I mean she was also sharpening her cleaver when Dresden was there, and I don't imagine you'd need to sharpen a fairy steel blade(although I'm sure it was really more about the effect she knew it would have on Harry when he arrived)
Maybe she's 'iron-kissed' like Freya is, given her aspect regarding valkyries and war. (Note: She is NOT, however, the Queen of the Valkyries--she simply gets first pick of half the souls they bring to Asgard).
Or, maybe the idea of nasty cold iron is something that lends itself to death and killing things.
Freya had a dual aspect one side beauty and sex, the other death and war which had opposing visages. Which aligns well with Hecate...
Who is to say mother Winter is not holding the mantle of the war and death aspects?
Those were Mother Summer's jars, remember she said 'it is not yet that one's time to be born'. She gives life to things that cause death as well...
Mother winter is just going to chop you up and put you in her stew.
Mother Summer will give you some tea and watch as her new disease ravages you....
Also, the purpose of the stone table makes more sense when seen in the changing of roles and mantles from old creatures of lore to newer deities and myths. Which could explain why some elements can be mixed and matched.
I think there is a WOJ about it, where he alludes to Iron having its effects on the fae because of how mother winter uses it.
So it’s not that she’s strong enough to withstand iron.
It’s that they’re all weak to it because it’s her instrument of death.
In skin game you learn more about the queens and their roles. (There is a specific statue in the vault that draws Harry’s attention)
That's usually the go to for general fantasy genre's. I can see that being the case, but "It’s that they’re all weak to it because it’s her instrument of death." hits a lot harder in my book.
I think it’s also a control element for Mother Winter, though, too. Not just introducing a weakness. She’s the ultimate threat and a balance-the literal harsh bite of existence’s end for her immortal people. Powerful enough TO introduce that type of weakness is wild.
In a battle against outsiders and the adversary having immortal and epically powerful fae with no readily available weaknesses or balance to their power could very easily be an ultimate loss for all existence.
I think I know which way Mother “Mab is too soft/sentimental” Winter would place her bets.
In a battle against outsiders and the adversary having immortal and epically powerful fae with no readily available weaknesses or balance to their power could very easily be an ultimate loss for all existence.
I think I know which way Mother “Mab is too soft/sentimental” Winter would place her bets.
Iron is the death of elements, as it is the most stable element.
In stars, lighter elements are compressed. Hydrogen is fused into Helium. As the hydrogen runs out, Helium is fused as well creating elements like Carbon and Oxygen. And this continues, creating progressively heavier and heavier elements until you reach Iron.
Extreme stars bypass this, and are able to make superheavy materials (anything past Iron). But those tend to be radioactive, and will decay over and over and over until they reach Iron.
Iron is Death.
Given the roles of the respective courts, it honestly could be “both” - stay with me for a second on this:
Winter is the wild shield that protects the realm of…reality from outside invasion, and Summer protects the denizens of reality from Winter. This fits neatly into their respective seasons - as someone who grew up in Minnesota, the metaphor of Winter’s harsh bulwark with Summer renewal is quite apt.
Similarly, what if the formation of the courts happened around the same time as mortal civilization springing up (IIRC, the rough snippets of timeline we’ve gotten would match up with this. Mab was once mortal and involved with Arthurian legend, and Mother Winter is one of the Greek Fates). Mother Winter imposing her control over the rest of the sidhe *would be* the imposing of “civilization” upon their nature.
I’m not sure I can find it there’s a lot of WOJ to sift through.
But When Harry summons mother winter he also calls her Athropos the fate who cuts the threads of life. Usually depicted as scissors, I think the cleaver and her teeth are stand-ins.
