Fae Rankings

[g33k]

Just gonna come right out and say it... you are making a mistake, here:

She wasn't in a rage when she was speaking through her malk, the subject matter had nothing to do with anger
...
 Even if she was angry as you say when she was talking through her malk, she wasn't pissed... When things finally added up in her brain and she got four, she got pissed, things turned to ice and ears bled.
...

But the whole point of malk-voice wasn't rando-faerie-wierdness.  Mab used the malk's voice to buffer Harry from her rage; ALL of malk-voice was because she was so angry her voice would make people bleed from the ears & eyes.

Mab could discuss other topics, act calm, be rational; all without forgetting for a single instant that the Winter Lady (one step from the Queendom (and thus likely the fall of the Outer Gates); and her own daughter, one of her last links to love, to her own fragile wisps of humanity) was lost to Nemfection.

Scary -- no, terrifying! -- how coldly-calculating she could be, when she was ear-bleedingly enraged.

"A few years back, you got angry.  So angry that when you spoke it made people bleed from the ears.  That was why.  Because you figured out that the adversary had taken Maeve.  And it hurt.  To know that the adversary had gotten to her."

The moment she spoke in her own voice, and made Harry actually bleed, was NOT the moment she realized that Maeve had been Nemfected.  I don't think we know what it was in the chapel that made her lose control, made her speak in her own voice (Harry naming Thorned Namshiel seems to have been the trigger, but I don't think Thorny was actually what cracked her self-control).

But if she had used her own voice to instruct her Emissary, there in the snowy alleyway of Small Favor... Harry would still have been curled up in agony on the ground when the Gruffs with machine-guns arrived.

[
If you have an alternative theory about why Mab went around malk-voiced for most of Small Favor, I'm open to seeing your WAG; Mab explicitly refused to explain the "why" of it, unless Harry paid to learn the answer.
]
 

[Mira]

But the whole point of malk-voice wasn't rando-faerie-wierdness.  Mab used the malk's voice to buffer Harry from her rage; ALL of malk-voice was because she was so angry her voice would make people bleed from the ears & eyes.

Mab could discuss other topics, act calm, be rational; all without forgetting for a single instant that the Winter Lady (one step from the Queendom (and thus likely the fall of the Outer Gates); and her own daughter, one of her last links to love, to her own fragile wisps of humanity) was lost to Nemfection.

Scary -- no, terrifying! -- how coldly-calculating she could be, when she was ear-bleedingly enraged.

All maybe true, but doesn't change this.. From Cold Days

" A few years back, you got angry.  So angry that when you spoke it made people bleed from the ears.  That was why.  Because you figured out that the adversary had taken Maeve.  And it hurt.  To know that the adversary had gotten to her."
"It was the knife," Mab said.

Nothing cold, calculating or Fae here, Mab was simply acting like a mother who's daughter was in danger..  Note Harry said, "you got angry." Not, "you were angry.." This implies that it was in the middle of the conversation when she got pissed and made ears bleed..
Mab may have been talking through her malk, just to show Harry she could, and she wanted to jerk him around a bit, to remind him he still owed her a favor and she wanted him to be her knight, as well as return his blaster..

But if she had used her own voice to instruct her Emissary, there in the snowy alleyway of Small Favor... Harry would still have been curled up in agony on the ground when the Gruffs with machine-guns arrived.

The scene I am talking about was in the chapel of the hospital after Harry's conversation with Jake,aka Uriel, there was no snowy ally way..  Let us return to what Harry said to her in Cold Days after Maeve was dead..

A few years back, you got angry.  So angry that when you spoke it made people bleed from the ears.  That was why.  Because you figured out that the adversary had taken Maeve.  And it hurt.  To know that the adversary had gotten to her."
"It was the knife," Mab said.

"That was why." Harry tells Mab she had figured out the adversary had taken Maeve. Then he says,""And it hurt." Mab felt a mother's pain in that moment, her rage was an expression of that pain.. That kind of thing ain't expressed through a malk, not even by Mab..
Mab's simple reply in Cold Days says it all..

