That was the one that came to mind first. I'm sure she offered it again in other books.

But anyway, since Harry is already pretty much enslaved to her will, that one favor (if it still exists) is pretty much useless.

 

I'm just wondering why the sex was apparently needed as part of the ritual. Butcher didn't need to make it part of it, unless he was going to make it important at a later date.

 

It's a traditional part of many rituals - more in speculative fiction than genuine mythology or religion - with the concept of giving something in exchange for the goal of the ritual. A bit of give and take.

My personal opinion was always that Butcher wanted to make the acceptance of the mantle something more significant than "kthxbai", and needed to give it a sort of ceremony in its own right. What act is appropriate to the whimsical natures of the fae, within Dresden's moral boundaries, and of a certain symbolic significance? A good old fashioned fucking.

It fit in nicely with the frantic, desperate mindset of Dresden as he sought his child, and stayed a fairly active, fast-paced way of exchanging the power of winter without reducing it to just passing over a box of shiny sparkly magic. The transfer was made important, intimate, and struck Dresden where he was most vulnerable - showing both his intimate association with and vulnerability to the winter fae

I imagine that Butcher intended it to be both an allegorical and literal representation of Dresden's desperation and a way of lending ceremony to the transfer of power. He could have been foreshadowing future events; he's talked around the subject of little things from even the earliest of books leading up to the final books in the series, so he's obviously big on the whole foreshadowing deal.

Or maybe Princess Snowflake thought he was hot and Butcher wanted to show us how something so life-shattering to Dresden meant nothing more than a quick fuck to the fae. Both because Dresden means little to them in the grand scheme of things, as they are so far above human, even a human like him, and because of the nature of the fae.

 

Wait a minute, when was it ever stated that the Knight becomes a slave to the Queen's will? Sure Titania binds Fix not to reveal any Summer Court hush hush business to Harry, but I was always under the impression that Fix could defy the queen if he chose to do so. Slate does this as well, and Maeve even has to keep him drugged up to control him.

Of course there may be severe consequences to disobeying Mab, but Harry chose this as the lesser of a ton of evils for a reason, right?

 

Let's think on that for a second. Sex is one of the most intimate acts that can be done, and how does that scene end again? Mab ends it saying "MINE", which is then broadcast to all of Faerie's or some such. Mab gets him to his most vulnerable, most intimate, and claims him in full view of most of her subjects and enemies just so everyone knows that Dresden is officially her bitch.

 

It's mentioned in Small Favor I believe (though I can't remember the specific book, the scene I'm thinking of is Harry being "warned" by Fix, who's wielding a shotgun, in Thomas' Hummer outside a donut place). It's mentioned that Fix literally cannot disobey a direct order from Titania. There's no mention of punishments, if I remember correctly, instead they say that he can't disobey the letter of her orders.

On the topic of Slate: He never disobeyed Mab, as far as we know. He was plotting with Maeve, but we've never seen evidence of, and I'm willing to bet he was never given explicit orders to not work against her best interests (or he found some kind of loophole like Fix did with the warning).

I could be wrong, but the impression I always got is that the Knights are bound to obey to the letter any orders from the Queen(s?), but in all other cases have free will.

 

Slate was working with Aurora, which is treason in pretty much every way you can think of it when it comes to Summer/Winter relations. So even if he didn't directly disobey Mab, he still worked against Winter in plotting with Aurora and thus became a traitor to the Court.

True, the Knights have free will up to a point, since that's their entire purpose; to have the freedom to interact fully with the mortal world where the Queens can not. If the Queens take away that free will they are in effect crippling the Knight and themselves.

 

Yea, I meant Aurora, and working against Mab's interests, weird brainfart there. The point is, it's highly likely that Slate was never explicitly ordered to never work against Mab/Winter, thus he was free to do so, or if he was, he found some way to work around it (in the summer knight specific example, it could have been convincing himself that since Aurora was trying to get Winter to win, he was acting in Mab's interests).

All we really have to go on as hard evidence, as far as I know, is that Fix couldn't disobey Titania in Small Favor. That leads me to believe it's a fairly blanket condition with the Knights.

 

So, I was re-reading Blood Rites today & sorry to go off the current topic, but from my understanding Murphy is stilled owed a favour by Lara & the White Court.

So, any speculations on when she'll cash it in, or what she'll do? Maybe she'll try & get Dresden back that way? I haven't read the short story yet so I have no idea if she called it in or not, but just thought I'd throw it out on the table.

