Nigredo storylines amid albedo imagery: the how and why of the oddly inverted alchemy of The Hallmarked Man.

I actually started this post way back in my initial reading of The Hallmarked Man;  occasionally making notes as idea occurred to me, but it quickly became clear to me that it was going to take multiple re-reads and in-depth consideration to make any sense of this.  As is common in Rowling/Galbraith books, expectations were regularly subverted, but the results were both intriguing and ultimately quite satisfying. 

I went into The Hallmarked Man thinking this would be a second albedo volume, following The Running Grave, which was clearly albedo with all of the baptisms, rivers, rain and cleansing showers we saw, along with Strike's own self-improvement, with his weight loss and smoking cessation. There were huge hints of this from the author's Tweets, which showed us silver ships and white swans. We were told that Dean Martin's "Silver Bells" would feature, suggesting Christmas, with snow and twinkling white lights. Even the title referred to a "hallmark"-- a stamp indicating the degree of purity in a precious metal. The scene was indeed set for a silverly-white, cold and snowy journey to purification, similar to what was seen in The Half-Blood Prince and Catching Fire. 

Another reason I was fully expecting  albedo was that, after Strike's nigredo-duo of Troubled Blood and The Ink Black Heart, and his albedo in The Running Grave, another albedo would fit well with the "extended play" model proposed by Kathleen on Hogwartsprofessor several years ago as a means of stretching a seven book series out to ten.  

Did that come to pass?  Well, not exactly.....

On the surface, THM looked like an albedo text. Has there ever been a book with so much damn silver? We had Ramsey's silver shop, Longcaster's stolen silver nef, the stolen masonic silver, the visit to the London silver vaults, the silver getaway car used by Griffiths and Sophia, Marguerite's silver caftan, the silver charm bracelet and even the "sparkling silver shackle" that was the engagement ring purchased for Robin. All we were missing was the reappearance of the silver-haired man from the Ritz.

Other albedo elements in the book include swans (seen both in the Masonic lodge and in the river) and the large number of names meaning light or white. We learn Leda's original name is Peggy (short for Margaret, or "Pearl); that name is repeated in everyone's favorite Christmas party guest, Marguerite. There is also Albie Simpson-White, Susan ("Lily") Iverson, and the entire Whitehead clan: Faber ("metalworker"), Lucinda ("light"), Hugo* ("bright in mind and spirit") and Harvey (multiple meanings, but one possibility is "blazing iron").  There's also the "White Lion" group that gave poor little baby Mullins his name. 

Bridges, which make frequent appearances in THM, (Pat's even heading out to play the card game at the end) can also be considered an albedo element, since the white stage bridges the connection between the black and the red. Like in TRG, there are also significant rivers, though in THM they tend to be associated more with death than baptism, as the sites of Ben Liddel's execution and two suicides. I hesitate to consider the alcohol consumption an albedo element, first because drinking is so ubiquitous in Strike books and second because alcohol was so destructive in THM, with RFM's relapse, Robin's over-indulgence at Christmas, Strike's whiskey-fueled train ride that led to drunk driving the next day and the possible connection of Carmen's drinking during pregnancy with baby Dirk's birth complications. And, despite the importance of Christmas** in the first three parts of the book, there was no snow, although there is plenty of rain: on Strike's initial visit to Decima's, on his birthday, on his trip to Scotland, on Sark, and on Robin's visit to Dino's. 

So, there a lot of visual indicators that we should be seeing an albedo stage in THM. However, if you look beyond the imagery as to what actually happens to characters in the different phases, a different picture emerges. 

The nigredo (blackening) is the stage of putrefaction and breakdown. Typically characters experience loss of what is important to them, a questioning of their core identity, pain, turmoil and confusion. Think of poor Harry in Order of the Phoenix, starting the book facing expulsion from Hogwarts and later reflecting on all Umbridge taking away so much of what he loved about Hogwarts (Quidditch, his broom, visits with Hagrid, communication with Sirius, Dumbledore and even Professor McGonagall). He learns his father, whom he idolized, was a bully and even suspects him of coercing his mother into marriage. He suspects he is being possessed ad weaponized by Voldemort and considers abandoning the wizarding world and returning to the Dursleys. He spends several miserable months regularly isolated in a dank dungeon with Snape, trying and failing to learn Occulmency. In the end, he is hoodwinked into a fool's errand to the department of mysteries, resulting in the death of the closest thing to true family he has, Sirius Black. 

The albedo is the recovery phase from the nigredo, where the character is cleansed and purified. It is a phase characterized by healing, rebirth, reintegration, improved self-understanding and illumination. Harry starts The Half-Blood Prince hopeful and receptive, in contrast to the anger and bitterness he felt in OotP, escorted from Privet Drive by Albus (white) Dumbledore himself. He learns more about Voldemort and his own prophesied mission through regular lessons with his headmaster, that involve immersion in the Pensieve basin, into the silver-white memories Dumbledore has collected. Harry makes a watery Horcrux-hunting trip with Dumbledore to a sea cave, where they successfully navigate Voldemort's inferi-filled lake to retrieve the locket from the potion-filled basin. Despite the death of Albus, Harry is at relative peace after the burial in the white marble tomb, understands the necessity of finding and destroying the rest of Voldemort's Horcruxes, and is ready to face his mission of the next book, even though it will take him away from Hogwarts. 

