Rowling's Two Series of Novels Run in Parallel; Whose Death in Strike7 will Echo the Demise of Harry's Beloved House-Elf in the Hogwarts Saga's Finale?
Great stuff, thanks John! Now that we've read the first 6 chapters of Running Grave, I have some thoughts on possible equivalents for the "Raid on the Ministry, Recovery of Locket and Eye of Mad-Eye":
The UHC strike me as this book's equivalent of the Ministry of Magic - an organisation whose inner workings are not revealed to non-members, but who are accused of corruption. The trio's carefully-planned (by their standards!) infiltration of the Ministry headquarters (following a month of covert surveillance), I think will have its equivalent in Robin infiltrating the highly secure UHC farm in Norfolk.
As for recovering the locket and Mad-Eye's eye, those are harder to guess, but presumably they are one item that needs to be destroyed and one item that will help someone or some people see something fully, after which it can be peacefully buried. If the UHC farm - MoM headquarters are equivalent, then these two items are ones that Robin manages to take when she leaves. One that she will search for (the locket) - presumably something the clients want back. The other something she didn't expect to find but makes a rash/emotional decision to take (the eye) - perhaps something kept from the Norfolk cult that traumatized Strike as a child?
Thanks for this insight! I think your prediction was correct. Robin brought back the locket she was searching for, Will, as well as the unexpected Qing, a reminder of her grandmother Deidre, who died a hero by refusing to abandon her daughter, Lin.
I didn't read this until now, as I've only just finished the book. Thank you Kathleen! I'm not sure I was correct though, as Robin didn't exactly bring Will and Qing with her. Will and Qing seen more like parallels of the Cattermoles to me - they were enabled and/or encouraged to escape the Ministry/Chapman Farm by our protagonists. Mrs Cattermole, like Qing, couldn't escape on her own (Mrs Cattermole due to not having a wand, Qing due to being a toddler) she needed to escape by side-along apparition with her husband while Qing needed to be carried over the wall by her father. Of course, we don't know whether the Cattermoles actually did escape, and they certainly didn't seem out the trio once they did, so Will and Qing could be sort of the Cattermoles and the locket and eye combined, but actually I think they're just the eye, if they correspond to either of those objects. I think Robin's find that corresponds to the locket is the Polaroids. The destruction of the locket was a necessary component of the defeat of Voldemort, and the Polaroids were important in Strike and Robin's identification of Abigail as the murderer.
I think you’re right to point to the importance of the Cattermoles, but I’m not convinced they are the parallel to the locket and Moody’s eye. I think Rawling creates the parallels to emphasize the essential elements of her characters and stories, although she is so playful and her references are so nuanced, there is nothing she won’t do - I never feel quite sure I see what she’s up to! I don’t think the essential meaning of the locket and they eye is that Harry literally carried them away from the ministry. I do think you’re right about the locket needing to be destroyed, which I think does apply to Will. The locket is Harry’s quest, something precious to Voldemort because he fears death and precious to Umbridge because she craves unearned status. The locket is precious to Harry because Dumbledore asked him to get it and because he needs it to defeat Voldemort and protect people from him and his cruel ideology, but also because the locket holds a part of a human soul. In the end, Harry tells Voldemort to feel remorse because it isn’t too late to save his soul. Will is similarly precious to Wace, Mazu, and Becca, who can get money from him, while Robin is values Will because his dead mother asked for him to be reconciled with his family and because he is a fellow human being, even if he is annoying at times! Then, in order to save Will, Robin must first “destroy” him, by destroying his strong faith, causing him doubts that result in him being in the box. Part of this effort to save Will involves Robin confronting Will in the retreat room and getting punched and ultimately almost downing, which is similar to what Harry and Ron had to do to destroy the locket. I think Will is s horocrux.
There was a wonderful paper (described on the Potterversity podcast) that explains how Ron’s time as Reg Cattermole - a maintenance man, a profession Ron initially considers unimportant - transforms Ron because he truly understands the difficulty and magnitude of Reg’s responsibilities and Reg’s powerlessness. That experience leads Ron to se the world a bit differently, and to be more genuinely concerned about the house elves, which prompts Hermione to kiss him. Given that reading of the Cattermoles, I’d say the analogy in TRG is some person or experience who helps Strike overcome some assumptions about others. Maybe Flora Brewster? And I also think that all the church members who wanted to leave but were afraid might be reflections of the Muggle-born the trio rescue from the Ministry.
