The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Bob's Personality, and Justin
Kindler:
--- Quote from: Cozarkian on August 14, 2017, 03:47:11 PM ---I envision Harry digging through the ashes looking for Elaine's body, finding a skull, touching it, and discovering it talks.
If he never saw Justin speaking with the skull, it's personality but would be almost entirely the imprint of Harry's teenage subconscious.
--- End quote ---
Part of my justification was that Harry wouldn't have gone back for a skull he didn't know was valuable, but now that I think about it, that's entirely possible, and might have even thought that the skull was hers, snatching it up in grief, which would be a nice bit of trauma for teenage Harry.
Though Harry still thought that Elaine had betrayed him at the time, judging from his explanation in Summer Knight. Still, it's a pretty Harry thing to do.
--- Quote from: Griffyn612 on August 14, 2017, 03:56:02 PM ---The thing is, Bob's wording in Dead Beat is strange. In regards to his knowledge of Kemmler, he said, editing out Harry's parts...
To me, it sounds like he had already cut off Evil Bob at some previous occasion. I know Bob says in Ghost Story that Evil Bob is the part he cut off because of Harry's orders in Dead Beat, but it also sounds like there could have been more out there already. Maybe I'm reading into it too much.
--- End quote ---
I don't think you're reading into it too much at all. I don't think that Ghost Story Bob's explanation jibes well with Dead Beat, now that I think about it more. Bob says he cut off Evil Bob when Harry ordered him to in Ghost Story, and in Dead Beat says that he can only provide general information that the Wardens would have known about Kemmler, right? He then only provides broad strokes for his Kemmler rundown immediately following his encounter with Dresden.
So then how did Bob help Cowl pull off the Darkhallow? It indicates to me that the knowledge has to be there somewhere.
I generally don't like "continuity error" as an explanation, and Jim goes to great pains to avoid it. Even with five series books and four Codex Alera books in between Dead Beat and Ghost Story and accounting for natural human memory issues, I assume that it means that Bob can't fully lop off a complete part of himself. Either that or Bob cut off that part of himself later. Anyway, something's hinky about it, and it could mean that Evil Bob (or other, Evil-er Bobs) was (/were) already running (floating?) around.
ntribley:
I personally think that Harry's giving Bob a name has had a far greater impact on Bob's personality than even Bob realizes. We've seen the importance of names with Lash and with Uriel . (With Lash, the end result was a distinct entity apart from Lasciel. With Uriel, he expressed actual fear that Harry's nickname could actually change him.) Perhaps Bob is now also defined now as a distinct personality which he didn't have before Dresden took him. I also wonder how Harry's naming the Archive Ivy is going to affect her in the future. He constantly says, "Names have power." I just don't think he really realizes what that really means.
jonas:
--- Quote from: quantus ---This means that there is likely a 3rd independent chunk of Bob running around out there. Unless Evil-bob somehow combined with the chunk previously severed, as I think Jonas was theorizing.
--- End quote ---
Errr what? Is the 3rd one the first cut off piece and bob and E bob are other two?
Well, what i'm trying to get across is something like this.
First Bob willfully(apparently) Choose to disgard not only a large chunk of who he was under kemmler, but a whole separate identity. Cause ya know, had to have a dualistic mind even under Kemmler to have had the thought separate from his Kemmler made one, Then of course he comes back.
So bob 'kills' a part of himself, and suppresses the edges connected to those supposed dead memories, which might mean very little to a spirit MADE out of necropower, out of the power of being NOT itself.
In DB when Harry asks him to access those connected portions, Bob is essentially accessing his subconscious repressed memories, his shadow. This ties into the whole subconscious shadow/mirror access for N and associates. He touched a piece of himself that opened him up for a spiritual possession by a consciousness/will entirely different from his own.... Bob just got Nemfected by Evil Bob and we all watched it happen and didn't get what it meant.
Later he cuts off that bit too. But for reasons unknown, perhaps because he was known to Harry, Perhaps because of cowl, Evil Bob didn't just go rest in peace. It all lumped together into what amounts to the ghost of Bobs past life/ shadow. His precise inversion. This could be how all such dual beings originate, i.e. fae courts. Such as it would give an in reality balance to the 'shadow' keeping Nfluencers at bay.
--- Quote from: ntribley ---Perhaps Bob is now also defined now as a distinct personality which he didn't have before Dresden took him.
--- End quote ---
I think so, also, more than one or two wizards now know of bob and think of him as more than a magical springboard. I'm thinking Bob's basically a miniature deity as far as pure spirit is concerned. He's not a ghost after all. His identity as it is solidified the more people believe a certain thing about him or connect him to the same identity of 'bob' and effected by the skull prohibition, but harry proved the name trumps the skulls enchantments in power/significance.
LordDresden2:
--- Quote from: DonBugen on August 14, 2017, 02:04:02 PM ---I’ve been puzzling over this for a little bit, and I don’t think that Bob really chose Harry in DB. He’s a spirit of intellect, without a free will of his own, and I doubt that Bob could assert his own preference to override the hard-coded rules that define his allegiance any more than I can flap my arms and fly.
--- End quote ---
He didn't. As long as Cowl had that skull, Bob had to help him, that's why Cowl could access Necrobob even in defiance of Harry's orders.
But when Cowl was no longer in physical possession of the skull, then Harry could try to reach out to him and win him back. If Cowl had gotten the skull back, Bob would have reverted to Necrobob again.
Lacking mortal Free Will doesn't mean you can't have any preferences or choices about anything, ever. It just means you can be absolutely bound to certain limits that mortals can not be. Mab is free to prefer Harry to Lloyd as WK, for ex. That's a choice. A given Red Vampire might choose to prey one person over another. That's a 'free choice'.
But mortals have greater powers of choice, and a greater meta-power to affect events by their choices.
That said...
--- Quote ---
That said...
Rather, I suspect that this has something to do with the power of Names, and the fact that Dresden was the one who gave Bob a name. Bob doesn’t react at all until Harry calls him by name and states that he was the one to give him one.
--- End quote ---
That surely did help Harry reach 'his' Bob, when that skull was lying on the ground, untouched by either Harry or Cowl. It might even have endowed Bob with a hint of true free will, like Lash.
Zaphodess:
--- Quote from: Quantus on August 14, 2017, 07:59:31 PM ---When Justin got Bob (hereafter "proto-Bob") he too was attacked by a creature whose had been "twisted" by kemmler and had to Order the SoI to Forget some and suppress other Knowledge/Memories of his time with Kemmler, just as Harry did. The only difference is that Justin actually cared about saving the secret arcane lore contained in the SoI, so his order didnt go as far as Harry's did and left the "pieces" that harry woke up in DB.
--- End quote ---
This makes perfect sense. Justin wouldn't want to lose the knowledge permanently, so it was there, but Bob was ordered to suppress it. Harry was the one who told him to get rid of it, so Bob was free to lob it off after Dead Beat.
--- Quote from: Cozarkian on August 14, 2017, 03:47:11 PM ---I envision Harry digging through the ashes looking for Elaine's body, finding a skull, touching it, and discovering it talks.
If he never saw Justin speaking with the skull, it's personality but would be almost entirely the imprint of Harry's teenage subconscious.
--- End quote ---
That's what I think too. When the Wardens came, Bob must have told Harry to hide him. Harry probably got back to get him after he left Ebenezar.
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