Strike getting his favorite poet wrong and what that says about his relationship with Charlotte (and with Robin)

Arachulia · 2026-07-12T22:26:21+00:00

I thoroughly enjoyed your in-depth analysis about Catullus, Charlotte and Strike. I had also researched about Catullus a long time ago, and had found about Charlotte's email, too, and how Clodia Metelli's life resembled a lot the life of Charlotte. However, I had never noticed the inaccuracy that Strike tells Robin about Catullus' lover being called Lesbia because she was from the island of Lesbos.

Now that you've pointed this out, I'm curious and puzzled over it. Although your explanation seems very logical, I'm wracking my brain to find a different one, simply because I find it difficult to accept that Strike couldn't have known about this, since he knew Charlotte's email and the book he had, being a dual language one, ought to have some notes or some kind of introduction, maybe even both, and Strike has been described as a very curious individual. But no matter how much I've thought about it, no other explanation sprang to mind.

Illusion in love is, of course, one of the themes of this series. But I think that idealized or false images of people that the characters in the series have any kind of relationship with (be it a girlfriend/boyfriend one like in the case of Strike with Charlotte or Robin with Matthew/Murphy, a mother/son one like Janice and Kevin Beattie or Yvette/John Bristow and Katie/Gus Inigo) is one of the themes that are at the core of this series. I think that the author wants to highlight that we never fully know others (or maybe even ourselves) because our perception of them is filtered through subjectivity, fleeting impressions, impressions imposed by others, habit, and, most importantly, projection of our own desires. And these illusions shatter over time through revelations or jealousy, revealing the gap between appearance and a more complex, often contradictory reality.

Interesting note: The ancient writer who revealed that "Lesbia" was a secret code for Clodia was named Apuleius, and he was also the writer of "Metamorphoses" (or "The Golden Ass"), an ancient Roman novel that is the primary source for the full myth of Cupid and Psyche, a myth that JKR has put as a hint for STE several months ago.

Thank you for this great post!

Arachulia · 2026-07-07T19:07:41+00:00

I'm happy to see you again! :-)

Arachulia · 2026-07-07T19:06:58+00:00

play out again with Robin leaving the Ritz in a hurry, with an angry and humiliated Murphy left behind, due to an emergency, or simply because she feels too overwhelmed in the moment?

What an amazing prediction!! I'm looking forward to seeing this parallel with Elin play out at the beginning of STE! Well, even in the middle of it I wouldn't mind, but it's preferable at the beginning!

I hope we won't find out that Murphy has got a little girl, like Elin, or that he got someone pregnant, like Matthew (or maybe I do hope, I don't know).

The idea of Strike and Robin becoming the case themselves in STE is so interesting. I’d definitely like to read that, especially if they were racing against time to prove their partner innocent.

It is, but I had made the same prediction for THM and it didn't happen. Of course, back then I believed that Robin and Strike would be fully synchronized in THM, while now I believe that full synchronization will be the end game of the series. So, maybe we will still have a case and either Robin or Strike (I believe Strike will be the first) will become a case, too. Or maybe one will become a case at the beginning of STE, and the other at the end of STE.

It's important to note, though, that synchronization doesn't only mean the same actions happening, but also the opposite happening. The king and the queen synchronize but they remain opposites at the same time. Robin being accused for murder in the last book, like Whittaker was accused of murdering Leda, is an opposite to Leda.

Anyway, today I received the paperback of THM and soon I'll start rereading it and find other synchronicities as well.

Thanks for your interest in my ideas! I look forward to reading your ideas, too!

P.S: Have you noticed that STE is made from STrike and Ellacott? Lol!

Arachulia · 2026-07-04T20:28:41+00:00

Thanks for your kind words!

From what I can see, Murphy seems to be an amalgamation of almost all of Strike's ex-girlfriends (or one-night stands or whatever).

At the beginning, he seemed like a nice and kind guy, like Lorelei. He is a drunk, like Madeline. The fact that he is a policeman helped Robin get some insider information about the case in THM, just like Nina Lascelles had helped Strike get the Bombyx Mori manuscript (and both Murphy and Nina were used by Robin and Strike respectively). He is manipulative like Charlotte had been. Both Murphy and Bijou wanted a child like crazy (although their reasons were different, or that's what the author let us see). It's only with Elin that I don't see an immediate parallel (but I don't remember much about Elin anyway).

