McCoy and Bob

[Yuillegan]

Really weird thing that Evil Bob says.

When Harry is in Ghost Story, he is wrestling with Evil Bob and Harry has a staff. Evil Bob says of it "A simple tool, but serviceable. In McCoy's style"

When has Bob, or Evil Bob ever met McCoy? And which McCoy? Eb or Margaret?

I can't get it out of my head. It says some pretty bad stuff to me.

[SerScot]

A good point.

[Mira]

   He may not have met them personally, but he is aware of them.

[Yuillegan]

I think Mira you fail to grasp the significance.

Evil Bob is implying that he knows McCoy's handiwork. Which would imply a relationship of sorts. He knows the kind of wizard's staff he creates, he knows McCoy's style. He even name dropped McCoy to Harry, because he is aware at least in part of their relationship.

I am saying, to spell it out, that Evil Bob and at least one McCoy have been in league. Likely Ebenezer.

[g33k]

Yeah... knowing "of" someone is a lot less insight than being able to recognize a stylistic "tradition" -- someone taught by McCoy.

Evil Bob will have needed to see quite a bit of "McCoy's style" to spot Harry's work as McCoy's teaching.

[Arjan]

As far as we know he could have been owned by one of Ebenezers ancestors.

[Bad Alias]

Evil Bob is Bob's memories from when Bob was owned by Kemmler and after Bob created Evil Bob. It stands to reason that Evil Bob's knowledge of McCoy's work is from his time with Kemmler. It could have been at some point after DB, but I don't think so. McCoy was the Captain of the Wardens when they were hunting Kemmler in the 1870's. The Council was aware of Bob in relation to Kemmler. They saw him do things. He probably saw them do things. I think this is the most likely and least interesting answer for how he was familiar with McCoy's work. But he could have become familiar with McCoy at any point.

[Yuillegan]

Bad Alias, your answer is plausible. But it doesn't work from a Doylist standpoint. Why mention McCoy at all? Jim planted it. My guess is he intended to use that connection later.

Arjan...it's possible. But not probable. But it also fails to address the Doylist reasons. Why single out McCoy in that scene?

g33k - I agree. I am glad you get it.

[Mira]

Evil Bob is implying that he knows McCoy's handiwork. Which would imply a relationship of sorts. He knows the kind of wizard's staff he creates, he knows McCoy's style. He even name dropped McCoy to Harry, because he is aware at least in part of their relationship.

Not necessarily,  we've seen in the past that Bob knows a lot about a lot of creatures and people.  He  is a smaller version of the Archive if Luccio is to be believed.   He doesn't have to have a personal relationship to know about McCoy by reputation, so what his handiwork would look like.  Why should Evil Bob, the dark side of Bob be any different?

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Ebenezar McCoy is descended via the Master/Apprentice lineage from the original Merlin. What if it was also by blood? The way Eb treated Margaret hiding she was his daughter may be a family tradition. If so the McCoy name or variant could have been applied by Merlin to hide his son or grandsons identity, an ancestor of Eb. McCoy means son of Aodh, a Celtic fire deity, and there are a dozen or so variations in modern usage. This is before Bob became a Wizards Research Assistant, but he would have been around before then in Faerie picking up information until one day he picked up the wrong bit of info, so he could have seen the son/grandson etc staff, or several different generations staffs and had enough examples to compile a thematic style.

[Yuillegan]

Interesting idea that McCoy's background (and even the original Merlin's background) might be scion based. I like the research into McCoy's last name.

But no one has so far addressed the Doylist problems: why would Jim name drop McCoy at this point, in this scene, by this character?

Which narrows down the "it could be..." arguments and changes the possible into probable.

So can anyone explain to me why Jim would have Evil Bob name drop McCoy? What purpose does it serve in the scene and the greater story?

Often Jim puts things in scene's which Harry completely ignores or misses. A perfect example is in Chapter 2 where McCoy hints at the true meaning of curse phrase "Stars and Stones" and Harry just snarks back and doesn't bother to uncover it. He is extraordinarily short-sighted still sometimes. But the series is full of them.

[Walter the skull]

Yuillegan: I reread ghost story recently and kind of wondered about that line.  It's a good thread topic.  Bob could be showing off his knowledge to try to intimidate Dresden.  As for how Bob could know McCoy's style, he did write at least one textbook on magic.  Maybe staff creation is talked about in a text book.  Who knows, the white council might have been cool with Bob before he was acquired by Kemmler.  Maybe Bob worked for Ebenezer at some point.

[vultur]

Bob could be showing off his knowledge to try to intimidate Dresden.

I think it's probably this.

Evil Bob might not be completely cut off from the post-Kemmler knowledge Bob acquired; Bob was "activated" in Evil Bob mode in DB before Harry made him cut the memories loose totally. So IMO Evil Bob could potentially know that Harry learned from Eb because Bob knew that in DB.

He might not *really* have any personal experience with Eb's style.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Kemmler would have had Bob seek intelligence of McCoy during his possession of Bob and integrated that with existing info, which was hived off.

[Mira]

I think it's probably this.

Evil Bob might not be completely cut off from the post-Kemmler knowledge Bob acquired; Bob was "activated" in Evil Bob mode in DB before Harry made him cut the memories loose totally. So IMO Evil Bob could potentially know that Harry learned from Eb because Bob knew that in DB.

He might not *really* have any personal experience with Eb's style.

  We also know from Bob, that he could be wrong about things.  We also don't know if Evil Bob can just lie..