Author Topic: Cowl  (Read 6060 times)

Offline Bad Alias

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Cowl
« on: January 19, 2021, 07:02:10 PM »
I know it's been done to death, but I was thinking about it recently.

In WN, Elaine said she had nightmares that Justin was coming for her for a long time after Harry burned him all up. Harry says Justin's dead, and Elaine says she knows that. When I read that line recently, it really felt like foreshadowing that "Justin" is most certainly not dead and will or did (probably will) come for Elaine. There's a couple of directions to go with this. First Jim meant that Justin was only mostly dead when he said he was dead, D-E-D, dead. That's simple enough. The other is that Kemmler stole Justin's body when Kemmler was last defeated by the White Council, and that's what Jim meant when he said Justin was dead. There are problems for both of these.

First, all the problems of Cowl being Justin would also problems with Cowl being Justin/Kemmler, so I'll go over that first. Cowl doesn't seem to know Harry. He wonders what's got all the Wardens so worried. I've seen others say that Justin would know being his former master and Harry burning him up. An answer to this is that it's been 14 years, so Harry's likely grown a lot in power and reputation. Justin could have thought that Harry got lucky defeating him, because, let's face it, as that's how Harry wins all his fights, he probably did. And for the same reason, Harry's reputation probably outstrips his actual abilities. Another reason that Justin would want to what's got the Wardens so worried is that he does legitimately wonder how Harry's progressed over the years.

Another problem with that is we see Harry struggling against the "black magic taint" that he has from killing Justin. We also have Ulshavaras comment on it. This could be a misdirect on Jim's part. But why would Harry have such a taint if he never broke the laws of magic? Harry mentions stuff about being tricked into his first dark compact by Justin before he knew better. I forget which book he mentions it in. What the hell is a dark compact anyway? We don't really have any explicit examples of one anywhere in the books. Whatever it was could explain Harry's "black magic taint."

I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting.

Now the biggest problem with Justin/Kemmler being Cowl is his statement in DB. "I have nothing but disdain for the madman Kemmler. Have a care what insults you offer. This need not involve you at all, Dresden." I'll try to justify this statement from Cowl. Kemmler has reconsidered his ways. He must have been a madman to attempt what he had. He loathes himself for it. He was arrogant and foolish. He is consumed with regret. Because he failed. This time will be different. He'll be more careful. He'll succeed this time. Or he's lying to hide the fact that he's Kemmler.

Another interesting thing about that statement is that Cowl is the only one who wasn't a student of Kemmler and who knows who Harry is. He knows about Bob. He doesn't seem concerned with finding the Word of Kemmler. Only preventing the others from obtaining it. All of his actions are geared toward stopping them from achieving the darkhallow. He only stole Bob because he wanted to make sure the darkhallow went down as it was supposed to. He didn't even need Bob to tell him what to do. (This is one solution to a problem I have with how Bob figured out how to do a darkhallow in a couple of hours when he had supposedly expelled that part of him).

Justin being Kemmler could also explain why Evil Bob was asking what Harry had done with Kemmler. Why didn't he know Kemmler was dead? Because Kemmler wasn't dead? Kemmler stole Justin's body to fake his death and faked Bob's death as well. He knew he had to lay low. When he didn't, the White Council kept killing him. He went deep undercover this time. He ordered Bob to sequester his memories of their time together so no one would be the wiser. Bob just thinks it was his own doing. Justin/Kemmler didn't want to get rid of the memories like Harry did. The last thing Evil Bob knew was that he was going into hiding with Justin/Kemmler. Harry's fight with Justin/Kemmler wasn't in front of Bob, so that's why he asks Harry what he's done with the master.

Justin being Kemmler also explains both why Justin is a former Warden and why he went warlock. He cut off most of his ties with the Council so no one would notice he wasn't Justin. He "went" warlock because he wasn't Justin anymore.

Laying low until he's ready and/or repenting his failures and going in a new direction would also explain why he didn't do the darkhallow sooner. He was only doing it now to stop Corpsetaker and Grevane. He said so himself.

And then there's all the various reasons that people have said through the years why Justin or Justin/Kemmler makes sense as Cowl.

