I wrote in my pre-publication ‘Nine Guides to Ink Black Heart‘ that serious readers should be on the look out for ghosts haunting the sixth Strike novel. Fans of the Hogwarts Saga are used to crowds of departed souls appearing here and there, even enjoying some cranial polo on special occasions, but those who re-read the Strike series know the dead are ever present in these books as well:

You don’t hear so much about the ghosts of Cormoran Strike, though, right? Which is a shame. Ghosts are a big deal in these mysteries and are all but certain to play a role just out of sight in Ink Black Heart. In addition to The Ghosts Haunting Troubled Blood, see Louise Freeman’s posts on the Ghost of Charlie Bristow in Cuckoo’s Calling and the Ghost of Freddie Chiswell in Lethal White. I have to think the cartoonist that is murdered in a cemetery will be haunting the investigation of her death — and inspiring the detectives with a nudge here and there. Given the meaning of Vanessa Ekwenzi’s first name vis a vis Nabokov (the “black Vanessa” butterfly), I’ll be especially attentive to her inputs if any on this case.

The text within the text, after all, is set in a graveyard, and an especially spooky one at that. Of course there will be ghosts…

Well, it was nothing like Troubled Blood with its persistent references to Margot Bamborough’s thoughts and the perceptions of the Creed victims pictured on the cover of The Demon of Paradise Park. And Vanessa and the Nabokovia butterflies were absent, full stop. I expect she and Oliver wed during the months of Ink Black Heart and will re-appear in Strike7 or 8 with a child or two — which, with Ilsa and Nick’s baby (and Strike and Madeline’s?), will ramp up the Murphy-Ellacott possibilities, naturally.

But ghosts? I found this one tease that makes believe there are many more I missed on my first reading. The first thing said at the gathering in the Artists Club of the Strike Agency partners and Maverick Films’ Richard Elgar, Grant and Heather Ledwell, and the agent, Allan Yeoman, is Yeoman’s belief that “I know Edie would be glad we’re meeting” (157). That may seem to be a throw-away for tossers to break the ice, but has been a commonplace in the previous Strike novels for invoking or noting the presence, wishes, and even activity of the dead; review Greg Talbot’s repeated references to his father’s hopes and influence on events in the revived investigation of Bamborough’s disappearance.

The subject for discussion, then, is what signs have you seen (or heard) in your experiences of Ink Black Heart of supernatural influence? What wild and wacky coincidences that favor the revelation of the guilty parties happen are there in Strike6 which may suggest ghosts on the move, manipulating the ether and the thoughts of the living to act out their revenge?

Yesterday, Louise Freeman laid out the compelling evidence that Troubled Blood was originally meant to be Strike6 and Ink Black Heart Strike5. Using Ring Theory, Literary Alchemy, and the Parallel Series Idea in addition to her own detailed timeline, she offered the cogent argument that, for whatever reason, Rowling decided to switch the two. Speculation has already begun about why she might have shifted the two.

This morning Serious Striker J. S. Malekson offered a plot possibility that would make flipping Strike novels 5 and 6 almost a necessity and bring the Rokeby drama back into clear focus: Strike’s dalliance with Madeline in Ink Black Heart has resulted in her pregnancy.

Along the lines of things that were expected to happen in Strike 6 that didn’t happen, a thought struck me that something was going to happen in Strike 6 that had never occurred to me before Strike 6: Madeline becomes pregnant with Strike’s baby.

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Kathleen wrote this note on Ink Black Heart Pillar Post’s thread and I am moving it here so it isn’t lost for the ages over there. I think her idea deserves every Serious Striker’s attention.

I can’t be the only one considering whether IBH might be half of “book six” from an original plan for seven books. I propose JKR has decided to divide the sixth and seventh parts of Strike and Robin’s story into two books each, which will result in a total of 10 books.

This possibility fits with her comments about 10 books. It also could answer questions about some “missing elements,” such as the Silver Haired Man, Gigi the hanged singer, the rest of the Halvening story, Strike and Robin deciding to become romantic partners, a deliberate kiss to parallel the hand kiss, Pru, Rokeby, Leda, Switch, etc. I’m sure others can think of additional loose ends, critical steps towards resolving the mystery of Leda’s death, and missing relationship milestones.

If this theory is correct, JKR originally planned to write about the Halvening, and part of that story involved the relationship between artists and fans in the age of the internet. Her prolific imagination, spurred on by some intense experiences she’s had with her own fandom, created a story too complex and long for a single book, so she has expanded her plan and turned “book 6” into parts A and B, so now we have Strike 6 & 7 as a parallel to HP6 and an echo of Silkworm.

