Shanker's 'Old Man,' Leda Strike's Tattoo, Her First Husband's Real Name, and The Dress

Late last month, John shared two theories about the Cormoran Strike series of novels, both from Katya Slonenko, a member of the Reddit r/CormoranStrike online fandom: Dementia, Jewelry, and a Nine Inch Cock: The Mystery of Shanker’s ‘Old Man,’ His Given Name, and Why He’s Never Killed Jeff Whittaker (hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/p/dementia-jewe…) and Katya Slonenko: Leda Strike's 'Mistress of the Salmon Salts' Pudenda Tattoo (hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/p/katya-slonenk…). John corresponded with Katya while preparing those posts and invited her to join him and Nick for a discussion of her ideas, of life as a Redditor, and her thoughts about Rowling’s artistry and meaning. She accepted the invitation but said she wouldn’t be free until July to talk.
Hence the wait! As expected, though, speaking with her about her own journey to expertise in Rowling Studies, her ideas about the clues Rowling has embedded so carefully within the first eight books and especially in Hallmarked Man, and the Reddit posts of which she thinks Hogwarts Professor readers need to be aware was well worth the wait.
You’ll want to read those posts from June before listening to get the most out of this conversation, but, regardless of your preparation, John and Nick believe that every Serious Striker and Rowling Reader will be charmed and challenged by Katya’s remarkable insights, generous spirit, and winsome personality. The conversation includes three other Reddit community posts — about Leda’s ‘Carnival’ dress (reddit.com/r/cormoran_strike/comments/1gynjtq/…) (Arachulia), about the real name of her first husband (reddit.com/r/cormoran_strike/comments/1ujv67q/…), and about the (reddit.com/r/cormoran_strike/comments/p6qsmt/t…)Harry Potter (reddit.com/r/cormoran_strike/comments/p6qsmt/t…)tattoo Rowling-Galbraith hid on a Strike novel character’s shoulder (reddit.com/r/cormoran_strike/comments/p6qsmt/t…) — which took the discussion above and beyond the two Katya theories in the June posts.
Nick and John close the conversation by inviting her back and they hope readers here will share the questions they want us to be sure to ask her on her return visit in the comment thread below. Or just ask her yourself! As she demonstrated on the threads beneath the June posts, she is generous with her time in responding to other Strike fans.
Can’t wait for more Katya Slonenko? Follow her at r/CormoranStrike (reddit.com/user/katyaslonenko), on Instagram (Tattoos!) (instagram.com/slonenkotattoo), on FaceBook (facebook.com/slonenkotattoo), and check our her older, longer posts on Medium (medium.com/@slonenkotattoo)…
The Ten Plus Questions with Links
1. Welcome, Katya, and thank you for joining us! The serious readers at Hogwarts Professor have been buzzing about your Shanker and Leda r/Cormoran Strike Reddit posts and we’re thrilled to be able to talk with you about those ideas. First, though, tell us about your first Rowling reading experiences and how you started posting on Reddit about the Strike series.
2. I’m guessing that Reddit Strike fandom may be as unfamiliar to Hogwarts Professor readers as it was to me. What is it about the Pelican_Girl and TopRequirement670 moderated posts and that international community that you love the most?
3. Shanker! I confess -- I hadn’t given him a thought really beyond a doppelganger twin for Strike before Fiona from Adelaide introduced me to the ideas that he (hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/p/the-mysteriou…)had to (hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/p/the-mysteriou…)be involved in the death of Leda Strike and that the Riccis were also somehow party to it. (hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/p/the-mysteriou…) Ed Shardlow shared your Reddit post (hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/p/the-mysteriou…)on the subject and my mind was blown; you made a compelling case soon after the publication of Hallmarked Man last year that Shanker is a Ricci, the illegitimate son of Nico ‘Muccy’ Ricci, but to avenge Leda Strike’s death he has become a Met or MI5 informer.
Let’s start with the four pointers that Shanker gave Strike in one conversation that he is a Ricci-by-blood and what made you think of that connection:
* Shanker’s statement that his father had dementia or was senile;
* Shanker’s report that his dad taught that jewelry was the way to a woman’s heart;
* Shanker’s claim that his ‘old man’ was said to have a “nine inch cock;” and
* Shanker’s saying that his begetter “‘ad kids wiv abou’ ten diff’rent women.”
4. I see the trigger now that you’ve detailed it but you dug and made four more connections that were buried in the texts of the series’ other books:
* Shanker’s knowledge of the Ricci clan, especially Mucky,
* his Strike-witnessed working with Mucky in drug deals,
* “he deals cocaine and is good with a knife;” and, best of all,
* the reaction Robin had to both Shanker and Luca at their first meeting, the fun-house mirror upside-down reflection of the attraction half-siblings feel for another intuitively. Robin is viscerally repulsed and afraid of the half-sibling Ricci boys.
We cannot not see these connections after you point them out, but they’re nigh on invisible until they’re pointed out! Why do you think you saw them when we missed them -- and why do you think Rowling has taken such care to make them invisible in plain sight?
5. And Shanker is an MI5 informant? Where does that come from?
5.5 Let’s not forget that you also make an intelligent guess, the first one I’ve heard, about what Shanker’s given name really is, one based on the names of Nico Ricci’s two children out of ten for whom we have names.
* Katya shared not only her reasoning about why Shanker’s name is John or an Italian variant of the Evangelist’s name but also her theory about the parentage and name of the other remaining character in the series who also remains nameless (reddit.com/r/cormoran_strike/comments/1ujv67q/…): the mysterious ‘Strike’ with whom Leda ran away from Cornwall! (Be sure to read the comment thread for Redditor conversation about other possible Ricci children…)
6. Your thoughts about Shanker all feed into theories about Leda Strike and her mysterious death in the end, which brings us to another aspect of her life and death about which you’ve brought an important and unique perspective. I’m talking about the Mistress of the Salmon Salt tattoo. Did you know anything about tattoos, Katya, before writing this piece? (instagram.com/slonenkotattoo)
7. As a tattoo artist yourself, what do you make of Leda’s tattoo placement?
8. Tattoos are meaningful, powerful reflections or revelations of the person’s interior life or self-understanding (see the post about Katya’s ‘Salmon Salt Tattoo’ theory (hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/p/katya-slonenk…) for much more on this). What do you think this tattoo communicates about Leda? Is it another example of Rowling’s text-within-the-text or a variant of her using cryptonyms to signal important information about a character’s inner life?
What Tattoos Mean in Cormoran Strike and a Catalog of Examples
* From Katya’s 2023 ‘Mistress of the Salmon Salt Revisited (reddit.com/r/cormoran_strike/comments/18nrj05/…):’
I hear you asking - why can’t Leda’s be just a tattoo, without any deeper meaning to it? That’s because all …