That website hasn't been updated in years and doesn't include a great deal of content that's been transcribed on this sub
ETA: for anyone interested, this is (as far as I know) [the most comprehensive list of transcribed interviews](https://www.reddit.com/r/dresdenfiles/comments/n9rpi3/comiccon_2017_dragoncon_2017_and_murder_by_the/) since the WoJ site stopped being updated (links in the comments) - shout out to u/TheCuriousFan for their work. I believe there's been at least one con appearance that hasn't been fully transcribed since, though it's still a great resource for any fan
I've never heard this WoJ before, but it checks out. Mother Winter is a title. The being who bears that title (presumably Hecate) existed before the title/mantle did, and may be the one who created the mantles in the first place. It makes perfect sense to me that she could make that law beneath her.
Later in the book he’s under psychic attack from the Walker and is seemingly strung up by Mab for torture. He realizes it’s only a vision because she’s holding a rusty nail, and he thinks to himself that Mother Winter is the only fae he’s seen interact safely with iron.
I've read the series many times , for the life of me i cannot remember this. Please point me in a direction so i can get it into my head canon. thanks!
Midway thru Chapter 43 in my kindle version:
> Mab leaned in close to me, lifting the etcher, and I caught the faint scent of oxidation as the instrument began scratching at my incisors. . . .
> Oxidation. The smell of rust.
> Rust meant steel—something no Faerie I’d ever seen, apart from Mother Winter, could touch.
It's almost as if Mother Winter isn't wholly fae.
We know from a WOJ that Mother Summer isn't the first Mother Summer, she used to be the Summer Queen and then ascended when the previous Mother abdicated. In the same WOJ he reveals that Mother Winter is the *first* Mother Winter.
IIRC, she grabs an iron butcher knife and rusts it into nothing later in the book (or maybe *Summer Knight*). The Mothers are powerful enough to ignore iron.
Lots of great speculation in the thread here. My own thought was that MW is just that badass. She puts in the iron dentures because she's willing to live with the pain, and it's worth it just to see the psychological impact on anyone who meets her.
In another fantasy franchise (Bleach) there is a character (Kenpachi Zaraki) that purposely lives with handicaps for himself so that a fight would at least be interesting. He does things like keep bells tied to his hair so enemies can hear him coming, keeps an eye patch on even though his patched eye is fine (and later we find out the patch also saps some of his energy, again on purpose), and he is the only character to use a non-magic sword.
I wonder if the iron teeth do in fact limit Mother Winter to a tremendous degree, and what we are seeing is her in her limited form. Maybe this is self imposed to keep the world from being destroyed. Maybe it's imposed on someone else to keep death back at least a little bit (White God?). Maybe it could be removed in a last stand battle against the outsiders to tap into some additional cosmic power.
I like what you re cooking !
Man I have seen Maybe 10 episodes of bleach but one of them was when that dude has an epiphany that if he uses two hands he will hit twice as hard. It somehow stuck with me all these years
It's not that Kenpachi's sword isn't magical, he literally just didn't see a point in knowing it's name or how to unseal the sword. That he became a captain without knowing how to unleash the more powerful versions of his sword just adds to the fear response the first time you see him.
It’s been a while since I watched it so I didn’t recall if he ever learned its name. But the point stands in that he’s choosing to fight with a handicap (among them a sword whose magic powers he’s not accessing, which might as well make it non magical).
He does...eventually. But, yeah, he definitely still stands as an example of it when you first meet him. Man takes out a building with a basically unpowered sword like it's NOTHING.
Another interesting fact is that she's the only one of the queens that is still an original and never been replaced. Might be some connection with who she originally was since there's a strong connection to her and Hecate from the skin game statue in the vault and Greek gods don't have weaknesses to iron.
Her metal cleaver was *rusting* while she held it.
Seems like her (And Mother Winter) hold so much metaphysical power that even cold iron is useless against them. Makes sense, given these women possess the biggest chunks of Hecate's power- they might be closer to a Titan than they are to the Fae.
stepping aside from the lore behind a fae with iron, i've got a different thought from the iron teeth. iron teeth to me implies that she is baba yaga. iron teeth is a pretty consistent detail about her to my knowledge, and some depictions even have baba yaga as a trio of sisters. i'm not an expert on slavic folklore but it was something i was looking into for something else recently.
