#mr. satterthwaite

[mysteriousmrquinbrainrot]

Not Mr. Satterthwaite thinking Mr. Quin has an attractive back in the Harley Quin Tea Set💀💀

[presumenothing]

random thought: the novel-drama changes in fdb's whole personality aside from making much more adorable television almost become a necessary corollary/consequence(?) considered in light of the differences in llh himself. in the novel it's never shown how they first met – the story already starts with them having known each other for six years (literally as long as llh has been out in the jianghu) and being comfortable around each other. and while llh does in fact just vanish with his whole damn house whenever he likes (fdb is described to be 破口大骂ing at this tortoise tendency for fifteen minutes at least once) it's never shown to be an active evasion like in the drama – the guy just can only be found when he wants to let you find him, as fdb himself notes after said episode of Old Man Yells At Cloud Empty Real Estate

which is fine! they have separate lives and everything! which is also to say that novel!llh specifically has an actual life and existence of his own that is not Revenge Quest 2.0™ since that doesn't exist here to start with, and also also to say that this fdb, with his notably non-loyal-wideeyed-puppy stickier-than-glutinous-rice tendencies, would likely never have become friends or even familiar acquaintances with drama!llh's avoidant ass

[ibrithir-was-here]

I don't think we talk enough about how the supernatural canonically exists within the world of Poriot. Everyone always crossing my boy Sherlock with Dracula (as they should) but Hercule here straight up is friends with a guy who constantly runs into a ghost and has adventures with him.

[sugaroto]

I was reading a book called short stories by Agatha Christie in the bus and im not sure why but I felt inspired to draw this scene

"Mr. Satterthwaite have gone back through the gate. He was now walking towards where the scarecrow was burning. Behind it the sun was setting. The sunset was special that night. It's colors were lighting the atmosphere all around it, lighting the burning scarecrow."

[v-thinks-on]

At centre stage stands Harlequin patterned in diamonds like panes of glass stained in brilliant hues, a dark mask over his eyes, and baton in hand. His gestures are broad; wave of stick, turn of head, pirouette of legs. Yet, his movement is fleet, dodging and taunting the bumbling Pierrot, and dancing with the lovely Columbine.

With his baton, he transforms the scene from parlour to avenue to sprightly woods, and the players from maids and gentlemen to lords and ladies or even to birds and beasts. He traipses through walls and weaves in and out of sight in impossible leaps and bounds.

Yet, for all his trickery, his face remains impassive, except perhaps a knowing look in his shadowed eyes. Each movement is deliberate without hesitation, each step lighter than air. He is a man of mystery, yet in familiar form. His lips hide countless secrets, yet he will never say a word.

(Read More on AO3)

[thelastofthebookworms]

More Agatha Christie related polls in my 'agatha christie' tag and pinned post.

[frimleyblogger]

Three Act Tragedy

My thoughts on Three Act Tragedy by #AgathaChristie #HerculePoirot #CrimeFiction #BookReview

A review of Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie – 240101 Some sleuths in detective fiction take to knitting to help them think through the complexities of the case before them (Miss Silver and Mrs Bradley), others take to a pipe (Holmes) or go to the cinema (Bobby Owen) but Christie’s Poirot, the Belgian sleuth with the finely attuned little grey cells, makes houses with cards or, in this case,…

[agent-smiley]

Mr. Satterthwaite truly is one of Christine's most charming creations, despite or maybe rather because of his snobbery, victorian sense of propriety and joy of all drama.

[creator-of-masks]

“Listen. I will put a case to you. A man comes to a certain place—to commit suicide, shall we say? But by chance he finds another man there, so he fails in his purpose and goes away—to live. The second man has saved the first man’s life, not by being necessary to him or prominent in his life, but just by the mere physical fact of having been in a certain place at a certain moment. You take your life today and perhaps, some five, six, seven years hence, someone will go to death or disaster simply for lack of your presence in a given spot or place. It may be a runaway horse coming down a street that swerved aside at sight of you and so fails to trample a child that is playing in the gutter. That child may live to grow up and be a great musician, or discover a cure for cancer. Or it may be less melodramatic than that. He may just grow up to ordinary everyday happiness. . . .” She stared at him. “You are a strange man. These things you say—I have never thought of them. . . .” “You say your life is your own,” went on Mr. Satterthwaite. “But can you dare to ignore the chance that you are taking part in a gigantic drama under the orders of a divine Producer? Your cue may not come till the end of the play—it may be totally unimportant, a mere walking-on part, but upon it may hang the issues of the play if you do not give the cue to another player. The whole edifice may crumple. You as you, may not matter to anyone in the world, but you as a person in a particular place may matter unimaginably.”

