"Good People" Verses "Christmas Eve" Mab

[Mira]

Morally the end doesn't justify the means.

@Mira
Molly was bait, used first by Maeve and the BC and then by Mab in PG. Harry was the catch in both cases.

Yes, but the bait usually doesn't turn on you.  Molly turned on Mab when she chided her for still
acting human, in her effort to try and make it up to the people of Chicago for all that they have lost. She and Harry are in agreement about that, and it is actually Mab who is being short sighted there.
Molly proves to her that she is no push over and that she agrees with Harry.  The interesting point is Mab complains that Molly was acting more like summer, and in Cold Days Mab actually says that she had intended originally for Molly to be the Summer Lady.  I also think this confrontation motivated Mab to do something totally out of character for her, which is what we saw in Christmas Eve.

[Arjan]

I got the impression that Molly met Mab after Mab went to Harry.

Yes. The story begins after Molly leaves her parents home before Kringle arrives so the Mab’s present was already given.

[deadvoid]

I got the impression that Molly met Mab after Mab went to Harry.

Yeah I think she did, Mab showed up & gave Harry gift first, then Molly after a while, which soon followed by Kringle. Molly said she left her parents’ house before Kringle was due to arrive, so that's right after she went in to her place which haven't been confirmed if it's the house across the street (most likely) or her place in svartalves complex (which might be too much of a stretch given she needed to give a tiny lift when closing the door, svartalves apartment sounded much more modern to have that door quirk).

[deadvoid]

Man is mostly described from Harry’s point of view and his point of view changes. He gets closer to Mab and sees things in more detail. I do not think Mab changed that much, the Mab we see now already came through in some earlier woj. The character is more fleshed out.

Also the concept of complete alien and impossible to understand Sidhe is just not possible to maintain and to write if you get closer to them.

Agree, and yeah humans in my post mostly referred to wizards & other humans who more or less had limited experience/interaction with fae, not including changeling for example.

[morriswalters]

Yes, but the bait usually doesn't turn on you.  Molly turned on Mab when she chided her for still
acting human, in her effort to try and make it up to the people of Chicago for all that they have lost. She and Harry are in agreement about that, and it is actually Mab who is being short sighted there.
Molly proves to her that she is no push over and that she agrees with Harry.  The interesting point is Mab complains that Molly was acting more like summer, and in Cold Days Mab actually says that she had intended originally for Molly to be the Summer Lady.  I also think this confrontation motivated Mab to do something totally out of character for her, which is what we saw in Christmas Eve.

Bait was with respect to Proven Guilty not the microfiction. The microfiction is fluff.

[Dina]

I agree about our perspective of Mab changing because Harry changes how he sees her, but

She attempted to kill the Archive by letting the Hobs loose in a train station.  Kidnapped Molly and brought her to Arctis Tor and let the Scarecrow dine on her. Set the fetches on the movie theater owner just to get Harry's attention. Tortures Slate to madness.

it's still true.
I don't think that "she kidnapped her because she wanted to catch Harry" is better than "she kidnapped her"

[deadvoid]

but she kidnapped molly to trick harry into a mentor-student situation is better than she kidnapped her for infinite torture sport

[forumghost]

but she kidnapped molly to trick harry into a mentor-student situation is better than she kidnapped her for infinite torture sport

"You had several people killed/hospitalised and kidnapped and traumatised a teenager, but it was all just part of your ploy to use said minor as a tool to manipulate Dresden, so it's cool"

Yeah, let's throw her a parade.

[deadvoid]

"You had several people killed/hospitalised and kidnapped and traumatised a teenager, but it was all just part of your ploy to use said minor as a tool to manipulate Dresden, so it's cool"

Yeah, let's throw her a parade.

did i say cool & parade? stop being overdramatic & assume i said something that's only in your head

[forumghost]

did i say cool & parade? stop being overdramatic & assume i said something that's only in your head

I would have classified it as mild exageration rather than overdramatic. I'm sorry if I came across as dismissive or insulting.

But yeah, I was exaggerating, because that's honestly an argument I've seen frequently in the "Is Mab a bad guy" debates- that because she isn't literally as evil as possible at all times, she's good.

Sorry if I seemed to throw you in with that crowd.

[morriswalters]

One possible way to look at Mab is like a tool with no moral compass. She has a task and will commit murder to attend to that task, if she thinks it will move the task in a direction she believes it needs to go. One way of reading what she tells Harry to do if she dies is to understand that Molly can't do what she does.  That she can't remove the emotion from her execution of the duties that Mab must perform.  She can't be Santa's helper.  She has to be the monster.  This is all hashed over in previous books.  Mother Summer define the risks when she describes the relationship between Titania and Mab.