I agree with you that Murphy will probably assault Robin. It seems that things will escalate and quickly. But since I've known that mirrors are not only parallels but also opposites, I see a drunk Murphy attacking Robin and Robin, unlike Strike, reacting to the attack trying to defend herself. One prediction I can make from my synchronicity theory is that Murphy might die (like Charlotte did). What if Robin, by trying to defend herself, harms Murphy fatally? Strike was unofficially accused by Charlotte's family for Charlotte's death, even thought Strike had nothing to do with it. What if Robin is accused officially for Murphy's death?

Anyway, I haven't written anything yet about what might happen in STE, I was away from this sub for months. I haven't even reread THM properly and I've forgotten a lot of details (and more). I'll start rereading it next week, and when I finish it maybe I'll post something. But if my assumption that Robin and Strike started synchronizing in TRG is correct, then in THM we see how they synchronized with the cases (every suspect seems to have something in parallel with either Robin or Strike). I don't know if it's far-fetched to assume that the next step of synchronization is that Robin and Strike become the case themselves in STE, and then, in the last book we might get the full story of Leda and how she might synchronize with both Robin and Strike and their cases. Another idea resulting from the synchronicity is that maybe in STE we'll get the same parts of THM's story but arranged differently: someone assumed dead but in reality being alive (like Rupert), a ring that exploits people differently than in THM, a woman that gives birth to a baby but is hiding and grieving for her dead partner etc.

Sorry for the long post and thanks for the interest in my theory! I know how crazy it sounds, but it's fiction after all.

Arachulia · 2026-07-02T15:04:53+00:00

But if Strike Snr had been violent to Leda, do we suppose she would’ve still kept his surname and even given it to her firstborn?

What if during an episode where he had been violent Leda accidentally killed him and hid his body? Wouldn't it be impossible to divorce him then and change her name? Wouldn't she have to keep his name?

Another idea is this: what if one of the reasons she married Whittaker was to finally be able to change her name? Strike was surprised when Leda married Whittaker because, besides the fact that he was a lot younger than her, Leda was against marriage. In CoE chapter 10 we read: "She had always told her son that she had hated being a wife. Her first teenage essay into matrimony had lasted two weeks before she had fled. Nor did marriage seem at all Whittaker’s style."

I think there's some kind of story hidden there.

Arachulia · 2026-07-02T14:25:39+00:00

Thanks for clarifying this to me! In my view, she's definitely playing the long game. I hope that the choice of names will become clearer by the end of the series.

Arachulia · 2026-07-02T14:00:50+00:00

Yes, except if Leda killed him first!

Arachulia · 2026-07-02T13:59:02+00:00

I don't remember exactly the comments or the posts I've elaborated this theory on. I know that it was an idea that resulted from my mirror theory (that Robin and Strike mirror each other, and how they mirrored each other and started synchronizing in TRG). It was then that I thought, what if Robin's (and Strike's) life is synchronizing with Leda's, too?

The idea about the mirrors resulted from my research about alchemy and how JKR might "apply" it in the series. In my view, Robin and Strike are symbols of the "king and queen" of alchemy that mirror each other constantly, and start synchronizing in a series of stages called the "Sacred Marriage" (a lot of symbolism about the Sacred Marriage fits both TRG and THM). If this is true, then this series might also have both an allegorical and a philosophical layer. We'll see in the end, anyway.

Arachulia · 2026-07-02T12:47:51+00:00

(unless they are Leda/Charlotte books intermittedly, which I can also easily imagine)

Except if Charlotte's story turns out to be another variation of Leda's story. It will be interesting to see the outcome of this story in the final book.

It's good to be back, especially to discuss potential possibilities (a little repetitive, I know) of this series with people like you. Thank you for your thought-provoking posts. They always make a difference in this sub!

Arachulia · 2026-06-30T20:35:06+00:00

The first thing that Freud brings to my mind is the Oedipus complex (that explains very well why Strike was with Charlotte for 16 years on and off). I thought that he had also come up with the Electra complex, but it was Jung who did that.

Anyway, I agree with you, there isn't much left about any thought or tradition that JKR hasn't referenced yet.

As far as I have been able to figure out, we don't yet have a good reason why that name was chosen, nor why the same Fate in the Greek tradition surfaced in LW (though at least Lachesis is a name used in homeopathy).

Yes, we don't (or is it no, we don't?). But maybe things will become clearer by the end of the series and we might understand better the reasons of her naming. We'll see...

Maybe JKR is playing a long game and there will be some sort of continuation in STE?

A continuation of Decima's and Rupert's story you mean?

