Hogwarts Professor has been posting up a storm at its Substack home since the publication of The Hallmarked Man — see ‘Hallmarked Man: First Thoughts‘ for our September posts — though we’ve been relatively quiet here on the weblog.

Here is a quick guide to four more conversations we’ve been having ‘over there’ with links to those discussions at your fingertips! Every post comes with a video capture of John and Nick playing point-counterpoint with extensive footnotes and urls for Rowling Readers wanting to follow up on the ideas discussed. Be sure to read the comment threads beneath each for the insights of Serious Strikers around the world.

Enjoy!

The Hallmarked Man: A ‘Blitz Chess’ Lake and Shed Reading (with a few Golden Threads)

Hogwarts Professor has been posting up a storm at its Substack home in the four weeks since the publication of The Hallmarked Man though we’ve been relatively quiet here on the weblog.

Here is a quick guide to the conversations we’ve been having ‘over there’ with links to those discussions at your fingertips! Every post except ‘Flood’ comes with a video capture of John and Nick playing point-counterpoint with extensive footnotes and urls for Rowling Readers wanting to follow up on the ideas discussed. Be sure to read the comment threads beneath each for the insights of Serious Strikers around the world.

Enjoy!

Three Cheers for The Hallmarked Man! Thoughts After the First Reading

Nick Jeffery and John Granger discuss Strike8, fandom disappointment, predictions review, three Rowling targets, the Core Text hidden in the epigraphs, and ‘What’s Next?’ for Serious Strikers (8 September 2025)

It’s a long-standing custom at Hogwarts Professor to put up posts for Serious Readers to share their finds on specific topics in the week following a new Rowling book’s publication. This Quiet week of little posting — because most folks are trying to find time to finish a ginormous tome while working a day job or studying for papers and exams and are staying away from online discussion of the books — merits an alternative outlet for those who read straight-through and want to share their first thoughts.

I have put up ten posts on the day of publication with specific subjects of interest to our global audience and an index post for easy access to each of those subjects. None have spoiler alerts because the comment threads of every one will be loaded with Hallmarked Man content and conversation. Caveat Lector.

A distinguishing difference between the Potter books and the Strike novels is the importance of epigraphs in the latter. Only Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows had opening epigraphs in the Hogwarts Saga and every Strike-Ellacott piece — every Part and chapter as well as a frontispiece choice — has had a defining set of quotations that simultaneously reflect and reveal the author’s sub-text via super-text.

Hallmarked Man’s epigraphs that we’ve seen are a queer lot with passages from Freemasonry manuals, an obscure adventure Romance set on the island of Sark, and poetry from Matthew Arnold and Robert Browning. Rowling chose passages from Victorian women poets for Ink Black Heart’s epigraphs (and Grey’s Anatomy) but a simple count of those selections from Elizabeth Barrett Browning revealed that her Aurora Leigh was the background piece for Strike6 (a connection Rowling uncharacteristically confirmed).

Let’s keep an eye on those epigraph sources to see if one author or book or two or three begins to stand out in its way, something that throws light on Rowling’s aim in Hallmarked Man.

It’s a long-standing custom at Hogwarts Professor to put up posts for Serious Readers to share their finds on specific topics in the week following a new Rowling book’s publication. This Quiet week of little posting — because most folks are trying to find time to finish a ginormous tome while working a day job or studying for papers and exams and are staying away from online discussion of the books — merits an alternative outlet for those who read straight-through and want to share their first thoughts.

I have put up ten posts on the day of publication with specific subjects of interest to our global audience and an index post for easy access to each of those subjects. None have spoiler alerts because the comment threads of every one will be loaded with Hallmarked Man content and conversation. Caveat Lector.

[All the posts begin with the introduction above in case readers are sent links to specific pages in the set.]

This Index page has links and brief descriptions of every Hallmarked Man Placeholder Post for easy searching of the topics and access to the particular subject page. I have included a few Golden Threads that we have been discussing recently but have left out the great majority as well as all the Shed tools (Christian content, soul allegory, literary alchemy, ring composition, ostrananie, mythology, and inter/intratextuality) and most of the Lake springs we’ve been discussing the last six weeks. We’ll get to all that in a week, believe me!

Until then, here are the subjects of and links to the Hogwarts Professor Placeholder Post comment threads cum message boards. I look forward to reading your finds almost as much as I do the book about to ‘drop.’ Thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts here and for the Hallmarked Man conversations we’ll be having here in the coming months.

The Gaffes: Share all the mistakes you’ve found in Hallmarked Man’s continuity with the series, dates, ages, names, locations, and character experiences.

The Ghosts: Spot the ghosts haunting Cormoran and Robin in Hallmarked Man. Special points for sharing the hints and clues that out’ed the spectral influence.

Charlotte Campbell Murder: Did Milady Bezerko kill herself in Running Grave or has Rowling set us up for yet another faked suicide story twist? If the suicide note reappears, share your thoughts.

Lost Child: Rowling’s books have so many ‘lost children’ and grieving caretakers who feel remorse or longing for them (or who don’t!) that we had to come up with four categories into which the horde could be properly sorted. It’s an exercise in critical taxonomy but one that is fortifying to a Serious Reader’s grasp of this most persistent and prominent of Rowling’s Golden Threads.

Robin Is Sterile:  One of the mythological templates of the Strike series is Strike as the avenging Fury Tisiphone and Robin as Artemis, the latter role all but requiring her to be infertile. What do we learn about Ms Ellacott in this regard during Hallmarked Man?

The Pregnancy Trap: Merope Gaunt, Leda Strike, Krystall Weedon — it seems the players in foundational roles in Rowling’s best known works are disproportionately women and ladies whose lives don’t end well. Is there a Pregnancy Trap in Hallmarked Man? What effect does it have on the Agency partners? Are there more than one? Discuss.

The Baby in the Lake: Rowling’s Lost Child and Pregnancy Trap Golden Threads suggest a possible inspiration of her work, a gusher of a spring feeding her Lake of story “stuff,” was an induced abortion. It’s a stretch and necessarily speculative, but let’s be looking for the death of a child even an induced abortion in Hallmarked Man to see what we can find.

Front and Back Pages: Nick Jeffery begins his readings of any Rowling novel by taking a long look at the Dedication before the story and the Acknowledgements after it. For those wanting to read like Nick (good idea!), share your thoughts and ask your questions after this Placeholder Post.

The Epigraphs: The epigraphs Rowling chooses for her book are like the background music in a restaurant, the almost invisible material that sets the mood and creates a particular atmosphere. There are at least five epigraph sources for Hallmarked Man and each was chosen, I’m sure, with no little care. Let’s get a jump on figuring out the thematic and environmental coloring made by epigraphs from the get-go!

Lake Shadows: Rowling inserts literary sketches of her childhood home and family life as well as of her first boyfriend (maybe!) and her first husband in her novels. You won’t see them, however, unless you’re wearing your Lake goggles; share your findings here.

Bonus Extra: I didn’t put up an Art post but please feel free to use this Index post’s comment thread to share any connections you see between the art on display in Hallmarked Man and the room, building, or street in which it is displayed and the action in the chapter it is hung or noticed. Cheers!