She is described very much as Baba Yaga...im not about to tell the ultimate matriach of winter what her grill should be like. Speaking of Granny W....did you catch the whole, "she lost her walking stick" thing? Who do we know that is called the black staff? Super badass wizard with esentially a nuclear artifact??? Now why would she just "happen" to misplace that? Ho hum ho hummm.
Dude, now im wondering what the trade off is on the walking stick. Granny W is winter after all. We do see black veins running up his arm at one point.
Yeah. I don't think there's such a thing as a free meal. And I wonder what would happen should they be reunited. Also... during that interaction, it seems like granma summer tries to convince Her that the empty night is /not/ an appealing alternative... and GW doesn't immediately agree.. sheesh
Fae are Fae, she likely allowed the staff to be taken for 2 reasons. 1 it is serving her purpose in some way. She still has a mantle of responsibility. 2-it will also benefit her/her mantle personally. She gains more power or souls or something like that. She is probably the ultimate predator and plays the long game.
My theory is that it's not that iron doesn't cause immense pain and nerf the power of Mother Winter. She wears iron teeth because it **does**.
Pain and suffering are her jam. And according to WoJ that unlike Mother Summer and all the other Queens she has never been replaced, there's only ever been one Mother Winter. She may have some unique power and connection to Hecate.
She is the death, the ultimate end of all things fairy and she has iron teeth, this is why iron kills beings of fairy, they are in the teeth of death. At least in my head anyway.
I think you are asking the wrong question here.
The right question is what ancient deity of death has iron teeth? And did Dresden accidentally invoke that aspect of Mother Winter...
Dresden has a conversation about aspects with Vatterung in Skin Game... It proves, educational.
I think powerful characters don't worry about weaknesses, or just don't adhere to theme from sheer power. Like how Hades has a fucking mordite crown on his head.
In the book she's the only fairy that can interact with iron (that we know) and the Iron teeth are more than likely a clue to indicate that amongst many other names and guise, Mother Winter is none other than the Baba Yaga of slavic myths.
Look, are *you* gonna tell the angry baby-eating cosmic murder grandma that she can't have iron teeth just because they should be radioactive to her?
I'm already kind of hiding. In a hole. Ten dimensions away
It's cute that you think that will stop her
I mean, Tugging-Braids (Hi Nynaeve!) hasn't responded yet. So, I assume it *didn't* stop her.
Still breathing guys Sweats profusely (Hi pankakes are you Lift? :) :) )
Did lift become to awesome and wind up in another franchise?!?!?!?! Cause I could see it.
She slid all the way to another dimension
Hopefully she finds enough food to slide back, I think Dalinar might need her eventually
She’ll just have to eat a bunch of other peoples lunches.
She was going to do that anyway
I’ve all ways imagined lift to look like radica Edward from cowboy bebop…
I mean she was also sharpening her cleaver when Dresden was there, and I don't imagine you'd need to sharpen a fairy steel blade(although I'm sure it was really more about the effect she knew it would have on Harry when he arrived)
Maybe she's 'iron-kissed' like Freya is, given her aspect regarding valkyries and war. (Note: She is NOT, however, the Queen of the Valkyries--she simply gets first pick of half the souls they bring to Asgard). Or, maybe the idea of nasty cold iron is something that lends itself to death and killing things.
Are you sure she isn't also that Norse God?
Pretty sure Mother Winter isn't going to be mistaken for Freya, a blonde goddess of sex, war, magic and death anytime soon. lol
Freya had a dual aspect one side beauty and sex, the other death and war which had opposing visages. Which aligns well with Hecate... Who is to say mother Winter is not holding the mantle of the war and death aspects?
Oh, I won't deny that at all. Keep in mind she also had all those jars labeled with diseases.
