[Spolers Through GS] Maggie LeFay and the Outsiders

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

That she was dangerous is obvious, and I think I was pretty clear about some of the bad company she kept in my post. And I actually suggested that she repeatedly broke the Seventh Law myself; I know she broke some of the Laws, or I wouldn't have suggested that she'd started a club based on repeatedly breaking one of them.

The most important thing, though, is that Luccio's depiction of Maggie doesn't contradict any of that, it simply adds to it. The combination of being passionate, committed, incautious, arrogant, and short-sighted is one that could easily explain all of the dark insinuations by Chauncy, Nick, and Ebenezer. Maggie was a woman who believed what she believed, and was willing to go to extremes in order to make the world fit what she thought it should be.

Pretty much all of this works equally well as a description of Harry, particularly earlier in the series; I am wondering whether at some point getting more details on his mother's life and actions will be part of more significant character growth for him.

[AcornArmy]

I am not seeing the degree of effort Justin puts into training Harry, and that various forces have put into co-opting or corrupting Harry over the course of the series, as compatible with Harry being solely a solution to Maggie's former misdeeds; it seems to me to fit better with Harry's existence being part of the same plan, which Maggie tries to hack for the purposes of good. The timing of Maggie's death also makes more sense to me if Lord R and possibly his remaining allies want the Outsiderbane child around and mouldable to their ends, but don't want Maggie there as a potential influence.  The utility of a child with special power over Outsiders to a group interested in using Outsiders (for whatever end) seems fairly straightforward to me.

Yeah, I didn't mention this part yet, because I didn't want to muddle the rest of it, but I agree. I've been calling Harry an "Outsiderbane," because that's what we've been calling whatever it is that he is, but the truth seems to be more complicated than that. Especially after GS, when HWWB seemed to be testing Harry rather than really trying to kill him. It almost seems like the group of Outsider-summoners, whoever they are, think that Harry will be useful to them rather than damaging to their goals.

But maybe Maggie understood something the rest of them didn't, and she saw a way for Harry to become their Achilles' heel, rather than a useful tool. This seems to be what you're thinking, too, so we're probably in agreement on this one. Harry's probably a two-edged sword with regard to the Outsiders. And given that the group hasn't made any serious, concentrated efforts to kill him, I'd guess that they either don't realize he could be used against them, or they think the probability of that is extremely low compared to the potential benefits for themselves.

[svb1972]

Is it possible that Maggie used her death curse to kill herself at Harry's birth?  That she wanted Harry to group up a specific way?  She wanted Malcom to raise him and instill certain values in him, and she felt that her being around and alive just wasn't a viable way to do that?

[Duke Blue]

I think you are on to something here but I think you are starting from the wrong place.  Maggie was involved in some sort of plan with bad types but I don't think she knew about the outsiders angle until later.  The start of this plan probably has to do with the meeting that Eb mentions at the end of Changes where Maggie invited him to a dinner to discuss a plan and then Lord Raith and Arianna were both there.  Eb specifically says that Maggie was pitching a plan to him which he didn't want anything to do with.  What was that plan?  Both White Court Vampires and Red Court Vampires can live without actually killing humans so they might seem like decent groups to try to make a deal with against more dangerous supernatural types.  Second, both White Court Vamps and Red Court Infected are kind of half mortal with a dangerous evil spirits in them that give them incredible strength.  Thus maybe she got sold on trying to breed some weird hybrid vampire/wizard super race that could fix the world.  Besides, if you think about it, we know of exactly one thing that came out Maggie working with Lord Raith which is Thomas.  If Thomas was in part the result of an experiment in wizards breeding with WC Vamps then it might explain why she was willing to leave him behind when she ran or why Lord Raith might have protected him so much that she couldn't grab him when she decided to leave.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Yeah, I didn't mention this part yet, because I didn't want to muddle the rest of it, but I agree. I've been calling Harry an "Outsiderbane," because that's what we've been calling whatever it is that he is, but the truth seems to be more complicated than that. Especially after GS, when HWWB seemed to be testing Harry rather than really trying to kill him. It almost seems like the group of Outsider-summoners, whoever they are, think that Harry will be useful to them rather than damaging to their goals.