"It was the knife." Mab said.

Yup, she didn't see it, her daughter is dead because she didn't see it, and Mab is full of regret.
While we may not have the exact date that Maeve was infected, it can be surmised that sometime between when Lea brought the knife back from the party in Grave Peril to when she and Mab went into ice treatment for infection in Proven Guilty, Maeve was exposed.  However Mab missed the fact that her daughter had been exposed and by Small Favor Mab finally realized it, and that hurt.  Mab also realized what the outcome of that would be, so she began to prepare suitable vessels to receive the mantle of the Winter Lady.. Cold and calculating, but necessary, but that fact also hurt.

[g33k]

All maybe true, but doesn't change this.. From Cold Days
Nothing cold, calculating or Fae here, Mab was simply acting like a mother who's daughter was in danger..  Note Harry said, "you got angry." Not, "you were angry.." This implies that it was in the middle of the conversation when she got pissed and made ears bleed..
Mab may have been talking through her malk, just to show Harry she could, and she wanted to jerk him around a bit, to remind him he still owed her a favor and she wanted him to be her knight, as well as return his blaster.. The scene I am talking about was in the chapel of the hospital after Harry's conversation with Jake,aka Uriel, there was no snowy ally way..  Let us return to what Harry said to her in Cold Days after Maeve was dead.."That was why." Harry tells Mab she had figured out the adversary had taken Maeve. Then he says,""And it hurt." Mab felt a mother's pain in that moment, her rage was an expression of that pain.. That kind of thing ain't expressed through a malk, not even by Mab..
Mab's simple reply in Cold Days says it all..

"It was the knife." Mab said.

Yup, she didn't see it, her daughter is dead because she didn't see it, and Mab is full of regret.
While we may not have the exact date that Maeve was infected, it can be surmised that sometime between when Lea brought the knife back from the party in Grave Peril to when she and Mab went into ice treatment for infection in Proven Guilty, Maeve was exposed.  However Mab missed the fact that her daughter had been exposed and by Small Favor Mab finally realized it, and that hurt.  Mab also realized what the outcome of that would be, so she began to prepare suitable vessels to receive the mantle of the Winter Lady.. Cold and calculating, but necessary, but that fact also hurt.

We are simply going to have to agree to disagree, I think.
I understand your point, but I'm pretty sure you have mis-read & misunderstood what happened when.

I'm pretty sure that the moment her temper cracked, and she made Harry bleed, was not the moment she realized Maeve's Nemfection; the moment she said "It was the knife" to Harry was not Mab's realization/recognition that it was the knife.

You disagree; and you & I are just circling the same arguments (to no purpose that I can see).

[Mira]

I'm pretty sure that the moment her temper cracked, and she made Harry bleed, was not the moment she realized Maeve's Nemfection; the moment she said "It was the knife" to Harry was not Mab's realization/recognition that it was the knife.

It's okay, we can agree to disagree, I am just as sure that you mis-read and misunderstood what you read.

Mab's response in Cold Days was not a denial of any of Harry's suppositions about what was making her so angry back in Small Favor..
When she responded, "it was the knife."  It was her confirmation that what he was saying was right.

Pretty clear, easily outlined..
   1] Lea receives unknowingly infected knife of power in Grave Peril.
    2] Not sure that was the book, but I believe in Summer Knight there is one scene where Mab has that same knife in her belt..
    3] At Arctis Tor we find crazy Lea on ice and silent Mab on ice, both had contact with the knife, one or both of them are infested with the adversary in Proven Guilty, and taking the cure..
    4] We have the really pissed off Mab moment, ears bleed and eyelashes freeze, in the chapel of the hospital in Small Favor...
    5] Most significant point, after Maeve's death in Cold Days, Harry pointedly asks Mab about
that very scene in the chapel in Small Favor, linking what he thinks Mab realized in the chapel, to the execution of her infected daughter, Cold Days.. Jim doesn't do that randomly, bringing up a scene from three books before.  Linking that scene to the aftermath of Maeve's death, Jim was underscoring the point! Harry confronts Mab about that scene, "That was why, Because you figured out that the adversary had taken Maeve, And it hurt." So in essence, he is asking her a question and answering it at the same time.. "So that's why you were so pissed off.."
   6] Mab has no argument, no denial,  "it was the knife.." The infected knife began it all, introducing the adversary, taking out Maeve, and bringing in Molly as the new Winter Lady..