We will also have 3 more books to finish the story of Leda & Rokeby (I have no idea what she’ll do about Switch and all the siblings if she does finish with Strike and Robin after book 10).

What say you?

You may not be the only one to be considering this, Kathleen, but you are certainly the first to say it out loud, even if there will have to be one more book in this set to make ten, say a ‘7C.’ I love this idea and have three reasons for taking it seriously, even embracing it, which I share below the jump, sans spoilers! [Read more…]

The same week that Ink Black Heart is published, a book in which psychotic Woke elements in a popular fiction fandom murder and disable the creators of the story they love and police via Twitter and dedicated websites the acceptable narrative of what they and their creation are about, Rowling, Inc., announces that “For the First Time Ever” the  “global fan community is coming together to celebrate the Wizarding World!” It’s the creator sanctioned ‘Wizarding World Festival’! I imagine the Harry Potter fandom leaders that created the ‘Harry Potter Educational Fan-con’ (HPEF) events, 2003-2010, and the present day Leaky Con gatherings in the US and UK, not to mention the tens of thousands of people who attended those conventions, were surprised to learn they didn’t exist.

The seventh of Rowling’s seven personal crises that live in her Lake of inspiration is the transgender controversy, which, however one thinks about Rowling’s position and Potter fandom’s online response, all can accept transformed the author overnight, in the eyes of that community’s leaders at least, from progressive savior to whipping boy and projection post. Rowling was already writing about this community’s fecklessness in 2020’s Troubled Blood; see Strike’s conversations about feminism with the college students in Robin’s apartment at the St Valentine’s Day Dinner Party and his reflections about his mother’s “exhibitionist” and reflex political activism afterwards. Her pre-emptive denials that Ink Black Heart was about Harry Potter fandom at the Galbraith website and to Graham Norton the week before Strike6’s publication were borderline pathetic attempts to blunt the obvious reading of this new novel in light of her traumatic experiences of the last three years.

As close to absurdity as those denials were and remain after reading Ink Black Heart, I sympathize with the intention of the author in attempting to direct attention away from the obvious. It would be a shame if this book’s interpretation focused almost exclusively on its evident Lake inspiration and neglected Rowling-Galbraith’s Shed artistry that takes the author’s experience and psychological concerns that are largely unconscious and elevates them deliberately to universal human issues of life and death, art and meaning, relationships, love, and loss.

This is not to mention that it is a tenet of writers here that Rowling conceived this series as a seven book ring of rings; that she plotted a book about a violent fandom as early as 2010 as part of this series, one paralleling Strike 2 as well as Half-Blood Prince, is not only believable but almost common sense if you’re looking for another “book within a book about books.” What challenges belief is the possibility put forward by Rowling that this book has not been informed by her experiences since that conception. Especially as it is possible that Rowling deliberately exploded her relations with Potter fandom circa 2019.

The great majority of our writing here at HogwartsProfessor about Rowling’s work, to include Ink Black Heart, has been and will continue to be focused on her Shed artistry rather than her personal issues and life. That Rowling has revealed her understanding of her process in the 2019 Lake and Shed interview, however, Serious Strikers are obliged to dive as necessary into Rowling’s Lake inspirations and not to deny the obvious connections. Especially when Rowling, Inc., puts out an astonishing announcement that it is about to invent a “global fan community” around the author’s Wizarding World, a place from which her Anomie-esque critics are in large part excluded, at least with respect to planning, programming, and purpose; I’m sure they’ll be welcome to register and pay their admissions fees.

Here are three questions for discussion below, conversation that I hope will not bleed into other threads here, the ones focused on Rowling’s ‘Shed’ literary achievement and failings:

(1) What correspondences are there between Rowling’s “cancellation” by Harry Potter fandom groups and the plot points and characters of Ink Black Heart?

(2) Are her claims of “clairvoyance,” i.e., that the book has nothing to do with her experiences consequent to airing her Gender Critical opinions contra Radical Gender Theorists, that she anticipated that online nightmare in her imaginative efforts, credible or incredible? Is it more or less likely that she conceived the plot of a violent, lawless fandom and that her consequent experiences of fandom backlash informed that original idea?

(3) What is one to make of the Rowling, Inc., announcement the week of Ink Black Heart’s publication that hereafter they will be the ones organizing Wizarding World fandom gatherings, not the fandom itself? Is this just tone-deaf and optics-blind timing or are they sending a message that the Anomie era of fandom directed celebrations of The Presence’s work is over?