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WARNING! Due to the books relying heavily on mystery and surprise, the pages would be virtually unreadable with excessive spoiler tags. Therefore, all spoilers except for the most recent novel (Battle Ground) are UNMARKED. Tread carefully.



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     In General 
Exactly as the name implies, these guys are The Fair Folk. They're mostly divided into the warring Summer and Winter Courts, with those outside the Courts known as "wyldfae". The Fae are ruled by a Byzantine series of laws and restrictions that govern how various members of each Court can act, but they have become masters at working within these restrictions. For example, as a rule they Cannot Tell a Lie, but they're absolutely ruthless rules lawyers about Exact Words, and being in debt to a faerie is... bad, to say the least. They range in power from the relatively harmless (pixies) to the greater-than-godlike (Mother Summer and Mother Winter). Luckily for the Puny Earthlings, all Fae have an Achilles' Heel: iron and steel will burn them and cut through their magic instantly.
  • Achilles' Heel:
    • Iron and any alloy thereof (most commonly steel), which is considered the equivalent of toxic waste. Leaving iron objects in Faerie is considered a dire insult.
    • Overall, the Fae are noted for having a wide range of weaknesses, some very specific, and some seemingly quite arbitrary. Getting around these weaknesses and limitations is what makes the fae so damned dangerous and such effective manipulators.
  • Always Chaotic Evil: Played interestingly in regards to Winter. They're pretty much all harsh, brutal, and unforgiving owing to the nature of the power they're aligned with, but the books also plainly establish that they aren't evil in a metaphysical sense like the Fallen, Outsiders, and other demons. And then in Cold Days it turns out Winter exists to protect the rest of reality from the much, much nastier Outsiders, which blows this trope pretty much out of the water while simultaneously giving a really good explanation for why Winter fae need to be what they are.
  • All Men Are Perverts/All Women Are Lustful: Faeries are frequently shown to be incredibly lustful and desirable for humans, and it also seems to work vice-versa, with changelings (Half Human Hybrids of faeries and humans) being mentioned as surprisingly common. However, "Cold Cases" deconstructs this, revealing that the Winter Court has such a high sex drive because they need to constantly produce soldiers to defend the Outer Gates, and in turn the Summer Court has a high sex drive for defending mortals from Winter.
  • Balance Between Good and Evil: A very deliberate case. The violence and cruelty of the Winter Court is a Necessary Evil created to protect reality from Outsider incursions, while the Lighter and Softer Summer Court exists mainly to protect everyone else from the Winter Court.
  • Balance of Power: Summer and Winter operate in a perpetual balancing act. As one gains power over the year, the other loses, until the summer solstice or winter solstice, when things move in the other direction. If one side gains or loses too much power and the imbalance isn't corrected, the two Courts may end up going to war.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: The Fae tend to grant favors in ways that the people requesting them definitely don't expect (or like). In Summer Knight, for example, a trumpeter in the big band performing for Maeve reels off an incredible solo and drops dead immediately afterward. He'd told her he'd die to play that well, and she held him to his word.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality:
    • Fairies are quite moral, generally speaking. Problem is, their morality is convoluted, arcane, and only occasionally intersects with regular human morality (in particular, they have very strong senses of honor and obligation, and are psychologically - or in the cases of previously-human fae, physically - incapable of telling direct lies, but they have real problems with things like "empathy" and "not manipulating everyone around you for some obscure goal", and in many cases literally can't do a good turn for someone else without a bargain being struck, even if they want to give the favor for free). This is, in fact, the chief problem in dealing with either faction - what they promise and what you thought they promised are rarely the same thing.
    • It also goes with how they deal with those who injure them. It may be a strange connection, but as Harry notes in "Curses", there is always a logic to their madness. It makes sense to them. That King Gwynn was banished from a Chicago Cubs game for being a bad smelling goat was enough of a personal insult to a baseball-fanatic that the curse on the Cubs is right and justified (well, at least until he got over the anger from being kicked out).
  • Bride and Switch: Or possibly Groom and Switch. Either way, it can happen and is usually to the misfortune of the mortal. A marriage ceremony is powerful binding agreement and if the mortal weds the fae, the fae can change the mortal to his or her desires.
  • Cannot Tell a Lie: No faerie can lie. As in not being able to tell an outright falsehood. Under no circumstances, however, should that be taken to mean that they're not capable of deception by any variety of other means, including Exact Words, careful omission of important details, or phrasing that can be easily misinterpreted. Nemesis is a game-changer, giving infected faeries the ability to lie outright. It doesn't necessarily make them good at it, but since no one familiar with the fae expects them to be able to tell an outright untruth, that doesn't matter much.
    • From the point of view of an archangel such as Uriel, however, Mab's Metaphorically True statements about things like the parasite, to manipulate Harry at the end of Ghost Story, were deceptive enough that he could outright call them "lies."
  • The Champion/The Dragon: Both Courts have a Knight who serve as agents for the Queens to carry out their will in the mortal world, as the Queens are unable to directly harm or kill any mortal who does not first either attack them or otherwise represent the opposing Court. The Knights are mortals given some of the power of their Queen, making them far tougher, stronger, and swifter, as well as giving them powers related to their Court (i.e. the Summer Knight gaining power related to flame, while the Winter Knight gains power related to ice). In Cold Days, it is revealed that the Winter Knight is usually an assassin. The Summer Knight, on the other hand, is simply there to stop the Winter Knight.
  • The Chessmaster: Many of their plans are so incredibly complex that completely figuring out what the faeries were after the whole time is nearly impossible. The general rule of thumb is that once the fae get involved, things are about to become a whole lot more complex and problematic for everyone.
  • The Chooser of the One:
    • The senior Seelie and Unseelie crowns are implied to be this to the younger ones. Mab specifically chose and had trained two candidates to replace Maeve if Maeve refused to atone. Titania would have selected her own choice of Lady with the death of Aurora, had she been closer than Lily to take in the mantle.
    • Any of the Courts Queens may be the chooser of the Court's Knight, though they may disagree on the best choice.
  • Clap Your Hands If You Believe: A fae curse is susceptible to this power. If enough people believe in something counter to the curse and its drive, then mortal faith can overcome even the most potent of curses. King Gwynn's curse on the Chicago Cubs preventing them from winning the World Series could be overcome even if he regularly reapplies the curse.
  • Code of Honour: The Fae have a very strong belief in this. No fae can gain or lose freely. It must be traded for something of equal value. Lea, for instance, can only be second to Mab's power in her court because of payment in a deep fealty Lea has to Mab.
  • Cold Iron: Fae cannot touch iron without pain. Well, most of them. Mother Summer and Mother Winter use an iron cutting knife.
  • Combat Medic: In the battles against the Outsiders, Summer's role is this. They tend to the injured Winter soldiers. As Mother Summer noted, alliance has no meaning out here as they are all Fae protecting the world.
  • Complete Immortality: The six Queens are this. Shoot them. Cut up their bodies. Make them dust in the wind and they will comeback. It may take them a few years, but to a being who can live 1,000 centuries, a decade is not much. The only two methods known to fully kill them are on a battlefield made by the Queens that allows Immortals to die, or on the night of Halloween. And even then, killing them won't stop their mantle of power from entering some woman who has a power or personality best suiting that mantle and in due time a near copy of the old Queen will be back.
  • The Corruptible: For all their power and abilities, they are not above being corrupted by an ancient beyond-the-universe power known only as Nemesis. The worst part is it can befall them even when they fight it. However, it can be cured... though only through Cold-Blooded Torture and when the infectee is Fighting from the Inside.
  • The Corrupter:
    • If one has too much debt owed to a fae, the fae can override the freewill of the mortal and make the mortal act as the fae wishes, at least to a degree (Harry was able to fight off Lea in Grave Peril).
    • If one marries a fae, a similar result can happen. Entering into the pact willingly, even if the mortal doesn't know the truth, will lead to the fae having severe control over the mortal.
    • Further, when Jenny Greenteeth took Georgia's place at her wedding and enchanted Georgia to a mystic sleep needing Billy True Love's Kiss to wake her, if Billy kissed Jenny at the end of the ceremony, then he would have lost his power to save Georgia as his kiss would be corrupted by him wedding another.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: If you harm a Fae with iron, they will get angry. To kill one with iron is called the "iron death". And those it called friends or family will likely take harsh vengeance against the slayer.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: The Winter (Unseelie) Court generally represents coldness, darkness, and death. More often than not, they are considered the "evil" ones, as they tend to enjoy the pain they cause others. That said, death is a necessary part of nature to allow others a chance to grow, darkness can be just as much a protection for those in hiding, and all of Winter fights to defend reality from the Outsiders.
  • Debt Detester: The Fae, high and low, have a general dislike to a heavy degree being in the debt of any mortal as they are obliged to repay the debt. This is because they must maintain a balance. So any boon or injury must be settled with the like. However, it is a difficult thing to do if the obligation is open-ended or the action done is difficult to appraise.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: The fae of all courts love this trick. If they can get a mortal to be focused on the allure of the body and not on the conversation, either as a deterrent to their line of question or masking the danger the mortal is in, then the fae will flaunt it.
  • Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Generally speaking, insulting them is, in their eyes, an attack upon them and so an injury. They will repay this injury in time. Even small ones like Toot-toot was in Storm Front could do some nasty things if taunted.
  • Emotions vs. Stoicism: Titania describes the difference between herself and Mab this way. Mab cares about reason, logic, and plans. Unhindered by empathy and love. Titania meanwhile sees herself as a creature of emotion. Which is why she refuses to help Harry in Cold Days, knowing that not doing so may doom the world, she just can't bring herself to help the man who killed her daughter, even knowing rationally that said daughter had to be stopped.
  • Equivalent Exchange: Fundamental to their nature.
    • If you harm a faerie, they must harm you back. Obtain power from them, and they must gain power from you in return. If you make a deal based on something you provide then and there, you're not going to have a problem. But if you make an open-ended trade, then you're going to regret it. This is also why they don't like charity, as an act of kindness obligates them to return the favor.
      • Notably, however, debts can be passed from one person to another, like how Lea gives Harry's debt to Mab and Harry gives Lily's debt to Charity Carpenter.
    • The only way around this is if they provide a "necessity." This happens in Summer Knight when what Mother Winter provides Harry is needed for him to maintain balance between the Courts.
  • Everyone Has Standards:
    • There is a strict set of laws and procedures every fae must abide by while in service to one of the Courts. Even their mortal knights have to obey them to some extent or suffer the consequences. These laws include rules regarding the treatment of enemy prisoners; torture is prohibited, but in turn if an enemy surrenders, they are now bound to act as a vassal of their captor.
    • According to one of Gwynn ap Nudd's people, the Queens of Winter and Summer frown on killing of mortals. This is passed down to their courts and how humans should be treated if the fae is insulted or injured.
    • This is averted with the Wyldfae. They do not swear fealty to either side. They will engage in lethal action against mortals who anger them.
  • Exact Words: The Fae are bound by the exact letter of their word. As long as those words are fulfilled, nothing else matters. This is magically enforced by Faerie itself. If someone makes a boast or claim with enough will behind it, Faerie will regard it as a binding promise and hold the speaker to it, with consequences for failure.
  • The Exile: While uncommon, if a Sidhe noble breaks the Laws and Customs of his Court, then being banished from that Court and stripped of all titles and privileges is an acceptable punishment.
  • Fairy Sexy: Most of the fae (at least, those who are humanoid) are described as being very attractive.
  • Faerie Court: The Courts of the Fae play a fairly large role in the overall story arc. Both the Unseelie and Seelie courts require there to be three queens: the Queen who was (known as the Mother), the Queen Who Is (the true Queen) and the Queen Who Will Be (known as the Lady) with even the Lady being amongst the series' most powerful beings. In the event of one's death (which is itself virtually impossible) someone else must take up their mantle.
    • The Fairy Queens manifest the important roles of their courts (the Winter Court protects the universe from the Outsiders, the Summer Court protects the rest of existence from the Winter) as well as the seasons themselves. Likewise, both take heavy after the natures of their seasons. The Unseelie or Winter Court is ruled by Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, who in particular plays an important role in the narrative. Mab is ruthless and cold, but cunning and pragmatic. The Seelie or Summer Court is ruled by Queen Titania, who is warm and passionate but driven by emotion, being both short-sighted and ruthless.
    • Mother Winter and Mother Summer are a pair of sisters who are beyond ancient and possess powers far greater than any other fae. Mother Summer represents creation and life, while Mother Winter represents its natural end. Despite their conflicting natures, both live together and are overall personable, reasonable and benevolent.
    • The Lady of each courts acts as heir to the Queen and rules her own lesser court beneath. At the start of the series, Aurora is Lady of the Summer Court and Maeve is Lady of the Winter Count, their being the daughters of Mab and Titania respectively. Following Aurora's death, she is replaced by Lily, a former changeling; later, after her own death, Lily is replaced by Sarissa, Mab's other daughter. Meanwhile, Maeve is replaced after her own death by Molly Carpenter, Harry's former apprentice.
    • For the Unseelie, other prominent faerie nobles include the Leanansidhe, Mab's lady in waiting, second only in power to Mab herself and Harry's literal faerie godmother. The Fetches, led by the Eldest Fetch, are Queen Mab's elite spies and assassins. For the Seelie there are the Gruffs, a series of brothers who act as Titania's enforcers, with Eldest Gruff being her personal advisor and ersatz therapist post-Small Favor.
    • Other Faerie courts and rulers exist amongst the Wyldfae, fae who live outside of the two main Courts. These include the Erlking, the Lord of the Goblins and leader of The Wild Hunt, acknowledged by Mab herself as her contemporary. Kris Kringle, aka Santa Claus, aka Odin, is Mab's counterpart and represents the more compassionate side to Winter (as the Erlking represents the crueler side of summer). There is also King Gwynn ap Nudd, a minor faerie king of Welsh fey.
  • The Fair Folk: With the Seelie and Unseelie courts ruling half the year each, as well as a variety of Wyld Fae, the Fae of the Dresden-verse can range from kind and considerate to murderous monsters who take great pleasure in the kill. One should always be on edge near any of them, even if they appear to be your friend and want to help you.
  • Feel No Pain: The blessing and curse of the Winter and Summer Knight's Mantle. The bearer feels no pain from injuries, allowing the person to go to his or her limits in a fight without fear of holding back from pain. It is also theorized by Butters that this would make a Knight easy to kill if a Queen felt healing wouldn't be worth her effort.
  • Fighting a Shadow: Cold Days reveals that all of the Faerie Queens are immortal, except on Halloween and at the Stone Table. Even if blown to smithereens, they'll eventually regenerate.
  • Forever War: The Winter Court against the Outsiders to protect all of reality. And The Summer Court against Winter to protect humanity.
  • Friendly Enemy: Cold Days reveals that it's traditional for both Sidhe Knights to have this type of relationship, despite the Summer Knight often being murdered by his Winter counterpart. The same can be said of the Winter Sidhe that defend the Outer Gates, with Summer healing their wounds, despite existing to protect the world from Winter.
  • From a Certain Point of View: One of the many ways they get around a straight answer. It is implied to be part of their nature, as when Harry demands a straight answer from Maeve and Lily, they both give him looks of deep irritation and disgust, and it takes an obvious effort for them to reply.
  • Geas: When a mortal or fae owes a sufficient debt or loyalty to a Fae, the fae can place these upon the debtor. Such as in both Proven Guilty and Small Favor, when Titania forbade and magically restricted what the Summer Lady and Knight could say to Harry.
  • Human Weapon: The Winter Knight is trained to fight and survive not with any weapon in particular, like Fix's powerful sword, but rather be a weapon to ensure survival.
  • I Gave My Word: The Fae are bound by their word and when they give it they cannot go against it. That said, well, using a variety of answering from a certain point of view and abusing loopholes in the wording of the contract, even the friendliest of the Fae can fulfill the promise with giving the person very little of actual substantive material.
  • I Know Your True Name: Because faeries can't change their essential natures (unlike humans), their true names will stay the same and always have power over them.
  • Immortality: The Fae Queens and many other members of the Courts have this big time. Nothing done to them, whether you cut their heads off or grind them into dust, will kill them. They will come back from any assault unless one of two things is happening. First, the Queens create a realm where it can happen, such as Chicago-Over-Chicago (the site of the Final Battle in Summer Knight). Second, they can die on the night of Halloween, which lasts until the first birdsong of the next day.
  • Lady of War: The Queens and Ladies of Summer and Winter. All are described as wearing beautiful clothing, but come times of war, they will have out and be on the battlefields themselves. None are afraid to get their hands bloody if need be.
  • Legacy Character: invoked How the Mantles of the Faerie Courts work. As soon as the faerie representing a certain rank within the Sidhe Courts is killed, than the nearest representative of Summer or Winter takes up that rank and (more or less) becomes no different than the original person. For instance, Word of God has stated that if, say, Cat Sith was Killed Off for Real, than the next-oldest Malk in existence would become the next Cat Sith and even, given enough time, gain the same personality as the previous Cat Sith.
  • Light Is Not Good: The Summer (or Seelie) Court tends towards powers of growth, warmth, and light, and are often considered the "nicer" of the two. This does not mean they're "good". Take note of Mother Summer, who acts like a warm, loving grandmother and she cuddles over jars containing the deadliest plagues known to man as one would a favored pet or picture of a grandchild.
  • Magical Database: If Toot's words in Cold Days of just "knowing" Winter Law and Molly's ability to access it in "Cold Case" are the same for all, then any vassal of their Queen will know what Mab's Law and Titania's Law are. A vassal can mentally pose the question to the Law and receive the desired information, whether it is the treatment of prisoners, or the details of a treaty and the tribute one side has agreed to in exchange for protection. There doesn't seem to be any payment for accessing this knowledge beyond simple servitude to their Queen. This also means even trying to break the Law and the Law will respond swiftly. It is unknown if human knights have the same access.
  • Magically-Binding Contract: Any deal they make will fall under this. Few things can get one out of a debt to a Fae, besides paying them what is owed. Transferring the debt is possible, but not even one of the Knights of the Cross has the power to undo a contract made by a free-willed mortal.
  • Malicious Misnaming: They are the Fae, or Sidhe. Do not call them Faeries. That is seen as a deep cutting insult akin to any number of racial or biological slurs. At one point, Harry analogizes it to calling a human an "ape" - Technically accurate, but also really dickish to say.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Masters of controlling people through subtle means.
  • Moment Killer: The Ladies' Mantles will act as needed to keep their bearers a Maiden up to and including attacking their sexual partner, even if it would be consensual on the Lady's part.
  • Nature Spirit: Both sides are essentially this. Summer holds domain over fire, earth, light, and life. Winter holds domain over water, wind, darkness, and death. Every fae works under at least one of these categories.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Related to I Know Your True Name above, for those whose names aren't known, their titles and nicknames work as well, though maybe not as effective.
  • Politically-Active Princess: The Ladies of Summer and Winter are this. They are the youngest and have the most connection to the human world. Their exact duties haven't been described but they are obligated to some tasks they must fulfill.
  • Powers as Programs: The Winter Mantle contains knowledge and, perhaps, a low level sentience and understanding of things around Harry. The magic it imbues in Harry, giving him access to his new ice magic, only needed the spell names Harry chooses to give them to have access to them. This is verified in "Cold Case." The Winter Mantle is absolutely merciless in not only enforcing Winter's Law but in protecting its bearer from damaging it through ignorance, honest mistakes, etc.
  • The Promise: The fae have a firm belief in fulfilling promises and debts. Leaders are even obligated to fulfill the promises of subordinates if the subordinate is indisposed while on duty for the leader.
    Lady Molly: There was a low thrum in the air as I spoke ["I can. I will."], and I felt something go click somewhere in my head. I had just made a promise.
    And Winter kept its promises.
  • Protectorate:
    • In Cold Days Winter has all of reality as the thing it must protect at any cost from the Outsiders.
    • Likewise, Summer has humanity and the rest of the world from the backlash of Winter.
  • Royal "We": At formal occasions when all the court is in attendance, Mab, and presumably Titania, speak with this method.
  • Rule of Three:
    • Speak their name three times in a conversation, especially in the NeverNever, and they will appear.
    • Repeat the same question three times to a fae and they must answer without using loopholes. But they don't like this being forced on them.
  • Rules Lawyer: Within a given set of rules or laws, they will follow them and try to get what they want anyway. They will apply Loophole Abuse if one such exists, so be very clear and exact when crafting the rules. They also respect humans of any sort who can use the Sidhe rules against them successfully.
  • Sacred Hospitality: All fae are expected to abide by this concept, even the most malevolent ones of Winter.
    • Guests in the Fae domain are not to be harmed, however they shouldn't harm the host. Doing this will revoke the duties the fae host has. Even if the claim is made in jest, such as the Erlking's comment in Changes, then the fae must honor it. If there are competing claims on who is a guest and who is an intruder, the fae host can force a challenge between them to see who is in the right and who is an invader.
    • If the fae is the guest, even an uninvited guest, they will comport themselves with this in mind and not leave the place worse than it is, hence why the brownies can clean up Harry's house and the Za-guard enter freely. If they are attacked by the host for their intrusion then the fae will not retalliate but leave the domicile. Once the former host is outside their home, then there will be retalliation. When Cait Sith explains this to Harry and Thomas in Thomas' home, Harry realizes the full explaination is part of Cait's duty under this as an uninvited guest.
    • Fae servants at events are expected to not harm the guests of the host. Even minor things like small mental attacks the fae servant thinks of as good fun are not to be tolerated. In Peace Talks when one such musician tries this on a Warden of the White Council, Winter Knight Harry freezes the asshole solid after reducing his skeleton to pieces, Winter Lady Molly has him set as an ice sculpture for the evening, and if he survives will be banished from Winter for this disgraceful action.
  • Secret-Keeper: The cleaning brownies, who tend to Harry's home from time to time, fully expect part of their payment to be done with keeping silent about their work. Harry cannot even mutter a word about how his home keeps so clean or they won't come back.
  • The Soulless: Fae have a body and a spirit, but only Humans have souls. While there are some fairly deep implications in the metaphysics, in practical terms, Humans have and can exercise free will, while Fae are essentially bound to their nature. It's also why soulgazes don't work on them. It's still not necessarily safe to look into their eyes, though.
  • Summon Magic: As they are beings not completely of this world, it is possible to summon them if the ritual is proper and one either knows their True Name, or their Nicknames they go by. However, they may not be the happiest of beings if they were in the middle of doing something or do not like to travel.
  • Super-Empowering:
    • The nature of the Mantles of the Fae. Each mantle has within it certain instincts and powers which are infused into a person upon receiving it (willingness need not matter). Lily went from an un-chosen changeling to able to swat Harry like a bug in terms of power and strength. Harry gained knowledge of ice magic he had been lacking and just added names to the spells to use the new powers.
    • The Queens can make items or trinkets for people that will gift them vast magical powers. However, there is usually a high price tag or time limit for how long one can use the item.
  • Time Abyss: The Queens and the Mothers are implied to be this. Kringle and the Erlking as well. Though, as Kringle notes, they as entities may have existed but the form they have take recently could be vastly different. Kringle references himself here as there are wizards alive who did not grow up with the promise of Santa Claus (or any of his other names) coming around in the cold of winter.
  • Was Once a Man: All of the Faerie Queens were once mortal women, and it's implied that many other members of the Faerie Courts' nobility were also originally mortals.
  • When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Fae can make deals on a time fashion that usually end at a certain moment time.
    • Summer Fae typically would end their deals when midnight comes.
    • Winter Fae, like Lea's clothing gift to Harry in Changes, comes at the strike of 12-noon.
    • Halloween night doesn't officially end until the first birdsong of the next morning.
    • Harry's parley with Lea in Grave Peril had her cease her pursuit of him for a year and a day. She could do no harm to him until that time had past.
  • Who Watches the Watchmen?: The entire purpose of the Summer Court is to protect humanity from the Necessary Evil that is the Winter Court. It's neatly summed up in Cold Days below after Mother Summer shows Harry the Outer Gates:
    Harry: (gestures to the trenches of the Outer Gates) You're telling me that this is why Mab has her power? To... to protect the borders?
    Mother Summer: To protect you all from the Outsiders, dear mortal? Yes.
    Harry: Then why does Titania have hers?
    Mother Summer: To protect you all from Mab.
  • Winter Royal Lady: The Queens of the Winter Court.

