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!
Murphy’s questioning of Robin about what she would have done if she had known she was pregnant brought up the issue of unwanted pregnancy and the decisions women make. She claimed it was unfair for him to even pose the question given the circumstances.
Robin chatising herself for putting herself in the position of ever having to deal with an unwanted pregnancy by not starting the pill again and not going to get the morning after pill due to her needing to be at a surveillance job early also brought up the whole question of unwanted pregnancy and preemptive termination. Musing in her mind that her mother would have said she put the job before her health is another way of bringing in the thread of women choosing work over children and using birth control and/or termination to that end.
Of course we have the rebuttal of termination (unless it was too late for her to have a termination) and the heroic tag that our murder victim was given by his actions in wanting to help Chloe raise her rapist/abuser’s baby.
Great points, Kelly!
Note, too, that the victim in the silver vault is ‘crucified’ quite literally with the Salem Cross carved into his back and his being robbed of all his individual features or identity, to include his sexual organs, and his agency, the hands.
I’m working on the allegorical freight of this novel but I’m leaning towards his condition in the silver vault being akin to a pearl in an oyster, the White Stone of alchemy. The key to this remarkable book — and its intentionally frustrating romantic plotline — may be to read the various candidates for who this person is as transparencies for soul types and how the world understands and relates to them.
More anon!
Sounds interesting, John.
Yes, Kelly, so much explicit discussion of motherhood and paternity, pregnancy and childloss.
Robin now faces another choice of whether or not to terminate something which would undoubtedly prove a hindrance to her true calling.
John, your comment just cracked something open for me, I think. I *think* I get what Rowling is trying to say in this book with having Tyler Powell be the victim.
He’s a “proper man,” a genuinely good guy who’s willing to lay down his life for the woman he loves and for her unborn child (for his potential…bride, you might say?), and what happens to him for that? He’s crucified, as you pointed out. He’s got a heart “of whom the world was not worthy” (Hebrews 11:38). And the Johannine theme is there — he wants to bring the truth to light, and he’s murdered for it, because “the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”
To go even further, not only is Tyler Powell literally crucified, he’s also (before that) mocked, falsely accused, driven out of the city (Ironbridge), willing to put his life on the line for his beloved, and ultimately killed so that others’ evil deeds would stay in the darkness and not come to light.
Sound…familiar? 🙂 She’s good, Rowling is really good at what I think she’s doing here! I’m still sad about Tyler and Jolanda at the end of this book, but at least there was justice for it.
In fact, I’m realizing now, there seems to be a major Johannine theme of light and darkness running all through this book.
We’ve got several people — the Griffith sex trafficking ring, Oliver Branfoot, DCI Truman and the Met — who would prefer their evil deeds stay in the darkness and not be brought to light. They’re willing to go to great lengths to make sure of that, because they like the status quo where their deeds stay in the dark, they don’t want the light breaking in.
And then there’s Robin, struggling with the tensions between her personal interests vs. bringing the truth to light. That’s true both in terms of her reluctance to bring her feelings for Strike out into the open, into the light, but it’s also true of her relationship with Murphy compromising her vocation as a detective to bring the truth into the light and serve justice. We see her hedge around finding out and revealing the truth so many times in this book because “it will upset the Met.”
Susanna and John thank you for explaining the themes around Tyler so well. It was the way I saw him and a main point Rowling was getting across that has been missed so far in almost every discussion or comment I have read about this book.