[g33k]

    5]... Mab realized in the chapel ...

The crux of our disagreement.

[Mira]

The crux of our disagreement.

 Understood, however Jim wouldn't have drawn our attention to it three books later... Harry asking Mab about her anger in the chapel three books before and answering his own question.
A] "That was why."
B] " Because you figured out that the adversary had taken Maeve."
C] "And it hurt."
 Notice nothing is said about what you suggest, though all perfectly good reasons for her anger, but no.
"It was the knife."  said Mab.. 

[g33k]

... Harry asking Mab about her anger in the chapel ...

To my reading, Mab's anger, her rage, was in every scene; not just in the chapel.

That's just where her self-control cracked for a moment.  Maybe even that was a cold & calculated move by Mab:  to let her anger show, for just a moment.  Let Harry see it, feel it.

You put far more emphasis on "It was the knife" than I do:  that isn't even the moment her rage peeked through; that moment came when Harry named Thorned Namshiel (as the Fallen who assaulted Arctis Tor), nothing to do with the Athame / Maeve / Nemfection (unless it does:  what if Thorny did have something to do with the Athame...?) .

[Mira]

To my reading, Mab's anger, her rage, was in every scene; not just in the chapel.

That may be your reading and your opinion. What I am saying is the author of the series, through his main character, is asking Mab pointedly about her losing control/anger specifically in the chapel. In Small Favor, in the chapel, Mab lost it and it made Harry's ears bleed.. He brings that up after Maeve's death in their little private conversation.

A few years back, you got angry.  So angry that when you spoke it made people bleed from the ears.  That was why.  Because you figured out that the adversary had taken Maeve.  And it hurt.  To know that the adversary had gotten to her."

In the chapel is the only time I recall Mab being so pissed that Harry's ears bled. You say she is talking through her malk because she is pissed to try and keep control, perhaps, but that still is part of the scene in the chapel.

You put far more emphasis on "It was the knife" than I do:  that isn't even the moment her rage peeked through; that moment came when Harry named Thorned Namshiel (as the Fallen who assaulted Arctis Tor), nothing to do with the Athame / Maeve / Nemfection (unless it does:  what if Thorny did have something to do with the Athame...?) .

I agree that that is confusing, however it possible to have two things on one's mind at one time.. Very possible for Mab, she through her malk and Harry are talking about her and the The Watcher having a common enemy... Then the thought hits her, Nemesis has infected her daughter.. Yeah, they seem unrelated, but then again during the attack on Arctis Tor, she and Lea were on ice taking the Nemesis cure.. Mentioning Thorny reminds Mab of that, and she has a real oh shit moment, and Harry's ears start to bleed.  That's what Harry is asking her about after Maeve died..
A] "That was why."
B] " Because you figured out that the adversary had taken Maeve."
C] "And it hurt."

No, Thorny had nothing to do with the Athame as far as we know, but the Athame had everything to do with bringing Nemesis to the Winter Court and ultimately her daughter's infection..

Thus Mab answers;
"It was the knife.."  Nothing is said about the attack on Arctis Tor, or Thorny or anything else..
When we first meet Mab back in Summer Knight she did make Harry impale his own hand on a letter spike, just to show him she could.. More sadistic show of power than anger, but I cannot remember any scenes outside of the chapel scene in Small Favor where she caused Harry's ears to bleed, can you?

Besides telling Harry "it was the knife," Mab does say she pays her debts.. You could possibly link that to what happened in Skin Game, that Mab wasn't simply setting up revenge on the Nic and company on behalf of Marcone, but it could turn out that Denarians do have something to do with Nemesis and she was avenging her daughter a bit in the process.. However so far that is more theory than anything.