     Mother Summer and Mother Winter 

Mother Summer and Mother Winter

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_mothers.PNG
The Mothers and Toot

Mother Winter: Simply tell us, boy. Which is more important. The body—
Mother Summer: Or the soul.

First appearance in Summer Knight. Two sisters who are beyond ancient. The mothers of Mab and Titania, respectively. They do not live with their daughters or granddaughters, but are still well respected by everyone in both courts. Mother Summer can be seen as the progenitor of nature. She cares for the growth of all, from human development to plagues that could wipe out all other species. Mother Winter is destroyer of nature. She is the final end of it all. They both live in a small cottage together.


  • Above the Gods: The Faerie Mothers are an order of magnitude stronger than the Faerie Queens, who are as good as gods, though they're restricted in how they can use their powers.
  • Affably Evil:
    • Mother Winter, in her own way, demonstrating a dry sense of humour and a certain liking for Harry/respect for his abilities (though she still thinks he's too soft). On the other hand, the one time he does upset her, she nearly turns him into dinner.
    • Mother Summer herself is very kind and considerate to Harry... and also regards a collection of the most dangerous plagues in human history like how someone would care for a beloved pet.
  • Anti-Magic: Mother Winter can craft the Unravelling. It is such powerful "anti-magic" that it can even break the curse of a Red Court vampire. She produced the Unravelling with no apparent effort, knitting it up as she spoke with Harry.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: The above quote is what they ask Harry in Summer Knight. They were impressed when he said it was a stupid question because it wasn't a simple matter.
  • Balance Between Good and Evil: Mother Summer represents the power of creation and life, Mother Winter explicitly calls herself "the destroyer". It's simply their nature and don't hold it against one another, and they are even friendly with each other.
    • However, it is important to understand that these two forces do not simply break down along "good vs evil" lines. Mother Summer cares for life, but she cares for all life, including such things as plagues. After all, viruses and bacteria are living things too, and so fall under her domain. Meanwhile Mother Winter might represent death and violence, but she also stands for self-sufficiency and the will to act and defend one's own. Summer is certainly the more pleasant and kindly of the two, but to simply think of them as being a good sister and and evil sister is to misunderstand their true natures and their roles in the Dresden Files cosmos.
  • Big Good: Like their daughters, they too have tasks and duties about ensuring the Outsiders do not destroy reality. And they will do what is needed to ensure they will not win.
  • Eats Babies: Mother Winter apparently does; when she talks to Harry in Cold Days, she claims that tragedy and the death of countless innocents are both "sweeter than an infant's marrow."
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Mother Winter is a lady who enjoys death, tragedy, and pain. Show her the most bloody and desperate battles in human history, and she'd probably grab some popcorn. But tell her Nemesis is behind it and everything changes.
  • Fight Off the Kryptonite: Mother Winter is the only Fae seen to not only hold an iron cleaver with no trouble, she can turn it to rust. As Mother Summer used the cleaver as well, presumably, she too could overcome it.
  • Friendly Enemy: Demonstrated in miniature when Harry first meets them; as they are of Summer and Winter, they have their opposing views on most everything. As Mother Summer sweeps up some dirt, Mother Winter cites the foolishness in this as the dirt will just come back. That said, they do care for each other and tend to the other when their strength is gone at the solstice of the other.
  • Granny Classic: Mother Summer is pretty much the benevolent faerie godmother/fairytale grandmother incarnate, just as Mother Winter is the incarnate version of the wicked witch in the woods (right down to dietary choices). She's gentle, kindly, and motherly, to Harry - first Emissary, then Knight, of the opposing Court... and to a little jar of plagues, one of many she has created over the years.
  • Hidden Heart of Gold: According to Mother Summer, the three Winter Queens are this. Each one has the capacity to love and feel affection. It's just their hearts are bound in Winter cold. But it's still there because you need to have a heart in order to have it frozen.
  • Hope Bringer: Mother Summer, the Progenitor of Life, assures Harry he can choose to resist the pull of the Winter Mantle and remain himself. Her words also seem to imply any mortal who is given the Mantle of the Sidhe has the same choice.
  • I Have Many Names: Generally, they are just referred to as Mother Summer and Mother Winter. No other moniker is said of them. When Harry chose to try and summon Mother Winter, he invoked the names Atropos and Skuld in his ritual, one of the Fates of Classical Mythology and a Norn of Norse Mythology. There is a third name both she and her "sister" would have answered to but it isn't said. Skin Game suggests that the name may be Hecate.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Mother Winter is more than happy to, at one point, fill her stew with "arrogant mortal meat", if Harry fails her Secret Test of Character.
  • Legacy Character: invoked According to Word of God, the Mother Summer seen in the series is actually the second Mother Summer, and a mortal became the new Mother Summer "just barely within "recorded history."
  • Legendary Weapon: Though not mentioned as such, Mother Winter is mentioned to have lost her walking stick, and has trouble getting around without it. Said walking stick is implied to be the Blackstaff in first Cold Days and then all but confirmed in Battle Ground.
  • Mind Probe: Both are more than capable of reading a mortal's mind who comes into their cottage, even if the mortal isn't bound to any court. The probe is so soft, gentle, and quick, the target is likely to not notice.
  • Never Mess with Granny: invoked Despite looking like old ladies, these two have power likely equal to the Archangels. Note that Uriel admits in Skin Game he has the power to destroy galaxiesnote , which seriously raises the estimations of the Mothers' power.
  • The Older Immortal: Mother Winter is older than Mother Summer, having never had her mantle given to another mortal woman.
  • The Philosopher: They like asking deep, inquisitive questions to see what sort of person is before them.
  • Solitary Sorceress: The two Queen Mothers live in (what seems to Harry) a cottage in an extremely isolated part of the Nevernever.
  • The Spock: Mother Winter, who disgustedly states at one point that, "Mab is too much the romantic." As Harry remarks, "And that, right there, tells you everything you need to know about Mother Winter." However, at least part of this is a façade, with Mother Summer remarking that she "talks a good game" but cares really.
  • Time Abyss: Both of them are ridiculously old. Both of their Mantles seem to have existed since time immemorial, and the current Mother Summer (the younger of the two) is roughly 10-15,000 years old.
  • Tough Love: Mother Winter to Mab. While Winter cold freezes much of their hearts a bit, the most human part of these women remains unfrozen and allows Mab and Mother Winter to know love. Their ability to act on it, however, is hindered and they must use roundabout ways.
  • Wicked Witch: In the same sense that Mother Summer seems to be the archetypical friendly and wise Fairy Godmother, Mother Winter seems to be the archetypical terrifying and ruthless Wicked Witch from every fairy tale.
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: One of the best ways to impress the Mothers is to be this. They even consider Albert Einstein to be a sage.

The Unseelie Court (Winter)

For Sir Harry, see his page.

     Queen Mab 

Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/queen_of_winter.PNG

Mortal brute. Whatever your past, whatever your future, know this: I am Mab, and I keep my bargains. Question my given word again, ape, and I will finish freezing the water in your eyes.

The Queen — i.e. the central ruler, more powerful than the Lady but less so than the Mother, as well as the most visible face — of the Winter Court of Faerie. More so than any other high-ranking fae (except perhaps for the Leanandsidhe) she has a tendency to pop up in Harry's life at the very moments he doesn't want her around. Which is pretty much all the time. Her daughter Maeve was the Winter Lady.


  • Action Mom: Mab is a skilled magic user and fighter, and directed her forces during the wars in Summer Knight and Battle Ground.
  • Affably Evil: For a very weighted term of "affable". She will be quite calm and polite as she freezes the water in your eyes.
  • An Ice Person: As part of her core power.
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: It's rather unclear whether it's this or Authority Equals Asskicking, and may be a combination, but it's clear that Mab is powerful; as Jim Butcher put it, there's a reason why when Mab wrote the accords and told the various supernatural nations to abide by them, they listened.
  • At Least I Admit It: When Ebenezar tries to protest to her treating Harry as a weapon she replies that he is her weapon by his choice alone and that that is more than the White Council can say. Ebenezar can only look away in shame while Mab laughs.
  • Barrier Maiden: Turns out this is a big part of the Winter Queen's job. She and her armies do the lion's share of the work protecting the Outer Gates.
  • Batman Gambit: In Skin Game she, Marcone and Hades jointly execute one, years in the making, to get revenge on Nicodemus for his plot in Small Favor. It works to a breathtaking degree.
  • Been There, Shaped History: It's mentioned that she was responsible in part for Johann Gutenberg and the Brothers Grimm becoming powerful and significant, and even helped Walt Disney get off the ground. Amusingly, Harry mentions that she actually despises Disney ("both the company and the man") since she sees the Disneyification of fairy tales he helped popularize as coddling and weakening humanity.
  • Berserk Button: Don't ever imply she won't keep her word, don't break the Unseelie Accords in front of her, and while she shows it subtly, hurting Maeve or Sarissa, it is implied, will enrage her.
    • King Corb decides to mash almost all of hers in Peace Talks, first by murdering Gwynn ap Nudd, a signatory of the Unseelie Accords, and pulling off a Decapitation Presentation to her. Then he has his men kill all the caterers and servers in the hall. And then he mocks her about her past when she knew Merlin. It's probably not an exaggeration to say the only reason he makes it out alive is because Ethniu is there to kick Mab away from him.
      Corb: Old woman. I remember you as a bawling brat. I remember your pimply face when you rode with the Conqueror. I remember how you wept when Merlin cast you out.
      Mab's face...
      ...twisted into naked, ugly, absolute, rage. Her body became so rigid, so immobile, that it could not possibly have belonged to a living thing.
      Corb: Tell me. If he was yet among the living, do you think he would still love you? Would he be so proud of what you've become?
      Mab did not so much descend from her high seat as reality itself seemed to take a polite step to one side. One moment she was there - the next there was a trail of falling snow and frost-blanketed floor in a laser-straight line, and Mab stood within arm's length of Corb.
      Mab: Your maggot lips aren't worthy to speak his name.
      Corb: There you are. I knew you had to be inside of all that ice somewhere. Gather all the power you wish, old woman. You know who you are, and so do I. You are no one.
  • Big Entrance: She loves pulling these off. Whether it's emerging from a snowstorm, or arriving by trumpets that sound like the player were being beaten with a salted lash, her entrances are almost always noteworthy. Summed up best in a remark by Harry to Titania.
    Titania: Do you know what my sister believes in?
    Harry: Flashy entrances.
  • Big Good: Once you get past the scheming, ruthlessness and alien sense of morality. As Queen of the Winter Fae, Mab is one of the foremost defenders of reality. Much of the series is really a play by Mab to protect all of existence.
  • Black Comedy: She seems to like it, or at least will indulge in it from time to time. She does call the entity inside Harry a "parasite" despite knowing that the "parasite" is a spiritual entity born of Lash and Harry's love, in short - a fetus.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: While she has an understanding of human morals, she still operates under this. Harry realizes part of the reason Mab selects him to kill Maeve is a weird balancing act. Years ago Harry killed the Nemesis-infected Summer Lady and stopped her from destroying reality. Now Winter Lady Maeve is is similarly infected and a threat to reality. Harry made Titania suffer in the necessary killing of her child, so Harry must make Mab suffer as well. It will balance things between her and Titania for what both mothers have suffered.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: What many of the mortals (and some of the other Fae) suspect has happened to her in the later books after she takes the Black Athame from Lea. Though it turns out this was a Red Herring.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Mab makes no attempt to hide what she is. She is the Queen of Air and Darkness. While she has (relatively for her) softer moments, and she will happily consider more moral courses of action if - and only if - they are practical, she does not deny her own cruelty and evil. At best she will excuse it with Pragmatic Villainy.
    Molly: It's what decent people do!
    Mab: ...And what does that have to do with us?
  • The Chessmaster: Mab is a strategist. While she will usually take the most pragmatic way to get what she wants, she will have contingencies in place to reach that goal. During Skin Game it is revealed she has set up a longcon on Nicodemus working with Marcone and Hades to set pieces up in a subtle way that would allow the connection between Hades' vault where the Artifacts of the Crucifixion rest and Hade's vault in Marcone's bank to form. This allows her to draw Nicodemus out and she plays her role as the pragmatic, stoic, one who pays her debts to let Nicodemus feel safe about calling in the marker he is owed. Once she and Harry are out of his presence, she lets her anger slip and reveals she wants Nicodemus destroyed by Harry while still honoring the debt owed to the man. The only further aide she provides Harry is setting up a meeting with Kringle and keeping Anduriel from listening in. With that done, she sits back, let's Harry be Harry, and in the end Nicodemus' name and power are broken.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Literally, being the Winter Queen, and she is a master of inflicting agonies upon people, such as what she did to Lloyd Slate. In her own words:
    Mab: To be sure, the White Christ never suffered so long or terribly as did this traitor. Three days on a tree. Hardly enough time for a prelude. When it came to visiting agony, the Romans were hobbyists.
  • Cold Ham: She is, naturally, cold-blooded and dignified, but she just loves Big Entrances, delivers a tranquil Badass Boast now and then, and makes extreme threats in a chillingly dispassionate manner.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Her hair and clothes are normally white, silver, or pale shades of blue, purple or green as befits the Winter Queen. When she's about to judge, fight or kill someone, they are always black. At one point, after a battle is over, her hair and clothes visibly change from black back to white as Harry watches.
  • Costume Porn: Her outfits are generally laced with sapphires, opals, and other breathtaking gems. That said, when she wears black, expect bodies to fall.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Given how quickly Lily's forces and Maeve's forces capitulate to her order and Lily and Maeve only stand in silent defiance, all know this would result if they honestly tried attacking her.
  • Cruel to Be Kind: Like Lea, her relationship with Molly has shades of this. She elects not to tell Molly what will happen if she tries to have sex, because she knows that if Molly almost kills her lover, it'll teach a lesson that will stick and Molly won't risk falling for the mantle's influence again. She then explains to Molly that learning such things early are important, so she won't end up hurting herself in the future.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Mab may be ruthless, but everything she does is to protect reality from the Outsiders.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Temperature puns aside, Mab is alternatingly irritated and pleased with Harry, since he's got a problem with authority figures, especially of the terrifying variety, and yet he's humane, smarter than he lets on, and he certainly gets results. Particularly in Battle Ground, where Harry both earns Mab's unvarnished respect on multiple occasions, builds up respect for Mab as he slowly learns the hardships she bears as the Queen of Winter, and comes quite close to having a Friendship Moment with her in the epilogue. This all occurs between sniping and snarking at one another, to the point where Mab has a moment where she basically gives up in her arguing with Harry, for just a short time. (Note that this was the leadup to that near-friendly moment.)
  • Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?:
  • Deal with the Devil:
    • She plays the devil side and keeps making offers to Harry to become her Knight. He keeps turning them down... and occasionally suffers for it. As of Changes, he took her offer.
    • Prior to Harry accepting the Knighthood, Mab reminds Harry that if he dies by Summer's hands or other forces, she could easily persuade Thomas to take up the Mantle to avenge Harry, with the added benefit of being able to touch Justine again.
    • Ages ago when Winter was taking over watching the Outer Gates, the transition wasn't a kind one and she needed to make some deals. One was with Anduriel, Nicodemus' Fallen partner, and the source of her debt to Anduriel in Skin Game.
  • The Dreaded: Mab is feared by virtually everyone for a damn good reason. Even those who call her a close ally, like Kringle, are wary of her terrible pride and the wrath that flows from wounding her pride. Most notably, when Harry meets back up with her in Small Favor, he's so scared of her that he forgets to snark.
  • Due to the Dead: With Demonreach's permission, she buries Maeve and Lily on the island.
  • Enemy Mine: In Small Favor she notes that Heaven and she had a common enemy in Thorned Namshiel and the other Denarians, and so worked cooperatively together by means of their pieces in the game.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • Even Mab thinks of Heinrich Kemmler as a monster, doesn't want to see him get resurrected, and is disturbed by the mere concept of his apprentices getting their hands on the Darkhollow.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She really does love her children, and couldn't bring herself to kill Maeve after she'd been infected with Nemesis.
  • Eye Scream: When Harry got a little too smart-assed, she froze the water in his eyes. Ow?
  • The Fair Folk: Queen of one half of the land.
  • Fate Worse than Death: What she does to her treasonous Winter Knight, Lloyd Slate. It's also a fate Harry knows he potentially faces as her Knight. Not if he fails her, that would likely just end in his death, but if he brings dishonor to her or Winter by breaking a promise they have made; as her vassal, Harry's actions reflect directly back on Mab, and keeping one's word is Serious Business in the supernatural world, to the point where breaking a given promise will have a very real and direct impact on one's magical power. If Harry were to break a promise Mab had made and thereby directly cause her to be weakened, the consequences for him would be beyond terrible.
  • Figure It Out Yourself: She has no use for weakness, and stupidity is a weakness. So she won't explain things, she'll rather manipulate and threaten Harry or Molly into doing what she needs them to do. One of the few times she has been forthright with information is when she had imprisoned Lea and subbed in for her when Harry calls for her in Dead Beat. This is because at that moment she is honoring Lea's contract and going only as far as Lea would know, and anything further would need more payment from Harry. However, she does tell him as much as Lea would normally have told him.
  • God Save Us from the Queen!: Considering her Cold-Blooded Torture note and her ruthless actions for completing a deal, she has all the earmarks of this trope. This, however, isn't the full story as she must be this cold and ruthless in order to be able to fight the ancient force Nemesis and the Outsiders attempting to destroy all of reality.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Mab is responsible for a large amount of conflict in Harry's life, notably during Proven Guilty, Skin Game, and... really anytime she appears. However, at the end of the day she's on the side of good, so she and Harry have yet to enter into an actual confrontation.
  • Hidden Depths:
    • In Cold Days, Mab reveals to Dresden that she used to be human, and does love her daughters, to the best she is able.
      "I was mortal once, you know," she said, very quietly.
    • In "Christmas Eve," she reveals she actually gives out Christmas gifts to her vassals who participate in the holiday under the justification of the holiday does fall under her purview. She sees them more as obligations and so such gifts need not be repaid. That said, refuse the gift and it will risk consequences for the action. The gift she delivers is an ornate ring for Harry's daughter Maggie. It will grant to her until noon of Christmas Day the power to play "Let it Go" from Disney's Frozen from the ring and all the powers of Elsa from the movie.
  • Hidden Heart of Gold: Multiple:
    • Greatly downplayed. Mab is extremely cold and logical, is entirely willing to Kick the Dog or Shoot the Dog, and can be incredibly petty and cruel towards anyone that she views as having crossed her. However, in spite of this, she cares for both of her children, Sarissa and Maeve, doesn't seem to take pleasure in the suffering of those who haven't wronged her (unlike Maeve), and her main job is about The Needs of the Many and ensuring that the universe stays safe from the Outsiders.
    • Although even her idea of treating someone "well" is questionable, she seems to genuinely like Harry, and occasionally allows him to see glimpses of her human side—though Harry knows that if he ever lets anyone else know that, it won’t end well for him.
    • Christmas falls under Winter's domain. Thus any of Mab's vassal celebrates the holiday, Mab thus has an obligation to participate and offer them gift. And she'll actually make it a nice gift. She gives Harry a gift to give to Maggie: a ring that will allow Maggie to temporarily have Elsa's powers from Frozen and which plays "Let it Go".
    • She shows a bit of this to Molly. When Molly's mantle hurts Ramirez, and Molly refuses to leave him to do her job - despite the fact that Mab assures her that he's in no danger and help is on the way, Mab finally elects to remain with Ramirez in Molly's stead so that she might do her job with a clearer conscience.
  • I Gave My Word: More than any Fae seen, she takes this deadly seriously. If one even dares to hint she might renege on a promise, she will make the doubter suffer.
    Mab: I am Mab. The stars will rain from the sky before Mab fulfills not her word.
  • Ice Queen: Figuratively and literally. She is harsh, rational, and impassive.
  • It's All My Fault: At the end of Cold Days as she stares down Maeve after Lily's death and Sarissa becoming the Summer Lady, Mab quietly accepts that everything that has happened, specifically allowing Maeve to live for as long as she did, is her fault. She loves her daughter too much to stop her. She also takes responsibility for what is about to happen soon after.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Though one would be a fool to call her this directly, Harry concedes she is right about one thing. If Harry kills her in Cold Days after Molly became the Winter Lady, it would force Molly to become the Winter Queen with all the duties and limits therein.
  • Knowledge Broker: Mab holds a large amount of information, but keeps it close to her chest. The price is usually steep. For Harry, her asking price for a very long time was that he would become her Knight.
  • Lady of Black Magic: A condescending queen with the mercilessness under the polite demeanor with absolute power over ice, freezing the water in Harry's eyeballs just to shut him up.
  • Lap Pillow: Played for creepy in Ghost Story, when Harry wakes up to find a "cadaverously-thin" Mab doing this.
  • Literal Genie: When she gives something, she gives exactly as promised. In the short story "Christmas Eve" published on Christmas Eve 2018, she gifts to Maggie Dresden a magical ring that not only plays "Let It Go" from Frozen but also gift Maggie temporary powers over Winter matching everything Elsa could do in the movie including freezing a person's heart and making them an ice statue. She is baffled that Harry would ask that and replies, "Those are the powers in the motion picture. Should I have cheated her?".
  • Loved I Not Honor More: A familial love. Her duties as Queen put a deep strain on her relationship with Maeve. She loves her daughter, but cannot truly express it openly. And, as The Needs of the Many shows, Mab will sacrifice being a kind and loving mother to protect reality.
  • Makes Us Even:
    • In Skin Game she owes a debt to Anduriel (he apparently did her a favor in helping ease the transition period when Winter took over the job of guarding the Outer Gates) and part of paying that back is loaning Harry to him. Word of Jim says Mab was "working down" to Nicodemus's debt. The bigger ones were done first.
    • In Peace Talks Mab is paying back Lara two favors owed for things Lara did for her and expects Harry to do things Lara asks of him, regardless of his feelings towards the request or Lara.
  • Mama Bear:
    • The reason for her rage after the assault on Arctis Tor was because she realized that Maeve had been corrupted by Nemesis.
    • On first reading, in Cold Days she turns all black at the sight of blood being spilled at her formal gala. When it is later revealed the one injured is her daughter, this may have played as another reason for her hatred in that moment.
  • Meaningful Name:
  • Mirror Character: For Titania. Both are loving mothers to their daughters (in their own weird ways) and want no harm to come to them. They also knew their child had been claimed by Nemesis and couldn't bring their hand down to stop them. Where Mab departs from Titania is that she explicitly orders Harry to kill Maeve when a critical moment is just days away. Furthermore, both also are able to noticeably "depart" from the stereotypes of their Courts at times - Titania, Queen of the highly emotional Summer Court, is able to reason herself away from murdering the man who had slew her daughter and even gives him some cryptic advice to help in the fight against the Outsiders, while Mab of the coldly rational Winter Court still can't bring herself to directly kill her daughter Maeve even though she knows that it's necessary for the safety of everyone because she still loves her. As a bonus, Harry mentions in Cold Days that in straight appearance, she and Mab are identical.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: If her name alone isn't enough, try on her titles for size: "The Queen of Air and Darkness" for starters. Incidentally, her name comes from a line in Romeo and Juliet and the title is from, appropriately enough, Celtic Mythology.
  • The Needs of the Many: Her duties in protecting reality and all of existence come first in pretty much every situation. She will sacrifice everything, whether the human race or even herself, to protect all of reality.
  • Not Hyperbole: Several times throughout Skin Game, Harry considers screwing over Nicodemus early, before realizing that Mab would crucify him if he did. Then on second thought, he realizes that not only is she quite likely to stick him up on a cross, it would be a mercy compared to what she did to Lloyd Slate.
  • Not So Above It All: While Mab has a well-earned reputation for being ruthless, cold, and all business, she has a few guilty pleasures. She likes Big Entrances, getting the last word in, and she has her daughter Sarissa acting as her liaison to modern culture, which includes watching select movies and trips to Disneyland.
  • Offing the Offspring: She's forced to do this by proxy. In Cold Days, her first mission for her new Winter Knight, Harry Dresden, is to kill her daughter Maeve. In fact, she directly breaks the frozen bonds holding back Murphy when Maeve is about to execute Harry, letting Karrin take the opportunity to deliver a Boom, Headshot! to Maeve with a hidden pistol.
  • Oh, Crap!: She's described as having a look of visible alarm when Maeve kills Lily in Cold Days, causing the Mantle of the Summer Lady to transfer to Sarissa. Additionally, her eyes widen in surprise after she steals Harry's gun from him after he's furiously arguing with her and he threatens her by telling Demonreach that if she pulls the trigger, "take her down and keep her there."
  • Out-Gambitted:
    • Harry tries to escape his deal with Mab by setting up a Thanatos Gambit. But he never expected Mab to team up with Demonreach and the mysterious parasite to bring him back to life.
    • In Cold Days, she out-gambits Maeve as well mainly by ensuring she had a back-up to one gambit, and she understands The Power of Love.
    • In Skin Game, she does it again, working with Marcone and Hades to ensure that not only do powerful holy relics end up outside Hades' vault, ready to be used for the fight against the Outsiders, but also managing to ruin Nicodemus's reputation in the process and leaving him with just the Holy Grail, which it's theorized he didn't actually want.
  • Power Incontinence: When she's pissed off enough, the mere sound of her voice can severely injure or kill whoever she's talking to. This is why she uses a go-between to speak for her in both Small Favor and Changes.
  • The Power of Love: Played perversely straight. Mab understands and respects this human emotion, probably more than any other emotion.
    Mab: So many terrible things are done for love. For love will men mutilate themselves and murder rivals. For love will even a peaceful man will go to war. For love, man will destroy himself, and that right willingly.
    • Furthermore, while Thomas is a near-immortal vampire, the fact he loves Justine so deeply is reason enough to consider him mortal enough to offer him the Mantle of the Winter Knight, should something untoward happen to Harry. Of course, Mab was likely just saying this to play on Harry's emotions at the time.
    • Pops up again in Battle Ground, where she was able to stand up to the Eye of Balor, albeit only briefly. Mab explains that Ethniu and the Eye were fueled by Hatred, and Mab embodies Reason, the opposite power of Hatred. Harry thought it would be Love, which Titania embodies, but Mab corrects him: Love and Hate are both the same force, just facing in opposite directions.
  • Pride: Kringle describes there being a terrible pride within her. He knows she won't bend. Ever. And if Harry had done what he did in Cold Days (twice threatened her life and called her out on all her plotting) and there was a witness, Mab would have killed him without a second thought. Although since he had the brains to do it in private, Mab's reaction was appreciation that she finally had a Knight with the stones to be worth the irritation, and who wasn't an idiot.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: Everything Mab does is done with a calculating self interest, either for herself, Winter as a whole, or reality itself through defending the Outer Gates.
  • The Promise: The Fae have a firm belief in fulfilling promises and debts. For this reason when Harry calls his godmother in Dead Beat, Mab appears in for Lea, who was infected with Nemesis. Mab has detained her but not killed her as she is still useful.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: In Cold Days, she stops both Lily, Maeve, and the assembled forces of the two Faerie Ladies with a single sentence.
    Mab: Cease. This. Rudeness. At once.
  • Really 700 Years Old: According to Corb, she rode with "the Conqueror" (presumably William the Conqueror, the founder of the modern concept of England as a nation-state) as a young woman, making her almost a thousand years old.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Played straight with Lloyd Slate but averted with Harry himself; after bringing him back from the dead she essentially tells him that she's not angry with him for trying to cheat her, because getting what he wants from his enemies before absolutely screwing them over while technically fulfilling the letter of his word is exactly what she wants out of the Winter Knight in the first place.
  • Silent Treatment:
    • She is suffering this from her sister Titania. When they communicate it is by some messenger, like the Ladies or Knights. In Cold Days Titania mentions that they have not spoken actual words to each other since "Hastings", which is presumably the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066. By Peace Talks things have yet to improve and even on the serious matters that happen, Mab knows Titania won't answer.
    • After the Battle of Chicago in Battle Ground, they have a brief, cryptic exchange, though Mab did compliment Titania for her kindness with summoning a rain on the burning Chicago.
  • Sink or Swim Mentor: Like many Winter Fae. Take her rehabilitating Harry in Cold Days, for example, where she tried to kill him once a day, every day, for the entirety of his recovery after waking from his coma. In her own words, she has no use for weakness (and it provides useful training in channeling his magic without tools).
  • Sizeshifter: Her height changes, based upon her mood and her intentions. Near the end of Skin Game, Harry remarks that she's chosen to be his height (six foot nine). On other occasions, she's slightly shorter or nearly a foot taller than him.
  • Speak of the Devil:
    • Say her name three times anywhere in Faerie (or a summoning circle), and she must appear.
    • Conversely, Mab avoids doing this herself by never calling on Archangels or Fallen Angels by their proper names, only a title.
  • The Spock:
    • According to Titania, Mab is the far more rational, mathematical, and cold-blooded of the two.
    • According to her mother, Mother Winter, Mab is The McCoy as she won't personally kill her own child who was infected with an Outsider (though in comparison to Mother Winter, even the Trope Namer is The McCoy by comparison).
  • The Stoic: Part of the nature of her Mantle makes her colder, calmer, and more serious-minded. In fact, she at one point notes to Harry that, in a sense, she is practically the Anthropomorphic Personification of logic itself thanks to it.
  • Statuesque Stunner: Her height may vary, but usually she is tall and belongs to an Inhumanly Beautiful Race.
  • Taken for Granite: In Battle Ground, when she goes to war, Mab's sword, and the weapons of those in her Winter cohort, are cursed with the power to turn anyone wounded by their blades into statues. Probably not of dark stone, but more likely frozen, frostbitten flesh. Those not outright killed by their blades effectively become a barricade blocking their allies from moving forward.
  • Tough Love: Mab to her daughters. While Winter cold freezes much of their hearts, the most human part of these women remains unfrozen and allows Mab to know love. Their ability to act on it, however, is hindered and she must use roundabout ways. In a more general way, she (and much of Winter) have this for all of humanity - she disapproves of coddling and kindness because she believes they take away opportunities to learn and grow stronger.
  • Villains Out Shopping: In Cold Days, we learn that Sarissa was her "ambassador" to the modern world, taking her at least out to movies and even going to Disneyland.
  • Walk on Water: Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, can manifest and stand on water.
  • Was Once a Man: By her own admittance, she used to be a human. Presumably, this applies to Titania as well, since the two bear sister Mantles. It's strongly hinted in Peace Talks that she was Nimue as a mortal, as in Merlin and Nimue.
  • Wham Line: In Cold Days she says, "I was once mortal, you know."
  • The Worf Effect: Ethniu the Last Titan gets an absolutely terrifying Establishing Character Moment in Peace Talks when she kicks Mab through a concrete wall with no visible effort.
  • Xanatos Gambit:
    • It's revealed in Cold Days that she was planning for Sarissa to become the new Winter Lady and for either Lily or Molly to hold the Summer Mantle, but it's also possible for Sarissa and Molly to take the opposite mantles if the need arises, which it did.
    • In Skin Game Harry notes that while Mab might give him a hard mission, she would never set things up so that if Harry failed she would get taken down too. Mab would come out on top, hands clean of any involvement in Harry's death. Not only would his many allies not come after her, but she might be able to recruit one of them as a new Knight.

