White horses were such a common theme in Lethal White that even the protagonists started saying it was “getting silly.” You know what’s getting silly already in Troubled Blood, even though we are just a few chapters into the preview? The way virtually every character has to comment about how Strike and Robin need to become a couple. So far, I’ve counted… (mild spoilers…. if you haven’t seen the TB preview chapters and don’t want to know, avoid the jump…) [Read more…]
On the Lighter Side: Creative Predictions for Troubled Blood… and Beyond?
September 10, 2020 by 2 Comments
Cormoran, Robin and the Deleted Phone Calls: Evidence of Strike’s Remarkable Insight.
August 25, 2020 by 8 Comments
In the countdown to Troubled Blood, every Strike fan out there must be, on some level, wondering what is next for Cormoran and Robin. Are they ready to acknowledge their feelings for each other? Or will they keep a safe distance, at least until Robin’s divorce from the Flobberworm is finalized, which would, of course, give Charlotte plenty of time to try to sink her claws into “Bluey” again?
One point has been bugging me since I first read Lethal White, so much that I paid special attention to it on my latest re-listen to the audio book. How does Strike find out the Flobberworm deleted his apology message to Robin, and blocked his calls? Is this a plot hole, or is it more evidence that Cormoran recognizes who and what Matthew is long before anyone else, including Robin does? For more of the story, continue after the jump. [Read more…]
Guest Post: Thoughts on Leda and parentage as we await Troubled Blood.
August 16, 2020 by 11 Comments
Reader Kelly Loomis has made some excellent comments on the Cormoran Strike series, and the Hogwarts Faculty has decided that her latest should be highlighted in a guest post, rather than buried in the comments of the earlier Troubled Blood post. We also thank her for alerting us to the micro-excerpt just released, apparently confirming that the astrological clock of Hampton Court will be a key feature of the series. Maybe even the equivalent of Lethal White‘s White Horse of Uffington? Enjoy, and thank you, Kelly, for permission to share your insights. Please use this thread as an updated site for more Troubled Blood discussion.
As you know, I’ve been going through the books by both reading and listening the last few months. I even subjected myself to the tv series. I did ask a silly question recently that was easily answered had I read a few chapters further.
I have several thoughts regarding parentage, Uncle Ted etc.:
1) Ted must be fairly well off (or the aunt is/was). If his aunt and uncle stay in that swanky hotel he put Robin up in, they must have some money. Having been in London, I can’t imagine what a nice place like that would cost. And Strike claims they stay there whenever they get up to London. Also, he was a red cap which was what inspired Cormoran to that future career. I know in Britain, it is common for “gentry” to enter military service so that would not mean he couldn’t have come from money. Or, he just figured out a good field to enter into after exiting.
2) Regarding Strike’s parentage, there are a a few things mentioned. 1) People always comment how Strike looks nothing like Rokeby. Also, Eric Bloom – lead singer of Blue Oyster Cult – was described as having hair exactly the same as Strike’s. And, he was supposedly the one that got away and Leda never “shagged“ him. 2) Strike described himself as the spitting image of his uncle. Does that include his hair?
3) Leda got married to someone coming through town with the fair. And in Troubled Blood, there will be reference to tarot cards and a missing woman the year of Strike’s birth. I wonder if “Gypsies” (the preferred term, in some circles, is Romani) still travelled around at that time with fairs telling fortunes and if any of this book will tie in with the man Leda married for the sake of a new last name and new dress. And if Strike will learn about some of these circumstances during this investigation.
This is a crazy thought – could Lucy have had anything to do with Leda’s death? She is the one who has tried to have a life most unlike her mother’s. We’ve had one woman killer in Liz Tassell. Could we have another? Strike talked about how women could smolder but when they blew, they really blew. Lucy – if she was sexually assaulted by Whittaker – could have taken revenge against her mother for dragging her into those kind of circumstances over and over. It just seems Rowling is going to knock the socks off us all.
Another crazy thought is that Strike is Uncle Ted’s illegitimate son. Haha! That would really be nuts.
Monuments in The Ickabog: Commentary on Today’s Headlines?
July 13, 2020 by 1 Comment
The fountain we destroyed tonight told a lie. We wizards have mistreated and abused our fellows for too long, and we are now reaping our reward.
-Albus Dumbledore, Order of the Phoenix, Ch 37.
The US concern with the removal of Confederate monuments has jumped across the pond, with statues of Edward Colston. Robert Baden-Powell, Robert Milligan and even Churchill destroyed, vandalized or targeted for removal in the United Kingdom. As a resident of Charlottesville, VA, a city still reeling over the violence of the Unite the Right rally three years ago, I have a particular interest in the campaigns to remove these statues, most of which were erected as acts of aggression against the Black community during the height of Jim Crow, not as efforts to preserve heritage or teach history. Whether the motivation behind the original erection of the British statues was similarly tainted, I can’t say, but J.K. Rowling is undoubtedly aware of the controversy.
I managed two correct predictions in The Ickabog, first that Bert and Daisy, described as like-siblings early on, would become true step-siblings when their widowed parents marry, and the second, that the statue of the fictional hero Nobby Buttons would be replaced with one of the genuinely heroic Ickabog, who dared to make peace with his enemies. Rowling made masterful use of both good (the Potter Family Monument, which touched and encouraged Harry in one of his darkest moments) and bad (The Fountain of Magical Brethren, see above) monuments in Harry Potter.
