Ed? (Nita's dad, not the Master-Shark)

[AMLJLCDD]

In A Wizard Abroad, Nita's dad, Harold "Harry" Edward Callahan, is mentioned more than once as "Ed". Is this a typo or just a...uh... "change"?

[wolf_wizard]

hmmm, That is an interesting detail. I think that it might have to do with it. Was it meant as something? I think that it could have heralded the death of mrs. callahan, though we didn't catch it on time... I mean, it is someone he loved, and Ed wasn't really loved... I think it would make sense, though if this is so, it would have been more useful to note when it came out... oh well. It may also foreshadow things yet to come. What do you guys think? I mean, I think it was on purpose....



[--edited to whiteout spoiler. kli.]

[Emi]

You know what I never really noticed that before. Now I have to go back and read that book over again to see it. Huh, that is interesting though... Could it be that Ed is still a part of Nita's life??? Hmm... Good eye, though.

[Nathan]

This actually was discussed in an old thread (Edit: there's another, far briefer, bit of discussion concerning this here), where the consensus was that Mr. Callahan had been referred to by his middle name when he was younger (since it is Aunt Annie, his sister, who refers to him as "Ed" in AWAb), but later switched to his first name. No one on the old thread mentioned the possibility of this being related to Nita's nickname for Ed'rashtekaresket, and I'm of the opinion that this is simply a coincidence. (However, given that "Ed" is Nita's nickname for the Master-Shark, and, according to the Concordance, it is also a nickname Mrs. Callahan uses for Mr. Callahan, there are at the very least some interesting resonances in DW itself.)

N.B.: The original version of this post (back on eve) linked to the first thread when it was archived and only available by subscription.

[wolf_wizard]

Wow. that's the first time a post of mine has been edited by a mod. *looks down ashamedly* and *feels a growing sense of dread* but seriously, i'm sorry. I forgot that we were supposed to still whiteout things from the older books.

Nathan: sorry. I can't see it... comes of not being a subscriber i guess... AND THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES!!!!! so I think that DD did it on purpose... I mean, why else would that be his middle name, and not something else? AND, I want to know... why do you think that he changed over to people calling him his 1st name???

[Kathy Li]

No big deal. I'm overly cautious about spoilers. I can see someone who's just found the books working their way through each forum as they finish each book, so if the same thing had be posted in Dilemma or later forums, I probably would have left it alone. It's just that this is the forum for Abroad.

[Nathan]

Bump. I just noticed that this topic came up on the YW LiveJournal community, where Omoni mentioned that Tom also refers to Nita's dad as Ed in AWAB, which wasn't remarked upon either of the previous times the name issue was discussed on the forums (linked above). I replied, mentioning that it's possible that Tom picked the nickname up from Mrs. Callahan, given the comment in the Concordance that I remark on above. However, now that I think about this a bit more, I don't remember her ever calling her husband Ed in the books. Moreover, Aunt Annie isn't mentioned on that page of the Concordance, which makes me wonder whether DD made a mistake there. (For that matter, Occam's razor certainly suggests that Tom's use of "Ed" is also a slip-up.)

Additionally, pace Wolf Wizard's claims that there are no coincidences, I find it only too easy to envision a situation in which the two identical nicknames are (at least consciously) coincidental: DD decides while writing HW that Edward would make a good middle name for Mr. Callahan (as far as I know, his middle name doesn't appear any earlier than that), not thinking (at least consciously) about the relation with Ed from DW. She then later decides that she wants to have Mr. Callahan referred to by another nickname besides Harry, and picks the standard shortened version of his middle name as the obvious choice. At that point, she probably did