A (potentially) Really Obvious Thing about Molly and Sarissa
Note: if you haven't read Cold Days yet, ignore this post, please. Major spoilers ahead. Ditto for Proven Guilty and Turn Coat. Maeve is not as smart as she thinks she is, which is clear. However, her big plan about stealing Sarissa from Mab by murdering Lily? Bunk. Because Sarissa is NOT a true member of the Winter Court, regardless of her blood. Her nature is that of Summer, despite her time with Mab and her experience in the Courts. She spends months with Harry, putting him back together. Granted, the tests they both endured required an iron will and rigid self control, but that argument applies to Summer as well. Sarrisa wants to heal him, fix the problem. Not because he is a tool to be used, but because he's a person with problems and injuries that she can fix and heal. If that isn't the quintessence of Summer, I don't know what is. Molly, now, she's a whole other story. Already, we had seen the lengths to which she would go to save someone from themself, inflicting traumatizing fear on two friends to save them both from addiction and their child from death. Her ignorance of the effects this had on them mitigates it somewhat, but later on, she has no compunction about invading Morgan's mind to glean information about why he is running from the Council, nor Luccio's to make sure Harry was in no danger. She then spent a year under the direct tutelage of the Leanansidhe, who encouraged her already-present tendencies to achieve the goal by any means necessary. In short, the mantles may be attracted by whoever has been preparing the vessel, but the nature of the vessel matters as well. Molly is too calculating and ruthless by nature to fit in at Summer, and Sarissa was clearly too kind to be comfortable in the Winter Court, not to mention her trauma in play there that would have made it difficult to rule her previous tormenters.
