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So I recently re-reard Proven Guilty, and it is interesting how many loose ends and unanswered questions were left in this book that still haven't been resolved, compared to any of the other books in the series.
Here's a short re-cap, in vaguely chronological order:
1. The Gatekeeper warns Harry of black magic afoot. Ebenezar asks Harry to try and find out why Winter's forces are almost all at the Winter-Summer border, which prevents the Summer faeries from helping the White Council.
2. As Harry is traveling home he gets rammed by a black SUV and knocked around.
3. [Or earlier] Some group, (including Thorned Namshiel) attack Arctis Tor and kill all the trolls/gnomes/etc currently defending it. Mab becomes a popsicle statue on the balcony.
4. Harry gets home and prepares to use Little Chicago but his big ritual preparation is interrupted by Molly (who has by now already used dark mind magic on Nelson and Rosie).
5. Fetches attack a horror convention many times. They are either being summoned by a medium-grade talent in the real world or sent by an uber-talent (e.g. Mab level) in the Nevernever. Either way, they need a 'beacon' - a person with dark magic - they can be sent to. Harry thinks it is a sorceror using themself as the beacon, but it later turns out whomever is summoning/sending them is using Molly as the beacon.
6. Harry meets with Fix, Lily and Maeve. Maeve says Mab has gone crazy. (And she says it very directly... in retrospect this is the first time we see Maeve say a very direct statement that is a lie.)
7. The Fetches kidnap Molly and take her to Arctis Tor. (Harry surmises that the reason they take her instead of killing her is because as a fledgling wizard they can feed on her for several days unlike regular humans.)
8. Madrigal Raith and his Jinn kidnap Harry. Scarecrow ambushes the Jinn and kills it. Harry surmises that this is because Madrigal was being setup as a fall guy - Harry was supposed to think Madrigal was the summoner - and the Jinn was in on it, so the bad people killed the Jinn to prevent anyone from using the Jinn to link back to the real bad guys.
9. Harry uses Little Chicago for the first time to find the place where the Fetches are returning to the Nevernever.
10. Harry, Murph, Charity and Thomas go to Arctis Tor, with Lily's help. They find the remains of the attack, and the Fetches are for some reason hanging around the empty Arctis Tor. Fighting happens. As Lily had planned/hoped, Harry uses the butterfly she gave him to shoot Summer Fire around the Winter Wellspring, which sets off alarms and starts bringing all the forces at the Winter borders back to Arctis Tor. It also reveals Lea, who is being held prisoner in the Wellspring, and she is obviously fighting against the influence of Nemesis. Mab is a popsicle.
11. Dramatic escape, rest and relaxation, Molly's trial, Harry and Morgan get medals, etc.
12. Bob reveals to Harry that Little Chicago should have exploded but someone fixed it for them before Harry used it. Bob never saw anyone come and do that (but Harry did take him out for a while) and there's no sign of anyone getting through the wards somehow... let alone anyone even knowing Little Chicago existed.
So, there's a bunch of unanswered questions:
A} Who was really summoning/sending the Fetches (and why)?
B} Who attacked Arctis Tor (and why)?
C} Who was driving the SUV that rammed Harry off the road (and why)?
D} Who fixed Little Chicago (and why)?
For {A}: Harry has several ideas throughout the book. Initially he thinks it must be someone at the convention summoning them (though with Molly revealed as the beacon they wouldn't need to actually be there) because it takes too much power for someone to be sending them, but then once he realizes the phobophages are Fetches he believes that Mab is sending them because the Fetches are apparently Mab's elite spies and assassins. But why would Mab be sending them to attack a random Chicago convention, especially in her popsicle state? The only possibility I can think of is that it was a way to lure Harry to Arctis Tor so that he would use the Summer Fire there and that would free Mab (or at least free her more quickly) from her popsicle state. So the motive makes some sense and it lines up with the Fetches being Mab's close servants, but one would think there would be an easier way to get Harry to come to Arctis Tor, it seems pretty awkward that the Fetches just happened to kidnap Molly and bring her there on their fifth or so attack (what if Harry never tried redirecting the sending at Molly?), there would be no reason to have setup Madrigal as a fall-guy, and it is also strange that the Fetches would then fight the gang so hard if they were under orders from Mab to try and get Harry there after all.
But, if it was not Mab sending them, who was it? There's an interesting theory that another fan came up with that revolves around an otherwise very minor character. (Speculative spoilers)
Whether or not that above speculation is true, if the Fetches aren't being sent by Mab the next most likely subject is a member of the Black Council... except there is no Black Council so, someone infected by Nemesis. Okay, sure, that works since they were also involved in {B}, but what was the point of sending a bunch of Fetches to attack people in Chicago? It's not like they would do it just to keep Harry out of their way - if the Fetches had never gone there he wouldn't have had any reason to go to Arctis Tor in the first place.
{B} Given what we've learned now in later books, it seems pretty clear the the attackers were a bunch of Nemesis-infected not-so-Black-Council folks, including Thorned Namshiel (since as of Small Favor it is confirmed that Mab was pissed at Namshiel). As for why, one common theory is that it was to break Lea free now that she was imprisoned and being cleansed of Nemesis. But if that's the case, they evidently didn't pull it off! But then, if they failed, why was Mab stuck as a popsicle statue? I don't think there's a good answer of this yet, not until we get a clearer idea of how the battle at Arctis Tor finished. Right now, it seems like nobody won.
And then there's {C} and {D}, which we can make wild guesses for but nothing really adequately explains it. If it were something simple like a pissed off Ace hitting his car or Mab fixing Little Chicago due to her taking over Lea's obligations, there'd be no reason for the answers not to have been revealed by now. So why the remaining mysteries?
Hence, all of these still-unexplained parts of Proven Guilty is why a lot of other fans believe that at some point Harry is going to travel back in time to the time of Proven Guilty and he himself will be the answer to some of these mysteries. Future-Harry will sneak into his own basement, fix Little Chicago and tell Bob to forget about it happening. He'll ram his own car in order to make past-himself too loopy to use Little Chicago as soon as he gets home and blow himself up. And at the same time we'll learn more about the attack on Arctis Tor, and possibly future-Harry will uncover and deal with [the above spoiler person].
What do you guys think?