Mira, I appreciate the theory. I do. But it isn't fact, at least not yet. It doesn't say or give any indication in the text that Mab controlled Murphy in that scene, in that moment. And as far as I am aware there is no WOJ to support it either.
I do feel Jim could have explained better why after everyone being frozen there was no numbness and no damage to the firearm. But Arjan's explanation is as good as any here - it could well have been magical ice, or perhaps Mab removed the numbness.
Arjan is right -In Summer Knight Mab says this when controlling Dresden to make him stab himself with a letter opener
"Wizard, you know as well as I. Were you not bound to me, I would have no such power over you." At that moment, most of what I knew was that my hand hurt, but some dim part of me realized she was telling the truth. Faeries don't just get to ride in and play puppet master. You have to let them in. I'd let my godmother, Lea, in years before, when I was younger, dumber.
Summer Knight, ch 2, pg 20
And Bob explains it:
I frowned. "Hang on a minute. You mean that the Queens can't personally gun down anyone who isn't in their Court?"
"Not unless the target does something stupid like make an open-ended bargain without even trying to
trade a baby for—"
"Off topic, Bob. Do I or don't I have to worry about getting killed this time around?"
"Of course you do," Bob said in a cheerful tone. "It just means that the Queen isn't allowed to actually, personally end your life. They could, however, trick you into walking into quicksand and watch you drown, turn you into a stag and set the hounds after you, bind you into an enchanted sleep for a few hundred years, that kind of thing."
Summer Knight, ch 10, pg80
Queens can't just come in and play puppet master, they need a channel. A specific type of bargain with the person. Murphy didn't have that, so no possible way Mab could have done it - unless she made a bargain with Murphy off screen. But I really highly doubt it. Especially since as Lea points out to Michael, once they hold a Sword of the Cross they can shatter a compact easily enough. So it wouldn't be a sound long-term deal.
The thing is that Mab didn't
need to pull the trigger anyway. She gave Murphy the freedom to act, she knew Murphy would do it. It would have been redundant.
The whole reason I would have been shocked, as I said, would be that it invalidates most of the story and Harry's mission. While she was pragmatic enough to accept she had to order her daughter's death, she couldn't be the one to plunge the knife in herself. She always has had the power but couldn't actually do it herself. Mother Winter confirms this when she says Mab is too much the romantic. Which probably tells you that if Mother Winter wanted to kill a Queen, they would just die.
As for Sarissa and Mab's hang outs, I always put that less down to bonding (at least on Mab's end) and more her learning about mortals. But I can understand it might not be that way, or that people might not see it like that. Mab certainly wouldn't be the type to hug or say I love you, so I suspect the closest she could do was spend time with her daughters and teach them as best she could. As Leah points out, that is a incredible gift "the dissemination of power from one generation to the next" which when you consider what Mab can teach them...is invaluable. I do imagine Maeve was the daughter who got the harsher training, which made her tougher (as befit her role, Mab wanted her daughter to be successful/survive - in her eyes the best thing she could do for her...talk about being cruel to be kind...). I expect she resented that Sarissa got the much softer and perhaps more enjoyable treatment (and freedom, as morris points out). But I don't think Sarissa was the favorite initially necessarily. Mab
had to treat each child differently, based on their circumstances. Like most parents, Mab quite probably thought she was doing the best she could by them.
