Bob's parents.

[Yuillegan]

Eb's not old enough, unless you've got him doing major Merlin-level time traveling to get it done.

Yeah any theory involving Eb or Kemmler involves a certain amount of Time Travel.

Eb is too young, Bob is nearly 700 years older than Eb, same with Kemmler, and we haven’t met Kemmler, unless he is the British Prisoner, but Demonreach appears to have been without a Warden longer than his last death.

I have Lea and Tam Lin with Tam Lin as the British Prisoner. Mab and Tam Lin is a possibility but this may be before Mab became Queen, and I am not sure the Lady’s Mantle would allow this. Mab appears first in literature and not myth, Romeo and Juliet, the Tam Lin legend pre-dates this considerably. The Leanansidhe myth also pre-dates the first use of the name Mab. Mab was riding with William the Conqueror around the time Bob was born, presumably at this point she was the Lady if she was mortal and shacked up with Merlin several centuries earlier.

We know from the Tam Lin myth how he escaped from being Winter Knight, what myth doesn’t tell is why or how he became the Winter Knight other than he fell from his horse and was captured by the Queen. Mab parallels him to Harry, what if he had to make a similar bargain? He became Winter Knight to escape Lea’s attentions. Originally Harry owed Lea, his debt was bought out by Mab who kept dangling the Mantle until Harry wasn’t in a position to say no. Harry may not be the first time Lea and the Winter Queen have played such a game.

Tam Lin is Scottish though. The accents are very different. I heard Jim read out the part in Cold Days where Harry encounters the British prisoner and the accent is clearly meant to be rather Windsor (that is, royal). So I don't think it's likely he is the British prisoner. Now, if Tam Lin were Mac or something I could see it being him.

[The_Sibelis]

Love is additive not subtractive in the Dresden universe, the capacity to love made Lash greater not less. I presume the same applies with a muse, Lea has probably been powering up herself this way for centuries, though I suspect she has been forbidden by Mab in recent years to avoid damaging the balance between the Courts. She never got busy with Harry. This is why she was pleased with the Athame, more power without breaking her word to Mab. Lea is more powerful than the Winter Lady, second only to Mab, the gift was to disturb that balance of power in the Court.

true, but I keep coming back to cowl and wondering what would happen if he hadn't done this or that thing.. without the Athemes presence Mab would never have gotten her hooks in Harry, SK wouldn't have had him to stop Aurora, Maeve not getting Nfected means Molly would never have become WL, ect. Perhaps he's changing things for the better and we just don't realize it from our perspective..

[Conspiracy Theorist]

The British Prisoner in Harry’s mind is like the rest of the inmates, a villain and what we get is a telepathic rather than actual voice, so processed by Harry’s mind he ascribes it a British accent. He has done the same with the Outsiders. Clearly Harry has watched too many films where the villain is a British Actor.

[Yuillegan]

Good enough in-universe reason, Conspiracy Theorist.

However, the fact is that the author read it out in a British voice. Now Jim doesn't always do his homework but when it comes to Celtic Mythology the guy goes all out. We always have to consider these things from a Doylist perspective. He always describes how Ebeneezer's Scottish burr returns when he gets angry. Jim is aware and considerate of the differences. Believe me, if he wanted him to be Scottish he would have been called the Scottish prisoner.

Maybe another character in disguise is Tam Lin though. We can't rule that out yet.

[The_Sibelis]

Doesn't HHWBH have an English accent in Harry's flashback in GS too? 🤔

[Conspiracy Theorist]

New candidate for Bob’s dad Michael Scot/Scotus 1175 – c. 1232, ‘The Wizard of the North’ his birth and death are unclear according to Wikipedia so he could predate his ‘birth’ by a couple of centuries if a White Court Wizard. This revised timeline would not only put him in the time slot to be Bob’s dad but it would put him in 1066 in time for the Battle of Stamford Bridge where Mother Winters Walking stick got stolen, which was Ango Saxons v Norwegians   (Mab was with  William the Conqueror) the Battle of Hastings took place 19 days later and the Anglo-Saxons lost to the Normans. Demonreach is the one place you can hide from the Mothers.

Scotus appears as a character in works by Dante and Sir Walter Scott, which is where Jim may have came across him. Sir Walter Scott wrote and collected ballads about Scot teaching magic to an ‘Evil Lord Soules’ and his familiar Robin Redcap. Yes that Redcap.

