Goblet of Fire-Running Grave links, Part 4: The rest of the story.

Despite the length of both The Running Grave and Goblet of Fire, I've decided to make the last comparison between the rest of both books, mainly because I couldn't see any obvious points of correspondence that were logical breaking points. It doesn't help that TRG is basically a two-part book, with a substantial amount of the action occurring after Robin escapes from Chapman Farm, whereas GoF winds up pretty quickly once the Triwizard tournament comes to its tragic end. So, this will be a fairly long post, covering the rest of both books. 

One major connection I see that GoF shares with TRG is the same one it shares with LW*: the central crime of the series is outrageously complicated. Granted, virtually all the major mysteries of the Cormoran Strike series are outrageously complicated. Even the reasonably straightforward killing of Lula Landry with a throw off her balcony was followed by a very complex cover-up, once Rochelle's blackmail began, that culminated in Bristow's bizarre decision to hire a detective to investigate the murder that Bristow himself had committed. As for the murders of the other seven books, which involve everything from writing fake novels to taunting Strike with packages of severed legs and his mother's favorite band lyrics to encasing bodies in cement-filled ottomans (then serving as the family''s social worker for forty years!) to mutilating a body in a silver vault, I don't think any of them can be considered straightforward.  

In Harry Potter, however, the central "mysteries" of book 1 (multi-part magical obstacle course guarding the Sorcerer's Stone), book 4 (a plot to enter Harry in the year-long Triwizard Tournament in hopes he would reach the cup first and be transported to the graveyard for Woldy can harvest his blood) and book 7 (year-long camping trip to locate and destroy multiple horcruxes) are far more complex than those of the other books. Abigail's plot to eliminate her bratty stepsister---involving coercing four accomplices, constructing a makeshift pigpen in the woods, drugging a dormitory full of kids, faking an early-morning drowning with a straw mannequin and chopping up a child's body to disposse of it via hog chow--certainly rivals the Triwizard plot in terms of the number of moving parts. 

In addition, I think we can match up three major challenges to our heroes in TRG with the three Triwizard tasks. Harry, basically, faces fire (in the form of a dragon), water and an obstacle-filled maze. 

• Mazu is the Chapman Farm equivalent of the Hungarian Horntail, in terms of both her viciousness and her identity as a mother. It is she who overseas Robin's "Revelation"--  which puts Robin in the "hot seat" and allows her Fire Group peers to roast her with insults and degradations.  
• Harry and Robin both voluntarily immerse themselves in water as part of their missions: Robin when she enters the pentagonal pool for her baptism; Harry when he submerges in the pool-sized Prefect's bathtub to hear the egg's clue.  
• They both take a much more dangerous and less voluntary plunge later: Harry when he enters the lake for the second task; Robin when she is forced to re-enter the pool at the Drowned Prophet's manifestation. 
• Both dips are taken with considerable trepidation, before a hostile audience ("The laughter was becoming louder, and there were catcalls and jeering from the Slytherins:" Robin is called to the pool after Daiyu's spirit warns of enemies within the UHC.)
• Both Harry and Robin are wearing robes that get soaked. 
• Robin, when she is pulled under, has a typical muggle drowning experience:

• "The cold waters seemed to be crushing her, pressing on her very brain, it was impossible to breathe, she opened her mouth in a silent scream and sucked in water." 

• Harry, has a more magical, reverse-drowning experience when the Gillyweed takes effect when he is still above water. 

• "Then, quite suddenly, Harry felt as though an invisible pillow had been clapped over his mouth and nose. He tried to draw breath, but it made his head spin. His lungs were empty...He flung himself forwards into the water. The first gulp of icy lake water felt like the breath of life.... He took another great gulp of water and felt it pass smoothly through his gills, sending oxygen back to his brain." 