     Lady Maeve 

Lady Maeve

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maeve_53.png
I think it might be wise for you to indulge me. I simply go mad when someone ruins a good party mood.

The Winter Lady, Mab's heir to the title of Queen of Air and Darkness. Kind of a bitch. Twin sister of Sarissa. In Cold Days, it's revealed she had become an agent of Nemesis and refused to be cured of the corruption. She killed Lily and was killed by Karrin Murphy. Her mantle was taken over by Molly Carpenter.


  • 0% Approval Rating: It's not touched upon until Skin Game, but she was not popular among her subjects, and Molly is seen as a welcome improvement (though, being faeries, they show appreciation by psychically attacking her in her sleep).
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Much of her final confrontation with Harry and Sarissa outlines Maeve's family issues - envy of Sarissa having the ability to live and pursue what she wants, and resentment for Mab whom she feels sees her more as a tool than a daughter. It's those anxieties that Nemesis preyed on to corrupt her. As such, while she's still an Asshole Victim, one can't help but pity her to an extent.
  • An Ice Person: A sip of lemonade turns to ice in her mouth. Considering that she had tried to seduce Harry not even two minutes earlier, Harry realizes that it was probably a very good thing that he turned down sex.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: In Cold Days, Maeve coldly asks Sarissa "Does she [Mab] talk about me?" when her sister is trying to encourage her into a Heel–Face Turn and fight against Nemesis' influence. Sarissa's brief hesitation only further confirms to Maeve her belief that she’s The Unfavorite and she shouldn't fight Nemesis as it's giving her the chance to get revenge on their mother.
  • Asshole Victim: To be frank, Maeve was asking to get shot in the head way before the events of Cold Days.
  • Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: An Ice Person with glacier-hair? Textbook example.
  • Ax-Crazy: Oh boy. Not only is she one of the Winter Sidhe and therefore vicious by nature, but according to Sarissa she literally has a form of congenital dementia that makes her even more unstable than normal.
  • Bad Liar: An odd case. She becomes capable of lying due to Nemesis, but because she has no practice at it, her lies tend to be very blatant. However, they still work because nobody expects a faerie to be able to lie. Once people start to realize she can, her whole plan starts to fall apart.
  • Batman Gambit: Manipulates Lily into helping her, and exploits Harry's distrust of Mab and Lily's reputation to turn Harry's attention away from her — it would have worked, too, if not for Harry realizing the story didn't quite add up.
  • Believing Their Own Lies: Harry believes that she was doing this, due to Nemesis.
  • Big Bad: Of Cold Days.
  • The Caligula: Her court is rather more debauched than her mother's, and after taking her job Molly grumpily tells Dresden that she has tons of work to do because Maeve was always letting it pile up to waste time in revelry. Apparently, Maeve had been slacking for a century and half.
  • Can't Have Sex, Ever: Although we didn't see it directly during her lifetime, the Winter Maiden must be a maiden, and the Mantle of the Winter Maiden will work to ensure this, with violence if need be. Maeve was notable in that she had a lot of lust, but could only really act out on it indirectly.
    • She likes to tease Harry with a chance at her, but he's quick to shoot her down. The first time he turned her down, shortly afterwards he noticed her lemonade had turned to ice in her mouth, making him glad he did.
  • Cannot Tell a Lie: Subverted, when under the influence of Nemesis.
  • Combat Pragmatist: She justifies not coming to Harry's aid sooner in Summer Knight with "If I had, it'd have been a fair fight. And I try to avoid those." In Cold Days she kills Lily with a gun with no warning.
  • Diamonds in the Buff: Her ensemble for the Winter gala in Cold Days consists solely of jewelry and strategically placed gemstones. Harry snarkily remarks that she looks like she's been "vajazzeled."
  • Didn't See That Coming:
    • At the end of Cold Days she had planned on her mother showing up but not being able to stop her directly and was about to kill Harry, to ensure he couldn't kill her. She didn't think some vanilla mortal named Murphy would have a second gun on her ankle and shoot with such accuracy.
    • Also at the end of Cold Days Maeve didn't see what Lea was doing with Molly as relevant to her plots against Mab and damning Sarissa to the Summer Court. She didn't realize Mab had Molly prepared as a back-up to Sarissa, in the event something did happen to Sarissa. So when Maeve died, her Mantle did not pass to some potential Nemesis infected soul or to some poor shmuck with no idea of what happened, but Molly Carpenter.
  • Even Evil Can Be Loved: While Mab falls at best on the Neutral spectrum, and Sarissa falls somewhere between Neutral and Good, Maeve is firmly evil - but in the end, it's clear that both Sarissa and Mab still love her.
  • Evil Counterpart: To Aurora, even without their opposing Mantles. While both of the two were corrupted by Nemesis, it's unclear whether or not Aurora was aware she was under the influence of Nemesis's More than Mind Control, and her altruistic intentions were the vulnerability by which she was exploited. Maeve openly refused to be healed of Nemesis, knowing what it was and that it was influencing her, and was acting out of spite for Mab and Sarissa.
  • Evil Feels Good: Basically her response when Sarissa says Mab can heal her from the influence of Nemesis.
    Maeve: I am strong, Sarissa. Stronger than I have ever been. Here, now, stronger than she is. Why should I want to be healed of that?
  • Freudian Excuse: She willingly assists Nemesis out of resentment for feeling like The Unfavorite compared to her sister Sarissa. Additionally, both her and Sarissa suffer from a form of congenital dementia, and this is explained to have - along with her bearing the Mantle of the Winter Lady - given her such a fragile emotional state in the first place.
  • Frozen Fashion Sense: Notably averted. Unlike most Sidhe, who wear fine and archaic clothing, Maeve has a wardrobe full of modern clothing that somebody her apparent age would wear, with a particular emphasis to show off her body of course.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: The reason she let herself stay as Nemesis' pawn is because deep down, she is jealous that her mother pretty much ignores her in favor of her sister.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: In her first appearance, she is shown to be quick to anger at the slightest insult. Challenges to her authority are a good means of triggering one as well.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: She has the ability to lie thanks to Nemesis. It is usually physically impossible for a Fae to do so knowingly, but all one needs to do is take a passing glance at Cold Days to see how terrifyingly dangerous this makes her.
  • Humanity Is Infectious: Worries about this, due to what happened to Aurora, and also regarding Mab's apparent insanity. However, at this time she was likely under Nemesis' influence and so it should be taken with a grain of salt.
  • Interplay of Sex and Violence: Her descriptions of sex tend to involve lots of destruction.
  • It's Personal: When the Alphas and Harry killed the Tigress, a ghoul assassin Maeve liked, she set her maiden Jenny Greenteeth to not only destroy Billy and Georgia but Harry and Karrin too.
  • Jackass Genie: A man in Summer Knight apparently said he would die to play music as well as he wanted to. Maeve grants that literally.
  • Jerkass: Oh hell yes. She can and will be petty and abusive to anyone just for kicks.
  • Killed Off for Real: By Murphy via hidden pistol. She had it coming, to be honest.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: She betrays Lily and kills her by shooting her In the Back just to spite Mab. On Mab's signal, Murphy shoots Maeve from behind, killing her as well.
  • Literal Genie: See the Jackass Genie example.
  • Logical Weakness: The power of her Mantle is tied with the title of Maiden. Should she become a mother, it would shatter the power inside her.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Part of her role as a Fae and Winter Lady. However, special mention must go to her actions leading to the climax of Cold Days, when she manipulated Lily into helping her attack Demonreach.
  • Master of Illusion: In Cold Days, she uses magic to alter what Harry says to Lily, driving her into an Unstoppable Rage. And this is while she’s still attacking Demonreach.
  • Meaningful Name: Maeve is a form of the name "Medbh", which means "she who intoxicates". That would sum up her general tactics regarding Dresden. It being so close to her mother's name Mab is also likely a subtle indicator of how Maeve feels like she's The Unfavorite to her sister Sarissa (i.e., in Maeve's mind, Mab cared so little about Maeve that she just decided to name her after herself rather than give her a different name like with Sarissa).
  • The Mentally Disturbed: She apparently suffers from some form of congenital dementia that makes her essentially a high-functioning sociopath, with or without the Mantle of the Winter Lady.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Just because she acts like a psychotic dilettante nymphomaniac doesn't mean she isn't a dangerous and intelligent plotter.
  • Older Than They Look: Maeve is consistently described as looking old enough to be tempting but young enough to make one feel guilty for thinking said thoughts. This is a façade, as she is easily centuries old and fully aware of the effect it has.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The climax of Cold Days showcases a starkly different picture of Maeve than the hypersexual Psychopathic Womanchild she is elsewhere. Oh, she's still both of those things, certainly, but she's also portrayed in a genuinely vulnerable light, engaging in a heated & immature argument with Sarissa before she genuinely seems to contemplate turning herself over to her mother and being cured of Nemesis. It's unfortunately an Ignored Epiphany, of course, but the mere fact that Maeve seems to seriously consider it is quite startling.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Woman of just-average height. One of the top ten fairies in existence.
  • Politically-Active Princess: She is implied to have been this for a time, until she started forgoing her duties these past 150 years. She still turns up at certain functions, like making war against Summer or when Lily calls her in during Proven Guilty.
  • The Power of Love: Unlike Mab, Maeve is dismissive of this power. For example, she didn't consider what would happen when trying to kill Harry Dresden in front of Karrin Murphy.
  • The Pornomancer: She's able to tempt damn near anyone out of their pants. The fact that Harry (a human) can resist her drives her into out-and-out shock. Ironically, she Can't Have Sex, Ever due to her Mantle, meaning that her attempts to seduce Harry were actually all pretty clever assassination attempts.
  • Rebellious Princess: She is more than happy to make some chaos for Mab's court. Before becoming infected with Nemesis, she had over 150 years of backlog work. And after her being infected by Nemesis, she gains the ego to openly challenge Mab in Mab's personal court.
  • Smug Snake: She generally gives an air of confidence and pride over those she feels are beneath her.
  • Shut Up, Kirk!: Angrily goes on an unhinged rant to Sarissa about this in Cold Days, practically foaming at the mouth when talking about how she will never let herself become "Mother's puppet" again.
  • The Tease: She loves seducing anyone in sight, but the restrictions of the Lady's Mantle means she can never make good on her seductions - that's what her hadnmaidens are for.
  • Unskilled, but Strong: When Will is made nervous by the waves of cold pouring off of her as she does magic, Harry points out that isn't an indicator of power, it's a sign that she's not controlling her magic properly. Still the Winter Lady though. And it could have been an act, as Elaine heavily implies.
  • The Vamp:
    • Ten times out of ten, she will use her sexual appeal for malevolent reasons. While an argument can yet be made that Mab isn't exactly evil, Maeve does lean more towards outright evil rather than being simply cold and merciless like her mother.
    • When she is possessed by Nemesis, this trope comes into full effect. She's frequently trying to seduce Harry into her service rather than her mother's, and with her power over the Knight's Mantle, it comes close to working.
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment: While wearing what was essentially a bikini and apparently unarmed, she pulls out a small-caliber pistol. Harry had no idea where she kept it.
  • Villain Ball: She doesn't have Murphy searched in Cold Days and then tries to kill Harry Dresden in front of her. She also dismisses how Molly's training with Lea could have resulted in a second backup to the mantle of a Queen of Faerie.
  • Walking Wasteland: Flowers wither and freeze in her presence, which provides a counterpoint to the Summer Ladies.

     Lady Molly Carpenter 

Lady Molly Carpenter

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/molly_c_5.png
Warlock. Apprentice. Winter Lady.

"Not everyone is so far over the edge they can't come back. Sometimes people just... just get lost. They just need someone to show them how to come back."

Michael and Charity's oldest child, introduced as a wide-eyed preteen who gawked at Harry's every appearance; she soon develops into a rebellious teenager... with a talent for mental and illusion magic. She dresses like a goth and normally has multicolored hair, primarily because it drives Charity crazy. Her "full" name is Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter.

As the results of the machinations of the Fae, Molly was turned from reformed warlock to the Faerie Lady of the Winter Court.

Narrates the short stories "Bombshells" and "Cold Case", and the microfiction "The Good People".