I intend to do a bit of research on this because one of the other ballads in the collection, Thomas The Rhymer pretty much exactly describes a recent WOJ as regards what happens when you get frisky with a Summer Lady, suggesting he is familiar with the collection or its source material.

The Tale of Tamlane (Tam Lin) is there as well, so both Summer and Winter Courts are represented. All three are part of Minstrelty of the Scottish Borders.

Sir Walter Scott also wrote Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft.

[knnn]

Some toughts/points

• Old (2009) WoJ about Bob: "He’s a thousand year old being, he’s not in a hurry" (
• The fact that Bob doesn't recognize Merlin-style magic suggests to me Merlin is probably not the father
• Could something like River Shoulders be the father?
• What about Mac?
• Mother Winter (not sure about "love")?

[Yuillegan]

Some toughts/points

• Old (2009) WoJ about Bob: "He’s a thousand year old being, he’s not in a hurry" (
• The fact that Bob doesn't recognize Merlin-style magic suggests to me Merlin is probably not the father
• Could something like River Shoulders be the father?
• What about Mac?
• Mother Winter (not sure about "love")?

1. Would make the Mab/Morgana mother theory more likely.
2. Agreed.
3. I suppose a similar mortal-monster like River Shoulders could be. But wouldn't Bob be more like them?
4. Could be...except he seems rather too old. It seems like everyone knows him personally, and either like him or rather hate him. And again, Bob seems rather far removed from him.
5. I suppose it's possible, but what mortal would copulate with her? In any fashion? Wouldn't the act of connection with such a destructive being kill you? Also, I would expect Bob to be far more powerful in that case.

Conspiracy Theorist - When you said Michael Scot I cracked up. I could definitely see Bob in the Office. But what a strange version of that show it would be.

But good research, very interesting theory. I particularly like the Redcap connection.

Doesn't HHWBH have an English accent in Harry's flashback in GS too? 🤔

Indeed. But I always take that as part of Jim (and American writers in general) to make villains somewhat British. Presumably because people still aren't over a little dispute that happened a few hundred years ago. Oh well, what are you gonna do. Never see any villains with Canadian accent do you? Or New Zealander?

[vultur]

5. I suppose it's possible, but what mortal would copulate with her? In any fashion? Wouldn't the act of connection with such a destructive being kill you? Also, I would expect Bob to be far more powerful in that case.

Well, I don't think it would or could be anything physical (human + fae normally results in a Changeling, not a Spirit of Intellect).

And I don't know that Mother Winter is worse than an actual Fallen. There could be a Shadow of some sort involved, just as with Harry/Lash.

Also, just because Mother Winter has never retired, she wasn't necessarily always what she is now. If the Faerie Courts had a major realignment around the time of Hastings, her role/Mantle (and therefore her nature) might have been rather different before that.

[vultur]

I think the most important thing though is the statement about it being 'obvious'. To me that implies that not only does it have to be one immortal or ancient supernatural being and one semi-mortal (but old enough to qualify), but that there has to actually be some relationship or connection between them established.

The only ones I can think of that fit that are Odin / Gard, Merlin / Demonreach (if Bob's movie in CD qualifies him as 'appearing in the series'), and - at a stretch - HWWBehind / Lord Raith (but I *really* don't think Bob is half-Outsider).

There aren't that many semi-mortals over 1000 years old in the series, and a lot of them are Denarians who probably aren't qualified (any "shadow" they had would have been re-absorbed when they took up the Coin fully, so no chance of a Harry / Lash type situation).

River Shoulders has no established relationship with an immortal.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Conspiracy Theorist - When you said Michael Scot I cracked up. I could definitely see Bob in the Office. But what a strange version of that show it would be.

But good research, very interesting theory. I particularly like the Redcap connection.

I also think Jim may have mined W.B.Yeats work for inspiration, both Scott and Yeats were part of the Celtic revival and responsible for transcribing and tidying up traditional lays, ballards, poetry etc and those centre around the Sidhe, the Tuatha and the Fomor. It would fit in with both Jim’s education and inclinations, Tolkien academically mined a similar vein with Icelandic and Old English mythology.

