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Why does it have to be Dresden's child?

I mean it's certainly possible, but we just got done with a storyline directly relating to Dresden sacrificing everything for his child. I rather doubt that Butcher would turn around and do the same thing again (thematically speaking).

Besides, it was said it's a birthday, and unless my interpretations of the timeline is all kinds of off, any child between Dresden and Mab would be like 4 months old at moment. Kind of an odd time to have a birthday, don't you think?

My guess is that it's going to be Maeve's birthday, and she's going to attempt to influence/assume control of Dresden in order to establish herself as the overarching antagonist for the book.

 

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My guess is it's Harry's birthday, and this where he'll find out just how long his recuperation took.

 

I hadn't even thought of that; that's a kinda awesome idea. Here's to hoping that's how it actually plays out.

 

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I doubt it's his b-day. The last scene of GS takes place in May. Add the 77 day of recuperation, plus a few extra where he could have been unconscious and not know it and that takes him to September at the most.
Then again with how time works in faerie nothing is certain.
My personal bet is that the party is for Maeve. The perfect opportunity for Mab to present Harry with his first assignment.

 

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Cat Sith's scorn for Dresden's lack of knowledge about whose birthday it was wouldn't fit if it were Maeve's birthday, though.

 

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Maybe it's Mab's birthday. If she even still celebrates those things at this point.

 

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Someone mentioned killing Maeve bringing about an imbalance that would leave Winter at a disadvantage. What if it didn't though? What if instead of Maeve someone nastier and more powerful took her place. Someone who is already only second in power to Mab ... someone like Lea?

 

That's what i was expecting. Loosing one queen isn't really a problem, when they're quite easily replaced.

 

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The queens may be but Lea is not. She already has power near, if not on par, with Maeve and as a free agent (so to speak) she has a lot less restrictions on how she may act. Unless Maeve is still actively plotting against Mab I don't see it.

 

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Do we actually know that Lea is more free to act? We know that the more power you have the more restrictions there tend to be (unless you're mortal) so it might be that Lea is already less free to act, but that's pretty speculative.

This would fit Mabs SOP, by WoJ we know that if she had to sacrifice every single creature in Winter to forward the goals of Winter than she would do so without even blinking, sacrificing a single underling to be replaced by a significantly more powerful one seems likely to help Winter long term (although by that logic their is still one less powerful player for Winter ... so who knows).

Also, in the next chapter its mentioned that the Wylde Fae are going to be there, anyone else thinking we might see the Erlking again?

 

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You've got to think of it in terms of net gain. It would suck to lose Maeve (assuming she's not already hurting Winter with her nonsense), but it'd be worth it to replace her with someone who's already stronger than she is. It's the same thing as with the Knights, except on a larger scale. Maeve is powerful, sure, but how much of that is her power and how much of that is the mantle of Queen That Will Be?

If Mab could manage to replace both her shitty Knight and her shitty Lady with two powerhouses in quick succession, it would be huge. Think about it. Strip the four of them of the power of their mantles, and Harry and Lea would tear Fix and Lily to shreds in the blink of an eye.

If anything, it would tip the scales in Winter's favor.

 

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And we already know that Lea is beholden to Mab and has an interest in keeping Dresden not-dead. This could be Mab consolidating power and snipping loose ends so that she can deal with whatever hurt her. For my money, Oberon is going to at least get a mention soon.

 

deletedelete

 

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I agree completely and that really the point I was aiming to make. I tossed that last bit out mostly as a 'but this other side of things too'.

 

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I think there's a bit more to it than simply Mab going insane. If I recall, she was really really angry at something the last couple of books. So angry that she wouln't even speak (or it would've destroyed Dresden or something). I think this is something more bigger, and if the plan is indeed to replace Maeve with Lea, it has something to do with whatever got her so upset in the first place.

 

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If I remember correctly, Mab used Grimalkin as her voice, because such was her fury that it made Dresden writhe in agony and bleed from his ears etc whenever she spoke.

On a sidenote: I am really happy that Dresden was elevated into heavyweight league through becoming the winter Knight - we might finally learn what was happening in the meantime behind the curtains: who exactly are the players (in the Black Council), how did the other side cheat etc...

 

This part we already know, Uriel explained it at the end of Ghost Story. Lasciel was the shadow that whispered to him after he broke his back. She took direction action, thus she cheated and allowed Uriel to whisper seven words to Dresden after he was "resurrected".

It was never Mab going insane. Mab was hurt in the last few books, and as a consequence she was so unabashedly furious that she couldn't control herself enough to risk speaking in Dresden's presence. Most likely, she was injured in the attack on Arctis Tor mentioned in Proven Guilty.

I'm hoping that starting in this book, we'll see Dresden hunting down those involved, if only because that means we can finally see a bit more about what's going on with the Black Council.

 

I still can't decide on that. The options I see at this point are basically:

1) Mab was wounded by Thorned Namshiel during the assault on Arctis Tor. Given the way she responded to his name, and the disappearance of his coin from Demonreach, I find this one most likely.

2) Mab was wounded by Harry in an indirect manner when he used Summer Fire on the Winter Wellspring. This is mostly speculation, but given the name of the thing, its placement in what amounts to the most secure room in Arctis Tor and the way Fix (was it Fix?) reacted when Harry told him, I think the Wellspring fills a very important role in the Winter Court... and Harry threw Summer Fire at it.

3) Mab wasn't wounded at Arctis Tor. The least likely of the three, but still possible. If Mab had been wounded during the attack then why would she be willing to stand around pretending to be a statue and winking at Harry? Remember that there were no bodies above the ground floor of the fortress and that this is Mab we're talking about. There has to be something else going on here that would make an attack on Mab at the centre of her power actually possible. Something like a Dragon or an unbound Fallen attacking, at least, I'd imagine.