The HogPro Kanreki Project – Lake and Shed Readings Prisoner to Phoenix

July 23, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Dr John Granger and I 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 shares the London institution of the (k)night bus. Part drunk carriage, part dormitory for the homeless in foul weather, zig-zaging across London between midnight and five in the morning. John shares the Parallel Series Idea (PSI) and compare Prisoner of Azkaban with Robert Galbraith’s Career of Evil.

Nick talks about the trip Rowling made as a teenager to Cornwall as a young woman in which some Quidditch World Cup camping may have been involved and about her core beliefs about bigotry and prejudice. John reviews Rowling’s tagging Goblet as a “crucial” and “pivotal” part of the seven book series and introduces how the ‘story turn’ in a ring composition reflects the beginning and end of the story.

Nick talks about the darkest period in Jo Rowling’s life, namely, her return to the UK from Portugal as a single mother in Edinburgh. With Order of the Phoenix in full nigredo mode John talks literary alchemy.

Filed Under: Fourth Generation, Nick Jeffery, Substack Post

Possible Change in Formatting at Hogwarts Professor: Imbedded Cameo-Video with MS PowerPoint Slides

February 17, 2025 by Leave a Comment

I’m still not 100% so I haven’t made progress on the two remaining ‘Foundation Crime’ posts in that three-part series. God willing, I’ll be over this season’s bug in Oklahoma City sooner than later. What I was able to work on was a MS PowerPoint presentation for The Rowling Library’s anthology. The Phoenix and the Flame.

Because of that presentation’s brevity and the deadline for submitting it on Friday, I worked today on creating slides for the talk and how to embed a cameo-video in as many slides as I think appropriate. If I cannot figure this out (too likely I’m afraid), I will send TRL the slides and my video for them to play around with. [You’ll see it after TRL edits it into the collage of other Potter Punditry authors that have contributed to this anthology.]

I’ll try to create a ‘Foundation Crime’ video-cum-cameo tomorrow that moves that Golden Thread series forward, even if only by a Baby Step. Thank you for your patience as I try to climb this techno formatting Fuji!

Filed Under: Fourth Generation, Golden Threads, Ring Composition, Rowling Library

Rowling Pregnancy Traps: Merope Gaunt

October 9, 2024 by 1 Comment

One of the hallmarks of the Fourth Generation of ‘Rowling Studies’ is taking a larger view of Rowling’s work than her most recent work, the series in progress, or the fun but necessarily speculative guesswork about the book-to-come. Murray-Rowling-Galbraith has written enough books and screenplays and collaborated on a play that those of us who study or just read her work attentively are obliged at this point to pull back to see what ‘common denominators’ can be found in the opera omnia.

A lot of that work, of course, has already been done and has a lot to do with the other signature elements of the ‘new’ Rowling Studies. Pulling the ‘Golden Threads’ of the Complete Works is one, as mentioned, but it draws inevitably from the work done on another, namely, Explaining the Shed Artistry and its Effect on readers. [The last of the three elements, Identifying or Speculating about the Lake origins of the Threads in Rowling’s Biography, Bibliography, and Core Beliefs, links to the Threads less obviously.]

The first five of seven Golden Threads threads I hope are familiar to HogwartsProfessor readers: the ‘Shed Artistry’ points of Literary Alchemy, Ring Composition, Psychomachia, Christian content, and Mythological templates.

The sixth Golden Thread is Pregnancy Traps, a plot point I’ve mentioned here more than once, even asking for readers to review the texts to compile a create list of them, but which subject I have not explored in depth. This post is the beginning of my addressing that failing; it is the first of a series of ten or more posts laying out the textual sources of the major attempts by women characters in Rowling’s work to win a husband by becoming pregnant or by a fictional man to secure a bride by making his partner pregnant.

I’m starting with Merope Gaunt Riddle, the mother of Thomas Marvolo Riddle, aka Lord Voldemort, both because her pregnancy trap is at the root of the Harry Potter novels’ core conflict and because it is best to begin at the beginning. We’ll move in future posts from this launching point to work our way through the Pregnancy Traps in Casual Vacancy, the Strike-Ellacott mysteries, the Fantastic Beast screenplays, The Ickabog, and The Christmas Pig.

Each post will discuss the textual appearance of the Trap, its importance in the story or series in which it appears, and its unique and commonplace characteristics in relation to other Rowling Pregnancy Traps. I am writing a HogwartsProfessor Substack post for subscribers in which I will summarize the many appearances of this plot point in almost everything Rowling writes, discuss the effect of this story trope on readers, and speculate about its possible origins in Rowling’s Lake.

But first, Merope Gaunt Riddle, the witch whose pregnancy trap is the point of origin for the Dark Lord and all of Harry’s adventures — all that, after the jump! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Fourth Generation, Hog Pro Notes, Pregnancy Trap

Rowling’s Pregnancy Traps: How Many?

September 25, 2024 by 1 Comment

I’m writing up a Substack post on the ‘pregnancy trap’ plot points and characters in the work of J. K. Rowling, from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone to last year’s Running Grave. It’s part of the Fourth Generation ‘Rowling Studies’ effort at HogwartsProfessor to begin looking at her work from a mountain top or macroscopic view across series and individual novels, screenplays, and the one play script rather than the microscopic examination of the latest work and consequent speculating about the next coming thing.

A key part of that work is to identify plot point ‘golden threads’ in addition to the Shed artistic elements I have labored to draw out through the years (psychomachia, alchemy, chiasmus, mythology, etc.). Perhaps the most curious of these is the ‘pregnancy trap’ in which a man or woman, usually a woman, attempts to force his or her partner into a relationship commitment, usually marriage, by either becoming pregnant (if male, all but insuring that the female partner becomes pregnant) or offering oneself as a sex object.

The first step in identifying and discussing a golden thread,’ a plot point found in many of Rowling’s work and at the heart of the story involved, is to run through the oeuvre or opera omnia to date and check to see if the point is indeed prevalent — and, perhaps as important, that all the instances have been found. My working list for ‘pregnancy traps’ in Rowling’s work include these ten instances — and I ask for your help in critiquing this list and letting me know of others that I in my haste have overlooked:   [Read more…]

Filed Under: Fourth Generation, Pregnancy Trap

J. K. Rowling’s ‘G-Spot’ and ‘Triple Play:’ The Lake & Shed Secret of Her Success

September 21, 2024 by Leave a Comment

I want to try tonight to explain as succinctly — and as provocatively — as possible why I think Rowling’s ‘Lake and Shed’ metaphorical explanation of how she writes offers a compelling reason for both why she writes and why readers around the world love her novels the way they do. I call this her ‘G-Spot’ and ‘Triple Play’ because it is her point of singular genius, the defining quality that separates her from contemporary story-tellers, which involves ‘Shed’ artistry of three particular literary tools, all subliminal, which work together to achieve her aims.

First, then, a brief review of Rowling’s ‘Lake and Shed’ description of how she writes, her method, inspiration to publication, then my hypothesis of why this method reflects why she writes, and finally, a very brief discussion of Rowling’s three ‘Shed’ power-tools that all have a shared aim and effect on readers. All after the jump! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Fourth Generation, Literary Alchemy, Psychomachia, Ring Composition