I knew that Mab will want to eliminate some of her enemies now that Dresden is her Knight, but I didn't see that one coming. Can't wait to read it.

 

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I honestly thought for a second that Amaris had exposed Maeve early. :facepalm

That said, it's an interesting development. It either reinforces the idea of Mab going insane or gives new meaning to the events of Summer Knight - specifically, Slate, who Maeve hired (right?) betraying Winter.

 

Dammit! I believe you people are screwing with us, but I WILL NOT CLICK IT!

 

I agree. It's because it only "spoils" the beginning hook, instead of the resolution of it.

 

Wait, wait!

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Why can't Mab kill Maeve herself? I mean, she isn't forbidden from killing her, is she? I need to do a re-read. <_<

And I agree, not that big of a spoiler, really.

 

Oddly, based on some of the things we saw in Summer Knight, I'm now less concerned about Harry swinging out of his weight class, and more interested in how this will affect the world at large. Everything just seems so much... bigger now.

 

Holy frickin' crap. Not sure how he's going to pull that off or why, but DAMN IT. I like that character.

 

I can think of a few reasons. Spoilered just in case.

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She has been after Harry as her knight for ages. He is immensely powerful, well regarded by a large number of younger wardens, and now the majority of wardens, with the deaths of so many in the previous war. He killed a Signatory. Not just some members, but the entire group.

That's insane level power right there. He might have had special circumstances, but he wiped an entire Signatory off the face of the universe.

If he can add another Fae Queen to his CV, he'll seem even more bad-ass. Not just because he will have killed this one himself, and without the help of a horde of lesser fae armed with box cutters. Not only that, but HIS queen, one who could force him to stop.

"oh, hey there. I'm Harry Dresden. I've raised a T-Rex from the dead. I killed the Red Court. I completely destroy Outsiders. I led an attack on Arctis Tor when just a simple Wizard. I'm personal friends with the Archive. I killed Summer's Queen-to-be, and Winter's as well. Whilst under the Winter Mantle. I babysat the Swords of the Cross. Uriel comes over for a chat now and then. I gave a Fallen Angel a soul. I bound myself to Demonreach. I came back from the dead, after killing a necromancer, whilst I was a ghost.

Oh, and I totally banged Karrin Murphy."


Okay, the addition of killing Maeve doesn't really add much to that, from an outsider perspective. But for someone who has lived under threat of fae 'justice', or bargains, or who's just lived with them for a while?

I can see people just going "fuck it, not going there"

 

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Could also be that Mab is pregnant after boinking Harry in Changes. Maybe she's killing The Queen To Be in order to prepare another?

 

Well-played, madam. Well-played indeed.

EDIT: And how did we let Jimmy slip in and out of here unmolested? (And yes, that sounds bad)

 

My reaction was "Oh snap! Shit just got real!", and now I'm more excited to read it than ever, so yeah, good spoiler.

Zeelthor's idea for the reason would be cool,

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but I doubt Mab would replace Maeve unless she knew for sure the replacement would be far stronger...

 

This made me go and read it, and im still not sure whether I think it was worth it or not.

Depends how big the reveal in the books was meant to be.

Either way, this is definitely looking interesting now.

 

Well, we already knew

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that Harry was going to kill an immortal. That's a pretty short list of characters right there.

 

I'll be honest.

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I was really hoping that Harry was going to have to kill something truly immortal instead of just a being. As in, instead of killing Fix he'd kill the mantle of Summer Knight, or instead of Maeve he'd kill the Winter Queen That Will Be. Something that you can't really comprehend killing, unlike Maeve where you can pretty much just say "lol iron" and be done with it.

This is pretty cool too, though.

 

The fact that

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she can say 'lol frozen water in your eyes' like Mab did

makes it much more interesting than what you're implying but that is an interesting idea all the same.

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I just remembered, the knights serve all 3 of the queens. I wonder what type of conflicting situations that's going to bring about.

I've gotta agree with Cheddar, when I first saw this last week it got me even more excited than I had been for this book.

 

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Kinda agree. Not that I don't mind this, but from the whole "kill immortal" thing, I too got the idea that Harry was supposed to kill someone who was normally supposed to be truly unkillable. Maeve is not that. She is ageless yes, but NOT immortal. Auroras death already proved how very "mortal" Maeve and the ladies are. She is just as immortal as your average vampire or denarian. That is to say, she will live on forever until someone kills her.

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I think its been made clear that the power difference between Mab and Maeve (queens and ladies) is humongous. Aurora could not do that even to book 4 Harry, and Maeve was easily scared of Harry when he made a few subtle threats in book 7. And that was before soulfire. Before winter knights mantle. Before massive boost in experience. And ignoring the incredibly easy way Maeve would be to kill with iron. Truthfully, the question we should be asking is, whats Maeve got boosting her that actually makes her a credible threat and worth it for Mab to send Harry to kill her rather than just instakilling Maeve herself.

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Probably nothing if Mab is serious IMHO. As a queen, her orders would surely override any of of Maeves. All Mab would have to say, "your duty to me, your queen, is not to listen to any order of Maeves" and its game over for Maeve. Not to mention the fact that thanks to Uriel, Harry already proved that he has the power to choose to obey or not against Mab, who again is massively more everything than Maeve.

 

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IIRC Aurora didn't do anything to Harry there at the end because of the horde of iron wielding pixies that was swooping in to gank her (it's been awhile since I read Summer Knight though).

I'd taken Maeve reacting to Harrys threats as nothing more than her humoring him and letting him think that he had the upper hand. I believe Elaine asked something along these lines in Summer Knight, 'You didn't really buy her act did you?' or something similar. I never take any reaction like that from one of them as being the whole or even real story. YMMV

While she and Mab are quite different in relative power levels (we know Lea is number 2 in all of winter as well), I'm not sure if we really know enough about where they actually stand to state that. It's been awhile since I read Summer Knight but based off of Lea's performance in Changes (taking on a large number of the Lords of Outer Night at once) if Maeve is even close to that range than she is serious business.

Regardless, be really interesting to see how it plays out.

 

To be honest, Aurora's death is one of the things that annoyed me most in the series. How hard could it have been for her to conjure up a gale of wind or something?

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About my earlier theory. If Mab is pregnant, I'm assuming Maeve wouldn't play nice with her new sibling. Maybe she's acting with the element of surprise still at hand.