Taking a closer look at Small Favor (LONG)

[Elegast]

This is the one I really disagree with. That holding circle was in Harry's words uber high level magic work, involving sigil scribed gold, silver, glyph scribed gems, symbals and chimes, crystal lights, art work etc. This isn't the sort of thing you build in a day, if the Archive was never part of the original plan, then I can't see any way even TN is going to build this in a day.

You are probably right. The problem is that it means an extraordinarily complicated plan: capture Marcone, which draws Mab, who names Harry Emissary, who calls Ivy.

Why does Titania care about Marcone at all?

WOJ she came just to ruin Mab's day.

[Agravaine]

This is some excellent thinking. 

WoJ is that Mab won that game.  I'd say with a walk-off grandslam.

[Gman]

Not everyone sees something wrong with the idea of being an immortal superhuman goatman.

It could be as simple as something big and scary is about to kill the human but if he chooses Gruff he would win the fight and get the Summer protection plan.

[Vairelome]

The more I think about Small Favor the more I think the book is a lot more "about" Marcone than I had initially thought it was.

I agree with this.

The one thing about Marcone in Small Favor is that he represents a crisis point for the Accords, the first "vanilla" human member. That's the one thing that makes Marcone a target that Mab and Titania would care about, that makes Marcone's life or death something that the Courts would choose Emissaries over.

But not this.  Marcone is a very interesting character, and I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up as the second most important character in the entire series after Harry himself.  (I fully expect that Mirror Mirror Marcone is the protagonist of The Marcone Files and Harry-Dresden-with-a-goatee is the borderline-warlock antihero who occasionally helps him, though reluctantly...but that's another topic entirely.)  He's been the target of way too many plots over the course of the books--beginning with both SF and FM--and each of those plots ended up covered in Black Council fingerprints.  Significantly, many of those plots against Marcone happened before he became the first purely mortal signatory to the Accords, and in fact the reason Marcone wanted to become a signatory was because it would give him some standing in the supernatural world that had already been gunning for him for several years.

[Thork]

But not this.  Marcone is a very interesting character, and I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up as the second most important character in the entire series after Harry himself.  (I fully expect that Mirror Mirror Marcone is the protagonist of The Marcone Files and Harry-Dresden-with-a-goatee is the borderline-warlock antihero who occasionally helps him, though reluctantly...but that's another topic entirely.)  He's been the target of way too many plots over the course of the books--beginning with both SF and FM--and each of those plots ended up covered in Black Council fingerprints.  Significantly, many of those plots against Marcone happened before he became the first purely mortal signatory to the Accords, and in fact the reason Marcone wanted to become a signatory was because it would give him some standing in the supernatural world that had already been gunning for him for several years.

You're absolutely right that a lot of the plots against Marcone predate Small Favor -- hell, the first two books in the series are both "about" Marcone in a lot of ways. Storm Front is the story of a gang war between Marcone and whoever trained Victor Sells to make ThreeEye, Harry just got caught in the middle. Fool Moon is an attempt by whoever gave the FBI those belts to take out Marcone, not Harry (probably for the same reasons as in Storm Front -- most of the organized crime in the Dresdenverse is supernatural, and Marcone's a competitor).

 But in Small Favor particularly, he's just signed onto the Accords, and I think that's a likely reason that Mab (as opposed to, say, Lord Raith) would get involved with rescuing Marcone at that particular time. Of course this is pure speculation. Maybe she just wanted to give the Denarians generally a punch in the kisser for all that Hellfire. Maybe she somehow figured that if she didn't get involved Harry would die, and she wanted to preserve him as a potential Knight. But maybe the Accords were part of her angle also.

[Agravaine]

Storm Front -- Direct Plot against Marcone
Fool Moon -- Direct Plot against Marcone
Death Masks -- Direct Plot against Marcone -- he and the Denarians are competing over the same article
Small Favor -- Direct Plot against Marcone

So about 1/3 of the books are about people going after Marcone. 

[Agravaine]

Two additional points that might be a problem for the theory:

(1) Mab tells Harry that she doesn't know who took Marcone:

This is problematic for the theory I think because it requires a trip to Demonreach.  There is no reason for the story to go to Demonreach, except for Ivy, who is naturally Harry's go-to Accords Arbitrator. 

However, the number of powers that COULD contain Ivy at all AND need Demonreach AND be an accords member has to be very limited, and probably pretty close to exclusive.

To illustrate, Summer wouldn't need Demonreach, nor would the Lords of Outer Night.  Mavra or a full power Lord Raith would have no hope of containing her.  Cowl on the other hand probably could do it using DR, but Harry can't summon Ivy to arbitrate with Cowl.

Counterpoint:  Mab might be referring to the ambiguity of whether the Denarians OR the BC-infected Denarians are calling the shots.  After all, she isn't stupid and a big giant hellfire pentagram is what Harry would call a clue. 

Counter-Counterpoint:  There isn't any reason for Mab not to tell Harry this, if it were her belief.

(2)  There still is no really solid explanation for why Mab declared Harry her Emmisary Before Marcone is taken.

It really doesn't seem like Mab can just declare someone an emissary for no good reason.  Just seems like there has to be some crisis in the fae courts that allows them to call in special agents.  But, Mab tells Harry that he has been chosen as Emissary for the purpose of recovering Marcone.

That means that she had to know of the plot before it was executed, hours in advance, which returns us to (1).  She somehow knows about the plot, but not who?

Counterpoint:  Perhaps it rather suggests that Titania was the first to act.  Perhaps the Gruff's initial hit on Harry was BEFORE the Gruffs are named Summer's Emissary.  So, Summer takes a shot at Harry and fails.  Meanwhile, Marcone get's snagged and Mab declares Harry Emissary.  Titania goes with the Gruffs since they are already out and about hunting Harry.

