Motivation for fixing Little Chicago?

[Kindler]

Accept my apologies if you aren't talking to me or if this post isn't responsive to yours.

Because the text says so.  I quote the passage below.  The trope you quote doesn't cover this case.    Harry isn't changing someone else's future.  The takeaway from the quoted  exchange is that Harry would  have died, which is what fuses do.  For future Harry to know of that event he needs to survive it.  The span of time from first use to Bob revealing the flaw is a discontinuity.  Someone from the past could tell him in the future as long as their knowledge preexisted that period of time.

My point is that the text we are reading takes place on the altered timeline. It's a time loop. Harry goes back in time in a later book to find out that the only reason he survived Proven Guilty is because of Future Harry's interference in events, which he then does to make sure the timeline remains stable.

I'm no great fan of time travel as the Great Problem Solver, but there are plenty of examples of this kind of time travel.

[nadia.skylark]

My point is that the text we are reading takes place on the altered timeline. It's a time loop. Harry goes back in time in a later book to find out that the only reason he survived Proven Guilty is because of Future Harry's interference in events, which he then does to make sure the timeline remains stable.

And what about the original timeline? The first Future!Harry had to come from somewhere, after all.

[morriswalters]

Harry goes back in time in a later book to find out that the only reason he survived Proven Guilty is because of Future Harry's interference in events, which he then does to make sure the timeline remains stable.

Which makes him future Harry.  However I'm going to forgo the headache I'll get if I think about this too much.

[kbrizzle]

@nadia
This is a really good question & it is one of the things that has bothered me about PG for a while. I have theories about everything else that seem to make sense, but this one bit has remained unsolved.

@morriswalters & nadia
I completely agree that TT Harry fixing PG in the past would simply cause an alternate timeline to be formed - one where TT Harry shows up & saves the day, or one where Harry goes ahead & uses LC (blowing up & all).

My big issue with Mab being the one to fix LC (even though the reasons presented make sense) is that she was an ice sculpture in Arctis Tor during this time/ was dealing with both her daughter & Lea being Nfected. I don’t know where she would find the time to sneak into Harry’s place, figure out there is something wrong with LC & fix it without even Bob knowing.

Honestly if she didn’t hate Harry so much, the best fit would be Titania (more likely Mother Summer). Since Lilly’s little fae regularly clean Harry’s apt., they would know that he is building something complex & magical. I would not be surprised if they tell someone in Summer about everything they see in Harry’s apt. Lilly is not smart enough to fix LC, but Mother Summer (or her agent) are.

The motive here would be that Mother Summer is aware that Maeve & Lea are Nfected & that Arctis Tor has been attacked, putting Mab in a weak & defensive position. Mab needs the help of someone who is definitely against the Outsiders/ can act in the mortal world unencumbered - if the best chance of that happening is protecting the guy who saved the Fae Courts in SK, then so be it.

Additionally, Harry is also a tempering influence on Mab (the purpose of Summer) - carrying out Mab’s duties as humanely as possible. In CD she even encourages him to remain his own man, so Mother Summer would see protecting Harry as carrying on Summer’s duties in a creative manner.

[nadia.skylark]

My big issue with Mab being the one to fix LC (even though the reasons presented make sense) is that she was an ice sculpture in Arctis Tor during this time/ was dealing with both her daughter & Lea being Nfected. I don’t know where she would find the time to sneak into Harry’s place, figure out there is something wrong with LC & fix it without even Bob knowing.

Well, time works differently in the Nevernever.

Honestly if she didn’t hate Harry so much, the best fit would be Titania (more likely Mother Summer). Since Lilly’s little fae regularly clean Harry’s apt., they would know that he is building something complex & magical. I would not be surprised if they tell someone in Summer about everything they see in Harry’s apt. Lilly is not smart enough to fix LC, but Mother Summer (or her agent) are.

The motive here would be that Mother Summer is aware that Maeve & Lea are Nfected & that Arctis Tor has been attacked, putting Mab in a weak & defensive position. Mab needs the help of someone who is definitely against the Outsiders/ can act in the mortal world unencumbered - if the best chance of that happening is protecting the guy who saved the Fae Courts in SK, then so be it.

Additionally, Harry is also a tempering influence on Mab (the purpose of Summer) - carrying out Mab’s duties as humanely as possible. In CD she even encourages him to remain his own man, so Mother Summer would see protecting Harry as carrying on Summer’s duties in a creative manner.

Well, maybe someone high up in the Summer Court needed to do something for which Little Chicago would be helpful, so Mother Summer "suggested" that they stop by Harry's place.

