#and i am mentioning bc i have seen some speculation and its a bit yikes in a show where they dicussed the gnc killer trope in ep 5

[bookofmac]

Deadloch Speculation: Killer Edition, major spoilers to follow

Okay, so with the revelation that the killer's profile is that a man looking for validation, and also has access to vehicles owned by William Carruthers (possibly being will himself but we'll get to that). This implies that the man is someone who is friendly with the women of the time, unassuming, but also able to access the pentabarbatol. And so, here are my suspects with Pros and Cons to their likelyhood

William Carruthers

Evidence- He's named in the penultimate epsidoe, he's been a chekov's gun all season with his distictive shoe in the painting of him and Margaret being pointed out twice. It could be part of the subverseive comentary of the show that we Don't get to meet the killer before he's aprehended, or he might be going under another name and avoiding

Counter Arguement - We have not seen this man once outside of a painting. Could be the final red herring, does he exist or is Margrette using him as a smoke screen. (i've also seen some speculation that William is pre transition Margaret which while being a common trope in crime and horror fiction it still feeds into the 'trans/gnc psycho killer' trope and I don't think I want the Kate's to tackle that in the current political climate)

Ray 'Pies' McLintock

Evidence- Skye's best friend and works at the bakery. The male character who isn't an active shit cunt. we 'know' the most about him. Donkey was ill so could reasonably have needed pentabarbatol. it would be narratively devistating for the centeral cast if he were the killer, came to Deadloch 'looking for love'; perhaps this means female validation? Not for nothing he dresses like a fisherman

Counter Arguement - Seems to be unable to swim/swim confidently, wobbily access to the Carruther's family

Gez Rahme

Evidence: Organised the Movie at the lake on the day it happened and would be a hell of a coincidence for the bodies to come up during the movie, has easy access to Alyena's GP practice, In every episode of the show, seemingly very competant and just wants things to be chill for his wife? as one of the higher managers of the Feastaval he may have the easiest access to the Carruther's car.

Counter Arguement: the Actor who plays Gez is Trans masc, and while that can play with some of the gendered assumptions of the killer, it also falls into the same nasty transphobic tropes that has already been discussed with the William entery. Wants things to be chill for his wife.

James King

Evidence: physically fit (cyclist), seems to be willingly obtuse to how much HE'S been fucking over the investigation (tarp incident, not being clear about what's come up in the forensic reports), has access to the investigation and would be able to be 1 step ahead.

Counter Arguement: he barely seems to care about anyone other than himself so why would he kill the shithouse men in town?, also constantly stealing abby's ideas which seems to be in conflict with the idea that the killer wants to be acknowledged as this sorta white knight vigilante. Started being involved with Abby while she was his student at uni which while not illegal makes him a shit cunt with ethics that don't align with the killers appear to be. no known connection with the Carruthers siblings. Was in Perth at roughly the time the car would have been driven into the water.

Where I sit on all this

I think it's Ray. It makes the most sense and Eddie is gonna go off her tit at him and I think that'd be something the Kates would write. I also think there is a chance that Ray is somehow connected to the Carrruthers, possibly being William or William's son but that is much more tin-foily. I also think that James is in on it/ knows who it is but is keeping quiet for currently unknown reasons.

Please if anyone has any evidence or points to support or counter what i've listed please reply/respond! I'm really enjoying the mystery of the series

[izartn]

Dunno I’ve been thinking and the last book I remember liking by RR was The Son of Neptune bc outsider pov on percy??? I’m always a sucker for those. Also the Leo and Jason parts of the first of HoO; Piper was meh, Jason a little less meh and Leo surprisingly good. But I just lost any major interest in the series with Mark of Athena; it was entertaining but it didn’t thrill me anymore. Maybe I had grown too old? But mostly I think it was so many charas saturating the plot. 

But really, The Last Olympian is such a good finale? Of course I wanted to read more of Percy and Annabeth but I was so happy when I finished it... And of course the undervalued Kane Chronicles, whose mythology and fantasy I liked even moren although the charas weren’t superior; that trilogy deserved so much more. 

The nome system, the different specializations and rituals and the way the protags are living gods at different points of the story??? the whole walt-anubis-sadie situation? and zia, omg? The romance is also wonkers in this trilogy, it’s so subtly creepy-wrong and the supernatural vibes... But like, when treated more seriously. Hello Sadie is 13 by book 2 and I completely forgot that bcs she was being romanced by a god and a 15-16 years old, and doing dangerous things and being Isis avatar, and like no way she is that age. Also, Anubis as a 5.000 years old teen is like... no, riordan. It’s still being a bit weird. I wasn’t expecting the kiss >_< You could’ve made it an interesting exploration of the mutable qualities of the egyptian gods and the lack of like, modern standards of behavior, and then go ahead with the Walt-Anubis plotline. And after PJO and seeing the results of god-human unions... Play with what it means, but for the love of god, Sadie’s age >.>

But I loved her being obsessed with Adele bcs by then I was too. XD

TW INCEST. Here I go off the rails speculating for a parragraph on ancient egypt royalty and the kanes, if you don’t want to read it, close the tab or scroll past it, it’s nothing too dark, nor it’s explicit in any case. More like the result of reading too much weird fic. 

