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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Interesting, I asked AI to compare Yael Halevi-Wise’s Drood theory with Mark Wheats’s theory (keep in mind that the true villain in ‘Edwin Drood’ always lies in the eye of the be-drooder.)

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

In Sketches by Boz, Dickens writes of “the shell game” (thimblerigging): ‘Bet any gen’lm’n any sum of money, from arf-a-crown up to a suverin, as he doesn’t name the thimble as kivers the pea.’ In The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens bets readers they can’t find the identity of “THE WICKED MAN.”

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Another example (below) of Dickens hinting that Jasper is destined to save Rosa and Drood in the end: “God save them both!” cried Jasper. “I said, bless them,” remarked [Mr Grewgious] looking back over his shoulder. “I said, save them,” returned the latter. “Is there any difference?”

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

As an amateur magician, Dickens knew the secret to “the shell game,” which was referred to at the time as “thimblerigging” (see below). There is evidence of this literary slight-of-hand that runs throughout Dickens’s unfinished novel, ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood.’

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Perhaps Dickens felt he was giving too much away to cover artist Charles Collins (and readers) by having Rosa looking back at Mr Tope and his mace (pic 1). So he brought on [Sir] Luke Fildes to move the verger next to the cathedral’s arch, where Jasper now points an accusatory finger at him.

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

When we zoom in on the cover of ‘Drood’ (pic 1), Dickens displays in chapter 15 how Jasper, not Sapsea, quickly initiates the search for his beloved nephew—so much so, that Jasper even goes a bit overboard in his verbiage (pic 2). Just one of many examples in “The Shell Game Theory of Drood.”

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Lining the reflecting pool with the $16 million the renovation cost would have given it a nicer shade o’ green.

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

A closeup of [Sir] Luke Fildes’s illustration of John Jasper’s Gatehouse, which Dickens refers to as a “Lighthouse” three times in his unfinished masterpiece, shows a cross in the window. Dickens refers to Jasper as “the living waters” where the “tide of life” stems from. (See chapter 12.)

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Reposted by That Drood Dude

That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Help—I feel like I’m trapped in a bad reality tv game show in which one misstep by the Host can lead to full-scale thermonuclear war!

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

When it comes to news, I’ve come to realize over the years that the truth in the headlines usually lies somewhere in the middle.

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

Anita (my wifey) received this orchid for her birthday back in September and it’s the first time we’ve ever had an orchid re-bloom. Her secret? After we thought it was dead, she did absolutely nothing to it. 🌺

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

If you love Charles Dickens (like me), be sure to view Dr. Lydia Craig’s article in Dickens Studies Annual, “Recent Dickens Studies: 2024.” (There’s also a brief summary of my “Spike that Intervenes” theory under the Law, Crime, and Detection section.) Happy reading, Bluesky friends!

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Let me get this straight: ICE, who doesn’t know how to work the machinery at airports is getting paid to do the job of the TSA, who does know how to work the machinery at airports but not getting paid.

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Living up to its name. 😢 (That’s Pete Hegseth putting up the sign.)

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

Whenever I listen to Pete Hegseth, I can’t help feeling that I’m listening to a used car salesman. (But instead of trying to sell me a used car, he’s trying to sell me a new war.)

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

If you need me, I’ll be on the Bluesky Ferris wheel with a pint o’ Guinness. ☘️Happy St. Patrick’s Day!☘️

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Being an ally of the U.S. must feel like being friends with that one guy who always wants to get in a fight at the pub.

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

☘️Ode to Mr Tope: A Limerick☘️ “There once was a Dean who feigned piety Whose Verger would bring notoriety For his mace was “the spike” and looked very much like the cryptic “thorn of anxiety”

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

☘️Ode to John Jasper (the Limerick)☘️ There lives a choirmaster named John J. Who will be climbing the gallows today But the mace was omitted Should he not be acquitted? For the execution, Rosa cries: “Stay!”

