Long time friend of the Hogwarts Professor and prolific author Lancelot Schubert has written a guest post. For a fascinating possible link between alliteration, doubled consonants, alchemical symbolism and Christian imagery, join me after the jump!
Thoughts for the Serious Reader of Harry Potter
Long time friend of the Hogwarts Professor and prolific author Lancelot Schubert has written a guest post. For a fascinating possible link between alliteration, doubled consonants, alchemical symbolism and Christian imagery, join me after the jump!
I am a loyal fan of the Strike and Ellacott Files podcast, and look forward to new episodes every couple of weeks. But, if you peruse their website, you’ll find they also have a blog: a hidden gem that is easily overlooked if you, like me, usually jump straight to Spotify to hear the broadcast. I want to give a shout-out to a couple of recent posts there, because I think they present ideas our Serious Striker readers would enjoy discussing.
The first, by “Amber” hypothesizes that Robin’s new suitor, Ryan Murphy, is secretly a member of the Halvening. I scoffed at the notion at first, but Amber points out evidence that is impossible to unsee. Like the pregnant Madeline hypothesis, I really *hope* this idea doesn’t come to pass— poor Robin deserves a few dates with a decent guy after the series of disasters that were Matthew “Flobberworm” Cunliffe, Saul “Dickhead DeMorris Umbridge” and Hugh Jacks (no nickname needed, as his given name is embarrassing enough), and I’d like her experience a fun, casual relationship before her and Strike’s inevitable coupling.
The second, is a series of three posts (Parts I, II and III) on the Tannhäuser opera, the one the “portly Russian” is talking about at Annabels. Opera is far from my area of expertise, but this Wagnerian work apparently starts with Leda and the Swan and “centres on the struggle between sacred and profane love, as well as redemption through love.” The plot of the opera? A young knight struggling to free himself of the sexual hold Venus has over him, and prove himself worthy of the love of a virtuous woman.” “Marty Ellacott” takes us through all three acts, connecting the opera’s plot to Strike’s spiritual journey in The Ink Black Heart and the entire series. Anyone with an interest in mythic, Christian and spiritual themes in the Cormoran Strike series should read these posts. I left the first post convinced Tannhäuser is the Rattenbury of The Ink Black Heart; a minor mention that unlocks a lot about the story.
Please check out these remarkable posts!
Now that we are getting some Twitter header hints, speculation about the contents of The Running Grave has begun in earnest. The two Norfolk landmarks have serious Strikers salivating, as we anticipate finally learning exactly what went on in that Norfolk commune that made it the “worst experience” of young Cormoran’s life, a life that we already know had no shortage of trauma. And, it appears we will have Chinese divination technique of I Ching joining the tarot cards and astrology-based methods we saw in Troubled Blood. And, with Strike preparing to meet his older half-sister Prudence at the end of The Ink Black Heart, it seems likely that more information about Rokeby will be forthcoming. It seems inevitable that at least some of our questions about Strike’s childhood and his parents will be answered in the next book.
But, those are not the only questions about Strike’s past that are still lingering With the exception of the IED explosion, which we have re-lived several times with Strike, glimpses into his military history are rare and fleeting. One I have written about before is his medal for bravery and the circumstances under which it was awarded. Most causal acquaintances assume the medal was awarded for the incident that cost Strike his leg, and he seems content to let that belief stand. Robin is one of the few that has been told otherwise, but she still doesn’t know the story behind the medal.
Just as we got yet another mention of the Norfolk commune in The Ink Black Heart, and learned that the experience was enough to sour Strike on the entire county, we got a brief glimpse into a heretofore unmentioned incident from Strike’s military history, as Wally Cardew reminds him of a young soldier he investigated.
Cardew bore a strong physical resemblance to a young soldier Strike had investigated while still in the SIB, one Private Dean Shaw, who’d had exactly the same combination of tow-coloured hair, pink-and-white skin and small, bright blue eyes. Shaw had been court-martialled for what he’d insisted was a prank gone wrong, which had resulted in the fatal shooting of a sixteen-year-old recruit.
Thematic connections between The Silkworm and The Ink Black Heart were expected and confirmed. I hypothesize that the following snippet from The Silkworm may turn out to be another connection point: an apparently incidental Army memory that turns out to be important later.
He remembered the alcoholic major whose twelve-year-old daughter had disclosed sexual abuse at her school in Germany. When Strike had arrived at the family house the major had taken a swing at him with a broken bottle. Strike had laid him out.
This brief anecdote morphs into a major plot point in Career of Evil, when the alcoholic major in question, Noel Brockbank, becomes one of the three major suspects. We also learn that this incident was far more serious, and tragic than it seemed. While I think we were meant to give a little inward cheer in The Silkworm at the thought of Strike punching out a presumed pedophile, we learn in the next book that it was an unnecessary act of brutality, with far-reaching and devastating consequences. Strike narrowly escaped being convicted of an assault charge that could have landed him in jail and almost certainly would have meant a dishonorable discharge from the Army. The brain damage Brockbank sustained led to him escaping culpability on the sexual abuse charges, leaving the military with a pension and with a decade of free reign to continue molesting his stepdaughter Brittany and multiple other girls, ending with Angel Vincent. Disagreement over Brockbank led to Robin’s sacking and nearly ended Strike and Robin’s professional and personal relationship.