Anyway, until I see something I think is better, I'm going with Cowl is the man Harry and Elaine called Justin. I'm not saying anyone else's theories are wrong. This is just what I feel is most likely right now. Tomorrow, the next book, a comment, or re-reading some line that contradicts it or points to someone else could all change my mind.

What are the problems I'm forgetting or haven't thought of with Cowl being the man Harry and Elaine called Justin?

Offline Arjan

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Re: Cowl
« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2021, 08:29:35 PM »
Justin is dead. Simon is dead as well.
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Offline Bad Alias

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Re: Cowl
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2021, 08:31:17 PM »
Compelling argument.

Offline KurtinStGeorge

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Re: Cowl
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2021, 10:42:06 PM »
If I agreed with the OP; and I really don't, I would say the reason Cowl/Kemmler said, "I have nothing but disdain for the bad man Kemmler," is because he hates the reputation of being mad, when in his own mind he's sanist person on the planet. 

The OP isn't an unworkable hypothesis, it's just not where I think Jim is going with the story.  I certainly won't be surprised if we find out Kemmler did something; make that something else beside writing the Word of Kemmler, which produces fallout that Harry has to deal with in a later novel.  I just don't think Kemmler himself will be making an appearance.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
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Offline Conspiracy Theorist

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Re: Cowl
« Reply #4 on: January 21, 2021, 08:57:22 PM »
Your working on the assumption that Kemmler stayed as Justin. A Warden not especially close to power, raising a couple of orphans? He would have used Justin to get close to someone more politically important in the White Council, say Simon Petrovich bodyswap them and then stick a minion in Justin, say a wizard nearing 400 and feeling his age. Justin is DED and Cowl/Kemmler never meets Harry until Dead Beat.

Cowl as Simon has time to prepare a new body, it’s that Wizard who uses his death curse against the Reds, not Cowl/Simon, and Cowl can retreat to the shadows having set up the war with the Red Court. He was in the Simon Body in Grave Peril and ditched it fearing his secret might have been ascertained by Harry, who was not supposed to survive.

With the recent WOJ that Kemmler was a Warden of Demonreach and the Wow! From Priscilla it could even be that Cowl’s original body is the British Prisoner and it is now  inhabited by Kemmler, whose name has been muddied by the ‘Kemmler’ we know. The multiple body swaps may have disorganised Cowl’s memories, requiring a refresher from Bob.

Cowl could effectively be any wizard level practitioner. I doubt he was any of the wizards in Chicago during Battle Ground, I think WOJ has it that he would have schemed for the Fomor attack but would have stayed away from the fighting.

Offline Yuillegan

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Re: Cowl
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2021, 07:06:51 AM »
Compelling argument.
Lol. Someone gets it.

Now as for the rest of your theory.

I have long claimed that Cowl = Justin, with Simon being a close second candidate. My mind has gone a bit squirrelly over it I think, as I vary a bit between the arguments.

I have wondered lately if Jim deliberately has left the option of who Cowl is open, with several candidates possible. Some writers do things like this to keep it interesting for themselves. Combined with Jim's tendency to make continuity errors between books it's hardly surprising we can't work it out and I guarantee that some of us will be annoyed because contradictory evidence should rule out/highlight the actual character it is revealed to be. Assuming of course it isn't just a character that we have yet to have met.

Anyway, I don't think it can be Kemmler without a massive case of disassocitive disorder. His whole thing about being insulted to being called a Kemmler, and acting like he hardly knew him, plus referring to Kemmler's glory (like a disciple).

I would think that if Justin were to return in any meaningful way, he already has i.e. he is Cowl. While it isn't impossible he might return in another way, it would be far less impact and a bit of a waste. Normally Jim doesn't waste his moments like that.

As I have always said, Cowl stating he was wondering why Harry has the wardens worried doesn't necessarily suggest he doesn't know Harry. Certainly he knows who Harry is, that much is already apparent in that scene. It's still very possible that Justin was curious about how his student turned out...and was disappointed by Harry's apparent mediocrity. Justin is even referenced in this scene right after Cowl attacks Harry. But also consider Battle Ground and Drakul. Harry finally begins to step into his destiny and his power - Drakul even comments on it indirectly by saying he wished his own heir had such strength of will. Cowl says he wished Harry was ready for the big leagues and by BG he is. Jim even referenced the exact scene the Cowl says that in Dead Beat, when discussing how BG is "the big leagues".