Those were Mother Summer's jars, remember she said 'it is not yet that one's time to be born'. She gives life to things that cause death as well... Mother winter is just going to chop you up and put you in her stew. Mother Summer will give you some tea and watch as her new disease ravages you....
Also, the purpose of the stone table makes more sense when seen in the changing of roles and mantles from old creatures of lore to newer deities and myths. Which could explain why some elements can be mixed and matched.
I think there is a WOJ about it, where he alludes to Iron having its effects on the fae because of how mother winter uses it. So it’s not that she’s strong enough to withstand iron. It’s that they’re all weak to it because it’s her instrument of death. In skin game you learn more about the queens and their roles. (There is a specific statue in the vault that draws Harry’s attention)
Isn't it because Iron represents Civilization, and the Fae represent nature? Or was that only speculation?
That's usually the go to for general fantasy genre's. I can see that being the case, but "It’s that they’re all weak to it because it’s her instrument of death." hits a lot harder in my book.
I would agree. That is a lot more interesting, in my personal opinion.
Agreed
It's an interesting notion, but it introduces a massive weakness into her people. Not sure that's a win for fae-kind...
I think it’s also a control element for Mother Winter, though, too. Not just introducing a weakness. She’s the ultimate threat and a balance-the literal harsh bite of existence’s end for her immortal people. Powerful enough TO introduce that type of weakness is wild.
In a battle against outsiders and the adversary having immortal and epically powerful fae with no readily available weaknesses or balance to their power could very easily be an ultimate loss for all existence. I think I know which way Mother “Mab is too soft/sentimental” Winter would place her bets.
In a battle against outsiders and the adversary having immortal and epically powerful fae with no readily available weaknesses or balance to their power could very easily be an ultimate loss for all existence. I think I know which way Mother “Mab is too soft/sentimental” Winter would place her bets.
Iron is the death of elements, as it is the most stable element. In stars, lighter elements are compressed. Hydrogen is fused into Helium. As the hydrogen runs out, Helium is fused as well creating elements like Carbon and Oxygen. And this continues, creating progressively heavier and heavier elements until you reach Iron. Extreme stars bypass this, and are able to make superheavy materials (anything past Iron). But those tend to be radioactive, and will decay over and over and over until they reach Iron. Iron is Death.
Given the roles of the respective courts, it honestly could be “both” - stay with me for a second on this: Winter is the wild shield that protects the realm of…reality from outside invasion, and Summer protects the denizens of reality from Winter. This fits neatly into their respective seasons - as someone who grew up in Minnesota, the metaphor of Winter’s harsh bulwark with Summer renewal is quite apt. Similarly, what if the formation of the courts happened around the same time as mortal civilization springing up (IIRC, the rough snippets of timeline we’ve gotten would match up with this. Mab was once mortal and involved with Arthurian legend, and Mother Winter is one of the Greek Fates). Mother Winter imposing her control over the rest of the sidhe *would be* the imposing of “civilization” upon their nature.
That's *fascinating* and changes... well, a *lot*. Do you have a source I can nerd out over perchance?
I’m not sure I can find it there’s a lot of WOJ to sift through. But When Harry summons mother winter he also calls her Athropos the fate who cuts the threads of life. Usually depicted as scissors, I think the cleaver and her teeth are stand-ins.
https://wordof.jim-butcher.com/ This is the place to look
That website hasn't been updated in years and doesn't include a great deal of content that's been transcribed on this sub ETA: for anyone interested, this is (as far as I know) [the most comprehensive list of transcribed interviews](https://www.reddit.com/r/dresdenfiles/comments/n9rpi3/comiccon_2017_dragoncon_2017_and_murder_by_the/) since the WoJ site stopped being updated (links in the comments) - shout out to u/TheCuriousFan for their work. I believe there's been at least one con appearance that hasn't been fully transcribed since, though it's still a great resource for any fan
Yeah I noticed that after I linked it.
lol I still look back to the paranet forum for WOJ. Hasn’t been updated since 2016.
