The HogPro Kanreki Project – Lake and Shed Readings Dumbledore to Running Grave

Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery continue with our Lake and Shed reviews of the twenty-one stories written at least in part by J. K. Rowling. Join us for our celebration of Mrs Murray’s 60th birthday, and her Kanreki, 還暦, or calendar re-birth.

Nick lays out the drama surrounding the third Fantastic Beasts franchise film and his favorite part of the movie (hint: it’s about “confusion”). John reveals why Jacob gets a Snakewood wand and one without a core as well as why he thinks Kowalski is the embedded author in this series.

Nick covers the front and the back of making Lake readings of Strike6 without a lot of circumspection and John talks about the eerie feeling he had while reading this book that the author was ‘having a go’ at him. Enjoy!

Nick confesses to feeling stumped about what to say as his ‘Lake’ contribution to the discussion — before his epiphany on a long walk with Addie that almost every buoy or pillar in Rowling’s metaphorical place of inspiration finds its reflection in the seventh Galbraith mystery. John refuses to go into any detail about the work’s ‘wheels within wheels within wheels’ ring structure but shares instead the symbolic depth of Mama Mazu’s mother of pearl fish pendant.

The HogPro Kanreki Project – Lake and Shed Readings Grindlewald to Troubled Blood

Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery continue with our Lake and Shed reviews of the twenty-one stories written at least in part by J. K. Rowling. Join us for our celebration of Mrs Murray’s 60th birthday, and her Kanreki, 還暦, or calendar re-birth.

On the Lake side of things, Nick explores the Johnny Depp casting scandal and the lead-up in 2018 to the 2019 Tweet Heard Round the World. John explains that the cut scenes from this dog’s mess of a movie point that the shooting script, i.e., what Rowling wrote and approved before David Yates butchered the film in the editing room, was all about Leta Lestrange. More important, John makes the Shed point that every Rowling book features a text of some kind that the characters struggle to understand — and that Crimes of Grindelwald has ten of these, a veritable library of interior texts to interpret.

Nick takes the ‘Shed’ point and lays out the controlled demolition of her reputation among Group Thinkers on the Left in the lead up to Ickabog’s publication and John shares the meaning of ‘The Ickabog’s Song,’ the embedded text of the tale, as interpreted by Daisy Dovetail (an embedded author?).

Nick discusses Rowling’s history with the divinatory art of astrology and the occult resources and reference works she brought into play in writing a novel whose primary embedded text is a murder scene’s astrological chart. John talks about the astrological clock structure of twelve houses in which Galbraith tells this remarkable story.

The HogPro Kanreki Project – Lake and Shed Readings Cursed Child to Lethal White

Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery continue with our Lake and Shed reviews of the twenty-one stories written at least in part by J. K. Rowling. Join us for our celebration of Mrs Murray’s 60th birthday, and her Kanreki, 還暦, or calendar re-birth.

Nick reviews the history of how Rowling was sold on the idea of a Wizarding World stage production via a bit of bait and switch marketing and John reads the review of the Jack Thorn script by Pepperdine English Professor James Thomas. Neither John nor Nick is a big fan of the play but their back and forth about the several controversies connected with it and the question of its being “the eighth Harry Potter story” are still challenging and fun.

Nick does his signature deep dive into the history of the Fantastic Beasts film franchise’s origins in Warner Brothers’ determination to keep the Wizarding World profit-pillar in their portfolio alive after the last Harry Potter adaptation — and Rowling’s equal determination that they not use their copyright privilege to muck up her legacy with an Indiana Jones meets Crocodile Dundee knock-off. John takes the Shed pole in the conversation and shares his months long pursuit of the shooting text screenplay, the actual last screenplay over which Rowling had control.

Nick discusses the embedded class struggle in the book and its roots in Rowling’s background before dropping the bomb of the real world identity of Jack O’Kent and his unhappy family. John is so taken aback by this revelation that Nick has to prompt the Shed portion of the conversation with a fun history of the Sonia Friedman production of Ibsen’s Rosmersholm on London’s West End, a show starring Thom Burke as Rosmer and which ended just before Bronte Studios beginning the filming of Lethal White.

Epic Wizarding Adventures Await in Orlando!

On May 22, 2025, Universal Studios opened its eagerly awaited Epic Universe park in Orlando, a new attraction guaranteed to dazzle and amaze! While theUniversal Epic Universe Opening Date & Tickets existing park areas already have Harry Potter sections, the new Wizarding World at Epic Universe is its own dedicated trip into the universe of the Wizarding World. The tentpole attraction, for now, anyway, is the Battle of the Ministry, an adventure involving Dolores Umbridge’s escape on the day of her trial and her attempt, via Time-Turner, to change the past, but there is much more to the Wizarding World area.

Follow me after the jump for some links that will allow you to visit the park without leaving your home, and some thoughts on the other attractions to be experienced in this epic universe and beyond!

[Read more…]

Annie, Voldemort, & Orphanages: Were Sirius and Regulus Adopted Blacks?

A Guest Post from Randall Voigt inspired by watching Annie and reflecting on the curious relationships of the Dumbledores and Blacks in Rowling’s Wizarding World novels, screenplays, and play script: Enjoy!

Why This, Why Now?

My wife and I recently saw the Broadway musical, “Annie,” after having seen it decades ago.  Years after that first event, reading J.K. Rowling’s Half-Blood Prince, Ch. 13, about the London orphanage where Tom Riddle grew up, reminded me of Annie’s orphanage in the musical.  Seeing the play again, and hearing a church sermon about assumptions and expectations (using the film, “The Sixth Sense” as an example), got me thinking (“a dangerous pastime” – “I know”).

Recent Information (From the Past) Concerning Memory

In Rowling’s first Fantastic Beasts screenplay, Sc. 120, Jacob Kowalski is supposed to be Obliviated.  But in Crimes of Grindelwald, Sc. 35, Jacob reminds Newt Scamander that the Obliviating potion “only erases bad memories.”  So, Jacob remembers many of the events of Beasts.  In Secrets of Dumbledore, Sc. 46, Grindelwald extracts Yusuf Kama’s memory of his sister, Leta Lestrange, because Yusuf holds Grindelwald responsible for Leta’s death.  But, Yusuf seems to signal to Queenie Goldstein that he still has some memory of Leta, and that he will act against Grindelwald.  Yusuf does so, later in Secrets.  Maybe this is important in “Harry Potter” – about which, more in a minute.

The London Orphanage

Rowling describes the orphanage matron, Mrs. Cole, as “sharp” but “no novice to gin drinking.”  Mrs. Cole seems to be something like Miss Hannigan, who is in charge of the orphanage where Annie lives at the start of the musical.  Mrs. Cole may be kinder:  Rowling writes that she is “harassed-looking” and “more anxious than unkind” (Prince, Ch. 6).  Mrs. Cole certainly seems to be a nicer person than Mary Lou Barebone at her Second Salem Church (Beasts, Sc. 30). 

Mrs. Cole tells Dumbledore that she thinks Tom Riddle hung “Billy Stubbs’s rabbit,” and that “Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop were never quite right” after Tom led them into a seaside cave.  For a while now, I have wondered if the orphan Amy Benson might be the same person as Amelia Bones, present as Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at Harry Potter’s Ministry hearing (Phoenix, Ch. 7) and later killed, about which Minister Fudge says, “We think [Voldemort] may have murdered her in person …. (Prince, Ch. 1).”  

But, isn’t the London institution a Muggle orphanage?  Maybe some things point to it’s not being so, or not entirely so.  [Read more…]