Is Mab Nemfected? Is Mother Winter? Something else?

[groinkick]

I believe that Mab doesn't plan on being Mab for too much longer.  I don't know if it's because she's been Nemfected, and knows that she cannot fight it off forever.  Perhaps Mother Winter is planning on stepping down as the previous Summer Mother did, and Mab is going to ascend.  Maybe she's just preparing for the possibility of dying during the Stars and Stones.

I don't know for sure but I believe she's preparing things for such a change.  Jim said that Mab "thought" she was doing the best thing when bringing Leah to her center of power to treat her Nemfection.  Saying "thought" implies that it was the wrong decision.  I suspect that Nemesis is trying to worm it's way around Winter.  I think that both Mother Winter, and Mab are capable of holding off Nemesis for a long time, but perhaps not forever, and that Mab knows she's slowly losing ground.  Maybe not but I suspect this could be the case.

Whatever is happening I think Mab is preparing for not being Queen.  Either because of Nemesis, or Mother Winter deciding to step down, or just because the Stars and Stones is a really dangerous time for her.  My opinion is what another poster suggested.  Lara is her choice.

[Mira]

 Yeah, I've always thought that Mab had been infected that is why she put herself on ice the same time that she did Lea.  I imagine she also caught it from the knife before she realized it was carrying the infection.  She did wear it for a while after she took it from Lea, then she either saw the symptoms in Lea and perhaps realized she was suffering the same.  What is sad she apparently still failed to see that Maeve was infected until it was too late.  I doubt that Mother Winter is infected.

[The_Sibelis]

I think before the end Mab will certainly be compromised, if not outright changed. Certainly the line about the stars will fall from the sky before queen mab fulfills not her word gives me pause. That could be a few things I think 1 Outright failure to keep her word. This would create a huge unbalance and I think comprise her in it. Allowing Nemesis purchase. 2 Nemesis infects her and she doesn't fulfill her word for the same reason as Maeve, she no longer wants to, she wants to be The Mab everyone has always worried about. She could be nemfected already.. but I wasn't thinking the knife anymore. Especially after BG the clues are lining up more and more... It's love. And perhaps the three primary powers of the universe, faith and hope as well. For love specifically I'd look at Nics final words to Deidre, an the way both queens have been screwed up and fighting to maintain equilibrium almost the whole series because of what they loved, their children.  The courts have been unbalanced since we've first seen them and it's subtly gotten worse before it got better. I think that's new too, going after loved ones.. writing this I had an off the wall idea on that. It's because of Dresden, he knows about love, about going after family. 🤔 Perhaps just as fearbringer seems to be feeding on Molly's shed identity involving fear

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random tangent, me thinks there's alot more to Jim saying soul tends to want to go back to it's original form than just WCV not digesting soul. If the courts were made with the stone table, then the very power they wield to exist as they are is seeking to return to what it used to be..

perhaps something's learning from Harry's unrealized hate?
Mab I think is probably preparing to go one way or another. If simply on probability she is settling her debts before the BAT gets here. I think they actually know she's going to change later and they know they can't stop it, either because it's slowly growing or because it's something ordained in the cycle.
As for MW, idk. Certainly I think she's been the primary target of the incursions into winter, to break down the things connected to her specifically. Why I can only speculate at, but I run on the theory she basically IS demon reach AND the outer gates, she's what's on the other side of the cottage. But.. that'd mean the gates are actually being assaulted by the dreams of the sleepers wouldn't it? It'd work in theory, she probably ate everything she unmade and you are what you eat, they dream and create their own metaphysical dimense. From there they project themselves into bodies and assault the willpower of their keeper, MW, the gates of mother night herself. That'd make the NN her immune system, which would make it more likely she wants to retire or switch out with a viable host too. Something to lessen the burden that appears to be strained.
*The stone table itself actually seems like a tool to do just that, to lessen the burden by doing basically the same thing to them that she does, displace them elsewhere. Though I do wonder if the stone table hasn't caused the current issues as well, the things sacrificed on if are gone, but their impressions remain.

[LostInTime]

Jim loves him some foreshadowing. He's showing Mab longing for her humanity. Her admission that she used to be mortal. The way she gazed enviously at Harry's burn. Harry's mantle shuts down his sensation of pain. Imagine how Mab's does the same thing, only writ large. Her emotions, even her common sensations are probably all muted so that she can concentrate on being coldly logical.

Mab either is infected or will be infected by the final book of the series. Empty Night, a sky without stars, exactly as she said. The stars will have fallen from the sky. It fits perfectly with my theory that Molly will fall deeper into Winter and be struggling, then have the Winter Queen mantle thrust upon her, an echo of when she was saddled with the Winter Lady mantle. (Although she'll probably order Harry to repeat his Stone Table command performance. The Winter Queen is a mother, after all.)

Mother Winter is the original. I think she is the fae court sponsor that allowed them to be the guardians of the Outer Gates. She's not going to be Nfected. At least not until she spills the beans about how the fae courts were set up.

[vultur]

If either were Nemfected, I think the universe would have been eaten by Outsiders already.

I think the Mothers are probably too powerful to be Nemfected, just as archangels are (I don't think the Mothers are quite on that scale -- but I think Nemesis is rather more limited than is generally speculated, including speculation by Harry and others in the books).

Mab dying either to start the BAT, or as part of it, possibly due to some kind of oath-related issue, seems extremely likely and foreshadowed, yes. But I don't think that makes her Nemfected. (I think if Nemesis freed her from her oaths, the way it let Maeve lie, then that wouldn't have fatal implications anymore.)