I had this idea today when I was waiting for my train to arrive...

SPOILER

Lea's was obviously not normal when we saw her last time at in Proven Guilty, the most common explanation is possession, but how did she get possessed?
Was it a punishment from Mab, but what could she possibly gain from this as it makes Lea far more unstable and prone to break Mab's rules...

And then I remembered in Grave Peril, Lea became a very powerful item from Bianca (partly in exchange for the sword) and it really must have been über-powerful if Mab takes notice and it is worth more than one of the holy swords (it was partly exchange and partly the guest gift).

And the sword more or less helped along with cleaning the path for the war etc. (we know how that turned out so far)

But how could Bianca own such an item? And wha give it away?
Maybe she was a pawn for the Council (that is a relatively far known idea), but not ONLY for the war, but also for a infiltration of the Winter Court.

If Lea (a very powerful High Sidhe) can be possessed and even if it's only partly who knows who, too, could be manipulated?

Maybe Mab was "attacked" and her strange behavior in the last time was kind of misinterpreted as madness, but was more like cautiones and maybe even a little damage control (do we know how far THEY may have gotten?)

Soooooooooooo.....

Maybe we will get to know in a later book what this mysterious item was and what kind of consequences and purpose it had/has.

What do you guys think?

(if I was right I can at leat say 'I said so' )

 

I say Mab has been influenced not exactly possessed but definitely subtlely influenced. Influenced in a way that she wouldnt notice and would think its all her idea. Mab mostly likely to attack directly or possess outright. They attack her stronghold and escaped most likely because Mab was not there or let them.

My other blind guess is that it will be the Mothers who fix or kill Mab. I personally wonder just how powerful the Queens Who Were are. I mean they are more powerful than Mab or Titania.

 

They may be powerful, but mostly because of their knowledge and they are bound to not interfere in the affairs of the fae anymore, besides in cases of a great crises.

And while a mad/possessed/influenced Mab is a crises, they can only help indirectly, not do anything directly. They could give someone (like for example, Harry Dresden) an advice (well, for fairies and riddle-lover anyway) and maybe some trinkets or knowledge, but mostly are they out of the game.

 

There's also the Winter Knight to consider. IIRC, the Knights take the Court's power and use it so it doesn't 'back-up' on the Queens, essentially. When there isn't a Knight, the Queen goes insane from to much power.

Lloyd may still be alive, but he's definitely not doing his job as a Knight. He's captive, not out working for the court and siphoning off the extra power. It's just been building and building. Personally, I think that's why Mab's gone a littly loopy.

 

I think that someone tried to screw Mab in a bargain (Black Council, Circle, whatever) and she is fighting back against them in whatever way that she can. For example, maybe she isn't allowed to attack the Black Council or aid their enemies. So she starts acting kind of crazy which sends Maeve off to Lily and then uses the fetches to take Molly to Arctis Tor. We know that what happened there with Harry unleashing Summer fire there and giving Summer a chance to strike is what she wanted to have happen. Also does anyone seriously think that Mab couldn't have stomped on whatever force attacked her fortress without any effort what-so-ever? I mean seriously she is a demigod, equal in power to the archangels and the old gods, second in the overall power scale to the guy upstairs. Personally, I think she's playing a bigger game with bigger fish then we are totally aware of yet.

As for Lea whatever the heck that knife thing was that she got at Bianca's, which was said to be in the same weight class as Amorrachius, is probably the start of her whole power/insanity trip. The only problem is is that we really don't know what that thing was aside from powerful.

 

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that is fanon. I think it is from Vash's fic, but I may be wrong.

 

Sorry but I highly doubt that Mab is equal in power with the Archangels. Maybe the higher level demons or the lower outsides but not the Archangels. Or she would have wiped the Denarians attacked Arctis Tor off the map. Denarians are not archangels merely fallen angels. There is a difference.

 

But the question is are Archangels super-powered or merely powerful angels with a little more upstairs then there ordinary brothers? Or both for that matter.