Interestingly, Rowling chose to destroy the Fountain of Magical Brethren, but Nobby’s statue, arguably a worse example– an outright lie that helped deceive the nation of Cornucopia into complying with the unfair tax, and inspired more lies–including a fake girlfriend for the non-existent young hero, was instead relegated to a museum, along with other artifacts of the Dark Age of Spittleworth, so that citizens can remember and learn from their history. Granted, she had particular reasons for the Brethren’s demise: the decapitated wizard saved Harry, (and its head portkeyed him back to Hogwarts) the witch restrained Bellatrix, the centaur took a Killing Curse and the elf and goblin summoned help. But, in the midst of her other recent Twitter controversies, Rowling found time to tweet out some special praise for young Ali, the artist who created this lovely illustration of the Nobby statue. Could the statue’s relegation to a museum–where the truth can be told, not to honor person depicted (who, in this case, doesn’t actually exist) , but to explain why the deceptive statue was erected in the first place–be Rowling’s way of commenting about what she thinks should be done with controversial monuments today? If so, I’d like to hear more of that from her on social media, and less of other topics.
Of course, sometimes a little graffiti, whether on the Berlin Wall or a Confederate memorial, can add to the meaning. I would be remiss, as an MBU prof, not to plug this children’s book written by one of our alums and her daughter, whose dancing at the Lee Monument in Richmond has been on of the iconic images of the current movement.
Louise’s First Look at Troubled Blood Cover and Synopsis.
July 11, 2020 by 29 Comments
It’s been a banner week. Not only does The Ickabog wrap up in characteristic JKR style, but Robert Galbraith releases the cover and summary blurb for the next in the Cormoran Strike series, Troubled Blood. We can already see the predicted echoes to Career of Evil. I think we can count on a more gruesome story. I’ll also take a look back at my earlier predictions and see how this new information requires adjusting them.
First the cover: dark, befitting the book pegged as the nigredo of the series, with the title in blood-red letters. The dial (which does not seem to have the Roman numeral XX on it, unlike the teaser video on Twitter) presumably refers to the astrological/tarot element promised in the book. Some have theorized that this represents the Hampton Court Clock Tower. I love the lamppost, but am a bit disappointed to see figures that look more like the TV Robin and Cormoran than the book. Where’s Strike’s pube hair?
Onto the blurb:
Already we can see some echoes to the third book of the series, which featured a psychopathic serial killer giving lots of unwanted attention, to put it mildly, to the Titian-haired Temp. Career of Evil was also a look back at the past, with Strike forced to confront two past cases–one successful, one not– as well as his loser stepfather. Here we, go back even further, to an unsolved disappearance, which, as astute Twitterers have already pointed out, occurred the very year of Cormoran’s birth. Coincidence? Will his digging into events in his hometown that occurred the year of his birth lead him to address a few of the questions of his own past? Including the fact that neither Cormoran’s birth nor a DNA test broke up Jonny Rokeby’s marriage. This could lead to connections to Order of the Phoenix, where Harry has to confront the meaning of a prophecy referring to his own birth.
Other intriguing elements. I am tickled pink that the mystery starts in Cornwall when Cormoran is visiting family– I have wanted to meet Uncle Ted and Aunt Joan for some time now. The missing woman, on the other hand, has a surname that suggests she is from the north– specifically, Bamburgh, a tiny village on the coast of Northumberland (about 2 hours north of Robin’s home town of Masham) and home to a famous castle and mysterious sword. Is this site destined to join the White Horse of Uffington as a stop on the Strike fan pilgrimage tour?
Cornwall, in addition to being home to Ted and Joan, was also the home and burial place of Pamela “Pixie” Coleman Smith, illustrator of the world’s best known tarot deck, and the subject of a recent biography. It is also the site of the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, which apparently includes a tarot reading machine, pictured above. Expect Cormoran to visit there— I hope he brings Robin with him!
It’s hard to believe Cormoran and Robin will spend too much time on the road, though, with all they have goingon in London. It looks like the agency is thriving but The Flobberworm is being his difficult self regarding the divorce. I am still pulling for Robs to get her half of their flat proceeds sale. And who, pray tell, is the “unwanted male” paying her attention? The only one who has expressed interest in her so far is Spanner, and he seems nice enough to take a hint. Could the belligerent and hard-drinking Tom Turvey be trying to avenge himself on Matthew by pursuing Robin?
I don’t see how some of my other predictions: the return of Whittaker, the emergence of Strike’s baby brother Switch (unless he is part of the family reunion in Cornwall–could he be seeking out his mother’s relatives after all these years, with Strike persuaded to go meet him?), an educational setting, and the death of either Shanker or Vanessa are going to work their way in, yet. But, at 944 pages, a third longer than Lethal White and twice as long as the first three books in the series, there is plenty of room for sub-plots.
One final note: the missing woman is named Margot, a variation of Margaret. So is Daisy, heroine of The Ickabog. Any particular reason JKR would be particularly fond of that name?
Counting down to September 15th.
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