This week we are discussing The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton, Ch. 22-42.
Trigger Warning!!! This book contains situations and subjects related to: murder, death, suicide, fatphobia, rape, gun violence, knife violence, poisoning.
Spoiler Warning!!! This post is full of spoilers for The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton.
Discussion:
Jacilyn: Welcome friends, to our second discussion of The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. It is actually a bit crazy how much has happened in just this section alone. We finally find out who Bell saw running in the woods, and who fired the shot. Mad respect to Evelyn for trying to prevent Derby from terrorizing Madeleine yet again, even though that’s not actually what was happening. As the hosts get stronger in their battle against Aiden’s control, Derby was a particularly awful host to be in. His perversion, his anger, the awful impulses he has…. It made me feel yucky reading those parts.
Michaela: The real Derby’s personality coming forward was horrible to read. The way he felt when Anna was just simply standing close to him or even just going into Evelyn’s room. Just disgusting and gives the big ick. I appreciate that his mother is in fact disgusted by him, but she also clearly cleans up his messes, and there have been a lot of them. It is interesting how Aiden is starting to lose control of his hosts. But I wonder why, when he seems to start the loops over with the same amount of his “soul” in the first host. Also it is fascinating to me how each host views the same people completely differently. Each host obviously likes different people but they each also physically see these people in different lights.
Amongst all the things we’ve learned in this section, we gained a little more knowledge about the Plague Doctor. We now know he is older, has blue eyes, and that apparently he “can be replaced”. He has started tampering with the host order, Aiden was originally supposed to wake up as each host in the order they woke up throughout the day. The Plague Doctor and Anna have said the loop has been repeating for decades, thousands of loops. I have a hard time believing that this mystery is so complex it takes decades to solve but we’ll just have to wait and see on that one.
Jacilyn: The thing is though, they haven’t really had decades to solve it…. At least, Aiden and his adversaries haven’t, since they start out fresh each time the cycle begins anew. Although, clearly that’s not a hard and fast rule, because Anna certainly remembers some of the past loops this time around. The Plague Doctor seems fond of Aiden sometimes, in a way. And I think he’s beginning to become weary with all of this, so it makes me wonder how this all impacts him, once again. And I can’t quite determine if I think he’s someone on the property, an actual physical person, a guest, or just an apparatus of some sort. There’s this vaguely paranormal aspect to all of this that just increases the amount of questions I have.
We both realized, in this section, that this secret that Cunningham has is not what we assumed previously. We had assumed that Cunningham was having an affair with Lady Hardcastle, although it was never explicitly said…. But, it turns out, Lady Hardcastle is actually his mother. And perhaps one of the bigger surprises in this section - Charlie Carver is Cunningham’s father. What. The. Hell. Lady Hardcastle really went and used her own affair-conceived child against her husband. She is the most vindictive bitch, so naturally she’s a high-ranking suspect in Evelyn’s murder but honestly at this point we’re clearly being directed towards her as the perpetrator so I don’t trust it one bit.
Michaela: I think the Plague Doctor finds Aiden to be more interesting than the other two, one of the reasons being that Aiden came voluntarily to Blackheath. Why he came to Blackheath is still a mystery, but so far we know that it might have been to save someone, again we don’t know those details yet. Maybe the Plague Doctor is trapped as well and his job is to just keep the game going until someone solves it.
What Lady Hardcastle pulled off with Baby Cunningham is insane. What a feat to accomplish honestly, a horrible thing to do but it was done so well. Lady Hardcastle is still at the top of my suspect list but I am fully aware that we are being led in her direction. Honestly, I am also a little sus that she killed Thomas but there isn’t a whole lot of reason behind that other than it being a reason why Carver took the heat. But if it was Cunningham as a boy who killed Thomas that would also explain Carver’s “guilt”. Unfortunately Cunningham is much less truthful and trustworthy than Ravencourt was thinking. But Cunningham is still helping other hosts out, so I’m not sure where his loyalties lie or where his motivation is coming from.