  • Action Girl:
    • She handled herself pretty damn well against the Devourer in Changes. She's earned this.
    • Deconstructed in Ghost Story: Molly is simply not mentally equipped for violence, and is suffering psychologically.
    • Reconstructed in Cold Days: She's gotten her act together. Battle Ground demonstrates that, as the Winter Lady, she's become more than capable of handling herself in a fight.
  • A Day in the Limelight: The short stories "Bombshells" and "Cold Case" are both narrated by her.
  • Agony of the Feet: In "Bombshells", Molly puts on a pair of high heels to infiltrate a Svartalf compound. She is in immediate and constant pain.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys:
    • Considering how Charity views Harry at first...
    • Inverted in "Cold Case": she has the dig on for the very valorous Carlos Ramirez. However, in that case her Mantle was partially responsible for her behavior there as well.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: As of Ghost Story, Harry finally realizes the depth of her feelings for him go far beyond a mere crush, and feels extremely sorry for her that he does not reciprocate.
  • Anti-Hero: After Harry's death, and her part in it, Molly takes up the mantle of Wizard Protector of Chicago and fights a war against the Fomor and their agents. She does this by being as bad and as scary as possible, which includes killing people who are corrupt.
  • An Ice Person: Part of her new powers as Lady Winter.
  • Arch-Enemy: The Fomor servitor "Listen" is shaping up to be one for her.
  • Battle in the Center of the Mind:
  • Benevolent Boss: In Skin Game, she mentions that the Fae are quite happy to have a boss who is not Maeve. Of course, being Winter, they show this appreciation by constantly trying to attack her through her dreams to test her worth, but that's their closest equivalent to a pat on the back.
  • Big Entrance: She is Harry Dresden's apprentice after all:
    • She and Thomas pull off a Big Damn Heroes moment in Cold Days, smashing through ice with her playing the beats of Queen's "We Will Rock You"
    • She invokes this by breaking down a door in "Cold Case" with a single kick and using her rave spell with the music "Everybody Dance Now" blaring. This is just an illusion while she sneaks to the side and slits some throats.
    • She brings it once more in Battle Ground by preluding her assault with "Welcome to the Jungle".
  • Birds of a Feather: With Harry, as they share magical talent, general alignment, problems with authority, got involved with Black Magic before they knew better and all-around geekiness. Comes close to Distaff Counterpart, but Molly and Harry are also Foils of each other in many other aspects.
  • Black Magic: What got her involved with Harry in the first place, and a recurring problem for her since. It is addictive, after all.
  • Blessed with Suck:
    • She has mind magic, which can basically solve any non-combat problem. It's a pity that most of what she can do with it counts as corrupting Black Magic, and it makes her permanently tuned in to the emotions and thoughts of any beings around her... no matter how evil or incomprehensible they are.
    • Additionally, her status as the new Winter Lady is this. Oh, sure, she's now an even more badass Physical Goddess with An Ice Person powers, command over the Winter Sidhe, and can also now use modern technology again without it breaking down due to the Walking Techbane abilities of mortal practitioners... but also has essentially lost most of her free will since she cannot "change her inherent nature" as one of the Sidhe, is having her mind slowly warped by the Winter Lady's Mantle (pushing her into increasingly ruthless and heartless actions), and Can't Have Sex, Ever while also having her sex drive heightened just to add insult to injury. Suffice to say, it's ultimately a pretty sucky gig with only a few overall benefits.
  • Blinded by the Light: Her "One Woman Rave" spell. We see it from her perspective in the "Bombshells" short story, where it acts as a Giant Flash-Bang From Hell.
  • Bratty Teenage Daughter:
    • How she's initially introduced. She's openly disrespectful of her parents, has at least two piercings and has altered her Catholic-school uniform to be more sexy. She also has a set of keys that will open handcuffs (both the real kind and "fun-time" handcuffs) and when asked about this by Harry, she quirks and eyebrow and asks if he really wants to know. By the time we see her again in Proven Guilty she has gone full goth, including numerous tattoos, multi-colored hair and so many visible piercings that Harry decides he doesn't want to know about anything else that might be pierced. She tones this look (and her rebellious nature) down somewhat after becoming an adult.
    • She is now intentionally trying to invoke this trope in service of Mab, because although she's grateful that she no longer counts strictly as a wizard now (and as such is no longer under their death sentence), she has lost her humanity and will be pretty much immortal. Fae doesn't care about emotions, so she also will hurt people she cares about. She has a lot of resentment issues toward the Winter Queens as a result and is acting out when she can get away with it.
  • Break the Cutie:
    • The end of Changes, and then what came after. Lea did not help.
    • The fireball incident in White Night is another one, in which Harry rather drastically forces her to realize that he is not a perfect, infallible hero and that she should not expect him to be one, and that this is not a game.
    • A one-two punch in "Cold Case": first she discovers that she Can't Have Sex, Ever and that the Winter Lady's Mantle will magically enforce this restriction by doing hideous damage to any potential partner. Then she learns that the children she just rescued and returned to their loving families are the "tribute" she came to collect from them, and why they must be taken.
  • Broken Bird: In Ghost Story because she feels responsible for Harry's death and covering it up.
  • Buxom Beauty Standard: Though her drawings suggest otherwise, in the books it is heavily implied that she is above average if not outright absurd. Starting in Proven Guilty when she's 17 and "gotten all growed up" out of her "awkward adolescent" phase, "She wore a tight tank top, its fabric white, thin, and strained by the curves of her breasts", curvy regardless of what she is wearingnote , and her mere presence has caused Male Gaze from multiple characters and jealousy from other women. At one point, Molly's first meeting with Susan caused the latter to immediately become very possessive over Harry.
Molly: Yeah, the breast fairy came to visit and everything.
  • Can't Have Sex, Ever: "Cold Case" reveals that the Lady's Mantle enforces this trope in a merciless and brutal fashion on any man Molly attempts to have sex with. The reason for this is that sex can lead to children, and children is the duty of the Winter Queen (and possibly the Mother), not the Lady. note  That all being said, Molly might actually count as a potential subversion, as she says that the Mantle protects itself from losing its status via bearing children - As such, it's theoretically possible that having sex with either a sterile man or a woman (though the latter wouldn't help Molly in any way) would not necessarily "break" the Mantle... but considering how Carlos Ramirez almost had his back broken the last time Molly tried to get with someone, it's more than understandable why Molly wouldn't want to test the Mantle's limits.
  • Character Development: After all she has been through, Molly can withstand traumas that would break a lesser person. Her sanity was hanging by a thread, but she's mostly pretty stable even once she becomes Winter Lady. It's getting to the point now where traumatizing her is going to piss her off and make her either vindictive or willing to seek her idea of justice. Furthermore, in part thanks to the Winter Lady's Mantle, she becomes noticeably more of The Stoic and gains a stronger control over both her emotions and sense of maturity.
  • Character Focus: She's basically the Supporting Protagonist of Ghost Story, with it being focused around her grief over Harry's death and her struggle with moving on with her life and trying to figure out what she can do to benefit Chicago.
  • Chekhov's Skill: invoked Word of Jim says her being the eldest to so many siblings and having to control their energetic natures makes handling the Sidhe and Fae under her purview easier.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Not having the brute force of Harry or the combat skill of Murphy, Molly makes do by manipulating the people around her to deadly effect. She will also slit the throats of some inhuman cultists after getting the drop on them.
  • Coming of Age Story: The books Proven Guilty and White Night confirm that hers is going on in the background.
  • The Corruptible:
    • After her first few uses of black magic, Harry wants to keep her away from monsters, like Nicodemus during the events of Small Favor for fear he could, with his millennia of experience, find openings in Molly to get her to embrace the dark side.
    • She is corrupted by Lea after Harry's Thanatos Gambit and her refusal to speak to anyone about the situation. It left her alone and vulnerable to Lea's harsher suggestions on how to protect Chicago. Tainted by Winter and trained by a fae that strong, it leads to the Winter Mantle thinking she is the best suited candidate for the spot with Maeve's death.
  • Crazy-Prepared: Eventually becomes this through her wizard training. In Cold Days, we find out that she actually set aside a room in her apartment when she learnt that Harry came Back from the Dead again and would likely need a place to crash.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: The "Justice League of Chicago" (read: the Chicago Alliance), at one point between Changes and Ghost Story tries to have an intervention for Molly. It doesn't go well... for them. Molly flooded all of their minds with horrific visions and illusions, seemingly with little effort. The Chicago Alliance is understandably terrified of her following this incident.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: As Lady Winter, she is now an incarnation of the forces of darkness, decay, and death. Still on the side of the good guys, though, and probably the single "nicest" extant Faerie Queen outside of Mother Summer and maybe Sarissa.
  • Dark Secret: Helped Harry arrange his Thanatos Gambit, and then erase his memories of it afterwards. Poor kid.
  • Death Seeker: Played with. In "Bombshells", she comments that she deserves death because she thinks that she murdered Harry twice (first by not talking him out of committing suicide and second by not stopping his returned spirit from seemingly disappearing into the aether), but doesn't actively seek out suicide because Chicago needs a protector.
  • Delinquent Hair: Molly first started dyeing her hair when she ran away from home.
  • Deep Sleep: In Ghost Story she's learned to use a multi-target sleep spell to knock out a group of Mooks.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: The Winter Lady's Mantle's method of enforcing that to keep the balance of the roles, the Maiden must remain a maiden: it overrides the consciousness of the Lady in question, and has her ferociously attack her would-be partner, doing mortal injury to him. Justified in that the Fae as a rule do not get the idea of emotional attachment, and so that there is no temptation of any kind for the Winter Lady to ever try bending or breaking the rules. It is also effective and practical as self-defense for anyone who would defile the Maiden without her consent.
  • Dramatically Missing the Point: She holds herself responsible for Harry's suicide since she wasn't able to talk him back from the Despair Event Horizon. However, what she doesn't seem to know is that Harry's death was actually a murder since it was a Fallen Angel whispering in his ear that drove him to killing himself. As such, neither her nor Harry are responsible for his temporary death.
  • The Dreaded:
    • Invoked; she realized that monsters' viewing Harry as this kept them away from Chicago, and created the identity of "The Ragged Lady" to terrify them on her own. It's also deconstructed in that it's shown to be an incredibly emotionally taxing and miserable experience from her perspective, only adding into her own sense of self-loathing.
    • In "Cold Case" Molly realizes Mab wants her to prove herself and become this to prevent any usurpers from directly trying to kill her as the new Winter Lady. Once the children the cultists would have sacrificed are away, she unleashes icy hell on them.
  • The Empath: Molly is significantly more sensitive to both magic and the emotions of others, which can result in her having trouble in combat situations. She gets better at handling it by the events of Changes... though she then experienced a severe psychic backlash from the Battle of Chichén Itzá as well as the bloodline curse, assumed by Harry to be a part of her resulting Sanity Slippage. Her resultant traumas after assuming the mantle of the "Ragged Lady" to try and protect the city in Harry's absense certainly didn't help her any, with "Bombshells" having her mention that she literally felt the death of a fifteen-year-old boy she was trying to save from the Fomor.
  • Enemy Mine: In Cold Days she is working with Mr. Etri, The Leader of the Svartalves. After saving him from a bomb sent by the Fomor, they became this. For her actions, she gets a apartment, free rent, repairs, and their protection on their property.
    Molly: (to Harry about Mr. Etri) [He] might oppose you. He might break your bones. He might cut your throat in your sleep or make the ground swallow you up. But he will never, ever lie about his intentions. He's not my friend. But he is my ally. He's good at it.
  • Evil Laugh: She first displays what is best described as one when utterly destroying a handful of Outsider cultists.
  • Fashion Hurts: In "Bombshells", she wears heels in an attempt to invoke Distracted by the Sexy. They hurt from the moment she puts them on till the moment she takes them off - and she's not shy talking about it, either.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Way back in Grave Peril, Lea offered to trade Amoracchius for his first born child, showing that the Sidhe are very interested in Molly.
    • Molly's dyed hair colors almost all match up with Maeve's in terms of being "winter" tones leading up to Cold Days.
  • From a Certain Point of View: Played for Laughs in "The Good People", where Kringle first points out how she's technically usurping his authority as the Winter King over the demense of Christmas night, and Molly loftily argues that in reality she's only helping her vassal accomplish his job.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: From the perspective of the White Council. A recovering warlock under the tutelage of another recovering warlock and one of the most badass Wardens of the White Council suddenly becomes a sovereign of the Winter Court who might have a significant grudge against the White Council. Oh and her mentor? Now ostensibly her Knight.
  • Goth Girls Know Magic: Played With in that she actually ditches more of her Goth trappings as she develops her magic.
  • Gratuitous Japanese: Seems to be her preferred language for her spells as of Changes.
  • Genre Savvy: Almost as much as Harry.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: She is slightly envious of all the raw magical power Harry has.
    (after Harry's ghost possesses her during a battle) "Is that what it's always like for you?"
  • Hero of Another Story: Not only is she going through a pretty significant Coming of Age story in the background of her first few novels, but she also becomes the new Winter Lady and one of the major forces fighting against the Outsiders.
  • Heroic Lineage: Descended from royalty (Charlemagne), as are all Knights of the Cross.
  • Hero with an F in Good: Molly, really, really wants to help people, and following the example of her father and teacher. What a pity that she has very poor decision making skills. Namely, Mind Controling your pregnant friend to keep her off heroin is a bad idea.
  • Hot for Teacher: Her initial opinion regarding being Harry's apprentice. Harry killed off that idea very quickly. It came back full force in Changes when Susan realized it less than a minute after meeting her. Apparently, Harry's just that Oblivious to Love.
  • Hot-Blooded: When a teenager.
  • Hope Spot: Cold Days gives her one. She's got an apartment now, and Lea's stopped "training" her. She's still traumatized but things really seem to be getting better for her. But when the finale comes up, in a spectacularly cruel twist of fate, she becomes the new Winter Lady.
  • Humans Are Bastards: She starts to develop this viewpoint after she becomes a Vigilante Man as the Ragged Lady in Ghost Story, with her being particularly disgusted by how little she needs to accomplish with her Master of Illusion powers to make her foes tear into each other like feral animals. As an example, all she needed to do to make a Dirty Cop and Fomor servitor perform a Mutual Kill was make the servitor's bribe of golden coins look like a concealed pistol for just the briefest of moments.
  • Irony: As Mab herself notes, her lack of proper emotional control until very recently would've arguably made her a better candidate for the Summer Lady in a certain sense than the Winter Lady.
  • It Gets Easier: Her killing people using veils and glamour is described as such. It's appropriately enough both heartbreaking and chilling, and made even worse when one realizes that thanks to her empath abilities, she's likely able to feel the exact same suffering she's inflicting on her foes.
    Molly: It's easy. It shouldn't be so easy.
  • I Kiss Your Hand: A twisted and gutwrenching example. Harry kissed her hand, as a sign of his platonic respect and gratitude after she agrees to help him kill himself.
  • Keeping Secrets Sucks: Because of what she knows in Secret Secret-Keeper and her refusal to tell anyone makes those who would trust her and help her through Harry's death sense she is holding back on something and so distrust her. Especially true for Murphy, a former cop. Molly, sensing this distrust, pulls further away, which makes people distrust her even more.
  • Lady and Knight: After Cold Days she and Harry become this. It remains to be seen what side of the spectrum they'll be on.
  • Lethal Chef: Contrary to her mother, she once burned a boiled egg . . . but she can make a damn good cup of coffee.
  • Lethal Harmless Powers: Molly has upgraded her illusions to make people see themselves being dragged into the Nevernever by hideous monsters, make people see guns, lipstick prints, etc., and manipulate them into killing each other... the list goes on. Harry is appropriately disturbed by the implications.
  • Like Brother and Sister: It's implied that by "Christmas Eve" that she and Harry have reached this dynamic, with him noting that she gives him a "sisterly kiss" on the forehead after giving him her Christmas present.
  • Living Emotional Crutch: Harry is one for her. After his death in Changes, Molly decided to fight a one-wizard war against the supernatural nasties looking to make Chicago their new hunting ground in Harry's absence, but she did it by putting herself in harm's way in the most self-destructive way possible. By Cold Days Molly gets her act together, but then the short story "Bombshells" reveals that this only happened after Lea obliquely told her that Harry was still alive.
  • Logical Weakness: The power of her Mantle is tied with the title of Maiden. Should she become a mother, it would shatter the power inside her.
  • Loved by All: By the time of Battle Ground, if the Redcap is anything to go by, the Winter Sidhe seem to absolutely love her and strongly appreciate her generosity, competence, and efficiency (especially when contrasted against her predecessor Maeve).
  • Love Hurts: A comparatively minor example in Proven Guilty, when Harry explicitly tells her it isn't going to happen. Post Changes, it gets much, much worse, when he asks her to help him commit suicide. She does. And after his death, things only get worse.
  • Love Makes You Crazy: In Cold Days, she tries to submit herself sexually to Harry while he's being overwhelmed by the predatory nature of his Mantle. She is aware that this is extremely self-harming but does not care. Notably, both her and Harry find this development to be uncomfortable.
  • The Load:
    • Every time she sneaks out to tail Harry, she ends up needing to be saved or protected. She's learning that it's generally best to listen when he says she isn't going to be able to help much.
    • This is changing as of Ghost Story... more or less. She's better at fighting, but her sanity and emotions are becoming increasingly ragged, and they only seem to be getting worse...
  • Master of Illusion: She is really good with veils. Very handy for confusing vampires into gutting each other by accident or just having to stop moving. This is considerably upgraded in Ghost Story to being able to take on mortal and supernatural threats with:
    • Faux Flame: Complete with screaming demonic faces, though it's eventually seen through.
    • The Treachery of Images: Uses this to commit the majority of her murders.
    • Doppelgänger Spin: Created six clones of herself to try and fool her pursuers. As of "Cold Case" she can now pretty much effortlessly generate around thirteen. And keep in mind that this is without her drawing on the Mantle of Winter.
    • Sensory Overload: Her "One Woman Rave" Spell has been combined with monsters of the Nevernever in addition to a variety of other images and sounds.
  • Most Common Superpower: Molly becomes pretty well-endowed as she gets older. During her more rebellious years, she even had her nipples pierced.
  • Mind Control:
    • She gets into two friends' heads to try to steer them away from their heroin addiction; it doesn't work out well. Messing with people's minds has a tendency to drive them insane.
    • She gets better at using mental magic after her training begins.
  • Misplaced Retribution: She has a lot of self-loathing over her part in Harry's suicide, specifically blaming herself for not having helped convince him out of it. However, what she doesn't know is that Harry was convinced to kill himself in the first place from the "advice" of a Fallen Angel.
  • Muscles Are Meaningful: Downplayed; She doesn't have Super-Strength or anything like that, but thanks to being a Statuesque Stunner and thus being very tall, she's able to easily throw around most people who are shorter than her (like the Corpsetaker when she's possessing Butters in Ghost Story).
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: After becoming the Winter Lady, she gains a limited form of Super-Strength.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: In "Cold Case", Molly discovers the Winter Mantle will protect itself by attempting to kill anyone she attempts to have sex with. Queen Mab knew this but didn't tell her because Molly is still pissed off about having been forced into the position of Winter Lady, and acting petulantly as a result. Molly only found out this way because she still thinks like she's entirely human; she never stopped to consider that sex was impossible for Winter, or to ask the Mantle what would happen if she tried it. Similarly, she's also horrified when she learns that she's not being a tax agent by saving the children from the Outsider cultists - she's being a truant officer by abducting them for use as Child Soldiers at the Outer Gates.
  • My Greatest Failure: Her failed attempt to talk Harry out of killing himself, as "Bombshells" confirms. The guilt of it was enough to push her onto the streets. She only seems to start to improve mentally when Lea tells her that Harry's still alive.
    "I couldn't really look away from the mirror this time. I tried to look at it objectively, as if she was someone else, and not the one who had killed the man she loved and who had then failed him again by being unable to prevent even his ghost from being destroyed in its determination to protect others. That bitch deserved to be run over by a train or something."
  • Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: She's the Master of Illusion variation as of Cold Days. However, she also counts as Dark Is Not Evil.
  • Nonconformist Dyed Hair: As a teenager, along with having numerous tattoos and piercings, Molly would dye her hair various colors as an act of rebellion against her parents, especially Charity.
  • Not So Above It All: Even after she becomes more of The Stoic thanks to the Winter Lady's Mantle and is being understandably apprehensive about her new power, she giddily notes in "Cold Case" that it feels awesome to be able to easily kick in doors now.
  • The Ophelia: Invoked and lampshaded in Ghost Story. Not entirely an act, sadly enough.
  • Perspective Reversal: Molly experiences a metaphorical one at the end of "Cold Case", where she kidnaps children (so they will become Child Soldiers in Winter's war against the Outsiders)... in a manner not unlike how she was kidnapped by the fetches in Proven Guilty. She's understandably horrified by the parallel.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: As the Ragged Lady, killing corrupt cops along with the Fomor, although at least some of this may have been Lea's doing.
  • Perky Goth: When she becomes a teenager. Even when she grows into adulthood, her personality is a strange, unpredictable mix of light and dark.
  • Physical God: As the new Winter Lady.
  • Power-Strain Blackout: Played with. Molly and Carlos seek to celebrate their relationship after defeating the servants of the Outsiders, but the Winter Mantle rises to override her before they can do more than kiss. She "wakes up" in the shower, washing blood off, with no idea how she got there. This condition will, she learns immediately after, occur anytime she does anything that could threaten the destruction of the Mantle of Winter she wears as Lady.
  • Precocious Crush: What Harry thinks her feelings are towards him in Proven Guilty; given her naivete at that time, he's probably right. Later on, after she learns more about him, they become more serious.
  • Protectorate: On a personal level, her family is this. She loves them and knows they are some of the strongest links she has left to her humanity, and so will protect them to the best of her ability. In Skin Game when the Angels of the Lord refuse to stop Nicodemus' mortal thugs from burning the house down because to do so will violate free will of the humans attacking, she opts instead to buy a house down the street and fill it with Sidhe knights whose sole duty is to protect the Carpenter house from things the Angels cannot. She is also not telling her family about this either, though Battle Ground reveals that Michael and Charity at the very least have known about her being the Winter Lady for quite some time now (much to both Molly and Harry's surprise).
  • Rags to Riches: In Ghost Story she was homeless and had to resort to looting the corpses of her enemies just to have enough to eat. Then, in Cold Days, she becomes the Winter Lady. By Skin Game, not only is she heir to one of the most powerful preternatural nations on the planet, she gets an eight-figure annual income. Damn.
  • Read the Freaking Manual: In "Cold Case", after Molly gets blindsided by several unexpected quirks of her new Mantle, Mab points out that the mantle itself contains all the information Molly needs, and suggests that she start spending time consulting the manual to learn her rules.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: By the end of Cold Days Molly is still a wanted Warlock for violating several Laws of Magic, namely using magic to kill and using mind-altering magic with a general kill-on-sight for any Wardens. Then she becomes the Winter Lady and, as Mab points out, those charges will never take effect because Mab will not allow it. Not that they will be expunged from her name, it's just attacking Molly could instigate a war between the Council and the Winter Sidhe. Depending on how Butcher deals with the matter if it ever comes up again, as one of the Sidhe, Molly is no longer a Wizard nor a Warlock — and probably not even mortal — and thus technically no longer subject to the White Council's jurisdiction.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!:
    • This was Molly's initial take on her mentally manipulating her boyfriend and best friend so they would clean up their lives. Even though it was wrong on many levels, Molly feels justified despite the damage she has inflicted upon them both. Unusually for the trope, she didn't know there were any rules apart from ethical ones, which say pretty clearly that brainwashing is wrong. That's how Harry defends her against the White Council.
    • As of "Cold Case", Molly has learned the legends of Fae kidnapping children are true, and knows now they will be used to fight against Outsiders. She thinks this is unconscionable and has pretty much vowed to come up with a viable alternative.
  • Secret Legacy: Inherited her magical talents from her mother Charity, whose own abilities had long since atrophied from disuse.
  • Secret-Keeper: Molly figured out Thomas is Harry's half-brother, on her own. Based on how he and Harry argue. Since she has a ton of siblings herself, she immediately spotted the similarity.
  • Secret Secret-Keeper:
    • Molly knows who killed Harry. Molly knows why it happened. She knows Harry is ignorant of it because she removed these facts from his mind... after he set up his own assassination, so Mab wouldn't find out.
    • Molly had figured out for a while that Thomas was Harry's brother, but held off from talking about it to Harry.
  • Spare to the Throne: Her training under Lea is part training her to survive, part making her ready to simply survive fighting dark monsters, and able to fill the need to replace Maeve or another Lady. In Mab's calculations, Molly is her Spare's Spare in case the first Spare, Sarissa, cannot do it or isn't close enough.
  • Speaks Fluent Animal: Once her empath powers strengthen, enabling her to communicate with Mouse and other animals.
  • Stupid Sexy Friend: invoked this to Harry. He finds the idea of a relationship with her squicky (since he's known her since she was eight years old) but she's now an extremely attractive woman in her mid-twenties, and he's not blind. As his narration puts it at one point, he can "admire the scenery without wanting to go camping in it."
  • Take a Level in Badass:
    • In Changes, she goes from "talented but not suited for battle" to holding off an army of vampires with a magical light show.
    • This is nothing compared to the levels she's taken by the time of Ghost Story, thanks to fighting monsters on the streets of Chicago and enduring six months of Lea's brutal Training from Hell. However, it's also deconstructed in that this has taken a pretty visible toll on her sanity.
    • And even then, this is nothing compared to the end of Cold Days when she becomes the new Winter Lady, although this is made possible by the aforementioned attention from Lea.
  • Technical Virgin:
    • In Proven Guilty Dresden agrees to take Molly as an apprentice, and asks if she is sexually active. She replies that she is "technically" a virgin, and has "explored most of the bases." Dresden tells her that there is to be no more "exploring" (and that she is not to start any "solo expeditions") until she develops better mental discipline.
    • Harry has either forgotten or relaxed that rule, or considers her more disciplined, as of Turn Coat. She ends up with a date with Vince Garner in Turn Coat (gained by flaunting her bangin' bod) and Harry voices no objection.
    • Unfortunately, once she becomes Winter Lady, she finds that the Mantle won't let her have sex, as the Lady is the Maiden of Winter, which prevents her from doing anything that could cause her to become a Mother. So her technical virginity will remain until she dies, loses the Mantle of Winter Lady, or ascends to become Winter Queen (who, as Mother, is permitted to have sex).
  • Tell Me How You Fight: She never got her mentor's heavy firepower, but both of their combat styles are as bright and flashy as possible. She wants the monsters to know she's coming for them.
  • Throw the Dog a Bone: "The Good People" has her giving Christmas presents to all of the people of Chicago devastated by the events of Battle Ground. When Kringle finds out, instead of being a Sore Loser over her technically interfering in his domain, he has them race to see who can deliver more presents to Chicago in one night before the other, and even when he wins, he invites her to help him finish his remaining rounds. Suffice to say, Molly's pretty overjoyed to have such an opportunity to help and heal people as the Lady of Winter.
  • Training from Hell: From Lea, in Ghost Story. This includes being starved, having groups of Fomor Mooks sent to attack her, and being bombarded with knives and baseball sized chunks of ice to improve her shield spells. Later on, Lea argues that Harry's more gradual and gentle training of Molly was not suitable to training her in how to actually fight.
  • Undying Loyalty:
    • After she grows out of her rebellious teenager phase, has this towards Harry. Deconstructed in Ghost Story where following one order of his directly fucks up her life and the lives of several other people. You know the one.
    • Unusually for the trope, Harry specifically trained her to be that way because the supernatural world is a very dangerous place and the time it takes for her to ask questions may be the time it takes to get killed. Mab asks Harry if he had more self-serving reasons for doing so, and Harry's own narration admits that it's a possibility.
  • Unequal Pairing: She first crushes on, and later the falls in love with Harry when he is her teacher, then the balance of power is flipped when she becomes Lady Winter and Harry's Queen.
  • The Unfettered: Willing to do whatever it takes to protect Chicago in Harry's absence.
  • Unrequited Tragic Maiden: painful path through adulthood is all the sadder because she had everything going for her- courage, good looks, a loving family, and significant magical talent- before she tried to pursue a man who categorically refuses to have any romantic feelings for her. Which would have been fine if she had accepted his rejection, but she kept false hope that she could somehow change his mind over the years, and became deeper and deeper entrenched in her angst. Then he went the way of all mentors, and it shattered her, more than it would have if she only saw him as a teacher. Naturally, she becomes a Lady of Winter, a fae Court that empowers its leaders to fight great battles and survive impossible odds...if they can first let go of its temptation to care only about what they want.
  • Vigilante Woman: With a bit of Serial-Killer Killer thrown in. She murders several mortal criminals and Fomor while leaving her Calling Card in place, to invoke The Dreaded.
  • Visible Invisibility: Played with. Molly is pretty much the best there is when it comes to throwing veils — invisibility magic. In "Cold Case" she realizes that anyone who looks close during the ice storm she and Carlos are walking through will see the sleet bouncing off something that cannot be seen without magical assistance.
  • Walking Spoiler: Not only does she become Harry's apprentice in Proven Guilty, but she becomes the new Winter Lady at the end of Cold Days.
  • Weak, but Skilled: While she may not have the raw magical force of Harry, something she's very aware of, it's made clear in offhand comments by Harry and Thomas in Changes and a first hand account by Will in Ghost Story that if she catches you off guard, you're going to be curled up on the ground screaming at things that aren't there. This trope stops applying as of "Cold Case" when Molly starts drawing and flinging around the power of Winter.
  • You Are Not Alone:
    • She tries to convince Harry of this when he was depressed (and influenced by a Fallen) and planning his own suicide. Sadly, it didn't work and Harry instead convinced her to help him.
    • In Ghost Story Karrin, Father Forthill, and Lea each in their own way tried to tell her she wasn't alone. She had allies who could help her shoulder her burden and give her protection. The former two use strongly worded and empathetic arguments. Lea, being Lea, arranges some enemy mooks to find her when exhausted and would have died if she were alone. Harry's shade was enough to turn the tide and make it so that she could finally start regaining her sanity.