The Silkworm gave us another glimpse into Strike’s military history, this one connected to his brother Al and also involving an accidental shooting of one young soldier by another.
One evening in a military tent in Afghanistan, Strike had seen a photograph online of eighteen-year-old Al in a cream blazer with a crest on the pocket, long hair swept sideways and gleaming gold in the bright Geneva sun. Rokeby had had his arm around Al, beaming with paternal pride. The picture had been newsworthy because Rokeby had never been photographed in a suit and tie before…
Strike had seen Al’s graduation photograph online a bare hour after interviewing an inconsolable nineteen-year-old private who had accidentally shot his best friend in the chest and neck with a machine gun.
This case, unlike Brockbank’s, as so far not made a reappearance. Or has it? Here I take a speculative jump, but one that I think I can support with at least some literary evidence. This accidental shooting is the same incident referenced in the Dean Shaw memory in The Ink Black Heart. Private Shaw is either the inconsolable 19-year-old in question, or a third party who set up the “prank” that led to the 19-year-old shooting the 16-year-old friend.
My reasons for taking this leap and speculating we will eventually learn more about Dean Shaw?
Whether the Dean Shaw prank is related to the medal is harder to say. Obviously, Strike was not able to prevent the accidental shooting death of either the “best friend” or “16-year-old recruit”, who, if my hypothesis is correct, are the same person. However, it is possible Strike risked his life to stop the “inconsolable” shooter from harming himself or others. The grief-stricken young soldier could have attempted suicide, lethal revenge on Private Shaw or even a mass-killing of some sort.
If these incidents are indeed one and the same, they most likely happened in spring to summer 2001, when Strike was 26 (nearly 27). Al is nine years younger than Strike and graduated at 18. If he did earn his medal as a result, and Nick and Ilsa, as I have speculated, renewed their romance when they got reacquainted at the medal ceremony, it fits for their stated reunion in their “mid-twenties.”
Other incidents known to have happened to Strike in the 2000-2002 timeframe:
Unfortunately, we can’t always count on Mr. Galbraith keeping his dates, or his maps straight. (See here, here, and here). The poor kid could easily have been shot in Iraq, after all. But, while background incidents that JKR/RG mentions once may just be scene-setting (think Mark Evans), incidents that come up more than once, like the Norfolk commune, are almost certainly pointers to some sort of plot point.
Just as most of what we have learned about Strike’s early childhood occurred when he was 7-8 years old, we are learning the most about his military career during the ages of 26-28. It seems certain the The Running Grave will tell us a bit more about the younger ages and the Norfolk commune, but will we also hear more about those pivotal Army years? All this awaits the publication date.
But, in case anyone’s wondering, no, I am not going to speculate that either Wally Cardew or Dean Shaw killed Leda.
Potterversity released the second half of the Chestnut Hill Academic Conference recap today. It was definitely a Gilderoy moment for me, as my Strike talk on xenomelia got a lot of great feedback. There was also some interesting discussion on the lack of scholarly interest in Rowlings other works.
Interestingly, the xenomelia talk would never have happened if my now-retired colleague in philosophy had not invited me to give a guest talk in his Mary Baldwin honors colloquium on the self. The richness and expansiveness of the liberal arts and sciences should never bee underestimated.
Check it out here.
As longtime readers know, one of my regular Wizarding world talks is on newly discovered species named for Harry Potter characters. The last time I spoke about this publicly was at 2020’s online Queen City Mischief and Magic Festival, when the count was 12: 1 dinosaur, 1 extinct lizard, 1 crab, 1 snake, 2 stink bugs, 2 wasps, and 4 spiders. Since then, one more “potter wasp” was added to the collection in 2021. At the end of 2022, however, a 14th animal joined the menagerie: the Finnish tardigrade, Macrobiotus naginae.
This microscopic critter is by far the smallest of the collection so far, as well on of the more interesting. Tardigrades are tiny, but among the hardiest of animals on our planet, capable of surviving extremes of temperature, pressure, drought, starvation and even the vacuum conditions of space. As for the name, like the stink-bug Graphorn bicornutus, draws inspiration from the Fantastic Beasts films rather than the book series proper. As stated in the scientific paper describing the discovery:
Etymology: Named after J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter book series character Nagini –Lord Voldemort’s treasured snake companion. Formerly a cursed woman who is ultimately and irreversibly transformed into a limbless beast, this fictional character provides a fitting name for the new species in the pseudohufelandi complex, which in turn is characterized by reduced legs and claws.
You can read more about these Wizarding World inspirations here and here.
Keys to Understanding J. K. Rowling’s Novels and Screenplays
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