I think they think they have a reasonable chance of getting him to be a person who will serve their ends.  Not necessarily even an explicit ally, considering the degree of havoc Harry wreaks on existing supernatural power groups through acting on his own moral compass and downright stubbornness and the consequences of those actions; a free agent that is undercutting the competition might still count as a win there.

Harry's probably a two-edged sword with regard to the Outsiders. And given that the group hasn't made any serious, concentrated efforts to kill him, I'd guess that they either don't realize he could be used against them, or they think the probability of that is extremely low compared to the potential benefits for themselves.

That's pretty much exactly where I am on that, yes.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I think you are on to something here but I think you are starting from the wrong place.  Maggie was involved in some sort of plan with bad types but I don't think she knew about the outsiders angle until later.

I'm not seeing evidence for that position.

I would note that the only people not provably linked to the Maggie/Justin/Lord R cabal who demonstrates working knowledge of Outside power are Cowl and Peabody. (Unless you count Ivy with mordite in DM, and she does not need a direct link to be aware of that information, they just have to have written it down or formally taught it at some point.)  The Cowl ==Simon hypothesis ties all of them up in one neat bundle.

I'd also note that the Reds' sorcerous auxiliaries use Outsiders more than once in DB and PG.  possibly that's entirely new, but it says to me that the Reds aren't reluctant to think of Outsiders as tools.

Both of those feel to me suggestive of a larger scheme going further back.

  The start of this plan probably has to do with the meeting that Eb mentions at the end of Changes where Maggie invited him to a dinner to discuss a plan and then Lord Raith and Arianna were both there.  Eb specifically says that Maggie was pitching a plan to him which he didn't want anything to do with.  What was that plan?  Both White Court Vampires and Red Court Vampires can live without actually killing humans so they might seem like decent groups to try to make a deal with against more dangerous supernatural types.

I'd find that easier to believe if the apparent workings out of that plan had not exterminated the Reds and done very serious damage to the White Court.

[Duke Blue]

I'm not seeing evidence for that position.

I would note that the only people not provably linked to the Maggie/Justin/Lord R cabal who demonstrates working knowledge of Outside power are Cowl and Peabody. (Unless you count Ivy with mordite in DM, and she does not need a direct link to be aware of that information, they just have to have written it down or formally taught it at some point.)  The Cowl ==Simon hypothesis ties all of them up in one neat bundle.

I'd also note that the Reds' sorcerous auxiliaries use Outsiders more than once in DB and PG.  possibly that's entirely new, but it says to me that the Reds aren't reluctant to think of Outsiders as tools.

Both of those feel to me suggestive of a larger scheme going further back.

I'd find that easier to believe if the apparent workings out of that plan had not exterminated the Reds and done very serious damage to the White Court.

I may not have been completely clear.  I agree that there is some larger master scheme at work behind the scenes.  What I was describing was how I believe that Maggie might have been duped into becoming involved in that larger scheme.  Furthermore, I think Maggie figured out the full extent of what was going and that is what led to her to run away from Raith.  The apparent expendability of the Red Court in Changes and the White Court in White Night just shows that Lord Raith and Ariana were being used as pawns too.

[svb1972]

Maggie and the Outsiders sounds like a 60's Rock Band.

[LordDresden]

The most important thing, though, is that Luccio's depiction of Maggie doesn't contradict any of that, it simply adds to it.

No, it blatantly contradicts it.

According to Ebenezar, Margaret was a warlock on the run from the Council, and under a literal death sentence.

According to Luccio, Margaret was a misguided idealist who the Wardens had been assigned to watch, and nothing more.  No mention of her being a warlock, no mention of a death sentence from Luccio.

Further, Luccio comments that Margaret simply disappeared for 5 years or so with no explanation, and presumably was with LR and had Thomas in that time.  Nothing about her being hunted afterward by the WCouncil and the WCourt at the same time.  None.

