The whole thing with the letters might be just about Leland.

Let's rewind a bit to the time when Leland was just a little boy at the Pearl Lakes. There was this man who Leland knew as mr. Robertson. He might've been just an average Joe just like Leland, but with "a thing" to little boys. Obviously just as Laura saw Leland as Bob, Leland saw that man as Bob too because he was either gifted or damned to see beneath the mask to the core of the evil that men do. Robertson himself might've been molested by someone else in his youth and that might've made him to be the man who eventually harmed Leland.

So, Leland had this incident in his past. It affected him so much that he developed a sexual problem which, at first, was shown as Leland using prostitutes. The the problem grew bigger. He had a thing for his daughter and so he started to molest her. The problem eventually made him to kill Teresa and later his own daughter (and eventually Maddy too).

Now, serial killers sometimes leave signs and clues behind when they are doing their dirty job. Sometimes it's about a cry for help. In this case, Leland might've tried to move the responsibility away from him. He started to spell the name of the man who "made" this problem to Leland. That's one theory.

Just yesterday I watched this movie called Session 9 and to large extent it was about personal disorder. One man listened to some tapes where a psychiatrist talked to a woman with multiple personalities. The evil personality in the woman was called Simon. The woman didn't know Simon existed but another personality knew him. In the end when the psychiatrist asked where does Simon live, the answer was something like this: "in the weak and wounded." (I can't remember the exact quote but I'm sure you get my point) It could be interpreted so that this kind of "evil" personalities in general appear in people who've been hurt very bad and who are weak. If the world of Session 9 was in the same world where Twin Peaks is, there would be people who would be able to see that personality as another person.

So in Twin Peaks Bob was kind of that Simon in Session 9 but in Twin Peaks the makers had created "an explanation" to the very source of this power that allows people to have that kind of mental problems. The question is, does the man with multiple personalities really control those personalities or do the personalities control the man. Whatever the answer is, the personality is connected to the personal history of the one who has that personality. In Leland's case, he had had this encounter with the man at the Pearl Lakes and this history showed as Leland (or Bob) "revealing" a part of it by putting the letters under the fingernails of his victims.

So, it might not be as simple as Bob's odd maneuver to put letters under the fingernails. It's not necessarily Bob's habit. It might be more about Leland. If the "Bob-personality" would be inside some other man, there might not be letters under the fingernails. But then again, there might be but it wouldn't necessarily try to spell ROBERT. Like, in Coop's case there could be EARLE or something like that (on the other hand, Coop could do ROBERT too as it is a part of his history)

 But then again, I could be really really wrong :)

Beware of BOB

When I call out no one can hear me,when I whisper he thinks the message is for him only..my little voice inside my throat,I always think there must be something that I've done or something I can do...But no one no one comes to help,he says,a little girl like you...

Hmmmmm   I always just thought it was Leland talking to BOB. BUT, For the first time right now I think it was indeed Leland talking to Laura . I think that is it -after all these years of being wrong .

Leland to BOb

Leland to Laura

Couldn't be BOB talking because it's Leland's face shown and BOB would not plead in a concerned manner with someone. 

Both could very well be true. It is Twin Peaks after all, everything has two meanings.

It just occured to me, regarding my earlier speculation about the origin of BOB... if he was never human, then why is his name Robert? Or at least, why is he spelling that name? Do otherwordly spirits just happen to have human names?

--
Vesa 'wtw' Ahola  wtw@iki.fi.REMOVE
"Apparently, it's `The Indescision Decade'!!... Wait, that's not it."

Beware of BOB

When I call out no one can hear me,when I whisper he thinks the message is for him only..my little voice inside my throat,I always think there must be something that I've done or something I can do...But no one no one comes to help,he says,a little girl like you...

yeah, but then we reduce the thing to explaining serious disorders by sexual harassment in the childhood... that's a bit cheap psychology in my opinion

I find the demonic interpretation of BOB much more inspiring.

Bobi 1 Kenobi

B. Beware
O. Of
B. BOB 

Well, all I know is that David Lynch himself has said that Bob is an abstraction in a human form (it's said on the book Lynch on Lynch).

To me, the explanation that Bob is "just" a demon who possesses people is a bit too one-leveled. And what comes to the molested boy becoming a molestor, that's real life. It's quite usual that people who sexually abuse children have experienced something like that in their own childhood.

To me, it's an absolutely brilliant idea to show that kind of a behaviour as another character. It helps the viewer to deal with the subject and to deal with the one who is committing those crimes more objectively. I mean, in this way the viewer do not demonize the person but more likely demonizes the habit, the action. I find it a healthier way to deal with taboo subjects like this.

In Lynch on Lynch, David said that Leland is a victim and at the same time he connects him to other real people who have committed something horrible. He doesn't say that these people are like Leland who is possessed by an evil demon spirit but he connects Leland to those real people. Leland is like those guys who do something terrible and people say "he was such a nice man, I wouldn't have ever believed he could do such things." And in the end, it's easier to bring this up by showing the problem as a person so that we all could relate to it much better.