The Mysterious Mr Quinn by Agatha Christie

[mysteriousmrquinbrainrot]

Okay but the Mr. Quin and Mr. Satterthwaite bromance is 10/10 tho

[detective-dipstick]

Okay I was writing a whole thing about "Three Blind Mice" but then I read "The Coming of Mr. Quin" which fucking slaps. I don't even know what to say. Wow. It was a bit boring to begin with, not too bad, but I had gotten halfway through and I wasn't all that invested. And then she went and turned it around on me. That ending was great on so many levels. And I love Mr. Satterthwaite as our point of view. Big fan.

[being-of-rain]

I've been in a podcasts and video games mood for a while, but I think it's time to try and change back to reading and writing, because I've been doing far too little of both. So today I decided to spend some time finishing a few books.

I finished reading All Flesh Is Grass, the Time Lord Victorious novel that I put down... more than 18 months ago. Whoops. I couldn't be bothered starting from the start again so I just finished it. Una McCormack has a really wonderful way with words, I highlighted a lot of phrases I liked or made me laugh, such as the Great Vampires' Coffin Ship being described "like sailing through space in a velvet fridge." But while having Eight, Nine, and Ten together is very cool, I'm not sure the book captured the Doctors with its dialogue. And there was way too many paragraph breaks and cutting between scenes, often several on a page. On the whole these issues made me think the story would've been better as a script for an audio, but I think overall I enjoyed the Time Lord Victorious novels more than other people. Now that I've finished them, I'm going to finish listening to all the TLV audios, and consider myself done with the project. And when I feel like I have a bit more free time, I'll move on to Doom's Day. On the whole I think I'm less interested in it than I was with TLV, but it is nice to see that they took feedback from TLV onboard by restricting Doom's Day to a limited, ordered series rather than a sprawling chaotic web of stories. As much as I was amused by the sprawling chaotic web.

I also finished my reread of The Mysterious Mr Quin by Agatha Christie. I think it's definitely not some of Christie's best writing or cleverest mysteries, but it's still one of my favourites because of Mr Quin and Mr Satterthwaite's relationship. There needs to be a TV adaptation of the characters that can mix and match bits of the short stories and include all of the really emotional parts. Much more so than Christie's other protagonists, you could get really stylised TV with Mr Quin.

I read some 2006 Doctor Who short stories in my continuing project to refine a history of the Master's timeline. I've been consuming so much Master content recently, I really hope that I can pull all the fun facts I've learnt together into some kind of video eventually. I don't know how, but it'll be a good opportunity to learn some new creative skills!

I have so many novels and books on my to-read list, of course including the EDAs, which embarrassingly I haven't touched for a few years now, but I took a blood oath to someday finish in their entirety. But I think my next book might be yet another Doctor Who one, the 1999 Past Doctor Adventure Divided Loyalties, because it includes both (dubious) Master lore, and The Toymaker.

[algumaideia]

My aunt has a book with short stories by Agatha Christie and in one of them Mr. Satterthwaite appears and it's just me or he is attracted to Mr. Quinn?

[readingoals]

The Mysterious Mr Quin was....strange. In a good way. It's another of Christie's short story collections but definitely had a different vibe to her others. Each story is connected through the amateur sleuth Mr Satterthwaite and the titular Mr Quin who pops up mysteriously to offer advice or encouragement as needed. But things get weirder as they go. Not so much the stories which, in true Christie style, sometimes skew a little silly, but Mr Quin himself and the vibes he brings. He ends up feeling a little sinister and otherworldly which isn't really what I was expecting when I went in, but meant I found it very hard to put the book down. The last story was kind of bonkers. I think this might be, at least from what I've read, the closest Christie comes to fantasy writing. Definitely one of the more interesting of her short story collections.

[sandshi48]

Mr. Satterthwaite thought to himself: "Adorable creature."

[richardgarfinkle]

Agatha Christie and the Mysterious Mr. Quin

Along with her most famous detectives, Hercule Poirot and (Miss) Jane Marple, Agatha Christie wrote stories starring several less well-known detectives. One such set of short stories deserves more attention than it’s usually given because of the character(s) of the detective(s) and the sometimes explicit supernatural elements in the stories.