And Harry, in that same conversation, doesn't even notice the contradiction.  That's part of why I say that whole conversation is so weird.  It portrays Margaret as being something totally different than every other reference we've seen.  Either Luccio or Eb is lying, or else one of them is remembering events 100% out of synch with reality.  Yet Harry doesn't even react to the contradiction in his own mind.

That's why I call that conversation 'weird'.

Ebenezer himself told Harry that Maggie called him to Lord Raith's place for dinner and suggested an idea to him, an idea that he didn't want any part of, and that he thought she shouldn't want any part of, either. He said that this occurred shortly after Maggie had taken up with "that Raith bastard." So whenever Maggie's Lawbreaking occurred, it was after the scheme had been thought of and begun. Ebenezer was almost certainly not under orders to kill her at that time, or it seems doubtful that Maggie would have invited him to dinner with Lord Raith and Duchess Arianna.

No, but Luccio didn't mention her becoming a warlock or under death sentence at all.  She made Margaret sound like a misguided idealist, not evil.  Every other account, every single other account, implies evil.

Not that Chaunzoggorth said that Hell expected to get her soul, but she found redemption just before the end.  I didn't remember this last night, but that version also tallies with what Lea told Harry in Grave Peril.  Lea said that Harry's self-sacrficing, noble choices reminded him of his mother...at the end of her life.  After she changed paths.

The problem is not just that we have conflicting versions.  It's that we have a fairly consistant set of versions, set against one strange and conflicting one from Luccio.

And as I suggested in the OP-- well, if the group found themselves with access to a Gate to the Outside, what would they have done about it? Research on Outsiders was a beheading offense, so it's not like they could ask around within the White Council. They couldn't just start trying to summon Outsiders without any clue as to how to do it, because they weren't
It seems to me that Luccio's description gives us insight into why Maggie did the things she did and where she came from, while the others give us insight into the kinds of things she was eventually willing to do to achieve her goals. I was never suggesting that Maggie was pure as the driven snow, or even that she was just misunderstood. I'm sure she did some ugly things, once she came up with her plan and started putting it in motion. But from the example of the dinner Ebenezer had with her, the darker period of her life probably took place near the end, after she hooked up with Raith.

You can't just do 'ugly things' with magic and not have it change you.  That's why using black magic for good purposes doesn't work, or not for long, you lose the good purposes and it rarely takes very long.

Further, the accounts other than Luccio's say that the dark period of her life came first, then, at the very end, came something better.

All the sources agree, though, that she eventually turned away from her allies and left them. She eventually came to her senses, and realized that what she had intended to achieve was not what was actually happening. That's pretty much what it sounds like from all of the various sources. She may have been misguided and short-sighted, but she wasn't evil. Which fits perfectly with how Luccio described her.

Yeah, but every version other than Luccio's does suggest evil.  You have to take a really improbable interpretation of the others to make them even half-fit with Luccio's account, and Eb's account is totally incompatiable with Luccio's.

[LordDresden]

Misguided but Well-Intentioned Idealist (n) - see villain.  see also hero.

We'll be entering an election year here in the US soon and I fully expect that both parties will paint the other as villains.  And they're both right.  And they're both wrong.  Good and evil are opinions.

Not in the DV.  They are real things with real consequences, esp. when magic gets mixed in.

If Margaret was breaking the Laws of Magic on any regular basis, there would be consequences to her soul.  It can take various forms, from the Korean kid to Kemmler to Justin or Victor Sells.  But a misguided idealist who starts regularly breaking the Laws won't stay a misguided idealist.  She'll turn into one or another sort of monster.

This is why Luccio's account doesn't make sense, and why Ebenezar's does.

Remember, if Luccio is right, then there's no reason Margaret couldn't have turned to Ebenezar and the White Council for help and protection when she was on the run from Lord Raith.  She's pregnant, married to a mortal, and running from the White Court.  If she was just misguided, then she could go the Wardens for help, and she could pay for that help, too.
She would be a gold mine of intel about the White Court, after all.  That alone would be a good enough reason to protect Margaret from Raith.