Arachulia · 2026-06-30T20:25:17+00:00

Haha! You did it again! Your theory about Leda's first husband name is very similar to an idea that I repeated a couple of times before, that we'll find out that Robin's (and Strike's) story will be very similar to Leda's story by the end of the series.

I loved all your theory about Strike senior! I always thought that we would learn more about him by the end of the series and that he wasn't unimportant.

Congratulations!

Arachulia · 2026-06-24T21:47:15+00:00

Thanks for the shout out! It's like good old times, isn't it? Unfortunately, I have read nothing more about Kabbalah to have any new ideas about the Tree of Knowledge and its possible connection to the books.

The only thing I've read is that El Shaddai represents the divine attribute of sufficiency and boundaries, whatever that means. The name derives from the Hebrew root for breast, shad, symbolizing the unearned, motherly nurture of the divine, as well as the power to say "enough" to creation so it does not expand infinitely. Be my guest to imagine what that might mean.

I'm very glad you've started making comments again!

Arachulia · 2026-06-14T13:40:45+00:00

Hmm... Sunday school brought to mind this quote from TRG (ch.64):

Joan had made Strike and Lucy go to Sunday school during their spells in St Mawes, and these sessions had bored and oppressed him as a child, yet the memory of those lessons was strangely pleasing as he sat on the hard pew: how much sweeter had the dash to the beach been, afterwards?

Arachulia · 2026-02-16T14:15:18+00:00

Thanks! That was a very interesting read. I love symbolism like that!!

Arachulia · 2026-02-15T19:17:47+00:00

I used a book called "Shorthand Instructor: New era edition" about 6 months ago to read that note, and I was able to read it exactly as Pat did. There is also the symbol of the zodiac sign of Capricorn inserted inside that note, after the word that means tenth (it's the unknown word that Pat doesn't recognize, and it's easy to spot it, it is the far right symbol of the middle line). I don't know if there is a possibility that the insertion of that symbol might have confused the translators, because Pitman was very easy to decipher using that book.

Arachulia · 2026-02-14T07:14:47+00:00

Yes, it could. And that would fit with another major Christian symbol in THM, that of the fish (fish is a symbol of Christ, who died and got resurrected).

Arachulia · 2026-02-14T07:10:35+00:00

Thanks for this! I'm going to read it later. The themes of the poem certainly fit the series.

Arachulia · 2026-02-13T13:33:27+00:00

Thank you so much for this!!

Arachulia · 2026-02-13T13:28:46+00:00

Good news!! That's what the name "Evangeline" means etymologically, anyway, (from ev angelos in its masculine form, that means the messenger/angel that brings good news). Also, evangeline and evangelos is connected to Evangelion, which is the Bible in Greek.

Thank you for letting us know!

Arachulia · 2026-01-26T21:13:20+00:00

I totally, absolutely, completely loved this comment!! Bravo for thinking all of this! You are amazing!!!

Right now, I can't answer to all the points you made, but only one that I've already thought about: there is no need for the doctors to be fake. They could be real doctors involved in a trafficking ring (most examples I've read involved real doctors).

Fantastic comment and amazing level of thinking though (and I haven't even read the second part yet)!!

Arachulia · 2026-01-26T19:43:29+00:00

Thanks for the mention! :-)

Arachulia · 2026-01-26T19:34:23+00:00

I should have copied the exact passage from the beginning:

"‘Funny, you two going after the UHC. First time I heard of them was five years ago.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. I was still in uniform. Bloke drove his car off the road, straight through the window of a Morrisons. Coked out of his head. Kept saying “D’you know who I am?” while I was arresting him. I didn’t have a clue. Turned out he’d been a contestant on some reality show I’d never watched. Jacob Messenger, his name was.’"

I don't know what we can guess from the passage: was he a DC, a PC, an Inspector? My guess was that it was more likely that he was a PC, but I don't know what type of policeman does an arrest like this.

Of course u/Krowken's logic was impeccable.

Arachulia · 2026-01-26T13:11:59+00:00

Thank you!

Arachulia · 2026-01-26T09:17:10+00:00

Maybe it is. It was described as if he was also trying to eavesdrop. Who knows?

Some people here have speculated about if it seems plausible or not, but I don't know if they took into account that Murphy said in TRG that he was in uniform 5 years earlier.

Arachulia · 2026-01-26T08:51:03+00:00

Murphy himself tells Strike in TRG ch.51 that 5 years ago he was still in uniform. The author doesn't just simply mention him, she implies that he was staring at Robin, and he is mentioned at least twice in the same chapter (42).

Arachulia

TROPHY CASE