So, what of Robin and Strike in THM?  You can't deny that both lose a lot in this book.  Robin loses Rowntree, a pregnancy, her fertility, her Land Rover and the sense of safety she had in owning her own flat. Most disturbingly, she loses a lot of her faith in Strike, even taking seriously the possibility that he could be a domestic abuser. As for Strike, he starts the book reeling from the loss of his Uncle Ted and, once Dominic Culpepper rears his ugly pen, faces the loss of his reputation and his business. And, of course, he spends much of the book worrying about losing Robin to Murphy. 

As for breakdown, Robin's mental health crumbles over the course of this book, putting her at the lowest point emotionally we have ever seen her, even when she was struggling with panic attacks earlier. She is both literally and psychologically haunted by the long-ago attack by the Gorilla Mask Man and relives Chapman farm in her nightmares, in addition to suffering new physical assaults. Rather than allow light to shine on her true feelings, she continues to repress her love for Strike and attempts to convince herself she wants a life with RFM. She shows many symptoms of Complex PTSD, including dissociation, negative self-perception and emotional disregulation. 

We've already seen Strike break down emotionally in Troubled Blood and physically in The Ink Black Heart.  I would say his breakdown in THM is primarily a moral-ethical one, although he has his share of physical breakdown, too, with his leg badly injured (as it has been in every even-numbered book) and taking two falls into mud (Scotland and Sark). Strike's engaged in some questionable acts before, but this book seemed to have more than its fair share: from drunk driving to taking on Mrs. Two-times to roughing up the suspects in the final confrontation. It starts when he takes Decima Mullins case for all the wrong reasons: he hopes to both drive a wedge in the relationship with RFM and engineer opportunities for romantic getaways with his partner. To do this, he has to completely reverse the ethical principles he held in previous books: 

In THM, Strike tells Robin:

“What we can’t justify is trying to find the living Fleetwood, because the client’s expressly said she doesn’t want us to!"

"But she’s going to have to face the possibility at some point!"

"It isn’t our job to tell the client what she wants investigating," said Strike. "We aren’t f*cking social workers.”

This is the exact opposite of what he said to Izzy Chiswell in LW:

"The client doesn't get to tell me what I can and can't investigate. Unless you want the whole truth, I'm not your man."

"You are, I know you're the best, that's why Papa hired you and that's why I want you."

The end result is that Strike's efforts to manipulate circumstances into the perfect opportunity to "make his declaration" fail as frequently as Harry's Occlumency attempts do; this combined with the consequences his own ill-advised histories with women (using Nina Lascelles on the Owen Quine case; his two-night, spite-driven stand with Bijou Watkins) catching up to him and he winds up in a pretty bad mental state himself.  Recall what happens when he finally accepts that he'll have to take a paternity test:

“Andrew’s daring me to take him to court, but he says, if I do" – Bijou started sobbing again – "he’ll go straight to some journalist called Colin Pepper and say he’s sure she’s yours!"

"So he’ll break his own super-injunction?" said Strike, who was having the not unfamiliar sensation that a hot wire was tightening around his head.

"He’s being awful, he’s convinced Ottolie’s yours – if I can just show him proof – PLEASE!" she wailed. "This is for you as much as for me!"

Strike, who had the horrible feeling she was right, watched an oncoming double decker speeding towards him and, for a fraction of a second, imagined stepping out in front of it, and erasing himself and every problem along with him, of being lost in black nothingness, in a state of blissful non-being, but the bus passed, and Strike limped on, and he couldn’t even muster anger as he said,

"All right. D’you want me to get a kit?”

The despair in this scene reminds us of Harry Potter's nigredo phase in the winter of Deathly Hallows, as he ponders his parents' graves in Godric's Hollow and wishes he was sleeping under the snow with them. 

The final black cap on the nigredo-identity of this book comes with the black Cormoranda fish. As explained in this great essay by Sabine P., fish are a nigredo-element in Jungian pyschology, and this black oranda, introduced by black-haired Pat in the dead of winter, seems perfect for that role. 

In medieval alchemical texts, the fish was a symbol of the prima materia, the raw, formless substance from which all transformation arises. The fish in its watery element was seen as a creature of the soul, dwelling in the subconscious depths where the "Great Work" of inner alchemy begins... 

Let us look to the hermetic symbol of the Ouroboros, the serpent-fish that devours its own tail. In many alchemical texts, this symbol appears alongside references to winter and water as elements of of cyclical transformation. The Ouroboros reminds us that the end is always a beginning, just as the frozen stillness of winter holds the seeds of spring. The ancients, through their stories of fish and water understood this deeply; the labyrinth of the unconscious is not a trap, but a passage to renewal. 