I am glad someone else saw the black magic issue. Personally I think Jim just has made another error and didn't check his work. But if it is not an error, then I think Harry must have committed some other act of black magic. One example might be his assault on Justin, or even He Who Walks Behind. Perhaps it's the drawing on dark emotions. The dark compact... something that has been forgotten for a long time. I am hoping Twelve Months will perhaps examine it. TM is supposedly about how Harry deals with slot of trauma, much of which we haven't seen. I suspect some of this occurred (as it often does) in childhood. Perhaps violence, maybe even sexual abuse. Perhaps from Justin even. That would make for a dark book indeed. Perhaps the compact is part of this. Compact's are deals, and it involved ingesting human blood. Considering how messed up that is even without magic, let alone what we know about such things in the Dresden Files, surely it has affected him on a deep level. Maybe part of preparing him to be a Destroyer. Certainly to do with the Starborn stuff.

His knowledge of where Bob was (with Harry) or that Bob survived makes it even more likely he is Justin. The other Heirs of Kemmler didn't even look or care too. It doesn't rule out Simon but it does make it less likely to be anyone but them. Justin of course being Bob's rescuer...and perhaps the one who made him more manageable. The being that Bob was under Kemmler was far less controllable or sane or kind.

My guess about Evil Bob's apparent lack of knowledge about Kemmler's status is partly because Evil Bob was locked behind regular Bob's personality. Something I don't see anyone other than Justin doing. So last he knew, he was serving Kemmler. But I admit it is possible that Evil Bob was serving Justin and Harry inadvertently changed Bob. Which would suggest that Kemmler is Justin.

 However... Justin's behaviour in Harry's memory and Kemmler's in the Luccio short story seem to be very different and the most compelling evidence they are different beings. That said, we know separate beings can exist in the same body.








At the very least, Cowl would have known Margaret. Like all the old players seem to.

Offline Arjan

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Re: Cowl
« Reply #6 on: January 22, 2021, 09:09:18 AM »
Every new owner changes Bob. Bob even explains it himself several times in different ways. But evil Bob was first locked away because overall Bob and Harry Bob did not want to be that Bob and Bob was grateful he could get rid of it after Harry asked him to.

It is just one of the many examples showing how of the scale crazy and evil Kemmler was.if Bob calls you evil you are not just a bit shady.
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Offline Arjan

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Re: Cowl
« Reply #7 on: January 22, 2021, 09:24:54 AM »
Compelling argument.
And Kemmler is dead as well.

I have read a lot of posts with far fetched theories about who’s spirit is residing in who’s body but Simon used his dead curse, Harry used magical fire to kill Justin and the white council was really thorough when killing Kemmler finally, they knew what happened the previous times.

Jim is not the author who resurrects people left and right. These people are not just declared dead in the books but also by several woj. They are part of the background story, not part of the current one.

I do not see any foreshadowing for them popping up either.
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Offline morriswalters

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Re: Cowl
« Reply #8 on: January 22, 2021, 12:10:49 PM »
I have no idea who Cowl is.  But unless the Wardens are super cretins you might suppose that they expected Kemmler to jump bodies and would have been prepared for that. That's a matter of logic.  Remember the definition of stupid. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

We have one other possibility that exists.  Kemmler did a Corpsetaker and went into ghost land, but having more power was able to displace some random nobody and come back.

On the matter of Simon, I would hope that they were able to find a body and identify it.  I'm sure in the world of body snatchers and wizards the matter of true identity would be something that comes up quite often. To quote from the Outlaw Josey Wales, I don't want to hear Kemmler/Simon dead, I want to see him dead. In the real world we have gender fluid.  In the Dresdenverse we have have body fluid.  I'm having a hard time keeping up.

There are some hints. Jim says it's someone we've met. He isn't a Warden. He's a man, not a woman. He didn't need the Book of Kemmler because he knew of evil Bob. And he didn't need the other book because he had the Wizard who wrote it.  That he knew that Harry had Bob means he knew where Bob was supposed to be(with Justin) and could infer who had him after Justine got lit up.

This implies that Justin was working for Cowl but that Bob was the personal artifact of Justin. The interactions between Cowl and evil Bob also imply that Cowl isn't Kemmler reborn, since Bob doesn't appear to recognize him as such.  More like, you're a bitch but you ain't my bitch.  There is also a possibility that Bob locked evil Bob away before Justin took control and that Justin never knew of evil Bob. Cowl knew both.