     The Leanansidhe 

The Leanansidhe, aka "Lea"

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lea_5.png
"Spooky, crazy death Sidhe lady."

My godmother was what she was — a being of violence, deceit, and the thirst for power. Her attitudes and reactions could not fairly be called inhumane.

Harry's fairy godmother. The second most powerful being in the Winter Court, next only to Mab. Genuinely cares about Harry, and for a long while tried her best to keep him safe . . . by turning him into a hound. Is strongly suspected to be batshit insane.


  • And I Must Scream: She was basically crucified in Mab's frozen garden for an unknown amount of time (several In-Universe years passed from Harry's perspective between her appearances, but time flows faster in Faerie than in the "real world") for the purpose of ridding her of the influence of Nemesis.
  • The Archmage: She is called an elder sorceress of the Winter Court, second only to Mab in the Queen's Court, and as highlighted in Changes, she can definitely back up that claim to power. She can craft powerful protective magical armor in seconds, but it generally lasts until noon. She can turn seven people into dogs at the same time, and some of them aren't wholly human. She knows a means of binding, if not completely removing, the vampire curse from a Red Court victim.
  • Axe-Crazy: Well, in many of her appearances, but not always. Other times she's nice enough. Molly, after meeting her, upgrades her from "spooky death Sidhe lady" to "spooky, crazy death Sidhe lady". Lea approves.
  • Barrier Maiden: Word Of Jim is when Mab isn't out standing on the lines of reality protecting humans from the Outsiders because she is needed inside for some function, like Harry's party in Cold Days, Lea takes over for a time.
  • Batman Gambit: Ebenezar McCoy suspects in Changes that she, Mab, Odin/Vadderung, and the Merlin all ran a joint one to get Harry and his allies in position to completely destroy the Red Court once and for all.
  • Big Good: Not only is she the one in charge of the defense of the Outer Gates when Mab isn't available, but Changes all but states that she's a member of the Grey Council.
  • Blood Knight: She seemed to be greatly enjoying herself while fighting some of the Lords of Outer Night.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: She simply doesn't get human standards of morality.
  • Cannot Tell a Lie: Like all Fae not affected by Nemesis. She can, however, lead one to false conclusions.
  • Cat Smile: When she smiles, Harry notes the similarity to a cat.
  • Chair Reveal: When Lea reappears in Changes she is in Harry's apartment, having detained and cocooned Martin and Susan to the ceiling and wall, and turns his chair around. It is very impressive because the chair wasn't a swivel-type.
  • Cruel to Be Kind: This is her teaching mentality in a nutshell. Unlike the naive and practically infantile wizards she mentors (at least from her point of view), she knows exactly how cruel, dangerous, dark, and unforgiving the world likely is. To her, teaching isn't about coddling and the like, but empowering students and getting them stronger and capable of being able to handle themselves. For people like Harry and Molly, who shoulder so much power and the path they have chosen to fight the darker beings, this is even more true. So if she has to break their bones, push them to the point of starvation and death to learn all she can teach them to survive, she will do it.
  • Deadpan Snarker: When asking for Harry to recap his duel with He Who Walks Behind, she dryly remarks that she "missed an episode" to justify her not knowing about that specific moment of time in Harry's life.
  • Debt Detester: In Grave Peril the prospect of being in an unbound debt to Michael to save Harry's life makes her hesitate but open to an amicable deal. But averted with her deal with Margaret McCoy-Dresden, where the deal to protect Harry from unspoken harm doesn't seem to bother her at all.
  • Dissonant Laughter: When she was fighting against the Red Court and saw what her godson Harry and Ebenezer McCoy were doing to the vampires and human mercenaries, it really got her going.
  • The Dragon: To Mab. She is said to be the personal handmaiden of the Queen of Air and Darkness.
  • Dragon with an Agenda: Implied. While she normally plots to take Mab down (not out of any malice, it's just part of who she is), she wouldn't have acted on the impulses but because she was possessed by Nemesis, she tried some sort of attack to either to kill Mab or infect her with Nemesis as well.
  • Dressing as the Enemy: During the Final Battle of Changes, she takes the appearance of one of the Lords of the Outer Night, and the Red King doesn't notice until it's too late.
  • Enigmatic Minion: Hinted to be planning something. Whether or not the tendency has been "removed" after she was cured of Nemesis we do not know.
  • Evil Counterpart: To Eldest Gruff as both are personal servants to their Queens and have the power to defend their station.
  • Evil Mentor: While "evil" may be a bit strong, she was implied to have tutored Harry for a time after he ran away from Justin Dumorne, and she took up Molly's apprenticeship while Harry was dead.
  • Evil Redhead: More towards simple malevolence, but befitting her nonetheless.
  • Fairy Godmother: To Harry, obviously. Lea has a lot of fun with this in Changes, when she uses faerie magic to suit Harry up in Costume Porn protective armor before the final battle—against his protests (and much to Susan's amusement).
    Susan: Wow. You . . . you really do have a fairy godmother.
    The Leanansidhe: And I've never been able to indulge.
  • Fighting from the Inside: When she was possessed by Nemesis, occasionally Lea was able to override and resist the influence. She did so to ask Mab for help to remove the enemy, and later stopped herself from getting Harry to free her from the ice binding Mab had placed on her to help her.
  • From a Certain Point of View: She may not be able to lie, but that won't stop her from speaking in vague terms.
  • Hazy-Feel Turn: While she's still utterly crazy (even from the perspective of a faerie), she's overall "on the side of the angels" in the later books as the conflicts ramps up against the Outsiders.
  • Hidden Depths: It would seem, judging by Grave Peril, that Lea truly loves and is loved by someone, seeing as how she gave Thomas a kiss that blistered his skin and that mark remains on Thomas for over a decade. Although this is Lea we're talking about.
  • Incest Subtext: While she's not actually related to Harry, she is his godmother, and vacillates between maternal affection (referring to him as "poppet") and seductive behaviour that wouldn't be out of place from a White Court vampire. Harry finds it somewhat disturbing, and the bizarre dichotomy is lampshaded by Puck, of all people, in Wild Card indicating that it's weird even by the standards of ancient and possibly insane sidhe.
  • It's Personal: As she reveals in Ghost Story, the amount of aid that she provided to Harry and company during the Storming the Castle scene in Changes was not just because of Mab's orders. She hadn't forgotten the Black Athame that Bianca gave to her, which subsequently drove her insane. As Harry had already taken down Bianca, she owed him a debt of justice — which she very happily paid by helping him take revenge upon the entire Red Court.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: She plays ball with Bianca and Mavra in Grave Peril to collect the debt Harry owes her, causing him and team no end of trouble while the former two mess with the spirits of Chicago and manipulate Harry into starting a war, and almost getting Amoracchius permanently destroyed. And through it, she ends up with the athame which gets her infected with Nemesis, which not only screwed her over, but nearly caused the destruction of the Winter Court. Could also count as Evil Is Not a Toy.
  • Laughably Evil: Okay, not evil exactly, but in the later books especially, her blatant Blue-and-Orange Morality and sheer enthusiasm for bloodshed can be just hilarious to read.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: She's unnervingly serious and blunt when she's showing Harry the Stone Table in Chicago-Over-Chicago, and he's understandably frightened when she's absolutely straight-laced with him when she warns him that he must never let Mab bring him to this place.
  • Only Known By Her Nickname: The Leanansidhe is only a title. Her true name is unknown.
  • Pet the Dog: Promising to give Susan a good burial. Genuine acts of kindness are rare from the Fae, but as Harry remarks "Even in Winter, the cold isn’t always bitter, and not every day is cruel."
  • The Promise: The above Pet the Dog was done with a straight promise and no prompting from Harry.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: Has shades of this, as some of her behaviors are noted by Harry to have "a childish glee" or similar.
  • Scylla and Charybdis: In Ghost Story she admits that Harry put her in this situation as she has two obligations she must fulfill. First, she must honor her word to Harry and answer his question about who killed him. On the other side she is bound, presumably by Mab, to not tell Harry who killed him. She is forced to fulfill both by answering using Exact Words and being true From a Certain Point of View.
  • Sink or Swim Mentor: Varies between this and straight-out Evil Mentor. Fortunately, she has a much more limited amount of influence over Harry than his other mentors. Unfortunately, Molly is a different story . . .
  • Skewed Priorities: Frequently.
    • In Changes, she's less concerned with getting to Chichén Itzá on time, and more with how Harry looks. After all, Harry is now the Winter Knight, and his appearance reflects upon Mab now. Also, she's his faerie godmother and laments never having had the chance to indulge.
    • Also in Changes, the Red King sends one of his messengers to Dresden, and after delivering the message, the messenger tells him that her life is his to take. Harry refuses to let her come to harm. Lea is more miffed at the missed opportunity than anything else.
      Lea: I have not sacrificed a holy virgin in ages.
  • So Proud of You: Lea has shines of this in Ghost Story when she recalls how well Harry did in his last adventure. She had hoped he would make the fight for his daughter a memorable one, and as usual far exceeded the expectations. Harry is a little unsettled by this.
  • Stealth Mentor: She claims that many of her efforts to attack Harry were actually attempts to toughen him up. Such as in Ghost Story, when she refuses to aid Molly after putting her in danger because she wanted to teach Harry a few more lessons. She cannot lie but given her Blue-and-Orange Morality, such ought to be taken with a pinch of salt.
  • Spell My Name with a "The": She's called the Leanansidhe.
  • Token Evil Teammate: She and Martin are the most villainous members of the "Fellowship" assembled to save Maggie in Changes.
  • Troll: Has shades of this. When making outfits for Harry to wear when facing the Red Court (whose leadership poses as Mayan gods, one of whom has an understandable hatred of all Europeans for their conquest of Mexico). She finally settles on a conquistador armor.
  • Verbal Tic: Has a habit of saying "la" as an exclamation or expression of anything from boredom and dismissal to vexation and annoyance.
  • Villain Ball: In Grave Peril she plotted with Bianca to set up a gambit to try and reclaim Harry. Part of the deal included giving Bianca Amoracchius for a weapon of equal power. This trusting action led her to be infected by Nemesis and led to Maeve's eventual downfall.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Towards Harry (and later on, Molly). She genuinely has his best interests at heart (as far as can be determined), but her definition of "helpful" frequently clashes with Harry's (not to mention most human interpretations of the word).
  • When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Her gift of armor to Harry does have a time limit. It will leave him at twelve. Twelve o'clock noon. She is of Winter.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Suggested. In this case it's not her own power, but the power of the Black Athame that Bianca gave to her. She seems to have gotten better by Changes, but is still out for blood against the Red Court.

     Sir Lloyd Slate 

Sir Lloyd Slate

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lloyd_7.PNG
The Winter Knight. Slate is the Winter Queens' personal mortal hitman in Summer Knight. A drug addict, murderer, rapist, and general scumbag, Harry is unsure whether or not those were qualities that got him the job or if he got them from the job. In Summer Knight Slate joined forces with Aurora to get revenge on Maeve, who he had bad blood with. After the events of Summer Knight, Mab kept him prisoner and tortured him endlessly. In Changes, he was finally killed by Harry to take up the mantle.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Both Harry and the reader feel pity for him when the former finally kills him. Mostly because he probably wasn't that bad of a guy before the Winter Knight's Mantle overtook his personality.
  • Been There, Shaped History: Apparently, a conflict between he and Ronald Ruel that spiraled out of control, caused the necessity to update the Unseelie Accords to the most recent version.
  • Combat Pragmatist: When killing Reuel, instead of following Winter instincts and probably giving Reuel an equal advantage, Lloyd just decides to ice-up stairs in Ruel's house and shove him onto it, the fall breaking the guy's neck. He also stabs Meryl in the back.
  • The Dragon: To Aurora.
  • Fate Worse than Death: Lloyd Slate wasn't exactly a stellar human being, but let's just say that what Mab puts him through is . . . excessive.
  • Functional Addict: Whether this was introduced by Maeve as a way of controlling him or part of the package from square one is unknown.
  • An Ice Person: As the Winter Knight, he can use ice-based powers.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Mostly averted; he has a sword that resembles a katana but in Harry's opinion it just doesn't have the class to be called one.
  • Magic Knight: By virtue of being the Winter Knight. He can call on Winter magic and is a skilled physical fighter.
  • Mercy Kill: From Harry to end the pain and torment Mab put him through and so Harry can become the Winter Knight, though Mab forces him to admit to himself that mercy isn't his primary motivation in doing so.
  • Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: He conspired with Aurora because he was sick of Maeve's treatment and her tendencies. Though Mab was in a position that she could understand, getting tired of Maeve's ways too, she wouldn't brook a traitor.
  • Offscreen Inertia: Averted. We don't have to assume that Lloyd Slate goes on being tortured offscreen, we know he is because various characters periodically confirm that he's still being tortured during the eight-year gap between Summer Knight and Changes.
  • Professional Killer: His job is being the hitman for the three Winter Queens.
  • The Sociopath: It is implied in Cold Days that this is because he gave himself to the power of the Mantle and lost himself in it.
  • Super-Empowering: As a recipient of the Winter Mantle, he gained ice magic as well as the other benefits of the Mantle. He still wasn't a Wizard-level magic user.
  • Tragic Monster: Sarissa claims that he wasn't always the man he was, and that the Mantle changed him.

    Other Winter Knights 

The many previous Winter Knights who served Mab throughout history. Many are infamous killers known for their sheer brutality and cruelty. They include:

  • Tam Lin
  • Gilles de Rais
  • Andrei Chikatilo
  • John Haigh
  • Fritz Haarmann


  • Historical Domain Character: All of the referenced knights are Real Life Serial Killers... save for Tam Lin.
  • Precursor Heroes: Tam Lin is the last Winter Knight to earn Mab’s pride and praise the way Harry does - in particular with his willingness to stand up to her and the Winter Court for their predations. In a possible Mythology Gag, Tam Lin is also associated with The Wild Hunt, much like Harry.
  • Token Good Teammate: Tam Lin is the only fictional character among them, the only one to share Harry’s dedication to humanity above his job, and the only one who’s old story is even moderately heroic/romantic... and still pretty dubious at that.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Rais, Chikatilo and Haarmann are known to have sexually assaulted children and adolescents, as well as murdering them. Which suggests either something very concerning about the kind of person the candidate for Winter Knight usually is or something much more alarming about the mantle.

     Eldest Fetch, a.k.a. "The Scarecrow" 

Eldest Fetch

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eldest_fetch_8.PNG
One of Mab's retainers, an old and powerful faerie known as a fetch: a shapeshifting creature that feeds on fear and serves as Winter's enforcers, assassins, and messengers. Most fetches assume forms of creatures or people that their targets fear, i.e. movie horror monsters in the modern era, but these are simply illusionary forms or constructs made of ectoplasm. Eldest Fetch, however, is old enough that he can shape his entire body to resemble the movie monster known as "The Scarecrow": a massive, pumpkin-headed monster made out of old, supernaturally-powerful vines and roots covered in rags. Eldest Fetch is behind the fetch attacks on the horror movie convention in Proven Guilty and kidnapped Molly, though not all is as it seems . . .
  • Achilles' Heel: Like all faeries, fetches are vulnerable to iron. As a Winter fae, Scarecrow is vulnerable to fire, too, particularly fire conjured by Summer. However, Eldest Fetch and his fetch minions are also vulnerable to those who are not afraid of them; they can neither sense them nor use their fear as a shield or source of power. A fearless Harry wielding Summer fire is enough to panic him.
  • Anti-Magic: Harry slaps him with a Hellfire-boosted force attack with enough power behind it to knock him over Lake Michigan. Scarecrow walks through it without flinching. Later on it is implied that this works through fear; as long as the one tossing magic is afraid, Scarecrow can block their attacks.
  • Big Bad: Of Proven Guilty, as The Heavy for either Mab or Maeve.
  • The Dreaded: Deliberately invoked; like all fetches, he assumes horror movie monster forms to frighten his targets, giving him power over them.
  • Emotion Eater: Feeds on fear, and also has a thing for magical power. This makes Molly an ideal target.
  • Evil Counterpart: The Fetches are the Winter counterpart to Summer's Gruffs, making him the counterpart of Eldest Gruff.
  • Human Shield: Though Molly is far too small to be a shield for him, he does threaten to kill her if Harry or Charity attack him.
  • Known Only by Their Nickname: Throughout Proven Guilty he is known only as "Scarecrow" and the leader and most powerful of the Fetches. While it could be intuited, it's not until Cold Days that he's confirmed to be "Eldest Fetch".
  • Large and in Charge: The leader of the phages causing Harry trouble in Proven Guilty.
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: While he's not a direct analogue of any Real Life horror movie monsters, Scarecrow has more than a passing resemblance to Pumpkinhead. Or if you're feeling more generous, the Great Pumpkin.
  • Oh, Crap!: When Scarecrow realizes that Harry is not afraid of it and is packing Summer fire.
  • Primal Fear: This thing lives and breathes this trope. By using it against its victims, it becomes even more powerful.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Madrigal Raith was his decoy pawn at the convention. Scarecrow himself appears to be such for Maeve as part of the plot between her and Lily to get Harry into Arctis Tor and drop fire into the Winter wellspring, drawing off Winter's armies from the border and letting Maeve trap them in a region of slowed time, allowing Summer to attack the Red Court and save the White Council. No one said those bloody faeries weren't complicated.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: With the Scarecrow as his Shapeshifter Default Form. He only changes shape once during the novel, when trying to escape from Harry as a flying creature. Harry, however, is great at anti-air fire.

     Cat Sith 

Cat Sith

A powerful Malk in the Winter Court. Mab assigns him to be Harry's assistant in Cold Days.


  • Alas, Poor Villain: Downplayed; He's completely evil regardless and Harry is more annoyed/scared of him anyhow, but he still can't help but shudder in sympathy when he realizes that Nemesis has reduced Sith to an Empty Shell through Mind Rape.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: By Nemesis.
  • Cats Are Mean/Cats Are Snarkers: He is both to those he sees as beneath him (which is virtually everyone). As Thomas notes, he sounds like an impatient gradeschool teacher when he's lecturing Thomas on how faeries can interact with thresholds.
  • Combat Pragmatist: He doesn't bother with talking in a fight; he just kills his enemies. In fact, Harry realizes that he's been corrupted by Nemesis because he doesn't kill Harry instantly.
  • The Dreaded: For somebody that's relatively small, he has a killer reputation, and by all indications has earned it. When a group of Sidhe corner Harry with intent to kill, he snatches one from under the noses of his six allies and dismembers him in the bushes. Harry gloats, putting the rest on guard, and then Sith does it again.
  • Empty Shell: Sith is reduced to one through Nemesis, with him described being described as now speaking in a voice "completely devoid of anything like personality."
  • Fighting from the Inside: Desperately tries to fight against Nemesis' corruption to no avail.
  • Loophole Abuse: Mab orders Cat Sith to be (essentially) Harry's butler, much to Cat Sith's chagrin. Harry's first wiseass instinct is to request a can of Coke. Cat Sith gets him a warm can.
    Cat Sith: I shall be happy to similarly fulfill any such command you give me, Sir Knight.
    [Translation: I don't want to be here. I don't like you. Give me commands, and I will give you hell for it.]
  • Meat Puppet: Nemesis Mind Rapes Sith into one so it can try to kill Harry with him after Sith starts Fighting from the Inside.
  • Monster Progenitor: Of the Malks, according to Harry, who refers to Cat Sith as "the Optimus Prime of Malks."
  • Mouth of Sauron: Nemesis very briefly talks through him before shutting up and it tries to kill Dresden.
  • No-Nonsense Nemesis: When Cat Sith decides to kill someone, he just does it in the most expedient way possible. Fortunately for Harry, the Nemesis-infected version of him is more prone to holding the Villain Ball.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: His not coming when Harry summoned him should have been a clue to Harry something was wrong. Later, Harry knows he was brainwashed when "Sith" spoke to him to taunt him, when the real Sith would just kill him in the most pragmatic way.
  • Servile Snarker: He is ordered to serve Harry, but his open snark shows his disdain for this position that Mab has put him in.
  • The Shadow Knows: Cat Sith looks like a large but otherwise normal Malk, but his shadow is much larger that it has right to be.
  • The Sneaky Guy: In addition to his frequent usage of Stealth Hi/Bye, he can sneak around like no other.
  • Stealth Expert: Even when put on their guard, a group of Sidhe led by the Redcap are still effortlessly ambushed by Cat Sith multiple times.
  • Undying Loyalty: To Mab. He's almost able to win against Nemesis' possession when Harry reminds him of the oath of loyalty that he'd sworn to the Winter Queen... but it's to no avail.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Harry sends "Not-Sith" flying into Lake Michigan with force magic near the third act of Cold Days. It's completely unknown if Not-Sith survived or not; It's possible that he drowned and was Killed Off for Real, as it was still Halloween night after all.

     Grimalkin 

Grimalkin

A malk who serves the Winter Queens. He was sent by Maeve to guide Dresden to her presence in Summer Knight, and he speaks for Mab in Small Favor and Changes.


  • Cats Are Mean: Grimalkin is grumpy and mean when Dresden talks to him in Summer Knight.
  • Mouth of Sauron: Serves this purpose in Small Favor and Changes, as, due to her anger, Mab's voice would cause Dresden severe physical harm if he heard it aloud. Having Grimalkin speak for her lets him listen to her orders without suffering undue harm.

     The Redcap 

The Redcap

A high-ranking Sidhe of the Winter Court and part of Maeve's entourage. Makes an enemy of Harry at his birthday party and spends the majority of Cold Days trying to kill him for being insulted. He's also Ace's father.