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

So proud of our daughter, Dr. Stephanie Stillman, on her new position in Coral Gables, FL. authenticgrowthcounseling.com/theteam

authenticgrowthcounseling.com

Authentic Growth Counseling LLC | Trauma-Informed Therapy in Miami

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Dickens changed the “IS” in “What IS the spike that intervenes, and who has set it up?” back to lower case letters because he was putting too much emphasis on the inanimate object—“the spike.” Just as he omits the mace in chap 9 to avoid tipping readers off too early, he omits the capitalization.

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

In The Mystery of Edwin Drood, note when Dickens writes of Cloisterham Cathedral: “its hoarser and less distinct rooks in the stalls far beneath”, he is speaking of the Dean’s “intoned”, “feeble”, “cracked”, “monotonous”, “dying” voice that awakens “muttered thunder”. (See chapters 1, 3, and 9.)

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

A cup of coffee or tea for you on this fine Sunday. Cheers! 🙂

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

I believe the Dean in Dickens’s unfinished novel was an imposter, which gives him an ecclesiastical out when it comes to sacrilege. In short, it grants Dickens blasphemy immunity. Though the town is a thinly veiled Rochester, he wrote a disclaimer at the beginning of chapter 3 (below):

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

When you think about it, if Dickens didn’t delete Mr Tope’s mace in chapter 9, and readers DID discover that Jasper was pointing to Mr Tope who holds “the spike,” it wouldn’t have mattered because no one would’ve ever suspected the Dean as top villain. (Let’s see Wilkie Collins top THAT!)

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

If the music in the Super Bowl Starbucks commercial sounds familiar, you’ve probably seen the film ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.’ Burt Bacharach’s composition “South American Getaway” is used in both. youtu.be/493-pTRNNxk?...

youtu.be

butch chase scene

YouTube video by Pete Wilson

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

What do all these Vergers have in common? They hold a Verger’s rod that could double as a chalk line on a corner-cupboard door.

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

I just want to insert myself into this new cover pic of Blue Sky. (Knowing me, I’d hit the ice cream stand first.) 🍦

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

The old janitor laid his wrinkled hands atop the broom, along with his worn chin. He dreamt of sweeping his way to Olympic glory in the sport of curling! As he made his way atop the podium for the gold, a voice came over the loudspeaker: “Mr. Winkle to the cafeteria—three children just got sick.”

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Dickens funniest joke of all-time? No doubt the Peter Piper Passage in Edwin Drood where Dickens cryptically writes of Mr Tope ‘picking’ the pickled Durdles out of his drunken slumber with his mace (the spike that intervenes actually intervening). It doubles as his most humourous clue, too.

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

I believe Dickens handled the wooden engraving plate for The Mystery of Edwin Drood and etched the lines that form an arrow directly pointing to Mr Tope’s mace, which I believe to be “the spike that intervenes.” Just one in a series of clues that point to the spike.

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Ever notice in Dickens’s The Mystery of Edwin Drood that all the characters have names, with the exception of the Dean? (Perhaps Dickens was saving his name for the big reveal.)

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

I believe Nathan Lane would make a most humourous Seth Pecksniff.

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

In a letter to John Forster in August, 1869, Dickens wrote: “I laid aside the fancy I told you of, and have a very curious and new idea for my new story. Not a communicable idea (or the interest of the book would be gone), but a very strong one, though difficult to work.”

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Dickens was troubled when a little old lady guessed Esther Summerson’s parentage in Bleak House. So why, when illustrator Seymour claimed the originality of ‘Pickwick’, and Cruikshank ‘Twist,’ would Dickens have told Fildes that Jasper strangles Drood with the scarf? This just doesn’t make sense.

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That Drood Dude @thatdrooddude.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Dickens seems to have borrowed a page from Poe’s ‘The Purloined Letter‘ by asking readers who the villains are in the first chapter of ‘Drood,’ then revealing them in bold print atop the second, “A Dean and a Chapter, Also.” Just like Poe’s ‘Letter,’ did Dickens hide the answer in plain sight?

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