Everyone and their mother has heard the obvious theory that R.A.B. of
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince fame stands for Regulus A. Black. And it seems like a very likely thing--I mean, we obviously know he was a Death Eater, had to have known he would die from backing out of the group, and in general, why else would she have introduced him?
But I still can't help but wonder if maybe that's too......
When I was learning to write, way back in middle school (my teacher at the time was a Woolly Mammoth--it was that long ago), we did a section on the basics of mystery writing. One of those basics was "No 'crazy Aunt Sally's". This means you can't randomly introduce the villain, hero, whathaveyou, at the climax and then explain later. You can't unmask the villain and have it be somebody the reader doesn't know.
Regulus didn't show up in the book until....Order of the Phoenix?
Now, there's nothing in the world to say that Jo has to follow Mrs. Woolly Mammoth's rules of writing a mystery. I won't even be disappointed to find out that Reg did give Voldy the finger on the way out. But I keep coming up with more questions than answers.
If Reg really is R.A.B, who helped him get the locket? (If Dumbledore needed help, so did R.A.B.) Who would have done it? And what type of person are we looking for? If the person who helped also helped destroy it (or at least try) than they probably would either have been killed (and we don't hear of anyone else of import that was killed in any connection to Reg--granted, two other Blacks died that year, but no connection is mentioned) or they would have been in the Order (and would have let Dumbledore know about it). We're led to believe that the locket hasn't been destroyed. So that could mean many things. R.A.B. and his completely innocent helper could have both died before they could destroy the locket (and, for Reg and Orion Black, what a father-son outing that would have been!). R.A.B.'s morally ambivalent helper could have held on to it in the hopes of keeping his options open--and I've often called Snape a fence-sitter. Would/Could he have known? Did he not want to tip his hand? And let's not forget the option of R.A.B.'s low-down dirty scoundrel of a helper could have taken the locket for his own reasons and let R.A.B. take the fall.
Some characters I've had my eye on--well, since he's only shown up nominally, I guess I've just been keeping my eyes peeled for him--who also showed up early on in the series (Chamber of Secrets), are the infamous Borgin and Burke. Burke's given name doesn't match, but Borgin's is never mentioned. I like the idea that they gave old Tom the finger for taking what should have been theirs and, though wanting to destroy him for his theft, not destroying a priceless artifact. Since the locket and note weren't found until Dumbledore and Harry stumbled upon it, old Tom never had any reason to go after his old employers.
Okay, so it's a wild theory, but some crackpot's got to be the one to mention wild theories, and I elect myself.
Feeling: |
 contemplative |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
neurosis_fics's journal
crappy
industrious