Michael Scot’s travels and studies would allow for a crossover with the GateKeeper as well with his work in bringing Arabian mathematics to Europe. As a border man he he would be geographically adjacent to the Leanansidhes stomping grounds and he certainly was a creative individual, so I posit Michael Scott, the Wizard of the North as Bob’s father, currently in Demonreach and the Leanasidhe, his muse, as Bob’s mother, with Mab, Aurora or the GateKeeper as the midwife allowing him to survive.

The bit about him wearing an iron cap to protect against a prophecy of death by a falling object, well an iron cap would be useful I think against mental intrusion and influence by Fae, until Demonreach could protect him, especially if he did help steal The  Black Staff, as he deserves to be there because he did something incredibly stupid (there was a woman involved).

The only drawback to this theory is that it’s a character whose name begins with ‘M’ and Jim never uses names beginning with that letter.

[The_Sibelis]

@Conspiracy theorist, Yea I love all the little things just from the second coming thrown in there.. like, I'm pretty sure events work on a gyre.. 🤔

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Lord William de Soulis would make an excellent candidate for a previous Winter Knight, looking at his biography on Wikipedia, working hand in glove with the Redcap.

[KurtinStGeorge]

I was wondering if Bonea knows who her mother was, because she surely knows who her dad is.  My guess is she has the information somewhere inside that massive memory of hers, but I don't know if that translates to knowing without digging through all of the memories Lash gave her.  The reason I'm wondering about this is because if Bonea has this information then Bob should know who his parents were as well, even if he had to think about it for a while.  This leads to the question of did the person who carried Bob's spirit survive the birth?

[Yuillegan]

Well, I don't think it would or could be anything physical (human + fae normally results in a Changeling, not a Spirit of Intellect).

And I don't know that Mother Winter is worse than an actual Fallen. There could be a Shadow of some sort involved, just as with Harry/Lash.

Also, just because Mother Winter has never retired, she wasn't necessarily always what she is now. If the Faerie Courts had a major realignment around the time of Hastings, her role/Mantle (and therefore her nature) might have been rather different before that.

I wasn't suggesting a physical act of copulation...yeesh! More that Mother Winter isn't really a person. It's like connecting your mind and soul to destruction itself. Like connecting your brain to a nuclear reactor. It isn't going to go well.

The changeling problem is important. But that doesn't rule out a Fae parent either.

True, true. Hard to say what's worse. I suspect it wouldn't matter much as either Fallen or MW you would be equally dead (although you could argue about the damage to your soul). Depending on who she was might be the missing link.

I think the most important thing though is the statement about it being 'obvious'. To me that implies that not only does it have to be one immortal or ancient supernatural being and one semi-mortal (but old enough to qualify), but that there has to actually be some relationship or connection between them established.

The only ones I can think of that fit that are Odin / Gard, Merlin / Demonreach (if Bob's movie in CD qualifies him as 'appearing in the series'), and - at a stretch - HWWBehind / Lord Raith (but I *really* don't think Bob is half-Outsider).

There aren't that many semi-mortals over 1000 years old in the series, and a lot of them are Denarians who probably aren't qualified (any "shadow" they had would have been re-absorbed when they took up the Coin fully, so no chance of a Harry / Lash type situation).

River Shoulders has no established relationship with an immortal.

Bob didn't know Demonreach, and doesn't have a particularly Norse theme. He also didn't recognise Merlin's magic. So that should rule out most of that. I certainly don't see a particular White Court or Outsider theme. Harry would surely have recognised that!

Truth is the hints we have are many. But being a spirit of Air and intellect (and the fact that it is a known character we have met) almost certainly means Mab is his mother. It's whether she was Queen of Air and Darkness at the time, or whether she was merely the Lady or even mortal herself. Because all of that would decide whether Mab was the mortal in the relationship or whether she was the immortal.

So really we have to figure out the father. I think an If x, then y formula should do.

If Mab was mortal, then Vadderung (or one of his aspects) is most likely.
If Mab was immortal, then Merlin would be most likely.

However there are a few things that stand out.

Bob acts mostly like a horny teenager. So Harry has a had a strong effect from his youth. But when carried by Cowl or Corpsetaker he acts cold and ruthless and sadistic...but always somewhat insouciant.

So in someways, the mortal he resembles most, is Id-Harry.