So after watching Unlimited Blade Works and beating Bioshock Infinite my brain won't shut up about atemporality, the condition of being unfixed in time. It being Christmas my head went to the great maker of being unbound by time and space.
But I'm not here to talk God.
I am a Dresden Files fanboy. And the most powerful characters in that series tend to be part of thier own Trinities. Up until now those Trinities have been mostly played as separate characters but Cold Days and Skin Game hint they might not fully be.
It's something the series always says but then more or less ignores for the sake of simplicity. Mab, Maeve, and Mother Winter are the same person. To a point anyway. The series also notes the role of mantles and that in the case of those three the mantle of Winter Lady, Winter Queen, and Winter Mother are more important than any of them as individuals. That the mantle defines them more than anything else.
And the series thoughts a huge giant curve ball at that by turning Harry's apprentice Molly Carpenter into the new Winter Lady.
After considering that Robert and Rosalind Lutece are literally the same person in different bodies.
wibbly wobbly timeywhimey, I started thinking about the Winter Trinity.
Aside: Robert and Rosalind are quantum twins, Rosalind a mad scientist decided her ideal partner would herself so she hijacked an alternate dimension's male version of herself, but the game says that the mind has trouble dealing with crossing dimensions and reconciling original memories with older ones. So Robert would have the same memories, experiences and by extension eventually to a point at least the same identity as his quantum twin Rosalind. Which is why they say it would be weirder if they didn't finish each other's sentences later in the game. It's a way of quickly acknowledging they are indeed literally the same person without dwelling on it.
The books have said that Maeve would have eventually become a literal copy of Mab, who would have become a literal copy of Mother Winter. And Molly is already starting to become a literal copy of Maeve in appearance at least.
I contend that all four of them are the same person unstuck in time.
Furthermore the books have said that Maeve is Mab's literal daughter. At some point she gave birth to herself. But she had another. Sarrissa who would go on to become the Summer Lady. and if what I just said holds true for both Summer and Winter that whole group of characters would also be different incarnations of the same person, including Lilly and Aurora.
But the most striking case of it is Molly and Maeve. Maeve the
And more over both of them react more or less the same way to it. Maeve eventually trying to murder Harry and Molly viewing the incident as a cruel embarrassment undermining her admiration of her mentor.
Cold Days spends a lot of time drawing parallels between the two but beyond that is Maeve's death the symbolic death of Molly's hedonism. And if that's the case what does it say about the deaths of Aurora and Lilly? Or that Maeve killed or at least had a hand in killing both.
Remember at the time we first meet both of those characters Molly would have been a preteen living under her mother's Charity's supervision. And while flawed both of those versions are the naive of the Winter and Summer Trinity's.
Furthermore Molly has had her share of parental issues as have pretty much anybody in that bunch who's worn the mantle of lady. Maeve is written in Cold Days as more or less a straight dark Mirror for Molly's darker impulses but it's also easy to view Aurora in the same mold desperately trying to gain Titania's affection.
Among winter all three/four incarnations have shown some affection, albeit in different ways for Harry and the more I think about it the more I think it might actually be different aspects of the same affection.
Moreover even Titania's the Summer Queen's anger over Harry's murder of her daughter Aurora is so encompassing that it's easy to believe it might not just be "her" anger but a manifestation of all of the complicated interactions all of her selves have had with this guy.
Now there is a question of how aware each of the aspects are of this. Does Mab remember being Maeve? Does she remember being Molly? Almost every every scene between her and Harry is filled with sexual tension. Could that be an extension and evolution of Molly's infatuation? Mab has said that although she isn't human now she was at one point. At the time I thought her transfiguration would have been in the long long ago but what if it were more recent. Again if she is unstuck in time when exactly she became Mab might be irrelevant in the first. She could have been born Molly Carpenter but still exist even before that,
It also makes sense why Mab would want Harry for the role of winter so bad. Being her mentor he may indeed be the one the mantle was created for with the rest being pale imitations. Also it would explain Leanansidhe's loyalty to Mab in the first place. If Lea's bargain as Harry's fairy godmother extended to Molly it would also extend to the rest of her future incarnations, mostly Mab.
We know that such atemporality exists in the universe because the prison on Demon Reach was created at multiple points in the stream.
It would also explain some of the differences in their personalities. Both Mab and Maeve are vindictive and dangerous but Mab has rules. Maeve may be Mab before she came up with those rules.
Furthermore If Mother Winter and Mother Summer are basically quasi-eternal atemporal versions of each of these characters then it makes sense why they are so secretive, tight lipped and to a point fatalistic.
They are almost always resigned to the plot and the most unwilling to do anything to change it. Possibly because they already lived it. They already know all this.
P.S. I forgot to mention when Molly wants to compartmentalize complex tasks she visualizes different versions of herself in her mind. Just something to add to my thoughts.
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