We then got to meet the lovely Stanwin character *gag*. What a smarmy man. Literally blackmailing everyone in that house, not that they don’t deserve it. He’s blackmailing Evelyn with something and is keeping her letter to this unknown character Felicity Maddox. Stanwin is blackmailing Lord Hardcastle to keep his wife’s love child a secret. According to Dance’s friends they all seem to be being blackmailed as well. Derby’s mother owed Stanwin money for something. It just keeps going. Then Daniel comes along and just shoots the man in front of a whole group of people just to get his code book, I guess. Daniel seems unhinged at this point, seems like he is a progression of Gold’s insanity. Also…not fully convinced Daniel is a host anymore, maybe? He doesn’t know as much as we thought, but also things have started to change from day to day, unlike with the first few hosts. The first thing that changed was Michael attacking Derby rather than holding Evelyn’s body after she dies. Anna is the one who told Derby to stand in that spot, so I’m thinking that she and the Footman have been plotting for a little while. No idea what their plan is though.
Jacilyn: I’m suspicious of Daniel as a host, too. It could be that the real Daniel’s personality is taking over too much (at one point someone said his heart is darker than Derby’s, I believe), or it could be that he’s manipulating Aiden. To continue this discussion of suspicions, my current candidates for the murder of Thomas are Cunningham himself and Aiden. Cunningham is asking a lot of questions, so is it to save his bacon, or is it because he wants to clear his father’s memory of this blight? I am suspicious of Aiden because I think he knows Blackheath. I think he’s been here before, before the loop. Was he coming to save himself? Or was he coming to save someone else? Honestly, the lies and deception and motivations are a blur in my brain. I feel like I need my own notebook like Anna’s.
Speaking of Anna…. I’m wondering if Aiden woke up with her name in his head because she betrayed him in the last loop as well. I never really fully trusted her, and her betrayal is another point for trusting the Plague Doctor a bit more, too. Honestly, the last couple of chapters of this section blew my mind and freaked me the fuck out. Imagine, being brutally murdered in one host to wake up to your murderer in front of you just to be slaughtered again. Now, it didn’t seem like Anna particularly enjoyed what was happening with the Footman, so I can’t say yet if she did the betraying out of desperation, or if there was some other motivation.
Michaela: I am physically keeping notes with times, names, and things and I can report that it does not help! There’s simply too much going on. I feel like I’ll have to re-read this at some point to keep everything straight and see all the things I missed reading through this time. I agree that Aiden knows this place, but I think on his first day as Bell he also said he felt this place was familiar. But no one here recognizes the name Aiden Bishop, so maybe that’s not his actual name. I was wondering if Aiden or one of the other three in this loop might be the stable boy who went missing days before Thomas’ murder, Keith Parker. It was only touched on by Miller but if it was mentioned I can only assume it’s important.
Then my thoughts went to what if Aiden is Keith Parker or Thomas (his ease of closeness with Evelyn), the Plague Doctor is Carver (who hung for “his crime”), the Footman might be the Parker or Thomas, and what if Anna is actually Evelyn or a character we don’t know about yet. All of them would be from the afterlife brought here to solve a mystery that happened in the past, but that they’re all connected to somehow. That is my current wild ass theory! I feel like I need to put things up on the wall and connect them with red string!
Anyways, I was thinking the same thing with Aiden remembering Anna’s name. The Plague Doctor even knew that she would betray him, so that part has happened before. But I really want to know what Anna remembers from previous loops, what does she know? I wasn’t overly surprised by her betrayal, more just disappointed because it doesn’t help with anything. Aiden waking up to see Anna and the Footman just looming over him after having just been killed for the second time! (The Footman killed Derby the night before Dance) Creepy shit. Don’t read that right before bed kids, from personal experience. My questions after that is did Gold know this would happen, doesn’t seem like it since he was raving on about a carriage that hasn’t happened yet. Did Daniel know? I don’t think so since he also was obsessed with the code book and catching the Footman in his hidey hole. I think too much has changed now, so we’re in uncharted territory for the next few hosts.
Jacilyn: We’re still not much closer to knowing how exactly Evelyn’s death is a murder, either. We know she is compelled to kill herself by Rashton, whoever that may be. When she was talking to Derby, she kept messing around in Milicent’s jewelry box, and seemed to have a visceral reaction to a cameo that was in there, so I’m wondering if that’s a potential clue. But, Evelyn also uses Dickie’s gun to kill herself, and I wonder what sort of significance there might be in that. I don’t think that I suspect Dickie, personally, but who knows at this point.
Well, friends…. This is where we leave it for the moment. We will be back next week, hopefully with a satisfying ending to this mystery that has gripped us so! Until next time.
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