Who Killed Leda Strike? Uncle Ted Did It
I promised yesterday in an aside that I would explain today why I think Cormoran Strike’s Uncle Ted killed Leda Strike. I doubt we’ll get anything in Strike5 that lays out this ending of the seven book story cycle but the fifth book will have to set up that finale if true. Rowling’s new twitter page header, the natal astrological chart of Aleister Crowley, suggests that Jeff Whittaker will be returning in Strike5 because Strike’s step-father is a great fan of Crowley and Anton LaVey, so much of an admirer that he named his son, Switch LaVey Bloom Whittaker, after the California Satanist. LaVey, a wannabe musician who tortured animals and abused women and children, may be the real world model for fictional Whittaker.
My recent re-reading of the four Strike mysteries and the new twitter header make me think that Whittaker was not Leda Strike’s murderer as her son Cormoran believes, but the evil person that Leda’s real killer attempted to frame for the seemingly faked suicide. Leda’s real killer? Her brother, Cormoran and Lucy’s beloved Uncle Ted.
I have three reasons for thinking Uncle Ted killed his sister, Leda Strike. Join me after the jump for exploration of Uncle Ted’s means, motive and opportunity as well as the structural and misdirection reasons for this shocking possibility! Talk about Chairos Moments –imagine Cormoran when he figures this out. [Read more…]
Rowling Finishes Strike5 — Big Hint? Aleister Crowley’s Horoscope Header!
The Official Announcement this afternoon on twitter:
It has been a busy day at the neglected Rowling twitter feed. Careful observers will note that she re-tweeted a posting from American comedian (and hard core leftist and atheist) Patton Oswalt a few hours before this book announcement and that she changed the header and cameo on her page as well.
Nota bene: her global social media following post TERFing controversy has grown on the twitter platform by 200,000. So much for the disappearance of Rowling fandom…
Three quick notes that we will discuss here at greater length in the next week:
(1) Nick Jeffery has ID’d the horoscope in the header as the natal chart of Aleister Crowley.
I’d love to think she is trolling us here at HogwartsProfessor because of the Baphomet posts I put up earlier in the month (in which I explained that she isn’t a Satanist or Crowley disciple), but have to think that it really is a pointer to the return of Jeff Whittaker in Strike5, in parallel with Career of Evil, and that a la the death of Harry’s godfather in Order of the Phoenix, we will be seeing the death of Cormoran’s step-father in his fifth adventure. Whittaker is the ardent satanist and Crowley devotee in the series. Good news for Shanker fans!
(2) Rowling is back on twitter, it seems, with the first real postings of note — with the exception of 19 December, of course — since January 2019. The sabbatical seems to have been a New Year’s resolution along the lines of, “I won’t post again until I have submitted the Strike5 manuscript.”
‘Da Tweet’ on transgender overreach? That may have been a family passion, it turns out. See Dr Neil Murray’s private twitter account, @Slowfinger45, for his several re-tweeted postings on transgender matters here, here, here, and here (there are more; hat tip to Nick Jeffery again for discovering both Murray’s ‘Fat Cops’ rock band — husband plays the keyboards, hence ‘Dr Slowfinger’– and his hidden twitter account).
I wonder, though, if the new cameo picture of her with hand over mouth isn’t a joke of sorts, a signal to her Universal Studio handlers, that she isn’t going to be speaking her mind here about social justice and political issues; Patton Oswalt is covering the impeachment hearings for her…
(3) I have been re-reading the Strike novels this past week, and, half-way through Lethal White for the umpteenth time, I realized who killed Leda Strike. It was Uncle Ted. More on that tomorrow and in days to come! Let the full bore conversation about Strike and speculation about the new novel begin!
Harry Potter Stars in ‘Guns Akimbo’
Well, Daniel Radcliffe, the man whose face we all think of when we say or hear the name ‘Harry Potter.’
‘Guns Akimbo’ looks like a fun meta-take on video games. I wonder if it is direct to video or whether there will be a video game released akin to the story-line…
Does anyone else feel an irony boundary has been crossed akin to the Gamesmakers being tasked with making film adaptations of The Hunger Games books?
Emma Watson on Transgenderism
This interview with Paris Lees, a transgender woman, for British Vogue was released last November, which is to say “before Da Tweet,” Rowling’s solve et coagula moment of redefinition. Hat tip to the friend who suggested I watch it in light of Watson’s silence after Rowling’s tweet; it’s easy to see how conflicted she must be between her thoughts on this issue and her debts and loyalty to Rowling as mentor. (The video is cued to where the relevant conversation begins and it continues for seven minutes before they segue to movie talk.)
Only Ezra Miller and Evanna Lynch of all the Wizarding World movie stars have spoken their minds about Da Tweet and neither of them gave a decisive thumbs up or thumbs down vis a vis what Rowling said and whether they agree or disagree. More on that anon. Any thoughts about Emma Watson’s situation or what she says to Paris Lees? Her fears for a six year old transgender child in the UK?
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