I do think your argument about Qing as Mrs Cattermole makes good sense. Both characters are innocent and powerless.
Moody’s eye is tricky. I think what’s essential is that Harry instinctively acts to ensure this aspect of Moody is not desecrated As a result of this impulsive “chivalrous” act, the trio are discovered, but ultimately retrieving the eye is presented as the right thing to do. Robin instinctively defends both Emily and Lin, actions that identify her as a potential problem to Church leaders, even though she surely did the right thing. The value of respecting the dead - Kevin and Charlotte - is also present in TRG. Maybe Kevin’s body and Robin’s defense of Emily are reflections of the eyeball story?
Afternoon! This will be my first comment on this platform, let's see how it goes!
I find the Oakden theory intriguing, if only for the very astute observation about "oak names". I must however admit that I don't find him a plausible candidate for redemption, given the apparent lack of depth or ambiguity of his character. Unlike Snape, Mundungus and Kreacher, he doesn't seem to have any redeeming characteristics whatsoever. I have seen no hints that he may return. We'll see!
I have however tried to think back to when Harry first becomes saddled with caring for Kreacher after Sirius's death. I asked myself, has Strike become responsible for anyone's welfare after Joan's death? The obvious answer came back of Uncle Ted. There has already been an episode when Strike has failed/refused to make time to look after his uncle since he became widowed, and left it to Lucy instead.
Kreacher starts out an unpleasant character who becomes good through redemption. Maybe Uncle Ted will achieve redemption by revealing something terrible to Strike about his and Leda's past and allowing the mystery of her death to be finally solved. My personal theory, which I've described previously, is that Leda may have suffered abuse at the hands of her father and brother (in an echo of Stieg Larsson, whose novels intermittently crop up in the Strike series as various characters are shown to be reading them). Ted will reveal this to Strike at great personal cost, allowing the mystery to be solved and achieving redemption (remember Joan's last words? "Good man ... helping people ... I'm proud of you").
We learn something essential in Troubled Blood about Uncle Ted’s history which ties into the Rosmersholm backdrop of Lethal White. We learn in Strike5 that Ted Nancarrow left his Cornwall home for the Red Caps after a fight with his father (ch 31, p 354).
The Rosmersholm connection tells us that father-daughter incest will be a revelation in Strike7 and a probable cause for Leda’s suicide or murder. If we assume Leda’s father molested her as a child or young woman and she ran away with the first man who would have her to escape her nightmare existence in St Mawes, several mysterious behaviors in the books become transparently clear.
Ted’s fight with his father and departure from home, for example, would be natural on learning that his old man had been forcing sex on his daughter, Ted’s only sister; his choice would have been the common-sensical one of leaving home and fighting crime rather than attempt to prosecute his father and bring shame on his whole family in provincial Cornwall. I assume he returned only after his father has died.
Ted and Joan’s refusal to send the authorities to take away Leda’s children makes sense, too, if they know she was sexually molested at home as a young women by her father. They are simultaneously at her mercy lest she tell everyone in St Mawes the Nancarrow family dirty secret and necessarily nothing but profoundly sympathetic and understanding about the unhinged, anti-bourgeois exhibitionist Leda has become in light of her nightmare childhood of rape and violation. Ted and Joan, childless as they are, take on Lucy and Cormoran as Leda dictated, rescuing them at times when Leda goes too far, but never calling in Child Protective Services to have her ruled unfit as a mother. The incest explains that.
We also learn in Troubled Blood that the Nancarrows were in contact with Rokeby about Oxford and that when Strike refuses his “little nest egg,” it is the Nancarrows who must “stump up” for his college fees. Leda is desperately unhappy and a worrisome burden on her children, especially Cormoran. She is psychologically unstable and self-destructive in all her behaviors and decision-making. There is little to no reason to expect change for the better as far as damaged-to-the-core Leda is concerned. Everything noted about means, motive, and opportunity about Uncle Ted as Leda’s murderer I discuss in ‘Who Killed Leda Strike? Uncle Ted Did It‘ are only amplified by the revelations of Troubled Blood.