But if she was a warlock, guilty of multiple major crimes, then her failure to turn to the Council for help makes perfect sense.  But that makes Luccio's account wrong.

[svb1972]

What's the chances that Ebenezar killed MaggieSr?

[Cozarkian]

Luccio seems to be talking about only a part of Maggie Sr.'s life, the part when Luccio knew her. The stories seem completely compatible.

Maggie Sr. started out as an idealist, who was resistant to the White Council and pushy for change (This is the only part of Maggie's life that Luccio is talking about -- pre-renegade/Warlock). When Maggie realized she couldn't change the White Council directly, she probably started looking for allies elsewhere, establishing or joining some kind of Grey Council. Her efforts took her farther down the wrong-path, and the Grey Council turned Black. At some point, Maggie met Malcolm, realized she was becoming or had become a monster, and started trying to make amends. These latter events are the parts of Maggie's life discussed by others.

I don't think Luccio had any reason in the context of that particular conversation to mention "Oh by the way, after your Mom discovered she couldn't change the WC, she went psycho and we had to put a death sentence on her." In fact, I think it would have been rather insulting to Harry, because it would have been suggesting he was headed down the same path.

[LordDresden]

Is it possible that Maggie used her death curse to kill herself at Harry's birth?  That she wanted Harry to group up a specific way?  She wanted Malcom to raise him and instill certain values in him, and she felt that her being around and alive just wasn't a viable way to do that?

We already know that she used her death curse to take away Lord Raith's power to feed, and I'm pretty sure it's established that Lord Raith used his sorceresses to kill Margaret with an entropy curse.

[svb1972]

We already know that she used her death curse to take away Lord Raith's power to feed, and I'm pretty sure it's established that Lord Raith used his sorceresses to kill Margaret with an entropy curse.

Not possible.  His sorceresses would have been between the ages  of 2 and 14 at the time of Maggie's Death.  Seems to me incredibly unlikely that they were responsible for her death.

If you're implying he had other sorceresses before.  That's possible, but we have nothing but conjecture on that.

[LordDresden]

Luccio seems to be talking about only a part of Maggie Sr.'s life, the part when Luccio knew her. The stories seem completely compatible.

No, they aren't.

Luccio makes a reference to the time when Margaret disappeared for 5 years, presumably that was the period when she was with Raith, or at least that's what Luccio says to Harry.  According to Ebenezar, the hunt for Margaret by the Wardens was during and after that period, and that is precisely what Luccio doesn't mention.  Luccio acts upset by Margaret's selfishness with regard to Thomas, but totally ignores her warlock-dom.  Which is...kind of freakin' odd for the Captain of the Wardens.

When Harry asks her what the problem with Margaret was, he gets some stuff about her misguided idealism.  Nothing about her being a magical killer.  Nothing about her being a warlock who broke multiple Laws of Magic.  Nothing about her using the Laws themselves against the Council.

As leader of the Wardens, these are the things that would be primary for Luccio...yet she acts as if they never happened.

Maggie Sr. started out as an idealist, who was resistant to the White Council and pushy for change (This is the only part of Maggie's life that Luccio is talking about -- pre-renegade/Warlock). When Maggie realized she couldn't change the White Council directly, she probably started looking for allies elsewhere, establishing or joining some kind of Grey Council. Her efforts took her farther down the wrong-path, and the Grey Council turned Black. At some point, Maggie met Malcolm, realized she was becoming or had become a monster, and started trying to make amends. These latter events are the parts of Maggie's life discussed by others.

Doesn't work.  She has to realize she was on the wrong track, or at least fall out with her allies, before she meets Malcolm.  And there isn't much time for 'making amends', either.  In order to have had time to do the dark things the others refer to, she has to have been on that road for a long time.

I agree that she could easily have started out as a misguided idealist, but that stage can't have been long, not unless somebody's account is totally, completely wrong.

And no, it doesn't make sense for Luccio not to mention Margaret's rap sheet to Harry, because he would almost have to know something about it already.  Further, it's weird that Harry doesn't wonder about the discrepencies between everything else he's heard and Luccio's version, even in his own private thoughts.