Offline Arjan

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Re: Cowl
« Reply #9 on: January 22, 2021, 12:50:15 PM »
If I remember correctly Cowl did not know Harry had Bob but he recognised Bob when he saw the skull.
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Offline morriswalters

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Re: Cowl
« Reply #10 on: January 22, 2021, 01:50:06 PM »
That turns out not to have been the case.  When Cowl confronts Harry outside of Bock's Books Kumori says,
Quote
"The knowledge in der Erlking is about to become dangerous, Dresden," she said. "You need not give us the book. Simply destroy it here. That will be sufficient. I ask it of you, please."
Indicating that he already is aware of what he needs in that respect. In all the events that went down Cowl neither asked about or searched for the Word Of Kemmler. If he hadn't known about Bob and that Dresden had him can you explain the events at Murphy's?
Quote
"Son of a bitch,'''' I swore, and my voice was a sulfurous snarl. "How could I be so stupid?"

I whirled and stalked back down the hall, through the living room, and into the kitchen, lifting my light.

On the kitchen table there were only empty cups of tea, empty cans, unlit candles, paper, and pens.

In the spot where Bob the skull had sat, there was nothing.

"Oh, man," Butters said quietly at my elbow. "Oh, man. They took him."

"They took him," I spat.

"Why?" Butters whispered. "Why would they do that?"

"Because Bob the skull hasn't always been mine," I growled. "He used to belong to my old teacher, Justin. And before that he belonged to the necromancer, Kemmler." I whirled in a fury and slammed my fist into Murphy's refrigerator so hard that it dented the side and split my middle knuckle open.

"I… I don't get it," Butters said, his voice very quiet.

"Bob did for Kemmler what he did for me. He was a consultant. A research assistant. A sounding board for magical theory," I said. "That's why Cowl took him."

"Cowl's doing research?" Butters asked.

"No," I spat. "Cowl knew that Bob used to be Kemmler's. Somewhere in there, Bob knows everything about the theory that Kemmler did."

Offline Arjan

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Re: Cowl
« Reply #11 on: January 22, 2021, 02:11:24 PM »
At that time he knew but if I remember correctly he only learned it because Harry was not careful enough with Bob, he did not know before he went to Chicago and recognized Bob. If Harry had left Bob in his Lab it would not have happened.
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Offline Bad Alias

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Re: Cowl
« Reply #12 on: January 22, 2021, 05:50:09 PM »
A Warden not especially close to power, raising a couple of orphans?
That's because he was humbled by his repeated defeats by the White Council and decided on a subtler plan this time.

He was in the Simon Body in Grave Peril and ditched it fearing his secret might have been ascertained by Harry, who was not supposed to survive.
This is the first time I've seen any explanation for why the bad guys would take a position on the Senior Council and then abandon it.

His whole thing about being insulted to being called a Kemmler, and acting like he hardly knew him, plus referring to Kemmler's glory (like a disciple).
Could you provide that one? I don't recall it.

At that time he knew but if I remember correctly he only learned it because Harry was not careful enough with Bob, he did not know before he went to Chicago and recognized Bob. If Harry had left Bob in his Lab it would not have happened.
Harry only takes Bob out the lab, in DB, right before his apartment is overrun with zombies. He puts him in a bag and takes him to Murphy's. He only takes him out at Murphy's.

The only chance Cowl had of recognizing Bob in Chicago was if he was still at Bianca's when Harry was captured, but that would have to have happened off screen.

Something relevant happened in the Dresden Files tv show that Jim hinted was a major spoiler for the series.
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Offline Arjan

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Re: Cowl
« Reply #13 on: January 22, 2021, 07:13:21 PM »
I got the impression that Cowl did not expect Bob but was pleasantly surprised.
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Offline Bad Alias

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Re: Cowl
« Reply #14 on: January 22, 2021, 07:28:04 PM »
I'm pretty sure the whole point of holding Dresden at gun point after hitting him on the head to free the Erlking was to get Bob. I don't see anything to imply it was an unexpected bonus. The entirety of the conversation between Cowl and Kumori is "Did you find him?" "Yes." "Excellent."