[morriswalters]

Given that Mab and the Gatekeeper are thicker than thieves, she could have sent him, since it involved mortal magic.  However I'm not selling that.  My theory, when I think about it, is that somebody from an alternate timeline, just before that timeline dies, crosses over to fix LC and to create a timeline that doesn't end.  And then goes home to die, or whatever.  Just not Harry. 

My contention is that Bob holds the keys to the kingdom, since he knows everything that need to be known about LC, when the sub basement was unoccupied and how to bypass the wards.  All you have to assume in this scenario is that Bob survives the event and that an ally finds him, maybe Thomas.

However Jim always surprises me.

[kbrizzle]

@nadia
Sure, but if Mab has been in the Winter garden the entire time since the attack, which is supposed to have happen a while ago, she just wouldn’t have had the time to sneak into Chicago for those crucial few days.

Even if she were able to leave Faerie, my point was that she would be too busy dealing with the fallout from the attack as well as the knowledge that the Adversary has taken her top 2 lieutenants away. Where would she find the time to spy on Harry enough to know about LC & then diagnose a complex issue & fix it?

I also see no problem with your point about the Summer agent using LC to Summer’s gain while fixing it.

@morriswalters
That just seems a little complicated. Also what would be the motivation behind this act?

[kbrizzle]

On a tangential note - I do believe that time travel in the DV is more complex that we’re giving credit in this thread.

While Odin explains that going back in the past to alter something would create a separate timeline, we also know that the OG Merlin was able to travel to 5 different points in time to create Demonreach (although this could perhaps be explained by the theory that Demonreach was built to exist in every timeline)

[nadia.skylark]

@nadia
Sure, but if Mab has been in the Winter garden the entire time since the attack, which is supposed to have happen a while ago, she just wouldn’t have had the time to sneak into Chicago for those crucial few days.

Even if she were able to leave Faerie, my point was that she would be too busy dealing with the fallout from the attack as well as the knowledge that the Adversary has taken her top 2 lieutenants away. Where would she find the time to spy on Harry enough to know about LC & then diagnose a complex issue & fix it?

Yeah, but my point is that "a while ago" in the Nevernever could mean that Mab fixed Little Chicago before the attack.

[morriswalters]

@nadia
Sure, but if Mab has been in the Winter garden the entire time since the attack, which is supposed to have happen a while ago, she just wouldn’t have had the time to sneak into Chicago for those crucial few days.

Even if she were able to leave Faerie, my point was that she would be too busy dealing with the fallout from the attack as well as the knowledge that the Adversary has taken her top 2 lieutenants away. Where would she find the time to spy on Harry enough to know about LC & then diagnose a complex issue & fix it?

I also see no problem with your point about the Summer agent using LC to Summer’s gain while fixing it.

@morriswalters
That just seems a little complicated. Also what would be the motivation behind this act?

I have no idea, storywise it might show you the stakes if Harry dies.  What happens if Outsiders breach the wall.

To answer part of the other questions, Mab shows Harry a display of Marcone being taken in Small Favor,  Gard can actually sense Mab looking.  I think this is the Gate at work, and that like Demonreach it might have intellectus.

[g33k]

@nadia
Sure, but if Mab has been in the Winter garden the entire time since the attack, which is supposed to have happen a while ago, she just wouldn’t have had the time to sneak into Chicago for those crucial few days.

Even if she were able to leave Faerie, my point was that she would be too busy dealing with the fallout from the attack as well as the knowledge that the Adversary has taken her top 2 lieutenants away. Where would she find the time to spy on Harry enough to know about LC & then diagnose a complex issue & fix it?

Toot & Co are Wildfae.  They may deal with either Summer or Winter; they try to stay unaligned... but they also spent most of the first few books trying not to get trapped in one of Harry'a circles.  I think we can presume Mab can get anything she wants out of that crew!

We know that they regularly entered Harry's apartment, and even his lab, because they protected the cleaning-crew from the "dread beast Mister" and did general vermin-control; and Harry reflected how this was a GOOD THING because mice/rats eating some of his magical reagents would likely be a BAD THING.

So any Faerie Queen (or other potent fae) will be able to gain a full report of the inside of Harry's Place.

More likely... she could just step into the lab from the Nevernever!  Lea had put up special defenses there... and Mab had personally taken over fulfilling Lea's obligations.  So Mab had her own personal backdoor into Harry's lab.

As for diagnosing/fixing LC?  She's Mab.  She probably knows magic to AT LEAST the same degree as any Senior Council member, and she is as strong as the entire SC combined.  If I had to guess, I'd guess it would take her a bit less than 1 minute to see the problem, and a few seconds to fix it.
 
