Quote Originally Posted by BRC View Post
Okay...so....wow
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First things first, I have to get this off my chest:

Jim, We get it, Fairy ladies are pretty. I know that having the narrator ogle some smoking dame is somewhat required here, but cut down on the number of dames if you would.

Alright, beyond that. Molly is now Winter Lady...Did not see that coming...and I accidentally opened up a spoiler tag in this thread before I started reading, so I KNEW it was coming.

I don't think I fully understand the mechanics though.
So, if a Faerie Queen dies, the Mantle passes to the nearest acceptable host, or "Vessel". If a Knight dies, it goes to the nearest queen, who then bestows it upon a willing mortal.
Okay, I get that.

When The 'Za Lord's Guard killed Aurora, Lily (A changeling of Summer, who I believe may have been the summer Knight at the time) got the mantle and became the Summer Lady, then she gave Fix the mantle of Summer Knight.

I get that.

So, how the hell does Molly count as a potential vessel? Lily was a changeling, already with one metaphysical foot in the nevernever. Molly is a mortal (wizard) human who spent a few months being trained by Leah. Why does the Mantle snap over to her? Does Mab get to pick who the mantle goes to? What even makes somebody an acceptable Queen?


Also, WMG time.

Demonreach calls Harry "Warden", at first we think it's because that's what Harry was, a warden of the white council.
Later, he learns that he's literally the Warden for the biggest Jar of Sealed Evil this side of Rl'yeh.
Why do I think that there isn't really a distinction. The Wardens are the foot soldiers for the White Council, founded by Merlin, who also built the island.

Maybe the White Council just forgot, or were made to forget, it's true purpose.
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While I agree that the thing with Molly felt like a bit of an ass-pull, I think that Leah was supposed to somehow be molding Molly during that time, specifically with the idea of turning her into a vassal of Winter in case of just this sort of eventuality.

And I think you're exactly right about the Warden vs. warden thing, and I think that's what's pretty heavily implied in the story; that the Wardens or even the entire White Council were first organized to guard Demonreach, and just sort of lost their purpose over time.

I do have one thing that's been bugging me about Demonreach though: why there? Why in the middle of Lake Michigan? Because while it makes sense in the context of Dresden's story, in that of course it's close to Chicago, why would Merlin, a most likely European wizard, put his prison in the middle of North America? Especially when considering that in the time-frame involved, Columbus hadn't even discovered the New World yet? I know that distances like that aren't exactly the same for a wizard, and that perhaps the fact that it was so far from most of the large civilizations of the time was the entire point, but it just strikes me as a little odd.