• Both are grabbed underwater by the ankles and pulled down, Robin by the cord twisted around her legs, Harry by a Grindylow. 
• As for the maze, there was definitely a feeling of running a maze when Robin jumps from the bathroom window and makes her way over the fence and through the woods to the wall at the camera blind spot. 
• You can also argue that the maze continues into the post-farm part of the story. In particular, Robin's advanced driving when she and Strike are under gunfire, when she makes a series of sharp turns to shake off the shooter, also has a maze-like quality. 
• When you think about the specific obstacles Harry faces in the maze, they seem to match some of the challenges before and after Chapman Farm. 
• Dementor/Boggart: the ongoing fear, leading to mental health challenges, that Robin is left with after the horrors of the farm. 
• Golden mist that inverts the sky and the ground:  This part definitely made me think of Robin's explanation to Flora as to how the UHC gets control:  "They force you to agree black's white and up's down." Harry escapes the mist by closing his eyes and forcing himself to move his foot despite the illusion; Robin's ability to stick to her belief that there was objective truth, not just the church's version, allowed her to escape the coercive control of the UHC. 
• Both the UHC and the mist appear harmless or "innocent" until you step into them.
• Skrewt stopped by Impedimenta curse: The dangerous and toxic Taio Wace chasing Robin out of the maze, then being stopped by Strike's wire cutters. 
• Imperiused Krum, who uses the Cruciatus curse on Cedric: Becca Pirbright, who is completely brainwashed by Papa J and who tortures Robin in the box. 
• Sphinx: the "riddle" Strike and Robin have to solve by decoding the words on Kevin Pirbright's wall and from the incomplete audio recording.  
• Spider: Mazu is compared to a spider, the dark and dangerous creature at the center of the UHC web, as opposed to Papa J's appealing public persona. 

Other parallel points:

About three years ago, I wrote a post comparing the resurrected Voldemort rising out of the potion in the graveyard cauldron with the rising of the fake Daiyu out of the green-glowing baptismal waters at the Manifestation.  

Robin is called out of Mazu's class for her evaluation by Dr. Zhou; Harry is called out of Snape's class for the weighing of the wands and publicity photos. 

There is trouble from revenge-driven media for characters in both books. The UHC plants Wikipedia false stories about Strike, Robin and the Graves; Rita Skeeter's stories about Harry, Hagrid and, in particular, her Witch Weekly article about Hermione are distressing for their subjects. 

The Trio brings the starving Sirius lots of food when they meet him in Hogsmeade; Robin is offered lots of food after she gets out of Chapman--she gets eclairs from her parents and Strike buys her six bags of crisps when they meet for a drink.

There are "yellowing Daily Prophets" littering Sirius's cave floor; old newspapers also line the floor of Jacob's room. 

One interesting contrast:  Strike does not immediately push Robin to tell her full story after her rescue, knowing it would be best to wait, given her trauma state. Interestingly, she does insist on telling them before they go to bed for the night. Dumbledore insists that Harry tell his story before he sleeps. 

The troubled parent-child relationship between the Barty Crouches Senior and Junior is a lot like Jonathan Wace's and Abigail's. 

• Both fathers were at best neglectful and at worst completely hateful towards their child, handing them over to the dementors/Mazu for abuse/torture.  
• Senior sent Junior to Azkaban when he was accused of being a Death Eater; Jonathan banished Abigail to the Birmingham center after he realized she had killed Daiyu. 
• Both Senior and Papa J were more concerned about their own reputation and increasing their power and influence than justice or the welfare of their children. 
• However, Crouch got his son out of Azkaban by letting everyone believe Junior had died in the prison and by setting up a false funeral and grave for his wife at home; Wace covered up Abigail's murder by letting everyone believe Daiyu had drowned off Cromer and setting up the legend of the Drowned Prophet. 

Mitch Patterson is caught and imprisoned (by proper authorities) for bugging Andrew Humbolt's office. Rita Skeeter is caught and imprisoned (in a jar, by Hermione) for eavesdropping on private conversations on the Hogwarts grounds as a literal bug. 

