Speculation time

[amigara]

Hello. I am a long time lurker who have finally bothered to get a LJ account. Yaaay!

I recall there being a lot of speculation about CDK a way back - and I don't believe anyone has solved it yet?

Comments

[ourladyofworms]

Well, first place it turns up is on Red's hat, right before we go into the flashback with Karen. Then we see it on that note on the freezer. I'm wondering if, perhaps, that's another name Red goes by. Think about it -- we know that Red's magic-savvy, so he knows that revealing his true name can give people power over him (e.g., the magic arrow). That's the reason he goes by "Red," and why he was so shocked when Dark knew his real name. Now, in our world he probably doesn't just use "Red;" he'd need a proper, full name as an alias. So, what if that alias's initials are CDK?

Oh, and one thing I always noticed is that in Kano's hallucination of Jamie's murder, Red says that she misspelled his name when she signed his yearbook. How, I wonder, does one misspell a name like James? Further evidence that he didn't even use his real name when he was in our world.

And thank you for starting this discussion; I've read some of the old posts in this comm, and I've been quite upset that I seem to have missed the days when this was a real, interactive fancommunity.

[elanor_pam]

I was under the impression that Red was an entirely normal psychopath. He used knives at first, then his bare hands, but I don't think he knew anything about "magic" until he got into Kano's head. Jamie most likely misspelled the surname "Beethoven", which is the most complicated you get in his name.

That doesn't mean he didn't have an alias - I just doubt any alias was used as far back as high school, which is when I assume the yearbook in question was made. Or, if he used it during high school, it wasn't know inside the school, but outside of it, wherever and whenever he did any criminal activity.

[ourladyofworms]

I get what you're saying, but I can't imagine he had all that much of an opportunity to gain possession of whatever powers he has trapped inside Kano's brain. And I think his preference is still for knives and those sorts of things, but he saves his magic (yeah, I wish there were a better word for it, too) for when he really wants to curbstomp someone, as opposed to torturing them slowly to death. As for Jamie misspelling "Beethoven," I can't imagine she used his last name when signing his yearbook. I mean, seriously, nobody does that. Even if my theory is incorrect, I think there's definitely something fishy about that. And when I say it's fishy, I mean it smells like a Luka-clue.

And I'm not necessarily saying that he was using an alias back then, I just think that he was reluctant to go by his real name from early on. It's actually pretty common for teenagers to tell people that their name is something that it isn't, just because they want a cooler name. It's very easy for that to go undetected, especially in larger schools where teachers are less likely to check individual students' records.

[amigara]

This might all be a coincidence, but I just found another Valentine...
http://atomicfireball.deviantart.com/art/Atonement-26903874

[ourladyofworms]

I can't imagine that's coincidental, but I can't think what the relationship would be. My first thought was that it's someone in Red's family, but then I remembered that "Valentine" is his middle name (or so it would seem). If it was one of his relations, though, that would be quite an addition to his character, since it's pretty clear that those names were all Red's victims.

[amigara]

Perhaps Valentine isn't his middle name, but one of his last names. Making that Valentine his half sister, perhaps.
Or... James Valentine Beethoven is in fact an alias, composed of the names of victims. Jamie turns to James, Valentine comes from that girl... but that sounds rather more farfetched, I think.

[ourladyofworms]

Ohh, yeah, I can see that as being one of his last names. But I don't think that would be his alias, judging solely on his reaction when Dark wrote the name on his glass. I think it was definitely a "How the fuck do you know my real name?" reaction. But that's a fascinating theory, either way.

[amigara]

So who is this Valentine woman? His father's new wife? An aunt, a sister, a cousin? Or a stranger, picked simply because of their name?

[ourladyofworms]

Goodness, I don't even know where to begin coming up with theories about that. I like that last suggestion, though.