[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Lots of sources like to start by saying Seelie / Unseelie is not Good / Evil, and then generally fail to deliver. We have a natural bias toward law and summer. Dresden does this, along with lots of other fantasy.

Butcher is undercutting his own past work with his latest Faerie stuff, IMHO, making precisely this error. As we get closer looks at the Fae, they start to look and act too human.

The problem is that blue/orange morality is almost impossible to interact with for humans without serious conflict, precisely because it is alien, and often leads to the entity following it doing things that the human's morality forces him to see as 'dark/evil' or at least 'intolerable' rather than 'orange/other'.

For ex, from a human POV, using the Dresden Fae, does it matter that Mother Winter likes the taste of the meat from human infants not because she's evil but because she's 'orange/other'? You might say that she's no more evil for doing it than a bear is for eating a baby...but you shoot a bear that does that, too, and a human who failed to shoot a bear to keep it from eating a human baby would be reviled as an evil monster by most, even by those who agreed that the bear was not evil.

If Winter's orange morality requires that they freeze a major city to death...what differences does it make to the White Council whether they are doing so out of malevolence or alien morality? The Wardens still have a city facing destruction and a major emergency on their hands.

For that matter, from the POV of the Wardens trying to save Chicago's people from being frozen to death, what difference is there between the Winter Court doing this out of alien morality or a nutcase human wizard doing so because he's bat**** insane? Either way, they've got a city to save...somehow.

Winter can be rational, cold, and calculating. That also includes "enlightened self-interest". They don't have to be selfish and exploitative. They understand Prisoner's Dilemmas and positive-sum games (a "win-win", where others can benefit as well as their own interests). They can also play the long game, giving up local advantages in the short term for longer-term or larger-scale benefits. Star Trek Vulcans are supposed to be cold and logical, right? But they're not portrayed as evil because of that.

But note that the Vulcans don't follow blue/grey morality, but rather a very austere and ascetic version of traditional black/white morals recognizable to humans. That's a critical difference.

This was sort of how Butcher tended to portray Winter in the earlier novels, for that matter. When Harry had to interact with the Fae, he often ended up doing best dealing with Mab precisely because it's possible to do rational business with her. If Maeve was Winter as cold caprice, and Mab's monsters are Winter as Appetite, Mab is Winter as Necessary Season and part of the natural cycle.

But up close and personal, that's hard to portray because of the conflict I mentioned above. For the protagonist to interact with the Fae much, the author has to humanize them. Otherwise, it's hard to even have coherent communications with them.

If Winter is so rational, then Summer gets to oppose them by being more chaotic. Rampant and careless growth, not well-tended gardens of beneficial plants, weeds more happily than crops. Half-elves and changelings are most likely offspring of Summer, as they're the ones that will value sex and procreation over the well-being of their partners. That can extend to rape and "Mars Needs Women". Summer is into unleashing, exploring, and enjoying their emotions -- all of them, including greed, jealousy, hatred, and lust. Satisfy your urges now, consequences be damned. They're the ones that will provoke humans just to see what happens. They're the "men that want to watch the world burn".

But again, to interact with them very much in any readable or gameable way, it's hard to avoid having to humanize them. Otherwise, from a human POV, it's not a lot different than interacting with a bat**** crazy human, only with superpowers.