I also think, again as per Stieg Larsson, that Leda may well have killed her abusive father, and that Ted knew it and/or helped (which is my guess as to the real meaning of Joan's last words).
As for Dobby, I think your Dave theory is very convincing! And I also think that Shanker had something to do with it. It'll turn out he and Dave knew each other or something...
I have not read Stieg Larrson but Rowling-Galbraith clearly has, as you note, so I find your idea about Leda having killed her father with or without the brother's help more than credible if this is a Larrson signature. Fascinating.
About Shanker's possible involvement, see that same post linked above about the likelihood of Ted, Leda, Jonny, Dave, or Shanker as Leda's murderer. If Leda killed herself to free her children and protect Switch by framing Whittaker, then Shanker's help with the heroin seems a real possibility. Does this make him Leda's 'Secret Keeper,' something of an equivalent to Peter Pettigrew? I shudder.
I am distracted today by something I forgot to mention in the post but which is perhaps the most obvious and important parallel between the first, fourth, and seventh Potter books which may be reflected in the Strike series per PSI, namely, each of these books, Stone, Goblet, and Hallows has two out-of-bounds trials followed by the running of a gauntlet, a set of hurdles as mentioned with similar elements. In Stone, it is the Troll battle in the bathroom and the release of Hagrid's dragon followed by the Cerebrus to Mirror run. In Goblet, it is the three Triwizard Tournament tasks, the last of which is a gauntlet menagerie. Hallows has the two break-ins -- at the Ministry and Gringotts -- that concludes with the Battle of Hogwarts' various hurdles that the Trio must clear.
As mentioned in the post above, there are remarkable similarities between the endings of Cuckoo's Calling and Lethal White. Do the sequence and key events of these two books also line up? If so, the template of 'Running Grave's primary plot points have been revealed in outline, in a fashion similar to what Irvin Khaytman discovered in the Philosopher's Stone gauntlet.
Great stuff, thanks John! Now that we've read the first 6 chapters of Running Grave, I have some thoughts on possible equivalents for the "Raid on the Ministry, Recovery of Locket and Eye of Mad-Eye":
The UHC strike me as this book's equivalent of the Ministry of Magic - an organisation whose inner workings are not revealed to non-members, but who are accused of corruption. The trio's carefully-planned (by their standards!) infiltration of the Ministry headquarters (following a month of covert surveillance), I think will have its equivalent in Robin infiltrating the highly secure UHC farm in Norfolk.
As for recovering the locket and Mad-Eye's eye, those are harder to guess, but presumably they are one item that needs to be destroyed and one item that will help someone or some people see something fully, after which it can be peacefully buried. If the UHC farm - MoM headquarters are equivalent, then these two items are ones that Robin manages to take when she leaves. One that she will search for (the locket) - presumably something the clients want back. The other something she didn't expect to find but makes a rash/emotional decision to take (the eye) - perhaps something kept from the Norfolk cult that traumatized Strike as a child?
**SPOILER**
Thanks for this insight! I think your prediction was correct. Robin brought back the locket she was searching for, Will, as well as the unexpected Qing, a reminder of her grandmother Deidre, who died a hero by refusing to abandon her daughter, Lin.
SPOILERS below for the whole book.
I didn't read this until now, as I've only just finished the book. Thank you Kathleen! I'm not sure I was correct though, as Robin didn't exactly bring Will and Qing with her. Will and Qing seen more like parallels of the Cattermoles to me - they were enabled and/or encouraged to escape the Ministry/Chapman Farm by our protagonists. Mrs Cattermole, like Qing, couldn't escape on her own (Mrs Cattermole due to not having a wand, Qing due to being a toddler) she needed to escape by side-along apparition with her husband while Qing needed to be carried over the wall by her father. Of course, we don't know whether the Cattermoles actually did escape, and they certainly didn't seem out the trio once they did, so Will and Qing could be sort of the Cattermoles and the locket and eye combined, but actually I think they're just the eye, if they correspond to either of those objects. I think Robin's find that corresponds to the locket is the Polaroids. The destruction of the locket was a necessary component of the defeat of Voldemort, and the Polaroids were important in Strike and Robin's identification of Abigail as the murderer.