The mysteries themselves are never supernatural. They always have human causes and solutions. The supernatural is in the detective(s) and in the impetus for the solving of the crimes.

The main detective / viewpoint character is Mr. Satterthwaite, who is a man in his 60s. A self-described observer of life, he enjoys drama but does not take part. He is insightful. He makes friends easily. He is a connoisseur of various arts. He knows everyone (if one defines everyone as upper- and middle-class Europeans in the early to mid 20th century). He travels widely and he understands people and their motivations. When introduced he sees himself as a member of the audience of humanity, not a participant in it.

Mr. Satterthwaite is queer-coded. Agatha Christie was very bad at queer coding. Her gay male characters are stereotypes and considered untrustworthy. Her lesbian characters are the the “we’re roommates” kind of lesbians, usually with a stereotypical pairing. She had one lesbian-coded murderer who was pretty creepy.

Mr. Satterthwaite is described as having a strong feminine spirit within him and as knowing more about women and what they do than is good for any man to know. He had a few romances when young which did not go anywhere but provide vital clues in at least one mystery. He would not be easy to classify by our evolving sense of queerness, largely because Agatha Christie didn’t really understand any of it.

Mr. Satterthwaite’s passive audience character changes whenever he is in the presence of his friend, Mr. Harley Quin.

This Harley Quin does not have a hammer and doesn’t do crime. He shows up occasionally and is always an English gentleman. He has no fixed abode. “He comes and goes.” When he shows up he asks pointed questions and proposes different perspectives on things.

In his first story Mr. Quin opines that it is easier to solve a crime by looking at it backwards in historical context. In one story it is proposed that one should imagine oneself one hundred years in the future, in 2025, looking back at the events of the tale from that distant unknown era.

Mr. Quin never solves the crimes. He inspires Mr. Satterthwaite, whose passive audiencing transforms into active on-stage detecting. Without Mr. Quin, Mr. Satterthwaite is an observer but not a detective. But without Mr. Satterthwaite, Mr. Quin isn’t a detective either. Only together in their roles as inspired and inspirer can they solve and prevent crimes.

In most of the stories Mr. Satterthwaite credits Mr. Quin with solving the mystery and Mr. Quin always credits Mr. Satterthwaite.

The one other factor that is common to nearly all these short stories is that if the crime is not solved some young couple will not be able to get or stay together.

After a few stories it becomes quite blatant that Mr. Harley Quin is the Harlequin of the Commedia Del’Arte as a supernatural being. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin

The theme of life as drama is made more blatant and the utility for a detective of seeing that view gives Mr. Satterthwaite a preternatural sense for when something dramatic is going to happen. The presence of Mr. Quin makes this definite. Mr. Satterthwaite in the later stories is able to use this dramatic awareness to prevent murders from happening.

The supernatural elements are almost always oblique and indefinite, except for one story.

In “The Bird with the Broken Wing” Mr. Satterthwaite has turned down an invitation to visit a particular place. Instead, he is staying at a house party where some of the guests pull out an Ouija board and proceed to ask questions. They find that a spirit has a message for Mr. Satterthwaite. When asked who the message is from the board spells out Quin and the message is the name of the place Mr. Satterthwaite had decided not to go to. He changes his mind and prevents a tragedy.

The question of whether Agatha Christie’s mysteries take place in one or several worlds can be answered by crossovers. The mysteries above definitely take place in the same world as Poirot because Mr. Satterthwaite is a supporting character in the Poirot mystery “Three Act Tragedy”. Mr. Quin does not appear in this book so Mr. Satterthwaite is not a detective. There is a running gag in the book that he keeps trying to tell Poirot about his own detecting adventures, but keeps being interrupted.

The question of whether this overlaps with Miss Marple depends on whether there are more than one Chief Constable named Colonel Melrose. The Agatha Christie Wiki insists that the two Colonels Melrose are distinct characters, but they’re very alike. Colonel Melrose shows up in the Poirot novel “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”, the Miss Marple novel “Sleeping Murder” and the Mr. Satterthwaite and Mr. Quin short story “The Love Detectives.”

Agatha Christie seems to have had an interesting attitude to these stories and to Harlequin. She dedicated the collection, “The Mysterious Mr, Quin” to “Harlequin The Invisible” as if these stories were in some different category in her own mind from the rest of her works. They have their own unique perspective and aesthetics while still being mysteries that play fair with the audience. The supernatural is always inspiration, never explanation. They deserve a look from those interested in Mysteries.