So in Dead Beat, Bob says that Harry picked him from up the smoldering ruins of Justin’s house just as Justin had picked him up the ruins of Kemmler’s place. This means that Harry was ~16 years old when Bob became his.

Then Harry goes to the Council for trial & is sent to live with Ebenezer for a couple of years before striking out on his own. Where was Bob during this time? Did teenage Harry never tell the old man about Bob when he was recounting his time with Justin?

The way I see it, there are 3 possible answers:

• Harry takes Bob at age 16 from Justin’s place & buries him somewhere safe before he turns himself into the Council. Harry is aware that he should hide Bob from everybody & never mentions the skull, After his apprenticeship with Ebenezer ends, Harry digs Bob back up so even Ebenezer never knew that Harry got Bob.
• Ebenezer is aware of Bob - which is pretty chilling. Perhaps he asked his friend Simon about it, which is how Cowl knows Harry has it.
• Bob was being poetic with Harry about the smoldering ruins bit - 19 yr old Harry goes back to Justin’s burnt down house after his apprenticeship with Ebenezer ends & digs up Bob from a secret hiding place Justin had left the skull in so the wardens couldn’t find it.

Mab became Winter Queen around 1066 AD & Ebenezer was a young man around the French & Indian War in the 1750s....

Although if Mab were Harry’s grandmother, their entire dynamic would be different. Also there would be no need for Lea.

Upon a reread of Dead Beat, I found a few things puzzling & am curious what you guys think.

• Why does Bob leave the skull in the beginning of the book to talk to Harry about Kemmler? Harry himself notes that the spirit had never asked to leave the skull for just a conversation before - this is before Harry forces him to remember his time with Kemmler & become Evil Bob.
• How does Corpsetaker know that the Darkhallow is afoot? Grevane was trying to buy the Word of Kemmler from Bony Tony & Cowl was presumably sent by the Black Council
• How was Corpsetaker planning on performing the Darkhallow? Cowl has Bob & Grevane took the Word from Harry at the Field museum. Corpsetaker only had the Erlking book at that point.
• How did both Mavra & Kincaid know that the events of Dead Beat were about to go down but Mab didn’t?
• If Elaine is indeed Kumori, why did she allow Bob to keep talking to Harry as Cowl was performing the Darkhallow? Elaine would’ve also grown up with the skull like Harry did & would know not to let Harry & Bob talk (especially when they were plotting to ruin Cowl’s working)
• Harry calls Mavra (& the rest of the Black Court) a super zombie - given that this is a book about necromancy & we know it can be used effectively against the Blamps, what does this say about the nature of the Black Court?

WoJ is that there is enough evidence given in DB for a reader to ferret out Cowl’s identity.

Upon a reread of Dead Beat, I caught onto a few more hints that lead me to believe that Simon is indeed Cowl. It’s still possible that Justin is Cowl, but I find that to be increasingly less likely.

#1
Bob’s behavior in DB has always been odd to me.

In Chapter 3 when Harry is asking Bob to remember his time with Kemmler, Bob says that he can’t because he either chose to forget, or was compelled to. The only owner Bob had between Kemmler & Harry was Justin - if Justin was indeed a Kemmlerite/ student at some point, why would he compel Bob to forget his memories of his time with Kemmler?
Being that Bob is a being of knowledge without morality, I find his choosing to basically amputate his own arm (Bob’s textual metaphor) to be highly improbable. Instead it makes more sense that Justin had a similar experience to Harry when he questioned Bob about Kemmler (Bob tried to kill him with the blue light thing) so Justin forced the spirit to forget that part of his life.

#2
Justin would’ve owned Bob for ~30 years between Kemmler’s last stand in 1961 & when Harry takes him from Justin around 1989-90 (10ish years before Stormfront).
When Cowl sets Bob down by Harry right as he’s about to perform the Darkhallow, Bob is able to revert to becoming Harry’s again - this is ultimately what leads to Cowl’s downfall. Bob is able to get into Sue, save Harry from Kumori which allows Harry to smack Cowl as hard as he can with his staff, thereby ending the necromancer’s chances. I don’t see Justin making such a rookie mistake with Bob - it seems more likely that someone like Simon, who never actually possessed the skull, didn’t fully understand how Bob’s loyalties worked & paid the price.