Also, Ace killing Harry kind of makes sense, given the fact he was allowed to live, but he was bribed by Maeve, I think? So if he's still working for Maeve, things could be more interesting.

 

Or it could be that Mab had little to do with Slate since he was inducted into the Court by Maeve herself (from Mab's That's the last time I let her hire the help comment). Can't order someone you don't see too often.

 

Maybe the Knights are deliberately left able to make decisions for themselves; then they can fuck shit up deniably and then their respective Queen waggles her finger disapprovingly for the benefit of public relations. They're the main wetworkers of their respective Court, so they'd almost have to be able to act against the wishes of their Queen in case they fuck up and the Queen has to deny all knowledge for the sake of political relations or obeying the Accords. She wouldn't be able to do that if the Knight couldn't work against her.

 

The Knights are the public face of the Faerie Queens, they're the method the Queens use to display their power in more direct ways, not to be the behind the scenes assassins and the likes. Mab has plenty of beings that are much more suited for those things than just a single Knight (the Fetches being the stated ones).

Just look at Changes; even if Harry wasn't technically her Knight he still had the power of one and was essentially doing Mab's bidding in wiping out the Red Court for their trespassing into her territory during Dead Beat or Proven Guilty (can't remember which). Nothing in that scenario screams wetworks man to me... Especially since pretty much all Fae are designed to kill things in one way or another.

Nah, it seems to me that the Knights are more of a public relations/show of power hybrid than that. After all, if you want a mortal, stealthy, assassin Harry Dresden is not the person you want for the job.

 

Fix was under a certain cumpulsion - an edict, if you will - slapped on him by Titania. like the wily little minx he is, Fix found away to work around Titty's will, by being a Fae at heart and only adgering to the letter of said edict.

This pretty much cements that, "If the boss-lady didn't say don't, I can." The Knights, despite the mantles they carry, are still mortal, and as such, can't ever be 100% controlled. The plausible deniability angle makes a lot of sense.

@BSB - Ace was doing the Red Court's dirty work, because he was up the same Shit Creek as Lily, Fix and Meryl - having to Choose soon, and not liking any of his options - or, none of his options liking him.

Wait - thought. Ace's favoured weapon was a high-powered sniper rifle. Harry took such a rifle's shot from a sedan while standing out front of the FBI building. We always assumed it was the Eebs, but... huh. Maybe nothing.

 

This has been covered in the books already. If there is a part of you that wants to take up the Coin then you'll have subconsciously accepted a part of it into yourself if you touch it in any way, just as how Harry didn't consciously choose to pick up the coin when he covered it to protect baby Harry from it. Thus the Shadow is born. It also explains why either Uriel or Cassius' curse stopped the Coin from touching Harry in Small Favor, because he'd have subconsciously allowed a Shadow back into his head if it had.

 

The way I always read it was that as long as someone acts to acquire the coin, the Fallen joins them, but if, for example, someone chucks it at a random passerby, it doesn't do anything (assuming said passerby doesn't pick it up).

 

Who says he'd have to be stealthy?

I mean, look at Ebenezer. In his work as the Blackstaff (The Council's Wetworks man), what has he done? Krakatoa, Tunguska, and there was this time he pulled a satellite out of orbit and dropped it on a house. As far as I see it, he just has to not be blatant about it and walk around telling people that yes, he did in fact cause a volcano to erupt so he could wack a few people.

Doesn't seem very stealthy to me, lol.

 

True, though to be fair nobody is actually supposed to know about the Blackstaff. At all. Last I checked Winter Knight was a pretty well known position.

 

There is a difference between being doing big shit and not be stealthy. It is possible to do something big and loud that everyone sees and knows about in a stealthy way. You make sure that while everyone sees what happened they dont see you doing it. Ebenezar McCoy is one of the strongest and most dangerous wizards in the world, but how many people, angels, fae, etc.. would every think he did those things if they didnt know he was the Blackstaff? Its like a sniper killing someone important from a mile and a half away with one shot. Its big, messy, and everyone knows about it, but no one knows who did it.

 

Which is why I said it would work as long as Harry wasn't blatant about it and advertised the fact that he did it. He's more then powerful enough to do any of those things, and as long as he doesn't drop, say, a block of ice on someone, they wouldn't attribute it to the Winter Knight.