Unless I am mstaken Lea's dagger was made of athame, deathstone, the same stuff used in the duel between Count Ortega and Dresden. Bianca probably got it with help from Mavra who is undoubtably somewhere in the BC's ranks (I'm thinking upper management).

There is also the question of whether Mab was at Arctis Tor for the attack, sure Mab's giant bodyguard trolls were there, and died, but Mab hardly takes them everywhere.

But, in some way, I think Mab got heavily screwed in a bargain and is stretching her agreement to the letter. Or she could be turning into Mother Winter and going batshit insane is all part of the deal.

 

>_> Damn, yeah, you're right. I could have sworn I read that in Summer Knight, but I just checked, and it's from Vash's fic. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

I believe it is in Summer Knight, when they first meet, that he says that she is literally a demigod. Also in Summer Knight he sees just how much power the Queens have available to them and says that what he can muster is a step above miscroscopic compared to them. If that is true also consider the fact that at the time of Small Favor the Denarians (one of whom is partially responsible) are from way less than Dresden's power level (the thugs) to his power level but far more skilled (Thorned Namshiel and Tessa), hence they aren't anywhere equal to Mab as a best they register on the same power level as Dresden.

Also from Dresden's rant in Small Favor in the Chapel at the end.

Although I honestly don't remember if there is any textual support for the Archangel's and the Sidhe Queens being on the same power level. I just kind of inferred it from the way that Mab referred to Uriel, with a fair bit of respect. Still even if they aren't on a similar level Mab is still so far above Dresden that it almost drove him insane to see her with the ThirdEye.

Hmmm, now what point was I going to try and make with all of this...? I think I forgot ...

 

The problem with comparing Denarians to Mab is that the fallen dont have there full power. They are on the Outside, using most of their power to maintain their sanity. Mab has alot of power sure but she is not in the league of Michael, Uriel, Gabriel, Lucifer or Raphael.


You dont have to be an equal to respect someone.

 

The bit with them being on the Outside is from Shezza's stuff, not canon bud.

I totally agree about them not being able to use their entire power though, but the point I was making is that Mab could have crushed them because there was no way that they could have used their full powers as the one Fallen that we do know who was involved was limited in that way.

On the respect thing, yea once again I agree, I phrased what I was saying badly I suppose. What I meant was that when Mab was speaking about the Uriel and his compatriots it felt more like she was evaluating her peers and not her favored pet or someone who can squash her with a thought. Still no text to support it either way so we can throw opinions back and forth until our fingers go numb.

 

Opps my bad.

Its hard to keep Shezza stuff and Canon separate.

Actually with any kind of probably not happening luck we might have an answer to the power thing. I went to Butcher's website and send a question in through the questions link. Probably wont get an answer but maybe.

 

Just to go back to an earlier point - the Black Council were at Bianca's party (Harry noticed them as two black figures and thought they were bodyguards, I think) so it's not without reason that we can say they provided her with the dagger. They do have a tendency to give away gifts of great power (the dagger, the hexenwulfen belts, ThreeEye) so we can assume they have a lot of magical backing.

Off topic: I would lol so much if the Black Council turned out to be the Venatori Umbrorum.

 

Summer Knight, page 269, English paperback. About Mab and Titania.

 

Oh cool, thanks Ryuugi.

 

I stand corrected.

 

The Dagger was a gift to Bianca from Cowl IIRC. This definitely gives weight to the idea that the White Council was trying to mess with the fae courts, since it was this gift that led Mab to own Dresden's debt. It maybe that their initial plot failed, leading to the Arctis Tor attack by the Black Council.

My £.0.02

 

Here's something from Butcher that was posted over on his forums about the whole Arctis Tor thing.

Interesting stuff, it doesn't really say anything about Lea but it's interesting none-the-less.

 

Are you sure they were talking about Mab and Titania? I thought they were talking about the Mothers instead of the Queens.