#3
When Cowl ambushes Harry at Murphy’s house right after Harry calls up the Erlking, he tells Harry about the wardens being in the city. Seeing as the wardens has arrived in Chicago the previous evening, I find it interesting that Cowl knew of this a few hours later.
Someone like Simon would’ve had enough contacts in the wardens to be able to keep up with their movements (seeing as he commanded a platoon out of Archangel) - this would also likely explain how the Ramps knew to attack the hospital in Africa with the injured wardens.
Justin’s knowledge of warden protocols would’ve been 40-50 years old by the time of Dead Beat - I find his being able to know of the wardens’ arrival in Chicago that quickly as well as being able to coordinate Ramp attacks on the Council that precisely to be unlikely. It’s still possible that the Council is using 40-50 year old protocols despite being in the middle of a war, but that seems to be a bit of a stretch.

IIRC Harry is supposed to be 26 at the time of Stormfront in 2000, which would put his year of birth as 1974, 13 years after Kemmler’s last stand.

Separately, Bob notes in Dead Beat that there are still 4-5 of Kemmler’s former disciples running around at the time.

I think Cowl views himself as a some time student of Kemmler’s but not as his disciple/ a Kemmlerite. Grevane, Corpsetaker & Cowl all knew each other back in the day & respect each other’s abilities, in fact each of them can be viewed as masters of different fields of necromancy: Grevane is a zombie expert, Corpsetaker is the body-switching expert & Cowl is the magical theory expert.

An interesting question however is that if Cowl is a former student of Kemmler’s & the most likely candidates for Cowl’s identity are Justin/ Simon (who were both on the White Council at the time), why didn't they warn Kemmler of the impending attack? We know the entire WC was involved in the attack & that Justin was a warden at the time...

Here are a couple of more parallels that were pointed out to me:

• Anakin & Harry end up losing the women they love after knocking them up
• Luke & Leia share a kiss, Harry & Elaine are technically adopted siblings (& did a lot more than kiss)
• Anakin slaughters a room full of young kids, Harry burns to death a bunch of young adults at Bianca’s.

@Bad Alias
The White Council is pretty arrogant imho - they are even called out about this by several characters including Shiro. The WC’s arrogance can be seen by their handling of the Ramp war, especially in the early days - it isn’t until TC/ Changes that we really see the entire Senior Council (except Christos) actually prepared to do what it takes.

@morriswalters
Oh absolutely - I don’t mind at all that JB borrowed some of these ideas because he’s really made them his own. It’s just fun to spot where he might’ve gotten some of his inspiration.

@Yuillegan
Thanks! I don’t think we can draw parallels like that between characters though - I think the parallels are more thematic in nature. Ebenezer has bits of Qui Gon, Obi Wan, Mace Windu etc for example, he doesn’t have a 1:1 with any of them individually though.

Having rewatched the Star Wars prequels (including the Clone Wars), I was struck by the similarities between the Dresden Files & Lucas’ saga. I’m not going to mention the obvious textual references (lots in every book) but stick to plot themes.

Is it just me or is the White Council extremely reminiscent of the Jedi Order in the Star Wars prequels? Here are some I caught:

• Like the WC, the Jedi Order had grown arrogant & self-indulgent in their centuries of being top dog - being relatively unchallenged by the Sith until they were up-ended by a PHANTOM MENACE who used a lot of cats paws.
• Anakin was being subtly manipulated by the Phantom Menace (Palpatine) for most of his formative years, just like Harry has been
• There is a ‘Chosen One’ who is prophesied to bring balance to the Force - the child (Anakin) is highly distrusted by the Jedi Council at large & only allowed to train under the aegis of Qui Gon & Obi Wan. Similar to 16 year old Harry & how he was viewed by the Senior Council
• Both the Sith & Jedi use the Force. Using the dark side of the Force often enough would taint a Jedi’s aura & turn them into a Sith - similar to wizards & warlocks who use magic & especially black magic
• The Phantom Menace (Palpatine) severely weakens the Jedi through a years long war of attrition against Dooku’s confederation - the Clone Wars. Kind of like how the WC has been severely weakened by the Ramp war, which also seems to have been manipulated by a phantom menace.
• Most Jedi Knights have a single Padawan at a time, sort of like how most wizards have apprentices
• The Jedi Order’s heavyweight champion was Mace Windu who used a lightsaber style called Vapaad - a style so filled with aggression that he was the ONLY Jedi not to have succumbed to the dark side who used it. Similar to Ebenezer & his Blackstaff.