  • Abusive Parents: Makes no secret of his disdain of Ace and would gladly have allowed Thomas to kill him if it meant getting to kill Dresden, despite Ace doing all he can to please him. The closest he gets to being a good parent is when he does praise Ace for his "spirit," when Ace is consumed with hate for him.
  • Affably Evil: Moreso in Battle Ground than in Cold Days.
  • Berserk Button: Don't touch, let alone steal, his hat.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: In folklore he's known for befriending travelers only to kill them and dye his hats red with their cooling blood.
  • The Bus Came Back: He gets a cameo appearance in Peace Talks as part of Winter Lady Molly's group at the meeting, and plays a small role in Battle Ground (Battle Ground taking place immediately (plausibly within minutes) after Peace Talks).
  • Choke Holds: Seems to prefer strangling people, even challenging Harry to a strangle duel.
  • Combat Pragmatist: We clearly see where Ace gets it from as this guy loves playing dirty. If he loses a strangle duel with you, he'll just show up on a jet-ski where due to the open water, you can't use your magic effectively. If that doesn't work he'll poison you while you're distracted with saving hostages, with a poison that specifically dislikes Winter creatures and as an added bonus will bring the Wild Hunt on your trail.
  • Double Agent: He reveals in Battle Ground that he's this to Mab, having been placed in Maeve's court around 30 years ago to serve as an inside informant.
  • The Dragon: To Maeve.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Okay, he's a faerie, and so technically not evil, just "different." Still, even though he's an unrepentant murderer and loyal servant of Maeve, even he seems to be horrified/stunned when his boss kills Lily near the end of Cold Days. It's worth noting that he's actually Mab's Double Agent in her court, and he's not half as loyal to Maeve as he pretended - or rather, he would have been, if she had been as competent as Molly, who he considers a vast improvement.
  • Eye Scream: Harry claws one of his eyes out. He seems to get better.
  • Friendly Enemy: He's considerably more genuinely Affably Evil in Battle Ground than he was during Cold Days, both dryly snarking at Harry with genuine good cheer and fully admitting that he considers Molly to be the perfect example of a Superior Successor in her role as Winter Lady in comparison to Maeve and holds her in high esteem. This does not change the fact that he openly admits that if he feels taking out Molly is in the best interests for Winter he will not hesitate going through Harry to do so, but it's made very clear that he personally holds neither Harry nor Molly any ill will and he seems more entertained by them than anything.
  • Hat Theft: What causes Harry to earn his hatred.
  • Jerkass: He is a real cantankerous prick who will abuse anyone he sees as beneath him.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: He and the other servants of the Summer and Winter Ladies immediately fold and surrender when Mab shows up.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: It seems that he was only helping Maeve try to "break into" Demonreach during Cold Days because he was Just Following Orders and unaware of the significance of The Well.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: It's subtle, but in Cold Days, it's mentioned in passing that he and the other courtiers of the Winter and Summer Ladies are looking on in undisguised shock/horror after Maeve kills Lily.
  • Poisoned Weapons: Uses a poison dart coated in Hawthorne to try and assassinate and weaken Harry, and it's quite effective against beings of Winter including the Winter Knight.
  • Spell My Name with a "The": Corrects Harry when called him a "Redcap" instead of "The Redcap".
  • Take That!: Occasionally favors a Cincinnati Reds hat. Harry, naturally, is scandalized.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: In Battle Ground, he's noticeably more civil to Harry than he was in Cold Days.
  • Undying Loyalty: To Winter itself, with him noting that as much as he approves of Molly as the new Winter Lady, if he thinks that for a second that she is a complete and genuine threat to Winter, than he will take her out without hesitation (apparently having learned his lesson from Maeve).

     Jenny Greenteeth 

Jenny Greenteeth

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jenny_greenteeth.png

The Jenny Greenteeth of English folkore, and a nixie who serves Maeve. At Maeve's insistence, she tries to seduce Harry during the Summer Knight case, but fails. Maeve later sent Jenny to destroy the Alphas in revenge for their actions during that same case. However, Billy and Georgia were able to defeat her.


  • Butter Face: A Downplayed example, when posing as a human Jenny is quite attractive though her teeth are noticeably green. When we see her without glamour she is actually quite monstrous.
  • Forced Sleep: She does this to Georgia so she can impersonate her.
  • Glamour: A specialty of hers. She first uses it not to change her appearance, but it did cloud Harry's... rational thinking enough to make Harry much more likely to take up Maeve's proposal; and she later uses it to impersonate Georgia. In the first case, Harry managed to counter it by dumping ice-cold water down the front of his pants.
  • Killed Off for Real: Ripped apart by Billy and Georgia.
  • Naked First Impression: Harry first meets her when she swims out of a pool in Maeve's court, dressed only in a transparent shawl that didn't even give a pretense of modesty.
  • Our Mermaids Are Different: Jenny is a nixie, which is a mermaid-like water spirit.
  • Red Right Hand: It's in her name.
  • Super Not-Drowning Skills: As a nixie, she doesn't need air. Like he folklore counterpart, this is actually a part of her M.O.
  • Theme Serial Killer: In folklore, she lures people into the water before grabbing onto them and dragging them down into the depths, so naturally her counterpart in the Dresdenverse really likes to drown people. When she shows up to sabotage Billy and Georgia's wedding, the ensuing fight nearly ends when she nearly drowns Murphy in the punch bowl. Cue Harry going berserk.
  • True Love's Kiss: Her sleep magic is vulnerable to it, which is why she tries to get Billy to kiss her first in order to 'contaminate' his love and render him unable to save Georgia.

     The Miksani 

The Miksani

One of the Hidden Peoples of the Winter Court, the Miksani are a group of cormorant-themed spirits who regularly send tribute to Mab. They have had a problem these last few years and as of "Cold Case" Molly must deal with it so Mab gets her tribute. A group of them are based in Unalaska, Alaska, including:

  • Nauja
  • Aluki
  • Tupiak
  • Kunik
  • Several children

     Glenmael 

Glenmael

A fae who chauffeurs Leanansidhe and her companions, including Harry and Susan, during Changes.


  • Badass Driver: Drives so quickly a highway patrol car seems to be standing still, while still avoiding all traffic and keeping the ride smooth.
  • The Driver: A supernaturally skilled one, who can weave through traffic as if he was on an open road.
  • The Jeeves: Lea's manservant. Harry had been tempted to tip him to see what happens, but his wallet was gone.

The Seelie Court (Summer)

     Queen Titania 

Queen Titania

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/queen_of_summer.PNG
The Summer Queen, who was largely unseen in the story up until Cold Days. She is Mab's sister and opposite. Whereas Mab rules through cold calculations and logic, Titania rules through the wisdom of the heart. This causes problems if her heart is not feeling very wise.
  • Action Mom: Titania is a skilled magic user, fighter, and directed her forces during the war in Summer Knight.
  • Actually Pretty Funny: In Cold Days, Titania nearly smiles a few times when Harry gave honest, if a little snarky, answers to her questions on how she and Mab differ. And this is from the guy she's sworn undying vengeance on.
  • Barrier Maiden: Mab's job is to defend reality from the Outsiders. Titania's job is to protect the rest of reality from Mab.
  • Big Entrance: She manifests by means of a tornado coming down from the sky and striking near Harry's location.
  • Big Good: While Mab is the Big Good about protecting reality from the Outsiders, Titania is the great protector of the human realm from the backlash of Mab's efforts.
  • Catch and Return: In Battle Ground, as in some ways she is an embodiment of Emotion in contrast to Mab's Logic, she cannot tank a hit from the Eye of Balor's Death Ray. So instead, she redirects the Eye's blast around herself and up into the air, which had been filled with the cold of Winter since Molly's arrival. The conflicting energies create a torrential downpour that grounds the chaotic energy of the city, leaving Ethniu with nothing to power the Eye and allowing the following duel between Titania, the Erlking, and Vadderung against Ethniu to start out with more even footing.
  • Cannot Tell a Lie: Part of the standard Fae package.
  • Curb Stomp Cushion: In Battle Ground, she, the Erlking, and Vadderung all team up to fight Ethniu, the Last Titan. Ethniu wins, but only by the skin of her teeth.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: Overcame Harry's circle of protection by cracking the ground is was set on. Rather easily, too.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Heavily implied to have, if not already crossed this line, than be way too damn close there for comfort after Aurora's death. As she bitterly notes to Harry in Cold Days, there is "no joy left in the world for me."
  • Driven to Suicide: Heavily implied to be part of the reason for why she refuses to help Harry, even with the fate of the world at stake; as he killed her daughter, she says that she no longer cares what happens to the world since there is no joy left in it for her. Therefore, she wants to die and take the world with her, potentially hoping that there might be some form of afterlife for her kind where she can see Aurora again.
  • Evil Is Petty: Played for Black Comedy; after absolutely terrifying him along with making him feel horrible over having killed Aurora, it pours rain on Harry as he leaves the garden where he summoned Titania and he sourly notes that this was almost certainly her doing.
  • Garden of Evil: Mentions that she wants to visit horrors on Harry that would make Lloyd Slate's fate seem kind by comparison. Among the horrors listed are "feeding Harry to her garden". Take a moment to process that.
  • The Ghost: Until Cold Days, she was never seen in person even when her influence was all around.
  • Good Is Not Nice: She is much more personable and caring for humanity than Mab is. But if you succeed in pissing her off, start praying.
  • Good Is Not Soft: In her entrance, she is wearing some kind of skintight armor, and she is unarmed, but projecting the confidence that she is armed well beyond the ability of her enemy to withstand. Moments later, she barely restrains herself from killing Harry and reaches through his magic circle like water.
  • Green Thumb: Not shown, but a safe assumption.
  • The High Queen: As she is Mab's opposite and Mab tends towards the other kind of queen, Titania generally has this kind of presence. If provoked, however, she can, in her own words, "make what Mab did to Lloyd Slate seem kind."
  • It's Personal with the Dragon: While Winter and Summer are natural enemies, Titania has nothing but absolute hatred for Harry Dresden personally, after he killed Aurora at the Stone Table. She understands that he did it in order to save the world and Eldest Gruff has been able to talk her down from killing him on sight, but as far as she's concerned he will always be the monster who tortured her little girl to death.
  • Mama Bear: She loves her daughter Aurora and despite knowing she was possessed by Nemesis and needed to be stopped, she still hated Harry for being the instrument of her death. Especially as his method involved her slowly bleeding out from dozens of cuts from steel blades.
  • The McCoy: According to Titania, compared to Mab, Titania is the far more emotional and empathetic of the two. This does not equal morality, however, because if Titania becomes offended or hurt in anyway (looking at you, Harry), her natural inclination is to take vengeance, even if doing so is irrational or detrimental. Titania is able to stop herself from hurting Harry, but it takes her a lot of effort and years of counseling, and even with the fate of the world at stake still refuses to forgive him or help him with more than a few small hints.
  • Mirror Character: For Mab. Both are loving mothers to their daughters and want for no harm to come to them. They also knew their child had been claimed by Nemesis and couldn't bring their hand down to stop them. ...Until Mab couldn't keep Maeve under control anymore.
  • Neck Lift: Does this to Harry when they finally meet in person.
  • No-Sell: Harry's circle of protection, which should block anything without a soul from crossing it, was simply overpowered and destroyed as easily as a human batting away a spider's web.
  • Pet the Dog:
    • Even if she will forever hate Harry, she is able to (with special thanks to several years of counseling courtesy of Eldest Gruff) stop herself from killing him on sight in Cold Days along with gifting him the name of the series' Big Bad - Nemesis. Of course, she refuses to do anything beyond that even when the fate of the world is at stake, but given just how much she utterly hates Harry, it's still an incredible act of kindness on her part.
    • On a similar note, while she still hates Harry in Battle Ground, she willingly answers his summons and helps fight Ethniu with the assistance of Vadderung and the Erlking to help stall for time long enough that Harry can use Demonreach to imprison the Last Titan. Relatedly, after the Battle of Chicago, it's mentioned that Titania brings about intentionally mild weather to help with the ruined city's clean-up and prevent more needless mortal deaths from exposure to the elements and the like.
  • Silent Treatment: She is giving this to her sister Mab. When they communicate it is by some messenger, like the Ladies or Knights. In Cold Days Titania mentions that they have not spoken actual words to each other since "Hastings" which is presumably the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066. By Peace Talks things have yet to improve and even on the serious matters that happen, Mab knows Titania won't answer.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Played with. On the one hand, remember that Harry killed her daughter in the most painful way imaginable (or as Titania describes it, an iron death), but she manages to restrain herself from killing him and even aids him. On the other hand...
  • Revenge Before Reason:
    • Has given geas-driven orders that no information about Summer's diplomacy, troop movements, etc, are to be given to Harry, mainly out of spite for him killing Aurora.
    • In Cold Days this is semi-averted after years of counselling from the Elder Gruff. When she has Harry off the ground and inches from doing things to him that make Lloyd Slate's fate look positively merciful, she relents and lets Harry go with the name of the enemy which infected her daughter. However, she tells him that she will never be able to truly forgive him for what he's done, and refuses to offer any more help, even with the fate of the world at stake.
  • Taking You with Me: Her main threat to Mab. Even if Mab's forces outnumber Titania's by "a jillion," they're all needed to defend the Outer Gates from the Outsiders. And if Mab ever goes crazy/too far, Titania still has just enough forces to take down Mab personally and prevent her from irreparably damaging the mortal realm.
  • Thicker Than Water: She’s not on speaking terms with Mab, but during Battle Ground, she still comes through for her sister when she really needs her.
  • Tragic Monster: Even if she's absolutely terrifying and unjustly hates Harry instead of Nemesis for taking her daughter away, she's still immensely sympathetic and tragic due to how (ironically) human her grief comes across concerning Aurora's death.
  • Villain Has a Point: Even though it's not the rational decision to make and the fate of the world is literally hanging in the balance, Harry admits that he can't blame her at all for utterly despising him for killing her daughter, with him even noting that after becoming a parent himself and seeing what extents he himself has gone to in the name of his daughter, he can't throw stones there.
  • Who Watches the Watchmen?: She does as part of the Summer-Winter Court power balance. She's a check on Mab for the mortals as Mab wages a bitter, bloody war on the Outsiders that can reach out and touch mortal lives if Titania weren't there to keep Mab's power in check.

     Lady Aurora 

Lady Aurora

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lady_aurora.PNG

The first Summer Lady, who appeared in Summer Knight. Was the one behind the murder of the Summer Knight, in an effort to give his power to Winter to disrupt the balance between the Courts.


  • Anti-Villain: There's something rather depressing about how the friendliest and most outwardly altruistic faerie in the whole series also turns out to be a vicious sorceress that's currently very insane. She tries to tear down reality itself for what she sees as the greater good. Especially as those who knew her describe that she really was as altruistic and friendly as she seemed once, before Nemesis got its hands on her.
  • invoked Alas, Poor Villain: Harry is visibly upset and saddened by her death, and the whole scene is absolutely heart-wrenching to read.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: She may seem kind (and actually is most of the time), but she's also utterly mad and completely terrifying when things stop going her way. Most notably, during her Villainous Breakdown, she grabs Harry by the neck, slams him against the Stone Table, and snarls that she's going to tear out his throat with her bare hands.
  • Big Bad: Of Summer Knight.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: By Nemesis. Her Evil Plan would have had unforeseen side effects extremely beneficial to the Outsiders' cause.
  • Cannot Tell a Lie: Like any Fae. So, she uses other means, while being completely honest to a degree, to distract Harry. See Care-Bear Stare below.
  • Can't Have Sex, Ever: Presumably, like her Winter counterpart, her mantle is tied to being a Maiden. Becoming a Mother is a danger to her Mantle, so it too would likely defend itself.
  • Care-Bear Stare: Uses this to distract Harry in the Rothschild Hotel.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: To add insult to injury, the way Harry killed her - by unleashing a swarm of the Little Folk armed with iron box cutters in her face - was an incredibly agonizing and horrific way to die, especially since "the iron death" is viewed as an especially disrespectful and nightmarish fate to inflict upon one of the Sidhe.
  • Dark Messiah: Her goal is to make a world where nobody will ever be hurt again... and she'll do whatever it takes to achieve it. According to every account, she was not like this before Nemesis got to her. With their being a noticeable decline.
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts: Mobbed by iron-wielding pixies. Bob even uses that phrase to describe it later.
  • Dying as Yourself: Sadly subverted. As she lies bleeding to death next to Harry, she starts to cry, apologize, and whisper that she only wanted the pain to stop. Even though Nemesis's influence was fading, it had still driven her too mad to fully understand what she'd done.
  • Fertile Feet: More because she's one of the most powerful of the Summer fae than because of her personality.
  • Forgotten Fallen Friend: Averted - Titania, even though she knew Aurora was corrupted and insane, is still in mourning for her daughter over a decade later, both Lily and Fix still dearly miss her despite her actions (it helps that they were likely told about her being Brainwashed and Crazy), and Harry doesn't fault Titania for holding a grudge against him over it and feels incredibly uncomfortable/guilty over having killed her in the first place.
  • God Save Us from the Queen!: Her goal in Summer Knight is to have Winter win the endless war. This would have caused a new ice age over most of the planet, killing the majority of humanity.
  • Green Thumb: After getting fed up with Harry's "interruptions," she conjures a thorny barrier around the Stone Table to try and stop anyone from letting her sacrifice Lily.
  • Hypocrite: She claims to be performing her insane actions out of benevolence for humanity... and yet is willing to sacrifice one of her closest human friends (Lily) to achieve this goals, and also derides Harry at one point as an "ape" after he insults her.
  • Knight Templar: Because of Nemesis, she is driven in her quest to "save the world" from the endless war of the Fae. She will save it even if it means destroying it.
  • Laughing Mad: She starts laughing hysterically right as she's about to start putting her Evil Plan into motion during the climax of Summer Knight.
  • Logical Weakness: The power of her Mantle is tied with the title of Maiden. Should she become a mother, it would shatter the power inside her.
  • Mad Artist: Sadly, by Summer Knight due to her corruption. Aurora is frequently seen covered in paints and her main "home" in Chicago seemed to have a lot of art going on, both by her and others. Lily had harmlessly modelled there before things ultimately went wrong.
  • Meaningful Name: She shares the name of a Disney Princess — specifically, Aurora from Sleeping Beauty.
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: Despite being almost two feet shorter than Harry, she easily throws him against the Stone Table and tries to strangle him during her Villainous Breakdown.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: She is, according to Harry, "five foot nothing, an hundred and nothing." She is also a Physical God.
  • Rebellious Princess: She is willing to have her first knight assassinated and then kill the girl Aurora turned into the new Summer Knight (who was also a personal friend of hers) for a gambit that would've given Winter a permanent boost in power and win the war.
  • Thanatos Gambit: After being mortally wounded, she tries to bleed out on the Stone Table so that the Summer Lady's Mantle will be forever transferred over to Winter, which would've also been an acceptable alteration to her plan. However, Harry is able to tackle her and stop her from sacrificing herself.
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: She was completely willing to kill off billions of innocent mortals to create a better world for the survivors.
  • Villainous Breakdown: She basically goes ballistic during her Final Battle with Harry.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist:
    • She tries to start a war which would destroy the Faerie Courts, specifically so she can put things back together in a way which would be better for humanity. Unfortunately, she's very crazy and the collateral damage involved in such a plan is unacceptably high.
    • As of Cold Days it would have been much worse, and she probably would have accidentally destroyed reality along the way.

     Lady Lily 

Lady Lily

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lily_8.PNG

A changeling who is friends with Fix, Ace, and Meryl during the events of Summer Knight. Briefly turned into the Summer Knight by Aurora in an effort to give power to Winter and break the seasonal cycle. After the events of Summer Knight, she became the Summer Lady — and was the first mortal to do so.


  • Beware the Nice Ones: She's absolutely terrifying during the Final Battle against Harry on Demonreach, with one of her attacks being literally described as being like "a miniature sun."
  • Can't Have Sex, Ever: Like her Winter counterpart, her mantle is tied to being a Maiden. Becoming a Mother is a danger to her Mantle, and it's stated by Word of God that if she was approached sexually the Mantle would place whoever advanced on her into an enchanted sleep, with the length of said sleep depending on their intentions (innocent oversteps would have them waking up tomorrow with a headache, with it scaling upwards from there).
  • Fertile Feet: Her mere presence causes plants to spring into existence, sometimes from implausible, inanimate objects. For example, in Proven Guilty she causes a carved wooden flower in Mac's bar to turn into a real, living flower simply by passing it.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: After she thinks that Harry killed Fix and tries to incinerate him, her eyes are replaced by blazing flames.
  • Hidden Depths: At the start of Cold Days, it's implied by Bob, as well as Lily's own appearance, that the Summer Mantle has more or less made her a copy of Aurora before she was corrupted by Nemesis. Later dialogue in the book, however, implies that she is at least partially in control of the Summer Lady's Mantle, similar to how Harry is more or less in control of his Winter Knight mantle.
  • Horrible Judge of Character: Trusting Maeve and distrusting Harry proved to be very bad mistakes, but sadly justified because she believed Maeve's straight statements were True (as Fae cannot normally lie directly at all - but Maeve being infected by Nemesis meant that she could).
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Lily simply wanted to get married and have a family, but because Harry inadvertently turned her into the Summer Lady by killing Aurora, she got stuck with the role.
  • I Just Want to Have Friends: Why she was willing to trust Maeve, Harry theorizes - after being thrown suddenly into the position of Summer Lady, and having all but one of her friends (Fix) die or desert her, and Titania being distant due to her grief over Aurora's death, she didn't really have anyone else to trust.
  • Kill It with Fire: Par for the course, but how many people sculpt their flames as a flaming butterfly?
  • Lady and Knight: When she and Fix are together they ooze the White version, in addition to being their actual titles/position within the Summer Court.
  • Logical Weakness: The power of her Mantle is tied with the title of Maiden. Should she become a mother, it would shatter the power inside her.
  • Mood-Swinger: The Summer Lady's Mantle unfortunately gave her this trait to balance her out with that of the Winter Lady's Mantle's cold rationality.
  • Nice Girl: After Aurora, she's probably the kindest faerie in the series... though it sadly doesn't do her that good in the end.
  • Playing with Fire: As a Queen of Summer, Lily specializes in using heat-based magic, including giving Harry a deceptively-powerful fire enchantment to keep him and his comrades warm while entering Winter in Proven Guilty. Harry uses this special Summer fire against the Scarecrow, and accidentally pumps it into the wellspring of Winter to boot. The rest of Winter was very unhappy.
  • Rage Breaking Point: After Maeve uses a glamour to make it seem that Harry killed Fix and was taunting her, Lily promptly loses it and tries to kill him.
  • Rape as Backstory: Though not outright said, it is heavily implied that Lloyd Slate raped her at some point for Maeve's amusement. It's also suggested that he likely wasn't the only one, thanks to the inhuman beauty she received from her fae heritage not being backed up by anything in the way of enhanced ability to defend herself.
  • Reluctant Ruler: She never wanted to become a Queen of Summer.
  • Sacred Hospitality: In one particular instance, she uses this plus Rules Lawyer in Cold Days to delay Maeve's forces from pursuing Harry for a short time by insisting she be formally introduced to each of Maeve's forces, as is the custom.
  • Shrinking Violet: She was apparently this before receiving the Mantle.
  • Surprisingly Sudden Death: In the climax of Cold Days, she stood strong and ready to fight Mab when she was shot in the head by Maeve and no one, save Mab, saw it coming (and even Mab was caught off guard).
  • Taken for Granite: During much of the events of Summer Knight she was turned into a statue by Aurora after being turned into the Summer Knight. She remained this way until the Unraveling could be used on her.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Upon becoming the Summer Lady, Lily went from a weak-willed girl who barely had the wits to survive on her own to a conniving, tricky magic-wielder who can work within the intrigue and treachery-laden world of the Sidhe. In terms of power, what her fae-half was before becoming the Summer Lady is unknown, but certainly far below the level of a minor Physical God.
  • Unexpected Successor: No one anticipated a changeling not chosen by any Summer Queen to end up with the position of Summer Lady.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Of Maeve. She is lead to her death by Maeve's machinations.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: She sees herself as the hero of Cold Days and is firmly dedicated to purging what she sees as a major source of evil when she's being played for a fool the whole time by Nemesis and Maeve.

