]

But there's a Mother Summer and a Mother Winter.  If Mab and Titania are sisters, whose daughters are they - Summer's or Winter's?  Or was it neither, and they were adopted somehow?

They were other things before they became the mothers. The gatekeeper calls them the fates and when Harry summoned mother winter in cold days he had some names as well but not the name they shared together.

Immortals do change, just slowly.

[Con]

Theres a few WOJ on the subject.
1. That there was one Mother Summer before our current one:

1. the mothers - how does a queen become a mother? like after a thousand yrs, old winter dies and mab becomes the new mother?
Essentially abdication.  The previous mother wearies of her duty and moves along.  There's been one new Mother Summer during recorded human history.  Mother Winter has never retired.

As for the nature of Fae Mantles theres a bunch:

if the Ladies become the Queen, what happens to the Mothers at that point? The thing is that the Mothers are kind of the foundation.  So, it’s not so much what happens to them because the little mantles changed. It’s what happens to the little mantles if the big mantles change. So, if someone whacks the being that is, for all intents and purposes, Baba Yaga, and then Mab succeeds, then Mab becomes the new Baba Yaga, and Molly gets drawn up to Mab, and they have to find someone else to become the new Lady. But on the other hand, the Mothers are extremely powerful beings

So there's that to chew on.

As for theories. Before the Fae it was the Greek and Norse gods and mythologies that protected the Outer Gates. Is the most commonly accepted theory.

Personally I think it was Dragons before them, but thats just my WAG.

[Mira]

Theres a few WOJ on the subject.
1. That there was one Mother Summer before our current one:
As for the nature of Fae Mantles theres a bunch:

So there's that to chew on.

As for theories. Before the Fae it was the Greek and Norse gods and mythologies that protected the Outer Gates. Is the most commonly accepted theory.

Personally I think it was Dragons before them, but thats just my WAG.

There are also the Egyptian gods, the Babylonian gods and others before the Greek and Norse.

[Kindler]

Man, that WOJ has always made me wonder whether or not we've met the former Mother Summer. I think someone had a WAG that Mrs. Spunkelkrief (however you spell it—Harry's landlady) was Mother Summer originally. Anyone recall any random old ladies Harry's met on the page? Especially in Summer Knight, Proven Guilty, Small Favor, Cold Days, and Skin Game?

[kbrizzle]

@Con
IIRC Jim has said that Dragons were in charge of stuff like continental shifts or something - they were never guardians at the Gates.

@Kindler
I don’t think we’ve met old Mother Summer (yet anyway). I wonder if she abdicated when a Queen that she was very close to died (before Titania) - Summer royals don’t seem to deal with loss well.