And really that no one (no god ever) ever mentioned the practice of marrying family in egyptian dynasties to horrorize or joke a little to carter and sadie? (i know my mind is perturbed but these two see each other when? once, twice a year a bit more in the lucky ones? honestly if this was and adult or even ya and the author another it’d been an interesting conflict treated seriously. keeping canon ending pairs et all!!)  Although carter knows for sure and just hasn’t clocked in what it means they’re the blood of pharaohs. Yup your ancestors x-generation removed were into incest for purity reasons. And know you’re the incarnation of the horus-pharaoh in earth too. Enjoy! (this is like in yu-gi-oh!! fandom where we pretend the concept didn’t exist bcs too serious and creepy to be treated seriously. and like atem died at 15? 16?)

END TW

 I guess they did the whole explaining the gods have the same relationship their vessels have with each other by feels-possesion double track influence, so that one is resolved, bcs if not it’d be beyond weird that isis is both their mother and the spouse of their osiris-julius and also sadie sometimes. Like, Kane Chronicles mythology is much much older than in other RR series and it tracks with the undercurrents of the trilogy (crap under the radar i think?) and how the gods acts i think.

But you see the above clusterfuck??? If RR had aged a bit the charas, bc is not as if Sadie is a real 12-13 years old, more like a 15-16 one at minimum with how she acts and the narrative treats her, and made Carter like 18-19? Thinking about what he wants out of life and uni, etc because for him it clocks with his arc. Or even older; I think that would be have been better but then it’d be another kind of book. Make Sadie the one starting uni and Carter the one finishing his master in egyptology bcs that’s all he’s known all his life, and he’s interested in it truly, and their father is still the one who wants to reunite the three for Sadie’s birthday going with Carter in plane from whatever university he’s in (could be one in egypt Julius has ties to) and it’s then when all goes to shit.

 The conflict, the stakes... You could treat the family conflict and well, the racial aspect of the books in more profundity. Maybe make them biracial but their father is afroamerican and the mother is british but descendant from egyptian immigrants, so yup. You have that connection with the original land of the myths, and Carter and Sadie perspectives on being poc shoe the contrast btwn the sister raised by her mother parents, and the brother by the father. But that’s need much more sensitivity than RR is able of. I wouldn’t dare to write that book alone, that’s for sure. 

 As I understand it there are more than some problematic elements to RR tendency to diversify his cast without doing profound analysis and research and using sensivity readers so. I’m south european white, I don’t have a real idea of all the messes he made with Kane Chronicles so I don’t have anything more say anything more about this. But yeah, it’d been another demography completely different from the original, and would have needed another author which I think would have suited the mood I get from this trilogy even now. 

We all know the errors RR makes like doubling down on romance forever saving the day and female characterization or his well. Well-intentioned if misguided discourse? (that cursed word) I’m all for social justice, but Magnus Chase read like a pamphlet at various points instead of being organically integrated in the story (KC and HoH have sometimes that problem but in MC is really blatant) who am I going to lie, although Magnus has fascinating potential as a protag.

 And Alex chara too, plus Hearth and Blitzen. I think he made a full on queer protag quartet without realising it (which is why Blitz and Hearth are those two guys instead of confirming any status. like just besties, or qrp or budding romance, which one? we can’t have full on queer quartet) plus Samira and his poor we’ll call it that, handle of her muslim lifestyle from what I’ve seen from muslim fans reviews. (so, my idea of sadie above wouldn’t been plausible) If she’s gonna marry make her at least older than 20? After finishing uni, which I think is something you usa (noarospec) people do regularly without religion or anything? But really marriages just make me go yikes anyway so. Do away with that plot point you don’t have to follow so exactly the myths. 

And so their charas aren’t explored with profundity. Although they could have been really interesting.

 And the ending was... meh. The point was the anticlimax, but Loki was well build enough in the two first books and the third was a deception honestly. 

But again, I think I also simply aged of his books + started noticing his fails. See above my KC tangent. Curiously I think the PJO books (not HoO) are good as they are... No urge to make charas older or anything. The dysfunction is different in both stories I feel.

 I KNOW! It’s because in KC we see the magician society and it’s full of adults and seriousness so it would have fit having two older teens-young adults be the protags, exploring it properly and so Carter and Sadie being the chiefs of the Brooklyn nome and the initiators of the gods path in contemporary times wouldn’t struck me as so weird. The nome politics ;_; We were robbed. 

Compare that to the ways PJO with its ephemeral demigod lives and constant death and youth as the one who bring the necessary change for the gods (plus the absence of older demigods coming back to help in TLO, be it bcs they’re done with greek gods or they’re dead, functions really well following Percy since he’s 12 to his 16 birthday and beyond if he had managed to do the roman fussion correctly. Make it so PJO ends with Percy and Annabeth at 16 and HoO alt series, starts 4-6 years later. Because the roman camp and its senate and norms and village are more serious and imply a heavy adult-political presence, with legacies etc; because the gods are starting to forget their promises; bring up the parallels with Luke and mentions of how live has been treating both Anna and Percy. Enrich the world and make the sequel interesting to your original audience who is much older than when they started reading the PJO books. 

Well. This is a fantasy...We know RR would never ;_; Although he’s done much for young fantasy. And know I’m searching the impossible fic.