     Lady Sarissa 

Lady Sarissa

I've been in Winter for a third of my life. I don't trust anyone.

A changeling who rehabilitates Harry after he comes back from the dead, she's actually one of Mab's daughters and the twin sister of Maeve. She becomes the new Summer Lady through Maeve's killing of Lily.


  • Broken Bird: Winter isn't kind for a changeling... or anyone, really.
  • Blessed with Suck: She was content with being just a changeling, until Maeve forced the mantle of the Summer Lady onto her by killing Lily.
  • Can't Have Sex, Ever: Like her Winter counterpart, her mantle is tied to being a Maiden. Becoming a Mother is a danger to her Mantle, and it's stated by Word of God that if she's approached sexually the Mantle would place whoever advanced on her into an enchanted sleep, with the length of said sleep depending on their intentions.
  • Logical Weakness: The power of her Mantle is tied with the title of Maiden. Should she become a mother, it would shatter the power inside her.
  • Meaningful Name: "Sarissa" is a Hebrew name meaning "princess". Sarissa is Maeve's twin sister, and Mab eventually groomed her into serving as a Hidden Backup Princess by having her conduct Harry's physical therapy. And, fittingly enough, she becomes the Summer Lady (a.k.a. the "princess" of the Summer Court).
  • Odd Friendship: Forms one with Harry as she helps rehabilitate him over the course of several months.
  • Older Than They Look: She is as old as Maeve was, making her at least three centuries old.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Even after assuming the mantle of the Summer Lady, she remains quite polite and cordial to Harry, and defuses an argument between Fix and Mab by simply stating that Mab is correct and that, despite the Summer/Winter conflict, he should follow her orders.
  • Spare to the Throne: Her helping Harry through his physical therapy is in part a chance for Mab to hone her into someone suitable to be the Winter Lady should the need to replace Maeve reach a climax.
  • Took a Level in Badass: It comes with becoming a Physical Goddess as the Summer Lady.
  • Unexpected Successor: Mab's machinations aimed for her to replace Maeve, not Lily. When Maeve kills Lily and Sarissa being so close, all the work Mab put into making Sarissa able to handle Maeve's job made her an ideal candidate for the new Summer Lady opening.

     Lord Marshal Talos 

Lord Marshal Talos

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lord_marshall_tallos.PNG
One of Aurora's closest supporters.
  • Cool Teacher: Seemed to at least occasionally have that sort of role in the court, seen instructing on the use of a bow.
  • Glamour: To look like Grum, an ogre.
  • My Master, Right or Wrong: He serves Aurora in all things. To defy her, even as she commits treason against Titania and the Summer Court, is something he cannot bring himself to do. It's unknown if an order from Titania or Mother Summer would have stopped him.
  • Nice Guy: Seems to be this as much as a Sidhe can with his concerns and conduct.
  • Undying Loyalty: To Aurora

     Sir Ronald Reuel 

Sir Ronald Reuel

A highly respected artist, the previous Summer Knight and protector of the Changeling kids. His mantle is taken over by Fix, at the end of Summer Knight.


  • Been There, Shaped History: Apparently a conflict between him and Lloyd Slate that spiraled out of control was what led to the (most recent version of) the Unseelie Accords/the disapperance of Milwaukie.
  • Cool Old Guy: He took his wards to Disney World.
  • Death by Falling Over: Was flung down a flight of icy stairs and had his neck broken.
  • Flaming Sword: Had one as Summer Knight according to the RPG, which may or may not be the same sword Fix carries.
  • Magic Knight: By virtue of his station of being the Summer Knight. He can use Summer magic and is a skilled combat fighter.
  • Old Soldier: Had been operating as the Summer Knight for quite a while, and Lloyd Slate admits that he wasn't sure he could have killed Ron through purely magical means. In addition, no one in Winter was willing to cross him when he took Meryl, Fix, Lily and Ace under his protection.
  • Parental Substitute: He seems to have been this to Meryl, Lily, Fix, and Ace.
  • Plot-Triggering Death: His death sets off all the events of Summer Knight.
  • Posthumous Character: His murder is what sets off the plot of Summer Knight.
  • Shout-Out: To J. R. R. Tolkien, as Ronald Reuel is what the "R.R." in "J.R.R. Tolkien" stands for. Reuel is also described as a "creator of worlds"/fantasy illustrator.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Outside of Meryl's brief description of what he was like, we know very little about the guy, and the few mentions of him in later books refer to him simply as the previous Summer Knight.

     Sir Fix 

Sir Fix

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fix_8.jpg
A changeling — a scion of a human and one of the Sidhe — who was friends with the former Summer Knight. Characterized by his meek demeanor and worrisome nature, and doesn't want to get involved in the upcoming war between the Summer and Winter courts in Summer Knight. Becomes the new Summer Knight afterward.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: Suffers one from Harry in Cold Days when Harry lays out evidence Fix knew and then repeats the question of when has Maeve ever been straightforward with an answer and who wanted to be on Demonreach.
    Fix: Oh. Fuck.
  • Bodyguard Crush: Towards Sarissa.
  • Berserk Button: Don't defend Lloyd Slate's actions or make sexual comments about Lily, or you'll be burned alive. Harry figures this out, and promptly jumps up and down on it to unsettle Fix and force him out of his instinctive defensive stance, nullifying his every advantage.
  • The Champion: To Summer as a whole but to Lily specifically.
  • Combat Pragmatist: As illustrated in Small Favor, Fix isn't afraid to preemptively put a gun to your head if he isn't sure he can take you fairly. When warning Harry to leave town in Cold Days, he mentions that if he stays, then this will be the last he'll see Fix coming. Later when fighting Harry on Demonreach he has no issues taking him on with a sword and armor while Harry is exhausted, already injured and completely naked.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: Averted. When he and Harry finally throw down the heat bloom off of Fix's fireballs is mentioned as being just as dangerous as the fire itself, and Harry is frequently forced to protect himself from radiant heat with Winter mist.
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: Goes from a meek mechanic with spiked hair to confident and powerful Summer Knight with a shoulder length do typical of faerie nobles.
  • Fireballs: Is able to launch one the size of a peanut M&M that instantly consumed a Winter troll hit by it.
  • Flaming Sword: Carries one as Summer Knight and is quite skilled with it, to the point that in the RPG his initiative jumps from Good to Epic while using it. When fighting Fix, Harry is convinced he could easily leave his guts on the ground with it if he isn't careful.
  • Friendly Enemy: With Harry in Small Favor and Cold Days; the Summer-Winter dynamic means he and Harry are on opposite sides, but they both go out of their way to avoid killing each other.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Like Lily, Meryl, and Ace, he has one Sidhe and one human parent.
  • Heel Realization: He realizes very late in Cold Days that he is helping the bad guys of the book.
  • It's Personal: It's suggested he'll hold Harry somewhat responsible for Lily's death. This is unconfirmed as of yet, though it's unfortunately likely as in a similar manner to Ace, Harry's involvement in his life has gotten all of his friends and loved ones killed.
  • I Am Your Opponent: Stands in Harry's way when Lily and Maeve assault Demonreach.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Goes into battle with a wrench in Summer Knight.
  • It Was a Gift: Fix's sword that Lily melted was a gift to him from Queen Titania for being her Knight.
  • Kavorka Man: Harry notes that Fix is not a particularly good-looking man, but by the events of Proven Guilty, his status as the Summer Knight has ensured he has the confidence and presence to get many more women. However, as his heart belongs to Lily, Fix (probably) doesn't really care.
  • Lady and Knight: When he and Lily are together they ooze the White version, in addition to being their actual titles/position within the Summer Court.
  • Like Brother and Sister: invoked According to Word of God, this was Fix and Lily's relationship during the latter's time as the Summer Lady.
  • Living Emotional Crutch: Appears to be one for Lily by the time Cold Days comes around.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Back in Summer Knight, which takes place before he was anything but a meek mechanic, he was still faster with his wrench than the Winter Knight was. Given what we see of the Winter Knight's power when Harry has it, this is quite impressive. By Proven Guilty he appears to have the skill and strength one expects from the Summer Knight as well.
  • Mr. Fixit: Fix was a mechanic before becoming Summer Knight and Craftsmanship has the highest rating in the RPG of all his skills.
  • Magic Knight: By virtue of his station of being the Summer Knight. He can use Summer magic and is a skilled combat fighter.
  • My Master, Right or Wrong: Will not go against Lily's commands even if they could endanger millions of innocent lives
  • Oh, Crap!: In Cold Days, when he realizes Maeve's Cannot Tell a Lie compulsion is no longer in place.
  • Playing with Fire: He is the Summer Knight.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Goes from scrawny, scared changeling to the Summer Knight. So really it's more like several levels.
    • And he beats the tar out of Winter Knight Slate before getting the Knight mantle, so it was kind of already there.
  • Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: While the Summer Knight mantle grants Fix enhanced strength and speed, Summer magic and instinctive fighting knowledge, wound him with iron and that all goes away, as he never really learned to fight without it.
  • Secret-Keeper: He knows Harry has a daughter. He's also in a position to do an incredible amount of damage with it, given who he works for.
  • Unstoppable Rage: When Lloyd Slate, the Winter Knight, kills his best friend, he goes berserk and takes the man down singlehandedly. With a wrench.
  • Who Watches the Watchmen?: The Summer Knight's job is to protect whoever is the target of the Winter Knight.
  • Wrench Whack: He takes down Lloyd Slate this way.
  • Yes-Man: As he fully embraced the role of Summer Knight, he rarely went against the wills of Mother Summer, Queen Titania, or Lady Lily. This led him to not consider questioning either Lily's actions or Maeve's forward answers until well into the climax of Cold Days.

     The Billy Goats Gruff 

The Billy Goats Gruff

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gruffs.jpg
Personal enforcers for the Queen Titania of the Summer Court, they appear to be goatlike humanoid faeries. Consist of a series of brothers who are not just powerful, but very intelligent. Based on the fairy tale of the same name.
  • The Archmage: The Eldest Gruff is a skilled sorcerer, having taken down three Senior Council wizards, killed a Denarian with no more difficulty than swatting away a fly, his very staff causes plants to grow even in the cold of winter, and he can teleport in a quick flash.
  • Bad Vibrations: Harry's introduction to the eldest Gruff is somebody with an incredibly deep voice asking Magog to stand aside, and, upon refusing, Magog being blasted into the building, and a series of heavy steps ominously thumping towards him. After seeing Tiny, Harry rightfully expects him to be enormous, but the Eldest Gruff turns out to be no taller than Murphy, and walks rather heavily using his magic staff as a walking stick.
  • Bigger Is Better: The Gruffs come in waves, with each "older brother" bigger, stronger and tougher than the last. Then subverted: the Eldest Gruff is barely 5 feet tall, and yet is orders of magnitude more dangerous than any of the others.
  • Bystander Syndrome: Averted in Cold Days of himself, Kringle, and Erlking, he is the only one to give Harry a slight hint to Sarissa being taken away by the Redcap. Rather justified in that he's the most "good" morality-wise of the three.
  • Combat Pragmatist:
    • Most other faeries hunt with swords or magic. The gruffs? Machine guns. The others aren't slackers at nasty fighting either; the youngest brothers ambush Harry with a feint and surprise attack.
    • The gruffs also won't shy away from bringing "temp agents" to help out; Thomas is hunted by faerie elves while masquerading as Harry, and later on the boat carrying Harry is attacked by kelpies: plant faeries apparently made of seaweed.
    • Tiny is actually very much a pragmatist as well. He won't attack Harry while he's inside MacAnally's, but he has no qualms about waiting right outside to crush him the moment he leaves. Also, when he storms the subway station, he does so under a huge combat veil; this doesn't generally get noticed because Harry triggered the fire sprinklers, which instantly grounded out the magic being used by the veil.
    • When Harry uses cold iron against them, even though they're way out of his league and would have easily killed him, they consider it Disproportionate Retribution.
  • Friendly Enemy: The gruffs don't despise Harry; in fact, Tiny and especially Eldest come to express both respect for his ability and regret at having to fight him. Once they are no longer enemies, the friendship remains, and Eldest helps him twice over in Cold Days.
  • Genius Bruiser: Tiny is a massive gruff who towers over twenty feet tall, but he's far from stupid.
  • Good Counterpart: The Eldest Gruff to the Leanansidhe, as both are personal servants to their Queens and have the power to defend their station.
  • Hero Antagonist: The gruffs may be out to kill Harry, but they're actually pretty nice and friendly guys who are famous for fighting and slaying evil trolls. Harry even has a good long laugh with Eldest when they meet, as they both agree that normal, mortal women are impossible to understand, to say nothing of the Sidhe Queens.
  • Hitman with a Heart: For Titania's personal assassins, they're actually pretty nice guys when they're not trying to murder your face off.
  • Ironic Nickname: Harry, being Harry, names the Gruff who outmasses an ogre as "Tiny".
  • It's Personal: Much like the fairy tale, harming one of the younger brothers, even if it is in self-defense, is not well liked by the elder brothers and they will come to avenge the injured ones. The Eldest Gruff, and so the eldest brother, subverts this as he doesn't seem to be angry at Harry's hurting his kin or the use of iron against them. He sees it as All a Part of the Job.
  • My Master, Right or Wrong: The Gruffs are troubled at having to fight Harry, who is someone they deeply respect, but they'll do it anyway if Titania wills it.
  • No Name Given: The Gruffs don't appear to have individual names. Tiny, which is a nickname Harry gave, is later identified as Elder Gruff, and then there's Eldest Gruff.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Eldest Gruff can swat bearers of fallen angels like uppity pixies and has killed three members of the Senior Council in duels over the years. He's five foot two, at most.
  • Rule of Three: Averted. There are eight total (six after two die in the initial attack) and they go after Harry in four "waves" in Small Favor not counting the encounter with one at MacAnally's
  • The Shrink: Elder Gruff acts as this to Titania at times. In regards to Harry, he helps Titania assuage her intense rage to the man who killed her daughter for the greater good. She reaches the point where she can comport herself in a mostly neutral manner to Harry in Cold Days.
  • Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Each "wave" of gruffs is significantly smarter and tougher:
    • The first four were relatively short, though still smart and coordinated enough to use small unit tactics and used misdirection, ambush, feint attacks, even playing possum.
    • The next three used disguise, SMGs, tried to funnel Harry into an ambush, and knew how to properly do a systematic sweep when Harry managed to give them the slip.
    • The next Gruff ("Tiny" Gruff) was more than a story tall, and is described as being about four tons at the least, and has knuckles larger than cantaloupes. He was also smart enough to go against Harry in full armor and underneath a veil.
    • The last one, the Eldest Gruff, is tiny but easily the smartest, but what makes him so deadly is that he's one of the strongest spellcasters Harry has ever met.
  • Stealth Hi/Bye: The Eldest does this to deliver Harry his doughnut to pay back the debt Summer owes Harry while Harry and Thomas are in a car. Thomas only notices the doughnut suddenly being there and knew it wasn't there before.
  • Villain Respect:
    • While "villain" is pushing it, Elder Gruff accepts defeat in the train station after Harry manages to use Gard's runic magic trap to beat and even maim him. He simply tells Harry to "finish it", which Harry refuses. Elder Gruff is surprised at the Emissary of Winter showing him mercy, and he departs into the nevernever with a last word warning Harry that he won't beat his eldest brother. Eler Gruff would go on to provide councilling to Titania and advocate for Harry's character, which is what saved his life some years later when Harry had to speak to Titania as the Winter Knight.
    • During their conversation, Eldest Gruff mentions to Harry that they tell stories about him. They apparently enjoy tales about underdogs.
  • Worthy Opponent:
    • The Eldest Gruff, a being who has killed three Senior Council members and has their purple stoles as trophies on him sees Harry as one for his genius in outwitting some of the strongest Sidhe.
    • Tiny also feels this way about Murphy, actually holding her in higher regard than Harry, out of respect for her, a mortal, going toe to toe with him and forcing him to back down by pointing out he is bound to honor Mac's rules of neutrality and no fighting while Murphy, not being a signatory to the Accords, as a police officer has a lawful right to protect the citizens of Chicago.

     Korrick 

Korrick

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/korrick.PNG

Another of Aurora's supporters.


  • Glamour: To look like a unicorn, of all things.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: Korrick is fiery and quick to anger.
  • My Master, Right or Wrong: He serves Aurora in all things. To defy her, even as she commits treason against Titania and the Summer Court, is something he cannot bring himself to do. It's unknown if an order from Titania or Mother Summer would have stopped him.
  • Mutual Kill: Wity Meryl, though Meryl was already injured and dying from the injuries she suffered due to Lloyd Slate and Aurora.
  • Our Centaurs Are Different: He's a centaur and a strong warrior.

Wyldfae: Goblins

     The Erlking 

The Erlking

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/interior_art_erlking.jpg
"If I did not release you now, how should I ever have the pleasure of hunting you myself some fine, bright evening?"

A powerful Fae and one of the Kings of Summer, who leads The Wild Hunt. First encountered in Dead Beat, where, as a result of the plot, he became one of Harry's mortal enemies. He commands the Wyldfae of Summer.


  • Affably Evil: In Changes, he treats Harry and Susan courteously when they land in his hall, even warning Harry not to Speak of the Devil. In other books he is outright helpful to the wizard. Make no mistake, though; he's still a vicious wyldfae whose prime passions are violence and death.
  • Bishōnen Line: When he takes off the helmet in Changes, his features are notably more symmetrical and attractive than those of his subjects.
  • Blood Knight: To say he enjoys combat and the hunt is an understatement. He finds doing battle on Halloween, the one night of the year where he can actually die, exhilerating.
  • Bystander Syndrome: In Cold Days of the Eldest Gruff, Kringle, and himself, he only stares blankly at Harry, giving no hint to Sarissa being taken away by The Red Cap.
  • Crown of Horns: He wears a helmet adorned with a massive brace of antlers.
  • Evil Laugh: Judging by Harry's narration when The Wild Hunt is fighting Outsiders during Cold Days, the Erlking's laughter sounds a lot like this.
  • Fair-Play Villain: Both of the times he's shown up as an antagonist, his adherence to his own rules allows Harry to survive situations that should have killed him.
  • Friendly Enemy: He's definitely going to hunt Harry for sport. One of these days. Doesn't mean he doesn't like the guy.
  • Genius Bruiser: Utterly averts the traditional idea of Goblins being unintelligent brutes. The leader of The Wild Hunt is very sharp, quick thinking, and respects these traits in others too. It is one reason he respects Harry, for while he may be weaker than the Erlking physically and magically, he was more than quick enough to take a slip of the Erlking's tongue and use it against him.
  • Hidden Depths: The Erlking is much more reasonable and courteous when he is not leading the Wild Hunt.
  • Horned Humanoid: Subverted. The horns are actually part of his helmet.
  • Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: His fondest passion, though, in the world of The Dresden Files man is not necessarily the most dangerous game.
  • I Let You Win: Harry defeats him and Kringle to gain leadership of The Wild Hunt. However, Harry realizes there was no way he could have realistically won; the Erlking wanted him to use the Wild Hunt but couldn't just give it to him freely, as the Wild Hunt itself will only respect a leader who earns control of it through force.
  • Immortals Fear Death: Averted hard. He loves leading the Wild Hunt, which rides on Halloween, the one night of the year where everything is mortal. Not only does he lead the Hunt personally, he doesn't hide from a full-fledged Outsider incursion; he just fights harder, and he's clearly having fun doing it.
  • Large and in Charge: He's nine feet tall, towering over the goblins he rules.
  • Leave No Man Behind: During the fight with Outsiders in Cold Days, he witnesses one of dozens of hounds get dragged beneath the water, and promptly dives off his horse into the lake to get it back.
  • Noble Demon: He'd hunt you down for fun and sport without blinking, but he'd probably at least give you something like a fair chance to get away. There's no sport in quarry that doesn't even stand a chance. He also follows his own code of honor, even if it's a primal, bloodsoaked one; he's so impressed by Harry summoning a zombie T-rex that he allows him to live in spite of the insult Harry offered him earlier that same night.
  • Our Goblins Are Different: In the Dresdenverse, Goblins are supernatural huntsmen with asymmetric faces and unusually cruel hunting implements. When its mentioned that Harry and Susan were supposed to be able to handle a million of them without trouble, Harry mentions that the real Goblins are like ninjas from Krypton. The Erlking himself is an honorable entity who will honor his word, even if he regrets doing so, and is much more concerned with "kingly" pursuits like hunting and fighting than sneaking or tinkering.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: You can expect the king to follow his rules and laws fairly and justly. He is even willing to help Harry save reality, once Harry proves himself to the Wild Hunt.
  • Ring of Fire: He creates one as the boundary of the ring during Susan and Harry's Trial by Combat against the Red Court to determine who is, if not telling the truth, more committed to their version of the story.
  • Sacred Hospitality: Even when he doesn't mean to give it, he accepts he has given Harry this by calling him a "guest" in Changes. However, this also extends to the vampires chasing Harry into his domain. As they have competing claims, he must decide on who is being honest and decides on Trial by Combat as a means to find the truth.
  • Trial by Combat: When Harry and Susan, and the Red Court vampires land in his dining room, he couldn't decide who was being truthful for why they were there. Is it sheer dumb luck and an accident as Harry contended or a brilliant ruse to get him involved in the Wizard-Vampire War as the vampires implied? When one of his men suggests this idea to settle the matter, he goes with it.
  • The Wild Hunt: He leads it on Halloween. He gives those who come into its path the choice: Join, Run, or Die.
  • Worthy Opponent: Genuinely respects and likes Harry for his tactics against stronger opponents and being able to call on such a powerful spirit of the hunt and infuse it within a T-Rex's skeleton. After he found Harry too weak to defend himself in Dead Beat, the Erlking spares his life because the dinosaur thing was just that cool. Still plans to hunt him down for sport one of these days, though.
  • X Meets Y: In-Universe. In Cold Days Harry notes he is like "Jackie Chan meets Hannibal Lecter".

     Griswald 

Griswald

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/griswald_ghoulgoblin.png
Don't worry. After he murders you, he'll give you an excellent burial.

A goblin who is in a dispute with Ambre, a ghoul.


  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: He's willing to kill an innocent person, but calls Harry out for disrupting a funeral for his victim by confronting him.
  • Killed Off for Real: Dresden annihilates both him and Ambre by channeling the qarin's power.
  • Noble Demon: A strange example. Griswald happily slaughters the Talbots... but in his guise as a gravedigger, he digs proper graves so they can be properly laid to rest.
  • Two-Faced: Goblins can be identified as such by having very asymmetrical facial features, as seen in the picture.

Wyldfae: Little Folk

     Toot-Toot 

Toot-Toot

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/toottoot_stormfront.png
The leader of the Za-Lord's Guard, and he won't let you forget it.

A fairy that Dresden used for information, and later recruited to his personal service by bribing him with pizza. Leader of the Za Lord's Guard.