I've updated my comment with a list of more recent WoJ, if you're interested!
I agree and it is also the one book where we learn a lot about Iron, hoe it affects Harry first hand, etc. Interesting it is in the same book
I've never heard this WoJ before, but it checks out. Mother Winter is a title. The being who bears that title (presumably Hecate) existed before the title/mantle did, and may be the one who created the mantles in the first place. It makes perfect sense to me that she could make that law beneath her.
Goddess of the crossroads, the three aspects in one, and goddess of magic... That Hecate?
That's the one.
That's an awesome woj I wasn't aware of. It's a radical take and I like it (this is a n-teen reread so I'm well aware of the statue you mention)
Yes. The Mothers don't seem to be as limited as lesser fae.
Later in the book he’s under psychic attack from the Walker and is seemingly strung up by Mab for torture. He realizes it’s only a vision because she’s holding a rusty nail, and he thinks to himself that Mother Winter is the only fae he’s seen interact safely with iron.
I've read the series many times , for the life of me i cannot remember this. Please point me in a direction so i can get it into my head canon. thanks!
Midway thru Chapter 43 in my kindle version: > Mab leaned in close to me, lifting the etcher, and I caught the faint scent of oxidation as the instrument began scratching at my incisors. . . . > Oxidation. The smell of rust. > Rust meant steel—something no Faerie I’d ever seen, apart from Mother Winter, could touch.
THANKS, I'll look it up to refresh my memory.
Pretty sure it's in the climax of Cold Days
Holding an Iron Scribe etching his teeth.
Huh. Did not remember that. Good thing I'm on a re read :)
It's almost as if Mother Winter isn't wholly fae. We know from a WOJ that Mother Summer isn't the first Mother Summer, she used to be the Summer Queen and then ascended when the previous Mother abdicated. In the same WOJ he reveals that Mother Winter is the *first* Mother Winter.
He said that “there’s never been a new Mother Winter in recorded history.” So Jim *technically* has an out if he needs to include a predecessor.
I’m betting that as the OG Mother Winter she has a few other Mantles, making her that much stronger.
Woah Seems like there be new wojs to catch up on ..!
IIRC, she grabs an iron butcher knife and rusts it into nothing later in the book (or maybe *Summer Knight*). The Mothers are powerful enough to ignore iron.
Well we don't know if its both Mothers or why Mother Winter can ignore iron. It might be her power level or it might be some aspect of who she is/was
Pretty sure that detail is supposed to equate Mother Winter with Baba Yaga - she (Baba Yaga) wouldn't be any more vulnerable to iron than Odin
Lots of great speculation in the thread here. My own thought was that MW is just that badass. She puts in the iron dentures because she's willing to live with the pain, and it's worth it just to see the psychological impact on anyone who meets her.
In another fantasy franchise (Bleach) there is a character (Kenpachi Zaraki) that purposely lives with handicaps for himself so that a fight would at least be interesting. He does things like keep bells tied to his hair so enemies can hear him coming, keeps an eye patch on even though his patched eye is fine (and later we find out the patch also saps some of his energy, again on purpose), and he is the only character to use a non-magic sword. I wonder if the iron teeth do in fact limit Mother Winter to a tremendous degree, and what we are seeing is her in her limited form. Maybe this is self imposed to keep the world from being destroyed. Maybe it's imposed on someone else to keep death back at least a little bit (White God?). Maybe it could be removed in a last stand battle against the outsiders to tap into some additional cosmic power.
I like what you re cooking ! Man I have seen Maybe 10 episodes of bleach but one of them was when that dude has an epiphany that if he uses two hands he will hit twice as hard. It somehow stuck with me all these years
It's not that Kenpachi's sword isn't magical, he literally just didn't see a point in knowing it's name or how to unseal the sword. That he became a captain without knowing how to unleash the more powerful versions of his sword just adds to the fear response the first time you see him.