I think you’re right to point to the importance of the Cattermoles, but I’m not convinced they are the parallel to the locket and Moody’s eye. I think Rawling creates the parallels to emphasize the essential elements of her characters and stories, although she is so playful and her references are so nuanced, there is nothing she won’t do - I never feel quite sure I see what she’s up to! I don’t think the essential meaning of the locket and they eye is that Harry literally carried them away from the ministry. I do think you’re right about the locket needing to be destroyed, which I think does apply to Will. The locket is Harry’s quest, something precious to Voldemort because he fears death and precious to Umbridge because she craves unearned status. The locket is precious to Harry because Dumbledore asked him to get it and because he needs it to defeat Voldemort and protect people from him and his cruel ideology, but also because the locket holds a part of a human soul. In the end, Harry tells Voldemort to feel remorse because it isn’t too late to save his soul. Will is similarly precious to Wace, Mazu, and Becca, who can get money from him, while Robin is values Will because his dead mother asked for him to be reconciled with his family and because he is a fellow human being, even if he is annoying at times! Then, in order to save Will, Robin must first “destroy” him, by destroying his strong faith, causing him doubts that result in him being in the box. Part of this effort to save Will involves Robin confronting Will in the retreat room and getting punched and ultimately almost downing, which is similar to what Harry and Ron had to do to destroy the locket. I think Will is s horocrux.
There was a wonderful paper (described on the Potterversity podcast) that explains how Ron’s time as Reg Cattermole - a maintenance man, a profession Ron initially considers unimportant - transforms Ron because he truly understands the difficulty and magnitude of Reg’s responsibilities and Reg’s powerlessness. That experience leads Ron to se the world a bit differently, and to be more genuinely concerned about the house elves, which prompts Hermione to kiss him. Given that reading of the Cattermoles, I’d say the analogy in TRG is some person or experience who helps Strike overcome some assumptions about others. Maybe Flora Brewster? And I also think that all the church members who wanted to leave but were afraid might be reflections of the Muggle-born the trio rescue from the Ministry.
I do think your argument about Qing as Mrs Cattermole makes good sense. Both characters are innocent and powerless.
Moody’s eye is tricky. I think what’s essential is that Harry instinctively acts to ensure this aspect of Moody is not desecrated As a result of this impulsive “chivalrous” act, the trio are discovered, but ultimately retrieving the eye is presented as the right thing to do. Robin instinctively defends both Emily and Lin, actions that identify her as a potential problem to Church leaders, even though she surely did the right thing. The value of respecting the dead - Kevin and Charlotte - is also present in TRG. Maybe Kevin’s body and Robin’s defense of Emily are reflections of the eyeball story?
That should have been SEEK out the trio, not seem out
Afternoon! This will be my first comment on this platform, let's see how it goes!
I find the Oakden theory intriguing, if only for the very astute observation about "oak names". I must however admit that I don't find him a plausible candidate for redemption, given the apparent lack of depth or ambiguity of his character. Unlike Snape, Mundungus and Kreacher, he doesn't seem to have any redeeming characteristics whatsoever. I have seen no hints that he may return. We'll see!
I have however tried to think back to when Harry first becomes saddled with caring for Kreacher after Sirius's death. I asked myself, has Strike become responsible for anyone's welfare after Joan's death? The obvious answer came back of Uncle Ted. There has already been an episode when Strike has failed/refused to make time to look after his uncle since he became widowed, and left it to Lucy instead.
Kreacher starts out an unpleasant character who becomes good through redemption. Maybe Uncle Ted will achieve redemption by revealing something terrible to Strike about his and Leda's past and allowing the mystery of her death to be finally solved. My personal theory, which I've described previously, is that Leda may have suffered abuse at the hands of her father and brother (in an echo of Stieg Larsson, whose novels intermittently crop up in the Strike series as various characters are shown to be reading them). Ted will reveal this to Strike at great personal cost, allowing the mystery to be solved and achieving redemption (remember Joan's last words? "Good man ... helping people ... I'm proud of you").
Anyway, just my musings. It's fun to speculate!