  • Amazon Chaser: He seems to fall for Lacuna after she knocks him on his ass.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: Literally. By giving him seemingly-meaningless promotions, Harry actually causes him to become stronger. See Took a Level in Badass below.
  • Baritone of Strength: Played with. By pixie standards, Toot-Toot's voice is a commanding, resonant basso profundo. By human standards, he sounds like a cutesy cartoon character.
  • Berserk Button: Don't hurt Harry. Its doesn't matter if you are the Physical God Summer Lady, Eldritch Abomination Skinwalker, or Humanoid Abomination Mavra, Toot will carve you up with his trusty box-cutter.
  • Beware the Cute Ones: Several of Harry's early successes come from his respect for beings like Toot who greater powers tend to overlook, and Toot's services as spy and scout are a great help to Harry on many occasions. Once Harry arms his little followers with cold iron, things just get worse; no matter how powerful the opponent, no fae magic will defend against that.
  • Beware the Silly Ones: While Toot's (and by extension the rest of the Little Folk's) obsession with pizza seems silly at first glace, they take it absolutely seriously. In Battle Ground, when Harry tells them that the entire city of Chicago and by extension its pizza is in danger, Toot organizes a massive horde of furious Little Folk on what can only be described as a holy war to defend the city. He later sets Mavra's internal organs on fire to rescue Harry, and his horde of Little Folk completely ruin the Fomor's communications network with their southern forces, allowing them to get annihilated prior to the book's Final Battle (essentially securing the heroes' victory).
  • Big Damn Heroes: He buys enough time for Listens-To-Wind to arrive and save Harry from the Skinwalker in Turn Coat, and also throws garlic at Mavra in Battle Ground to keep her away from Harry.
  • Big Eater: For his size. He could probably outdo some humans under the right conditions.
  • The Cavalry: An especially odd version of one.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: He is a fairy and has a very odd thought process, but even then is implied to be a little... peculiar in the head.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Oh that silly little fairy, what could— Good god! My arms!!!
    • Forget your arms. Look out for your eyes.
    • Even way back in Storm Front, Harry is careful to not fall asleep while waiting for Toot-Toot to return because he knows Toot could whisper the information in his ear and then place some curse upon Harry for kicks.
  • David vs. Goliath: To protect Harry, armed with just his jigsaw blade, he attacks a skinwalker, an ancient fallen messenger of a holy people and pretty much a Physical God.
  • Fairy Companion: He doesn't follow Harry around, but Harry is nevertheless his personal Jesus, what with saving his friends and giving them regular deliveries of pizza.
  • G-Rated Drug: Pizza. It's hilariously lampshaded by Sanya in Changes.
    Sanya: (to Harry) You are a drug dealer. To tiny fairies. For shame.
  • Hazy-Feel Turn: After Harry becomes the Winter Knight, he and the other members of the Za-Lord's Guard seem to join the Winter Court.
  • Hero Secret Service: The leader of the Pizza Lord's (Harry's) Guard.
  • Hilarity Ensues: Instant funny, just add Toot-Toot.
  • Honor Before Reason: Toot-Toot refuses to run away, no matter how insanely outclassed he is.
    • This is important in Small Favor, as Harry knows he's in danger when Toot-Toot tells him to run, and even more importantly, to forget the doughnut.
  • Hold the Line:
    • Not in any epic battle, but Toot-Toot and the other Za Lord guard protect the cleaning brownies from the Dread Beast Mister.
    • In Turn Coat he is the line when he fights off the demigod skinwalker aiming to kill an incapacitated Harry. He fails, but not before buying time enough for another to come and save the day.
    • And then in Cold Days, he and the rest of the Za-Lord's Guard hold off the waves of Wyldfae that Ace sends to kill Harry. Harry thinks it's so badass that he compares Toot to King Leonidas.
  • Improbable Weapon User: A boxcutter and a nail. Of course, he's so small that these are about the right size, and since iron hurts fae, they're also surprisingly effective.
  • Instant Messenger Pigeon: As he and his group know the small ways and passages through the Nevernever, they are very good at acting as messengers when Harry needs them to be.
  • Large and in Charge: He's gotten noticeably taller as his power and status among the fae increase.
  • Literal-Minded: Even when he is eighteen inches tall he does not understand metaphors. When Harry asked him to watch his back, Toot told Harry to lean forward.
  • Modernized God: Not an actual god, of course, but he and the other Little Folk by and large love pizza nowadays, reflecting that meal's popularity in the modern day over "older" foodstuffs left out for faeries like simple honey, milk and bread.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: The Za-Lord's Guard (mostly made up of fairies less than a foot tall) wield ordinary box cutters to devistating effect. Even more so if their opponents are other fae - against them it's a little like wielding a sword made out of enriched uranium coated in small pox and acid, but worse. Molly eventually equips them with proper fae-metal weapons so they aren't running around everywhere with Cold Iron on their person.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Harry knows that he is in mortal danger in Small Favor when Toot tells him to forget about the doughnut and run. He's even described as looking atypically grim when he and the other members of the Za-Lord Guard basically form a ring of protection around him after he only escapes from the Gruffs by the skin of his teeth.
  • Oh, Crap!: After easily taking out two enemy Little Folk early on in the first act of Cold Days, he and Harry both notice a huge swarm of enemy Little Folk gathering above them and preparing to descend down on them. Cue Toot nervously muttering to Harry that he doesn't think he can handle all of them.
  • One-Man Army: When put into terms of the Little Folk. He's so badass that Harry unironically compares him to friggin' King Leonidas when he defends Harry from a group of enemy faeries.
  • Our Fairies Are Different: And obsessed with pizza.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: He started out about six inches tall, but still a powerful force that Harry shows respect to.
  • Power Glows: Well, he does, anyway.
  • Praetorian Guard: After many favors done to him and other dewdrop fairies, Toot-Toot become fiercely loyal to Harry by protecting his cleaning brownies, to removing any pests in the area in or around Harry's place. They even attacked a Sidhe Queen on his command.
  • Punch-Clock Hero: He and his people are mainly in it for the pizza and eventually personal loyalty to the "Za Lord".
  • Reckless Sidekick: Proving that Tropes Are Not Bad, despite being hopelessly outclassed, Toot-Toot is the bravest character in this entire goddamn story. He goes up against gods, demons, wizards, vampire queens, and through it all actually survives!
  • Scavenged Punk: Toot's armor and weaponry are this trope, and are progressively upgraded as he scrounges better junk to make them from. Averted as of Battle Ground, as Molly equips him and the Guard with real weapons and armor.
  • Through His Stomach: Harry gains Toot-Toot's initial loyalty by feeding him. First some honey and blood-soaked bread, then upon learning Toot-Toot loves pizza, that.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Over the books. He started as an informant and became a big damn hero. Per Word of God, Toot, like every other Sidhe, gains power by having more influence in the world around him, so he becomes more powerful through each act he performs to aid Harry.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Pizza, if that wasn't clear by now.
  • You Shall Not Pass!: Buys Dresden time by attacking a demigod.
  • Underestimating Badassery: Everyone's first reaction to him is usually commenting on how small and adorable he is. His response is zipping up faster than they can blink, holding a box cutter up to their eyes, and yelling insults and threats in their face. He might be tiny, but this is the fae who lead the team that killed a Summer Lady and personally held off a skin walker for a few vital moments.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Toot-Toot fears cats, especially the Dread Beast Mister. But for the sake of protecting the cleaning brownies, he and the Za Lord's forces will keep him at bay.

     Captain Hook, aka Lacuna 

Lacuna

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/interior_illustration_lacuna.PNG

The leader of the Little Folk who harass Harry in Cold Days at Ace's direction. Lacuna is captured by the protagonists, and eventually joins Harry's service by agreeing to be his prisoner of war in exchange for Harry abiding by the Winter Law.


  • Action Girl: She is a capable fighter, dangerous and not to be underestimated.
  • Beware the Silly Ones: She's just a Little Folk... and nearly kills Harry at least three different times within a span of less than eighteen hours with the assistance of Ace.
  • Blood Knight: This little one really enjoys battle.
  • The Comically Serious: Her ridiculously calm and straightforward demeanor, especially when contrasted against the flighty and cheerfully crazy Toot-Toot, is just hilarious. Special mention must be given to her entire conversation with Harry after he comes out of the shower, with just one gem including her misreading Harry's Aerosmith T-shirt as a shirt from his local arrow smith.
  • Granola Girl: According to Butcher himself, she is a tooth fairy. As a result, she thinks pizza is evil, and lambasts Harry for feeding it to the other pixies. She's also offended when Toot-Toot brings her a Jolly Rancher, and knocks him on his ass.
  • Heel–Face Turn: By The Laws and Customs of War of the Fae Courts, she accepts the position of "Prisoner" to Harry Dresden and becomes his personal valet, with some provisions in return.
  • Instant Messenger Pigeon: Like Toot, she has become this for Harry while he is living on Demonreach.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: When she is held captive by Harry and cannot escape, she accepts his declaration she is his prisoner and resigns herself to serving Harry, as mandated under The Laws and Customs of War of the Fae Courts.
  • Lady of War: Lacuna's typical station.
  • Literal-Minded: When Harry comments that he probably has brain damage, Lacuna offers to cut open his skull to check.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: For someone so small, Lacuna manages to kick a disproportionate amount of ass. She almost manages to kill Harry a few times.
  • Punch-Clock Villain: Only in service to Ace, and when it is clear she cannot escape Harry or Toot without serious harm to herself, she is humble enough to accept being Harry's prisoner and vassal.
  • Sadist: Played for Laughs in terms of her Blood Knight nature. She also calmly notes to Toot-Toot after he cheerfully remarks that they're dating (they're not) that when he is dead, she will claim his teeth.
  • Scavenged Punk: Notably averted. Unlike Toot-Toot and most other Little Folk, she has actual armor and a real sword, and not just stuff made of repurposed human junk.
  • Samus Is a Girl: Toot and Harry didn't see this coming.
  • Spikes of Villainy: Lacuna's armor is covered in tiny, spiky fishhooks, hence the name.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: Her denial of not being in a relationship with Toot-Toot is so specific that it can be potentially counted as Blatant Lies.
  • Trademark Favourite Food: She might not like pizza or candy, but she loves celery.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Like the other Little Folk, Lacuna is scared of cats. Especially a large number of cats.

     Elidee 

Elidee

A tiny, ant-sized pixie who guides Dresden through the Undertown in order to repay a favor to Toot-Toot in Summer Knight.


     Keef 

Keef

Leader of a group of cobbs based in Shoegasm, a shoe store in Woodfield Mall. Appears in the short story "It's My Birthday, Too". The cobbs, Keef included, are based on the legend of elves building shoes such as in The Elves and the Cobbler. Harry helped make a deal between Shoegasm and Keef's clan to allow them to stay there in return for likely helping with some repairs.


  • G-Rated Drug: Pizza is still an enticing thing for him (and the younger of his kind really love it) but he has enough control to not do as Harry asks for just that.
  • Interrogation by Vandalism: Susceptible to this. Dresden gets their information by breaking and then threatening to throw away some well-crafted shoes.
  • Killer Rabbit: Harry considers them this. Keef may look like a 19th-century ten-inch tall man with goggles and white puffy hair, but Harry knows they aren't to be pushed when it comes to shoes. After Harry uses a carrot-and-stick to get their help, he knows they could have seriously hurt him if the deal went sour.
  • Obstructive Code of Conduct: He and his kind can fix any shoe that is not thrown away. Even if the shoe is just dropped into the trash and taken out, they cannot touch them.

Wyldfae: Trolls

     Meryl 

Meryl

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/meryl.png

A half-troll, half-human hybrid, Meryl was part of a group of changelings that included Fix, Lily, and Ace. When Lily was captured she did everything she could to rescue her, including Choosing to side with her troll side instead of her human side, and ultimately died saving her life.


  • All Trolls Are Different: Meryl was self-sacrificing and had a soft, quiet voice, both unusual traits for trolls in most fiction.
  • Brawn Hilda: Meryl was muscular and ugly.
  • Deadly Upgrade: Granted, making her Choice to be a full troll didn't kill her in and of itself, but it ended her ability to live in the human world.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: With a troll being the other half.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Twice over.
    • She sacrifices her humanity to become a powerful troll so she can help save Lily
    • Her rushing against Aurora's thorns and combat against Talos led to her saving Lily, as well as the world, at the cost of her total life.
  • Killed Off for Real: Died of her injuries in the climax of Summer Knight.
  • Super-Strength: Even before completing her transformation she was strong enough to toss prople around like tennis balls. Post transformation she can smash through trees.
  • Undying Loyalty: In order to save Lily, she pushed her way through a poisoned barrier of thorns while battling mighty Sidhe warriors Talos, Lloyd and Korrick and kept going despite getting a hole through her chest and an arm cut off. She dies from the injuries.

     Gogoth 

Gogoth

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bridge_troll.PNG

A bridge troll. The first magical enemy Harry Dresden is known to have fought in Chicago. Appears in the short story "A Restoration of Faith".


Wyldfae: Others

For Kris Kringle, one of the Kings of Winter, see the entry for Donar Vadderung under Other Powerful Entities.

     King Gwynn 

King Gwynn ap Nudd

Gwynn ap Nudd is king of the Tylwyth Teg, a kingdom of Welsh Fey. He first appears in the side story "Curses." He is the one who cursed the Chicago Cubs.


  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: Arguably subverted/played with. At first, the curse on the Cubs was because he was angry - however, he kept it going even after he calmed down. Not even completely because of traditon, but because he viewed it as a way of keeping corporate interests and profit-seekers from trying to cash in on the Cubs.
  • The Dog Was the Mastermind: After Sianis' proclamation, the White Council did investigate a few times looking to see if there was magical talent in his family to actually curse the Cubs. They found nothing in the mortal's family. They missed the fact the goat was present too, and as Harry realizes with a laugh, could easily have been something else with enough magical mojo to cause the curse.
  • Hereditary Curse: He curses the Chicago Cubs because he (in his goat form) was removed from the game for smelling terrible. He's actually been over the insult for a while now, and keeps renewing it because he feels their determination despite the constant losing has become part of the spirit of the game.
  • It's Personal: When he and his "owner" Billy Sianis were kicked out of the game, he was deeply insulted, and cursed the team. His anger cooled down a while ago, but he keeps the curse going out of tradition.
  • Pals with Jesus: He's the "Jesus" of the trope. He is very friendly with Harry, even enjoying a baseball game with him.
  • Remember When You Blew Up The Sun: When Gwynn meets Harry, the fae recounts several of Harry's adventures for and against the Fae. He really enjoyed Harry's actions against the Erlking.
  • Serious Business: Baseball. The ancient fae king has hundreds of season tickets collected among other memorabilia. Once he and Harry are alone in his throne room, his first question to the mortal is his thoughts on this year's teams and who can win. When Harry mentally calls the fae a "fan" he means it in the vintage manner: The king is a fanatic.
    " We're talking about something important here, mortal. We're talking about baseball. Call me Gwynn."
  • Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: In the climax of Peace Talks, Ethniu and King Corb uses him as a Sacrificial Lion via Decapitation Presentation at the Unseelie Accords meeting, to everyone's horror.
  • They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: When discussing the matter of baseball, the king insists Harry calls him Gwynn.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: The extent of his abilities is unknown, but he can at least become a (foul-smelling) goat. He was the goat that was removed during the 1945 World Series game against the Detroit Tigers, which led to the curse on the Cubs.

     Grendelkin 

Grendelkin

Gigantic monsters that weigh over a quarter ton. Strong, fast, and able to cast some spells, they are very dangerous foes. One appears in the short story "Heorot". It's later revealed that they are, somehow, related to the Forest People.


  • Anti-Magic: The one that Dresden and Gard meet can do this, and it's possible others can as well.
  • Attempted Rape: The one we see is stopped by Dresden and Gard while he's in the process of trying to rape Elizabeth Braddock.
  • Bizarre Alien Reproduction: They can only sire children with virgin women, their babies burst lethally out of their victims' bodies, and drinking mead apparently makes them fertile. Oh, and it's implied that the pregnancies happen incredibly quickly.
  • Body Horror: How they're born, chest-burster fashion.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Once Gard proves to be a problem in combat, he kills the lights and attacks her in the darkness where he can see and she can't. He also nails Harry with a thrown rock after stepping out of Harry's blast range.
  • Continuity Snarl: It's now not entirely clear if he is in fact descended from Grendel, who is Retconned to having been a Sasquatch. Or having once been a Sasquatch.
  • Evil Counterpart: To River Shoulders - or perhaps more accurately, to his son, Irwin Pounder. Apparently Grendel was one of the Forest People who went really, really bad. Kemmler bad. And it was so bad that it biologically warped all of his descendants. Unfortunately, it also led to Vadderung and the Valkyries hunting down the Forest People and chasing them out of Europe, all the way to the Americas.
  • Frazetta Man: Harry describes him in roughly-similar terms, even pointing out that he has hair like human hair all over his body, rather than fur. It underscores his impression that his enemy is just Dumb Muscle.
  • Gag Penis: It gets compared to a fire extinguisher a few times, to comic effect. Even super-strong, super-tough monsters aren't immune to a good Groin Attack, turns out.
  • It Can Think: Harry expects it to act like Dumb Muscle, but it turns out to be intelligent, and surprisingly urbane. It even comments on the literary irony of killing Harry by tearing his arm off, while attempting to tear his arm off.
  • Mars Needs Women: They can only reproduce with the virgin females of other species.
  • Shout-Out: They're descended from the Grendel character described in Beowulf.
  • Stealth Expert: Surprisingly. Like Grendel himself, they can use a mixture of magic and innate sneakiness that belies their size to slip into crowded places and make off with things. And people.

     Rawhead and Bloody Bones 

Rawhead and Bloody Bones

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rawhead_welcometothejungle.png
Sometimes the cows fight back.

Large beasts that look like skinless minotaurs and are made from the remains of farm animals that died in slaughterhouses. One appears in Welcome to the Jungle, and a much larger one appears in Cold Days.


     Karl 

Karl

A nacken water spirit who finds himself bound to serve Luccio after he loses an ill-conceived bet with her. Appears in A Fistful of Warlocks.


  • Horse of a Different Color: Although it helps that he appears as an actual horse when needed.
  • Impossible Task: He offers to serve Luccio if she manages to ride on his back for an hour, and doesn't tell her he'll spend most of that hour underwater. He expects for Luccio to drown, since humans generally can't breathe underwater. Luccio, however, manages to survive the bet and earn his service.
  • Made a Slave: Forced to serve Luccio after losing his bet to her.
  • Servile Snarker: He makes various gripes to Luccio about his position even as he faithfully obeys her commands.

     Ace 

Ace

A changeling who appeared in Summer Knight who was friends with Fix, Lily, and Meryl during the events of Summer Knight. He betrayed Harry for protection from the Winter Court and he returns as an antagonist in Cold Days.


  • Character Death: He's shot to death by Harry on a boat towards the end of Cold Days. Though Harry didn't recognize the silhouette at first, he still managed to recognize Ace before the latter went down for good.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: First seen in Summer Knight and was still alive at the end. It is implied he is behind nearly all the car accidents and car bombings that nearly killed Harry since then.
  • Combat Pragmatist:
    • Say what you want about the guy, but he came closer to killing Harry than most other threats. Bombing his car, hiring tiny fairies and giving them real swords and nail guns, blocking his exit so that his father could get to him, blowing up a warehouse while Harry and his friends were inside and sinking it, and trying to Just Shoot Him.
    • It is also implied that he was the one behind the attempt to run Harry off the road in Proven Guilty and who planted the car bomb in White Night.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: With the Red Cap being the other half.
  • It's Personal: Harry notes Ace had a lot of reasons to hate him since he killed one of his friends, led another to death, and the last two want nothing to do with him.
  • The Power of Hate: Almost, but between his grudge against Harry and resentment towards his father, Ace's psychotic rage at one point almost manifested as a physical force.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Started off as a punk with a gun, ended as as a bomber and assassin by car against Harry.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: His father is The Red Cap, a certifiable asshole who gets his jollies from killing people and dipping his hat in their blood, and Ace desperately tries to please him, despite the fact he would have allowed Thomas to kill him if it meant getting Dresden. When held hostage by Dresden, the Red Cap, casually disregarded his son's life, causing Ace to nearly emotionally breaks with rage and hatred. Sensing it was the only known instance of the Red Cap showing approval for Ace.

     Puck 

Puck

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/puck_wildcard.png
Not quite as good a fellow as William Shakespeare would have you believe.

A wyldfae with power to rival the Leanansidhe. He appears in the comic Wild Card.


  • Ax-Crazy: Murders his way through Chicago with gleeful abandon.
  • Deadpan Snarker: He gets in some pretty good cracks at more or less everyone.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Played for Laughs - Ax-Crazy he may be, but even he thinks the Incest Subtext of Lea's behaviour towards Harry is weird and more than a little bit disturbing.
  • For the Evulz: His sole motivation for trying to start a three-way war between Chicago's most powerful factions is to amuse himself.
  • Genius Bruiser: His most dangerous trait. He knew to play politics to make Chicago's big players wage war on each other. More specifically, he got around the problem of a home's threshold by hacking into their phone and pretending to be police to get invited in, and acurately guesses the place Harry hid from him is a perfect place to draw and hide a magic circle, which he disables before moving in.
  • Graceful Loser: When Harry beats him in a five card draw at poker, he leaves peacefully, bowing to Dresden, acknowledging his victory and accepting his century-long ban from Chicago.
  • Healing Factor: The main thing that makes him so insanely dangerous to take on directly is that he recovers from pretty much anything in almost no time at all. Getting blasted with steel-jacketed rounds slows him down, but only barely. Getting his arms lopped off? They'll grow back in a couple of minutes.
  • Hero Killer: While he doesn't quite kill Murphy and Harry, he's still one of the few people in the series who comes close.
  • Karma Houdini: As expected of a villain of his power, he escapes unharmed at the end.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: Implicitly when he calls in a debt to get Lea out the way, suggesting that while he's perfectly comfortable sucker-punching her, he'd much rather not get in a straight fight with an equal, and literally when he loses the five card poker draw with Dresden.
  • Laughably Evil: He's a monster who causes chaos for his own amusement, but much like the Joker, some of his lines and occasionally absurd behaviour are hilarious to read.
  • Let's You and Him Fight: His strategy. He targets members of House Raith, the police, and Marcone's mob, each time making it look like one of the other groups was responsible so that they all begin shooting at each other.
  • Mind over Matter: Is capable of telekinetic blasts. They can be weak enough to knock over a moving motorcycle, or powerful enough to drop the Leanansidhe for some time.
  • Nigh-Invulnerable: Getting struck by a speeding bike? An annoyance. Hit by steel jacketed SMG rounds or Lea's telekinetic blasts? Scratch Damage. Gets shredded by high caliber rounds and get him arms lopped off? He heals.
  • Noble Demon: After a fashion. As with all Fae, he'll keep his word, and regards Dresden as a Worthy Opponent.
  • Physical God: As expected of a fae on par with Lea.
  • Practically Joker: He's pretty much the Dresden Files version of the Joker, with a Fae twist - insane by any reasonable standard, casual murderer, causes chaos for his own amusement, dangerously manipulative, much smarter than he seems to be, and funnier than he probably should be.
  • The Quincy Punk: His baseline appearance very much works on the standard punk vibe, right down to the multi-coloured hair.
  • Seen It All: Has been alive so long that his only source of amusement is in setting up situations where he doesn't know what the outcome will be.
  • Stealth Expert: Very good at sneaking up on people when he wants to.
  • Strong and Skilled: Another thing which makes him deadly. He is extremely powerful, physically and magically, and knows how to use them to maximum effect. He is also skilled with any weapon he can get his hands on.
  • Super-Strength: Like all high level fae, though he's much more casual about using it directly than most of them are.
  • Just Toying with Them: As he's powerful enough to walk through everyone in Chicago, he can afford to be this at times.
  • Time Abyss: He's been around for a long time, even by fae standards. Unfortunately, this means he's bored.
  • Vampiric Draining: He can drain the Life Energy from someone to make it look like a White Court vamp killed them. Only that his ability is far more advanced, enough to go Your Soul Is Mine!.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: He has this power, and he shows it off to Murphy, even turning into a carbon copy of Dresden himself in front of her just for kicks.
  • Worthy Opponent: Regards Dresden as this once he's beaten.
  • Would Hit a Girl: Murders a pair of girls in his first scene, shoots dead a trio of female White Court vampires offscreen, blasts the Leanansidhe, puts Murphy in the hospital, and tries to kills Gard and Lara Raith.


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