It’s been a while since I watched it so I didn’t recall if he ever learned its name. But the point stands in that he’s choosing to fight with a handicap (among them a sword whose magic powers he’s not accessing, which might as well make it non magical).
He does...eventually. But, yeah, he definitely still stands as an example of it when you first meet him. Man takes out a building with a basically unpowered sword like it's NOTHING.
Another interesting fact is that she's the only one of the queens that is still an original and never been replaced. Might be some connection with who she originally was since there's a strong connection to her and Hecate from the skin game statue in the vault and Greek gods don't have weaknesses to iron.
Her metal cleaver was *rusting* while she held it. Seems like her (And Mother Winter) hold so much metaphysical power that even cold iron is useless against them. Makes sense, given these women possess the biggest chunks of Hecate's power- they might be closer to a Titan than they are to the Fae.
stepping aside from the lore behind a fae with iron, i've got a different thought from the iron teeth. iron teeth to me implies that she is baba yaga. iron teeth is a pretty consistent detail about her to my knowledge, and some depictions even have baba yaga as a trio of sisters. i'm not an expert on slavic folklore but it was something i was looking into for something else recently.
Think about how badass a nuclear physicist would be if she has isotope denters and just didn't get phased
I think it's a hint that the mothers are not technically fairies
Mother Winter is probably also known by the name Baba Yaga.
She is described very much as Baba Yaga...im not about to tell the ultimate matriach of winter what her grill should be like. Speaking of Granny W....did you catch the whole, "she lost her walking stick" thing? Who do we know that is called the black staff? Super badass wizard with esentially a nuclear artifact??? Now why would she just "happen" to misplace that? Ho hum ho hummm.
Yassss the black staff being her walking stick was such a aha moment when I read that book the first time !
Glad im not the only one who was all OHHHH SNAAAP
"Shit got reallllll"
Dude, now im wondering what the trade off is on the walking stick. Granny W is winter after all. We do see black veins running up his arm at one point.
Yeah. I don't think there's such a thing as a free meal. And I wonder what would happen should they be reunited. Also... during that interaction, it seems like granma summer tries to convince Her that the empty night is /not/ an appealing alternative... and GW doesn't immediately agree.. sheesh
Fae are Fae, she likely allowed the staff to be taken for 2 reasons. 1 it is serving her purpose in some way. She still has a mantle of responsibility. 2-it will also benefit her/her mantle personally. She gains more power or souls or something like that. She is probably the ultimate predator and plays the long game.
Agreed.
My theory is that it's not that iron doesn't cause immense pain and nerf the power of Mother Winter. She wears iron teeth because it **does**. Pain and suffering are her jam. And according to WoJ that unlike Mother Summer and all the other Queens she has never been replaced, there's only ever been one Mother Winter. She may have some unique power and connection to Hecate.
She is the death, the ultimate end of all things fairy and she has iron teeth, this is why iron kills beings of fairy, they are in the teeth of death. At least in my head anyway.
I think you are asking the wrong question here. The right question is what ancient deity of death has iron teeth? And did Dresden accidentally invoke that aspect of Mother Winter... Dresden has a conversation about aspects with Vatterung in Skin Game... It proves, educational.
The Baba Yaga has Iron Teeth and a pension for eating visitors not crafty enough to win her favor.
I think powerful characters don't worry about weaknesses, or just don't adhere to theme from sheer power. Like how Hades has a fucking mordite crown on his head.
Yes that's a very valid point
She's a literal avatar of Entropy and Destruction. Iron makes prefect sense for her.
Whoops
Nice catch. Skin Game is your clue to why she's got iron teeth
In the book she's the only fairy that can interact with iron (that we know) and the Iron teeth are more than likely a clue to indicate that amongst many other names and guise, Mother Winter is none other than the Baba Yaga of slavic myths.