Warning: I'm about to use "anthropomorphizing abstractions" in a sentence.

I think one of Lynch's consistent character-development methods is the way he's often anthropomorphizing abstractions, so I like Rami's theory for that. It also does a nice two-step around the accusation that by bringing BOB into the issue it somehow lets Leland "off the hook"... It's a more nuanced, less black and white (oops, pun) way of storytelling that just going "Ooh, there are scary monster-people who live in the woods!"

The more I think of it the more it seems that the identity of BOB follows the basic idea of Twin Peaks: Two truths in everything, and nothing has a simple explanation.

Leland being molested by a man named Robert, and thus developing a psychosis and molesting and murdering his own daughter, and blaming Robert for all of it, is as much true as BOB having entered Leland's body and replaced his soul, thus excusing Leland of any bad deeds.

BOB being a human, who became a possessing spirit and continuing his murdering spree is as much true as BOB being an otherworldly spirit, who feeds on humans and their fear.

In pure theatrical sense, this is a bit of a cheat. Not following the leads given to the audience is a big no-no. If you want to experience the frustration that follows, read some Harry Potter novels. You'll feel cheated soon enough. However, in Twin Peaks, it has constantly been pointed out that things always come in two. It's in the name of the series, after all! Thus, two parallel realities may as well exist. If a question has two clearly separate answers that have different clues pointing to them, they might both be true, but not at the same time.

P.S. Rami Airola, nice to see another Finn on the board. :)

P.P.S. I have a random taglines shuffler, and sometimes it just scares me with its accuracy

--
Vesa 'wtw' Ahola wtw@iki.fi.REMOVE
Macho Law prohibits me from admitting I'm wrong.

 I think this is the correct answer - Everything in Twin Peaks has two sides :) 

Rami's theory is possible and the things he said are very true!There are people who molest and abuse sexually their own children! This is something really terrible that happens everywhere on the world!

...As for BOB,though, I prefer to look upon him as a supernatural force,an evil creature,an inhabiting spirit who feeds on human fear and sorrow and who DOES exist somewhere,beyond life and death...and only the gifted and the damned can see him!There's more than heaven and earth(as the Major says) and there are other worlds(as Windom Earle describes) These ideas scare me a bit ,but at the same time intrigue me a lot...

Beware of BOB

When I call out no one can hear me,when I whisper he thinks the message is for him only..my little voice inside my throat,I always think there must be something that I've done or something I can do...But no one no one comes to help,he says,a little girl like you...

For the sake of horror, an evil spirit who possesses and taints a human host is undoubtedly the more appealing interpretation. But judging by most of Lynch's work and his inspirations, I think that the world of Twin Peaks (the title being significant, implying a dualistic inference) is actually an allegory. As said earlier, people like Leland as victims of child abuse or indeed child abusers themselves (the crime is irrelevent) were once innocent in their lives. The disease of their mind could be likened to the possession of a purely evil and malevolent force that 'feeds' on 'garmonbozia'.

Evil is intangible, something that cannot be seen by the naked eye, only felt and understood as such. David Lynch just provides a world where these 'agents' of evil personify the very essence of that force which has darkened and destoyed the goodness and innocence of so many minds. I guess you could say he sees this invisible force and colours them for an audience to behold.

...Either that, or I've just had too much coffee. (and it was "damn fine!")

"And the angels wouldn't help you.. Because they've all gone away.."

    - Laura Palmer, 'Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me' 

Interesting thread. I had some questions pertaining to Bob and Mike and thought it best to post here.

1. Why does Bob kill Theresa? Did Theresa use the ring in the same way Laura did - to kill herself? Somehow, I don't think so.

2. After my recent rewatch of the second season I noticed something I hadn't before. Mike's at the Sheriff's being questioned and he uses the word "partner" while looking straight at Dale. Dale had also been talking about his old partner in that episode I believe. So there's an attempt to make a _direct_ corellation between Bob/Mike and Windom/Dale.

Beware of BOB

When I call out no one can hear me,when I whisper he thinks the message is for him only..my little voice inside my throat,I always think there must be something that I've done or something I can do...But no one no one comes to help,he says,a little girl like you...

Leland's childhood does seem shrouded in some sort of dark mystery, the way he relates his experiences in the series suggestive that he himself was abused in a similar manner to Laura.  Even the name of the place he remembers-- Pearl Lakes-- has an eerily similar feel to Twin Peaks.  Both give the impression of superficial beauty hiding a mysterious depth.

I get the impression from the series that the living themselves-- or at least their shades-- can become residents of the Lodges.  It happens to Laura, Maddy, and Cooper.  Taken in that vein, it makes me wonder if BOB was at some point (probably in young Leland's life) a mortal presence who was drawn into the Black Lodge and became a rogue entity. 

Got up early, found something's missing/ My only name/ No one else sees but I got stuck/ And soon forever came