Very very slight Volume 4 spoilers ahead ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello anyone that reads this. A while back I made a post on this very forum involving the identity of the puppeteer. In that post, I entertain the thought that the puppeteer is not Roger(a puppet for all of those who have not read Finding Vanessa). I figured Roger was just a red herring... I mean, it was so obvious, a puppet would be the puppeteer right? But I speculated that the puppeteer could be someone else other than Rodger(Spencer or maybe Jerry). In Volume 4, it is all but confirmed that the puppeteer is someone other than Rodger. A certain character talks about the "players in town" which were The Collector and The Puppeteer... However, there is a new name mentioned, "The Grim One". At one point The Grim One's name is revealed to be Grimorea or something of that sort. A few chapters later, Jack realizes that Grimorea is an anagram for "I am Roger", deducing that Grimorea/The Grim One must be Roger. So with that in mind, let me first say "I CALLED IT!!!", and secondly, I would like to ask you all again, who the heck is The Puppeteer? Not to make any theories or anything, but just going off of points we can infer from all the books, especially the later parts of Volume 4, I expect that The Puppeteer is Spencer. He is just pulling a lot of strings to "Always be on the winning side". Does anyone else have any theories on who The Puppeteer is; Do you think Jack got it all wrong and Grimorea is not Roger, do you think that Roger is actually The Puppeteer because of all of the strings he has been pulling for a millennia, if that's the case, then who the hell is Grimorea? I'd love to hear what anyone else thinks!

Now, this post is kind of for everyone who has read/listened to all three volumes of the books. As we know, we have two entities that are mentioned by the bathroom cowboy in volume three to have been moving and active in the town, and I loosely quote, "The collector and the puppeteer are waring like ally cats ~ if either one of them wins, we all lose...". So, we know Brother Riley is the collector, and I think most of us assume that the puppeteer is Roger for obvious reasons, but what if Roger is just a red herring. I mean, the collector was a COMPLETE mystery until his ultimate reveal about two thirds through book three. Now I ask you, Why would we know the puppeteers identity so readily from the finding Vanessa stories when B.R. wasn't even mentioned until the books? It just seems so weird to me, and I can't shake the feeling that Roger isn't the puppeteer, but he is just a really good red herring, one that you could only make that tricky in a Sci-fi book... I mean, REALLY, a talking ventriloquist dummy? It's so obvious, and nothing that Jack has written about has been that obvious yet. Honestly, the more I write about this topic, the more I just want to lean towards occam's puppet on this one, it's most likely just Roger, but I pose the question: what if it wasn't Roger? One of the biggest possibilities I was thinking about was Jerry. A puppeteer is a master of manipulation, at getting what the want without anyone knowing. Now obviously this fits Roger's established M.O. but what if Jerry is just playing everyone for chumps all along, I mean, why is he the only one who lived out of all of the mathmatists? Why does he seem to just dumb luck his way in to not dying and solving a lot of Jack's problems? Why does he seem to be the only one who believes Jack? It's possible the answer is that he's a bat shit crazy idiot savant, which is why we all love him so much, but what if? Another possibility for the puppeteer, and a more believable one than Jerry, is Spencer. He definitely fits the bill. He is one hell of a manipulator, and he is constantly working behind the scenes to get what he wants, which still remains a mystery. Now the only thing that seems to fly in the face of him being the puppeteer is the fact that he worked for the Collector and wasn't really "waring" with him... but what ever. Obviously this is more of an interesting speculation than an actually fleshed out theory. I would love to try and pick apart everything, but I just haven't got that far yet. What do you guys think, is it possible that Roger isn't the puppeteer? Is it possible that the puppeteer is someone we already know(not Roger), and is so good at pulling the strings, that even the reader doesn't know their true identity?

I just figured I would mention this, incase anyone was interested in this information. The group goes to the carnival on February 14th(Valentines day) which is on a Wednesday according to Rosa. Valentines day last fell on a Wednesday in 2018, and before that Valentines day landed on a Wednesday in 2007. With the use of specific technologies like cell phones with nice cameras and such, I would assume that the former must be our date, meaning that volume 1 & 2 took place in 2017 fall and winter, and volume 3 takes place in early 2018. It was just kind of interesting to me, so I figured I would mention it for future reference when we start making theories about the books..

The title pretty much says what I am thinking. There should be separate message boards either for the books, or for each individual book. I feel this way mainly because there seems to be a lot to pick a part with each novel, there's no "comments" section for the novels, and I think it could be kind of messy to do it in the general discussion. Does anyone have any thoughts on this. They could all be separate just like the "Bedside Manor" forum.