Linda Ellacott is unfriendly and resentful of Strike, wrongly blaming him for Robin's trauma at Chapman Farm. Molly Weasley is unfriendly to Hermione (sending her a tiny Easter Egg) after reading the Witch Weekly article and wrongly blaming her for two-timing Harry. 

Barty Crouch Jr. transfigures his father's body into a bone and buries it in Hagrid's pumpkin patch. Daiyu's buried femur is found buried in the makeshift pigpen remains in the UHC woods. 

The reborn Voldemort gives off some very Papa J vibes, in terms of having loyal followers who will do anything he commands, but to whom he will not hesitate to punish harshly and even torture, as he does to Avery in the graveyard and Wormtail in the Crouch home. 

• Papa J tortures Robin in a coffin-like box; Voldemort tortures Harry in the graveyard

Mazu is described as completely mute at the end, not speaking even to her lawyer, indicating a possible catatonic state somewhat like Barty Crouch Junior after the Dementor's kiss. 

Finally, there is the typical JKR/RG twist with the villain reveal at the end. The bad person turns out to be a heroic first-responder-type: the famous Auror Mad-Eye Moody( albeit an imposter who is actually Crouch Junior) and the firefighter Abigail Glover, whom Harry/Strike had come to admire over the course of the story. 

• As mentioned above, both Abigail and Barty Jr had visceral hatred for their fathers. although they acknowledge that their fathers loved their late mothers. 

I'll finish by listing two very minor points that I nonetheless think may be specific connections:

1. After Robin escapes Chapman Farm and her parents come to stay with her, she quickly comes to resent their presence. There are any number of ways Robin could have described the excessive attention she was getting from her mother:  "continuous fussing" "incessant hovering" "too-frequent monitoring" or even just plain old "helicoptering," but she chose to use a favorite phrase of Mad-Eye Moody's.

She felt agitated, disorientated and overwhelmed, not only by her freedom, but also by her mother's constant vigilance which, while kindly meant, was aggravating Robin, because it reminded her of the unrelenting surveillance she’d just escaped.

2. When Robin found Emily Pirbright in the toy store, other customers in the store included a mother and her children who were browsing the Thomas the Tank Engine exhibit. There are at least fourteen Thomas characters available as toys, but the one the kids were demanding was Percy. Percy Weasley, of course, was featured in GoF as the devoted aide to the Imperiused and eventually murdered Minister, Barty Crouch Senior. 

• Percy becomes much more important mid-way through the story, at Yule Ball time, when he is "promoted" to personal assistant and starts taking Crouch's place at Triwizard events. The "Percy" reference in TRG also comes midway through the book, in Chapter 66 (of 136).

Of course, GoF is not linked as strongly to TRG  as it is to Lethal White, and TRG is not as connected to GoF as it is to Deathly Hallows. But, I still think there are enough connecting factors to support the Double Wedding Band model.  There are even more connections between The Hallmarked Man and The Order of the Phoenix, as might be expected as we have moved into the non-overlapping section of Ring 2.  A further test will come with Sleep Tight Evangeline, if it shows the predicted connections to The Half-Blood Prince. 

This concludes my look at the connections between the first four "second ring" Strike books and the first four Potter books. Overall, I'm excited by the results: 

• All four book pairs have some connections, particularly in the opening segments. 
• The #1 and #4 pairs seem to have more connections than #2 and #3. 

I'll be taking a break from Strike blogging for a bit, as I prepare for the Harry Potter Academic Conference coming up Oct. 23-24 at Chestnut Hill College. 

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*John Granger pointed out years ago that the fake Moody could simply have invited Harry for a cup of tea and Portkeyed the cup in September, whereas Raphael Chiswell could likely have simply stolen Mare Mourning from the spare bedroom without seducing Kinvara and convincing her to help him bump off his father.