Love the Abused Leda theory; see my version of it from 2020 here: https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/who-killed-leda-strike-suicide-victim-leda-rokeby-whittaker-ted-or-dave/
The incest part of that long post is here:
We learn something essential in Troubled Blood about Uncle Ted’s history which ties into the Rosmersholm backdrop of Lethal White. We learn in Strike5 that Ted Nancarrow left his Cornwall home for the Red Caps after a fight with his father (ch 31, p 354).
The Rosmersholm connection tells us that father-daughter incest will be a revelation in Strike7 and a probable cause for Leda’s suicide or murder. If we assume Leda’s father molested her as a child or young woman and she ran away with the first man who would have her to escape her nightmare existence in St Mawes, several mysterious behaviors in the books become transparently clear.
Ted’s fight with his father and departure from home, for example, would be natural on learning that his old man had been forcing sex on his daughter, Ted’s only sister; his choice would have been the common-sensical one of leaving home and fighting crime rather than attempt to prosecute his father and bring shame on his whole family in provincial Cornwall. I assume he returned only after his father has died.
Ted and Joan’s refusal to send the authorities to take away Leda’s children makes sense, too, if they know she was sexually molested at home as a young women by her father. They are simultaneously at her mercy lest she tell everyone in St Mawes the Nancarrow family dirty secret and necessarily nothing but profoundly sympathetic and understanding about the unhinged, anti-bourgeois exhibitionist Leda has become in light of her nightmare childhood of rape and violation. Ted and Joan, childless as they are, take on Lucy and Cormoran as Leda dictated, rescuing them at times when Leda goes too far, but never calling in Child Protective Services to have her ruled unfit as a mother. The incest explains that.
We also learn in Troubled Blood that the Nancarrows were in contact with Rokeby about Oxford and that when Strike refuses his “little nest egg,” it is the Nancarrows who must “stump up” for his college fees. Leda is desperately unhappy and a worrisome burden on her children, especially Cormoran. She is psychologically unstable and self-destructive in all her behaviors and decision-making. There is little to no reason to expect change for the better as far as damaged-to-the-core Leda is concerned. Everything noted about means, motive, and opportunity about Uncle Ted as Leda’s murderer I discuss in ‘Who Killed Leda Strike? Uncle Ted Did It‘ are only amplified by the revelations of Troubled Blood.
That all makes so much sense!
I also think, again as per Stieg Larsson, that Leda may well have killed her abusive father, and that Ted knew it and/or helped (which is my guess as to the real meaning of Joan's last words).
As for Dobby, I think your Dave theory is very convincing! And I also think that Shanker had something to do with it. It'll turn out he and Dave knew each other or something...
I have not read Stieg Larrson but Rowling-Galbraith clearly has, as you note, so I find your idea about Leda having killed her father with or without the brother's help more than credible if this is a Larrson signature. Fascinating.
About Shanker's possible involvement, see that same post linked above about the likelihood of Ted, Leda, Jonny, Dave, or Shanker as Leda's murderer. If Leda killed herself to free her children and protect Switch by framing Whittaker, then Shanker's help with the heroin seems a real possibility. Does this make him Leda's 'Secret Keeper,' something of an equivalent to Peter Pettigrew? I shudder.
I am distracted today by something I forgot to mention in the post but which is perhaps the most obvious and important parallel between the first, fourth, and seventh Potter books which may be reflected in the Strike series per PSI, namely, each of these books, Stone, Goblet, and Hallows has two out-of-bounds trials followed by the running of a gauntlet, a set of hurdles as mentioned with similar elements. In Stone, it is the Troll battle in the bathroom and the release of Hagrid's dragon followed by the Cerebrus to Mirror run. In Goblet, it is the three Triwizard Tournament tasks, the last of which is a gauntlet menagerie. Hallows has the two break-ins -- at the Ministry and Gringotts -- that concludes with the Battle of Hogwarts' various hurdles that the Trio must clear.
As mentioned in the post above, there are remarkable similarities between the endings of Cuckoo's Calling and Lethal White. Do the sequence and key events of these two books also line up? If so, the template of 'Running Grave's primary plot points have been revealed in outline, in a fashion similar to what Irvin Khaytman discovered in the Philosopher's Stone gauntlet.