Maybe Titania knows what Mab is planning viz. Harry and is engaging in some pre-emptive strike to foul up Mab's plan. 

OR, perhaps it means that Titania is in on the Denrian-Demeter plot against Marcone.  Titania's part in this is to get Harry out of the way BEFORE Marcone is attacked. 

[Gman]

Two additional points that might be a problem for the theory:

(1) Mab tells Harry that she doesn't know who took Marcone:

This is problematic for the theory I think because it requires a trip to Demonreach.  There is no reason for the story to go to Demonreach, except for Ivy, who is naturally Harry's go-to Accords Arbitrator. 

However, the number of powers that COULD contain Ivy at all AND need Demonreach AND be an accords member has to be very limited, and probably pretty close to exclusive.

To illustrate, Summer wouldn't need Demonreach, nor would the Lords of Outer Night.  Mavra or a full power Lord Raith would have no hope of containing her.  Cowl on the other hand probably could do it using DR, but Harry can't summon Ivy to arbitrate with Cowl.

Counterpoint:  Mab might be referring to the ambiguity of whether the Denarians OR the BC-infected Denarians are calling the shots.  After all, she isn't stupid and a big giant hellfire pentagram is what Harry would call a clue. 

Counter-Counterpoint:  There isn't any reason for Mab not to tell Harry this, if it were her belief.

(2)  There still is no really solid explanation for why Mab declared Harry her Emmisary Before Marcone is taken.

It really doesn't seem like Mab can just declare someone an emissary for no good reason.  Just seems like there has to be some crisis in the fae courts that allows them to call in special agents.  But, Mab tells Harry that he has been chosen as Emissary for the purpose of recovering Marcone.

That means that she had to know of the plot before it was executed, hours in advance, which returns us to (1).  She somehow knows about the plot, but not who?

Counterpoint:  Perhaps it rather suggests that Titania was the first to act.  Perhaps the Gruff's initial hit on Harry was BEFORE the Gruffs are named Summer's Emissary.  So, Summer takes a shot at Harry and fails.  Meanwhile, Marcone get's snagged and Mab declares Harry Emissary.  Titania goes with the Gruffs since they are already out and about hunting Harry.

Maybe Titania knows what Mab is planning viz. Harry and is engaging in some pre-emptive strike to foul up Mab's plan. 

OR, perhaps it means that Titania is in on the Denrian-Demeter plot against Marcone.  Titania's part in this is to get Harry out of the way BEFORE Marcone is attacked.

Mab may have a bit of Intellicus about stuff affecting her. I think she knew something was afoot with the Denarians taking Marcone and possibly the Archive and it was be bad for her. She likely wasn't sure which faction of the Denarians were doing it at that time. Nick's faction (pro-Lucifer) or the BC faction. She would know Harry is the best choice to foul the plot/benefit Mab and announced him her emissary to force him to be her emissary since Summer would be out to kill him he might as well do the job.

[King Ash]

I don't see any reason Mab can't name an emissary for whatever reason she chooses.
Lets say it takes TN and Tessa/Rosanna a few weeks to build the holding circle (total WAG), Mab catches wind of it, as she has been tracking the Denarians due to hellfire being against Arctis Tor. She does some divinations, calls in a few favours from beings with timey wimey vision skills and discovers that they are trying to draw Harry into bringing the Archive into their greedy paws. She decides revenge is on the menu and lets the abduction take place allowing her to get involved via proxy (ie Harry). Titania, being equally skilled at gathering info works out what is going on but decides allowing megolamaniacal hell groupies access to all human information is a bad thing and decides to off Harry (also satisfying her vengence for killing her daughter). The events of SF pan out and Mab is doing Happy dances as the Denarians took a beating, plus her minion saved the archive.

[Agravaine]

Mab has named an Emissary only twice -- once in SK to investigate the death of the Summer Knight, once in Small Favor to investigate the kidnapping of Baron Marcone.  That leads me to believe that Emissary is a special, if temporary, gig for emergencies

[knnn]

Mab has named an Emissary only twice -- once in SK to investigate the death of the Summer Knight, once in Small Favor to investigate the kidnapping of Baron Marcone. 

I don't think we actually know this for sure.  Mab way well have named any number of emissaries for different tasks off screen that Harry is never aware of.

[Vairelome]

(1) Mab tells Harry that she doesn't know who took Marcone:
...
Counter-Counterpoint:  There isn't any reason for Mab not to tell Harry this, if it were her belief.

It might be that Mab didn't want to prejudice Harry's judgment.  Let's assume that Mab knows that it was the Denarians that actually grabbed Marcone, but she suspects that there's at least one more layer of authority behind them ordering the hit (other than Lucifer).  Sure, Harry will figure out the Fallen involvement nearly immediately (obvious pentagram is obvious), but the fact that Mab asked him to investigate plus an easy answer staring him in the face should tip him off to look for more well-hidden hands.

[knnn]

Counterpoint:  Perhaps it rather suggests that Titania was the first to act.  Perhaps the Gruff's initial hit on Harry was BEFORE the Gruffs are named Summer's Emissary.  So, Summer takes a shot at Harry and fails. 

There is that WoJ in the OP that the Gruffs attacked because Harry was the Emissary.

[asetti]

Maybe the summer hit was a warning..."HEY HARRY PULL YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ***.  SOMETHINGS UP!

[Agravaine]

Well, I am at a loss, given that WoJ. 

Mab names Harry Emissary, Titania responds with the Gruffs (who attack Harry before Mab notifies him).  Both of these events occur before Marcone is kidnapped and the crisis is created. 

Any theory that doesn't account for this seeming discrepancy is likely doomed.