 

[kbrizzle]

@morriswalters
Agreed - her ability to do that was strange. Not sure if it was a Gate at work, or that she had been keeping an eye on Marcone/ the znickelheads once they entered Chicago.

@g33k
While that’s possible, I feel like it’s a little far-fetched for Mab to be using Toot & his ilk as spies. Agreed that Mab could enter through the NN, but how would she do so without Bob’s knowledge?

I would like it to be Summer also because it would show that Summer isn’t completely incompetent/ stumbling through the events from SK onwards like a petulant & naive teen.

[g33k]

Paradoxageddon occurs. Time traveler Harry knew to fix LC because, how?

Not seeing any Paradoxageddon.

It's like... suppose a very-old TT-Harry came back... like, VERY old, looking like a 90-year-old (so like... a 500-year-old wizard?  I dunno...).  Ancient TT-Harry walks up to in-the-novels Harry, and shakes his hand.  Because Ancient TT-Harry looks so old,  in-the-novels Harry doesn't recognize himself, though he may think he looks familiar (and if it's a bare-handed shake will CERTAINLY detect a very-strong practioner-aura!).

That's it.  That's everything.  No punching, no setting buildings on fire.  No crossing the streams.  No Paradoxageddon.  Harry shook his own hand.

Ancient TT-Harry remembers that (when he was younger) this weird old scary-powerful wizard (who seemed oddly familiar) walked up out of the blue and shook his hand.  He realizes it was him, and so he TT's, and does the hand-shake... to PREVENT paradox, to make the timeline contiguous.

Same-same with LC:  TT-Harry recalls that Bob had spotted an error, but then that LC got mysteriously fixed, realizes that HE was the mysterious fixer, and does that thing.  Everyone's memory of this is the same; nothing got altered.  The time-loop is without paradox.
 

[nadia.skylark]

It's like... suppose a very-old TT-Harry came back... like, VERY old, looking like a 90-year-old (so like... a 500-year-old wizard?  I dunno...).  Ancient TT-Harry walks up to in-the-novels Harry, and shakes his hand.  Because Ancient TT-Harry looks so old,  in-the-novels Harry doesn't recognize himself, though he may think he looks familiar (and if it's a bare-handed shake will CERTAINLY detect a very-strong practioner-aura!).

That's it.  That's everything.  No punching, no setting buildings on fire.  No crossing the streams.  No Paradoxageddon.  Harry shook his own hand.

Ancient TT-Harry remembers that (when he was younger) this weird old scary-powerful wizard (who seemed oddly familiar) walked up out of the blue and shook his hand.  He realizes it was him, and so he TT's, and does the hand-shake... to PREVENT paradox, to make the timeline contiguous.

Same-same with LC:  TT-Harry recalls that Bob had spotted an error, but then that LC got mysteriously fixed, realizes that HE was the mysterious fixer, and does that thing.  Everyone's memory of this is the same; nothing got altered.  The time-loop is without paradox.

The problem is that when you can change the past, stable time loops don't work.

It's like this. There is the original timeline, iteration 1. Then someone from iteration 1 goes back in time, creating iteration 2. If the timeline cannot be changed, then iteration 1 and iteration 2 are identical, and you also end up with iterations 3, 4, 5, etc. that are also identical, as the same person from each iteration goes back in time. This is a stable time loop.

However, if the timeline can be changed, then iterations 1 and 2 cannot be presumed to be identical, so the question remains "but what happened in iteration 1?"

[g33k]

@g33k
While that’s possible, I feel like it’s a little far-fetched for Mab to be using Toot & his ilk as spies. Agreed that Mab could enter through the NN, but how would she do so without Bob’s knowledge?

I would like it to be Summer also because it would show that Summer isn’t completely incompetent/ stumbling through the events from SK onwards like a petulant & naive teen.

I could definitely see it being Summer, particularly Mother Summer or one of her agents.  Elaine could have been playing a really really deep game, secretly  in Mother Summer's employ, for example.
 
But I could also see Mab, acting as Lea-proxy to protect Harry (as Lea was sworn to do).  Promises must be kept.  This is IMHO the stronger case... Mab having undertaken the "godmother" protective oaths, having the existing backdoor, etc.  Mab wouldn't have to be "using" the little fae "as spies" in any ongoing manner... just hauling one in to answer questions.

But it could absolutely have been Summer.  In fact, there's a certain nice symmetry there:  Mother Winter gave Harry an Unraveling, so Mother Summer gave him a Weaving.

I think both notions are viable.  I don't see any way to rule either one out.


But if Bob could spot a Winter agent, he could spot a Summer one too.  My own 1st choice for LC-repair is still TT-Harry.