Guest Post: “What’s With Robin?”

Today’s HogwartsProfessor post is from a Serious Striker writing under the pseudonym ‘Albus.’ It is more a cry of the heart about Robin Ellacott’s choices in Ink Black Heart than an analysis of the mythic or anagogical content of Strike6 or speculation about The Running Grave, which is to say, it represents a departure from most of what we write and discuss here. I publish it with some misgiving; I do not find the interrogation of Pierce a lapse in ethics or morality, as ‘Albus’ does, Puritanical as I must seem to many. The decision to ‘bug’ the offices of a Parliament office not mentioned in this piece, seemed a far greater jump into illicit behavior than Ms Ellacott’s manipulation of a sleazy character to tell all.

That caveat aside, I offer ‘What’s With Robin?’ for your reflection on how one thoughtful reader experienced the sea-change of Robin Ellacott in Ink Black Heart. If you are like me after my first reading, you may suspect that this experience of disappointment and confusion may have been the point of Rowling-Galbraith’s choices with respect to this character’s story-arc, the hardening of Robin into someone less sympathetic and admirable by conventional standards, into a woman able to journey through the psychological forge of hell successfully. See the post on the Psyche and Cupid mythic backdrop of Ink Black Heart for more on that possibility.

I hope readers will respond in the comment boxes with their take-away with respect to Robin’s choices in Strike6, especially with respect to the Pierce interview. Are you more with or against Albus’ reading of the mystery? Was it an aberration and mistake on the author’s part or a calculated move to disturb and challenge the reader? Make the jump for Albus’ “What’s With Robin?” [Read more…]

Mistakes Were NOT Made: An Anthem for Justice (Margaret Anna Alice)

Rowling-Galbraith has suggested that the Strike series of ten books will end before the Covid lockdowns of 2020, which gives an endpoint to the series as plotted currently.

Given how ‘on board’ the author was with the ‘Save the NHS’ messaging, the huzzahs for the medical professionals who participated in the Covid-19 pandemic, and her enthusiasm, even cheerleading, for mRNA inoculations, I have to wonder if this deadline of convenience has less to do ultimately with the difficulties of writing a detective story during London Lockdown than the commitment of the Guilty to ‘forget’ their part in the nightmare of the last three years. “Don’t Let Them Get Away With It.”

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: Relevant to Harry Potter Film Franchise?

Does anyone else among the Royal Society of Rowling Readers wish that The Presence would attempt something akin to what the Indiana Jones’ film makers have done? Imagine a world in which every decade or five years saw Warner Brothers Discovery create and release a blockbuster movie, a one-off adventure rather than a series, set in the scenes we know well from their adaptations of the Hogwarts Saga novels and with one or two of the characters.

Feel free to explain in the comment boxes why this will never happen, especially if you’re glad it is impossible or you really dislike Harrison Ford’s ‘Indiana Jones’ legacy. Me? I rarely go to theaters to see films, but I think I will go to see ‘Dial of Destiny’ before I watch the third Fantastic Beasts film or read the ‘Original Screenplay,’ the only Rowling product I have not studied closely. Must be an old man thing!

Christ Symbolism in Strike6 For Easter

Happy Easter, Western Christians!

A dear friend, Lancelot Schaubert, sent me the picture below this morning, an image from a church, I’m assuming, somewhere in New York City. It’s of a hearth/altar whose carved centerpiece is a Pelican, a mother feeding her chicks from her own blood:

If you want to know the connection between this image, Rowling, Ink Black Heart, Christ’s sacrificial, maternal love and His relationship with the members of His mystical body in the Eucharist, not to mention my work, scroll down this Strike6 post to read ‘The Pelican At Last.’

Again, Happy Easter! And thank you, Lancelot, for the wonderful picture.

Did Jesus Visit St Mawes in Cornwall?

The Daily Mail presents the case for the legend of Jesus having traveled to Cornwall with Joseph of Arimethea, a maternal uncle, on a business trip to buy tin, a necessary component for bronze-making: ‘Did Jesus visit Cornwall? It sounds beyond belief. But according to local folklore, he sailed here as a teenager with his tin merchant uncle.’ I wonder if Dave Polworth was aware of this legend and if they weren’t connected to the mysterious caves he and his new friend were about to explore before Leda intervened. Surely Aunt Joan would have told her nephew about the Jesus Well, the Druids, and the tin connection?

That’s as close as I want to get to an ‘Easter piece’ here at HogwartsProfessor. I hope your celebrations of Western Easter are joyous!