Heloise Valorius - Who Is She?

[Conspiracy Theorist]

A theory provoked by a casual comment on another thread, we hear Heloise in The Law but never see her. I suggested that Jim had not fleshed out the character, but a quick re-read suggests to me another theory.

Harry didn’t see Heloise because Heloise and Max would know that she bears a striking resemblance to her mother, who must be known to Harry.Max literally tells her not “Don’t call your mother though” on page 63. Max is extraordinarily clued up on the supernatural and Harry in particular.

I think therefore given the French name, Heloise is one of Martha Liberty’s daughters, and likely a practitioner in her own right. Martha is based in New Orleans and is known to keep track of her descendants.

This gives Jin an ‘in’ to flip Martha Liberty’s Senior Council vote.

[Mira]

  She also ran a house keeping column in the newspaper called, "Hints From Heloise.."

[Conspiracy Theorist]

That Heloise is based in Texas

[vincentric]

In our world, who knows where the Dresdenverse double is based?

[g33k]

... Harry didn’t see Heloise because Heloise and Max would know that she bears a striking resemblance to her mother, who must be known to Harry.  Max literally tells her not “Don’t call your mother though” on page 63.  Max is extraordinarily clued up on the supernatural and Harry in particular ...

This doesn't really feel right, to me.

Offhand, I don't really see any reason why Max would feel the need to keep Harry from recognizing Martha Liberty's daughter.  As you say, Max seems inexplicably clued-in to "Harry in particular," and I'm pretty sure he knows Harry wouldn't try to leverage Heloise against Martha, or put her at risk by "outing" her to any Supernaturals who might do so.

From a meta-standpoint, it just doesn't feel like there's enough weight to such a fact; random offspring of a wizard -- even a SC wizard -- doesn't seem like that much, when Harry's got Anduriel and Outsiders on his plate, a Titan in his back pocket, and Mab's list of Honey-Do items to take care of...

I keep returning to the scene in the hallway outside Reuel's apartment, and the similar "voice from offscreen" scene.  Jim's a lazy writer, and proud of it.  I think "Heloise" is faerie.

Maybe Mab had another halfling daughter, one whose Choice was to become human, marry a human.  Or maybe she still hasn't Choosen, marrying mortal to keep herself anchored to the mortal world as Mab increased the pressure to Choose the Faerie path...  A very Sarissa-like Heloise would have been all sorts of OMG for Harry (and presumably will be, whenever Harry gets to meet her)... not that I'm pointing to a Sarissa-alike character as "obviously the Right Answer," but an example of the sort of thing.

Unless Heloise is explicitly Mab or Lea (or Titania?), or another Faerie Bigwig (q.v. the prior "voice from offscreen"):  not actually Max's wife, but momentarily taking the role, letting mortal-Max tell the lie.  But this too seems a bit unsupported and "off."  Why would any such Faerie Bigwig care whether Harry thinks Max is married or not?

###

Here's another tangent:  Harry drank the Kool-Aid, literally.  Jim has used this allegory a couple of times before, I think.  But this time, Harry actually drank the Kool-Aid.  Somehow, I suspect this is meaningful.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Max wouldn’t have taken the case against Nameless if he had realised his Winter connections which rules out someone with connections to Winter as being Heloise.

The concern is blast radius, literally and politically, Max even seems to know Harry is responsible for a lot of buildings going up in flames. Heloise might not be a member of the WC but just failed to qualify (as Elaine faked) or her talents like Mort ran heavily to areas the WC frown on (Martha contacts the loas).

Jim isn’t a ‘lazy’ writer, he likes to pose as such, but it is clear he researches everything

[g33k]

Max wouldn’t have taken the case against Nameless if he had realised his Winter connections which rules out someone with connections to Winter as being Heloise ...

Given that "Talvi Inverno" means "Winter Winter," I'm sure Max at least suspects a Winter connection.

... Jim isn’t a ‘lazy’ writer, he likes to pose as such, but it is clear he researches everything

Fair enough.
Let's put it this way:  when Jim repeats a motif (like a female voice from offscreen interacting with Harry & other onscreen characters) it almost certainly means something.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

There is also Max’s name, it is an anglicisation of Valerie’s Maximus the 1st Century Roman scholar whose works are used today by students (Harry would know this if he hadn’t done a crappy correspondence course) Latin is of course the language of both lawyers and the White Council.

Max and Heloise have been together 50 years, if they started out with him looking young and her looking a couple of decades older and their positions reversed over time, this would be noticeable, so a move and change of name would fix that.

Of course Maximilian Valerius is also an Admiral in the Sith Reform described as “a remorseless butcher” and Jim may have done way too much Star Wars during lockdown.