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.

Nick Jeffery tells me the first things he reads in a Rowling book are the front and back ‘matter.’ That’s usually a dedication and an Acknowledgements page, respectively, something our resident Lake authority checks out to see if Rowling is hinting there what the book is about, how it lines up with known friends, family, and business partners (and who was on previous lists but is now absent), and what her ‘thank you’s suggest about the years she spent writing this book.

I look forward to Nick’s write-ups of his insights on these subjects. This post is here for readers that want to follow Nick’s example and begin their reading by taking much more than a cursory look at Hallmarked Man’s bracketing in Rowling’s direct notes to her audience. Enjoy!

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.

At the very end of July’s every day posting of videos, Nick and I speculated about the possible sources of the ‘Lost Child’ Golden Thread in Rowling’s Lake of Inspiration. I argued that the only explanation that both made sense in terms of her personal history and was useful in understanding her Shed artistry and meaning was that she had had an induced abortion while dating the mysterious Manchester Michael. Our last Kanreki episode, the one released on Harry Potter and his author’s birthday, was dedicated to reading the Hogwarts Saga through this lens: Happy 60th Birthday, J. K. Rowling! Opening the Gift of the Biggest Secret in Her Lake of Inspiration?

We asked for listeners to share their alternatives to the Induced Abortion Hypothesis and they obliged us with three good ones; Nick and I discussed their relative merits and deficiencies in Alternative Explanations for The Lost Child Golden Thread in the Work of J. K. Rowling (Spoilers for Hallmarked Man!): A Biology Based Argument, the Christian Allegory of Redemption, and a Model Text for the Only Abortion in Rowling’s Oeuvre vs the Induced Abortion Hypothesis.

Do those conversations add up to a prediction of an abortion plot point in Hallmarked Man? I reviewed the Hogwarts Saga to see if it could be read as Rowling’s apologia in story for having terminated a pregnancy and found that every book except Prisoner of Azkaban had a failure obvious exteriorization and elimination of an interior evil in it (and Ed Shardlow and other listeners promptly shared all the abortion echoes in the third Potter novel that I had missed). Can the same thing be said of the Strike-Ellacott books?

Maybe! I’ll wait until we have Hallmarked Man to share my notes about that just in case Strike8, in addition to Lost Child and Pregnancy Trap Golden Threads, also has an induced abortion or questionable miscarriage in its plot points or essential clues.

Be on the look out for an allegorical exteriorization of something evil within that must be eliminated or much more straight-forward plot points, e.g., Charlotte having aborted Strike’s baby or the hotelier billionaire’s, Bijou being tempted (or encouraged?) to kill Strike’s child, Robin losing a child to miscarriage or induced abortion, or a suspect or ancillary character feeling she has no “choice” but pre-natal infanticide. Discuss your finds here!

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.

In late 2023 I wrote a Hallmarked Man prediction post which argued that Robin Ellacott was effectively sterile. My argument was built on the mythological templates Rowling has used in this series, especially the Artemis piece we gained in Running Grave, Rowling’s friends and family members who are childless women, and the Mad Mother Wanna-Bes of the Strike series thus far. The story clue was her having been given chlamydia by her rapist, an STD which if not treated properly can become PID and cause ectopic pregnancies. Read about that in ‘Strike8: Robin Ellacott is Sterile’ and listen to the Rowling Studies conversation I had with Nick Jeffery on this subject, again, way back in 2023.

Share your thoughts below about the Hallmarked Man‘s revelations about Robin and her ability to have children!

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.

At the end of Nick and my Kanreki birthday project in July, a month-long Lake and Shed review of Rowling’s work in celebration of her life and oeuvre, we ran down another Golden Thread, one even more ubiquitous and typical of Mrs Murray’s stories, that of the ‘Lost Child:’ A Lake and Shed Look at the Lost Child ‘Golden Thread’ in J. K. Rowling’s Work — A Conversation about What is Perhaps Her Most Important and Persistent Plot Point. It turns out there are four types of ‘Lost Child,’ those who lived, positive and negative, and those who died, caretaker responsible or not responsible. If Hallmarked Man doesn’t feature a living Lost Child or a mother or caretaker grieving a dead or missing one, it will be the first book of its kind on the Rowling bookshelf (consider that less a prediction than a Safe Bet guarantee).

Share all the Lost Children you spot, living and dead, mourned or unlamented, that pop up or go under 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.

Did Charlotte Campbell commit suicide or was she murdered? Nick Jeffery realized during his first read of Running Grave that something was seriously wrong with the surface narrative that Milady Bezerko had topped herself. You can read his ‘The Strange Death of Charlotte Campbell’ and my follow-up sharing of conversations had on the HogPro moderators’ channel about this idea, ‘Strike8: The Charlotte Campbell Murder Mystery,’ in which Sacha Legard (aka Simon Legard) is in the line-up of murder suspects. Our first Rowling Studies podcast was dedicated to this against-the-grain idea: The Mysterious Death of Charlotte Campbell: Was It Suicide or Was It Murder? 

If Charlotte’s suicide letter makes a reappearance in Hallmarked Man, this is your place online to discuss it. If Charlotte’s suicide is confirmed, let us know how silly we look to you.