“She could,” Mother Summer said, “if she were willing to forfeit reality.” I scanned the length of the wall nervously. It looked like it went on forever—and there was fighting all along its length. “You’re telling me that this is why Mab has her power? To . . . to protect the borders?” “To protect all of you from the Outsiders, mortal.” “Then why does Titania have hers?” I asked. “To protect all of you from Mab.”

Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 342). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Mab briefly alludes to this in cold Days when she tells Harry that Molly would have been more suitable for Summer.

[deadvoid]

I would have classified it as mild exageration rather than overdramatic. I'm sorry if I came across as dismissive or insulting.

But yeah, I was exaggerating, because that's honestly an argument I've seen frequently in the "Is Mab a bad guy" debates- that because she isn't literally as evil as possible at all times, she's good.

Sorry if I seemed to throw you in with that crowd.

that's alright, i'm just tired of being taken in bad faith & misinterpreted in reddit when i literally said some literal words with no hidden meanings

One possible way to look at Mab is like a tool with no moral compass. She has a task and will commit murder to attend to that task, if she thinks it will move the task in a direction she believes it needs to go. One way of reading what she tells Harry to do if she dies is to understand that Molly can't do what she does.  That she can't remove the emotion from her execution of the duties that Mab must perform.  She can't be Santa's helper.  She has to be the monster.  This is all hashed over in previous books.  Mother Summer define the risks when she describes the relationship between Titania and Mab.Mab briefly alludes to this in cold Days when she tells Harry that Molly would have been more suitable for Summer.

i guess i should've checked WoJ first on what he thinks Mab is like before i posted my first post, but here's part of it

Ask yourself why Mab had Molly brought in.  What chain of events did that set in motion?  What secondary effects came about because of it?  Ultimately, Mab can always go to the Wyld and draw in more muscle to replace fallen thugs.  If worst comes to worst, with just a few “seed” fae, she could rear up enough Changelings to repopulate her cadre within a human generation or two–nothing, to a being thousands of years old.

As far as she’s concerned, everyone and everything is expendable, including herself, when it comes to adhering to her (seemingly irrational and inexplicable) priorities.

(And by the way–don’t think Titania is much better.  When push came to shove, she let her own daughter be murdered rather than upset the balance of the Faerie Courts.  At least Mab is up front about it.  Usually.)

Sacrifice her best troops?  Mab would sacrifice every creature *in* Winter, every one she could bring from Summer, and every single mortal on planet Earth if that’s what she thought was appropriate.  And she wouldn’t even need to add extra sugar to her cup of tea afterwards, much less lose sleep over it.

But no one does cold-blooded like the Queen of Winter.  Mab’s been in the business a long time, she’s got a balance sheet, and she is *not* going to come out in the red, unless, of course, she really *has* stripped a gear, as Lily and Maeve believe.  In which case there’s a stark raving bonkers demigoddess whose powers are no longer being held in check by the Escher-esque code of Sidhe behavior.  And that’s all kinds of bad.

But hey.  It’s probably not that.  I mean, not *everything* that happens can be the absolute worst possible possibility, right?

and this is probably related

Did Mab lie? (At the end of Ghost Story)
Mab did not lie, Mab was wrong. There’s a subtle difference to that, at the end of Ghost Story. As far as Mab is concerned, she’s telling the truth, because she’s telling the truth from her experience, as she knows it.

So i guess it might also be a scenario of very fine line between she's a zealot/she's just misguided/she's super super stubborn vs she's evil, or perhaps the first caused Jim considers her the latter. Same could be said about Blackstaff.

[Bad Alias]

i guess i should've checked WoJ first on what he thinks Mab is like before i posted my first post, but here's part of itand this is probably related

For reference:

On the other hand it makes me consider that I can't really think of any literal reason why Mab is considered villainous

Emphasis added. I don't think why Mab does what she does or the stakes stops many from seeing Mab as villainous. Here's the Webster's definition of villian:

1: a character in a story or play who opposes the hero
2: a deliberate scoundrel or criminal
3: one blamed for a particular evil or difficulty

Mab fits one and three pretty well. Arguments can be made for two. Google's definition, "(in a film, novel, or play) a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot," make it easier to argue that Mab isn't a villain because her motives aren't evil and her actions arguably aren't either. One can argue that evil requires agency. Mab may not have any agency left. On the other hand, plenty of people think of pretty much every misfortune as evil. And on the third hand, it's easy to argue that the Faerie Queens have much more agency than we thought early on in the series.

Whether necessary or not, Mab's done a lot of terrible things.

So I don't think it was error in the least to not worry about that WoJ when posing your question.

[deadvoid]

Points all around. My one major concern about Mab herself being evil is that her power is pretty much came from Mother Winter's will, and she's quite possibly a literal force, so without her mantle Mab would be a different person.

[Arjan]

There is woj about Murphy being a villain in the first books. Jim seems to use the first definition.