Certainly, a fish that seems determined to do itself in by swallowing the wrong thing is the closest thing to an Ouroboros we are likely to see in a modern office aquarium. 

The parts of the book that had the most albedo vibes to me were the aftermath of the dog attack at the end of Part 6 and the follow-up visit to Sark in Part 7. After being injured and pepper-sprayed in the dark and disturbing dog fight, Robin cleans and soothes Strike's eyes with cool, white milk, and he "comes back into focus" as Robin's "imperfect best friend."  Then, on Sark, after Strike takes a spade in the face and Robin tackles Danny de Leon in the muddy garden, they recuperate in a bar with drinks. Robin goes to get groceries in the rain (“Which is why it’s lucky I’m not made of papier mâché”),  then they walk to their B & B, where Strike showers and they both drink wine. Robin eventually breaks down in copious tears and tells Strike about her ectopic pregnancy. Strike does "the opposite of selfish" by putting Robin's emotional needs above his own and forgoing his planned declaration. He even makes a joke about dancing Swan Lake.  This is probably the closest our heroes get to a cleansing or purifying experience, and, unfortunately, the effects are relatively short-lived. Once they are off the island, the misunderstandings and bickerings continue, and the case ending, with Robin and Strike both descending into separate dark cellars, has more of a blackening than whitening feel to it. The final scene can't exactly be called a happy ending, and the last line takes us back to our nigredo black fish. 

Ultimately, I wound up with much of the same feelings I originally had towards The Ink Black Heart:  despite every expectation for albedo, ultimately, I couldn't deny that this was primarily a nigredo text. With TIBH, I even thought that all the nigredo elements (plus the year's time jump between LW and TB) were evidence that the book was originally planned as Book Five--- but Galbraith denied this when asked.  Now, I am thinking that there are other reasons that the sequence slid backwards to nigredo after the albedo of The Running Grave. 

Regular readers won't be surprised that I am looking to the Double Wedding Band model as an explanation. It makes perfect sense that the final three books of the final ring would form a 5. black-6. white-7. red trilogy, just as the last three books of Harry Potter did. Given THM is the 5th book of ring 2, and makes so many great connections to Book five of the third ring (Troubled Blood) and Book five of Harry Potter (Order of the Phoenix), it is reasonable for it to also share both of those novels' nigredo tones. It also works with the Big Ring Chiasmus to have the final three books mirror the reverse alchemical sequence seen for Robin in the first three, 

Should the backwards slide from the albedo of TRG to the nigredo of THM bother us?  No.  As Iris's great essay on Jungian alchemy*** as it relates to the Strike books states:

It’s worth noting that Jung saw Alchemy of the Mind as a cyclical process, and not a ladder we climb in a race to the top. We may loop through the early stages for a bit, sometimes never reaching Rubedo. We’ll probably go through all of them more than once in our lives

It's also worth noting that, at least since Lethal White, the detective partners have been in different phases of their alchemical transformations. TB and THM were Strike's nigredos; TRG was his albedo. I have some thoughts on where Robin's alchemical journey went after her reverse alchemy in the first three books, but they'll have to wait for another post. But, with both of them suffering so much loss and breaking down physically and mentally in THM, the stage is set for them to make the last three steps of their alchemical journey together, cumulating in an alchemical wedding that will finally have a smiling bride. 

So, my official predictions are that:

1. Sleep Tight Evangeline will be a cleansing and purifying albedo affair for both Strike and Robin. 
2. The most obvious thematic connections will be between The Silkworm and The Ink Black Heart. 
3. The most obvious links to the Harry Potter series will be to The Half-Blood Prince. 

We might already have a bit of support from the latest Twitter header, which was a statue of Robert Raikes at Victoria Embankment Gardens. One strong possibility is that it is the setting of the gardens that is important, rather than anything specifically relating to Raikes. It could be, therefore, that Victoria Embankment Gardens will be to STE what Highgate Cemetery was to TIBH.  In contrast to the dark Gothic graveyard, the Embankment Gardens in the spring will be bright and cheery, with flowing fountains and colorful flower beds. That would certainly be appropriate if STE is the albedo counterpart to TIBH's nigredo. 

As always, I welcome other's thoughts on this. 

*Interestingly, Hugo was also the name of Ron and Hermione's son in the epilog to Deathly Hallows. Granger proposed that the "Hg" of his name represented the chemical symbol for mercury, a silver liquid metal that contrasted with the red Rose of his sister's name, and therefore repeated the sulfur-mercury alchemical pairing of their parents, 

 **For an in-depth look at the Christmas-infused beginning, see my seven "Advent Adventure" posts, starting here. 

*** and wouldn't it be cool if Dr. Broccoli is a Jungian like Prudence and actually talks with Robin about alchemy?